Musée d'Orsay

The massive stone clock face held within the arched glass window defines the facade of the Musee d'Orsay. Before this building housed the world's largest collection of impressionist masterpieces, it served as a bustling railway terminus for the nineteen hundred Paris Exposition. Victor Laloux designed the station to bring trains directly into the city heart. When the tracks became too short for modern electric engines in nineteen thirty-nine, the terminal sat empty, briefly housing postal workers and serving as a film set.