Musée d'Orsay

You are approaching a building that was once the most modern train station in the world. Built for the Universal Exhibition of 1900, the Gare d Orsay was the first urban rail terminal in history to be fully electrified, allowing steam engines to stop at the edge of the city rather than chugging into the center. Its architect, Victor Laloux, concealed a massive iron skeleton beneath an ornate stone facade to ensure it blended perfectly with the classical grandeur of the Louvre across the river. To hold this immense structure together, workers used twelve thousand tons of metal, which is significantly more than the iron required to build the Eiffel Tower.