{"id":2860,"date":"2019-09-20T13:30:30","date_gmt":"2019-09-20T13:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/devourparisfoodtours.com\/?p=2860"},"modified":"2024-07-15T18:00:40","modified_gmt":"2024-07-15T18:00:40","slug":"paris-museums-in-old-buildings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devourtours.com\/blog\/paris-museums-in-old-buildings\/","title":{"rendered":"Historical Sites In Paris: 3 Unique Paris Museums"},"content":{"rendered":"

Probably the best known re-use of an old building in Paris is the Mus\u00e9e d’Orsay, located in the former train station.\u00a0Its great curved glass vault pours light down into the art gallery\u2014and it gets more than 3 million visitors a year.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

But Paris has other creatively situated museums, too. For instance, one that’s fascinating\u2014but way off the tourist track\u2014is the Mus\u00e9e des Arts et M\u00e9tiers, a sort of engineering-and-science museum. (The title, literally \u201cmuseum of arts and crafts,\u201d is a little misleading.)<\/p>\r\n

Historical & Hidden: Paris’ Unexpected Museums\u00a0<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Here\u2019s a deep dive into that one, and two other endlessly interesting Paris museums in old buildings.<\/p>\r\n

\"montmartre
Paris is full of special hidden corners.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Mus\u00e9e des Arts et M\u00e9tiers<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

These buildings originally housed the Royal Priory of Saint Martin des Champs, complete with a Romanesque-Gothic church and classical monastery buildings. During the French Revolution, a lot of monasteries were destroyed, but these buildings were taken over by the Conservatoire National des Arts et M\u00e9tiers<\/a>, effectively a national technology center.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

CNAM set up a museum way back in 1802; a renovation from 1992 to 2000 created the Mus\u00e9e des Arts et M\u00e9tiers<\/a> you’ll see today.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\n
\"The\r\n
The museum’s Communication Gallery. Photo credit: daryl_mitchell<\/a><\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

If you have a passion for technology or science, you’ll definitely want to check this place out. One of its treasures is Pascal’s calculating machine<\/a>, which he invented in 1642 and which is possibly the first computer ever built. (Though the English like to claim Ada Lovelace and Thomas Babbage as the inventors of computing, the French got there first!)\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

But that\u2019s not all. The onetime church has its own display as well\u2014and it’s a knockout. In a wonderfully steampunk tour de force, the high Gothic nave has been used to \u201cfly\u201d some of the earliest airplanes from the vault, with early automobiles parked in the aisles.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Under the crossing is the museum’s star exhibit, Foucault’s original pendulum<\/a>. This huge display demonstrates the rotation of the earth: as the earth spins on its axis, the pendulum’s swing rotates with it, so that it eventually traces a full circle. The time it takes to do so depends on latitude\u2014here, it takes just under 32 hours.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

You don’t have to understand the science to find this immense pendulum fascinating. It has a nice suspenseful touch, too. Little brass pieces are set up around the circumference of the pendulum\u2019s circular path, and every five minutes or so, it knocks one of them over as it oscillates. The nail-biting suspense usually attracts a crowd of onlookers eagerly waiting to see when the next piece will fall.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

This being France, there\u2019s always room for quirks. The museum also has a little theater of automatons, from music-playing and acrobatic dolls<\/a> to cuckoo clocks and mechanical organs. And for Americans looking for a reminder of home, the reduced scale model of the Statue of Liberty is an obligatory stop.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\n
\"The\r\n
The most famous statue in the United States was originally a gift from France, after all! Photo credit: daryl_mitchell<\/a><\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

But the most amusing part of the whole museum? The little train tracks set in the parquet floor. The building used to have its own miniature railway system to take scientific materials from one area to another!<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Mus\u00e9e de Cluny<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The Abbot of Cluny was one of the richest of French ecclesiastics, and a highly influential cleric. Cluny had abbeys spread across France, in England, Spain and Germany, and the abbot of the Paris house was the head of them all.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

This fine Gothic mansion, built in the 15th century, was the abbot\u2019s townhouse. You can still see abbot Jacques d’Amboise\u2019s coat of arms, three vertical stripes, carved above the windows, though they’re missing the red and gold paint that would have made them shine brightly.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The home regularly hosted important dignitaries, and Cardinal Jules Mazarin, the religious power behind the French throne, lived here in the early 17th century. The tower was also used as an astronomical observatory. Later, Alexandre du Sommerard moved in with his huge collection of medieval art; when he died in 1842, the French state bought the lot, and the Mus\u00e9e de Cluny<\/a> opened a year later.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The museum is undergoing a renovation right now, so some parts are closed, but the highlights of the exhibition are still on display. The most beautiful and haunting of these are the six “Lady and Unicorn” tapestries<\/a>, which illustrate the six senses. (Six? Yes, because the feelings of the heart are the sixth sense. Isn’t that romantic?)\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\n
\"The\r\n
The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries will take your breath away. Photo credit: Spencer Means<\/a><\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

There are also collections of statues from Paris churches, glittering Limoges enamel caskets<\/a>, ivory tablets, bejeweled book-bindings and even medieval embroidered slippers.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

But remember that Paris is always changing\u2014and always has<\/em> been changing. When Jacques d’Amboise built the H\u00f4tel de Cluny, he was already reusing a previous building\u2014the Roman baths of Lutetia! And since part of the museum occupies the baths, you’re going to be standing in the oldest building in Paris that’s still in use.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\n
\"The\r\n
The Mus\u00e9e de Cluny is stunning both inside and out. Photo credit: \u03a9m\u00e9ga *<\/a><\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Lafayette Anticipations<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

This contemporary art center<\/a> reuses an old factory building’s courtyard in the Marais district. From the outside, it looks like a conventional 19th century building, but inside, Rem Koolhaas<\/a> has designed a huge glass tower that creates a flexible exhibition and events space. Motorized platforms and sliding walls give a choice of nearly 50 different configurations.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Lafayette Anticipations also puts on an eclectic program of exhibitions and other events, including jazz and contemporary music. Artists are often given working space here in the basement, so the organization works as a collaborative effort, not just an exhibition gallery.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The delight here, though, is the fact that the architecture isn’t just a re-use of an old building\u2014it’s continually reinventing itself. No two visits will ever be quite the same!<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Probably the best known re-use of an old building in Paris is the Mus\u00e9e d’Orsay, located in the former train station.\u00a0Its great curved glass vault pours light down into the art gallery\u2014and it gets more than 3 million visitors a year. But Paris has other creatively situated museums, too. For instance, one that’s fascinating\u2014but way […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":2865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1330,1338],"tags":[562,1223,126],"ppma_author":[2359],"class_list":["post-2860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paris-blog","category-things-to-do-in-paris","tag-architecture","tag-hidden-gems","tag-museums"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nDevour Tours<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What are life-sized airplanes doing in an old church? 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