Creating the Musée d'Orsay: The Politics of Culture in France

The Gare d'Orsay train station, designed by French architect Victor Laloux, opened in Paris in 1900 to much fanfare. In fact, it was so beautiful that the French painter Edouard Détaille felt it would be more appropriate as a museum. Eighty-six years later, after a complex and controversial decision-making process, the French government finally transformed the station into the Musée d'Orsay, now one of the most dramatic and popular museums in Paris. Professor Andrea Kupfer Schneider uses her expertise in decision-making analysis and negotiation to present the fascinating history of the creation of the Musée d'Orsay and the battles among the prominent politicians, curators, and historians over the architecture, collections, and concept of the museum.