The Musée d'Orsay and the Pont Royal over the Seine at dusk
Paris museums
The Musée d'Orsay Turns 40: A Free Weekend and 40 Years of History
Book from Wednesday, November 4, at noon: entry is free for everyone on Saturday 5 and Sunday 6 December 2026, but reservations are recommended. Free time slots open at 12:00 on the museum's official ticketing site. Without a booking, access depends on availability.
Forty years ago, a forgotten railway station on the Left Bank opened as one of the great art museums of the world. The Musée d'Orsay was inaugurated on December 1, 1986, and opened to the public on December 9, 1986. To celebrate, it is throwing open its doors for free on the weekend of December 5 and 6, with concerts in the nave, workshops, talks and readings, and a late opening until 8 pm on the Saturday. Here is the story of the building, the programme of the weekend, and everything else happening for the anniversary.
A palace, then a railway station
1810–1900 · Quai d'Orsay
The site first held the Palais d'Orsay, home of the Cour des comptes and the Conseil d'État, which burned down during the Paris Commune in May 1871 and stood in ruins for nearly thirty years. The Paris-Orléans railway company then bought the land to bring its trains closer to the city center, and asked architect Victor Laloux to build a station worthy of the facing Louvre and Tuileries. The Gare d'Orsay opened on July 14, 1900, just in time for the Exposition Universelle: a modern steel hall hidden behind a stone façade, with a luxury hotel attached. Its electric trains were among the first in the world to run into the heart of a city.
From station to museum
1939–1986 · saved from demolition
Trains got longer, and by 1939 Orsay's platforms were too short for mainline services. The station was used for suburban trains, then in 1945 as a reception center for prisoners of war and deportees returning to France. In the 1960s and 1970s it became a film set (Orson Welles shot The Trial here), a theater for the Renaud-Barrault company and a temporary home for the Drouot auction house. After the demolition of the Baltard pavilions at Les Halles, the building was protected in the 1970s, and in 1977, under President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the decision was made to turn it into a museum. The architects of ACT Architecture kept the great hall, and Italian architect Gae Aulenti designed the interior. President François Mitterrand inaugurated the Musée d'Orsay on December 1, 1986.
40 years of Impressionism and more
Art from 1848 to 1914
The museum was created to bridge the gap between the Louvre and the modern art of the Centre Pompidou, so it covers the years 1848 to 1914: painting, sculpture, decorative arts, architecture and photography. It holds the world's largest collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings, from Manet, Monet, Degas and Renoir to Cézanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh. In forty years it has welcomed around 140 million visitors. Our tip: climb to the fifth floor to see Paris through the two giant clock faces, with the Seine, the Tuileries and Montmartre framed between the Roman numerals.
The free anniversary weekend: December 5 and 6
Free for everyone · late opening Saturday until 8 pm
The whole museum is free on both days, and every event is free too. Some need a reservation, others are first come, first served. Highlights from the official programme:
- Aldebert, Enfantillages: a family concert in the nave, Saturday at 2 pm (no registration).
- Maîtrise Populaire de l'Opéra-Comique: young singers perform Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition in the nave, Saturday at 4 pm, 5:15 pm and 6 pm, Sunday at 4 pm and 5:15 pm.
- Brass and percussion of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, with trumpeter David Guerrier: Sunday at 2 pm in the nave.
- Meetings with guests of honor: photographer Sophie Calle (Saturday, 5 pm) and comic artist Catherine Meurisse (Sunday, 5 pm), in the auditorium (reservation required, in French).
- Singing and dance workshops open to children and adults, both days at 3 pm and 4:30 pm (registration on site).
- 30-minute talks in the galleries every hour from 10 am to 6 pm, on works such as Degas's Little Dancer, Monet's Women in the Garden and Van Gogh's portraits (in French), plus a family storytelling show on Saturday morning and a writing workshop.
The rest of the anniversary season
October 2026 to February 2027
The celebrations go beyond the free weekend. New galleries of decorative arts from the second half of the 19th century open in early December. On December 12, director Thomas Jolly hosts a free “Boum 1986” party in the nave for about 1,500 guests, with places allocated by draw on the museum's website. The exhibition on Mary Cassatt runs until January 31, 2027, and Jenny Holzer's “I Saw” until February 21, 2027. And Courbet's huge A Burial at Ornans is back on show after a restoration carried out in front of visitors.
Practical tips
Outside the free weekend, the museum is open Tuesday to Sunday from 9:30 am to 6 pm, until 9:45 pm on Thursdays, and closed on Mondays. Admission is free all year for under-18s and for EU residents aged 18 to 25. For the weekend of December 5 and 6, book your free slot from November 4 at noon and expect crowds. See the official programme, our list of 10 free museums in Paris and our Saint-Germain-des-Prés guide for the area around the museum.
The CitySpot Team
Explore Paris with CitySpot
Download the CitySpot app and turn your phone into an audio guide to discover 500 points of interest in Paris, as well as many themed walking tours across the city.
