Creating the Musee d'Orsay

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 Detaille 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 Musee 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 Musee d'Orsay and the battles among the prominent politicians, curators, and historians over the architecture, collections, and concept of the museum.