Museums! Museums! Museums!

Phew it’s stinky!

If I had to set certain themes for each of the weeks we’ve been here, I would call this one “Museum Week”. Although we visited three different museums this week, each had a different purpose in the greater Paris area that showed different aspects of culture and planning. The first museum we went to, the Musee des egouts, focused primarily on teaching it’s visitors new information and how what they walk above works in the grand scheme of things. While the other two museums discussed later focused on different aspects, this one relied on keeping interest towards learning new information.

The second museum visited, Musse d’Orsay, showed how different structures can be turned into buildings not originally intended for their uses. The museum, which was originally a train station, has been completely retrofitted to be one of the lead art museums in Paris, showing that while a building may be built for one specific purpose, eventually things may change and through restoration become a completely different use towards the public. While all the art is impressive, I found the most captivating part of the museum to be the structure itself due to the fact that you can tell it was originally intended to be a train station, as shown by the clock, but also succeeds towards being a museum while keeping the charm it once had.

Finally, the last museum visited this week was the Louvre. While the other two museums were primarily focused on teaching it’s members something new or showing how saving a building can be impactful, this museum really relied on the art pieces to bring in the crowds. Being the largest museum ever has it’s advantages, but it was obvious when walking in that mostly everyone was there for the art, not to learn something new or appreciate the structure containing the art. Now, the important question remains, which museum do I think is best?

Personally I think the Musse d’Orsay was the best one because of the balance of artwork to building charm! To really gauge how I would define a “good” museum, I like to think to myself “Could there be a fourth Night at the Museum here?” and personally I can only see that happening at Orsay. The Egout is too gross to utilize the Night at the Museum characters so that’s obviously off the table. While seeing how the Louvre would go in a fourth movie would be interesting, I just think it’s too big for Ben Stiller and the gang to run around. If a fourth movie was planned inside Orsay, they could utilize some of the charm that was once in the former train station, such as the big clocks all along the walls! Seeing the clocks reminded me that I was in an old train station and it allowed for a fun time exploring knowing I could always look up and see what time it was (without looking at my phone of course). The charm and urban renewal are what make the Musse d’Orsay great, and that is why it is my favorite museum in Paris.