The Grand and Petit Palais

The Grand and Petit Palais form an architectural ensemble, originally designed to host large-scale temporary exhibitions. The structure of the monuments, with the large glass roof, the nave and the national galleries in the case of the former, and the entrance portal, the painted ceilings and the stained glass windows in the case of the latter, are masterpieces in their own right.

The Grand Palais, a major artistic venue 

After the success of the Eiffel Tower in 1889, France had to show that it could do even better for the next Universal Exhibition in 1900, which marked the beginning of a new century. A competition was organised to build the "Grand Palais", the new Fine Arts Palace in the capital. Four architects: Deglane, Louvet, Thomas and Girault, were chosen to work on the project.

It represented a dual technical and architectural feat. First, it shows a surprising blend of styles from classicism to Art Nouveau, and second, a great variety of materials, ranging from steel (over 8 000 tons of steel were used, more than for the Eiffel Tower), to glass and stone. With its spectacular glass roof, the biggest in Europe, the Grand Palais has been listed since the year 2000 as an Historic Monument and since 1937 has housed a science museum, the Palais de la Découverte, in the west of the building.

The Grand Palais soon went beyond its primary mission as a fine arts museum to host exhibitions, fairs and competitions designed to bring new inventions to the public. These events were so successful that the available space proved too small to accommodate all the visitors. In the early 1960s, the fairs were moved to the Cnit at La Défense or to the Parc des Expositions at Porte de Versailles. Today, the Grand Palais still hosts a wide range of events under its roof, as well as four exhibitions per year in the national galleries.

The Petit Palais, the Paris Museum of Fine Arts

Built, like the Grand Palais, for the 1900 Universal Exhibition to host temporary exhibitions, the Petit Palais became the Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris in 1902, and houses remarkable art collections dating from the early 20th century. Visitors can admire major works by great painters such as Monet, Renoir, Rubens and Cézanne, and the Brighton Hotel highly recommends a visit.