Dome

Detail, the rear of the building facing a traffic circle at Boulevard Haussmann; Architecture was allocated permanent exhibition areas in the Musée d'Orsay. It was impossible to illustrate all the great changes wrought by Napoleon III and the prefect Haussmann which turned Paris into a modern capital. The emphasis was therefore put on the new Paris Opera house, designed by Charles Garnier and built from 1863 to 1875. Located at the end of the museum's central aisle in a space designed by Richard Peduzzi (a stage and set designer), the Opéra gallery presents all aspects of the monument, town planning, architecture and decoration, through a polychrome plaster cross-section of the building as it was at the time of its inauguration on 5 January 1875. Source: Musée d'Orsay [website]; http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/ (accessed 5/13/2013)