Dome

Interior, new temporary exhibit space; 2012-2013 exhibition "Rodin, flesh and marble" (portrait of Victor Hugo, center); The Hôtel Biron was built 1727-1732. In 1820 it was given to the Société du Sacré-Coeur de Jésus, whose Dames du Sacre-Coeur converted the hotel into a boarding school for girls from aristocratic families. They added the chapel, completed 1876. Under the 1905 French law on the separation of Church and State, the school was forced to close. Rodin rented some of the abandoned rooms in the Hôtel for his studio and began to agitate for the site to become a museum of his works, which it did in 1919. In the 1960s the original pitched chapel roof was removed and replaced with glass skylights. The renovation of the chapel includes an information center, ticket counter, gift shop, temporary exhibition space, auditorium, administrative offices, archive storage, and classroom. Changes were made to the facade, terraced roofing and the basement level, adding windows and light wells. Faloci also works as a museum exhibition designer. Source: Musée Rodin [website]; http://www.musee-rodin.fr/en/ (accessed 8/27/2015)