Musée des Arts et Métiers, rue Réaumur museum of technology since 1802

The Musée des Arts et Métiers opened its galleries in May 1802, on rue Réaumur, in the former royal priory of Saint-Martin-des-Champs. It belongs to the Conservatoire des arts et métiers, founded in 1794 at the proposal of the Abbé Grégoire to train technicians and engineers through demonstration.

Its first pieces came from Jacques de Vaucanson’s cabinet of mechanics, opened in 1752 on rue de Charonne: automata and a loom for figured fabrics. Blaise Pascal’s calculating machines and Lavoisier’s laboratory followed. As the Abbé Grégoire intended, demonstrators ran the machines in front of visitors.

Léon Vaudoyer reworked the buildings in the 19th century and gave the old church a neo-Gothic décor. Renamed the national museum of technology in the late 1950s, it was entirely renovated by Andrea Bruno and Luciano Pia in the 1990s, while the reserves moved to Saint-Denis. Umberto Eco set the climax of Foucault’s Pendulum here.

In the 3rd arrondissement, some 2,500 objects are shown in seven collections, from scientific instruments to transport. The former church holds Foucault’s pendulum, the aeroplanes of Blériot and Breguet and Scott’s steam engine. Arts et Métiers station, dressed by François Schuiten in 1994, serves as an introduction to the museum.