Bibliothèque Forney, the arts library of the Hôtel de Sens since 1886

The Bibliothèque Forney, now on rue du Figuier in the Marais, was founded in 1886 by the City of Paris thanks to a bequest from Aimé Samuel Forney, a Swiss-born businessman devoted to the training of craftsmen. A people’s library, it first opened on rue Titon, in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.

It gave furniture makers, stonemasons, metalworkers, potters and weavers documents on their trades, and lent prints as models. Its success soon made the rooms too small. In 1929 the City decided to move it to the Hôtel de Sens, built between 1475 and 1519.

After long works, it moved in in 1961. The collections widened to fine arts, graphic design, fashion and gardens; in 2006 it received the holdings of the Bibliothèque des arts graphiques. The Société des amis de la bibliothèque Forney has supported it since 1914.

In one of the few medieval civic buildings left in Paris, in the 4th arrondissement, it holds 30,000 posters, 9,000 wallpapers, 1.5 million postcards, trade catalogues from Le Bon Marché and archives of the Peignot type foundry. It regularly stages exhibitions.