The museum is located on the banks of the Seine, opposite the Louvre and the Tuileries Gardens, and was built as a Paris station for a railway company serving the southwest of France. In 1939, the station stopped its work, and in subsequent years it was used for a variety of purposes. In 1945, at the end of World War II, it was turned into a transit point for prisoners of war, and in 1973 it housed a theater. Since 1974, the building has been the venue for auctions. In the 1980s, the Musé e d'Orsay architects restored most of the original structures.→