Pavillon de L'Arsenal - Paris la Nuit (Paris at Night)

Address: 21 boulevard Morland, 75004 Paris, France (Metro: Hôtel-de-Ville)

“Interesting impressions of Paris”

The building that houses the exhibitions presents a traditional facade but the interior is adapted to large-scale displays. An extraordinary floating ceiling of freeform metal strips is an interesting feature, which visitors can see from above by climbing to the third level.

The presentation on the ground floor charts the development - in pictures, maps, models and photos - of Paris from its earliest days to the present, covering city boundaries, housing, public spaces, roads, monuments etc. There is accompanying text in French and English and and at intervals you will find video presentations with commentary in French only. The centre of the floorspace is taken up by a giant panel of 'screens' which is in fact an interactive Google Earth display of Paris, operated from a console alongside it. 

The second floor has the temporary exhibition. At the time of writing it is Paris at Night -  a visual display - which follows the history of Paris once again, this time through a series of night-time images. There are numerous reproductions of great art works and photographs, showing the city at work and at play, all at night, with a focus on Paris as the city of light. 
You can see it until 6 October.

My only criticism was that, ironically, the room was a little too dark and because most of the photographs were quite small, it was not always easy to see them properly and even more difficult to read the small print of the captions.

The third level is a more practical project space. When I visited, it showcased the work of local students who had obviously been invited to submit their designs for areas of Paris that are currently being redesigned and developed (for example, the area around Les Halles)

The attractions of the Pavillon de l'Arsenal change from time to time and are free. A visit there is an excellent way to spend a couple of hours.