The Réunion des musées nationaux – Grand Palais is a cultural operator whose mission is to promote access to culture throughout France and beyong. It has many savoir-faire in the artistic and museographic sphere. The organization's expertise in the artistic and museographic spheres enables it to play a unique role in the world of culture, and pursue its prime ambition: to enable as many people as possible to interact with art from all cultures, eras and in all its forms.

The Grand Palais, which entered a phase of major renovation work in 2021, is the emblem of the organization: there, it deploys its multi-faceted expertise, including the production of large-scale exhibition and cultural events. Temporarily located on the Champ-de-Mars, the Grand Palais Éphémère will host the events program usually unfolding in the Grand Palais until its renovation is completed. The Rmn – Grand Palais lends its expertise to ambitious and innovative cultural projects in Paris – in the Musée du Luxembourg – and all over France.

Commissioned to create an urban plan for the 1937 ‘Exposition Internationale’, architect Auguste Perret proposed a monumental thoroughfare that would link the Place d’Italie and the Chaillot hill; a ‘Champs-Élysées of the Left Bank.’ The fall of the Daladier government in 1934 led to the abandonment of this grandiose project. However, Perret did win two prestigious commissions, the Mobilier National (1936) and the Musée des Travaux Publics (1939) – now the Palais d’Iéna – which enabled him to fulfill his dream of erecting a classical monument using reinforced concrete.

Perret sought to establish the use of reinforced concrete as a discipline in its own right, as part of the grand traditions of architecture. With the Palais d’Iéna, he defined a classical order whose proportions flow directly from the logic of the material. Slender columns carry the roof in a single sweep, under which a second building slides. The interplay of these two frameworks creates a setting of perfect proportions. The columns flare out towards the top, joining the edge beam in a pyramid-shaped trunk adorned with plant motifs. The hypostyle hall, staircase, and amphitheater provide a noble setting. The colonnade of the Avenue d’Iéna captures light and shadow across its textures and moldings in a remarkable expression of the ‘reinforced concrete order’ that was Auguste Perret’s contribution to a thousand-year-old architectural discipline.

Photograph by Marion Berrin for Art Basel.

The Beaux-Arts de Paris are a place for education, artistic experimentations, exhibitions, conservation, home to historic collections and also operate as a publishing house. 

The school's primary mission is to prepare students to become artists of the highest level.