Musée des Arts et Métiers

The former priory of inventions

The Musée des Arts et Métiers, now presented as the MuAM, is the museum of the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers, created in 1794 and housed since 1798 in the former priory of Saint-Martin-des-Champs. Its collections, about 80,000 objects of which some 2,500 are on show, are arranged in seven fields: scientific instruments, materials, construction, communication, energy, mechanics and transport. The former church holds the largest objects, among them Foucault’s pendulum and pioneering aircraft such as Clément Ader’s Avion n° 3.

Photo: MOSSOT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

On at 4 October 2026

• Lady Liberté. From 22 September 2026 to 1 August 2027, an immersive route — video, 3D, real sets — on how the Statue of Liberty was built in the Gaget, Gauthier & Cie workshops. The museum holds models of the head and other pieces, brought out of storage for the occasion.
• Zeus. The metal horse from the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Games stands on the forecourt until 10 January 2027, free to see; it comes to life every 20 minutes.

Photo: MOSSOT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

From the Revolution to the museum

The Conservatoire des arts et métiers was created by the law of 19 vendémiaire year III (10 October 1794), on the proposal of the abbé Henri Grégoire, to gather the new tools and machines invented and improved. It moved in 1798 into the former priory of Saint-Martin-des-Champs, and its galleries opened to the public in 1802. A renovation of the whole museum took place in the 1990s: the building has been listed as a historic monument since 1993 and the museum has carried the Musée de France label since 2002, according to Wikipedia.

What not to miss

• The priory church. Its apse, rebuilt around 1130 to 1135, is one of the very first examples of early Gothic, a few years before the basilica of Saint-Denis, according to the museum. It now serves as a gallery for the largest objects.
• Foucault’s pendulum. In 1851 Léon Foucault made the rotation of the Earth visible with a pendulum shown under the vault of the Panthéon. The museum repeats the experiment under the vault of the church, Tuesday to Sunday at noon and 5 p.m., for 20 minutes, included in the ticket.
• Ader’s Avion n° 3. Shown at the Exposition universelle of 1900 and given to the Conservatoire in 1903, it hangs above the grand staircase since its return from restoration in October 1994.
• The refectory. The thirteenth-century refectory has been the reading room of the Cnam library since 1851.
• Other landmarks of the collection. According to Wikipedia, they include the Blériot XI aircraft of 1909, Pascal’s calculating machine, Vaucanson’s automata and a plaster model of the Statue of Liberty by Bartholdi. Only about 2,500 of the 80,000 objects are on show; the rest is stored in Saint-Denis.

The Arts et Métiers station

The line 11 station was entirely redesigned for the bicentenary of the Conservatoire and inaugurated in 1994: about 800 riveted copper plates, imagined by the Belgian draughtsman François Schuiten with the writer Benoît Peeters, evoke Jules Verne’s Nautilus. The station is about 97 metres from the museum.

Choosing your moment

The museum is open Tuesday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., with a Friday late opening until 9 p.m. The ticket offices close 45 minutes before the museum does and the floors close to visitors 30 minutes before. Suitcases and bags larger than a cabin case (55 × 35 × 25 cm) are refused, which matters if you come straight from a station. On 24 and 31 December 2026 the museum closes at 4 p.m. The exhibition Flops ?!, which ended on 17 May 2026, drew 203,140 visitors and took 2025 to a record 367,469 entries, according to the museum. The museum recommends the official online ticket office, especially for the Lady Liberté route.

Getting there

Arts et Métiers (lines 3 and 11) is about 97 metres away in a straight line. Réaumur–Sébastopol (lines 3 and 4) is about 221 metres, Temple (line 3) about 404 metres and Strasbourg–Saint-Denis (lines 4, 8 and 9) about 427 metres.

Combining the visit with a walk

From the museum, our coordinates give the straight-line distances below; each walking time multiplies the distance by 1.3 and divides by 80 metres a minute.

• Museum of Hunting and Nature: 523 metres, about 9 minutes.
• Museum of Jewish Art and History: 529 metres, about 9 minutes.
• Centre Pompidou: 678 metres, about 12 minutes.
• Picasso Museum: 855 metres, about 14 minutes.
• BHV Marais: 965 metres, about 16 minutes.

Pairing it with the Statue of Liberty exhibitions

Lady Liberté was organised for the 250th anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence and echoes the Bartholdi exhibition at the Musée d’Orsay, which runs from 15 September 2026 to 31 January 2027. The museum’s own contribution is material: models of the head in copper and plaster, a cast of an ear and a full-size copper index finger, all brought out of the reserves. A reduced model of the statue stood on the museum forecourt from 2010 to 2021 before being lent to the United States.

The ticket structure is worth reading before you queue. The permanent collections cost €12 (€9 reduced); the combined ticket with Lady Liberté costs €21 (€18 reduced), and the route is not sold on its own. The audioguide is €5. On the forecourt, Zeus the metal horse is free until 10 January 2027; it moves every 20 minutes, with a demonstration at 2 p.m. at weekends and during school holidays in zone C.

Where to stay near the museum

Three of our hotels lie within 160 m: Une Autre Chambre at 111 m, Austin’s Arts et Métiers Hôtel at 129 m and Hôtel National des Arts et Métiers at 160 m. For the rest of the district, see our guide to Le Marais and the hotels in the 3rd arrondissement.