In the former priory of Saint-Martin-des-Champs, ingenious machines and scientific instruments occupy a historic religious complex. The museum grew from a Revolutionary-era mission to gather useful inventions, turning technical objects into tools for public learning.
Guide preview
A medieval church interior now frames machines built to change how people work and move. This is the Musée des Arts et Métiers, whose roots lie in the Conservatoire founded in 1794 at the proposal of Abbé Henri Grégoire.
Continue exploring
Discover the full story
Keep reading with a travel pass and explore every full guide and tour.
UpgradeQuick facts
- The Conservatoire des arts et métiers was founded in 1794.
- The former priory of Saint-Martin-des-Champs was assigned to the institution in 1798.
- The museum opened at the site in 1802.
More places in Paris
59 Rivoli
59 Rivoli is an artist-run building on Rue de Rivoli, born from a 1999 occupation of a vacant Haussmann-era property. The City of Paris later secured its artistic use, turning a contested workspace into a public-facing site for studios and exhibitions.
Arc de Triomphe
The Arc de Triomphe was commissioned by Napoleon in 1806 to honor the Grande Armée, but political upheaval stretched construction across three decades. Its location makes it a monument and hub of avenues structuring western Paris.
Arènes de Lutèce
The Arènes de Lutèce is a Gallo-Roman mixed-use amphitheatre with both an arena and a stage. Its unusual layout accommodated different kinds of performance, and its rediscovery during nineteenth-century street works sparked a campaign to preserve the remains.
Canal Saint-Martin
Cast-iron footbridges and working locks punctuate this canal’s route through northeastern Paris. Built to improve water supply and navigation, Canal Saint-Martin nearly became an urban expressway in the 1960s, but public opposition helped preserve the waterway.
Catacombs of Paris
The Catacombs of Paris are a municipal ossuary inside former limestone quarries beneath the city. Their passages reveal how a public health crisis, urban geology, and changing ideas about death produced one of Paris’s most unusual heritage sites.
Centre Pompidou
Centre Pompidou turns its structure outward, exposing pipes, escalators, and circulation on the façade. Conceived as a multidisciplinary cultural center, it challenged the idea that a museum should hide the systems that make it work.