A quick peek into history…
The idea of an aeronautical conservatory appeared as soon as the armistice of 1918. This innovative project was proposed to the Ministry of War by Albert Caquot, director of the technical section of aeronautics. The agreement was given on 26 December 1918. From 1919, the first “aeronautical collections” were housed in a hangar at the Voisin factory in Issy-les-Moulineaux. During the winter of 1919, the collected items were exhibited at the 6th International Aeronautical Exhibition at the Grand Palais. On 23 November 1921, the aeronautical museum was inaugurated in Chalais-Meudon in a former aerostatic workshop built during the Great War. Due to a lack of space, part of the collections were moved in 1936 to Paris, on Boulevard Victor (15th arrondissement). The name “Musée de l’Air” was chosen. Although it closed its doors to visitors, the Chalais-Meudon site was kept for the museum’s reserves. Closed in September 1939 and partially destroyed in June 1940, the hall on Boulevard Victor was rebuilt and assigned to other army departments in 1945. The collections on display in Paris were returned to Chalais-Meudon. It was not until 1961 that they were once again accessible to the public on a regular basis. In 1973, with the creation of the new Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle airport, the Minister of the Armed Forces decided to regroup the museum’s collections on the site of Le Bourget airport, whose traffic was scheduled to decrease. On 19 October, the Concorde prototype 001 F-WTSS was handed over to the Musée de l’Air. On 27 May 1975, the first exhibition hall was inaugurated on the Le Bourget site. From this date onwards, the museum expanded at the rate of one hall opening every two years until 1983 when the “Space” Hall was inaugurated, retracing the history of the conquest of space. The museum became the “Air and Space Museum”. Dedicated to the history of aeronautics from its origins to 1918, the Grande Galerie was inaugurated in 1987 in the historic terminal built by Georges Labro in 1937. Completely renovated in its Art Deco architecture, the new Grande Galerie was unveiled after five years of work on the occasion of the museum’s centenary on 9 December 2019.
