Paris gets an architecture museum

France's president opened a new museum of French architecture in Paris on Monday, with exhibits spanning from the cathedrals of the 11th century to the ultramodern constructions of today.

The vast Cite de l'architecture et du patrimoine (City of Architecture and Heritage) is housed in a wing of the Chaillot Palace, which overlooks the Eiffel Tower. The site was once home to a little-known museum of French monuments that has been modernized and diversified in a project that began in 1994.

While plans for the new museum predate Nicolas Sarkozy's 4-month-old presidency, he suggested Monday that rather than leaving a monument for posterity, he wanted to "give new ambition and a new creative dynamic" to the government's architectural policy.

"The hell of urban life is paved with the best architectural intentions," he said. "It is time to return to humane, sensitive, creative architecture . . . architecture based on an analysis of reality, rather than denial of it."