Institut du Monde Arabe

Set up by France and 20 Arab countries to promote cultural contacts between the Arab world and the West, the Institute of the Arab World is housed in a critically praised building (1987) that successfully mixes modern and traditional Arab and Western elements.

The institute hosts some fascinating temporary exhibitions. Its permanent museum, closed for renovation since April 2010, will focus on painting a global vision of the Arab world through 19th-century to contemporary art and artisanship, instruments from astronomy and other fields of scientific endeavour in which Arab technology once led the world.