An Art Deco palace born of the 1931 Colonial Exhibition
The building was designed by the architect Albert Laprade and built in eighteen months to serve as the "permanent museum of the colonies" during the 1931 International Colonial Exhibition. Its façade, a long stone colonnade, is entirely covered with a bas-relief sculpted by Alfred Janniot: 1,100 m² of scenes glorifying the ports, harvests and peoples of the French colonial empire. It is a technical masterpiece and, at the same time, a document of how the era saw the world; the Palais today openly acknowledges this double reading and explains it on its panels.
Inside, the festival hall, also called the Forum, is encircled by a 600 m² fresco painted by Pierre-Henri Ducos de la Haille. On either side of the entrance, two oval salons have kept their original furniture: the Salon Reynaud, designed by Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann for the Minister of the Colonies, and the Salon Lyautey, furnished by Eugène Printz for the Marshal who served as the Exhibition's commissioner. These spaces are included in the ticket, and the building has been a listed historic monument since 1987. If you enjoy interwar interiors, the contrast with the plant-like curves of our Art Nouveau itinerary in Paris is striking: here, everything is straight lines, bare stone and monumentality.
The National Museum of Immigration History
Opened in 2007 as the Cité nationale de l'histoire de l'immigration, the museum was entirely rethought and reopened in spring 2023 with a new 1,800 m² permanent exhibition. The thread is chronological: eleven key dates, from 1685 to the present day, tell how migration has shaped France, from the Code noir to decolonisation, from the Italian and Polish immigration of the interwar years to contemporary debates.
Around 600 works, documents and objects are on display: administrative archives, posters, suitcases and personal belongings entrusted by families, photographs, and also contemporary artworks by Kader Attia, Samuel Fosso and Zineb Sedira. The tone is that of a history museum: precise, well sourced and free of pathos. Allow 1h30 for the permanent exhibition, longer if you read the testimonies. A temporary exhibition is added each season; from 30 October 2026 to 21 March 2027, "A History of French Cinema – Maghrebi Legacies" traces sixty years of cinema through filmmakers and actors from North African immigrant backgrounds, from Ali Ghanem and Mehdi Charef to Rachid Bouchareb and Jamel Debbouze, with film clips, posters, storyboards and César awards.
The Tropical Aquarium, a 1931 basement still in use
The aquarium has occupied the Palais basement since 1931; for a long time it was the only aquarium in Paris. Renovated and reopened in 2020, it has more than 80 tanks, from small Amazonian river tanks to a large ocean tank, with several hundred species: piranhas, arapaimas, clownfish, rays, matamata turtles, living corals and electric fish. The highlight of the visit remains the Mississippi alligator pit, a reminder of the original aquarium. In 2026, the albino alligator that had lived there since 2014 moved to a park in the Drôme, and two females raised together in the Aude replaced it, in a renovated pit.
The route is short, about 45 minutes to an hour, and instantly appeals to children. In terms of size, the Aquarium tropical has nothing in common with the Aquarium de Paris at the Trocadéro: it is more intimate, more educational and half the price. A relaxation area, "Rivage", and workshops for 3 to 10-year-olds round out the offer at weekends and during school holidays.
Visiting with the family
The Palais makes a good family outing on a rainy day: the aquarium for the youngest, the museum for secondary school pupils, who will recognise chapters of their history syllabus. Pushchairs can go everywhere, baby-changing tables are available and the Café du Palais serves simple set menus. Allow half a day to see everything. Family workshops and tours cost €16 (€13 reduced) and are booked online. More outing ideas in our guide to Paris with the family.
Around the Palais: the Bois de Vincennes
The Palais stands at the entrance to the Bois de Vincennes, facing the Porte Dorée fountain and the gilded statue of "France Bringing Peace to the Colonies". Lac Daumesnil and its rowing boats are five minutes' walk away, and the Parc zoologique de Paris, with its great rock, ten minutes along avenue Daumesnil. The Château de Vincennes and its medieval keep are at the other end of the woods: allow 35 minutes on foot along the paths, or take bus 46 from Porte Dorée. A typical day can therefore string together the Palais in the morning, a picnic by the lake, then the zoo or the château in the afternoon.
Practical information
Address: 293 avenue Daumesnil, 75012 Paris.
Opening hours: Tuesday–Friday 10am–5:30pm, Saturday–Sunday 10am–7pm. Closed on Mondays, as well as 1 January, 1 May and 25 December. Last entry one hour before closing. There is no regular weekly late opening in 2026; the Palais occasionally opens in the evening for events.
Prices noted in September 2026:
| Ticket | Full price | Reduced price | Free |
|---|---|---|---|
| Museum (permanent exhibition + temporary exhibition) | €12 | €9 | under-26s, 1st Sunday of the month |
| Tropical Aquarium only | €12 | €9 | under-26s |
| Combined museum + aquarium ticket | €16 | €13 | under-26s |
| Carte Palais (unlimited access for a year) | €35 solo, €50 duo | — | — |
The reduced price applies in particular to students over 26 and holders of partner cards. Free entry also covers jobseekers, recipients of minimum social benefits, people with disabilities and their companion, and teachers holding the Pass Éducation. On the first Sunday of the month, only the museum is free; the aquarium remains paid. Find more free venues in our selection of free museums in Paris.
Getting there: métro line 8, Porte Dorée station, exiting directly opposite the Palais; tram T3a, Porte Dorée stop; buses 46 and 201; Vélib' station in front of the entrance. From Bastille, allow 15 minutes by métro with no change.
Accessibility: the building is wheelchair-accessible via a ramp at the corner of place Édouard-Renard and rue Armand-Rousseau, then lifts to the museum and the aquarium. The historic salons and the Forum are on the ground level.
On site: cloakroom, bookshop and gift shop, and the Café du Palais, open Tuesday–Friday 10am–5pm and Saturday–Sunday 10am–6:30pm, with a terrace in fine weather. A media library, the Abdelmalek-Sayad resource centre, is freely accessible for anyone wishing to dig deeper.
Visit length: 1 hour for the aquarium, 1h30 to 2 hours for the museum, half a day with the salons and the temporary exhibition.
Going further
The Palais de la Porte Dorée is an ideal stop for discovering the 12th arrondissement away from the crowds of the centre. To get there on foot from Bastille, follow the Coulée verte, whose route ends a stone's throw from Porte Dorée: a lovely way to link the centre to the woods without taking the métro.
