For the Heritage Days, science enthusiasts will gather at the Mines Paris - PSL school in the 6th arrondissement to explore the institution as well as its Musée de Minéralogie, on Saturday, September 19, 2026. Nestled in the heart of the Hôtel de Vendôme, just steps from the Jardins du Luxembourg, the engineering school, one of France’s top institutions, invites you to discover its secrets.
Located in the heart of the Latin Quarter for over 200 years, the school also offers its students and faculty an idyllic setting in which to study and work! The grand staircase leading to the Musée de Minéralogie, with its mineral decor, is home to Claude Hugard de la Tour 's 1855 paintings depicting the "spectacle of nature"; andAlexandre Denis Abel de Pujol's frescoes, allegories of knowledge, science and industry. In the form of a winged young woman draped in antique style, Science crowns the assembly of scientists"who have distinguished themselves in geology and mineralogy".
A great opportunity to discover this beautiful place and learn all about mineralogy. We'll also be taking the opportunity to discover the Bibliothèque de l'École des Mines, theHôtel de Vendôme and the library of the École des Mines. Shall we go, friends?
Exhibition "Library at the Heart"
100 years old: a fine age for a reading room!
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Founded in 1794, the Library of the École des Mines de Paris aims to assemble the most comprehensive scientific and technical collections for teaching and research, while also safeguarding and passing on the institution’s memory.
At the heart of the School, the Paris site’s reading room, inaugurated in 1926, stands as perhaps its most striking and symbolic architectural setting, purpose-built to improve access to documents and to create new study spaces.
Through this exhibition, discover how our spaces and collections have continually evolved over the centuries to better meet your needs, up to the future Learning Center project!
### A guided tour through the heart of the Hôtel de Vendôme
The library sits at the heart of the Hôtel de Vendôme, built in the early 18th century, where the École des Mines de Paris has been based since 1815.
The exhibition is part of a visitor route that also includes the town-house garden and the Mineralogical Museum.
### Gems of 3D photography
During the visit, you will have the chance to see in advance a few elements of the future exhibition Mines Magic 3D, Stereoscopic and Lenticular Photography from 1850 to Today, awarded the Bicentennial of Photography, which will open on November 10, 2026.
Accessibility notice : due to the building’s historic layout, the visitor route is unfortunately not accessible to people with reduced mobility.
Participation conditions: Free entry | Booking essential - https://my.weezevent.com/journees-europeennes-du-patrimoine-2025-mines-paris-psl-1
Hours: Saturday, September 19, 2026 – 10:00–18:00
Discover the living heritage of Mines ParisTech – PSL
Mines Paris – PSL opens the doors to its historic building, the Hôtel de Vendôme, on Saturday, September 19, 2026. This visit invites the public to discover an exceptional heritage—from its library and mineralogy museum to its garden—and to gain a better understanding of the school’s current mission-driven work.
This 2026 edition offers a free, self-guided tour, letting visitors explore a place where more than two centuries of history mingle with a forward-looking scientific research agenda. One of France’s oldest engineering schools, Mines Paris – PSL brings together heritage, training, innovation and research, continuing a shared ambition: to put science at the service of society’s major challenges.
Accessibility note for people with reduced mobility: due to the building’s historic layout, the tour is unfortunately not accessible for mobility-impaired visitors.
### A heritage at the service of today’s challenges
As you move through the visit, see how the school’s history is fully aligned with contemporary issues. Ecological transition, artificial intelligence, digital transformation, mineral resources, health, and industrial sovereignty — the research conducted at Mines Paris – PSL speaks to the key scientific, technological and societal questions of our time.
Interpretive panels and videos will punctuate the route to highlight these research endeavors and show how a former 18th-century institution continues to invent tomorrow’s solutions, in close partnership with industrial and institutional players.
### The Hôtel de Vendôme
Since 1815, Mines Paris – PSL has been housed in the Hôtel de Vendôme, a private mansion begun in the early 18th century and expanded through the 19th and early 20th centuries. Founded in 1783 by Louis XVI on the advice of chemist and mineralogist Balthazar Sage, the school answered France’s strategic needs for the mining industry.
Today, true to this tradition of scientific excellence serving society, Mines Paris – PSL trains engineers, researchers and entrepreneurs who will tackle the grand challenges of the 21st century. Its historic building bears witness to this evolution and tells more than two centuries of scientific history.
### The Library
With its monumental glass roof and fine woodwork, the library is one of the school’s most striking spaces. It houses a rich documentary heritage of old volumes and rare collections, while also leveraging extensive digital resources today.
As a true crossroads of knowledge produced by education and research, it contributes to the diffusion, conservation and valorization of the scientific know-how developed at Mines Paris – PSL.
### The Mineralogy Museum
Created over two centuries ago, the mineralogy museum houses one of the world’s most important mineralogical collections. It gathers about 100,000 specimens, including around 4,000 on display: minerals, rocks, meteorites, and precious stones.
Beyond its patrimonial wealth, the museum sheds light on fully contemporary issues, notably those related to critical metals, rare earths and the sustainable management of mineral resources essential to the energy and digital transitions.
### The School’s Garden
Exceptionally opened to the public for European Heritage Days, the school garden offers a moment of calm in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. From this normally inaccessible space, visitors will be able to admire the rear façade of the Hôtel de Vendôme, its terrace, and privileged views of the Luxembourg Garden and the Senate’s greenhouses.
### Teaser: MINES MAGIC 3D – Stereoscopic and lenticular photography from 1850 to today
Get a sneak preview of a selection of works from the MINES MAGIC 3D exhibition: three-dimensional images drawn from the school’s heritage and research. Enjoy examples tracing the history of photography up to the latest digital models. This exhibition, marked by the Bicentennial of Photography, is organized by the Institute of Digital Transformations (ITN) of Mines Paris – PSL, in collaboration with the library, as part of the ATIPICC research program (Future of Immersive Technologies for Cultural and Creative Industries) at PSL University.
Photos/videos will be taken during this event. By registering, you consent to their use by Mines Paris - PSL for any communications (website, reports, activity summaries, social media, newsletters, etc.).
If you do not wish to be photographed, please let us know on the day of the event.
By registering, you agree to receive information about future Mines Paris – PSL events.
Participation conditions: Up to 10 places per registration. Registration slots available every ten minutes. Free of charge | Reservation required - https://my.weezevent.com/journees-europeennes-du-patrimoine-2025-mines-paris-psl-1
Hours: Saturday, September 19, 2026 — 10:00 AM–6:00 PM
Temporary Exhibition "Codex on the Rocks"
An urban art show at the Musée de Minéralogie, part of the Ecole des Mines de Paris.
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### The Codex on the Rocks Exhibition in a Few Words
Bringing together the wild, fleeting spirit of street art, the vandal-born phantoms of a rogue artist, the eternal beauty of the mineral world, and the international prestige of a venerable institution? Codex Urbanus’s street-art show at Mines Paris – PSL answers with a glittering mix, blending a world-class mineral collection with aerosol spray, all set in a splendid Victorian frame. Wander through the vitrines, discover a parallel gallery route, and let yourself be drawn into this unexpected meeting of art, fantasy, and minerals.
The Mineral Museum is part of the “Discover Mines Paris – PSL Living Heritage” route:
NOTE: extended run until September 26 – last days of the show.
### About CODEX URBANUS
Codex Urbanus is a Parisian street artist who, for over 15 years, has been sketching a fantastical menagerie of creatures directly on city walls under the cover of night. To date, more than 800 hybrid beings have paraded through the streets, always bearing their Latin names, offering a dreamlike, naturalist gallery that passersby and enthusiasts chase and curate. He is also the author of several books, including a meditation on the very existence of street art (“Why Is Art in the Street?”, Critères Éditions, 2018) and a pocket guide to 150 artists who work without authorization in Paris’s streets (“Pocket Atlas of Street Art in Paris and its Suburbs,” Omniscience, 2024).
He is best known for taking urban art to unexpected venues. He has previously intervened at the Gustave Moreau National Museum (2016), at the Public Sewer Tours (2018), at the Château de Malmaison (2020), and at the Fragonard Perfume Museum (2024).
Continuing that thread, he brings his mark to the Musée de Minéralogie in 2026, in a jubilant artistic venture that makes stones and phantoms dance for everyone’s delight.
### THE Ecole des Mines de Paris (MINES PARIS – PSL)
As part of the PSL University, Mines Paris – PSL trains engineers capable of meeting tomorrow’s challenges, scientifically excellent leaders, and internationally minded professionals. In line with its strategic plan, the School aims to be a reference player in innovation and entrepreneurship, energy transition and materials for more sustainable technologies, mathematics and digital engineering for industrial transformation, including healthcare, while staying true to its founding values of solidarity and openness to society since 1783.
### Its Mineral Museum
Founded in 1794, the Musée de Minéralogie at the Ecole des Mines de Paris is not only one of the oldest museums in the world but also a globally renowned mineral collection. It houses 5,000 pieces (out of a total of 100,000) in a 12-room sequence of spaces whose furniture and layout have remained largely unchanged since the 1850s. Visitors encounter specimens gathered over more than two centuries, from rocks and gems to meteorites and synthetic stones, while the institution remains vibrant and research-oriented, true to the revolutionary spirit that catalyzed its creation and justified by the prestigious engineering school that houses it. Scientific rigor, often allied with artistic creativity, has led the museum to host white-wall commissions for contemporary artists for years, to bring its collections to life in new, unconventional ways. It’s not unusual for this institution to collaborate with visual artists, but this is the first time a street artist is invited to dialogue with the extraordinary minerals housed in the grand Hungarian oak cases…
### THE WORKS - THE MUSEUM
True to its habit of working in old, precious spaces, Codex Urbanus follows two guiding principles:
- Do not impose his art on visitors who come to soak up the building’s historic ambiance. His interventions are discreet and blend into the surroundings. They read like a treasure hunt, with more than 100 paintings and drawings tucked away in the rooms, waiting for visitors to discover them if they wish...
- Always comment on the institution and its collections. All artworks proposed by the artist were created specifically for this show at the Musée de Minéralogie and could hardly exist outside this venue. They aim to offer an artistic perspective on the museum’s collections, its history, the links between street art and mineralogy, and to highlight the aesthetic beauty of the spaces.
Building on that, the exhibition unfolds in several distinct chapters scattered throughout the museum:
THE AGATHIDES
By intervening on dozens of XVIIIth-century mineral engravings depicting samples from the collections of Claude-Hugues Lelièvre (1752-1835) and Alexandre-Charles Besson (1725-1809), both former Mines of Paris, Codex Urbanus invents a new family of mineral-invertebrates inspired by the specimens shown next to the engravings.
MINING ADVENTURES
The artist’s phantoms animate old engravings about the world of mining, drawing out its mystery and its dangers, real or imagined.
ARCHITECTURAL FANTASIES
Keeping his habit of painting on walls, Codex Urbanus now takes to the building’s plans and drawings, paying homage to the place that greatly contributes to the museum’s magic.
MINI-MUSEUM OF THE FINE ARTS
Following Renaissance artists who painted on stones for Cabinets of Curiosity, Codex Urbanus works with markers on landscape stones, agates, petrified wood, and other stones to create a mineral-art miniature collection to tour like a small exhibition.
THE MINERALOGY AQUARIUM
Here, aquatic phantoms swim in small tanks—specifically dendrites, minerals whose natural plant-like forms recall algae and the sea bed.
PHANTOM CRYSTALS
Site-specific drawing where the artist creates around twenty fantastical creatures with a marker on a black background, illustrating the different crystal structures visitors can find in the display cases.
THE CRYPTOZOOLOGY COLLECTION
As street art often highlights pop culture, Codex Urbanus reveals the museum’s legendary stone collection (Kryptonite, Orichalcum, Verredragon, Mithril, etc.), but only to visitors who know where to look.
And many more graphic winks to hunt down in and around the vitrines…
Participation conditions: Free and open visits by reservation. Free | Reservation required - https://my.weezevent.com/journees-europeennes-du-patrimoine-2025-mines-paris-psl-1
Hours: Saturday, 19 September 2026 — 10:00–18:00
Dates and Opening Time
On September 19, 2026
Location
Museum of Mineralogy Mines Paris - PSL
60, boulevard Saint Michel
75006 Paris 6
Route planner
Prices
Free
Official website
www.minesparis.psl.eu
More information
Mask and sanitary pass mandatory
