Architecture of the Paris Métro
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The Paris Métro comprises 300 stations and 384 train halls (2009). From the original plain white tilework and art nouveau entrances, station decoration has evolved with successive waves of building and renovation.
After experiments with diverse colour schemes, furniture and lighting, since 1999 the programme Renouveau du Métro has seen a reversion to the original design principles of the network. In parallel, line 14 has provided an entirely new template for the stations of the 21st century.
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[edit] Entrances
As with all subway systems, Métro entrances are designed firstly to be visible and recognisable. They feature at least a column and a network map. Decorative styles have changed over the years.
[edit] Original Guimard style
In 1899 the Compagnie du chemin de fer métropolitain de Paris launched a competition for the street architecture of the soon-to-be-opened Métro. Having rejected the finalists as too conservative, the CMP approved Jean-Camille Formigé's project, but this was rejected by the municipality. (Formigé was however charged with the design of elevated stations.)[citation needed]
The impasse was broken by the CMP's president, Adrien Bénard, who proposed the art nouveau architect Hector Guimard. [1]
[edit] Two types
Guimard designed two types of entrance, with and without glass roofs. Built in cast iron, they make heavy reference to the symbolism of plants. 141 entrances were constructed between 1900 and 1912, of which 86 still exist.
The roofed variety, known as édicules (kiosks) feature a fan-shaped glass awning and an enclosure of opaque panelling decorated in floral motifs. The most imposing of these were built at Étoile and Bastille, on opposite sections of the inaugural line 1. Today only two édicules survive, at Porte Dauphine and Abbesses (the latter having been moved from Hôtel de Ville in 1974). A third, replica édicule was erected at Châtelet in 2000.
The simpler type of entrance is framed by a "Métropolitain" sign held between two ornate lamp posts. These are designed strikingly in the form of plant stems, in which the orange lamp is enclosed by a leaf (resembling a brin de muguet, or sprig of lily of the valley). [2]
[edit] Later styles
From 1904 the CMP employed the architect Cassien-Bernard to design a number of new station entrances in austere neo-classical stonework.[3] These can be found near certain important monuments, including the Opéra, the Madeleine and on the Champs-Elysées.
After the end of the Belle Epoque, new entrances were entrusted to various architects. These typically feature cast-iron balustrades in an elegant but sober style. Elements of ceramique can be found in entrances on the two Nord-Sud lines.
[edit] Special cases
A few entrances, for example at Pelleport and Volontaires, are housed in independent buildings. These are generally concrete constructions, and recall the architectural styles of the 1920s and 1930s. Conversely, a number of entrances (Riquet, Pernety) are built into the ground floor of existing buildings.
[edit] Signposts
Also known as masts or totems, distinctive Métro signposts were a 1920s innovation of the Nord-Sud company.
In the early years, two styles arrived in succession. The Val d'Osne variant (named after an iron foundry, and visible at Saint Paul) consists of a globe-shaped lamp atop a "MÉTRO" sign surrounded by an ornate cast-iron frieze. The simpler Dervaux lampposts (named after their architect) became common in the 1930s, following the contemporary trend away from decorative embellishment.
After the war, new Métro totems lost their lamps and became progressively simpler. The 1950s style features a the familiar "MÉTRO" against a blue ring and a large red "M". In the 1960s the blue ring was replaced by two stainless steel rings. Subsequent masts have kept these rings, now framing a simple interior-lit yellow "M".
Masts built since 1998 on line 14 are almost entirely novel, featuring a minimalist two-dimensional design but containing a hint of the original Guimard style in their plant-like verticals.
[edit] Ticket halls and corridors
Métro ticket halls are typically found directly beneath the steet. In the early years they contained little more than a kiosk for buying tickets, amid spartan decoration. From the 1930s network maps appeared, including the popular plan indicateur lumineux d'itinéraires, a version with lights to indicate the fastest route to a given destination. From 1946 local street plans were installed, and later food dispensers and telephones. In the 1970s shops appeared in certain stations where space permitted (for instance, Franklin D Roosevelt).[4]
Corridors which connect platforms of different lines can be somewhat long. Near-surface construction means that tracks and corridors must follow the streets above, and often connecting lines are situated under perpendicular streets. Only a few stations (for example, Jussieu) feature the cross-platform interchange common to deep underground networks.
Stairways are built to a rigorous standard (steps 30 cm deep and 16 cm high) in order to avoid irregularity, often the cause of accidents.
Escalators made their appearance at Père-Lachaise in 1909, and numbered around 15 by 1930.[5] Today over 200 stations are equipped with escalators. In general they only ascend — to the ticket hall, to the street or both in busy stations. Moving walkways are installed at Châtelet and Montparnasse (where a high-speed version is in experimental operation).
Elevators were first installed at République in 1910, following a convention by which the CMP agreed to build them where platforms were situated deeper than 12m below street level. They are in constant use only at a handful of deep stations, notably Abbesses (36m below street level) and Buttes-Chaumont (28.7m).[6]
Automatic crowd-control gates are to be seen at a few stations, including Etoile. Introduced from the 1920s to regulate passenger access to crowded platforms, their usefulness was never properly demonstrated and from the 1960s they were withdrawn from service.
[edit] Train halls
Most Paris Métro stations were built underground near the surface, and are vaulted. Certain stations were built by the cut-and-cover method, with either iron or concrete roofs. Finally, a number of stations are situated above ground on viaducts.
Vaulted stations generally comprise two platforms surrounding two central tracks. Exceptions include:
- Stations on one-way, "looped" stretches of track, with a single track and platform (example: Eglise d'Auteuil)
- Stations that have two platforms, one for each direction, but whose platforms are housed in separate vaults that are not directly opposite each other, typically because the station is situated under narrow streets (example: Liège)
- Terminus stations with 3 or 4 tracks and platforms (example: Porte de la Chapelle)
- Stations where two lines share a single platform (example: La Motte-Picquet — Grenelle)
The classic station vault is 14.1m wide and 5.9m high, including a 0.7m-thick sill on which the rails are laid. Platforms are 4m wide and separated by a 5.3m gap. Except on line 12 and some stations on Line 13 (see below under the Nord-Sud heading), the walls of the stations are slightly curved and their overall shape is elliptical.
Flat-roofed train halls are of two common types. Early stations built by cut-and-cover (due to tracks being less than 7m below the surface) typically feature roofs of metal beams, which in turn support miniature brickwork vaulting (Champs-Élysées — Clemenceau). The standard hall width is 13.5m. A second type of cut-and-cover train hall is found in suburban stations, and has a pure rectangular cross-section and reinforced concrete construction (Porte de Vanves).
Elevated stations are the signature feature of lines 2 and 6. They are supported by iron columns, of which the exterior masonry features decorative motifs — of the Paris municipality and various wreaths and cornucopia. Stations on line 2 are covered by platform awnings, while those on line 6 have full glass roofs and opaque brick walls decorated on the outside with geometric motifs.
The original train hall length was 75m, though this has been extended to 90m on busy lines (1, 3, 7, 8, 9) to allow for 6-car trains. Certain stations were further extended to 105m, the difference as yet being unused.
[edit] Original style
The original decoration of the Métro's underground train halls was austere. It included plain white tiles, enamel plaques for the station name, a few wooden benches and the station manager's kiosk in the middle of the platform. Within a few years advertising billboards and confectionary machines appeared.
Bevelled white tiles (of Gien earthenware) were chosen for their efficiency at reflecting ambient light. The turn-of-the-century electric lighting had a strength of only 5 lux, making it impossible to read a book.[7]
[edit] Nord-Sud Style (Lines 12 and 13)
Today's line 12, and some of the northern stations on line 13 (Saint-Lazare to Porte de Clichy and Porte de Saint-Ouen) were originally built by a competing company, called the Companie du Nord-Sud. To attract travelers, the company chose a more elaborate decorative scheme for the interior of the stations. Most of the tile was the white beveled type, but the white tile was complemented by arches of colored tile over the vault and garland-like swags on the walls. This complementary tiling was color-coordinated: brown for normal stations, green for terminal and transfer stations, and pale blue for the station Madeleine, and these colors matched the tile borders for advertising frames, nameplates and corridors. The most impressive feature of the Nord-Sud stations were the station names themselves, executed in large tile mosaics with white letters on a background; tiling above the two tunnel entrances also reflected the destination of the trains. Physically, Nord-Sud stations were also larger; whereas CMP station walls were curved, the Nord-Sud stations featured straight walls up to the point where the curvature of the vault began, and the ceilings were higher in order to provide room for an overhead catenary. Today, the stations Solférino and Porte de la Chapelle retain much of their original Nord-Sud tiling, while others, such as Sèvres-Babylone, Notre-Dame-des-Champs, and Lamarck—Caulaincourt have undergone renovations to restore the Nord-Sud decoration destroyed in earlier renovations.
[edit] Interwar Years
Beginning in about 1916 and continuing until the late 1940's, the CMP responded to the aesthetic challenge of the Nord-Sud stations by introducing a more elegant décor in newly-constructed stations. After experimenting with both tiled and enameled nameplates on line 8 stations between Porte d'Auteuil and Opéra, and in the Line 7 stations Pyramides and Palais-Royal, the CMP rolled out its new signage in 1921 in three newly constructed Line 3 (now Line 3bis) stations from Gambetta to Porte des Lilas. Primarily, the CMP borrowed the Nord-Sud's idea of station names executed in blue and white tiles (which was also cheaper than equipping every station with enamel). At up to two meters long, the new nameplates were smaller than those of the Nord-Sud, but the CMP increased their number along the length of the platforms for an average of six to eight on each platform. The CMP also tiled its poster frames with more elaborately decorated borders, often with floral or organic motifs but also with geometric, Art-Deco inspired tiling in the late 1930's.[8]
[edit] Carrossage (metal panelling)
The first major station renovation programme took place in the 1950s and 60s. In the straitened post-war economic circumstances the new RATP opted to renovate stations by applying sheaths of metal panelling (known as "carrossage") along the sides of the stations, hiding the aging tilework. This proved to be cheaper than refurbishing the tilework and provided additional space for advertising posters.
In 1952 Franklin D Roosevelt on lines 1 and 9 received the first panelling makeover, to be followed by several other stations, each featuring slightly different prototypes: Saint-Paul on Line 1, Opéra and République on line 3, and Chaussée d'Antin on Line 9. [9] The public reception was favourable, and so the programme was extended to many other stations, with the prototype at République becoming the standard. All of line 12 was renovated in 1959-60, with yellow panelling featuring green frames for billboards. Between 1960 and 1967 approximately 70 stations were panelled in a similar style.[10]
But panelling had serious drawbacks. It used space on the platforms, making stations feel noticeably more cramped, and it rendered maintenance of the underlying tilework difficult. The panelling is currently being removed as part of the Renouveau du Métro programme. As of 2009, a few "carrossage" stations remain on lines 2, 4 and 12.
[edit] Mouton-Duvernet
Tiling made its return in the late 1960s, with the renovation style known as Mouton-Duvernet (this station on line 4 being the first concerned).
The style's signature was the colour orange, in variegated shades. Flat (non-bevelled) tiles covered the station walls but not the roof, which was simply painted in a neutral (and often dark) tone. The fluorescent-light housing was rectilinear and coloured in matching orange.
Around 20 stations were renovated in this way between 1968[citation needed] and 1973, including Étoile, Oberkampf and Commerce.[11]
The Mouton-Duvernet aesthetic was intended to lend warmth and colour to hitherto plain station interiors. It was also self-consciously modern, a product of its iconoclastic era. Like some other artefacts of the 1960s, it dated poorly. The orange tones were quickly perceived as garish and aggressive, and the overall aesthetic as gloomy because the vault remained in shadow and the orange tiles did not reflect light as well as the white. The style is being withdrawn in the context of the Renouveau du Métro programme.
[edit] Andreu-Motte
The Andreu-Motte style, named after designers Joseph-André Motte and Paul Andreu, prevailed in station renovations between 1974 and 1984 and affected around 100 stations.[12] It represented a compromise between colourful innovation and the classic white esthetic of the Métro.
Some of the stations retained their original white beveled tiling, but in stations where more extensive tile replacement was called for, the beveled tiling was replaced by flat white rectangular tiles. To introduce color into the stations, a coordinated colour scheme was added to elements of the train hall — the seating, light housings, and walls of connecting corridors. Five main colour schemes were used: yellow, red, green, blue and orange. An aim was to facilitate subliminal recognition of stations by passengers, since particular stations took on colour identities — for example, Ledru-Rollin is blue and Voltaire yellow.
The other innovation was a tiled ledge along the base of the station wall, in the station's signature colour. On this were placed individual seats in a sculpted single-piece style which has since become closely associated with the Métro.
[edit] Ouï-dire
The most recent genuinely original style used in renovations of early Métro stations is known as Ouï-dire ("Hearsay"), after the design firm responsible for the design. Beginning with Stalingrad (line 7) in 1988, around 30 stations were decorated in this style. [13]
Ouï-dire's main component was a new light housing, cradled by distinctive scythe-shaped supports. Its hidden upper side projected light through colored filters directly onto the ceiling of the vault, illuminating it in a rainbow of multiple colors (over years of exposure to the ultraviolet fluorescent light, however, the colored refractory panels have progressively lost their color). The style initially featured distinctive seating complemented by high, "sit-lean" benches, but these fixtures proved difficult and costly to maintain and in many cases were replaced by standard Motte-style seating in the 1990's. The tiling in most of the Ouï-dire stations was replaced by the flat white rectangular tiles used in the earlier Motte renovations. As with the Motte renovations, three distinct color schemes (red, yellow and green) were put into place, with chairs and poster frames built in matching colors, but the effect was more subtle than the use of color in the Motte stations.
[edit] Météor
A case apart, the new line 14 (originally known as Météor) represented a blank slate for station decoration. Following the logic of the stations' capacious volumes, the RATP opted for minimalism, with an emphasis on space, light and modernity. Specifically, the stations should represent "a noble public space, monumental in spirit, urbane in its choice of shapes and materials." [14]
In practical terms, this meant a diversity of materials. Walls are panelled in steel, stone and even frosted glass, while platform floors are marbelled. Elsewhere, the dominant surface is polished bare concrete.
The first seven stations of the line were designed by Jean-Pierre Vaysse, Bernard Kohn, Antoine Grumbach and Pierre Schall.[15]
[edit] Bruno-Gaudin
In the mid to late 1990's, with both Motte and Oui-dire styles having come and gone, the RATP began to give thought to the decoration used for future station renovations. In 1996 the station Saint-Augustin on line 9 was chosen as the trial station for a new renovation style. Its original feature is a new light housing (known as the Brudo-Gaudin light fixture) with a wide wave-shaped reflecting surface which is attached to and follows the curve of the vault, hides the bare fluorescent bulbs seen throughout the metro after World War II, and also hides cables efficiently. The style, which focuses on maximizing the amount of light in the stations, stipulates that any retiling should use classic bevelled white tiles, since these reflect light better than the flat ones used by the Motte renovations. For this reason, Bruno-Gaudin can be seen to represent a return to the design charter of the original métro of 1900, and represents a kind of "neo-CMP" aesthetic. This extremely successful style has been followed by the RATP in most of the station renovations undertaken since 1999 as part of the Renouveau du Métro program.
In some stations, the Bruno-Gaudin wave light fixture cannot be used due to the particularities of the vault or, in the case of stations with their Nord-Sud decor, because it would obscure decorative features. For these cases, the RATP has developed a secondary type of lighting fixture consisting of a long, compact tube of extremely luminescent fluorescent light that is suspended from the ceiling of the vault, over the train tracks. This light fixture has the benefit of being as bright as the Gaudin model, but is less noticeable.
[edit] Signage and Typography
When the first sections of the métro opened in the early 1900's, most station names in CMP stations were indicated by enameled signs hung from the ceiling and later mounted on the walls. The signs featured white, narrow, sans-serif uppercase letters set against a dark blue background. Despite the CMP's later decision to equip future stations with tiled nameplates, the enamel plaques in place survived well into the postwar period, with the last example, at La Motte-Picquet—Grenelle on Line 6, only retired in 2006.
Stations that were modernized in the carossage style of the 1950's and 1960's received new station signage. Breaking with the blue-and-white used for both tile and enamel nameplates until that time, the namplates installed in carossage stations featured bright yellow, uppercase, sans-serif letters on a dark brown background, which actually proved to be more difficult to read from inside the trains.
In the early 1970's, spurred on by the development of the RER stystem and by the opening of several new extensions on the network, the RATP undertook a program to harmonize the metro's corporate identity by replacing the many different fonts then in use with a unified, standard typeface. The font eventually chosen, "Métro Alphabet," was developed by the Swiss typeface designer Adrian Frutiger as a special, modified version of his Univers typeface. Installed throughout the network between 1973 and 1994, Métro Alphabet became the most widespread font used on the system and still remains in dozens of stations.
By the early 1990's, the RATP had decided to update its signage, and selected a variant of the widespread Helvetica typefice, Neue Helvetica, for use in stations and on maps. The first métro typeface to employ upper and lower case letters, it was only used in a handful of stations, notably Place d'Italie on Line 6, before the RATP changed course and commissioned French typeface designer Jean-François Porchez to create an exclusive font for the system. Porchez's font, called Parisine because it was initially used for the station signs, was first introduced in 1997. Since then, it has been adopted throughout the system and has increasingly replaced the remaining Frutiger signage.[16]
[edit] Cultural stations
Around 30 stations are decorated in entirely original ways, to celebrate particular themes.
Louvre station (known since 1989 as Louvre — Rivoli) was the first station to receive such a makeover, on the initiative of culture minister André Malraux in 1968. The platforms feature stonework, statues and other replica museum pieces, under subtle lighting, which together make the station into an antechamber of the Musée du Louvre. Until the reconstruction of the Louvre in the late 1980's, this station was the closest to the museum's entrance. When Pei's pyramid was added to the Louvre and made the central entrance, the neighboring metro station Palais-Royal became the closest to the museum entrance; so close, in fact, that a subterranean corridor was constructed leading directly from the museum to the Palais-Royal station, which was renamed Palais-Royal—Musée du Louvre. As part of the change, Louvre station took on the name Louvre—Rivoli. Nevertheless, the resulting configuration—with the specially-decorated Louvre station at a further distance from the museum—is confusing.
Other stations were subsequently redecorated on the theme of the landmark situated above them.
- Assemblée Nationale (line 12) has no advertising on the station walls, which are reserved for 90-meter long colorful murals, featuring silhouettes of deputies. Developed by Jean-Charles Blais, this decoration is changed with each renewal of the legislature.
- Concorde (line 12) is tiled in the text of the 1791 Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen
- Cluny — La Sorbonne celebrates the writers of the Latin Quarter, with a tiled reproduction of Les Oiseaux by Jean Bazaine
- Bastille features murals of scenes from the French Revolution, and archeological remains of the notorious former prison
- Arts et Métiers (line 11, site of the "Arts and Crafts" school) is clad strikingly in copper to evoke the interior of a submarine, a design by comic-book author François Schuiten
- Pont-Neuf—La Monnaie (line 7), located near the Mint, features sculptures of oversized coins "dropping" from the ceiling and walls.
A handful of stations were redecorated according to more general themes as part of the 2000 celebrations of the Métro's centenary.
- St-Germain-des-Prés presents projections of the musings of the neighbourhood's postwar philosophers
- Europe marks European integration and cooperation
- Tuileries presents 20th century history and culture
- Villejuif — Léo Lagrange celebrates sport
[edit] Station renovation programme (Renouveau du Métro)
Starting in 1999, and in conjunction with the Bruno-Gaudin architectural charter developed in the late 1990's, the RATP has been conducting a major programme of station renovation, known as Le Renouveau du Métro. Its aims are clarté (brightness, clarity) and cleanliness.
This involves, in particular:
- Replacing and standardising the tiling of stations. In practice, where the beveled white tile and flat Motte tile is in good condition, the tile has been left alone. Tile in poor condition, and the orange tile of the Mouton stations, has been replaced with fresh beveled white tile. Tile renovation has often included the installation of sub-surface drains to control future water infiltrations, the source of unsightly stains on the ceiling and sides of the vaults and in corridor areas.
- Replacing lighting, mainly with the Bruno-Gaudin "wave" model or the suspended tube model.
- Removing or hiding exposed pipes and electrical cables.
- Replacing the Univers signage with Parisine signage and updating direction indicators, in tandem with the SIEL system (le Service d'Information d'attente En Ligne, or Line Waiting Information Service) for displaying waiting times.
Stations renovated under the Renouveau du Métro programme follow the 1900 style known in its reincarnation as Bruno-Gaudin.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Tricoire 2005a, p.72
- ^ Le Figaro: "These contorted bannisters, these humped lampposts". Tricoire 2005a, p.73
- ^ Tricoire 2005a, p.73
- ^ Tricoire 2005a, p.78
- ^ Tricoire 2005a, p.77
- ^ Tricoire 2005a, p.77
- ^ Tricoire 2005a, p.83. Today's fluorescent lighting can reach 90 lux.
- ^ Ovenden, 2008, p. 168–169.
- ^ Tricoire 2005a, p.81
- ^ Tricoire 2005a, p.82
- ^ Tricoire 2005a, p.82
- ^ Tricoire 2005a, p.82
- ^ Tricoire 2005a, p.83
- ^ Tricoire 2005a, p.47
- ^ Tricoire 2005a, p.47
- ^ Ovenden p. 167–172.
[edit] References
- Tricoire, Jean (1999-11-03). Un siècle de métro en 14 lignes : de Bienvenue à Météor. La Vie du Rail.
- Tricoire, Jean (1999-11-18). Le métro de Paris : 1899-1911, images de la construction. Paris-Musées RATP.
- Ovenden, Mark (2008). Paris Métro Style in Map and Station Design. Capital Transport.
