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Is this the world’s most glamorous subway station?
Behold the recently unveiled Villejuif-Gustave Roussy Station in Paris, a hub in the south of the French capital on the 200km-long Grand Paris Express line that looks like it has been teleported in from the future – and is bound to be a magnet for travel influencers.
It has been designed by French studio Dominique Perrault Architecture (DPA), which describes it as an ’emblematic station’ that ‘leaves an urban and architectural legacy for the area it serves’.
The station, it claims, is ‘among the most aesthetically pleasing in the world’.
It’s certainly one of the few subway stations anywhere with escalators that can be described as breathtaking.
Behold the recently unveiled Villejuif-Gustave Roussy Station in Paris, a hub on the 200km-long Grand Paris Express line
The Villejuif-Gustave Roussy Station has been designed by French studio Dominique Perrault Architecture (DPA), which describes it as ‘among the most aesthetically pleasing stations in the world’
The station is an ‘upside down skyscraper’ that burrows 50 metres below ground and is smothered in eye-catching reflective surfaces
Passengers can see the sky from the platforms at the bottom
They descend Hogwarts-style amid multiple footbridges into a cylindrical ‘upside down skyscraper’ that burrows 50 metres below ground and is smothered in eye-catching reflective surfaces.
And it’s flooded with light, with passengers able to look up from the platforms at the bottom to the sky above.
DPA founder Dominique Perrault says: ‘The Villejuif-Gustave Roussy Station aims to erase the threshold between the open public space and the closed space of the station by blurring the limits of the city.
‘Its helicoidal architecture on the surface exerts a centripetal force on the urban fabric, which draws it towards the space that has been competed underground.
‘The large concrete cylinder with its moulded wall, flooded with light, is traversed, and enlivened by footbridges and escalators.
‘Here, the sky of this inverted skyscraper is simply the ground level of the city. Natural light pours all the way down to the platforms located some fifty metres below. The sky is above the railways.’
The Grand Paris Express is the largest civil engineering project in Europe, with 68 new stations and automated lines.
In all, 130 universities and higher learning institutions, 408 healthcare centers, and 656 cultural venues will be within a 10-minute walk of a Grand Paris Express station.
The Grand Paris Express is the largest civil engineering project in Europe, with 68 new stations and automated lines. Above – the entrance to Villejuif-Gustave Roussy Station
