The first time I took the métro, I didn’t pay attention to the entrance. I’m pretty sure I was holding my mother’s hand and she told me to watch my steps when we walked down into the bowels of the earth. As I related in one of the “moments” in my book, I mostly remember the poinçonneur punching a hole in our tickets and the pile of confetti at his feet. So, no; sorry to disappoint. This is not a story about my falling in love with Art Nouveau when I was six years old. I’m not even sure I appreciated the beauty of the métro when I was a student and used it every single day. At that time, it was just a transit option, a convenient way to get from Point A to Point B –unless there was une grève, of course. With a one hour commute and classes starting at 8 AM sharp, I didn’t have the luxury of spending an extra five minutes to decide whether I really liked Guimard’s “style nouille.”
The only original "édicule" entrance stands at Porte Dauphine but Abbesses also features the distinctive glass roof of the end-of-the-line stations as designed by Guimard. The most common stations (over 100 of them) have molded iron railway surrounding three sides of the stairways, without a roof, as shown on the Cité station at the top of this post.
The first métro line (Porte Maillot to Porte de Vincennes) opened in 1900 and Hector Guimard had been commissioned to design the entranceways. Their purpose was mainly to prevent people from falling down a large opening in the sidewalk! But Guimard also made them beautiful and uniquely recognizable. A century later, the large majority of the métro entrances still harbor that very familiar and inviting Art Nouveau look. But time didn’t stand still: as the métro network continued to develop, new stations were added, and sometimes it made sense to locate the entrance inside an existing structure. They may not show that classic Guimard style but I like to be surprised and some of them are actually quite beautiful. Here are a few examples I photographed as I walked in the city.
The Sentier entrance above is located inside a stylish building in the old garment district.
Station Volontaires in the 15th arrondissement opened in 1910. Truly one of a kind.
Station Saint-Georges in the 9th arrondissement seems to lead to the basement of the hôtel de la marquise de Païva, built in 1840.
The original entrance to station Monge is the 5th arrondissement is located next to the arênes de Lutèce, one of the few remnants of the city in Gallo-Roman times.
Le Kiosque des noctambules was erected in 2000 on place Colette. Made of aluminum spheres and Murano glass, it is an entrance for the Palais Royal-Musée du Louvre station.
This iron gate leads to an entrance to the RER-métro at Invalides. It's located under the pont Alexandre III, at quay level, on the left bank.
Please comment and let me know which other atypical métro entrances you’ve encountered: I’ll try to take photos of them on future trips and add them to this post.
Vocabulary
Le poinçonneur: the ticket agent who punches a hole in your ticket before they had magnetic stripes or chips; he usually sat in front of the platform entrance.
La grève: a strike, aka the French national pastime… kidding, just kidding.
Le style nouille: noodle style, a somewhat pejorative way to describe Art Nouveau