Paris’s new glamorous underground station is a serious contender for London stations.
When rushing to catch a train or the Tube, there is rarely enough time for the surrounding architecture.
But some stations like the new Villejuif-Gustave Roussy Station in Paris are stunning enough to catch the eye of even the busiest commuter.
The futuristic underground hub in the southern suburbs of Paris is part of a £29,000,000,000 Grand Paris Express railway project that will add new lines and stations across the French capital.
Designed by Dominique Perrault Architecture studio, the shining glass and steel station has been dubbed an ‘inverted skyscraper’ thanks to the deep underground shaft topped with a pointy roof.
The studio claimed the metro station is ‘among the most aesthetically pleasing in the world.’
Its creators wanted it to be nothing like the conventional underground stations associated with discomfort, coldness and damp, according to the Wallpaper.
The multi-storey station structure resembles an ice queen’s lair from a fairytale, with mirrored stainless steel staircases zigzagging across.
The two gallery floors surrounding the escalator shaft boast shops and cafes designed to attract some of the 100,000 passengers the station serves daily, architecture outlet Dezeen reports.
It reaches 164 feet underground, one of the deepest transport projects in France and Europe.
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Only a circular metal and glass cap is visible from outside the station.
The studio’s founder, Dominique Perrault, said: ‘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 50 metres below. The sky is above the railways.’
One of London’s most pleasing stations year after year includes St Pancras International, which has served passengers since the late 19th century.
While beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the station’s curved steel and glass ceiling above the platforms and its redbrick tower frontage are an impressive sight.
The station hasn’t always looked like it does today as it suffered a ‘decline’ in the first half of the 20th century before it was rescued by a revival campaign led by John Betjeman, Network Rail said.
A Eurostar high-speed rail connection saved the station from further decline as it underwent a long restoration that saw the installation of 18,000 self-cleaning glass panes and 300,000 Welsh slates and iron girders stripped and repainted.
The western wall was rebuilt with 16,000,000 bricks made to look identical to the original.
St Pancras made headlines last week when Eurostar cancelled all Friday trains after an unexploded World War Two bomb was found on railway tracks near Paris.
Thousands of passengers had their weekend plans upended when the services were halted until the ordnance was removed.
Elsewhere, London Bridge has been named one of the best stations in Europe.
Experts ranked it on the top ten list for its passenger services, connections and accessibility, the only UK station to make the top of the list.
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