"M14, direction Saint-Denis." On the platform of the future Villejuif-Gustave-Roussy station, in Villejuif (southern suburbs of Paris), the signage is already in place. Fifty meters underground, we are guided by Dominique Perrault, the architect of the Bibliothèque Nationale François-Mitterrand in Paris, the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg and this major new project that is nearing completion. Two openings in the wall visually connect the platform to the rest of the station. They reveal a fascinating escalator network that zigzags to the surface, at the heart of a large luminous void lined with mezzanines. Natural light pours into every nook and cranny from the transparent roof.
Amid this evolving infrastructure, paradoxical images spring to mind: Italian artist Piranesi's Imaginary Prisons painted with silver gloss, an LED-lit Journey to the Center of the Earth and Paul Andreu's Plexiglas tubes at Roissy airport, hair-in-the-wind style.
Serving as the emblem of the Grand Paris Express, the Villejuif-Gustave-Roussy station will, in a few months, connect lines 14 (currently extended to the north up to the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis and the south to Paris-Orly Airport) and 15 (which interconnects a whole network of suburban towns without passing through the capital). It represents years of research into underground architecture, a particular passion of Dominique Perrault, who delved into the subject in a captivating study, Groundscapes: Other Topographies (2016), and applied its principles to various projects. None so far had embodied them so holistically, on such a monumental scale, staging the underground in such a spectacular way.
The project was conceived with his partner, designer Gaëlle Lauriot-Prévost, who uses a language of metal mesh, chrome planks and industrial lighting along the walls, and with Chilean artist Ivan Navarro. It reflects a desire to ennoble the infrastructure and improve the lives of those who frequent the Hôpital Gustave-Roussy, a center of excellence in the fight against cancer, which had previously lacked adequate public transportation.
The first test runs are scheduled for January 2024 and the line is due to open to the public at the end of the year. However, trains to Orly will stop at this station during the July and August Olympic Games, a key reason for extending Line 14 to the airport. The simultaneous inauguration of the Saint-Denis-Pleyel station, a massive hub connecting lines 14, 15, 16 and 17, will mark the commencement of the Grand Paris Express. Sixty-six other stations will follow, together serving nearly 200 new kilometers of track by 2030.
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