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Origin and history

The Guimard building of the Colonel Fabien station, located boulevard de la Villette in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, is an access to the metro designed in 1900 by the architect Hector Guimard for the Compagnie générale du Métropolitain de Paris. This monument, characteristic of the Art Nouveau style, was inscribed as historical monuments by order of 29 May 1978 and again protected on 12 February 2016. It marked the entrance to the station opened in 1903 under the original name of Combat, with reference to the nearby square where animal fighting took place between 1778 and 1850.

The station was renamed Colonel Fabien in 1945 in tribute to Pierre Georges, a communist resistor who died in 1944. This change is part of a series of post-Second World War renunciations aimed at honouring figures of the Resistance. The entrance, the only access to the station, is a vestige of the Art Nouveau entrances designed by Guimard for the Parisian network, many of which have disappeared or been modified.

The entrance is distinguished by its structure in cast iron and glass, typical of Guimard's creations for the metro. It is located in front of No.83 of Boulevard de la Villette, on the central ground. The resort itself, renovated in the 2000s, retains original elements such as bevelled white ceramic tiles and an elliptical vault, while integrating modern amenities such as tubing-band lighting.

The surrounding neighbourhood, at the edge of the 10th and 19th arrondissements, is marked by a working and militant history, illustrated by the proximity of the headquarters of the French Communist Party and the Saint-Louis Hospital. The church, though modest in its size, embodies both the architectural innovation of the time and the memory of the urban and political transformations of Paris in the 20th century.

The protection of the school in 2016 underscores its heritage importance, while most Guimard entrances have been replaced by more functional models. It remains one of the few visible testimonies of the metro as imagined in its early days, mixing artistic aesthetics and public utility in a Paris undergoing modernization.

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