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Key figures

Origin and history

The Guimard building of Villiers station is an iconic architectural element of the Paris metro, designed by Hector Guimard in the Art Nouveau style. It marks the entrance to Villiers station, opened in 1903 under the name Avenue de Villiers, on lines 2 and 3. This edicle, classified as a historical monument in 1978, is one of the few still in place today, reflecting the innovative aesthetics of metro entrances at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Villiers Station, located at the 8th and 17th arrondissements, was originally designed to accommodate a common trunk between lines 2 and 3. This abandoned project imposed partial reconstruction, explaining the exceptional height of the wharfs on line 3. The Guimard edicle, adorning access No. 3 (Boulevard de Courcelles), is a vestige of 141 similar entries created by Guimard between 1900 and 1913, of which only 87 remain.

The station was a major transit point, with a traffic of over 5 million passengers annually before 2020. It is also linked to historical events, such as the arrest of the resistant Suzanne Olivier in 1943. The church, with its organic forms and cast iron structures, symbolizes the integration of art into urban infrastructure, a pioneering vision for the time.

Renovated on several occasions, notably in 2009 as part of the Renouveau du métro programme, the station retains its edicle as a testimony of the Parisian industrial and artistic heritage. The sketches by Édouard Vuillard in 1916-1917 attest to his cultural importance in his early decades.

Today, the Guimard de Villiers building remains a landmark in the Parisian landscape, close to sites such as Parc Monceau or the Cernuschi Museum. It illustrates the fusion between urban functionality and artistic creation, characteristic of the Guimard era and the expansion of the Parisian metro at the beginning of the 20th century.

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