Paris might soon give tourists a reason to look underground instead up and around at the city of lights.
Paris mayoral candidate Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet announced earlier this month a plan to turn the city's 11 deserted metro stations into public spaces. The politician worked with architect Manal Rachdi and urban planner Nicolas Laisné to create renderings of proposed renovations.
The revitalized stations could become the home of nightclubs, art galleries, five-star restaurants, theaters, or swimming pools.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
The proposal is similar to other urban renewal projects such as New York City's High Line, which turned an old train track into an urban park and one of the city's most visited locations.
The firm behind the design, OXO Architectes, references the next stage of the NYC project, the Lowline, on its website:
At a time when New-York is talking about the 'Lowline', why couldn't Paris profit from its underground potential and invent new functions for these abandoned places? This is about a slow transformation, to find, as opportunities arise, a new and thrilling way to take possession of these places.
The project has been so well-received it may come to life even if Kosciusko-Morizet is not elected. Here, a few of the renderings:
The proposed project could turn abandoned Metro stations into nightclubs, which would surely be popular with tourists.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Another abandoned station would become a restaurant.
Another station would become a full theater. The station would be as much of an attraction as the show.
One of the most difficult proposed transformations would be turning a station into a public garden. We think it'd become the High Line of Paris.
Another station would make a fantastic space as an art gallery.
Book reviews: 'The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World’s Most Coveted Microchip' and 'Who Is Government? The Untold Story of Public Service'
Mario Vargas Llosa: The novelist who lectured Latin America
How to see the Lyrid meteor shower
