Grand Paris Express: the future station looks like a giant cave

Work on the Grand Paris Express continues around Paris, particularly in Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis, Val-de-Marne, Essonne and Seine-et-Marne.

A total of 68 new stations will be built, including 4 new lines and the extension of line 14 to Orly, scheduled to open before the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games.

A titanic project, the Grand Paris Express will also give rise to stations that are more atypical than others, such as the Saint-Maur Créteil station, which will be the deepest in France, or the Mairie de Vitry-sur-Seine station, described by the commune as a " cave station " . Located in the Val-de-Marne region, on the route of the future line 15 (South), this new station is situated exactly at the intersection of rue Édouard-Tremblay and avenue Maximilien-Robespierre.

What's special about this station? It will be built in the Coteau Marcel-Rosette park, and promises to blend seamlessly into the landscape. " Its entrance is designed under a concrete vault, giving passengers the impression of plunging into a natural grotto beneath the park," explains Société du Grand Paris, in charge of designing and building the Grand Paris public transport network, on its website. "The interior of the station, a blend of vegetation and minerals, is fitted out with shotcrete walls inspired by the technique used to recreate the Chauvet cave. To create the perfect illusion, the workers " reconstituted geological accidents and faults ", explained Choukri Atsouli, project manager for Société du Grand Paris, during a visit to the residents of Vitry-sur-Seine last December, relayed by the local authority.

• To be read
• Grand Paris Express: the network's future sections and overhead stations
• Line 14: the extension now inaugurated, what you need to know about the new stations
• Grand Paris Express: inauguration of line 15 Sud postponed to summer 2026

Behind this giant cave-like station, which will descend to a depth of 25 meters, is thearchitectural firm King Kong, whose philosophy is"to inscribe each creation imaginatively in its environment".

Once the " grotto station " is completed, artist Abdelkader Benchamma will paint directly onto the concrete walls. As reported in Le Parisien, the artist will have the pleasure of covering around 600 m² of the station with acrylic paint, out of a total of 2,500 m². The blue, brown and ochre highlights will transform the station into a veritable grotto in the heart of the Val-de-Marne region.

Note that the Mairie de Vitry-sur-Seine station is scheduled to welcome its first passengers at the end of 2025.

Grand Paris Express: inauguration of line 15 Sud postponed to summer 2026
With 75 km of track, it will be the longest metro line in France! Anticipated by many residents of the Paris region, line 15 will run all around Paris, crossing no less than 45 communes. While the opening of the southern section was announced for the end of 2025, its commissioning has now been postponed until summer 2026. The inauguration of the Eastern and Western sections is scheduled for 2031. Here's everything you need to know about the future Grand Paris Express metro line, which will carry over 1.5 million passengers every day. [Read more]