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“This is a building with no facade!” proclaims Dominique Perrault gleefully as he ushers a gaggle of journalists around his latest achievement, the gargantuan Gare de Villejuif-Gustave Roussy. A major interchange on the Grand Paris Express, the French capital’s new suburban metro network, the station currently serves the extended Line 14, which now links the center to Orly Airport. Once the orbital Line 15 comes into service next year, an estimated 100,000 passengers daily will change trains here. Located in the southern suburb of Villejuif, in the middle of a new public plaza connecting the Institut Gustave Roussy (a hospital specializing in cancer treatment) to the Parc des Hautes-Bruyères, the station is indeed bereft of a facade in the accepted sense, appearing above ground like a candidate for London’s annual Serpentine Pavilion commission. Raised up high on steel poles, two rings of metal-mesh brise-soleils provide a minimum of weather protection as they draw travelers in toward the entrances, with access gates sandwiched between steel-and-glass cabins containing shops and station facilities.

Photo © Michel Denance/Dominique Perrault Architecte, ADAGP

Photo © Michel Denance/Dominique Perrault Architecte, ADAGP

Once over the threshold, passengers discover a rather pretty circular folded roof in ETFE that hovers above a giant void into which they must now descend. The interchange is located 160 feet below ground, where Lines 14 and 15 cross, each in its own rectangular concrete tube. The station itself is also a concrete tube, an enormous cylinder—the geometric form that requires the least material, Perrault explains—with walls over three feet thick and a diameter of 230 feet. Lining its perimeter are all sorts of technical spaces as well as some below-ground retail, while a spectacular set of escalators crisscrosses its open center, making for a truly thrilling descent. Augmenting the vertiginous theatricality, the finishes include light-gray raw concrete, metal mesh, and a lot of polished steel, all of which are intended to keep gloom at bay by reflecting the light that issues from the tough-nosed lamps designed by Perrault’s partner, Gaëlle Lauriot-Prévost. Once at the very bottom, passengers can enjoy a little “starshine” in the form of Ivan Navarro’s ceiling-mounted artwork Cadran Solaire, which features yellow LED tubes set in Dibond mirrors and spells out the names of a galaxy of celestial bodies. Villejuif-Gustave Roussy is not alone in its artistic leanings, since all 68 new stations on the Grand Paris Express will include specially commissioned interventions.

Photo © Michel Denance/Dominique Perrault Architecte, ADAGP

As well as having no facade, Perrault’s station is entirely open to the air, which obviates the need for mechanical smoke-evacuation systems. He is unable to say how much the station cost—too complicated to calculate, he grumbles—though, back in 2018, the regional newspaper Le Parisien estimated the bill at around $270 million. Proof that this kind of heavy-duty infrastructure is still what France does best, the building appeared particularly impressive during construction, a powerful hulk of raw Piranesian concrete. Such bold gestures are also a Perrault specialty, one he illustrated with a concept drawing that showed the Roman Pantheon buried underground, the oculus at the summit of its dome forming a well that opened up into the bowels of the earth. 

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