Stations of the Paris Metro
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 Guimard's Cité Entrance, Paris Métropolitain, Smarthistory
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The Paris Métro comprises 303 stations and 387 train halls (2013). From the original plain white tilework and art nouveau entrances, station decoration has evolved with successive waves of building and renovation.
After experiments with diverse colour schemes, furniture and lighting, since 1999 the programme Renouveau du Métro has seen a reversion to the original design principles of the network. In parallel, line 14 has provided an entirely new template for the stations of the 21st century.
As with all subway systems, Métro entrances are designed firstly to be visible and recognisable. They feature at least a column and a network map. Decorative styles have changed over the years.
In 1899, the Compagnie du chemin de fer métropolitain de Paris (the Paris Metropolitan Railway Company, CMP) launched a competition for the street architecture of the soon-to-be-opened Métro. The winner of the competition was architect Henri Duray. The CMP's president, Adrien Bénard, favored the municipality architect Jean-Camille Formigé. Later he proposed the art nouveau architect Hector Guimard, which was agreed to by the municipality.
Guimard designed two types of entrances to metro stations, with and without glass roofs. Built in cast iron, they make heavy reference to the symbolism of plants and are now considered classic examples of French Art Nouveau architecture. 141 entrances were constructed between 1900 and 1912, of which 86 still exist.
The roofed variety, known as édicules (kiosks) feature a fan-shaped glass awning; many, but not all, also featured an enclosure of opaque panelling decorated in floral motifs (the examples at Gare de Lyon, now destroyed, and at Hôtel de Ville, now located at Abbesses, did not have panelling). The most imposing of these were built at Étoile and Bastille, on opposite sections of the inaugural line 1. Both of these were torn down in the 1960s. Today only two édicules survive, at Porte Dauphine and Abbesses (the latter having been moved from Hôtel de Ville in 1974). A third, replica édicule was erected at Châtelet in 2000.
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