Technology and Planning: The Invalides Train Station Project in Paris (1889-1902)

Designed by Just Lisch for the 1900 Exposition Universelle, the Invalides train station gave the French western railway company a more central terminus in Paris, right next to the exhibition pavilions and the river Seine. From 1893 onwards, the project was fiercely opposed by defenders of Parisian heritage, who denounced the disfigurement of the Invalides square and its neighbourhood. In the end, the company abandoned the idea of an Orsay-like monumental project, presenting a discreet floorlevel building inspired by the traditional orangerie, hiding the transport activity below to facilitate its integration into a prestigious district comprising several monuments and places of power. To a certain extent, the case study is quite typical of how railways managed to integrate the urban fabric in the long 19th century. The industrial nature of train stations meant that transitions and seams between spaces and with the urban fabric had to be considered, as well as the containment of certain nuisances likely to spill over into the surrounding neighbourhood. This case also bears witness to new dynamics, such as the emergence of a sensibility to architectural heritage, the intensification of smoke abatement in urban policies, and a new conception of modernity powered by electricity.