Gare du Nord
Gare du Nord, gateway to the Eurostar, has had a few incarnations, as well as embarrassments. The first Gare du Nord was by a professor of architecture at the Ecole Polytechnique, Leonce Reynaud. It was inaugurated on 14 June 1846, and a short 14 years later was partially demolished due to a lack of space. This undercutting was highlighted when Queen Victoria (whose reign was longer than any British Monarch, or, for that matter, any female monarch in the world) toddled over for a visit to Paris with her enormous entourage. Needless to say, Paris was chagrined to have to re-route her train to Gare de l’Est (although whether she noticed is unknown. The two stations are quite close to one another). What’s left of the first Gare du Nord can be found in Lille, where the original façade is on view.
To remedy this, in 1857 the decision was made to build a station three times larger. German-born architect Jacques Ignace Hittorff set to work in May 1861 and the current station started functioning as early as 1864, whilst still under construction. When compared to Haussmann, Hittorff is little known, yet he played a significant role in the city of lights. From planning the Place de la Concorde as we know it, to designing the buildings which encircle the l’arc de Triomphe, Hittorff had been trained at the Académie des Beaux-Arts, and apprenticed under draughtsman Charles Percier (1764 – 1838). Hittorff was also called to London to participate in a panel at the British Museum to discern whether the Elgin Marbles, stolen from the Parthenon, were originally coloured (they were, as was Notre Dame). Both successfully and unsuccessfully, Hittorff merged Cast Iron and Glass, with conservative Beaux-Arts classicism in a career that spanned the decades from the Restoration to the Second Empire.
His version of Gare du Nord is what we have today: Twenty three statues representing the cities served by the company which decorate the façade, the most impressive of those personifying international destinations (London, Berlin, Warsaw, Amsterdam, Vienna and Bruxelles). The support pillars inside (and photographed here) were made in Scotland, the only country with a foundry sufficient for the task.
In 1884 five tracks were added, in 1889 the eastern extension for suburban lines was built. Again, further expansions took place between 1930 and the 1960s. It’s not the largest train station in the world, but by number of travelers (approximately 180 million per year) it is certainly the busiest station in Europe and possibly the third busiest railway station in the world (first two are apparently in Japan). With such hustle and bustle, Gare du Nord makes for an appropriate place to get lost – or spy. Matt Damon was filmed doing both there as Jason Bourne in the first of the multi-city spy films, “The Bourne Identity” as well as the trilogy’s final, “The Bourne Ultimatum”. Next time you arrive on the Eurostar (who’s celebrating their 15 year anniversary this year), stop for a coffee on the balcony to have a look – at commuters, at columns, at solid 19th century Glass and Iron.
Hopefully on this page all of Paris’s main railway stations will be covered, as well as Hittorff (for Paris’s Iron and Glass 19th century theme), as well as Hittorff’s better known rival, the city planner and engineer, Georges Eugène Haussmann (1809-1891). For now, though, I’ll leave you with one last Parisian tidbit:
Of the 6 main railway stations, Gare du Nord is the only not to have a sweeping, wide, tree-lined, grand boulevard introducing it. Those boulevards that define Paris. Those boulevards that Washington DC, and many other cities adopted. That’s because Hittorff and Haussmann hated one another.