Roadside Attraction: Viaduc des Arts in Paris---- Abandoned Infrastructure Comes Alive

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Old structures, and old infrastructure, represent one of the most underutilized resources in modern cities.  The Viaduc des Arts in the 12th Arrondissement of Paris, not far from the new Paris Opera building, catches your eye when you visit the city late in the 20th century.  During a week's stay, you're so taken with the place you visit it twice.  Even on a rainy day, it feels magnetic and alive...

The Viaduc des Arts, together with the Promenade Plantée above it, finds a new purpose for a railway line opened in 1859 and abandoned 110 years later.  Architect Patrick Berger's proposal was accepted in 1988 by the city, and it centered on the idea of using the 1.5 kilometers of viaduct with its 64 brick and stone arches to provide a theme for a new kind of urban space.

Renovation of the spaces beneath the arches began in 1994, and they were all occupied by 1997, the year of my visit, by restaurants and cafés, artists' studios and galleries, and a tourist office. Architect Berger recessed full-height glazing on each side of the vaulted spaces for dramatic shadow lines, and for a transparent connection linking the pedestrian spaces flanking the viaduct.

Above the renovated arches stretching along Avenue Daumesnil, landscape architect Jacques Vergely and architect Philippe Mathieux created a linear park linking the Place de la Bastille to the Bois de Vincennes.  Stairways ascending from the shops, restaurants and galleries under the arches reveal a green, landscaped space with seating at key vantage points.  The park was designed in 1988 and opened to the public in 1993.

The linear park provides the visual intrigue of looking out at the city's buildings and some of  its heretofore hidden spaces from a height of around ten meters.  Sometimes the resulting vantage points remind you of perspectives by Piranesi...

…and sometimes they are like dreams, as with this wayside niche tucked away in the lush greenery along the garden path.

Through a curtain of leaves and branches you catch a glimpse of a postmodern police headquarters building...

Beyond the trees you catch a better glimpse of the building, a neo-Streamline Moderne design from 1991 by architect Manolo Nunez-Yanowsky, which features statues based upon Michelangelo's "Death of a Slave" buttressing the two inset stories at the top...

This rounded, stepped-back corner overlooks the intersection of Avenue Daumesnil and Rue de Rambouillet. 

Continuing your walk, you pass through a shady arbor into a garden organized around a long reflecting pool, flanked by apartment buildings reflecting a variety of styles and eras.

The Promenade Plantée was one of the locations used during filming of Before Sunset in 2003, with Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke, perhaps because director Richard Linklater appreciated visual romance and spatial intrigue as a backdrop for his tale of emotional intrigue. 

The architects and landscape designers used happenstance and juxtapositions of existing features, like the dramatic gap between two apartment buildings above, to lend drama to features like the modern suspension bridge that aligns with it...

Your nearly mile-long meander through the Promenade Plantée finally sends you across a modern pedestrian bridge into a green bowl of a park surrounded by apartments, restaurants and shops. On a warm spring day, joggers pass over a lawn populated by strolling families, kids kicking soccer balls, and couples walking dogs. Your walk, like the realized vision of the architects and landscape designers, knits together perspectives of a complex, active and vibrant city into something like a template for urban community in the 21st century.  Later projects, like the High Line in New York City, may have taken their inspiration from this brave decision to bring an old piece of infrastructure, and the potential of a whole neighborhood, alive.

*Footnote:  We journeyed deeper into the past for the Paris street scenes in "Lost Roadside Attraction: 70s Car Shows on Paris Streets and at the Parc des Expos",  posted April 19, 2021.  

Photo Credits:
Top, 6th from top, 11th from top (Police Bldg.): Wikimedia 

4th from top:  semaest.fr

12th from top:  Flickr.com

All other photos:  the author