Grand Paris Express
Europe's largest infrastructure and development project, the Grand Paris Express will create four new automatic metro lines covering 200 kilometres and 68 stations, designed by the best contemporary architects between now and 2030. Supported by the Société des grands projets (SGP), a public body set up by the French government in 2010.
From 2017 to 2024, Manifesto was part of the winning team led by José-Manuel Gonçalvès, alongside Centquatre-Paris and the Eva Albarran & Co agency. More specifically, Manifesto was the consortium's representative, responsible for the legal and administrative aspects, the functional programming of a cultural space within the Saint-Denis Pleyel station and the development of the project's resources. With more than €4 million already raised since 2017, the Endowment Fund can support new artistic and cultural projects in the Greater Paris region.
The Grand Paris Express is the biggest construction project of the century, with more than 500 works to be completed by 2030. To reinforce its urban, social and environmental role, it has culture and creativity at its heart. L'art du Grand Paris encompasses a collection of works of art and illustrations in the stations of the Grand Paris Express and a programme of cultural activities with Parisians around the route of the new metro. It connects regions, local authorities, residents, artists and local players, with the aim of developing a shared imagination around the arrival of the metro.
To test and anticipate the arrival of the metro, a programme of artistic and cultural activities has been developed around the Grand Paris Express construction sites. Artistic residency projects have been set up in towns crossed by the Grand Paris Express. The aim of these residencies is to involve artists, local players and local residents in artistic or cultural projects that foreshadow the arrival of the metro in the Greater Paris region.
At the same time, the organisation of major artistic and popular events at the construction sites provides an opportunity to involve local residents in this great adventure, while celebrating the Grand Paris Express and its key milestones. These events include construction site parties called KM (kilometres travelled by the tunnel boring machines) at various sites such as KM1 at Clamart, KM2 at Cachan, KM3 at Champigny, KM4 along the future line 16, KM5 at Le Bourget, KM6 at Vitry-sur-Seine, KM7 at Saint-Denis and KM8 at Villejuif. These major events will give local residents the chance to discover their future station and make it their own.
Original collaborations, based on the principle of artists and architects working in tandem, will add a poetic dimension to the network's 68 new stations and give rise to a major collection of art and architecture for Greater Paris. The first images of these works have been revealed to the press and the general public: Prune Nourry , Jeppe Hein, Noémie Goudal, JR, Hicham Berrada, Susanna Fritscher, Ange Leccia, Ned Kahn, Ryoji Ikeda, Iván Navarro, Berger & Berger, Stéphane Thidet, Laurent Grasso...
Some completed projects
The creation of an immersive work by Tobias Rehberger to a set by Thylacine was unveiled at Nuit Blanche 2016 on the Île Saint-Germain. The Gyrotope installation by Pablo Valbuena was then presented in Brussels before making a stopover at the Le Bourget construction site.
The Grand Paris Express was featured as part of the Lieux Infinis project organised by Encore Heureux at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, and at Bap! Biennale d'architecture et de paysage de Versailles in spring 2019, and at BAP! 2022, where an immersive exhibition will be dedicated to it.
From November 2023 to June 2024, the exhibition Métro! Le Grand Paris en mouvement at the Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine drew more than 120,000 visitors.