viaduc des arts + promenade plantee Patrick Berger
The Viaduc des Arts or Paris Viaducts reclaims an abandoned and derelict rail line no longer in use by the city and reactivate them by way interventions of local businesses and pedestrian based activities. The historic urban railway, was conceived in 1858 as part of Napoleon III and Baron Haussman’s plans for Paris improvements. The rail line, or Bastille line, ran off of the Petite Cienture, a line circling much of central Paris, running from the Bastille terminus to the Bois de Vincennes of the Eastern side of the city. In 1969 the Bastille terminus was closed, but the rail line continued to be used until the mid 1980’s due to its access to the access of a prominent storage yard. Upon its full closure, the city of Paris’s planning department sought to re-develop the rail line that existed within the city limits, but with other public works projects moving to the fore front, the project constantly became sidelined and postponed any real development to the area. With a revision of the cities redevelopment policy and the creation of Atelier Parisian d’Urbanism (APUR) – Paris’s urban design agency- the under utilized rail line underwent a greater analysis which allowed the development of a more sensitive approach to the ailing and vacant rail line. In 1981, the newly elected socialists government proposed new plans to rationalize and simplify the rail network running through Paris, thus leading to the sale of the Bastille line to the city. With the sale to the city and grand projects being proposed by President Mitterrand, a new Opera was to be built on the existing site of the Bastille terminus, the idea of turning the Bastille line into an urban asset started to come into play. With APURs desire to green the city, and the new Opera being constructed at the Bastille terminus, the old Bastille line held enormous potential, being that the retained viaduct arches could provide spaces for small business, and the viaduct itself was elevated above the streets, which could be converted for reactivation by landscape and pedestrian movement. With the sale of the land to the city being final, a few more small adjacent
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sites adjoining the viaduct were also acquired, allowing for access points to be developed. Upon this APUR had started work on its master plan for the old viaduct. Patrick Berger, a French architect and planner, worked with APURs master plan, and saw the potential in the existing forms of the vaulted aqueducts. The original structure was to be respected and restrained from as much change as possible. Using the large vaults as a base for development, each was developed into spaces for small business and local shops, catering to the market that existed with the Bastille Opera nearby. Atop the vaulted viaduct, the leftover rail line was turned into a linear park, Promenade Plantee, removing pedestrians from the traffic noise and exhaust of the street and providing unexpected views into the city. The Promenade Plantee, created in 1988 by Philippe Mathieux, and Jacques Vegely, and architect and landscaper, mixed areas of vegetation and landscaping paralleled pedestrian paths was inaugurated in 1993, making it the only existing elevated park until the arrival of the High Line Park in 2010. The route of the Promenade, passes between modern buildings along with open sections which offer excellent views of the city runs for about 3 miles, connecting the Bois de Vincennes on one end to the Place de la Bastille on the other, opening to the Bastille Opera. One mile of the Promenade is elevated above the Viaduct des Arts, with the majority of the line running at various elevations from 30 feet to ground level, offering pedestrians and cyclists a green linear path through Paris’s 12th arrondissement.
Relevancies This project is relevant to its reuse of vacant space in terms of transit infrastructure. The conversion of old, derelict transit structure into spaces for local business and the addition of a elevated linear park, while maintaining the historical context in which it is built offers valuable insight into how to design for sites with such complexities. Looking at what these
sites offer in terms of opportunity instead of just focusing on what the current issues and problems are, allow the design to thrive and embrace the existing infrastructure as a means for both social and economic sustainability. With the addition of the Bastille Opera, the linkage became an important to how people would get to the it, this offered a reason for developing the viaduct as it would capture the existing movement passing through the site. This is something that exists in a sense in the current site of my thesis, with the Eastbank Esplanade circulating around the river, already having a high pedestrian and cyclist activity. However the challenge lies in the general speed and activity already taking place, people heading to the opera or going to the building as possible tourists travel at slower paces, often wandering and in a state of exploration. Whereas at the current site of East Portland under the I-5 Freeway, the pace is much faster, people are running and cycling and sometimes walking, they are operating in a state of fitness, so creating program that operates to current adjacent activity could be a more plausible proposal. However, creating new program could bring in new types of pedestrians, leading to a greater reactivation of space. [2]