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Here’s the story of the most Instagrammable subway station in Paris

Published on 12 avril 2025 at 07h30

by The Editor

© Celli07 / Shutterstock

At Bonbon, we are bursting with delightful little stories about the City of Light, and we love sharing them with you. Today, we’ve decided to tell you the tale of this station that many consider to be the most beautiful in the capital, and for good reason. Let’s head to lines 3 and 11!

If you've been hanging out for a while in the Paris metro tunnels (and oh! how we respect you for that), you've definitely passed through the Arts et Métiers station at least once, located on two lines of the network. It's an extraordinary stop that catches your attention with its remarkable decoration, instantly transporting us to another world. But where does this unique design come from that almost makes us want to learn to love the metro? Let us tell you.

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90 Years of Uniformity

Every day, the Arts et Métiers station sees thousands of travelers passing through, whether on line 3 or line 11. Most of them are Parisians running late for work or in a hurry to get home, who don’t even bother to lift their heads when the train arrives at this station.

It's not like any other. Yet, it’s worth the detour, this station. From floor to ceiling, the walls are covered in huge riveted copper plates. Above our heads, gigantic interlocking gears are all around us.

Yet, when it opened in 1904, it was just your typical station, with its white angled tiles on the walls. It took 90 years and the celebration of the bicentennial of the Conservatoire national des Arts et Métiers (which is home to the museum of the same name), from which the nearby station gets its name, for it to transform and take on the look of a submarine that seems to have popped right out of the works of Jules Verne.


Art at Your Fingertips

So, in 1994, as part of a partnership between the museum and the RATP, the station was completely reimagined to pay tribute to the engineers and technicians who have walked the halls of the Conservatoire. And it’s theBelgian comic book artist and writer François Schuiten is appointed to head this project, and envisions this retro-futuristic vibe that is now making the station famous.

The aesthetics of the stop, while heavily inspired by the artist's own works, also draws inspiration from the Nautilus described by Jules Verne in the novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. The curves and brass portholes evoke this mode of transport and exploration, and each one hosts a miniature exhibition showcasing technological and scientific advancements. A unique aesthetic, pushed to the smallest details, as even the trash bins match and the wooden seats are coordinated, making this station a true underground museum.

But Arts et Métiers is not the only station to create such a bridge between art and the Parisian transport system. Indeed, each of the stations has its own...

e;té thought of as a clean work of art, especially with the creation of édicules at their entrances, true symbols of Art Nouveau. We can also mention Louvre-Rivoli station, which showcases reproductions of works from the world's most famous museum directly on the platform. So, for our next exhibit, shall we discover line 4 ?

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