A Metro as a Cultural Space in the City by Odile Heddebout

Status: abstract

The cultural dimension is a key value of the twentieth century occidental society. It represents the ways by which the quality of life and the civilized existence are measured, that is to say the liberty of choice, comfort, communication and information offered to the greatest number of people with a minimum of counterparts from the users.

In this context, the traffic culture indicates how the culture and behaviour of the citizens have conquested the urban space and is represented in their needs of mobility not only for their working travels but also for all kinds of displacements linked with domestic, leisure and conviviality activities. And it is the reason why the traffic networks should be designed such as to take into account all the social, economic and political functions of the City in relation with all the means of transport that will together inter-relate.

The metro, like water or electricity, has become a basic element, natural to the urban life. It is a specific space of the town where the transportation function is, of course, essential, but equally possesses its own social and urban representation. The desire of people who travel in the metro to dispose of a place where quality of life is possible arises as legitimate. It explains why since the sixties some architects have worked on the new needs for design in the public transportation networks.

The Lille VAL metro presents some specific characteristics which integrate the above considerations. In order to understand these results, I will first retrace the process of the decision making which has led to the implementation of a new automatized, urban transport system. I will show how new needs have been set out with this new concept and how they have been resolved in the Lille system.

In a second part of the presentation, I will consider how the construction of the metro has reorganized some quarters in the town and how aesthetical, architectural and artistical treatment have been inserted since the conception and realization of the entire system, that is, vehicle, line and in-door and out-door stations.

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A Metro as a Cultural Space in the City by Odile Heddebout