Euralille is an urban quarter in the centre of

Lille Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France region, the prefecture of the N ...

, France. Conceived as a major European business district in the 1980s, it is strategically located at the intersection of the high-speed railway lines linking

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

, and

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, and incorporates the

Gare de Lille Europe Lille-Europe station (French: ''Gare de Lille-Europe'') is a SNCF railway station in Lille, France, on the LGV Nord high-speed railway. The station is primarily used for international Eurostar and long-distance SNCF TGV services, although some h ...

and

Gare de Lille Flandres Lille-Flandres station (French: ''Gare de Lille-Flandres'', Dutch: ''Rijsel Vlaanderen'') is the main railway station of Lille, capital of French Flanders. It is a terminus for SNCF Intercity and regional trains. It opened in 1842 as the ''Gare de ...

railway stations. The master plan was commissioned in 1988 to the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) led by Rem Koolhaas. Netherlands Architecture Institute
"Euralille and the Grand Palais"
retrieved 27 April 2013

Masterplan

The masterplan comprised an area of 120 hectares, and proposed a program of 800,000 square metres of floor area for various urban activities, including shopping, offices, hotels and housing, a concert hall and a congress centre. The planned functional mix has been subject to change and in 2006 comprised 40% office, 20% residential and 40% amenities space. The masterplan defined several distinct areas: a mixed-use precinct comprising a shopping mall named ''Triangle des Gares'' designed by

Jean Nouvel Jean Nouvel (; born 12 August 1945) is a French architect. Nouvel studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was a founding member of ''Mars 1976'' and '' Syndicat de l'Architecture'', France’s first labor union for architects. He has o ...

, the TGV station designed by Jean-Marie Duthilleul with two office towers above by architects

Christian de Portzamparc Christian de Portzamparc (; born 5 May 1944) is a French architect and urbanist. He graduated from the École Nationale des Beaux Arts in Paris in 1970 and has since been noted for his bold designs and artistic touch; his projects reflect a ...

and

Claude Vasconi Claude Vasconi (24 June 1940 - 8 December 2009) was a French architect. Vasconi was born in Rosheim, and was educated at the ''Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts et de l'Industrie'' in Strasbourg. In 1964, he set up office in Paris. After desi ...

, a park designed by

Gilles Clément Gilles Clément (born at Argenton-sur-Creuse, Indre, France in 1943), is a French gardener, garden designer, botanist, entomologist and writer. He is the author of several concepts in the framework of landscaping of the end of the twentieth cent ...

and a congress centre known as the ''Grand Palais'' designed by OMA. The masterplan also re-organized the infrastructure, a complicated junction of various transportation systems. The initial development area has been extended since 2000 by another 22 hectares, named Euralille 2.

Project development

The project was financed as a private-public partnership, established in 1990. The ambitious program was delayed in part because of the mid-1990s real-estate market crisis.Bruinsma et al (2008)
''Railway development: impacts on urban dynamics''
Physica Verlag Heidelberg The first phase of the project opened in 1994 and continued to expand in the following decade. After the '' Tour de Lille'' and '' Tour Lilleurope'' office towers were completed in 1995, the Suite Hôtel was completed in 2005.Lille Metropole Development Agency
"Euralille from end to end"
retrieved 27 April 2013

References

External links

Euralille presentation
by the Lille Metropole Development Agency
Zénith de Lille
official website
Lille Grand Palais
official website {{coord, 50, 38, 11, N, 3, 4, 29, E, display=title Lille

Masterplan

Project development

References

Further reading

External links