Maison Blanche (Paris Métro)

Maison Blanche station () is a station of the Paris Métro, serving lines 7 and 14. South of this station, Line 7 forks into two branches, one leading to and the other to . Since June 2024, it is an interchange with Line 14 running southwards to Aéroport d'Orly.

Location

The line 7 station is located under Avenue d'Italie, between Rue Caillaux and Rue Bourgon, near Porte d'Italie, a gate in the former Thiers Wall. Towards the south, this is the last station on the common trunk of line 7 before the branches separate, thanks to an underground grade-separated junction located after the station, one towards ''Mairie d'Ivry'' and the other towards ''Villejuif-Louis Aragon''. Oriented approximately along a north-south axis, it is positioned between ''Tolbiac'' on the one hand and ''Porte d'Italie'' (towards Ivry) or ''Le Kremlin-Bicêtre'' (towards Villejuif) on the other. On line 14, the station is between ''Olympiades'' and ''Hôpital Bicêtre''.

The line 14 station is located about deep between Rue Caillaux and Rue Tagore, along Avenue d'Italie, east of the current metro station of Line 7.

Access to the Line 14 and Line 7 platforms is from the centre of a large forecourt where the entrance to the metro is located. Travelers can use escalators or elevators to access the platforms. From the platforms, the connections are via the mezzanine.

The surface forecourt provides access to the T3a tram line or the Porte d'Italie bus hub. It also hosts a Véligo station.

History

Original station

It opened as part of a planned section of Line 7, which was temporarily operated as part of Line 10 until the completion of the under-Seine crossing of Line 7 from Pont de Sully to Place Monge. On 7 March 1930, the line was extended from Place d'Italie to Porte de Choisy, including ''Maison Blanche''. The station was integrated into line 7 on 26 April 1931. The station is named after the district, which got its name from a hotel of the same name, which is French for "White House".

Along with Place des Fêtes, a prototype air raid shelter was added to the station in 1935 to protect it from chemical attacks and was fitted with airtight doors to allow the people to take refuge inside in the event of an attack. They were chosen because of their proximity to the heavily-populated working-class districts.

An attack was perpetrated by a terrorist group (GIA) near the station on 6 October 1995. A gas cylinder placed in a trash can was discovered by a postman, but it exploded while the police set up a security perimeter; the toll was 18 injured. The place was chosen to reference the circumstances of the arrest of Khaled Kelkal, one of the main instigators of the RER B attack in Saint-Michel. A few days earlier, on 29 September 1995, the police had shot Kelkal during his arrest at a place called Maison Blanche, near Vaugneray (Rhône).

As part of RATP's ''Renouveau du métro'' renewal program, the station corridors and platform lighting were renovated on 4 October 2006.

In 2019, 1,803,381 travellers entered this station, which placed it at the 259th position of 302 among the metro stations for its number of visitors.

Extension of line 14

Early plans to extend Line 14 south from Paris included the possibility of taking over the existing Line 7 branch from the station to Villejuif – Louis Aragon, which opened in the early 1980s.

In the 2010s, discussions took place regarding whether to extend Line 14 further south to Orly Airport. The declaration of public utility was in 2016, allowing construction on the extension to begin. The extension was originally planned to be completed in 2027, however delivery was accelerated to 2024 following the awarding of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The preparatory work at Maison Blanche took place from November 2016 until the end of 2017. The construction of the station began in 2018 for commissioning in 2024. It was awarded in March 2018 to Léon Grosse in a consortium with Soletanche Bachy France. Tunnelling work was completed in March 2021, with the arrival of a tunnel boring machine at Maison Blanche. In April 2023, testing of trains on the Line 14 extension began, with an opening date of 24 June 2024 set.

Maison Blanche is the only station built in Paris as part of the Grand Paris Express, under the contracting authority of RATP.

The design of the station is entrusted to the consortium led by the engineers SETEC TPI and SYSTRA as well as to Mark Wilson of the Groupe-6 architecture firm.

Architecture and art

Californian artist and environmentalist sculptor Ned Kahn created an art installation overlooking the station in coordination with Mark Wilson. The work called ''River of Air'' is made of stainless steel and flexible sheets of ETFE (ethylene tetrafluoroethylene) which will wave and reflect the sunlight above two of the station entrances. The height of the masts supporting the structure will be and the sail will be long and wide.

Passenger services

Access

The station has three entrances in front of no's 103, 144 and 162 in the Avenue d'Italie.

A fourth entrance, located at no. 119, was closed in November 2019 to allow the construction of the line 14 station. In return, the entrance located at no. 162 was rebuilt from 2016 to 2019 and provided with an escalator to exit the station.

Station layout

Platforms

Maison Blanche is a standard configuration station. It has two platforms separated by the metro tracks and the vault is elliptical. The decoration is of the style used for the majority of metro stations. The lighting canopies are white and rounded in the ''Gaudin'' style of the ''renouveau du métro des années 2000'' renewal, and the bevelled white ceramic tiles cover the upright wall, the vault and the tunnel exits. The advertising frames are in honey-coloured faience and the name of the station is also in earthenware. The seats are ''Motte'' style in a blue colour.

Bus connections

The station is served by line 47 and by the urban service ''La Traverse Bièvre Montsouris'' of the RATP Bus Network.

Culture

The station serves as the backdrop for an important scene from Günter Grass's novel ''The Tin Drum'' (1960), in which the hero, Oscar Matzerath, sees the inspectors coming to arrest him as he walks towards the exit using the escalator.

Nearby

* Quartier asiatique
* Quartier de la Maison-Blanche

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maison Blanche (Paris Metro)
Paris Métro stations in the 13th arrondissement of Paris
Railway stations in France opened in 1930
Railway stations in France opened in 2024
Accessible Paris Métro stations
Paris Métro line 14