Auber (Paris RER)
Encyclopedia
Auber is a station on Line A
RER A
The RER A is one of the five lines in the RER rapid transit system serving :Paris, France.The line runs from the western terminuses Saint-Germain-en-Laye , Cergy Le Haut , and Poissy to the eastern terminuses Boissy-Saint-Léger and Marne-la-Vallée – Chessy .* First inauguration: 12 December 1969*...

 of the RER
RER
The RER is a rapid transit system in France serving Paris and its suburbs. The RER is an integration of a modern city-centre underground rail and a pre-existing set of commuter rail lines. It has several connections with the Paris Métro within the city of Paris. Within the city, the RER...

 in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

. Opened on 23 November 1971 it was at the time the largest underground station in the world, and represents a feat of underground engineering.

The station comprises a main train hall with a superposed ticket hall, together with an extensive network of particularly spacious tunnels connecting to the neighbouring métro stations Opéra
Opéra (Paris Metro)
Opéra is a station of the Paris Métro, named after the nearby Opera Garnier, built by the architect Charles Garnier. It is located at the end of the Avenue de l'Opera, one of the accesses being opposite the Opera, and serves the district of the Boulevard Haussmann...

, Havre-Caumartin and Saint-Lazare
Saint-Lazare (Paris Metro)
Saint-Lazare is a station on lines 3, 12, 13 and 14 of the Paris Métro on the border of the 8th and 9th arrondissements. It is the second busiest station of the metro system and is the western terminus of line 14....

, as well as Haussmann - Saint-Lazare
Haussmann - Saint-Lazare (Paris RER)
Haussmann — Saint-Lazare is a station on the RER in Paris. Opened on 12 July 1999 as the terminus of the new Line E, it is situated beneath Boulevard Haussmann and directly connected to Gare Saint-Lazare, Auber RER, and two metro stations.-Engineering:...

 on the RER Line E
RER E
The RER E is one of the five lines in the RER rapid transit system serving :Paris, France. The line runs from the western terminus Haussmann St-Lazare to the eastern terminuses Chelles-Gournay and Tournan...

.

It takes its name from the rue Auber, under which it is situated. This street is in turn named after the 19th-century composer Daniel-François-Esprit Auber.

Engineering

Auber is built in the style of the traditional vaulted métro station as pioneered by Fulgence Bienvenüe
Fulgence Bienvenüe
Fulgence Bienvenüe was a French civil engineer, best known for his role in the construction of the Paris Métro....

, with central tracks and lateral platforms. The difference in engineering terms is that Auber (along with Charles de Gaulle - Étoile
Charles de Gaulle - Étoile (Paris Metro and RER)
Charles de Gaulle – Étoile is a station on Paris Métro Line 1 and of the RER urban rail network. It lies on the boundary of the VIIIe and XVIIe arrondissements of Paris...

 and Nation
Nation (Paris Metro and RER)
Nation is a station of the Paris Métro and of Île-de-France's regional high-speed RER. It serves lines 1, 2, 6 and 9 of the Paris Métro and line A of the RER....

 stations) was constructed at depth, entirely underground, and on a far larger scale than any métro station.

In order to build the 225‑m-long, 24‑m-wide train hall and its even more immense piggy-backing ticket hall, it was necessary to excavate a cavity 40 m wide, 20 m high and 250 m long—and this 30 m underneath the busy city centre in unstable waterlogged sedimentary rock. The resulting station is cathedral-like in proportions, with a ticket hall so spacious that there is even room for a mezzanine
Mezzanine (architecture)
In architecture, a mezzanine or entresol is an intermediate floor between main floors of a building, and therefore typically not counted among the overall floors of a building. Often, a mezzanine is low-ceilinged and projects in the form of a balcony. The term is also used for the lowest balcony in...

. The entire construction is waterproofed on both sides by a 7‑m-thick, 10‑m-high abutment of concrete in which are contained escalators linking the two levels.

The station's eccentrically audacious scale and damp setting earned it references as "the world's largest submarine". With the other two deep single-vaulted stations on the RER Line A it has been retrospectively criticised on cost grounds, and in 2007 was in need of modernisation. However, Auber seems a good example of a planning policy attached to grand public spaces that was particularly current in the 1960s and in France. It is certainly possible to make a defence of the station on the basis of its originality and its sheer spaciousness.

Records

Auber forms part of a complex of connected underground stations (see hereafter). Due to the scale of Auber in particular, this ensemble can probably claim to be the largest underground station in the world in terms of volume.

Connected stations

  • Haussmann - St-Lazare
    • RER Line E
      RER E
      The RER E is one of the five lines in the RER rapid transit system serving :Paris, France. The line runs from the western terminus Haussmann St-Lazare to the eastern terminuses Chelles-Gournay and Tournan...

  • Havre-Caumartin
    • Metro
      Rapid transit
      A rapid transit, underground, subway, elevated railway, metro or metropolitan railway system is an electric passenger railway in an urban area with a high capacity and frequency, and grade separation from other traffic. Rapid transit systems are typically located either in underground tunnels or on...

       Line 3
      Paris Metro Line 3
      Line 3 is one of the sixteen lines of the Paris Métro rapid transit system in Paris, France. Connecting Pont de Levallois - Bécon station in the near western suburbs to Gallieni in the east, the location of Paris' international bus station...

    • Metro Line 9
      Paris Metro Line 9
      Paris Métro Line 9 is one of 16 lines of the Paris Métro. The line links Pont de Sèvres in Boulogne in the west with Montreuil in the east. It is the fourth busiest line on the network....

  • Opéra
    Opéra (Paris Metro)
    Opéra is a station of the Paris Métro, named after the nearby Opera Garnier, built by the architect Charles Garnier. It is located at the end of the Avenue de l'Opera, one of the accesses being opposite the Opera, and serves the district of the Boulevard Haussmann...

     (Metro)
    • Metro Line 3
      Paris Metro Line 3
      Line 3 is one of the sixteen lines of the Paris Métro rapid transit system in Paris, France. Connecting Pont de Levallois - Bécon station in the near western suburbs to Gallieni in the east, the location of Paris' international bus station...

    • Metro Line 7
      Paris Metro Line 7
      Paris Métro Line 7 is one of sixteen lines of the Paris Métro system. Crossing the capital from its north-eastern to south-eastern sections via a moderately curved path, it links La Courneuve – 8 Mai 1945 in the north with Mairie d'Ivry and Villejuif – Louis Aragon in the south, while passing...

    • Metro Line 8
      Paris Metro Line 8
      Paris Métro Line 8 is one of 16 metro lines in Paris, France. It connects the Balard station in southwestern Paris, to Créteil – Préfecture station in Créteil, a town south-east of the French capital, following a parabolic route on the right bank of Seine River...

  • Saint-Augustin
    Saint-Augustin (Paris Metro)
    Saint-Augustin is a station that serves Line 9 of the Paris Métro, named after the Place Saint-Augustin and the Saint-Augustin church. The station opened on 27 May 1923 with the extension of the line from Trocadéro....

    • Metro Line 9
      Paris Metro Line 9
      Paris Métro Line 9 is one of 16 lines of the Paris Métro. The line links Pont de Sèvres in Boulogne in the west with Montreuil in the east. It is the fourth busiest line on the network....

  • Saint-Lazare
    Saint-Lazare (Paris Metro)
    Saint-Lazare is a station on lines 3, 12, 13 and 14 of the Paris Métro on the border of the 8th and 9th arrondissements. It is the second busiest station of the metro system and is the western terminus of line 14....

    • Metro Line 3
      Paris Metro Line 3
      Line 3 is one of the sixteen lines of the Paris Métro rapid transit system in Paris, France. Connecting Pont de Levallois - Bécon station in the near western suburbs to Gallieni in the east, the location of Paris' international bus station...

    • Metro Line 12
      Paris Metro Line 12
      Paris Métro Line 12 is one of sixteen metro lines in Paris, France. It links Issy-les-Moulineaux in southern Paris to Porte de la Chapelle in the north. With 72 million journeys per year, Line 12 is the eleventh busiest on the Parisian Métropolitan system...

    • Metro Line 13
      Paris Metro Line 13
      Line 13 is one of the sixteen lines of the Paris Métro rapid transit system. The result of the fusion of the now-extinct Line B of the Nord-Sud Company and the old Line 14 of the CMP. Their creation was destined to be replaced by a north-south RER line before the reorganisation of the...

    • Metro Line 14
      Paris Metro Line 14
      Line 14 of the Paris Métro system connects the stations Saint Lazare and Olympiades on a north-west south-east diagonal across the centre of Paris. It is the twelfth busiest of sixteen lines on the network, and as of 2011, the only one to be operated completely automatically; the second such line...

  • Saint-Lazare
    Gare Saint-Lazare
    Paris Saint-Lazare is one of the six large terminus train stations of Paris. It is the second busiest in Paris, behind the Gare du Nord, handling 274,000 passengers each day.-History:...

     (SNCF)

See also

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