Abbesses Métro Entrance — Guimard Édicule
One of just two glass-roofed “dragonfly” entrances Hector Guimard built for the Paris Métro still standing — though this one travelled across the city to reach Montmartre.
At a glance
The fan-glazed canopy over the Abbesses staircase is a Guimard original, but not native to Montmartre: it stood at the Hôtel de Ville station until 1974, when it was dismantled and re-erected here. Only two of Guimard’s fully roofed glass-and-iron entrances — the édicules — survive; this is one, the other is at Porte Dauphine, and Châtelet carries a modern replica. The green cast-iron stems, amber glass and orange “Métropolitain” lettering belong to the visual system Guimard designed for the Compagnie du Chemin de Fer Métropolitain after 1900. The quiet irony: line 12 below was built by the rival Nord-Sud company, which never employed him.
Key facts
- Designer: Hector Guimard (1867–1942)
- Édicule type: Glass-roofed entrance, c. 1900 — relocated here from Hôtel de Ville in 1974
- Station opened: 30 January 1913 (Nord-Sud line A; Métro line 12 since 1931)
- Style: Art Nouveau (Style Guimard / Style Métro)
- Address: Place des Abbesses, 75018 Paris, France
- GPS: 48.884444, 2.338611 — Open in Google Maps
- Status: Protected Guimard Métro entrance; one of only two surviving glass-roofed édicules
History
In 1900 the Compagnie du Métropolitain hired Guimard to design the entrances of its new underground network. He produced a kit of standardised cast-iron parts in three families: the simple railed surround, the open windscreen-fan, and the fully roofed édicule crowned with glass. Most entrances were the open type. Only a handful of the glazed édicules were ever built, and most were demolished across the twentieth century.
The Abbesses canopy began life elsewhere. It originally stood at the Hôtel de Ville station; in 1974 it was taken down, restored and rebuilt above the deep staircase at Place des Abbesses. That history explains an oddity unique on the network: a Guimard entrance, designed for the Métropolitain company, sitting over a station that the competing Nord-Sud company had built without him.
The station beneath is one of the deepest in Paris, roughly 36 metres below the western flank of the Montmartre hill — the deepest of all until Villejuif–Gustave Roussy opened in 2025. Passengers reach the platforms by lift or by a long painted spiral staircase decorated with murals of the quarter.
What you see
Two cast-iron stalks rise from the pavement and open into a fan of amber glass, the roof curving like a folded insect wing or an orchid — the form that earned these entrances their “dragonfly” nickname. Between the stalks hangs the enamelled “Métropolitain” sign in Guimard’s bespoke lettering, every character drawn rather than typeset. Flanking the opening, two lamp standards shaped like stems of lily-of-the-valley hold orange-red glass shades.
Every strut carries cast plant-forms — buds, leaves, stems — so that the structural iron and the ornament are the same thing. Because the canopy is fully roofed, it reads as a small building in its own right rather than a railing, which is exactly why so few survive: they were the costliest and most fragile of Guimard’s three types.
Practical information
- Access: A working Métro entrance, open during operating hours; free to view from the square
- Best view: From Place des Abbesses, with the canopy framed against the square
- Inside: The station is around 36 m deep — take the lift, or climb the painted spiral staircase
- Time needed: 10–15 minutes for the entrance; longer if you walk up into Montmartre
- Combine with: A Montmartre circuit — Sacré-Cœur, Place du Tertre, and the Art Nouveau church on the same square
Getting there
The entrance is on Place des Abbesses, in the 18th arrondissement at the foot of Montmartre. You arrive at it directly on Métro line 12 (Abbesses). Anvers (line 2) and Pigalle (lines 2 and 12) are each a short walk away if you approach on foot. From the centre, line 12 runs north under the city to the station; from there the butte of Montmartre rises just to the north.
Nearby
- Église Saint-Jean-de-Montmartre — early reinforced-concrete Art Nouveau church, Place des Abbesses
- Basilique du Sacré-Cœur and Place du Tertre, atop the butte
- Porte Dauphine — the twin surviving Guimard édicule
- Paris — Belle Époque, Art Nouveau & Modernism (city guide)
Sources
- Plateforme Ouverte du Patrimoine (POP) / base Mérimée — monument historique record, Ministère de la Culture
- RATP — Paris transport heritage documentation
- Musée d’Orsay — Hector Guimard collections and documentation
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