Hector Guimard

Hector Guimard was a French architect and designer who became one of the most distinctive exponents of Art Nouveau. His buildings and interiors used flowing organic forms, asymmetry and specially designed decorative details, most famously at the Castel Béranger in Paris.

Around the opening of the Paris Métro in 1900, Guimard designed a family of cast-iron station entrances, railings, signs and lamp standards that could be manufactured in repeatable components. Although many were later removed, the surviving entrances became some of the most recognisable elements of the city’s streetscape and of international Art Nouveau design.

Andrew Martin’s Métropolitain discusses Guimard’s entrances as part of the visual and cultural history of the Paris Métro, contrasting their exuberant design with the engineering and everyday life of the system beneath the streets.