Assemblée Nationale: station history
Served by: metro line 12.
Did you know?
The station opened on 5 November 1910 under the name « Chambre des députés », before taking the name more in line with the official title of the first chamber of Parliament under the Fifth Republic. Lying under boulevard Saint-Germain, between Concorde and Solférino, it has three entrances with the wrought-iron surround typical of the Nord-Sud style. It has the semi-elliptical vault typical of Nord-Sud stations and is the station on the line that has seen the most changes of layout.
Anecdote
In 1990, the artist Jean-Charles Blais was commissioned to redesign it: a giant frieze of posters, renewed periodically, forms large black heads on a coloured background, with no advertising. In 1996, the MoMA in New York rebuilt a fragment of about 25 m for the exhibition « Thinking Print ». A new decor, designed by Philippe Daney, mi+ro and Timothé Toury, was inaugurated in 2016 by Claude Bartolone and Élisabeth Borne, with video screens broadcasting the public session in progress.
Audio guide
Palais Bourbon : seat of the National Assembly
The Palais Bourbon was built from 1722 to 1728 on land acquired by the Duchess of Bourbon. Confiscated during the Revolution, it now houses the National Assembly. Next to it stands the hotel of her lover, the Marquis de Lassay, now the residence of the President of the Assembly.
The Duchess, Louise Françoise de Bourbon, is the legitimated daughter of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan. Lorenzo Giardini drew up the first plan, then Pierre Cailleteau, Jean Aubert and Ange-Jacques Gabriel, who designed the neighbouring Hotel de Lassay, intervened on the site. Both buildings were completed in 1728.
In 1791, the revolutionary authorities confiscated the palace from the Prince of Condé, who had gone into exile. From 1795 to 1799, under the Directory, the Council of the Five Hundred sat in a room designed by the architects Gisors and Leconte. In 1806, under Napoleon, Bernard Poyet began the neoclassical facade on the Seine, with its twelve Corinthian columns, aligned with the church of the Madeleine.
The hemicycle retains its semicircular shape: it is maintained during the renovation of 1828-1832. The library, with five domes, was decorated by Eugène Delacroix from 1838. The Chamber bought the Hôtel de Lassay in 1843, connected to the palace by a gallery.
Around Assemblée Nationale
- Palais Bourbon, 60 m away — Home of the French National Assembly since the Revolution, its façade faces Place de la Concorde across the Seine.
- Pont de la Concorde, 190 m away — A bridge built partly with stones from the demolished Bastille, linking both banks opposite Concorde.
- Église Sainte-Clotilde, 300 m away — The first major neo-Gothic church in Paris, completed in 1857, known for its slender spires.