Jussieu: origin of the name and station history
Served by: metro lines 7 and 10.
Why this name?
Served by lines 7 and 10, in the 5th arrondissement, under place Jussieu, the station honours Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu (1748-1836), a member of the Academy of Sciences and professor of botany at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle. It used to be called « Jussieu - Halle-aux-vins »: the wine market, created by Napoleon I, disappeared in the 20th century to make way for the Jussieu campus, renamed in honour of Pierre and Marie Curie in 2019. It was the temporary terminus of line 10 until 12 July 1939.
Anecdote
The platforms of the two lines are side by side, on the same level, and three openings through the shared wall allow a direct connection between line 10 towards Gare d'Austerlitz and line 7 towards Mairie d'Ivry and Villejuif - Louis Aragon. In 1975, the platforms were modernised in the Andreu-Motte style, orange on line 7 and blue on line 10, the station being the fourth on the network to be treated. A second entrance with an escalator was added in the first half of 2020.
Audio guide
The Great Mosque in the heart of the Latin Quarter
After the Great War, France paid tribute to the approximately 100,000 Muslim soldiers who died under its flag. A 1920 law financed the construction of a large mosque in the 5th arrondissement, at the foot of the Jardin des Plantes.
The architects Robert Fournez, Maurice Mantout and Charles Heubès adopted the Hispano-Moorish style. Artisans from the Maghreb shape zelliges, carved cedar and chiseled plaster. The minaret rises 33 meters. 🌿
The idea comes from Marshal Lyautey. The inauguration, in July 1926, brought together President Doumergue, the Sultan of Morocco Moulay Youssef and Aristide Briand, in tribute to the North African soldiers who died in Verdun. An exceptional law of 1920 derogates from the law of 1905 to finance it. Maurice Mantout signs the Hispano-Moorish set, with patio, hanging gardens, hammam and prayer room with a chandelier of 500 kg. The mosque housed Jews and resistance fighters during the Occupation.
The Grand Mosque of Paris is also a place of life: gardens, hammam and mint tea room, where one lingers, believing or not.
Around Jussieu
- Jardin des Plantes, 450 m away — Founded in 1635 by an edict of Louis XIII as a garden of medicinal plants, it is France's main botanical garden and the seat of the National Museum of Natural History. Buffon, who directed it from 1739 to 1788, roughly doubled its size.
- Fontaine Cuvier, 250 m away — An 1840 fountain honouring naturalist Georges Cuvier, facing the Jardin des Plantes, adorned with lions and aquatic animals, listed as a historic monument.
- Institut du Monde Arabe, 350 m away — A cultural centre with an iconic modern architecture, its south façade inspired by traditional mashrabiya screens.
- Grande Mosquée de Paris, 450 m away — A mosque built in the 1920s in tribute to Muslim soldiers who died for France, with a well-known tea room.