Paris-Montparnasse: station history
Served by: Transilien N.
Did you know?
A station in the 14th and 15th arrondissements of Paris. The first terminal, known as the "embarcadère de la barrière du Maine", opened in 1840; it had a 50-metre metal hall, the work of the architect Louis Visconti. First granted to the Paris to Versailles left-bank railway company, the station became the main station of the Compagnie de l'Ouest, then passed to the State and to SNCF in 1938. The station of the late 1840s was neoclassical, designed by Victor Lenoir and the engineer Alphonse Baude. The present station, from the 1960s, is signed notably by Eugène Beaudouin and Raymond Lopez, as part of the Maine-Montparnasse operation.
Anecdote
In August 1944, General Leclerc received General von Choltitz's surrender there. The main hall holds large op-art murals by Victor Vasarely, and the glass façade, the "porte Océane", dates from the arrival of the LGV Atlantique in 1990. Towards the end of the 19th century, many Bretons arrived there to find work, making the neighbourhood a Breton "stronghold". It appears in Cléo de 5 à 7 (1962) and Le Dîner de cons (1998), and is a square on the French Monopoly board.
Around Paris-Montparnasse
- Mémorial du Maréchal Leclerc – Musée Jean Moulin, 200 m away — A double museum on the Resistance and the Liberation of Paris, above the station, with a 270° slide show.
- Jardin Atlantique, 300 m away — A garden created in the 1990s on the slab that covers the station's tracks.
- Musée de La Poste, 300 m away — A museum devoted to the history of mail and the postal service, near the station.