Place Monge: station history
Served by: metro line 7.
Did you know?
A line 7 station, under rue Monge, between Jussieu and Censier - Daubenton, it honours Gaspard Monge (1746-1818), a mathematician behind the construction of the École normale supérieure and founder of the École polytechnique. Its subtitle, « Jardin des Plantes - Arènes de Lutèce », recalls the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle and the former Gallo-Roman amphitheatre. The rue de Navarre entrance, in a two-entrance edicule whose architecture recalls the arena, is next to the square des arènes de Lutèce.
Anecdote
Opened with the third extension of line 10, it was later transferred to line 7; in 1930-1931, line 10, which then ended at Porte de Choisy, ran as far as here via a connection just before the station. A set of points is installed at the north end, in the unused part of the platforms, a very rare layout. A scene of the film « Le Petit Nicolas » (2009) was shot in front of the rue de Navarre edicule.
Audio guide
The evolution gallery
Inaugurated a few weeks after the Eiffel Tower, closed for 29 years: the Grande Galerie de l 'Évolution lived two lives. 🦣
July 1889, Universal Exhibition. At the Jardin des Plantes, architect Jules André delivered the Galerie de Zoologie, launched in 1877 to exhibit the collections brought back by the Museum's explorers: from 3 to 4 million specimens! 🦁 It must also celebrate the triumph of the Republic in its colonial empire. Success is immediate.
But the animals are lined up without the slightest explanation, the public gets tired, and the damage suffered during the Liberation of Paris in 1944 does not help anything. In 1965, for security reasons, the gallery closed its doors in indifference. 🔒
She will sleep for 29 years. Meanwhile, the Museum's projects are centred around one idea: telling the story of life's evolution. Architects Paul Chemetov and Borja Huidobro, with scenographer René Allio, rethink the whole place. The site opened in 1991 and, four years later, François Mitterrand inaugurated the Grande Galerie de l 'Évolution on 21 June 1994. 🐘
Today, 7,000 specimens are on display, including 3,000 in the nave alone, on 6,000 m² of permanent exhibition. Over the levels, we move from the diversity of the living world to threatened and extinct species. His museography has become a model for many other museums.
🎧 Behind the scenes: for the reopening, the composers of the GMEM have created a sound environment especially for the gallery. Open your ears wide during your vi
Around Place Monge
- Jardin des Plantes, 350 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.
- Arènes de Lutèce, 300 m away — A 1st-century Roman amphitheatre rediscovered in the 19th century, once able to seat 15,000 spectators.
- Grande Mosquée de Paris, 250 m away — A mosque built in the 1920s in tribute to Muslim soldiers who died for France, with a well-known tea room.