Métro Entrance

     MetroEntrance           

Hector Guimard designed a number of entrances to the Paris subway system, or Métro, early in the 20th century, and this entrance, at the Palais Royal station outside the Louvre Museum, is one of them. Guimard had a gift for making iron look organic and smooth, and you can see his talent for it here. I believe the intent is to make the ironwork look plant-like, and he was pretty successful at that, although the lampposts with their lamps in the form of orangish flower buds (only the one on the left is intact here) still remind me of the movie War of the Worlds, for some reason.

Photographed on January 10, 2000.