Porte de la Gare de Paris

The Gare d'Austerlitz stands out with its immense, arched metal roof, a structure that spans the tracks like a massive, glass-covered whale skeleton. This station opened in eighteen forty to connect Paris to the Loire Valley. When the Orléans railway company needed more space, they hired architect Victor Laloux, who also designed the Gare d'Orsay, to renovate the hall. Engineers hung the vast steel vault in nineteen hundred, leaving the interior clear of pillars for the trains arriving from the south.