Should Dupont Underground Take Cues From Paris?

• February 7th 2014

by UrbanTurf Staff

Paris has over 300 Metro stations, but after World War II, eleven sat abandoned or never opened, and have remained that way. Now, a team that includes a mayoral candidate, is envisioning what can be done with the abandoned spaces. The ideas range from a performance space to a restaurant to a night club. Below are a few of the renderings:

Looking at these creative images made us wonder: Could any of these ideas work in the Dupont Underground space?

Last February, UrbanTurf reported that three wineries were in talks with the team behind the redevelopment of the former streetcar station below Dupont Circle about the possibility of opening up in the space. Julian Hunt, the founder and chairman of the Arts Coalition for the Dupont Underground (ACDU), said that the group was eager to engage the 75,000-square foot subterranean space with art galleries and other creative projects, but understood that a winery may fulfill the need for an economically viable use and also “fit our program.”

However, that was a year ago, so we reached out to ACDU’s Braulio Agnese to get an update on the project and see if they would take any inspiration from the Parisian ideas.

“At the moment, we remain in a holding pattern, close to a milestone but waiting for some other things to happen before we can move forward,” Agnese said in an email. “We are always inspired by efforts to reclaim abandoned urban spaces and infrastructure for the public good. It’s especially incredible to see the architectural and design ideas that flourish from confronting the concrete-and-masonry-box realities of subterranean spaces.”

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/should_the_dupont_underground_take_cues_from_paris/8100.