Résumé
The Grand Paris Express underground transport project is reconfiguringspaces in the Paris region. With 68 new stations designed by architects,these infrastructures are no longer mere transit points, but spatial andsocial interfaces between surface and the underground. This paper offers amulti-scalar reading of these spaces, both spatially (verticality and in-depth)and temporally (from conception to use), for three stations: Villejuif-GustaveRoussy, Clichy-Montfermeil and Noisy-Champs. The documents producedby architects (plans, sections, perspectives, models) are not only tools ofrepresentation but are also ideal projections of a desired future (Choay,1965). As a moment of imagination, these spatial productions articulate time:past, present and future.These documents will be compared with a series of sensitive sketchescarried out in and around the stations, to cross-reference the projectedintention with situated perception. Documenting the actual uses, functionalconstraints or social conflicts that run through these places, allows theformulation of a critical look at the projects‘ visions. Drawing on the conceptof the critical zone (Latour, Weibel, 2020)1, this work examines these stationsas interstitial public places between surface and subsoil, where tensionsbetween technical infrastructures, social life and environment materialize.Through a visual and comparative analysis, the aim of this study is to shiftthe way we look at these infrastructures, considering them as stratifiedenvironment where forms of urban, material and symbolic cohabitation arenegotiated and renewed daily.