31 Mar The Streetcar named design
DESIGN IN THE CITIES
THE STREETCAR
NAMED DESIGN
From Montpellier to Reims, when creators and designers take over French trams to turn them into flagships of urban aesthetics.
In 2012, the American newspaper the New York Times wrote that the Occitan city of Montpellier was creating the sexiest tram network in Europe. Nothing less. This is because two creators, Elisabeth Garouste and Mattia Bonetti, had looked into lines 1 and 2 of the city’s tram between 1998 and 2002 and had made pop flowers bloom and swallows fly…
It is also because the exterior and interior decorations of lines 3 and 4 were designed by Christian Lacroix, and those of line 5 — which connects the municipalities of Lavérune to Clapiers via Saint-Jean-de-Védas, Montpellier, and Montferrier-sur-Lez — were signed by the street art artist, Miss. Tic.
Strong Regional Identities
In Reims, the head of the tram becomes a champagne flute to illustrate the sparkling specialty of the region. That of Marseille dresses up as the bow of a ship… When they are not made to display the emblematic minerals of the territories they cross. In Angers, in the heart of the Pays de la Loire, the trams thus play the symphony of the colors of slate and tuffeau.
And did you know? The hexagonal tram model is exported. Almost everywhere in the world, from the Maghreb via Spain, from Turkey to Japan. To be continued.
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