Gare du Sud, Decommissioned railway station in Liberation district, Nice, France.
Gare du Sud is a former railway station on Avenue Malausséna, its monumental stone facade with a tall central pavilion and two side wings decorated with ceramic tiles and painted motifs. Behind it stands a 23-metre-wide, 18-metre-high, 87-metre-long metal train shed designed by Gustave Eiffel for the 1889 Paris Exposition. The station building now houses the Raoul Mille library, while the shed contains a food court.
The Compagnie des Chemins de fer du Sud de la France had architect Prosper Bobin design the station, built from 1890 to June 1892. Its metal train shed, 23 m wide, 18 m high and 87 m long, was created by Gustave Eiffel for the Russian and Austro-Hungarian pavilion at the 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle and added to the station in 1891. The station closed in December 1991, and its facade was listed as a historic monument on 23 September 2002, the shed on 23 June 2005.
The name Libération comes from the boulevard that crosses the district, and the station's former passenger hall now holds the Raoul Mille library, opened in January 2014. Behind the 1892 facade, the restored Eiffel shed shelters a food court whose stalls sell produce from the region, with a mezzanine at each end reached by a wide staircase.
The main entrance is through the restored 19th-century facade on Avenue Malausséna, set back from the street. Inside, the Raoul Mille library occupies the former waiting room, while the food court fills the rebuilt metal shed behind, with a mezzanine at each end reached by a wide staircase. The Libération outdoor market runs alongside.
The metal framework was originally designed for the 1889 Paris World Exposition and later relocated to Nice. This makes the building a rare example of how major exposition architecture found a second life in another city.
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