Metropolitan trails

"Metropolitan Trails are inventing the city of tomorrow. They metamorphose a metropolis by connecting all its territories and by shedding a new light on them."

THIERRY VAN DE WYNGAERT, PRESIDENT OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY OF ARCHITECTURE

A New Generation of Public Space

Metropolitan Trails are a new kind of public space.

These social platforms are designed to reconnect us to our living territories, and to include inhabitants and experts to a vital conversation on post-petroleum cities.

Transport infrastructures, tourist facilities, off-wall cultural centres, open-air schools—Metropolitan Trails are an international urban innovation, born in France and Europe.

Originating from the worlds of art and planning, urban hiking has now become a social phenomenon.

  • Trails

    Discover the trails in Bordeaux, Milan, Marseille, Istanbul, London, Tunis, Avignon, Paris, Athens, Boston…

  • Network

    The metropolitan trails constitute a network of public and private actors from the worlds of art, town planning and tourism.

  • Academy

    Learning how to make metropolitan trails is possible thanks to the Trail Academy Mooc.

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Awards

  • Medal for Urbanism by the French Academy of Architecture (2013)

    "Metropolitan Trails are inventing the city of tomorrow. They metamorphose a metropolis by connecting all its territories and by shedding a new light on them."

Thierry Van de Wyngaert, President of the Academy of Architecture

  • National Geographic 'Best New Trail' (2014)

    "One of the lasting legacies of Marseille's stint as European Capital of Culture in 2013 is this long-distance trail around southern Provence. The semi-urban trail takes the shape of a giant figure-of-eight—also intended to represent the symbol for infinity—and has been designed as a work of art in its own right."

  • Haussmann Prize for the best book on Paris (2015)

    "The 'Revolution of Paris' is a real lesson in urban planning!"

Delphine Bürkli, president of the jury

  • Prix du Grand Paris (2018)

    "With the Prix du Grand Paris, we want to distinguish first and foremost concrete, highly visible achievements. The manufacturers of the Grand Paris (public and private) are pioneers, they are inventors, sometimes they are poets. They all point the way and make us want to follow them."

Jacques Godron, founder of the Club des Entreprises du Grand Paris

Press

"Hikers are discovering terrain that motorists don't even know exists."

GEO, Katja Trippel

"This is no ordinary path: it has been devised by artists to reveal aspects of Provence that are rarely seen and less frequently appreciated. »

THE GUARDIAN, Kevin Rushby

"With a target of 100,000 visitors, the Sentier du Grand Paris is aiming for significant economic benefits."

LES ECHOS, Lamia Barbot and Caroline d’Avout

"A disproportionate and unprecedented project: the GR2013, a 365-kilometre long-distance hiking trail."

PARIS-MATCH, Pauline Delassus

"This trail will perhaps make it possible to build the metropolis not by speeches but by feet."

LE MONDE, Lucie Geffroy

"The Bordeaux 'Refuges Périurbains' are the most unusual retreat you've ever seen."

LONELY PLANET