Swimming in the Metro

When Parisians head to the polls at the end of March to choose a successor to Mayor Bertrand Delanoë, they will cast votes for either UMP candidate Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet or PS candidate Anne Hidalgo. If architectural creativity is an indicator, Kosciusko-Morizet should be a favorite, since she wants to turn a number of "phantom" Metro stations below the streets of Paris into concert halls, nightclubs, swimming pools, and even gardens. She has worked with architects Manal Rachdi and Nicolas Laisné to envision alternative uses for seven of the eleven unused underground stations, but her campaign blog indicates she would ask voters for the best uses for each station. It remains to be seen if voters will buy into her dream of swimming in the Metro, but it would be great to have this become reality regardless of politics.