Remade in Paris: new life for capital’s abandoned buildings

Across the French capital, old stations, factories and a university campus are being transformed into artists’ studios, theatres and some of the city’s hottest clubbing venues

An enormous art nouveau greenhouse rises from the Meudon forest, its front made entirely of glass. Inside, suspended from the ceiling, is a 21-metre-long shiny, inflatable zeppelin, which looks as though any minute it might burst through the facade’s central circular pane.

The airship is a permanent, site-specific artwork by Korean artist Lee Bul, designed to draw attention to and define the huge space: this is Hangar Y, the world’s first airship manufacturing hangar, built in 1878. Less than 10 miles south-west of Paris, it churned out airships and hot-air balloons until the end of the first world war. After a brief spell as an aeronautics museum, it was abandoned and left empty for 40 years.