On the tracks of an ancient railway, the path designed by Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter reinterprets the signs and memory of the landscape and crosses stone quarries and forests.

Award-winning Norwegian architecture and design firm Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter has reconverted the Rosheim-St Nabor railway in Alsace, France, into Chemin des Carrières⁠, an 11 km path of different sequences of landscapes, complete with cultural pavilions and installations. Unusual elements punctuate the way, aiming at awakening the visitor’s senses, and water is encountered repeatedly.

“Ominous, sometimes hidden, the vestiges of the railway still mark the reading of the site,” explains Reiulf Ramstad Architects. “The desire to create a route to serve the quarries had to adapt to the undulating landscapes of the sub-Vosges hills and the very form of the tracing tells the history of the landscape and the men.”