The Prix Versailles is an international architectural award that celebrates the world’s most outstanding and beautiful buildings across multiple categories. Originally established in 2015, in collaboration with UNESCO, it recognizes structures that combine aesthetic excellence with cultural relevance, sustainability, and community impact. The award aims to highlight the role of architecture and design as visual beauty, shaping the spaces we inhabit and enriching human experience. The winners are typically unveiled annually, with an official ceremony held in Paris at UNESCO headquarters.

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For its 2025 edition, the Prix Versailles unveiled the “World’s Most Beautiful Projects,” a curated selection of buildings from around the globe chosen from extensive lists of finalists. I coincidentally photographed five of the seven finalists chosen for the metro station category during my travels between September 2024 and September 2025. These include the winner, Villejuif-Gustave Roussy metro station outside Paris, Saint Denis-Pleyel metro station (Paris), Gadigal metro station (Sydney, Australia), King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) metro station (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia), and Qasr Al-Hokm metro station (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia).