Du Luxembourg aux Buttes-Chaumont, découvrez les plus beaux jardins de Paris | Trésors du Patrimoine

Des bosquets royaux aux promenades républicaines, l’histoire de Paris se lit dans ses allées. Après les restrictions, les Parisiens réinvestissent ces scènes de plein air où l’on marche, respire et se retrouve — héritage d’Haussmann et d’Adolphe Alphand, architectes d’une ville aérée et civique.

Amoureux de la France et du patrimoine, ses trésors n’auront plus de secrets pour vous 👉https://bit.ly/4dnI1h1

🌿 Luxembourg : jardin princier ouvert au public, ville présente mais assourdie — un modèle d’équilibre.

📚 Alphand & Les Promenades de Paris (1867–1873) : “recette” des jardins publics modernes, végétal comme outil urbain.

🌲 Bois de Boulogne & Vincennes : forêts royales devenues parcs paysagers — lacs, grottes, théâtres de verdure, innovations d’arrosage.

⛰️ Buttes-Chaumont (1867) : carrière métamorphosée, ponts et falaises scénographient le progrès du Second Empire.

🌳 École Du Breuil (Vincennes) : jardin-école, encyclopédie végétale et formation des jardiniers de la Ville.

🌸 Boulevards haussmanniens : alignements d’arbres, drains et tranchées intégrées — naissance du paysage urbain.

🎭 Guignol en plein air : théâtre vivant des promenades, tradition populaire toujours partagée.

🏞️ Squares de quartier (Batignolles, Belleville) : mixité, micro-événements, détails de mobilier et d’usages au quotidien.

⚔️ Temps de crise (1870–1871) : jardins fragiles mais résilients — replantations, mémoire et transmission.

Une traversée sensible et historique : science des plantations, arts du spectacle, hygiène et sociabilité composent la grande nature citadine.

PARIS AU PLURIEL – PARIS AU JARDIN
© Tout droits réservés – AMP

#paris #jardins #haussmann #boulogne #vincennes #butteschaumont #luxembourg #paysageurbain
———-
Bienvenue sur Trésors du Patrimoine, votre passeport pour explorer le riche patrimoine et l’art de vivre français. Partez à la découverte des régions de France et de leur patrimoine : Sites historiques, panoramas naturels, traditions, savoir-faire artisanal, culture, Histoire..
————
#patrimoine #france #documentaire

Paris, June 2021. After months of health restrictions
, the inhabitants meet in the gardens. These spring images tell
a story, that of the conquest of the
planted spaces of Paris by the inhabitants. Before the French Revolution,
gardens and woods were reserved for the king. To discover this story,
I begin a walk in the first public gardens of Paris. I’m trying to understand why
gardens are important. What is their effect on us? What are they saying? Here I am in the Luxembourg Gardens. This former royal garden,
created for Marie de Medici in the 17th century, was then opened to the public
after the revolution. Chiara Santini and Michel Odoui
are landscape historians. It’s a garden where the city is present
without being intrusive, but it’s always there. So, if you walk, for example,
on the side of the Medici road, you can hear the sounds of cars,
but if you move away into the more picturesque parts,
the city disappears completely. So, it’s almost difficult
to see the surrounding buildings. So, we are in a kind of canopy
made of trees, everything is green, the lawns. And it almost sounds
as if people are speaking very softly. Kiara and Michel
guided me this spring in my search for the history
of the public gardens of Paris. That’s in full bloom,
you see, in full bloom, there? In what way?
Common privet. That’s definitely the one. That is really part
of the plant palette that is specific to Osmanian gardens. The syringe in the background
that has finished blooming. And the laurel-tain,
he doesn’t lose it anymore. No, you mustn’t eat bay leaves
, otherwise you’ll die. Marc, I’d gladly give you some. You see, but he’s getting eaten, yes. Yes, that’s a boxwood (Bus rotundifolia).
That’s not how it is. Ah good ?
So, what did you think he was like? Small ? But that’s a variety
of boxwood with larger leaves. It’s the rotundifolia. The one you know
is perenniality. When the garden is a garden well integrated
into the uses and practices of its inhabitants,
it is a place where one does not really feel like shouting. That is to say, there is a kind
of community of sounds between nature and people. That surprises me a lot
because in Italy, that’s not the case. As soon as the claw is crossed,
people’s behavior changes. You really feel
like you’re in a garden. People feel good there because they
find, individually or in groups, what they come looking for
in a garden, to isolate themselves, to read in a corner. Men produce a
totally idealized image of nature in their gardens. The garden, wrote Michel Foucault,
is the smallest part of the world and it is the whole world. I learned that in Old Persian, the word
paradise refers to the emperor’s garden. These parks, in Persian, were called
by a word that sounded like “paradaison”. And the word paradaison
became paradisus in Latin. Therefore, the etymological meaning
of the word garden is paradise. I dive into the paradise right around the
corner. A garden is cultural. It’s that aspect that appeals to me. If I want to go into nature,
I go to the forest, I go for a walk in a country house, etc. Actually, I don’t want the same
thing in the garden. The garden must be
a reinterpretation of nature. It’s a completely idealized version of nature. What I have always liked about these
gardens is the question of the place, the genius loci, the history,
the traces of history that can be found in a garden. Emperors and kings have had
gardens for millennia. But since when have gardens
been made for the people? At the beginning of the 19th century, Paris was
affected by a series of epidemics. The city witnessed the rise of a way of thinking that would
revolutionize daily life: hygiene. Nineteenth-century medicine
came to the conclusion that to heal a body, one must not only treat
the organ that is causing the problem, but one must also treat its circulation. For the city, it will be the same thing. Therefore, the circulation patterns of Paris,
the circulation patterns of the body of Paris, must be cared for in order to transform
Paris into a healthy city. Walking and being outdoors are
highlighted as essential elements. Problem: beyond the old
royal gardens, there are no public gardens in a very dense urban fabric. The important thing is the walk,
the importance of planted spaces for children,
the importance of outdoor play, the importance of discovering
nature, which are recommendations and which aim at well-being. Well-being is really
a 19th-century word. Well-being of the Knowing that this well-being is
never just physical, and I insist because it is important,
because it is a little… The projects have
very clear political aims. This is a well-being that must also be
moral, and moral well-being is the articulation of the alignment
with the values ​​of the bourgeoisie. The authorities in Paris
decided to cover the city with tree-lined promenades and public gardens. Haussmann commissioned a civil engineer
to lead this project. His name: Adolphe Alphand. How did his work leave an
indelible mark on the Parisian landscape? Alphand represents for Paris
the beginning and end of a very important urban planning adventure,
because his work spans 40 years. It begins in a Paris that has just
emerged from the revolution of 1848 and the first major urban development project
of the Percés, that of Napoleon III and Haussmann, and ends in 1891 in a Paris that is thinking about the big picture
in the metro project. Alphand can be said to
be the great conductor of Parisian urban planning in the
second half of the 19th century. From 1854 onwards, Adolphe Alphand and his team designed dozens of gardens. Among them are the Bois de Boulogne,
the Bois de Vincennes, the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, and a number
of squares and tree-lined boulevards. Alphand left behind a book
of recipes from public gardens. So, Yara presents me with
an original copy. This book is a work called
The Walks of Paris. It is a two-volume folio work
that was published in installments between 1867. The first installments appeared more
or less at the beginning, at the inauguration of the Universal Exhibition, until 1873. And it is a work that, since its
publication, has traveled around the world. This work is unique
for several reasons. The first concerns the subjects. This is the first time that
an entire book has been devoted to public gardens. So, this is the first time we say
that this nascent science, which is the composition of gardens,
has a purpose which is civil, civil intended for the police,
that is to say for the city, and therefore intended for common life. So, the subject was absolutely groundbreaking at the time
. It is the idea that public space is
also a space and that vegetation is one of the tools by which to build,
but before building it, to think about the city. There
is this first chapter on the history of gardens which presents
a very rich corpus of reproductions of old documents. All the magnificent elements that made
gardens and their creators famous find their final result in the gardens of Paris,
where they began to compose for the inhabitants of the city. I wander through Paris,
searching for traces of the 19th-century tree-lined promenades. Where did they begin to split it open to reshape Paris? From the heights of Mont Valérien,
west of the city, I see a vast expanse of vegetation. A garden the size
of a district. The Bois de Boulogne was the first major
project for planted promenades in Paris. This former royal forest was given in
1852 by Napoleon III to the city of Paris to be transformed into a public promenade. The Bois de Boulogne is becoming the
public promenade for Parisians, therefore the extra-urban promenade for Parisians. To be able to tackle a project of this
importance, which is a project that is not so much like a garden,
but rather like a region, rather like a district of a city. And so, that’s where we understand that if we
want to think about a project like the Bois de Boulogne,
ultimately, a project like that of the city, we need to have a team
that is adapted to the territorial scale. Vegetation, roads, artificial caves
made of reinforced concrete, overlooked by waterfalls. Large-scale artificial lake leveling
. Alphand and his team are transforming a
hunting forest into a modern landscaped park. With the Bois de Boulogne begins
the era of engineer-gardeners. In fact, the Bois de Boulogne was somewhat of
a reference project from which the design of all
the other Parisian gardens was developed. It’s a bit like a workshop where we’ll
experiment with different solutions, even in terms of furniture,
which will then be adopted elsewhere. There, the galleries made of wire
and cast iron were created to follow the routes of the roads and which
would later be adopted in most Parisian gardens and parks. So. So this is a design by the corset maker
which was later adopted in the Parisian boulevards
and in the gardens and which can still be found today, not always in this
form, but in a very similar form. Then there are more technical aspects
relating to water distribution and irrigation. That’s very interesting; this is the system
that’s designed for watering roads and lawns. So, in fact,
these are sprinkler outlets onto which we put mobile hoses
that can bend, so as to reach even the parts
furthest from the road. Here too, there is a new technical innovation:
these are carts for transporting trees by motorcycle. I hadn’t imagined the Bois de Boulogne
as a hub of technology. I was daydreaming in front of a concrete lake, an artificial waterfall. I meet Michel
on the shore of the lower lake. When you arrive at the lake from
the Porte Dauphine, you discover a large open space,
a large expanse of water with these pine forests in the background. There is a real staging involved;
it is a landscape in itself. And then, the lake, in the foreground, will then transform into a river, a little on either side of the central island. And the further we go along the walk,
the more we will lose this notion of a lake, in favor, I would say,
of a slightly winding, somewhat idealized river. But it makes me think,
there are images of Mississippi. Faced with this spectacular landscape,
I imagine the great intrigues of intimacy unfolding. Great loves, great separations. To honor the
spectator emotions, in 1857, an open-air theatre,
created in the heart of the Bois de Boulogne, attracted crowds. In this theatre,
the spectator enters through small gardens reminiscent of Shakespeare’s plays. Then, it opens
onto a large green room. We’re going to move on. The director of the venue is giving a
tour of the theatre to a stage director. And here’s the set. It’s a unique place,
it’s a unique place in Île-de-France. It’s a green space,
an open-air theatre. And so, it has a particularity,
these open-air theatres. That’s because these are places of democracy. That is to say, these are the only
theatres where everyone can mix together. And it’s true that on an open-
air lawn, it’s like street theatre. Everyone mixes together
and it doesn’t cause any problems. The challenge is to adapt the staging
to a very particular outdoor space. But doesn’t he have a son? Yes, my good Lord. A son who lives up to the reputation
and honor of such a father. You know him well. I know him as well as I know myself. What I see here is that
everything captured needs to be readjusted, in fact. The staging doesn’t work… The one we had in other venues does
n’t work here because, on the contrary, we must honor this place. The unique feature of this
open-air theatre is that you can have lots of entrances, lots of exits,
lots of hiding places. It’s alive, that’s it. We do live entertainment and we’re
also in the realm of the living, so it’s enjoyable. The actors’ bodies are nestled
in plant-filled alcoves. Gesture, words, foliage, light,
everything makes for a spectacle. The walker leaves the theatre. At the turn of a grove,
the entire Bois de Boulogne takes to the stage. In this landscape, the old, spreading trees
mark the passage of time with their splendor. This tree is a linden tree. It is an endemic species
in the Bois de Boulogne, and more generally
in the forests of Île-de-France. And here it is in its park version,
meaning that it has grown out of the forest. Therefore, it is not
competing with the forest. It grew on a meadow and
developed to the best of its genetic capabilities, I would say. The linden tree, we note that today, there are
also some in the streets of Paris, streets which are also contemporary with
the development of Haussmannian developments in general. And it gives it a scent,
it truly marks the season. The arrival of the linden tree means summer,
it’s the beginning of summer. In addition, in the streets of Paris,
there are several varieties of linden trees whose flowering period lasts
for almost a month. The techniques used in the Bois
de Boulogne are deployed throughout the city. Nature clashes with asphalt. Planting or growing
plants in the city is not easy. It’s not easy because there’s no
worse place or environment than the city. Pollution, of course, depleted soil,
trampled soil, or sometimes no soil at all. And it is a real challenge
for the gardeners and teams to grow trees along
the streets or to try to preserve vegetation in gardens
that are under immense pressure. The engineers are envisioning plantations. The city needs to train gardeners and
horticulturists. With the creation of the planting walk service
, the decision was made within the city of Paris
to train its own gardeners. There is one school that was formally created,
it is the Oubreuil school, which at the time was called the School
of Arboriculture of the city of Paris. And it was a school where you could
enroll for free to learn the fundamentals of
ornamental and production arboriculture. To my great surprise,
the Dubreuil school still exists today, nestled in the heart of the Bois de
Vincennes, in a huge secret garden. I have permission to film
practical work in a second-year class in a technological baccalaureate program. It doesn’t necessarily have to be
fast, it’s… That’s it.
Exactly, you can feel when it catches? Great.
And we take it to the extreme. Watch your head. Remove all dead wood. Maybe in the end,
we’ll say: We’re removing it because it looks ugly, it’s a nuisance,
it’s all alone. But you can’t know. It’s possible that once
all the dead wood has been removed, there will already be so much removed that it will be completely bare. We’ll be glad to have it,
this strange little branch. What is the purpose of a plant in life
? To multiply?
It’s about multiplying, yeah, exactly. The game is making babies. So he will produce flowers to
produce seeds to colonize the space. Its goal in life
is to fill as much space as possible and to accumulate as much sustenance as possible,
of sun, water and elements in the soil. And when we come to prune,
we will disrupt that cycle. By cutting off the flowers that have withered,
the plant will eventually say to itself: Damn,
I didn’t manage to make my seeds, I didn’t manage to make my babies. She will start reproducing
flowers a second time or for the following year, telling you:
It’s a failure, I’ll start again. This is how we manage to prolong
the flowering or to re-induce flowering the following year. I still have a little bit of
it dry right now. Look, if it’s cut, we can go as far as this. We can garden with weeds removed, we can
garden with pruned plants, we can garden with planted plants. It’s more of an effort we’re making,
but in the long term, we think it will be good here
and if we continue to do this, it will give us what we want it to be. I tell myself that I’m still glad
to be in a place like this, because there aren’t many like it. Which school has
such a large garden and so many different species? The garden at École Dubreuil
covers 10 hectares. So, the unique thing about École
Dubreuil is that it is both a public garden and a school. So this is really… I think that in Paris, well,
in France, it’s unique. We are part of… I think there are 500 gardens in Paris. We are part of the Parisian gardens. And as a result, we receive the public
and we have to reconcile both the learning, the students,
and then with everything that entails, the security, and then
reconcile the public with that as well. We are in the 12th arrondissement of Paris, so we are far from the traffic.
We are in an idyllic setting. I love everything about this garden. Personally, this school is
one of the two gardens that made me want to do this job. So it’s still
quite important, I think. I think that when you enter this
garden for the first time, you are quite dazzled. I don’t know if you’re going to visit
the greenhouse, but the greenhouse is magnificent. You just want to learn how to
recognize plants and how to take care of them, how
they grow. It’s a garden that
really makes you want to garden. At first, when you start learning to
identify plants, you don’t realize how much
diversity there is. And the more you learn, the more you see,
the more you see the small differences in plants, the more you
learn to recognize them. I pay really close attention to every
little detail when I look at a landscape. I see more of a mass
of greenery than just a mass of greenery; I really see each plant as different. And that really changes the perspective. That’s crazy. The garden of the Dubreuil School appears
as a plant encyclopedia, heir to the horticultural passions
of 19th-century gardeners. Their finds are displayed in
public spaces like works of art. Park, square, boulevard,
Alphand’s team transforms the city into a botanical garden. This is Boulevard Sébastopol. First axis to plant from the 19th century. The leaf of a hornbeam
on Boulevard Richard-le-Noir. Further on, the leaf of a catalpa tree. The garden engineers
add greenery whenever they can. The rows of trees
create a cityscape. The Parisian boulevards of the 19th century
were designed with their planting already in mind,
because otherwise, you simply wouldn’t have a boulevard. When we plan the boulevard,
we will also plan the planting trenches,
the drains for watering the plants, and the networks for gas distribution. Everything is done at the same time. And I think that’s very important,
even when we think about how we want to green the city today. That is to say, there is a certain
intelligence in the 19th century which ensures that the team works together to anticipate, to put in place total unity. I suggest to Michel that we meet on
Boulevard Haussmann to pose on a balcony in the style of
the models of the painter Gustave Caibot. Caibot captured the effect produced by the new boulevards planted on the bodies of the inhabitants. In the 19th century,
the concept of urban landscape was invented. So, this is the moment when we affirm,
in a way, that there is a beauty that is specific to the city. And this landscape, which until then was a word
that belonged to landscape painting, therefore to beautiful classical landscapes,
the landscapes of the Great Ourop, the landscape of Italy, the countryside,
in a way, becomes something that is articulated with the idea of ​​the city. That is to say, the city is a landscape,
that is to say, a spectacle in which one can appreciate the
aesthetic characteristics. To
the east of the city, on a former gypsum quarry,
stands the most famous project of the Alphand team. Inaugurated for the Universal Exhibition of
1867, this icon of the modern garden offers
a showcase of the know-how of Parisian engineers. At the Chaumont goal, I meet
the landscape designer Isabelle Lévêque. At the time, the suburbs of Paris had just been annexed in 1850. So, when this park was inaugurated in 1867,
one could say that it was a visionary park since it was
inaugurated without any buildings around it. We still have a
number of factories. There is also an engraving
that shows chimney smoke. Buttes-Chaumont
is probably the most interesting park in Paris
from a topographical point of view. It is a park that is being created
in former quarries. The sheer volume of earthworks
is absolutely incredible. It exceeds one million cubic meters. And again, in
the year of its inauguration in 1867 alone, there were nine
collapses under the lake. There are a number
of rock faces that you will find in the park, which are considered very beautiful. They are mistaken for decoration,
but in reality, there are concrete spurs behind them that are there
to hold the floors in place. The gardens of the Second Empire are not
picturesque, that is to say they do not stage an undefined elsewhere
with follies, but they stage a very present here. Contemporary France,
industrial France, France which is becoming
one of the world’s great powers, with very obvious geographical references
, that is to say when you think about the end of the road, it is not
a cliff, it is a cliff of Trêta. So, this is the era when we build
the great railways, we cross the mountains,
we build the great bridges. The engineers from Pont-de-Chaussée
work across all national territories. And when it comes to showcasing
this nature in the gardens, they will make models of these
masterpieces which will be erected like follies in the gardens. The bridges of Buttes-Chaumont
bear witness to this fever for progress. Today,
the gypsum cliffs are eroding into beaches overgrown with vegetation. The lawns, once sometimes admired
from the walkways, are now being used by the residents. The bodies of Parisians dot the landscape. In this garden of the future, in the past,
there exists a witness to the popular traditions of Parisian promenades. I saw him, he has a stick,
I don’t. I’m going to take his stick,
make him undo it, and hide over here. He left, it’s your fault.
Where is he? In his shirt. In his shirt.
That’s not right, is it? Where is he?
In his shoes. Where?
In his socks. No, but are you out of your mind?
Where is he? In her panties.
Oh, just wait till I catch you, you’ll see. Hey oh, tralala, you remind me of something. Me, I have the stick, tontaine and tonton. Hey, listen, if you see him,
you call me Guignol Guignol loudly, okay? Come on, wait, we’re going to
cut him off this way. So, Obus Chaumont is
part of one of the last open-air puppet theatres in Paris. So, we are really here,
we are really right in the heart of the early tradition of puppet theatres
which were always outdoors. At the very beginning
of the Guignol theatres in Paris, therefore from 1818,
since the first traces we have of Guignol theatre, in quotation marks,
which was Punch and Judy, were demountable theatres. In fact, each puppeteer would come with
his puppet theater, set it up, and take it down in the evening. The Guignols-Anatole theatre
takes its name from an eccentric character from the promenades of Paris. Anatole Christine is an original. He already had at least 25 voices in his
repertoire, and he was walking along the
Champs d’Élysées promenade to try and attract customers,
with cherries on his ears. He was walking around with cherries
on his ears and he was ringing his bell and he was haranguing the public, in fact. And the audience arrived,
they settled in, they settled in. And then we really came
for the show because there were really rich people there
who would settle in and the poor people around them would come looking for them. These poor street children who had
no money, who had nothing, and who came and sat
on the rope to watch the show. You’re not aware
of the magic pearls, by any chance? No.
I’m sure you’re aware of this. No.
So we’re going to make a deal. If you tell me where the magic pearls are
, I will give you one. No.
No ! Yes, you can make
all the wishes you want. No.
You don’t want to? No. Well, too bad for you,
I’ll manage on my own and that’s all there is to it.
No, but then, it was this way, wasn’t it? It was over there, I don’t understand anything,
I don’t understand. Well, what’s the matter,
what’s the matter, what’s the matter? I have children who come. I have parents, I have grandparents. Sometimes I have three generations
who are at the theatre. So, the grandmother who, with her daughter,
used to come to the theatre, who now comes with her children. We are truly rooted in a story. Once, I had an old lady, a
long time ago. The lady was at least 95 years old. She tells me: I used to come
here when I was little. I say: Oh really? She says to me: Yes,
I remember very well. There was a character
with a nose like that. I was saying: But it must have been a joke. He told me: Yes, that’s it,
it’s an open secret. He was presenting the show;
it was very strange. What’s nice about
playing outdoors is that you’re actually living with nature. We arrive at our theatre, in addition,
we have created a kind of green space and we live in harmony with the seasons.
And we arrive at… At the very beginning of spring,
there are no leaves on the trees yet. For us, the Virginia creeper is just starting to
bud and we see nature awakening little by little,
and obviously until autumn, when everything is in full swing, and we start to see
the Virginia creeper turning red, etc. It’s a garden, actually. We’ve arrived in our
Parisian garden, actually. In the Guignol-Anatole theatre,
I cross a kingdom where the laws of adults are subject to interpretation. The children are featured in the gardens, but the spaces
allocated to them are really cramped. However,
he takes the children into space. So, there’s this whole kind of war
that we find in the archives, guards complaining about children
and children who, ultimately, play hide-and-seek with the guards,
deliberately waiting for them to destroy everything and then escape. In the Place des Fêtes square
in Belleville, an ode to Wednesday afternoon, children’s time, is being played out. The idea behind these gardens
is to create places of diversity. These are a kind of open-air salon
where the entire city population is invited to learn
bourgeois etiquette. Exactly as if it were
a bourgeois living room. The effect is that when we analyze
the archival documents, even the newspapers,
we understand that it is not at all about mixing, it is rather about avoidance. That is to say, social classes
coexist in the best-case scenario, but they never mix. Popular sports are very popular. So here we really have a mix,
but these are squares where you will never see the upper middle class. But generally speaking,
you’ll never see the upper middle class in a public square. This image of the Square des Batignols
shows an idealized Parisian society where the people,
through their use of modern public gardens , would come to adopt
bourgeois customs. The Square des Batignols, with its waterfall and
water feature, evokes a miniature version of the Bois de Boulogne. This is a plan of the Square des Batignols
which shows the Square’s integration into the public thoroughfare
and its landscape context. So, the Square
is inserted into double rows of trees which, on those sides,
actually form a terrace overlooking the
Western railways. The gardens are oriented around this
central perspective which is formed by the streams
which end in the lowest part with a lake and which,
in the highest part, everything is organized around a
rock with a waterfall. It is interesting to see
that the traffic flow is also made particularly efficient by the entrances, and
that the promenade does not need to be lengthened. So, the esquoire
is also a possibility for getting around the city,
even when you’re in a hurry. I slowed my pace
and discovered a small greenhouse made of metal and glass in a hidden spot. A man performs
a strange choreography there. In fact, it is a glass greenhouse
in the middle of which is this orange tree. And it’s a kiosk that is run by… Which is under the responsibility of an
association today, called KAB,
Kiosque d’art des Batignolles, and which makes this space available to
offer exhibitions of installations made in situ, therefore in large dimension
and in relation to this space which is so particular. What is special about this space
is that there is a kind of amplification of sensations. It’s warmer,
there’s more light. And also, curiously, you can hear
the sounds around you much better. This may also be related to the layout
of the kiosk, which is surrounded by the animal park,
the space dedicated to children, and the lawn where
people come to picnic. Because even if there are no events
happening in a garden, it is full of phenomenal disappointment and micro-
events that pass through the shadows. The shadow of a passing bird,
the shadow of moving leaves. It’s full of tiny events, the
shadows of which give us all the clues. And that greatly
fueled my imagination. The fact that it is full of
glass facets always redirects the sun towards the center of the space,
so here, towards the orange tree. So, I reproduced the dome
that is above us, upside down. So I reused the green metal lines
with threads of the same color. The meticulousness of the artist’s work
evokes the attention to detail of the garden engineers
whose discreet traces are preserved in the Square des Batignolles . Often, I cannot separate a purely sensitive gaze from a slightly more disciplined one. I look at the furniture,
I look at the details, I look at the footpaths
of the flowerbeds, I look at the borders, I look at how the walkways are sanded. I look at all the things that tell the story of
how this garden is used. At the end of his career,
Alphand addressed the Paris City Council thus: Take a walk in our streets, on our boulevards. I don’t believe there is a city
in the world that has plantations like ours. How did we
arrive at this result? With everyone’s help, gentlemen. Indeed, the walks
required the participation of skilled engineers. Their creation requires
very difficult support works. But I recognize that
engineers alone are not enough. The collaboration
of architects is necessary. And finally, there is a third
essential competition, gentlemen. This is the one used by horticulturists
and gardeners for the selection and arrangement of the wood to be used. The walking service is
therefore not as simple as it is made out to be. In 1870,
a tragic event disrupted the fragile daily life of the public gardens. The declaration of war against Prussia
was followed shortly afterwards by the fall of Cedan. The Republic is declared
and the Prussians march on Paris. Winter 1871, the war between
France and Prussia is raging. Alphand is stationed in besieged Paris. The military must observe the enemy. He ordered the clear-cutting of
entire sections of the Bois de Boulogne. The inhabitants of Paris are cold. They allow the cutting down of trees
on the boulevards for heating. The inhabitants are hungry. They allow the presence of livestock
in the woods and the drying areas. At the end of the war, in June 1871, Paris was unrecognizable, only a year and a half after Haussmann’s departure. The thing that the siege of Paris shows
is that the art of gardens is a rabbit art, because gardens are
the first victims of war. At the end of this period, however,
50 percent of Parisian trees had been felled. So, that is to say, a large part
of the Second Empire planting project was lost within a year. In besieged Paris, the inhabitants
refuse to surrender their weapons. For two months, they created the commune,
a democratic regime on a city-wide scale, which would be brutally suppressed. At Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris,
they are commemorating the 150th anniversary of this unique event. Who acts with grandeur,
content in silence. Buying discounts in their bed,
in their ambulance bed. And of the 100 liras in his arms,
he leaves them under the door. All this does not stop Nicolas,
because the noise is not dead, all this does not stop Nicolas,
because the noise is not dead. Each
of our generations plants the trees of the next: a passing of the torch to the people of the gardens. It’s June and I
‘m continuing my walk.