September 2, 2025
Parc Monceau is one of my favorite parks in Paris. I had written about it when I was here in 2021.
Parc Monceau
Today I found other parks in the 17th.
Square des Batignolles
The 17th is named after Batignolles-Monceau. A pair of former villages merged into Paris as it grew.
Square des Batignolles
The Square des Batignolles is 4 acres and was designed in the English Country Style. The origin of the name “Batignolles” may be the Latin word “batillus”, meaning “mill”, or it may be derived from the Provençal word “bastidiole”, meaning “small farmhouse”.
The square was established at the request of Baron Haussmann, under Napoleon III. Napoleon III had acquired a taste for the English garden during his exile in England, prior to 1848.
Vulture statue
The Square des Batignolles was created by Jean-Charles Adolphe Alphand, assisted by the engineer Jean Darcel, the architect Gabriel Davioud, and the horticulturist Jean-Pierre Barillet-Deschamps, on a tract of land that had been described as “a vast wasteland”. This was the same team that had been assembled to design and execute the Bois de Boulogne on the western edge of Paris.
A faux bois bridge railing. A passion of mine.
Parc Clichy-Batignolles – Martin Luther King
Parc Clichy-Batignolles – Martin Luther King
Parc Clichy-Batignolles – Martin Luther King is a 130-acre park first developed as part of the Paris bid for the 2012 Olympics. The city wasn’t awarded those games, but the park and the surrounding development went ahead. Built on land formerly owned by SNCF (The French national train company), Parc Clichy Batignolles – Martin Luther King was designed to achieve a close-to-zero carbon footprint by including things like wind turbines and solar panels, rainwater harvesting, and waste management. The plants in the park consume little water and require minimal fertilizer.
The name of the park is derived from: proximity to the site of a nineteenth-century Porte de Clichy, a gate in Paris’ Thiers wall that opened to the commune of Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine; proximity to the former SNCF Batignolles station; and a tribute to the legacy of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
The wavy building on the left is by MAD+Beicher Architects
The area surrounding the park is a mixed-use area center with the intention of almost being a city within itself. The architecture of the buildings maximises the benefits of the park, the railway landscape, and opportunities to build apartment buildings up to 15 stories high.
Skate Park
The right-hand building is a Multipurpose School, Student Housing, and Central Kitchen, Paris 17 by Atelier Philéas.
*
The building on the left is UNIC by MAD+Biecher Architectes
The building on the far right is Plot o8 / TVK + Tolila Gilliland. The wavy in the foreground is 06A Lot Housing / SAM Architecture+Querkraft.
