September 2025
The 15th is called Vaugirard, a commune annexed in 1860.
Parc Andre Citroen
70 Years of DS in Living Wicker marks the 70th anniversary of the Citroen DS
In 1915, Citroën built its factory on the banks of the Seine. It operated there until the 1970s. The abandoned space ultimately gave rise to the Parc André Citroën. The park was designed in the early 1990s by landscape designers Gilles Clément and Alain Provost, and architects Patrick Berger, Jean-François Jodry, and Jean-Paul Viguier.
The park is built with this rectangular lawn as its anchor. There are six serial gardens, each associated with a metal, a planet, a day of the week, a state of the water, and a sense.
The green garden: tin, Jupiter, Thursday, spring water, and the sense of hearing.
The red garden: iron, Mars, Tuesday, waterfalls, and the sense of taste
The two greenhouses
A fountain sits between the two massive greenhouses
Since 1999, the park has hosted the Paris Balloon (Ballon Generali), a tethered helium balloon that, if one has the right weather, can lift a maximum of 30 visitors 1000′ above Paris. It was empty when I took this picture.
Parc George Brassons
Parc George Brassons sits on the site of a former fish market, horse market, and slaughterhouse, and preserves some of the old market structures. It is named for the French popular singer Georges Brassens (1921–1981), who lived in the neighborhood.
A bull stands as sentry at the main entrance to the park, sculpted by Isidore Bonheur
The markets and slaughterhouse had been built on the site between 1894 and 1897, and were gradually closed down between 1969 and 1979. The city of Paris considered first using the site for public housing or a sports complex, but engineers discovered that the ground was unstable due to the presence of abandoned quarries, so it was decided to build a park instead.
The park was designed by the architects Ghiulamila and Milliex and the landscape architect Collin. After the public outcry that followed the destruction of the structures of the old Paris central market, Les Halles, the architects decided to keep some of the original structures of the old market. This included the iron-framed shelter of the horse market, which serves as a used book market on weekends.
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Another remnant from the bygone era that was saved was the bell tower from the fish market.
Commissioned by the City of Paris and installed in 1991, Albert Bouquillon’s Meat Carrier
Paris has more than 421 municipal parks and gardens, covering more than 7500 acres and containing more than 250,000 trees. Considering my neighborhood in San Francisco is fighting the city to maintain a number of our trees, I find Paris to be far more ecologically in tune.