The Jardins du Trocadéro (; Gardens of the Trocadéro) is a public space in the 16th arrondissement of

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, France. It is bounded to the northwest by the wings of the Palais de Chaillot and to the southeast by the

Seine The Seine ( , ) is a river in northern France. Its drainage basin is in the Paris Basin (a geological relative lowland) covering most of northern France. It rises at Source-Seine, northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plat ...

and the Pont d'Iéna at the Place de Varsovie, with the

Eiffel Tower The Eiffel Tower ( ; ) is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower from 1887 to 1889. Locally nicknamed "''La dame de fe ...

on the opposite bank of the Seine.

History

The entire site was formerly the garden of the original Trocadéro Palace, laid out by Adolphe Alphand for the 1878 Exposition Universelle. The present garden has an area of 93,930 m², and was created for the

Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (1937) The ''Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne'' (International Exposition of Art and Technology in Modern Life) was held from 25 May to 25 November 1937 in Paris, France. Both the Palais de Chaillot, housing the Mu ...

. This was the design of Parisian architect

Roger-Henri Expert Roger-Henri Expert (18 April 1882 – 13 April 1955) was a French architect. Life The son of a merchant, Expert first studied painting at the École des beaux-arts in Bordeaux, then from 1906 attended the École nationale supérieure des Bea ...

. During the exposition in 1937, the pavilions of

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

and the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

were facing each other on opposite sides of the Jardins du Trocadéro. The grounds hosted the opening ceremony of the

2024 Summer Olympics The 2024 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad () and branded as Paris 2024, were an international multi-sport event held in France from 26 July to 11 August 2024, with several events started from 24 July. P ...

Main sights

Fontaine de Varsovie

The main feature, called the Fontaine de Varsovie (Fountain of

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

), is a long basin, or water mirror, with twelve fountain creating columns of water 12 metres high; twenty four smaller fountains four metres high; and ten arches of water. At one end, facing the Seine, are twenty powerful water cannons, able to project a jet of water fifty metres. Above the long basin are two smaller basins, linked with the lower basin by cascades flanked by 32 sprays of water four meters high. These fountains are the only exposition fountains which still exist today, and still function as they once did. In 2011, the fountain's waterworks were completely renovated and a modern pumping system was installed.

Statuary

With sloping fairways that run along the river, the garden terraces feature a number of sculptures, some dating from the 1930s, including: * at the first level below the Palais de Chaillot, the matching stone statues ''L'Homme'' by Pierre Traverse, and ''La Femme'' by Daniel Bacqué, both leaning against stone pedestals * two gilded bronze fountain sculptures in their own square basins, ''Bull and Deer'' by Paul Jouve and ''Horses and Dog'' by Georges Guyot * 21-foot bronze ''Apollo'' with lyre (or ''Apollon musagète'') group by sculptor Henri Bouchard * a matching 21-foot bronze ''Hercules'' with bull, by Albert Pommier * two matching stone groups on pedestals towards the southeastern end of the fountain, ''La Joie de vivre'', by Léon-Ernest Drivier and ''Youth'' by Pierre Poisson * a white, stone monument commemorating Polish veterans fighting to defend and liberate France 1939–1945, by André Greck (1978)

Access

The location is near the metro station '' Trocadéro'', at , on the lines 6 and 9.

References

Sources

* this article partially sourced from French Wikipedia, sourced 9/11/2010 {{DEFAULTSORT:Jardins Du Trocadero Fountains in Paris Trocadéro, Jardins du 16th arrondissement of Paris World's fair sites in Paris Buildings and structures in the 16th arrondissement of Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne Venues of the 2024 Summer Olympics Olympic stadiums