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Parc des Buttes Chaumont
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Parc des Buttes Chaumont
The Parc des Buttes Chaumont (French pronunciation: [paʁk de byt ʃomɔ̃]; English: Park of Buttes Chaumont) is a public park situated in northeastern Paris, France, in the 19th arrondissement. Occupying 24.7 hectares (61 acres), it is the fifth-largest park in Paris, after the Bois de Vincennes, Bois de Boulogne, Parc de la Villette and Tuileries Garden.
Opened in 1867, late in the regime of Napoleon III, it was built according to plans by Adolphe Alphand, who created all the major parks for Haussmann's renovation of Paris commanded by the Emperor. The park has 5.5 kilometres (3.4 miles) of roads and 2.2 kilometres (1.4 miles) of paths. Its best known feature is the Temple de la Sibylle (Sibyl's Temple), a miniature Roman temple inspired by the Temple of Vesta in Tivoli, Italy, and located on the Belvedere island in the artificial lake, at the top of a 50-metre (160 ft) cliff.
The park took its name from the bleak hill which formerly occupied the site; because of the chemical composition of its soil, the hill was almost bare of vegetation and was called Chauve-mont, 'bare hill'. The area, just outside the limits of Paris until the mid-19th century, had a sinister reputation; it was the site of the Gibbet of Montfaucon, where from the 13th century until 1760, the bodies of hanged criminals were displayed after their executions. After the 1789 Revolution, it became a refuse dump, and then a place for cutting up horse carcasses and a depository for sewage. The director of public works of Paris and builder of the park, Adolphe Alphand, reported that "the site spread infectious emanations not only to the neighbouring areas, but, following the direction of the wind, over the entire city."
Another part of the site was a quarry that produced limestone and gypsum, used in the production of plaster and lime. In order to make lime, the gypsum was heated in furnaces. The mining and heating continued until the late 1850s, when the quarry was exhausted. The quarry also yielded Eocene mammal fossils, including Palaeotherium, which were studied by Georges Cuvier.
Baron Haussmann, the Prefect of Paris, selected this unprepossessing site for the new public park to serve the rapidly growing population of the new 19th and 20th arrondissements of Paris, which had been annexed to the city in 1860.
Work began in 1864, under the direction of Alphand, who used all the experience and lessons he had learned in making the Bois de Boulogne and the Bois de Vincennes. Two years were required simply to terrace the land. Then a railroad track was laid to bring in cars carrying two hundred thousand cubic meters of topsoil. A thousand workers remade the landscape, digging a lake and shaping the lawns and hillsides. Explosives were used to sculpt the buttes themselves and the former quarry into a picturesque mountain fifty meters high with cliffs, an interior grotto, pinnacles and arches. Hydraulic pumps were installed to lift water from the canal of the Ourcq River to the highest point on the promontory, to create a dramatic waterfall.
The chief gardener of Paris, horticulturist Jean-Pierre Barillet-Deschamps, then went to work, planting thousands of trees, shrubs and flowers and creating sloping lawns. At the same time, the city's chief architect, Gabriel Davioud, designed the Temple de la Sibylle, the miniature Roman temple on the top of the promontory, modeled after that at Tivoli near Rome, as well as belvederes, restaurants modeled after Swiss chalets, and gatehouses like rustic cottages, completing the imaginary landscape. The park opened on 1 April 1867, coinciding with the opening of the Paris Universal Exposition.
The heart of the park is an artificial lake of 1.5 hectares (3.7 acres) surrounding the Île de la Belvédère (Belvedere island), a rocky island with steep cliffs created from the old gypsum quarry. At the top of the cliffs is the Temple de la Sibylle, fifty meters above the lake. Two bridges cross the lake to the island. Paths encircle the island, and a steep stairway of 173 steps leads from the top of the cliffs down through the grotto to the edge of the lake.
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Parc des Buttes Chaumont
The Parc des Buttes Chaumont (French pronunciation: [paʁk de byt ʃomɔ̃]; English: Park of Buttes Chaumont) is a public park situated in northeastern Paris, France, in the 19th arrondissement. Occupying 24.7 hectares (61 acres), it is the fifth-largest park in Paris, after the Bois de Vincennes, Bois de Boulogne, Parc de la Villette and Tuileries Garden.
Opened in 1867, late in the regime of Napoleon III, it was built according to plans by Adolphe Alphand, who created all the major parks for Haussmann's renovation of Paris commanded by the Emperor. The park has 5.5 kilometres (3.4 miles) of roads and 2.2 kilometres (1.4 miles) of paths. Its best known feature is the Temple de la Sibylle (Sibyl's Temple), a miniature Roman temple inspired by the Temple of Vesta in Tivoli, Italy, and located on the Belvedere island in the artificial lake, at the top of a 50-metre (160 ft) cliff.
The park took its name from the bleak hill which formerly occupied the site; because of the chemical composition of its soil, the hill was almost bare of vegetation and was called Chauve-mont, 'bare hill'. The area, just outside the limits of Paris until the mid-19th century, had a sinister reputation; it was the site of the Gibbet of Montfaucon, where from the 13th century until 1760, the bodies of hanged criminals were displayed after their executions. After the 1789 Revolution, it became a refuse dump, and then a place for cutting up horse carcasses and a depository for sewage. The director of public works of Paris and builder of the park, Adolphe Alphand, reported that "the site spread infectious emanations not only to the neighbouring areas, but, following the direction of the wind, over the entire city."
Another part of the site was a quarry that produced limestone and gypsum, used in the production of plaster and lime. In order to make lime, the gypsum was heated in furnaces. The mining and heating continued until the late 1850s, when the quarry was exhausted. The quarry also yielded Eocene mammal fossils, including Palaeotherium, which were studied by Georges Cuvier.
Baron Haussmann, the Prefect of Paris, selected this unprepossessing site for the new public park to serve the rapidly growing population of the new 19th and 20th arrondissements of Paris, which had been annexed to the city in 1860.
Work began in 1864, under the direction of Alphand, who used all the experience and lessons he had learned in making the Bois de Boulogne and the Bois de Vincennes. Two years were required simply to terrace the land. Then a railroad track was laid to bring in cars carrying two hundred thousand cubic meters of topsoil. A thousand workers remade the landscape, digging a lake and shaping the lawns and hillsides. Explosives were used to sculpt the buttes themselves and the former quarry into a picturesque mountain fifty meters high with cliffs, an interior grotto, pinnacles and arches. Hydraulic pumps were installed to lift water from the canal of the Ourcq River to the highest point on the promontory, to create a dramatic waterfall.
The chief gardener of Paris, horticulturist Jean-Pierre Barillet-Deschamps, then went to work, planting thousands of trees, shrubs and flowers and creating sloping lawns. At the same time, the city's chief architect, Gabriel Davioud, designed the Temple de la Sibylle, the miniature Roman temple on the top of the promontory, modeled after that at Tivoli near Rome, as well as belvederes, restaurants modeled after Swiss chalets, and gatehouses like rustic cottages, completing the imaginary landscape. The park opened on 1 April 1867, coinciding with the opening of the Paris Universal Exposition.
The heart of the park is an artificial lake of 1.5 hectares (3.7 acres) surrounding the Île de la Belvédère (Belvedere island), a rocky island with steep cliffs created from the old gypsum quarry. At the top of the cliffs is the Temple de la Sibylle, fifty meters above the lake. Two bridges cross the lake to the island. Paths encircle the island, and a steep stairway of 173 steps leads from the top of the cliffs down through the grotto to the edge of the lake.
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