page_title: History of parks and gardens of Paris
section_title: Champ-de-Mars (1908–1927)
hierarchical_section_title: History of parks and gardens of Paris / Gardens of the Belle Epoque and the Universal Expositions (1871–1914) / Champ-de-Mars (1908–1927)
caption_attribution_description: English: Official bird's-eye view of Exposition Universelle of 1867.Français&#160;: Vue officielle a vol d'oiseau de l'exposition universelle de 1867.
context_page_description: Paris today has more than 421 municipal parks and gardens, covering more than three thousand hectares and containing more than 250,000 trees. Two of Paris's oldest and most famous gardens are the Tuileries Garden, created in 1564 for the Tuileries Palace, and redone by André Le Nôtre in 1664; and the Luxembourg Garden, belonging to a château built for Marie de' Medici in 1612, which today houses the French Senate. The Jardin des Plantes was the first botanical garden in Paris, created in 1626 by Louis XIII's doctor Guy de La Brosse for the cultivation of medicinal plants. Between 1853 and 1870, the Emperor Napoleon III and the city's first director of parks and gardens, Jean-Charles Adolphe Alphand, created the Bois de Boulogne, the Bois de Vincennes, Parc Montsouris and the Parc des Buttes Chaumont, located at the four points of the compass around the city, as well as many smaller parks, squares and gardens in the neighborhoods of the city. One hundred sixty-six new parks have been created since 1977, most notably the Parc de la Villette and Parc André Citroën.
context_section_description: The Champ de Mars, 24.5 hectares in area, was created in 1765 as a parade ground and training field for the neighboring École Militaire. During the French Revolution it was the site of large patriotic festivals, including the Festival of the Supreme Being conducted by Robespierre in 1794. It was surrounded by a moat and not open to the public until 1860, when Napoleon III filled in the moat and planted trees along the borders, but it still remained the property of the Army. It was the site of the 1867 Paris Universal Exposition, which featured a large domed pavilion in the center, surrounded a garden, which itself surrounded by a large oval-shaped gallery. The rest of the Champ de Mars was occupied by exposition halls and extensive landscape gardens, designed by Alphand.
  The Champ-de-Mars served again as the main site of the Paris Universal Exposition of 1878. A gigantic palace of glass and iron 725 meters long occupied he center of the park, surrounded by gardens designed by Alphand. For the Paris Universal Exposition of 1889, celebrating the centenary of the French Revolution, Alphand placed the Eiffel Tower in the center, near the monumental Gallery of Machines. The Exposition included a Palace of Fine Arts and a Palace of Liberal Arts. The space around the Eiffel tower and between the galleries and palaces was filled by a large landscape garden, which extended along the axis between the Eiffel Tower and the Seine, and ended at the river at a colossal fountain with a group of allegorical figures, called The City of Paris Illuminates the World with her Torch. The fountain was lit at night by electric lights shining up from the water through plates of colored glass.
  In 1889, the Champ-de-Mars was formally transferred from the French army to the City of Paris. It was used once more for the Paris Universal Exposition of 1900, and, then, beginning in 1909 until 1927, it was developed into a public park. It was an unusual site; it was the only large park in Paris not enclosed with a fence, and it was crossed by three major boulevards. The huge Gallery of Machines, which occupied much of the site, was demolished in 1909. The park architect was Jean Camille Formigé (1849–1926), a protégé of Alphand. He used the long central axis from the Eiffel Tower to École Militaire to create a formal and symmetrical park in the French style. The long central axis was lined with paths and rows of trees; a basin with fountains was placed in the center; playgrounds were built along the sides. The original gardens from the 1889 exhibition, around the Eiffel Tower, were preserved in their original form and can still be seen. Like other French formal gardens, it was best seen from above, in this case from the top of the Eiffel Tower.
caption: The gardens surrounding the huge exposition hall of the 1867 Paris Universal Exposition, held on the Champ-de-Mars.
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