Building Community
Creating Places
Using Commmon Sense
Project Areas
Major Initiatives
Special Features
PPS Favorites
- What If We Built Our Cities Around Places?
- Great Waterfronts of the World
- Pride of Place
Governing Magazine - Placemaker Profile: Allan Jacobs
Parc André Citröen
15th arrondissement
Paris, France
Contributed by Project for Public Spaces
A 35-acre park that is barely more hospitable than the car factory it replaced.
Click on any image for slide show
For more images of Parc André Citröen or other places, try searching our Image Collection
Why It Doesn't Work
We are heartbroken when we see Parc André Citröen. It is located on a crucial waterfront site, yet it completely fails the surrounding residential neighborhood. We visited the park in different seasons to see how it is used, tallying five visits in total. On each occasion, we found it so indifferent to users' needs that we disliked spending any amount of time there.
The one feature that generates any sustained activity--an array of fountains spurting from a flat, paved surface--has a sign warning children not to play there. The sign is a fitting embodiment of the park's overriding message: "Look, but don't touch."
The entire periphery of the park is a series of fussy little design vignettes that fail to accommodate people's normal uses, such as sitting in groups or even just watching other people. Various theme gardens, follies, and grade-separated paths restrict the user experience to one monotonous act: looking at objects.
The entrances, playgrounds, seating, and activity areas are complete failures compared to Paris's better parks. Two of its features have some potential -- the major water feature and the lawn -- but currently they lack even the most basic supporting amenities, such as seating or picnic tables.
We never suggest that a park be torn up and redone, but we make an exception for this one. We are sure that this park is enormously expensive to maintain. In the long-run, replacing its fussiness in favor of simpler, usable spaces would be a cost-effective way to turn Parc André Citröen into the urban oasis it ought to be.
Related Links:
- The World's Best and Worst Parks - Parc Andre Citroen is on PPS's list of the worst parks in the world
User Comments:
> Add your own comment about Parc André Citröen
> Add your own commentabout Parc André Citröen
The 'grand design,' the diagonal path, the big field and the paths along the waterways, all of it was filled with groups of strollers and flaneurs, ballplayers and picnickers. (Parisians understand picnic to mean sitting on a blanket on the grass, munching - they don't see the need for furniture or for hauling half their home's inventory into an SUV to eat outdoors in a park.) Everything was packed with people doing group and family activities.
What's more, I did not see many signs or other bureaucratic interference, telling people what to do or not do, did not notice any visible infrastructural services, saw no graffiti or vandalism, and most of all: no logos anywhere. There's merely a very small bust of Mr. Andre Citroen on the southwest side, where the park smoothly merges with the spaces around the glassy modern office buildings in behind. The more detailed and private garden designs on the edges and the continuous walking routes through them were dotted all over with people having some solitude and contemplation, or quietly conversing and sitting with a friend or discussing the plantings.
I was astounded by the well-developed park culture of Paris: this day, all parks, of all design eras, were filled to the brim. Perhaps it matters less than we think whether a park is Victorian, filled with atrocious follies and fakes (des Buttes-Chaumont), dilapidated (Vincennes), classic Italianate or chateauesque, a multi-purpose museum and culture precinct (de la Villette), or modern and conceptual. The intensive use of Paris parks and streets make for a good argument for more density: density makes for richly textured, intriguing cities, where the 'chance encounter' is still very much a possibility and where people still look at each other in the streets. I can only say I completely disagree with your take on this park. It's a beauty, and people have most decidedly found their way over to use it and have made it their own.
The park offers a variety of different spaces for different moods. I felt myself being drawn to the large open space at first to sit down and have lunch, something many people were doing. The addition of a few trees in this space provides a shanded area amoungst this large grass area to sit and enjoy the surroundings.
The six smaller themed garden's provide a smaller space surrounded by beautifully planted vegetation and landscaping. There were many couples and families enjoying these spaces, benefiting from the variety of shaded and open space.
The walkway that overlooks these areas and gives access to the smaller greenhouses is a great area for sun bathing. It also gives great views over the park and to the buildings beyond. It has the feel of mediterainian gardens with the dusty path below and the pruned trees that accompany it.
Bamboo gives others areas a more secluded and private feel, which is quite a contrast to the large central open space.
The Jardin Noir provide yet more seclusion and a sense of retreat from the open space. There were hardly any people there, which I found quite odd as it was about two on a sunny Saturday afternoon.
The large glass greenhouses overlooking the parc give this modernist feel, which encapsulates the whole feel of the parc. They reminded me of the way that the Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis over looks Athens. It posses that majesty that fits in with the large building the surrounds one side of the park.
I feel that the park is sympathetic to it's surrounds and creates a great space within Paris where people can enjoy a great reange of spaces. Thus, I feel that your review of the park is too harsh and not well observed.