Promenade Plantée (France)
This time, the Railway Heritage World Blog will present the Promenade Plantée in Paris, also known as Coulée Verte René-Dumont. This experience dates from 2013 and it is about a nice walk of 4,5 kilometers on the first world’s elevated park.
The History
In a sign at one of the park entrances there is a summary of the park history, which says that the park replaced a part of a railway line that used to run from Bastille until La Varenne-Saint-Maur since 1853 until 1969. Under the park name it shows that the public space was built between 1987 and 2000 using the railway viaducts, runways, embankments and tunnels that crosses the 12º arrondissement since the Bastille until the Bois des Vincennes. However, the history that this park is a part of is much bigger than that.
Besides all the other stations and all the tracks deactivated, this railway line used to start in the Paris-Bastille Station, a building that does not exist anymore. Its infrastructure was replaced by the Bastille Opera, inaugurated in 1989 and designed by Carlos Ott.
This happened because the old train station was too small to receive the new trains and, since the 1920s, Paris was worried about the connection between the city center and its surrounding areas, stablishing around 1950 some projects to the RER A, which would use a part of the Bastille line and deactivate the other. The last passengers got to this station in 1969. (http://veloraildelabrie.free.fr/historique.html)
The Park and the City
All the photos were collected here - http://www.gavroche-pere-et-fils.fr/la-promenade-plantee/
The architects responsible for this landscape project were Jacques Vergely and Philippe Mathieux. Our walk started in the Reuilly Garden by an entrance on the left of the Avenue Daumesnil. It is a nice green open area where, during the hot weather, some people do picnics or just stay there laid down reading books and feeling the sun. In the entrance of this garden there is a kind of source of drinking water, where many people go to fill their bottles. You can find places like this all around Paris. To cross the park and get to the Promenade Plantée, there is an iron and curved bridge.
The way through the park is really amazing, it is a mix of nature and a different perspective of the city. Paris has an urban plan based in big avenues well forested, like big urbanized corridors. Now, imagine yourself in a way where you can face the buildings from their top, appreciating their details through a natural corridor. In the beggining you get in the middle of two buildings as if you were totally inside of them and in another moment your view is filled by roses, trees, bamboos or other kind of small and delicate flowers. The view of the streets and even the quantity of chimneys on the top of the houses are astonishing. You can see details that you never thought about while you were walking on the streets.
However, do not think that along the streets the infrastructure gets boring. Under the arcs you can find tunnels, art galleries and art stores, it is the Art Viaduct. During the night, as you cannot go through the park, you will see some inaugural exhibitions, full of fancy people looking and criticizing art while they taste a nice glass of wine. Unfortunately, as the same time as you will know the cultural and sophisticated Paris, you will face the tough reality of the social inequality under the arcs.
Final Considerations
Well, we walked just half of this amazing urban refuge, because behind us there was a way to go until Bois des Vincennes. Anyway, even walking through just a part of it, we could appreciate this amazing public space as the same time as we could realize that we were so carried away that we almost did not think about the old way of life that used to exist there. By some research, we could see that in the way that we did not pass by there are some remnants of the railway infrastructure, besides the tunnels and viaducts, but is that enough? However, a part of this memory is still there, the infrastructure is a part of the city daily life and we hope that this amazing place is able to stimulate its users to remember more than what they can see.
If you want to try to have a virtual experience through the Promenade Plantée, you can watch this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0CQ73TmVeo
