Paris has just announced plans for a major new park at the base of the Eiffel Tower. On Tuesday, British landscape architecture firm Gustafson Porter + Bowman’s proposal was selected by the city, which will transform over 100 acres into what will be the largest public green space in the city. The transformation is set to be complete by 2024, in time for the Paris Olympics, and will cost 72 million euros (roughly $80 million).
Every year the Eiffel Tower is visited by over 30 million people, and as one of the most iconic landmarks in the world, it has fallen victim to its popularity. “I was horrified by the state of the spaces in that they are not adequately equipped to accommodate the influx of pedestrians and visitors. We must entirely rethink this space,” Gustafson Porter + Bowman founding partner Kathryn Gustafson told Le Parisien. To remedy the overcrowding, lack of accessibility, and congested gardens, the firm has come up with a plan that will reimagine the neighborhood and create a better visiting experience.
Consisting of a long stretch of green that will span the mile between Place du Trocadéro and the end of the Champ-de-Mars, the park will also transform the Pont d’Iéna, the bridge that links the city’s left and right banks and leads to the Eiffel Tower, into a pedestrian-only passage. Anchored by the Eiffel Tower, the park will connect the Place du Trocadéro, the Palais de Chaillot, the Pont d’Iéna, the Champ-de-Mars, and the École Militaire. Throughout the park a series of existing landscapes will be reimagined, including a new green amphitheater at the Place du Trocadéro; a continuous promenade that will extend between the Bir Hakeim bridge, the Eiffel Tower, and the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac; and a new landscaping scheme in the gardens of Champ-de-Mars.
“Paris, the city of the Climate Accord, confirms its place as the international leader of protecting the environment,” said Mayor Anne Hidalgo in a statement on Tuesday. “In a city this dense, we need to have large open spaces to take a breath.”
