Jardins du Trocadéro
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Jardins du Trocadéro (Gardens of the Trocadero) is an open space in Paris, located in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, bounded to the northwest by the wings of the Palais de Chaillot and to the southeast by the Seine and the Pont d'Iéna.
The main feature, called the Fountain of Warsaw, is a long basin, or water mirror, with twelve fountain creating columns of water 12 meters high; twenty four smaller fountains four meters high; and ten arches of water. At one end, facing the Seine, were twenty powerful water cannon, able to project a jet of water fifty meters. Above the long basin were two smaller basins, linked with the lower basin by cascades flanked by 32 sprays of water four meters high. These fountains are the only exposition fountains which still exist today, and still function as they once did.
The present garden has an area of 93,930 m2, and was created for the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (1937). This was the design of Parisian architect Roger-Henri Expert. The entire site was formerly the garden of the original Palais du Trocadero, laid out by Jean-Charles Alphand for the Exposition Universelle (1878).
Statuary
With sloping fairways that run along the river, the garden terraces feature a number of sculptures, some dating from the 1930s, including:
- at the first level below the Palais de Chaillot, the matching stone statues L'Homme by Pierre Traverse, and La Femme by Daniel Bacqué, both leaning against stone pedestals
- two gilded bronze fountain sculptures in their own square basins, Bull and Deer by Paul Jouve and Horses and Dog by Georges Guyot
- 21-foot bronze Apollo with lyre (or Apollon musagète) group by sculptor Henri Bouchard
- a matching 21-foot bronze Hercules with bull, by Albert Pommier
- two matching stone groups on pedestals towards the southeastern end of the fountain, La Joie de vivre, by Léon-Ernest Drivier and Youth by Pierre Poisson
