Gustafson Porter + Bowman create magnificent setting for athletes' arrival

A noteable part of the Paris 2024 Olympics opening ceremony featured the athletes arriving at Trocadero Gardens in front of the Eiffel Tower, with the area around the Fountain of Varsovie recently transformed to a design by Tenderstream member Gustafson Porter + Bowman. The practice won a major international competition in 2018 to deliver a landscape that aligned with the vision of the City of Paris for a resilient, inclusive and environmentally-oriented future.

As one of the most iconic landmarks in the world, the area around the Eiffel Tower was a victim of its popularity, facing fundamental issues such as over-crowding, impaired accessibility, and lack of services. Gustafson Porter + Bowman’s ‘OnE’ design proposed a unified central axis that celebrates the Eiffel Tower at the central point between the Palais de Chaillot at the Place du Trocadéro and the École Militaire at the Place Joffre, creating a readable landscape of regreened spaces. In finding and staging new views of the tower, points of interest are created from which to enjoy the site. Overlaying this is a second landscape, one that recalls the French ‘picturesque’ and its history of gardens as places of artistic experimentation and an increase in biodiversity. Around the central axis, intimate garden spaces with a rich mix of ornamental and native planting allow space for temporary events and installations.

The first phase, which completed in March 2024, is the historic landscape around the Fontaine de Varsovie that reinforces the architectural heritage of one of the most iconic landscapes of the 20th Century. The completion of this initial sector marks the first phase of the wider landscape project that will continue following the Paris Olympics. The next stages will include the pedestrianisation of the Place de Varsovie and the Pont d’Iéna, together with the reduction of traffic lanes and the addition of shrub and perennial planting along the Quai Branly.

Lucy Nordberg
Tenderstream Head of Research

This tender was first published by Tenderstream on 20.02.2018 here

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