Square de la Madone

A dense wall of ivy swallows the iron railings of the Square de la Madone, marking it as a quiet, vertical pocket of greenery tucked against the steep incline of the eighteenth arrondissement. In the nineteen twenties, this site held a cluster of cramped, dilapidated tenements that the city cleared away to let air into the neighborhood. Where those apartments stood, architects planted trees and gravel paths, creating a hidden terraced garden that sits well below the level of the street above.