Buttes Chaumont

The Parc des Buttes Chaumont features a jagged, rocky island rising from a central lake, topped by a miniature Roman temple. Napoleon the Third ordered its creation in the mid-nineteenth century, transforming a former gypsum quarry and garbage dump into this landscape. Engineers blasted the rock and imported massive amounts of soil to create the cliffs and waterfalls. When the park opened in eighteen sixty-seven, the city used the site to demonstrate the triumph of industrial ingenuity over a scarred, industrial wasteland.