Parc de Madrid

The area you are approaching takes its name from a lost architectural marvel that once stood nearby. In fifteen twenty-eight, King Francis the First ordered the construction of a grand royal residence on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne. He chose the site after returning from captivity in Spain, naming the new palace the Chateau de Madrid to honor the place of his imprisonment. The building was a masterpiece of the French Renaissance, covered almost entirely in vibrantly glazed majolica tiles, which earned it the nickname the Chateau of Faience.