What will the Memorial Park look like in honor of the victims of November 13, which was inaugurated this Thursday?

Although passersby have been able to access it since June 20, it has been inaccessible for several days – the installation of the stage and stands required an inauguration ceremony that could be attended by around 1,500 spectators. The mayor of Paris stated that he wanted to commemorate the attacks in “a unique place, to show that Paris is not a city like other cities and always recovers”.

The garden is installed on Place Saint-Gervais, behind Paris City Hall (4^e district): victims’ associations participating in the development of the location, chose a “neutral” location, which was not attacked by terrorists, wanting to avoid “imbalance”.

Minerals and plants

Emerging from the ground after nine months of work, the garden was designed by agency Wagon Landscaping. From the garden, which is based on minerals and plants, six granite blocks rise from the ground to remind of the six geographic locations of the attack – the Bataclan; Stade de France; Le Carillon, Le Petit Cambodia; La Bonne Bière, Le Casa Nostra; Team La Belle and Le Comptoir Voltaire. Four granite blocks border the park, on which are inscribed the names of the site of the attack and the 132 victims. Street names are carved into the ground. “From a fragmented and disturbed land, a peaceful place is born, conducive to meditation. Everyday places – cafes, concert halls, streets – take on new dimensions, as if frozen in their moment of change. The garden becomes a space of reflection, of shared memory,” explains Wagon Landscaping on its website.

The material was not chosen randomly, explained Mathieu Gontier to our colleagues at Figaro : “Tonight, November 13 2015, the land of Paris was also attacked. So together with the victims’ association, we decided to use Parisian paving stones (used on many streets in the capital) and choose granite from Brittany. »

Birds to symbolize “souls of lost people”

The landscaper, designer and project manager also emphasizes that “the main idea is not to reproduce a site model, but to create an interpretation. Each plant species has been carefully selected to create a flowering landscape as long as possible throughout the year.” It’s true, the flower bed also contains many plants, and several trees and shrubs decorate the installation. On the Wagon Landscaping website, we also found that “at night, tiny dots of light illuminate, forming constellations inspired by the sky on November 13, 2015.”