Square René le Gall

The leafy Square René le Gall (also known as the Jardin des Gobelins), built over the underground River Bièvre, was designed by architect Jean-Charles Moreux (1889-1956) in 1937-38. It stands today as one of Paris’s finest examples of a neoclassical art deco garden, with square parterres of lawn, an obelisk and a geometric rose garden with four mini concrete pavilions (a modernist take on the Château de Villandry’s famous Loire Valley gardens). The most distinctive part of the square, however, is the ramp up to the park’s entrance on rue Croulebarbe: decorated by the sculptor Garnier, the wall caricatures a baroque grotto, with stone faces that peer out of the walls like a fruit-filled Arcimboldo painting.