Tropical Agronomy Garden, Paris

The Tropical Agronomy Garden (jardin d'agronomie tropicale René-Dumont) is a green space at the far eastern side of the bois de Vincennes in Paris on the edge of Nogent-sur-Marne, almost at the easternmost part of Paris. It stands on the site of a colonial trial garden created at the end of the 19th century to increase agricultural production in the French colonies. The only entrance is on its south-east edge on avenue de la Belle-Gabrielle. The nearest RER station is Nogent-sur-Marne (line A), 400 metres to the northeast, whilst the nearest metro station is Château de Vincennes (line 1), 2.5 km to the north-west.

It is about 6.5 hectares in size, of which 4.5 hectares are open to the public.^[1] Until 1995 the remaining two hectares in the west of the Garden house the Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement (CIRAD), which specialises in agronomical research applied to hot regions of the world.^[2] CIRAD's well-preserved buildings are used for teaching and research and those two hectares also house several research laboratories run by CIRED (Centre international de recherche sur l'environnement et le développement), CEDIMES and IEDES.

It is one of the largest green spaces in the 12th arrondissement of Paris after the bois de Vincennes itself, the parc de Bercy and the Coulée verte René-Dumont. It is marked by its natural vegetation, with only the walks and buildings clear. The vegetation is essentially native to the Île-de-France, with only some tropical species surviving (bamboo, rubber trees and persimmon).^[3] It is flat and in the north of the park an artificial stream runs north from a small artificial pond.

A trial garden was established on the site in 1899 by agronomist and explorer Jean Dybowski to coordinate agronomical studies of plants from France's colonial empire such as Coffea, bananas, Hevea brasiliensis and Theobroma cacao.^[4] He aimed to increase crop yields in the colonies, the better to supply Metropolitan France. During the following years the trial garden's greenhouses supplied 10,000 cuttings and 40,000 seeds a year, which were then sent to the colonies.^[3] · ^[2]

Until 1907 the garden took on more and more colonial or colonial-inspired monuments brought to France's world fairs - in 1900 the 'Réunion Kiosk' and 'Dahomey Greenhouse' were both moved there from that year's Exposition Universelle, after the Meunier and Hamelle firms offered greenhouses for that event. In its new home the Kiosk was used as a tasting bar, particularly for rum. It was set up at JAT in 1907, where it served as a security post and - after the First World War - a storeroom.

From May to October 1907 the Société française de colonisation held another colonial exhibition, for which the Garden was transformed into a teaching garden showing off France's possessions in both Asia and Africa.^[5] The Congo Pavilion and the tea house from the 1906 Marseille colonial exhibition were moved to another colonial exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris the same year, before being moved to the Garden for the 1907 exhibition. The Vietnamese House, Chinese Gate and Annam Tower (now lost) were also moved to the Garden from the 1906 Paris exhibition.

A Sudanese farm, a Touareg encampment and Congolese, Vietnamese, Kanak and Malagy villages were built^[4] and people from those cultures moved into them, disguised in more or less traditional costumes and paid to provide a show for the visitors.^[6] - for example, in the Toureg encampment, some of the inhabitants played nomadic rebels attacking the mail.

The exhibition had between one and two million visitors and was accounted a success, though the shows and the pavilions hosting them later led to it being described as a human zoo.^[7] Survivors from that exhibition are the Vietnamese (restored in 2011), Moroccan (now in poor condition), Guianese and Tunisian pavilions.

During the First World War the pavilions were used as hospitals for French colonial troops and the first mosque in metropolitan France, named the Bois de Vincennes Mosque, opened in the garden on 14 April 1916 (it was demolished when the Grand Mosque of Paris was built). The soldiers who died in these buildings were buried in the Paris cemeteries of Bagneux, Pantin and Ivry-sur-Seine.

Colonial soldiers were also laid to rest in Nogent-sur-Marne's town cemetery, where a qubba was opened on 16 July 1919, demolished in 1982 then rebuilt in 2013. Memorials to fallen colonial soldiers were also built in the garden. In 1921 the colonial garden and agricultural school merged to become the Institut d’agronomie coloniale (INAC).

1931 saw the last major colonial exhibition in France. The Colonial Museum was founded to mark the occasion and is now the Palais de la Porte dorée - musée de l'Immigration. INAC was entrusted with setting up that Museum's section for making colonial products for the exhibition.^[8]

The Garden was then attached to the Centre technique forestier tropical in 1949 and, in 1960, the Institut de recherches agronomiques tropicales. The Garden was also made a 'Site classé' on 22 November 1960. Several buildings from that period survive, such as the termite mound, greenhouses and the tropical timber storage warehouse. The technical centre moved to Montpellier in 1976.^[3]

As France gave up its empire the Garden became relatively abandoned, but little by little aid and development institutions moved into it. Buildings were abandoned and left to fall apart and exotic vegetation almost entirely disappeared. The pavilions, architectural elements and war memorials were made monuments historiques on 1 June 1994,^[9] but the Congo Pavilion burned down completely in 2004.

Paris's city council acquired the site in 2003 and reopened it to the public three years later. The Vietnamese Pavilion was restored in 2011,^[6] followed by the Tunisian Pavilion in 2019-2020 to house a conservation space for professors and students from CIRAD and later a restaurant.^[10] The Chinese Gate was renovated in 2011 after damage in the 1999 storm.

They renamed the Garden the René Dumont Tropical Agronomy Garden after one of the fathers of modern ecology, who had been a student at the Institut national d'agronomie coloniale. It gathers CIRAD, CIRED, GRET, AVSF, Econovia, Kinomé, AFD, Johann le Guillerm, V'Ile fertile, le Festival Chant de la terre, Lcb, Onf international and the Sorbonne Université under the 'Cité du développement' umbrella and assists institutions, businesses and societies linked with sustainable development, international aid, culture and local food production.

Most of these date back to the 1907 colonial exhibition - the Chinese gate and the Khmer and Tonkin bridges are the oldest elements of the Vietnamese village from that exhibition.

• Chinese gate
• Khmer bridge
• Tonkin bridge

The "esplanade du Dinh" is a rectangular space with a Vietnamese-inspired stone portico, a bronze funerary urn modelled on the imperial urns in the Huế palace and - slightly overhanging - the 'Temple of Vietnamese Remembrance'. That was originally a sculpted wooden replica of a communal house in a village in Thủ Dầu Một province - it officially became the 'Temple of Vietnamese Remembrance' in 1920, with the intention that it be used for Vietnamese religious ceremonies, particularly those for the souls of the dead. It was made a monument historique on 7 May 1965,^[9] but was broken into and burned down in 1984. The much smaller temple on its site was built in 1992 and is named the Dinh Pavilion, though it is more commonly known as the Pagoda. Even so, it has become the garden's symbol.

• Temple.
• Esplanade du Dinh.
• Urn.

Destroyed by a fire, the Congo Pavilion is now in ruins and the La Réunion and Morocco pavilions have also been left to fall into disrepair. The French Guiana pavilion, also known as the J. A. Massibot, was converted into a genetics laboratory in 1925.

• Morocco Pavilion.
• French Guiana Pavilion.
• La Réunion Pavilion.

Greenhouses built between 1899 and 1972 fill the south-west corner.^[2] The smallest, the Dahomey Greenhouse, can be seen between the Vietnamese and Tunisian pavilions, both of which have been renovated.^[11][12]

• Dahomey Greenhouse and Vietnamese Pavilion.
• Dahomey Greenhouse and Tunisian Pavilion.
• Tunisian Pavilion

The tropical garden includes several war memorials to soldiers from Overseas France killed in the First World War, specifically for:

• Madagascar
• Cambodians and Laotians
• Vietnamese Christians

There is also one "To black soldiers who died for France"

• Monuments
• Madagascar.
• Cambodians and Laotians.
• Vietnamese Christians.
• "To black soldiers who died for France".

Five statues from the 'monument to the glory of French colonial expansion' by Jean-Baptiste Belloc are overgrown, standing on the ground near the entrance.^[13][14]

In French unless otherwise noted.

• Isabelle Lévêque; Dominique Pinon; Michel Griffon (2005). Le Jardin d’agronomie tropicale. Actes Sud, coédition CIRAD. ISBN 978-2-7427-5673-5.
• Thomas B. Reverdy & Sylvain Venayre, Jardin des colonies, Flammarion, 2017, 213 p., ISBN 2081413159, 9782081413153
• Bancel, Nicolas; Blanchard, Pascal; Gilles; Lemaire, Sandrine, eds. (2011). Zoos humains et exhibitions coloniales: 150 ans d'inventions de l'Autre (réédition). Paris: La Découverte. ISBN 978-2707169976.

• Official site
• Photographic visit
• Rehabilitation project by the APUR (2013)
• The garden on the Cité du développement durable site

48°50′2″N 2°28′0″E / 48.83389°N 2.46667°E / 48.83389; 2.46667