Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Lille Garden of Plants, inaugurated in 1948, is an urban and landscape project born in the inter-war period, designed to complete the Baggio High School (former Diderot Institute). It occupies the site of the former south-eastern fortifications of the city, between the gates of Douai and d'Arras, on a plot of 11 hectares. The layout was entrusted to architect Jean Dubuisson and landscape designer Jacques Marquis, a graduate of the École Nationale d'Horticulture de Versailles. The garden adopts a mixed style, combining rigour from the garden to the French (inspired by Versailles) and fluidity of English compositions, with perspectives focused on Baggio High School.

The central structure of the garden is organized around cross basins, a rose garden with concentric terraces, and an Art Deco peristyle decorated with ancient bas-reliefs celebrating sports. An orangery, built in 1952, houses ornamental plants in winter, while an equatorial greenhouse, built between 1969 and 1970 by architect Jean-Pierre Secq, becomes a brutalist architectural symbol. This greenhouse, conceived as a hanging concrete and glass garden, housed a world botanical collection before its closure in 2022 for energy reasons. The site also preserves remains of an Alpine garden and columns of the former Palais de Justice in Lille, demolished in the 1960s.

Ranked a historic monument in 1997 for its layout, basins and peristyle, the garden incorporates an educational and scientific dimension. Since 2006, he has collaborated with the Faculty of Pharmacy in Lille for its botanical collections, and has hosted municipal greenhouses rebuilt in 2019. The place, served by the metro (Porte de Douai station), is also a major cultural space, hosting events such as the Fête des Fleurs or the Festival Le Jardin Électronique, attracting up to 27,000 visitors in 2019. Its history thus reflects the evolution of urban uses, between heritage, education and leisure.

The architecture of the garden dialogues with its historical environment: the former main entrance, now blocked by the peripheral (1971), responded to the monumental portal of the Diderot Institute. Landscape arrangements, such as double linden futai or stairway waterfalls, create effects of visual depth. The equatorial greenhouse, despite its decommissioning, remains a unique testimony of the brutalism applied to horticulture, comparable to the greenhouses of the Barbican Center in London. The site thus illustrates the synthesis between military heritage (fortifications), architectural innovation and botanical vocation.

The Garden of Plants also embodies an industrial and social memory. The columns of blue stone scattered in the playground come from the demolished Palace of Justice, while the apiary school and botanical squares (food plants, tintoriales) recall the links between the city and nature. Current partnerships, such as the one with the Faculty of Pharmacy, perpetuate this utilitarian dimension. Finally, its municipal management and its public events make it a living place, between heritage preservation and adaptation to contemporary issues (energy transition, accessibility).

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