Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The pavilions of Togo and Cameroon were built in 1930 by architects Louis-Hippolyte Boileau and Charles Carrière for the International Colonial Exhibition of 1931 in Paris. After the exhibition, the site was converted to the Museum of Wood Industries in 1933, before closing in 1971. These wooden structures, typical of ephemeral colonial architecture, illustrate the legacy of universal exhibitions and their subsequent reuse.

In 1969, the politician Jean Sainteny, former Commissioner of the Republic for Tonkin and resistant, founded the Buddhist International Institute with the aim of creating an interfaith Buddhist cultural centre in France. Despite financial difficulties, the institute acquired in 1975 the former flag of Cameroon, then abandoned, to establish a pagoda there. It was inaugurated in 1977 by Jacques Chirac, Mayor of Paris, marking the transformation of a colonial symbol into an Asian spirituality.

The site was enriched in 1985 with the construction of the Tibetan temple Kagyu-Dzong, initiated by Kalou Rinpoche and Jean Ober, secretary general of the institute. After the self-dissolution of the Institute in 2003, the management of the pagoda was taken over by the Buddhist Union of France. The pavilions, classified as Historical Monuments in 2024, today bear witness to a dual memory: colonial and spiritual.

The original architecture of the pavilions, designed to highlight the French colonies in Africa, contrasts with their current vocation. Their preservation illustrates the heritage re-appropriation of initially ephemeral spaces, while stressing the tensions between colonial heritage and intercultural dialogue. The pagoda, open to the public, remains a place of worship, meditation and discovery of extreme Eastern culture.

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