Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The island of the Swans, originally called the Grenelle dam, was built between 1825 and 1827 as a key element of the Grenelle river port, as part of an urban planning project led by the entrepreneurs Léonard Violet and Alphonse Letellier. This masonry dike was designed to make the Seine navigable on its right bank, while protecting the Grenelle plain from flooding and unhealthy swamps. Trees were planted in 1830 by the Société concessionaire du pont et du port.

In 1889, the island hosted a replica of the Statue of Liberty, offered by the French established in the United States for the centenary of the Revolution, inaugurated by President Sadi Carnot. Originally turned towards the Eiffel Tower (and thus back in the United States), it was rotated downstream in 1937 during the International Exhibition, where the island was temporarily enlarged to 32,000 m2 to house the Colony Centre.

The island also served as a framework for bold projects, such as Aeroparis (1932), an elevated airstrip proposed by architect André Lurçat, rejected because of the opposition of local bougnats anxious to preserve the trees. Between 1900 and 1937, it was crossed by three major bridges: the Passy viaduct (now Bir-Hakeim bridge), the Rouelle bridge (railway), and the Grenelle bridge, which was rebuilt in 1968.

Today, the Swan Island, 890 metres long but only 11 metres wide, stands out for its aisle of Swans planted with 322 trees (61 species in 2004), its viewpoints (including that of Susan-Travers, adorned with the statue La France renaissante), and its downstream platform built in 2012 with a climbing wall. It remains an emblematic place, linked to works of fiction such as Le Professionnel (1981) or Paris pieds nude (2017).

Administratively attached to the 15th arrondissement, it is the smallest of the Parisian islands (1.3 hectares), but also the longest, surpassing the island of Saint-Louis. Its name pays tribute to an ancient island, the island of Swans, gathered in Champ-de-Mars in the late eighteenth century.

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