The Broken Greenhouses of The Tropical Agricultural Garden

When today’s challenge appeared on my screen, I immediately thought about the tropical agricultural garden of Vincennes. A beautiful place, and a curiosity, yet in a sorry state. Here is this week’s selection for “broken”, the Friday photo challenge. For the history of the garden check Wikipedia at this address and the APUR Website for a hypothetical plan regarding the future of that place.

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The Oriental gate at the entrance of the garden (probably from Vietnam) is undoubtedly broken. It is made of the remnants of the colonial exhibition of 1907. Some of the pieces are extremely beautiful and very picturesque.

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The Tunisian pavilion is all broken too. A modern artist has decorated the windows with wooden installations. I found them very inspiring.

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Beyond that, the building is in poor condition to say the least.

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And this is nothing compared to the greenhouses.

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And here again

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All the greenhouses are all in a more than sorry state. They however lend themselves to interesting shots.

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Ivy on the hinges of a door of a derelict greenhouse in the tropical garden.

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an HDR shot of an abandoned Green house at twilight last Winter.

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Trees growing through the cracks of the greenhouse.

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The Indochina pavilion has been restored and isn’t so “broken”. This garden is almost unknown and deserted despite its beauty and architectural value. At the same time, I must admit that broken buildings make up for very interesting photography. Well, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed taking them anyway. I took these pictures last year after I sprained my ankle very badly and I was walking around on crutches. As a result, they aren’t as good as I wanted them to be, and I believe that I would have to get back there one day and start all over again. Maybe if I have time.

Yann Gourvennec
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7 Comments

  1. From reading the history link, it sounds like this place was kind of an original ethnic festival. Will keep this place in mind for next visit as I have an affinity for old, crumbly, abandoned places (and besides, the keep to the Chateau de Vincennes was closed when we visited…). Wonderful photos and a very interesting post!

    • Thanks for stopping by and commenting Beth. It is really worth seeing. You’d probably need a car to get there though, or otherwise use the RER to Nogent and backtrack a bit to the garden. Vincennes is sort of interesting but the keep is rather bare from what I can remember and they could have made the visit more worthwhile. The fact is that the chateau in Vincennes was used by the Military for their historical archives and such and wasn’t really geared towards tourism. The place certainly needs a complete overhaul for tourists, not to mention the need for digitally-enabled add-ons.

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