Warsaw Fountain & the Pavilions of 1937
Why is it significant?
Stand beside the long rectangular basin running down the slope, with its row of stone pools stepping towards the Seine. On a summer afternoon the water cannons fire jets in a great horizontal volley towards the river, and children squeal at the spray.
Key Facts
| Place | Warsaw Fountain & the Pavilions of 1937 |
|---|---|
| Address | Jardins du Trocadéro, Avenue Gustave V de Suède, 75016 Paris, France |
| Geo Coordinates | 48.86110, 2.29010 |
| Part of Walk | Iron, Glory and Gold: The Eiffel Tower, Trocadéro & Les Invalides in Paris |
| Generated | Generated |
Stand beside the long rectangular basin running down the slope, with its row of stone pools stepping towards the Seine. On a summer afternoon the water cannons fire jets in a great horizontal volley towards the river, and children squeal at the spray. This is the Warsaw Fountain, and it is the most cheerful place on this walk to tell one of its darkest stories.
In the summer of 1937 this whole slope belonged to the International Exhibition of Art and Technology in Modern Life. Forty-odd nations built pavilions along the river, and the organisers made a decision that sounds unbelievable now... they placed the pavilion of Stalin's Soviet Union and the pavilion of Hitler's Germany directly facing each other, right at the foot of this hill, on either side of the axis that runs to the bridge.
The Soviet building was crowned by a huge stainless steel statue, the Worker and the Kolkhoz Woman, two figures striding forward with a hammer and a sickle raised high. Opposite stood Albert Speer's German tower, a block of stone pillars topped by an eagle with a swastika. Speer later claimed in his memoirs that he had sneaked a look at the Soviet plans and designed his tower as a wall to stop those charging figures in their tracks. Two buildings, glaring at each other across a fountain... two years before the war.
And a short way off, in the pavilion of the Spanish Republic, then fighting for its life in a civil war, hung a brand-new painting in black, white and grey. Pablo Picasso had made it in a few weeks after German planes bombed a Basque town that April. It was called Guernica. Many visitors at the time walked past it unimpressed. Today it is one of the most famous paintings on earth.
The pavilions were all taken down when the fair closed. The steel couple went home and still stands in Moscow. Only the palace above you, and this fountain, remain from that strange summer. Carry on down to the river and walk out onto the bridge, straight towards the iron feet of the tower.