At the edge of Paris lie the ghosts of France’s colonial past.
The ruins tell their story.
A Door to the Past
The entrance to the Jardin d’Agronomie Tropicale features a skilfully crafted Chinese gateway arch, which leads visitors into the setting of a colonial exhibition space dating back more than 100 years.
The former exhibition space, spanning over four hectares, was used to showcase exotic plants, animals and even humans, originating from France’s former colonies.
The park is disquieting in its wildness, with only a few pathways kept clear of grasses, bushes and creeping branches.
Carved in 1931, the statues served for the opening of the Exposition Coloniale Internationale. The exhibition drew a crowd of 33 million people over six months.
In the centre of the Dinh Square, a Vietnamese bronze urn imitates the ones found in the imperial city of Hue. 
The small red pagoda was addedd to the exhibition in 1992 in honour of the fallen Indochinese soldiers.
The Pavilions
Further down the trail, pavilions represent the architectural features of each colony.
Today, at the centre of the garden, the Indochina Pavilion shapes the framework of a scientific program that returns to its original role and broadens the stakes through a reflection on sustainable development and ecology.
The statute of former colonial leader, Eugène Étienne, still overlooks the park.
Right on the opposite lies this massive, decayed and a little mysterious ruin – The Moroccan pavilion.
THE MOROCCAN PAVILION
The Moroccan Pavilion is one of the six built in the garden, meant to showcase the culture, architecture, agriculture and lifestyle of the colonies.
As you enter the rusty doors, broken windows and graffiti on the walls reflect the effects time had on the space.
Now a site of delinquency, a century ago the building was a place of prayer and healing. After being a mosque for several years, the place was turned into a war hospital for wounded colonials.
The pavilions used to display people taken from their colonial homelands, so that Europeans could see them in artificial imitations of their natural habitat.
The garden is currently the subject of a cultural, architectural and landscape rehabilitation project by the City of Paris.
If you want to find out more about this historical place, click here.