The Jardin Atlantique is a public park and garden, placed atop the large roof, or dalle, that covers the tracks and platforms of the Gare Monparnasse, supported by twelve pillars, and 17 metres above the street level. It has an area of 3.4 hectares. It was created by the landscape architects Brun, Penna and Schnitzler, and opened in 1994.
Large ventilator shafts for the station are placed around the garden, and the announcement of the trains departing can be heard there. Cubes of stone filled with earth contain five hundred trees. On the west side, the garden is surrounded by office buildings and by a line of tennis courts. It is also the site of a small museum honouring Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, commander of the French armoured division which was first to enter Paris during the liberation of the city from the Germans in August 1944.
The plan of the garden is inspired by the historical role of the Gare Montparnasse as the train station that connected Paris to Brittany and the Atlantic Ocean. One theme is that of a ship; the lampposts resemble masts of sailing ships, and there are two elevated walkways on either side of the garden which resemble bridges of ships.
A visitor to the garden is supposed to feel like a passenger on a cruise ship surrounded by a circle of office buildings. In the centre of the garden, encased by a lawn, is a small square called the Isle of the Hesperides, named after the legendary islands believed by ancient Greeks to be situated to the west of the Pillars of Hercules. In the ‘island’ is a fountain, called the Fontaine des Hesperides, made by the sculptor Jean-Max Llorca, composed of several gigantic meteorological instruments for measuring the rain, temperature, wind and atmospheric pressure, surrounded by jets of water.
The large number of pine trees in the garden are also supposed to evoke the Atlantic coast of Brittany. The east side of the garden has two pavilions, where visitors can climb to the roof and look over the garden. There are also small thematic gardens with different types of vegetation.
The set of thematic gardens includes:
– Salle des Plants ondoyantes (grasses moving in the wind);
– Salle des Humidites (Aquatic plants);
– Salle des Bleus and Mauves (Flowers in blue and mauve);
– Salle du Silence (A secluded garden for meditation);
– Salle des Rivages (Plants of the coast).