15th arrondissement

Highlights: Vaugirard · Grenelle · Javel · Parc André-Citroën · Institut Pasteur · Parc Georges-Brassens

The largest and most populous of the Parisian arrondissements was born of the union of several villages — Vaugirard, Grenelle, Javel — absorbed by the city in the 19th century. Long industrious, dotted with factories along the Seine, the 15th has reinvented itself into a well-loved residential arrondissement, where the grand parks, the riverbanks and the streets on a human scale compose a family art of living, gentle and peaceful.

From villages to the gates of Paris

Until the middle of the 19th century, Vaugirard and Grenelle were autonomous communes, made of vineyards, quarries and guinguettes where Parisians came to drink a wine free of octroi. Grenelle, urbanised from the 1820s, soon acquired a regular plan and a numerous working-class population.

In 1860, the Haussmannian reform attached these villages to Paris and formed the 15th arrondissement. Of this past there survive street names, the former town hall of Vaugirard and a gentler urban grid, away from the grand monumental thoroughfares.

The industrious Seine

The banks of the river made the industrial fortune of the neighbourhood. In the 18th century, a chemical products manufactory installed at the place known as Javel gave its name to the famous eau de Javel. A century and a half later, in 1915, André Citroën set up on the quai de Javel an immense automobile factory that would employ thousands of workers.

Foundries, warehouses and the abattoirs of Vaugirard set the rhythm of an industrious arrondissement right into the 1970s, before deindustrialisation opened the way to vast urban conversions.

The cradle of Pasteur

In 1887, an international subscription enabled Louis Pasteur to build his institute at the edge of the 15th. Inaugurated in 1888, the Institut Pasteur became a leading centre of world medical research, where major discoveries against infectious diseases would be made.

Around it, hospitals and laboratories made the south of the arrondissement a scientific and medical hub of the first rank, faithful to a tradition of innovation that endures to this day.

Renaissance through the parks

The closing of the great factories offered the 15th the space for its metamorphosis. On the former abattoirs of Vaugirard there opened, in the 1980s, the parc Georges-Brassens, with its vines and its book market; on the site of the Citroën factories was born in 1992 the parc André-Citroën, a vast contemporary garden open onto the Seine.

Along the river, the Front de Seine and the Beaugrenelle quarter, bristling with towers in the 1970s, give the arrondissement a modern silhouette, while the île aux Cygnes, planted as a promenade, bears at its tip a replica of the Statue of Liberty turned towards America.

An art of living on a human scale

Today, the 15th appeals through its balance: the local shops of the rue du Commerce, lively markets, numerous schools and green spaces make it one of the arrondissements most appreciated by Parisian families.

To live in the 15th is to choose a residential and lively Paris, where the memory of the villages and of industry fades behind the gentleness of the parks and the banks of the Seine, in a peaceful setting a stone's throw from the centre.