Paris Will Create the City’s Largest Gardens Around the Eiffel Tower

One of the world’s most recognizable urban spaces is slated to get a dramatic makeover. On Tuesday, Paris City Hall announced that the London-based landscape architects Gustafson, Porter and Bowman had been selected from 43 applicants to lead a major redesign of the space around the Eiffel Tower. According to the plan, the currently car-filled bridge connecting the Eiffel Tower with the Métro subway system will be turned into a pedestrianized garden, stringing together a set of two new public squares and restored parkland that will create an unbroken spine of greenery a mile long across the city.

The plan would slash car traffic in the immediate vicinity of the Eiffel Tower, making the area altogether more inviting to walkers without notably altering the appearance of what could be the most famous urban ensemble in the world.