Place des Abbesses

Further referring to the Montmartre patchwork the other day, here are some more details about the Place des Abbesses, where the “I love you”-wall can be found. I think it is one of the most beautiful places in Paris. It has a lot of charm and is not invaded by more or less gifted ”tourist painters” and other commercial activities. It’s visited, but normally not included as a “must” in a normal Montmartre tourist tour.

Adjacent to the central place you have a small park (Square Jehan-Rictus) with the “I love you”-wall. On the place, surrounded by bars, you can find a carousel, a Wallace fountain and one of Paris’ nicest metro entrances. Crossing the street, you will find the church Saint-Jean-l’Evangeliste.

There is some more information below, between the photos.


The church, Saint-Jean-l’Evangeliste, is rather recent, inaugurated in 1904. The architect, Anatole de Baudot (1834-1915), wanted to create a simpler kind of church. The ironwork and the concrete used for the building is partly visible and the, for that époque, innovative design can be said to be related to the “modern-style”.

The “modern-style” (Art Nouveau, Tiffany, Liberty, Modernismo…) is more clearly represented by the metro entrance, designed by one of its innovators, Hector Guimard (1867-1942). You can find several of his metro entrances in Paris, but this is clearly one of the more spectacular ones, with a glass roof. On the top picture, you can (on the lower part) discover how Hector has incorporated an M for metro in his design. (This entrance has actually been brought here from another metro station in order to have it saved.)

The wall of "I love yous"

There are a few photos in my Montmartre patchwork from yesterday to which I would like to come back. I started to prepare something on what I had not seen before, a wall covered with the text “I love you” in some 311 languages and dialects.

When looking on Google for what this really is, one of the references I found was from Olivier’s blog in November last year! I decided to go for it anyhow; some of you may not have seen it and for me it was still new; I started blogging only in March this year, so I had missed Olivier’s information.

This wall has white text on blue, enamelled lava tiles. There are some red spots, supposed to be broken hearts. It was created only a few years ago by two contemporary artists, Frédéric Baron and Claire Kitoa.

Of course not quite all languages and dialects are represented, but the 311 chosen include also Dzongkha, Kirgiz, Corsican…

I hope you can get a good view of it here, but if you want to visit it really, you have to go to Place des Abbesses, Square Jehan Rictus. This little park used to be the place of the Montmartre town hall, when Montmartre was not yet part of Paris (incorporated in 1860). The building was destroyed at the end of the 19th century. By the way, one more of my favourite Wallace fountains (see May 10 and 12) - the junior model - can be seen on my photo.

You could possibly try to look for your own language, but I already extracted a few which I managed to spot. (I hope I’m right with the Chinese and the Indian.)