Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, Paris

Parc des Buttes-Chaumont is a public park shaped as an unexpected mountain landscape in northeastern Paris. Its most recognisable feature is the Temple de la Sibylle, a small Roman-inspired temple perched on Belvedere Island, above an artificial lake and a dramatic cliff. The temple was designed by Gabriel Davioud and completed in 1867, taking its inspiration from the ancient Temple of Vesta at Tivoli in Italy.

The park covers 24.7 hectares and opened on 1 April 1867, during the final years of Napoleon III's reign. Adolphe Alphand directed its creation, with the landscape gardeners Jean-Pierre Barillet-Deschamps and Édouard André contributing to the design. What looks like rugged nature is a carefully remade former quarry: workers shaped cliffs, a grotto, rocky pinnacles and a waterfall, using pumps to lift water from the Ourcq canal.

The site's earlier history is startling. Before becoming a park, it held the Gibbet of Montfaucon, where executed criminals' bodies were displayed until 1760; after the Revolution, the ground became an open-air refuse dump and a place for sewage and horse carcasses. Look at the lake crossings: one is a 63-metre suspension bridge designed by Gustave Eiffel. The park's theatrical landscape turns a harsh industrial and penal site into a scene of cliffs, water and ornamental architecture.