Every design for Fontenay-Sous-Bois

From the edge of the Bois de Vincennes, the streets of Fontenay-sous-Bois climb the hillside away from the wood, the wood that gave the town the second half of its name. The first half comes from the springs that rise all over this hillside, at the end of the Belleville plateau, on the ridge between the Seine and the Marne. In the Middle Ages the place was recorded as Fontanetum, the springs.

There is something reassuring about a town that has kept its fountains through every change. Fontenay was a retreat for Parisians when the railway arrived, then a factory town, then the eastern counterweight to La Défense, with offices for major banks and insurers. It lost a large part of its land when Paris annexed the Bois de Vincennes, and its last fields, where the Belle de Fontenay was born, have long since gone.

Yet the wood is still a short walk away, the RER A still stops twice in town, and the Fort de Nogent still keeps its watch over the east of Paris. For anyone who grew up here, this hillside of springs is home.