Gloriette de Buffon

The Gloriette de Buffon is a delicate, circular wrought-iron belvedere that crowns the Labyrinth Hill in the Jardin des Plantes. Built in seventeen eighty-six and seventeen eighty-seven, this nine-meter-high kiosk is the oldest metal structure in Paris, predating the work of Gustave Eiffel by more than a century. It rests upon eight fluted columns and is topped by a copper armillary sphere, which was once part of a mechanism that struck a gong at noon.