English + Japanese
a+u’s July issue features landscape urbanism in France. Since the 1970s, the pioneering generation of Michel Corajoud, Alexandre Chemetoff, Gilles Clément, and Jacques Simon – all profiled on these pages – have brought the modern discipline of landscape architecture in France, and its long insistence on a horticultural approach, into the urban realm. Yet as guest editors Henri Bava and Antoine Picon argue in their introductory essay, this urban turn has its deep origins in agriculture and land management, formal gardens, and the military and civil engineering practices of France’s early modern period, in the 18th and 19th centuries. Charles Waldheim further notes that these paysagistes “advocated for a kind of landscape thinking informed by the study of regional geology, hydrology, and ecology in service of flexible urban strategies rather than by master plans.” Featuring 6 canonical works by the pioneers, alongside 17 projects that represent current trends, the issue explores the evolution of a discipline. Landscape urbanism in France is now being realized in a multitude of forms, from repurposing asphalt into the palette of greenery to reinventing deindustrialized sites as spaces of respiration and repair. By “integrating various urban elements at a lower level of resolution,” “mobilizing not only the surface of the city but also the underlying realities of the soil and geology,” and using “the capacity of landscape to function at extremely different scales,” landscape architects and others of a similar practice are at the leading edge of tackling the challenges and pursing the recovery of modern cities. (a+u)
Essay:
The Origins and Development of French Landscape Urbanism 4
Henri Bava and Antoine Picon
Miroir d’eau Bordeaux 26 / Sausset Departmental Park 34
Michel Corajoud
Île de Nantes Plan Guide 42
Alexandre Chemetoff
André Citroën Park 46
Gilles Clément
Gardens of the Third Landscape 50
Gilles Clément and Coloco
Essay:
From Landscape Urbanist to Landscapist: Notes on French Landscape
Urbanism 56
Charles Waldheim
Paris-Saclay Cluster 62 / Euralens Centrality 70
Michel Desvigne
Miséry Quarry Garden 76
phytolab
Airport Garden 82 / Asphalt Jungle 86
Wagon Landscaping
Strasbourg Tramway 88
Alfred Peter
Phase Shifts Park 92
mosbach paysagistes
Essay:
URBI / ORBI: Four Competing Narratives on the Possible Evolution of
the Relationship between City and Country 98
Sébastien Marot
Park of the Docks 104
Agence Ter
Blandan Park 112
BASE
Flaubert Eco-District 118
Jacqueline Osty
Jules Ferry Park 124
In Situ
Glòries Plaza Barcelona 132
Agence Ter
Garden of the Giants 142
Mutabilis
Waterfront Park 146
Florence Mercier
Martin Luther King Park 150
Jacqueline Osty
Villa M 156
Coloco
Freyssinet Hall 158
D’ici là
Land Art 160
Jacques Simon
Essay: Teresa Galí-Izard 164