A+U Nº 622: LANDSCAPE URBANISM IN FRANCE

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