Entropy by design: Gilles Clément, Parc Henri Matisse and the Limits to Avant-garde Urbanism

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research

Volumn 37, Issue 1, 2013, Pages 259-278

  Gandy, Matthew ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Derborence Island; Gilles Cl ment; Landscape design; Lille; Parc Henri Matisse; Urban ecology; Urban nature

Indexed keywords

BIODIVERSITY; LANDSCAPE; PARK DESIGN; URBAN AREA; URBAN DESIGN;

EID: 84871617999     PISSN: 03091317     EISSN: 14682427     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2427.2012.01164.x     Document Type: Article

References (91)

1. Gilles Clément and Louisa Jones, Gilles Clément: une écologie humaniste (Geneva: Aubanel, 2006), p. 142, my translation. The original French reads: 'On protégera une forêt du futur, forgée par le temps et les aléas de l'histoire, un systéme de nature érigé en symbole, aux parois verticales, inatteignable et convoité, un sujet d'attention et d'étonnement, un morceau de nature laisséà lui-même au coeur de la ville, une île'.
2. Sonia Keravel, 'La participation du public au projet de paysage. Comparaison et analyse de deux exemples: le Parc de Lancy et le Parc Henri-Matisse', Projets de Paysage: Revue Scientifique sur la Conception et l'Aménagement de l'Espace (14 December 2008), p. 10, my translation. The original French reads: 'Le public et les politiques ne sont pas encore prêts à accepter que des friches ou des délaissés puissent constituer une part de nos espaces publics'.
3. The term 'primary forest'- also referred to as old-growth forest, wildwood or forêt vierge- refers to relatively undisturbed woodlands that are characterized by many centuries of forest cover and have never been clear-felled for agriculture or other purposes. 'The chief differences', suggest Packham and Harding, 'lie in the possession by the wildwood of senescent trees, standing dead timber and decomposing logs, which encourage a diversity of birds, insects and other organisms'. John R. Packham and David J.L. Harding, Ecology of woodland processes (London: Arnold, 1982), p. 107.
4. Ecological succession can be defined as a 'non-seasonal directional change in the types and numbers of organisms present in a particular habitat over a period of time'. Packham and Harding, Ecology of woodland processes, p. 108. The concept has been modified since its original formulation by Frederick Clements to recognize a diversity of potential outcomes influenced by practices such as selective felling or the exclusion of animals that eat or damage young trees.
5. For greater detail on the Euralille project see, for example, Marc Bonneville, 'Internationalization of non-capital cities in Europe: aspects, processes and prospects', European Planning Studies 2.3 (1994), pp. 267-86
6. Federico Cuñat, Philippe Longuet, Anne-Marie Burdèse and Corinne Tiry, Les mondes du secteur des gares a Lille (CNRS Université de Lille, 2000)
7. Martin K. Meade, 'Euralille: the instant city', Architectural Review 196 (December 1994)
8. Peter Newman and Andy Thornley, 'Euralille: "boosterism" at the centre of Europe', European Urban and Regional Studies 2.3 (1995), pp. 237-46
9. Andy Thornley and Peter Newman, 'International competition, urban governance and planning projects: Malmö, Birmingham and Lille', European Planning Studies 4.5 (1996), pp. 579-93
10. Max Rousseau, 'Re-imaging the city centre for the middle classes: regeneration, gentrification and symbolic policies in "loser cities" ', International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 33.3 (2009), pp. 770-88.
11. See, for example, Frank Moulaert, Elodie Salin and Thomas Werquin, 'Euralille: large-scale urban development and social polarization', European Urban and Regional Studies 8.2 (2001), pp. 145-60.
12. The mystique surrounding the Derborence Forest and its mountainous environs has also been embellished by Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz's historical novel Derborence, first published in 1934, which evokes a remote eighteenth-century community. However, the shape of the island is derived from a completely different source: the Antipodes Island in the South Pacific Ocean.
13. Heinz Ellenberg, The vegetation ecology of central Europe. Fourth edition, translated by Gordon K. Strutt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
14. Simon Schama, Landscape and memory (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995).
15. Denis Cosgrove, 'Geography within the humanities', in Stephen Daniels, Dydia DeLyser, J. Nicholas Entrikin and Douglas Richardson (eds.) Envisioning landscapes, making worlds: geography and the humanities (London and New York: Routledge, 2011), pp. xxii-xxv.
16. In North America the emphasis on 're-wilding' has been primarily oriented towards remote or wilderness areas, whereas in Europe there has been greater emphasis on agro-cultural landscapes, including cities. See, for example, C.J. Donlan, J. Berger, C.E. Bock, J.H. Bock, D.A. Burney, J.A. Estes, D. Foreman, P.S. Martin, G.W. Roemer, F.A. Smith, M.E. Soule and H.W. Greene, 'Pleistocene rewilding: an optimistic agenda for twenty-first century conservation', The American Naturalist 168.5 (November 2006), pp. 660-81; Dave Foreman, Rewilding North America: a vision for conservation in the 21st century (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2004).
17. See Raymond Williams, The country and the city (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973).
18. See Richard Mabey, The unofficial countryside (London: Collins, 1973).
19. Yuriko Saito, 'The aesthetics of unscenic nature', The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 56.2 (1998), pp. 101-11.
20. See Arnold Berleant, 'The aesthetics of art and nature', in Salim Kemal and Ivan Gaskell (eds.) Landscape, natural beauty and the arts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 228-43; Jonathan Crary, Techniques of the observer: on vision and modernity in the nineteenth century (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1990); and Jonathan Crary, Suspensions of perception: attention, spectacle, and modern culture (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1999).
21. Constance Heau, 'Pour conclure, provisoirement entretien avec Gilles Clément', in Thierry Paquot and Chris Younès (eds.) Philosophie de l'environnement et milieux urbains (Paris: Éditions la Découverte, 2010), pp. 163-78.
22. Examples of the urban appropriation of 'wild nature' outside of Europe or North America include the Sanjay Gandhi National Park at the northern edge of Mumbai and the Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve in Singapore. In both these cases, fragments of original landscapes and ecosystems have been incorporated into urban space.
23. See, for example, Michael Jakob, Le paysage (Gollion: Éditions Infolio, 2008); Yves Lacoste, De la géographie aux paysages: dictionnaire de la géographie (Paris: Armand Collin, 2003); Henri Lefebvre, Du rural à l'urbain (Paris: Anthropos, 1970).
24. See, for example, Rodney Burton, Flora of the London area (London Natural History Society, 1983) and Paul Jovet, 'Evolution des groupements rudéraux "parisiens"', Bulletin de la Societe Botanique de France 87 (1940), pp. 305-12.
25. On earlier combinations of ecology with urban design see, for example, David H. Haney, When modern was green: life and work of landscape architect Leberecht Migge (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2010) and Volker M. Welter, Biopolis: Patrick Geddes and the city of life (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002).
26. See Paquot and Younès, Philosophie de l'environnement et milieux urbains.
27. Examples of contemporary utilitarianism in landscape design include Alan Berger, 'Drosscape', in Charles Waldheim (ed.) The landscape urbanism reader (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006), pp. 197-218; and Richard Weller, 'An art of instrumentality: thinking through landscape urbanism', in C. Waldheim (ed.) The landscape urbanism reader (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006), pp. 69-85.
28. Alain Roger, cited in Giovanna Borasi 'De la nature à l'environnement, "en verité, il est difficile de faire une place à l'homme" ', in Giovanna Borasi (ed.) Gilles Clément/Philippe Rahm: environ(ne)ment: manières d'agir pour demain (Montreal: Centre Canadien d'Architecture; Milan: Skira, 2006), p. 41.
29. See also Gilles Clément, 'Je ne veux pas être un jardinier qui tue', interview with Martine Robert, Oeil 599 (February 2008), pp. 124-9
30. Gilles Clément, 'What about grass?' in Les Cahiers de l'École de Blois: Landscapes (March 2009)
31. See Jean-François Pousse, 'The end of scorn?', Techniques and architecture 486 (October/November 2006), pp. 48-53.
32. Gilles Clément, Le jardin en mouvement: de La Vallée au parc André Citroën (Paris: Sens et Tonka, 1994).
33. Lorette Coen, 'Gilles Clément: the planetary gardener', 'scape 2 (November 2007), pp. 46-61.
34. See Charlotte Ellis, 'Parc André Citroën: the rage in Paris', Landscape Architecture 83.4 (April 1993), pp. 59-65.
35. Sonia Keravel, 'The art of transmission: mediating meaning in contemporary French landscape design', Journal of Landscape Architecture 5.1 (Spring 2010), pp. 60-71.
36. Gilles Clément, Manifeste du tiers paysage (Paris: Éditions Sujet/Objet, 2004).
37. Clément, Manifeste du tiers paysage.
38. Gilles Clément, 'Faire avec (et jamais contre) la nature/Working with (and never against) nature' in Giovanna Borasi (ed.) Gilles Clément/Philippe Rahm: environ(ne)ment: manières d'agir pour demain (Montreal: Centre Canadien d'Architecture; Milan: Skira, 2006), pp. 56-101, 90-103.
39. Gilles Clément, La sagesse du jardinier (Paris: L'Oeil neuf Éditions, 2004).
40. On the high biodiversity of urban wastelands see, for example, Richard Mabey, Weeds (London: Profile, 2010); Linda M. Puth and Catherine E. Burns, 'New York's nature: a review of the status and trends in species richness across the metropolitan region', Diversity and Distributions 15.1 (2009), pp. 12-21; Jean-Pierre L. Savard, Philippe Clergeau and Gwenaelle Mennechez, 'Biodiversity concepts and urban ecosystems', Landscape and Urban Planning 48.3 (2000), pp. 131-42; Stefan Zerbe, Ute Maurer, Solveig Schmitz and Herbert Sukopp, 'Biodiversity in Berlin and its potential for nature conservation', Landscape and Urban Planning 62.3 (2003), pp. 139-48.
41. Michèle Collin, 'Nouvelles urbanités des friches', Multitudes 6 (2001), pp. 148-55.
42. On the emergence of urban ecology as a distinct sub-field of ecological science see, for example, Ian C. Laurie (ed.) Nature in cities: the natural environment in the design and development of urban green space (Chichester: John Wiley, 1979); Mike Davis, 'Dead cities: a natural history', in Dead Cities (New York: New Press, 2002), pp. 360-99; Olivert Gilbert, The ecology of urban habitats (London: Chapman and Hall, 1989); Gerhard Hard, 'Vegetationsgeographie und sozialökologie einer Stadt'[Vegetation geography and social ecology of a city], Geographische Zeitung 75 (1985), pp. 125-44; Jens Lachmund, 'Exploring the city of rubble: botanical fieldwork in bombed cities in Germany after World War II', Osiris 18 (2003), pp. 234-54; and Herbert Sukopp, Stadtökologie: das Beispiel Berlin[City ecology: the Berlin example] (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1990).
43. Norbert Kühn, 'Intentions for the unintentional: spontaneous vegetation as the basis for innovative planting design in urban areas', Journal of Landscape Architecture 5.3 (Autumn 2006), pp. 46-53.
44. See, for example, Gert Gröning, 'Ideological aspects of nature garden concepts in late twentieth-century Germany', in Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn (ed.) Nature and ideology: natural garden design in the twentieth century (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1997), pp. 221-248; Anthony D. Kendle and Julie E. Rose, 'The aliens have landed! What are the justifications for "native only" policies in landscape plantings?', Landscape and Urban Planning 47.1-2 (February 2000), pp. 19-31; and Jan Woudstra, 'The changing nature of ecology: a history of ecological planting', in Nigel Dunnett and James Hitchmough (eds.) The dynamic landscape (London: Spon, 2004), pp. 23-57.
45. Gilles Clément, L'Eloge des vagabondes: herbes, arbres et fleurs à la conquête du monde (Paris: Nil editions, 2002); and Gilles Clément and Louisa Jones, Gilles Clément: une écologie humaniste (Geneva: Aubanel, 2006).
46. One interesting alternative to Clément's close reading of urban space through 'attentive observation' is that provided by Bruno Latour and Emilie Hermant in their study of Paris. See Latour and Hermant, Paris: ville invisible (Paris: La Découverte-Les Empêcheurs de Penser en Rond, 1998). The term 'posthumanism', notoriously difficult to pin down, generally denotes a degree of de-centering or questioning of the omniscience of the human subject. For a contemporary overview see Carey Wolfe, What is posthumanism? (London and Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010).
47. Gilles Clément, 'Un jardinier naturaliste à l'aube du XXIe siècle', interview in L'actualité Poitou-Charentes 42 (October 1998), pp. 14-19.
48. See Mark Whitehead, 'The wood for the trees: ordinary environmental injustice and the everyday right to urban nature', International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 33.3 (2009), pp. 662-81.
49. See Romain Garbaye, Getting into local power: the politics of ethnic minorities in British and French cities (Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005).
50. Giuseppe Marinoni, 'The Henri Matisse Park', Lotus International 122 (November 2004), p. 113.
51. A survey of over 2, 000 inhabitants on behalf of Euralille found that only a third of the people questioned frequented Parc Henri Matisse. Criticisms of the park included the lack of trees or flowers, along with fear of crime From http://www.saem-euralille.fr/ACTUALITIES (accessed 30 March 2010).
52. Sonia Keravel, 'The art of transmission: mediating meaning in contemporary French landscape design', Journal of Landscape Architecture 5.1 (Spring 2010), pp. 60-71. In June 2010 Martine Aubry launched a campaign, 'la mission friches' (mission fallow land), for the 'reconquest' of industrial wastelands in the Lille metropolitan region.
53. Gilles Clément, e-mail to the author, 8 March 2011.
54. Dieter Rink, 'Surrogate nature or wilderness? Social perceptions and notions of nature in an urban context', in Ingo Kowarik and Stefan Körner (eds.) Wild urban woodlands: new perspectives for urban forestry (Berlin: Springer, 2005), pp. 67-80.
55. Gilles Clément, e-mail to the author, 8 March 2011. See also Gilles Clément, interview with Isabelle Menu and Frank Vermandel, in Euralille: the making of a new city center (Espace Croisé, Basel: Birkhäuser, 1996), pp. 132-35.
56. See Allen Carlson, 'Appreciating art and appreciating nature', in Salim Kemal and Ivan Gaskell (eds.) Landscape, natural beauty and the arts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 199-227.
57. See Donald W. Crawford, 'Comparing natural and aesthetic beauty', in Kemal and Gaskell, Landscape, natural beauty and the arts, pp. 183-98.
58. See also Bernadette Lizet, 'Du terrain vague à la friche paysagée', Ethnologie Française 40.4 (2010), pp. 597-608.
59. Saito, 'The aesthetics of unscenic nature'.
60. Galen Cranz, The politics of park design (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1982), p. 253.
61. See Nik Heynen, Maria Kaïka and Erik Swyngedouw (eds.) In the nature of cities: urban political ecology and the politics of urban metabolism (London: Routledge, 2006).
62. See, for example, Eric Higgs, Nature by design: people, natural process, and ecological restoration (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003).
63. See Louis Marin, 'The city in its map and portrait', in On representation (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press [1994] 2001), pp. 212-13.
64. See Richard Serra, 'Introduction', in Clara Weyergraf-Serra and Martha Buskirk (eds.) The destruction of Tilted Arc: documents (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1991), pp. 3-17.
65. Rosalind Krauss, 'Sculpture in the expanded field', October 8 (Spring 1979), p. 41.
66. Herman de Vries, 'Terrain vague', in No art - no city! Stadtutopien in der zeitgenössischen Kunst[No art - no city! Urban utopias in contemporary art] (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2003[1999]), pp. 156-7.
67. Mel Gooding, Herman de Vries: chance and change (London: Thames and Hudson, 2006).
68. William Robinson, The wild garden (London: John Murray, 1884 [1870]).
69. Gilles Clément, 'Changing the myth', interview with Anne de Charmant in Art and Design 12 (1997), pp. 35.
70. Anne Helmreich, 'Re-presenting nature: ideology, art, and science in William Robinson's "wild garden" ', in Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn (ed.) Nature and ideology: natural garden design in the twentieth century, pp. 81-111.
71. In Kantian terms, 'the purposiveness in its form must seem to be free from all constraint of arbitrary rules as if it were product of mere nature'. Cited in Crawford, 'Comparing natural and aesthetic beauty', in Kemal and Gaskell, Landscape, natural beauty and the arts, p. 187.
72. James Hitchmough and Nigel Dunnett, 'Introduction to naturalistic planting in urban landscapes', in Nigel Dunnett and James Hitchmough (eds.) The dynamic landscape, p. 1.
73. See Gaëlle Aggeri, La nature sauvage et champêtre dans les villes: origine et construction de la gestion différenciée des espaces verts publics et urbains: le cas de la ville de Montpellier, unpublished PhD dissertation, École Nationale du Génie Rural, des Eaux et des Forêts, Paris, 2004; Norbert Kühn, 'Intentions for the unintentional: spontaneous vegetation as the basis for innovative planting design in urban areas', pp. 46-53; and Ingo Kowarik, 'Wild urban woodlands: towards a conceptual framework', in Ingo Kowarik and Stefan Körner (eds.) Wild urban woodlands, pp. 1-32.
74. See Nigel Dunnett, 'The dynamic nature of plant communities - pattern and process in designed plant communities', in Nigel Dunnett and James Hitchmough (eds.) The dynamic landscape, pp. 97-114.
75. See James Hitchmough, 'The wild garden revisited', Landscape Design 5 (1994), pp. 54-9; and Anna Jorgensen, 'The social and cultural context of ecological plantings', in Dunnett and Hitchmough, The dynamic landscape, pp. 293-325.
76. Jörg Dettmar, 'Wildnis statt Park? [Wilderness instead of park?]'Topos 27 (1999), pp. 43-7; Zachary Falck, Weeds: an environmental history of metropolitan America (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010); Dieter Rink, 'Wilderness: the nature of urban shrinkage? The debate over urban restructuring and restoration in eastern Europe', Nature and Culture 4 (2009), pp. 275-292; and Stephane Tonnelat, ' "Out of frame": the (in)visible life of urban interstices - a case study in Charenton-le-Pont, Paris, France', Ethnography 9.3 (2008), pp. 291-324.
77. Alec Brownlow, 'An archaeology of fear and environmental change in Philadelphia', Geoforum 37 (2006), pp. 227-45.
78. Danielle Dagenais, 'The garden of movement: ecological rhetoric in support of gardening practice', Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes 24.4 (2004), pp. 313-40.
79. Gilles Clément, e-mail to the author, 8 August 2011; Yohan Tison, Ecologue Direction Parcs et Jardins, Ville de Lille, e-mail to the author, 23 August 2011.
80. Giuseppe Marinoni, 'The Henri Matisse Park', p. 113.
81. Eliane Patriarca, 'Le paysagiste Gilles Clément explique qu'il annule ses engagements avec l'État', La Liberation (19 May 2007); Jonathan Skinner 'Gardens of resistance: Gilles Clément, new poetics and future landscapes', Qui Parle 19 (2011), pp. 259-74.
82. See, for example, Andrej Holm, 'Gentrification und Kultur'[Gentrification and culture], in Skulpturenpark Berlin_Zentrum (Cologne: Walther König, 2010), pp. 238-45.
83. See also Claire Colomb, 'Culture in the city, culture for the city? The political construction of the trickle-down in cultural regeneration strategies in Roubaix, France', Town Planning Review 82.1 (2011), pp. 77-98.
84. Gilles Clément, e-mail to the author, 8 March 2011. See also Hemming (2007), Parc Matisse, Lille [WWW document]. URL http://nhryerson.blogspot.com/2007/06/parc-matisse.html] (accessed 9 April 2010).
85. See, for example, Richard Reynolds, On guerrilla gardening: a handbook for gardening without boundaries (London: Bloomsbury, 2008) and Marit Rosol, 'Public participation in post-Fordist urban green space governance: the case of community gardens in Berlin', International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 34.3 (2010) pp. 548-63.
86. Examples include Natur-Park Südgelände, Berlin, and Le square Juliette-Dodu, Paris.
87. See, for example, Susanne Frank, 'Rückkehr der Natur: Die Neuerfindung von Natur und Landschaft in der Emscherzone'[Return of nature: the reinvention of nature and landscape in the Emscher area], in EMSCHERplayer (October 2010)
88. Susanne Hauser, Metamorphosen des Abfalls: Konzepte für alte Industrieareale[Metamorphoses of waste: concepts for old industrial areas] (Frankfurt a.M: Campus Fachbuch, 2001).
89. On recent trends in landscape design see, for example, Daniela Colafranceschi (ed.) Landscape (Barcelona: Gustavo Gili, 2007)
90. Christophe Girot, 'Towards a landscape society', in Thies Schröder (ed.) Changes in scenery: contemporary landscape architecture in Europe (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2001), pp. 6-9.
91. Sonia Keravel, 'The art of transmission: mediating meaning in contemporary French landscape design', Journal of Landscape Architecture 5.1 (Spring 2010), p. 70.