Gilles Clément illustrated by Marseille: the Third Landscape of the L2
(Sur le parcours de la L2, jardins ouvriers © G. Mathieu)
Although Gilles Clément has never lived in Marseille, the landscape of Marseille seems to have been created specially to illustrate the ideas developed by this landscape designer over the last ten years or so. Nowhere else are the urban wastelands described in the concept of the “Third Landscape” as perfectly manifested as here in this urban area marked by edges, breaches and discontinuity. But still, what if the city ‘s neglect was in fact part of its charm?
This link between Marseille and the ideas developed by Gilles Clément has already made, in the study begun in Year 2000 by one of his former students, the landscape designer, Rémi Duthoit, who, among other projects, designed the little “bush” garden in La Joliette.
Clément’s ideas also find a direct echo in the experimental photography of Geoffroy Mathieu, who, for several years now, has focused on the urban environment and, in particular, on “pockets of resistance at the heart of urban violence, where the most isolated and vulnerable of people stubbornly pursue their attempts to create havens of poetry” (Dos à la mer series of photographs).
As part of a project devoted to the relationship between the city and nature in Marseille (to be published in 2009), Geoffroy Mathieu and Baptiste Lanaspeze also wandered around the plots of land pre-empted by the City Council back in the 1950s, land intended for “L2” bypass which was never built. From Saint Pierre cemetery (in the southeast of the city) to Frais-Vallon (east city centre), the two took their morning walk amid the wild grasses, medicinal herbs and allotments. Or, how the L2 illustrates the concept of the Third Landscape, “this undecided fragment of the planetary garden.”
Interview with Gilles Clément conducted by Xavier Thomas [41mn08]: Read and watch: Extracts from the interview selected by Baptiste Lanaspèze and photographs by Geoffroy Mathieu.
“What I call the Planetary Garden is the world seen as an enclosed space in which we look after and safeguard whatever we feel to be valuable.”
(Sur le parcours de la L2, Frais Vallon © G. Mathieu)
“The third landscape is the spontaneous biodiversity of a city, which is superior to that of field land because of the malfunctions of industrial agriculture, and pesticides in particular. “Concrete honey”, made from beehives located in the urban environment, is far better quality honey in terms of taste and organic biology than honey made in the countryside.”
(Sur le parcours de la L2, jardins ouvriers © G. Mathieu)
“Promoting the idea of wasteland is obviously a tricky idea politically, since wasteland is a symbol of the withdrawal of the public authorities – withdrawal, not abandonment. And yet, it is absolutely essential to be aware of the inestimable value of wasteland, from the point of view of biodiversity. We nee to learn to see wasteland as a fragment of the Third Landscape.”
(Sur le parcours de la L2, Frais Vallon © G. Mathieu)
“Biodiversity is dependent on us, and we are dependent on it. Such diversity not only needs to be safeguarded, it needs to be established and looked after.”
(Sur le parcours de la L2, Saint-Jean © G. Mathieu)
“Here in Marseille, all the parks, even the most recently developed ones, have been designed according to 19th century ideals, but here, the site is unique, it has its own colour.”
(Sur le parcours de la L2, Frais Vallon © G. Mathieu)
“Ecology is such a massive change that we are not yet in a position to assess the extent of its effects.”
(Sur le parcours de la L2, Saint-Jean © G. Mathieu)
“For me, Marseille is a city of the future, even though, in some respects, it still has to catch up with the modern world.”
(Sur le parcours de la L2, Saint-Jean © G. Mathieu)
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