Landscape Architecture: Landscape Architecture: - School of ...

Bernard Lassus, The Garden of Seasons, Colas Corporation, Boulogne-Billancourt, France, 2002
The garden on the lower terrace of Riboulet’s building as seen from the Exhibition Hall at the Colas Corporation.
accessible only for security purposes – extends in front of the
chairman’s office on the seventh floor and, just above the
office, the second terrace in front of the board’s meeting room
provides space for board members to relax and gaze at the
main terrace below. Given this vantage point, Lassus decided
to pursue his exploration of garden abstraction, and proposed
turning the main terrace into an abstracted baroque garden
theatre (the Théâtre de Verdure), the sole performer being a
picturesque garden grotto sheltering a minimalist fountain –
all made from perforated metallic slabs. The allusion to
Versailles with its bosquets and the grotto of Apollo, a few
miles away from the building, is transparent and intriguing.
Yet this garden theatre points beyond Modernism. Its artificial
grotto engages in a dialogue with Noguchi’s stone sculptures,
and its fountain of neon tubes interacts with Dan Flavin’s
installations. These aesthetic exchanges raise questions about
change and continuity in French gardens, materials and
technologies, arts and patronage.
Members of the board will discover this garden from the
upper terrace beyond the abstract foreground of a colorful
orchard and flowery meadow, which contrary to the main
theatrical garden terrace will be open to seasonal changes at
the CEO’s request. To enhance the conceptual contrast
between the fixity of time on the lower terrace and the passing
of time on its upper counterpart, Lassus has introduced a very
strong visual contrast between the two spaces. On the lower
terrace the hedges, topiary trees, and even the rocks of the
fountain appear flattened, as if at a great distance from the
viewer, while on the upper terrace the highly tactile presence
of trees, fruits and flowers underscores their proximity. Such a
vivid experience of aerial perspective stimulates board
members to philosophise about change through time, tradition
versus modernity, and art versus nature. 4
Note
1. For a more detailed presentation of this project, see Michel Conan, ‘The
Garden of Seasons by Bernard Lassus: Coming to terms with a de-centered
world’, in Contemporary Garden Aesthetics, Creations and Interpretations,
Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture XXIX,
Dumbarton Oaks & Harvard University, Washington DC, in press.
Text © 2007 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: pp 60-4 © Bernard Lassus; p 65
© Michel Conan
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