Bianchetti_Bodies.-Between-Space-and-Desi_9783868599497

THE BODY OPEN
TO THE WORLD
30
THE BODY OPEN TO THE WORLD
Let there be writing, not about
the body, but the body itself.
Not bodihood, but the actual
body. Not signs, images, or
ciphers of the body, but still the
body. This was once a program
for modernity, no doubt already
it no longer is.
Nancy, 2008 1
Agricultural and Urban Parks in the Rift
of the Eighties
Parc du Sausset: twenty-two hectares in the department of Seine-Saint- Denis,
north of Paris, between the small towns of Aulnay-sous-Bois and Villepinte.
A well-known project, 2 yet one somehow considered minor by the extensive
literature on parks, gardens, and landscapes. In 1980, the General Council
for the Department of Seine-Saint-Denis launched a competition to turn a
vast, cultivated area into a public park. The competition specified that the
agricultural landscape was to be protected, restored, and transformed into a
park. Building was started in 1982 based on a design by Claire and Michel
Corajoud. Michel’s words will help us understand the features of the project:
“Je reste très sensible aux paysage de campagne … regarder la campagne, c’est
éprouver et reprendre à son compte le sens du travail qui l’a produite: c’est saisir,
dans son propre corps, une dynamique de réalisation: c’est trouver les lignes de
partage, le seuils, les recouvrements successifs. C’est comprendre confusément l’histoire
des générations qui se sont succédé et qui ont dressé cet draperie, sans toutefois
réussir à vaincre les résistances du site, comme ce rocher qui en crève toujours
la surface”. 3