Breaking and Creating

By: Emma Lyne Pouch


           In a building each room has reason and serves a specific purpose. It breaks down a large space to make it useful and give meaning. We even see this on a greater scale in city planning, a dividing of space to provide significance. With all of this organization it would only make sense to continue it into the landscape design of the surround areas. That is were a landscape architect comes into the picture. In today’s modern landscape designs we see an emersion of large spaces being broken down to create different views and surroundings. Particularly in the large cities it is nice to have a place to get away, to lose sight of the big city and have an escape. It Europe’s contemporary architecture we see the movement coming to life in places such as Paris, Bordeaux, and Amsterdam.

Masterplan of Parc Citroen

            In 1992, Gilles Clement completed the Parc Citroen project that involved breaking down 60 acres into two greenhouses, one central park area and 8 smaller gardens. Although the large open parks are what most people associate with Parc Citroen, it is the smaller parks that bring character. Each garden was assigned a metal, a planet, a day of the week, a state of the water, and a sense and then it is referred to by a color. All these factors come together to create different experiences, some soothing and peaceful, others filled with the sound of rushing water and movement. They are fabricated to produce the sense of being in a secret garden and traveling from one to another with free organic motions. But when we zoom out to see the master plan we find a clear, formal pattern with the center space reflecting the very geometric gardens in an 18^th century style. Clement broke down this sizeable open land and assembled a space filled with many emotions and experiences.

Ariel view of Cultuurpark Westergasfabriek

            Over a decade later Catherine Mosbach designs the Jardin Botanique project in Bordeaux with a similar idea and yet different approach to the concept of breaking up and dividing spaces. On this long promenade we find a mix of wet and dry land with varying types of plants. The geometric concrete path along a pond of water is broken up into many small pieces just big enough for people to weave through that each contains a different species of plant. Mosbach designs a field of cultures, individual miniature gardens that show the landscape of France over the seasons. This space is all about interacting with the space and being able to learn from it.

            Another example of dividing and repurposing spaces is the Cultuurpark Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam. The park designed by Kathryn Gustafson in 2004, takes an old industrialized area and transforms it into a green environment meant for reflection and learning from the past as well as a culture center. Similar to Parc Citroen we find a central axis that links the small spaces and sites the stretch down the large acreage. Gustafson’s design also resembles the Jardin Botanique in the dynamics of vegetation and it’s use throughout the park. What is most successful about this collection of three varying parks is the breaking down of spaces. The designs are able to create different experiences within a setting that make the land more interesting and keep the people utilizing the space.