Fortified towns and nature

Urban fortifications from the modern and contemporary periods, often reduced to their purely architectural dimension, harbour a botanical heritage that remains largely overlooked.
With a view to offering a fresh perspective on this heritage, this international conference adopts an interdisciplinary approach, bringing together environmental history, art history, archaeology, ecology and heritage management. The aim is to broaden our understanding of military landscapes by re-establishing vegetation as a fundamental component of defensive systems, from their design through to their historical uses and contemporary challenges, viewed as living ecosystems.
The study focuses in particular on the integration of this vegetation into the urban fabric, whether in the form of tree-lined parade grounds, military gardens laid out near governors’ residences, or vegetated moats.