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Le jardin, source de paysages by Michel PENA – Château de Bénouville
The garden, a source for landscapes
One can consider the garden as an experimental landscape. It allows us to test new aesthetic models which are most likely to be of use in the design of new living environments. As such, the garden is, within its restricted area, the expression of this loving negotiation between a corner of the world and nature. And the crux of the question lies in the dimension of that corner of the world! Yet, whatever that dimension, the aesthetic questions remain the same. Similarly, the creation of gardens can also be justified as a way of perceiving a world that is not, on the surface, a “garden”. So we create garden/landscapes to dramatise the horizon, the distance, the sky – based on the foreground available to the landscaper. The example of the Promenade du Paillon in Nice illustrates an attempt at creating a “garden aimed at consolidating the urban area via landscape”.
Michel Péna
Michel Péna is a landscape architect, graduated from the ENSP (National Graduate School of Landscape) in Versailles in 1983. The following year, he created his own agency, in partnership with his wife Christine Péna. His first major creation was the Jardin Atlantique (Paris, Montparnasse) in 1994. Today, along with fifteen colleagues, he works on public and private projects in France and abroad: gardens, parks, squares and other urban areas, residentialisation operations, urban requalifications. Michel Péna also acted as president of the FFP (French Landscape Federation) from 2008 to 2011. He teaches and gives conferences at, among other establishments, the ENSP (National Graduate School of Landscape) in Versailles, the INPH in Angers, the Bordeaux School of Architecture and Landscape, etc., and organises and coordinates landscaping training courses for students in landscaping and architecture (Paysagir association, five ten-day sessions in the Cévennes region).
Further reading :
Pour une troisième nature, ICI Interface, 2010
Paysages choisis et jardins d’artifice, Christine Péna et Michel Péna, 2005