- Rendez-vous de l'Institut
- Conference
Le service des Promenades et Plantations de Paris dans la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle : aux origines de l’école des paysagistes français by Luisa LIMIDO and Chiara SANTINI – Château de Bénouville
The Paris department of Walks and Plantations in the second half of the 19th century: from the origins of the French landscaping school
Paris’s transformation in the second half of the 19th century marked a turning point in the dissemination of the notion of public gardens and, more generally, the integration of planted areas within urban planning projects. This talks seeks to present the organisation and the cultural and artistic context within which the capital city’s ‘verdant’ spaces project was designed, under the auspices of an innovative team of engineers and landscapers, directed by Adolphe Alphand and Jean-Pierre Barillet-Deschamps. It will also offer an opportunity to present the preliminary results of original research work, conducted via several archive collections, on the emergence and subsequent growth of landscaping skills in and around Paris’s public administration.
Luisa Limido
Luisa Limido is an architect and journalist. She graduated from the Paris-La Villette School of Architecture (DEA Post-graduate diploma in Gardens, Landscapes, Territories) and obtained a PhD at the University of Paris I Sorbonne. After her thesis on French urban parks during the Second French Empire, she associated her professional activity with research and education. Since 2017, this winner of the Villa Le Notre bursary at the ENSP – National Graduate Landscaping School – Versailles-Marseille, is also associate member of the LAREP landscape research laboratory. A specialist of the 19th century French landscaping school, she is the author of a number of scientific contributions, including the book entitled, L’art des jardins sous le Second Empire (Garden art under the Second French Empire). Jean Pierre Barillet-Deschamps (1824-1873).
Since 2010, as a French correspondent, she has written regular articles for the international magazine Topscape Paysage.
Chiara Santini
Chiara Santini is head lecturer in Garden History and research engineer at the LAREP landscape research laboratory – National Graduate Landscaping School – Versailles-Marseille (ENSP). A doctor in history and a State archivist-paleographer, her research focuses on knowledge and know-how in garden art in France from the 17th to the 19th century. Within this context, for the past ten years she has been studying the work of the landscape engineer Adolphe Alphand, a subject on which she has published a number of works, and based her thesis towards her research management certification (HDR). Former beneficiary of the Baridon bursary (2014) and of the Grinzane Giardini Botanici Hambury international prize (2008), she is also a member of the board of the Villa d’Este and Hadrian’s Villa (Tivoli) Unesco sites.