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24 senior staff, 15 are women. Its list of completed projects includes Parque Central in Valencia, Cultuurpark Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam, Marina One in Singapore’s Marina Bay, and the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain in Hyde Park, London. All of those projects have benefitted from an elevated understanding of the importance of landscape over the last 20 years, for which Johnson and her generation are responsible. Tis year, in an attempt to improve air quality and address climate change following the 2020 re-election of Mayor Anne Hidalgo, Paris announced plans for the Champs- Élysées to become a public space with far less traffic, for the Place de la Concorde to be redesigned, and four ‘urban forests’ to be created in the city, in locations such as the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville and the Gare de Lyon. Te plan is to make Paris one of the flagship urban projects of the decade, focused on nature and well-being, and a more
This image The project will be as attractive to Parisians as it will to tourists
‘The plan is to make Paris one of the flagship urban projects of the decade, focused on nature and well-being.‘
sustainable, inclusive and desirable city to visit and live in. Te entire work is scheduled to be completed by 2030, with the Eiffel Tower and Place de la Concorde parts to be ready in time for the Olympic Games in 2024. Te games will see 38 venues dispersed across the city according to a master plan by the architects Populous and the engineers Egis. Connecting the Arc de Triomphe with the Place de la Concorde, the most famous avenue in Paris, the mythical Champs-Élysées
has lost much of its splendour over the last 30 years. Tere have been calls for its redesign for just as long. An average of 3,000 vehicles pass along it every hour, resulting in nitrogen dioxide levels that are double the limit set by the WHO. Something had to be done. Te Jardin des Tuileries is already undergoing renovations to bring more shade, encourage more birds and less dust. Two monumental new entrances are being built on the Rue de Rivoli and the riverside. Post-pandemic, the gardens might look even better. It certainly will not be any more essential to Parisian sanity than right now – a 1km delight.
Like the Champs-Élysées, the gardens were originally designed by André Le Nôtre, a landscape architect and grandson of one of Catherine de Medici’s gardeners. Le Nôtre – who also designed the gardens at Versailles – had the brainwave of running a path through the middle of the Tuileries to create a dramatic new perspective of Paris. Today, the Grande Allée links the pyramid and arch at the Louvre on the park’s eastern end with the obelisk to the west. Te triumphal way continues due west to the Arc de Triomphe, and on to La Défense. Le Nôtre also built fountains and terraces overlooking the park itself. Te Orangerie and Jeu de Paume art museums were added later, but the Tuileries remains his creation.
‘Paris gardens are secret gardens: though famous, they hide mysterious corners, unknown to the general public, the shared secrets of the local residents,’ writes Alain Baraton, the head gardener of Versailles, in Mes jardins de Paris, his book on Parisian parks. ‘When I enter one, I open my eyes, but above all my ears. After the aggressive hurly- burly of the city, nothing is so agreeable as the music of the parks: a quiet made magical by birdsong and the shouts of children playing.’ For Baraton, it is the Jardin du Luxembourg that has managed to combine different styles harmoniously, ‘marrying Italian influences with a park that has features of both the French and English traditions’ – a place celebrated in numerous poems, novels, films and songs, and a Parisian favourite.
Right now, there is almost nowhere to go and nothing to do in Paris. Parks this winter are Les Liaisons Dangereuses meets Tinder, a kind of promenade masquée, with young people in elegant masks (definitely not the throwaway surgical ones) wandering the sandy paths under the chestnut trees. One day, all this will be over – though, given the pace of France’s vaccination effort, not any time soon.
This image Paris hopes to lead other global cities in pivoting how its central urban areas are planned
A new generation of landscaping designs would surely have delighted Johnson. She could always console herself with memories of a city she loved, a place that has for centuries been an invitation to the imagination, as it was with Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart’s characters in Casablanca – and now as it is for a more sustainable urban future.
BOTH IMAGES: CHARTIER-CORBASSON
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