Fanny Romain

Southern France riverbank projects in Montpellier and Perpignan: from designed space to interpreted space

This examination of recent landscape architecture interventions along two rivers in southern France—the River Lez in Montpellier and the River Têt in Perpignan—questions the popular notion of ‘intervening in space’. Observing the features of the interventions and their consequences, the author investigates whether a change of paradigm occurs with regard to the approach employed. The results of this analysis demonstrate an evolution in the role of the landscape professional, who now seeks to translate or interpret a space rather than to act upon it materially. Pertinent tasks comprise not only installation in the sense of designing or bringing order to space, but also producing communications about the site. The landscape architect aims, at at a local scale, to persuade the community to accept the existing space (notably using a discourse on the values of natural and cultural heritage); and at a territorial scale, to use the riverbanks, and more generally the idea of the river, to restructure or give coherence to the city. Finally, this river intervention approach produces either conceptual pieces (such as reports, maps, films, animation) or minimal changes for ambitious infrastructural projects.