1In the making of landscape: the "site"1

Alain Nada

Introduction ..........................................................................................................................................................................................11. Landscape: state of the art...........................................................................................................................................................1

2. From "La Sapinire" to "Le Bois des Ventis": the emergence of a landscape...................................................................33. Site: state of the place...................................................................................................................................................................9

Towards landscape policy...............................................................................................................................................................11

1 This work has been carried out with the support of the French Ministry of Culture and Communication, Direction ofArchitecture and Patrimony, Office of Architectural and Urban Research.

1Introduction

In conjunction with the rise of environmental concerns in western Europe since the seventies, landscape has becomean important issue in EU policy (Convention Europenne du paysage, Florence, 2000). Sustainable development, thefuture of rural areas with the decrease of EU agricultural activity, urban design, public participation (Conventiond'Aarhus, 1998) and quality of life are major areas of concerns in this policy. Landscape appears to be a transversalconcern, involving both an esthetic and environmental issue. Landscape-design projects and, more generally,landscape-processes (such as, for instance, the "Chartes de Paysage" in France) are collective processes reshapingterritories, territorial identities, barrows, urban or rural areas. Landscape has clearly acquired a public dimension. Ithas become a powerful argument in environmental controversies (Trom, 1996). It is nowadays subjected to bothenvironmental and cultural preservation, which seems to contradict its dynamic essence.This paper is directed at the making of landscape. It does so by revisiting an old notion, a sort of companion oflandscape that has recently retained theorists interest: the 'site'. The site of the classics is a site-situation: a situationin which a town might be sited; a situation from which or over which a view is offered. In the sixties, the land-artistsrevisited the notion as they had to transpose their in situ installations to the museums in order for the public to meetwith the work. Along the way, the site and its many representations were reformulated, becoming, for instance, the"non-site(s)" (non-sight) in Robert Smithson's work. More recently, the rise of internet virtual reality triggered newattention to the notion (Cauquelin, 2002). Finally, another instance of contemporaneous practice involving sites islandscape design: any place submitted to the work of a landscape design project is called 'site' by landscapedesigners1. This 'site' is interesting to the extent that landscape designers undertake through it a joint-recomposition ofplace and nature: they plant, implant, transplant, replant in order to reshape places that are most often called "publicspaces" as they are spaces dedicated to public use2 3.The landscape designers' 'site' refers thus to a practice from which we might learn about the dynamic relation betweennature, place, space and landscape. While this might help us to depart from a common-shared view that positslandscape into esthetics and perception (e.g. the Renaissance vedutta's painting), it might also allow us to recast theterms in which landscape policy has been debated since the eighties, especially in France.We will first briefly recast the debate about landscape and landscape policy. We will then follow a landscape designerat work on a small project in the Parisian outskirt (France). We will try to seize the contribution of the 'site' in themaking of landscape and understand what the landscape designer means by 'site'. Finally, we will try to derive cluesfrom this, which might help us to recast the debate about landscape policy.

1. Landscape: state of the art

As interest in landscape grew during the eighties, researchers have tried to define a path for landscape policy thatwould take account of both the dynamic/evolving features of landscapes and the possible need for preserving existingones. Existing theories diverge in the way they consider the relation between landscape and its process of emergence.Geographers and historians have covered the historical emergence of archetypical landscapes such as wetlands,mountain- or coastal-landscapes (e.g. Briffaud, 1995; Corbin, 1988; Cosgrove 1984; Luginbhl, 1992). In doing so,they referred landscapes to geographical entities and social, technical or cultural contexts (Donadieu 2000). Theydefined landscape as a social-construct that had been 'naturalized' through history and culture. They made landscapeinto the result and the product of a socio-technical process rather than into the process itself.

Esthetic theories underlined the pictorial and conceptual history of landscape (Cauquelin, 2000; Berque, 1995;Cosgrove et al, 19884). They made landscape into a representation. By doing so, they separated it from the territory itderived from, making the land into a (passive) substratum, while landscape became a cultural entity, erected to thestatus of esthetic-, sight- or art-derivative (e.g. Roger 1978, 1995, 1997). The emergence of landscape was tracedback to the Renaissance and to the panorama of the vedutta paintings. So-called "real" landscapes, rendered in thesepaintings, resulted in landscapes being detached from the process of their territorial emergence. The emphasis onrepresentation even led Cosgrove (1984:32) to state that landscape as an ideological concept was a denial of the ideaof process in that it called for the exteriority of sight. This very idea of the need for an outsider's sight in order forlandscape to emerge as a concept or representation pervaded a good part of the literature and theoretical writings onthe subject. Arguments have been manyfold: local people do not use the word "landscape" and do not care for it(Cueco, 1995), they do not have the sense of it (Roger, 1997) or, if they have it, it is not conscious and thus not valid(Boutinet, 2002). Even the few philosophers, who argued for the inseparability of land and landscape, have come to

2defend the need for cognitive-exteriority in the perception of landscape (Kessler, 1999). This double split betweenland/landscape on the object-side and outsider/local on the subject(perceptive)-side - has been salient in the Frenchdebate and has become pervasive in the broader litterature (e.g. Cosgrove, in the above). The situation can thus besketched as one in which dualism remained prevalent, despite the wishes and attempts to overpass it and havelandscape play a role of hybridization in land and urban planning (e.g. Dagognet et al, 1982).The issue is not only theoretical. It was and is still political for several reasons (Dagognet et al, 1995). The first one isthat the concept of landscape ensuing from this esthetic hijacking is exclusive: it excludes the territory and the localpopulation from the making of landscape5. The second reason is that the static essence of dualism6 made it hard forlandscape theories, faced with the issue of environmental and patrimonial preservation (Chabasson, 1995), to definedynamic fundamentals for landscape policy. As a matter of fact, landscape has been faced with two risks of reduction.The first one has come from ecologists, who tend to reduce it to a mere environmental concern, considering it shouldbe preserved as such and denying it cultural dimension. The theory of artialisation developed by A. Roger in theeighties pointed at this ecological reduction and defended the right to redesign landscapes on the ground that theywere cultural entities. Yet, the theory was so rooted in dualism that it fell into the trap of cultural preservation in itsattempt to fight ecological reduction7. This second risk is thus cultural preservation, currently illustrated and enacted bythe UNESCO labelisation of patrimonial landscapes. The very vivid debates surrounding the attribution of these labelsshow that the related risk is to freeze landscapes and transform them into cultural icons (UNESCO, 2001)8.What appears, in the end, is that dualism structured these approaches and resulted in concepts putting a distancebetween landscape and its process of emergence. They casted landscape as a product/object rather than as aprocess and became unable to tackle dynamic issues related to the emergence and the re-design of landscapes. Inshort, the constructive dimension of landscape has been overlooked.The assimilation of landscape to a process has been proposed by Hirsch and O'Hanlon (1995). Based onanthropological case studies, they proposed to define landscape as a cultural process, meaning by this a broadconcept taking form in a field of tension defined by a set of couples: space/place, image/representation, inside/outside,foreground actuality/background potentiality. Their approach is ultimately inspired by Bourdieu's philosophy and theoryof practice (Bourdieu, 2000). Space, image and inside relate to the foreground of daily social activity, the non-reflexiveperception, while place, representation and outside relate to a background stage of daily social activity, namely: thereflexive experience beyond the everyday life. Landscape is thus a culturally determined process through which "menand women attempt to realize in the foreground what can only be a potentiality and for the most part in thebackground" (:23). While this approach opens a new perspective on landscape in which the pictorial representation nolonger is landscape per se - but only one possible state of it , the most static one - it still makes landscape, even as aprocess, into the resulting and determined entity. The form taken by landscape is a matter of 'social' context, of powerand history: "[...] everyday life can never attain the idealized features of a representation. The attempts to transcendthis limit brings us to questions of power and history [...]"(:23). Landscape is the reflection of the 'social' in daily life.The constructive dimension of landscape - i.e. the many ingredients, trades, negotiations through which landscapeemerges and is constructed - might be captured in the case studies, but it is not in the set of border-concepts definingthe field of tensions in which the landscape process is supposed to unfold. To put it differently, the landscapeprocesses described in the case studies do not seem to be captured by the conceptual framework, which refers tolandscape as determined by an undefined and given entity: the background or 'social'. The ancient border between thegiven (Nature) and the constructed (Culture) has shifted place. It now separates landscape as the variable/constructedfrom the social as the given/determining, but the distance between landscape and its process of emergence seems toremain.As a result, it seems that if we really want to understand the ways through which landscape emerges and is reshaped,we should merely turn to the ways in which it is constructed, pay attention to the details of the process itself and openthe scope in order to consider all the ingredients that it requires, humans and non-humans included9. Concepts suchas 'collective agency' and 'mediation' by objects developed in art theory (Gell, 1998; Hennion, 1993; Yaneva, 2003)10might be useful in this constructive task.

Last but not least, in landscape theories, the forclusion of the constructive process has taken on a tricky set up that hasto be clearly understood before proceeding with the analysis. Esthetics theories and many philosophical essays onlandscape defend its cultural essence by opposing it to Nature. Some of them (e.g. Cauquelin, Roger) are evenexplicitly positing the constructed essence of landscape. As we just argued it, this does not mean that they takeaccount of its process of construction. We might find this constructive assertion tricky. Indeed, we are used, especiallywith sciences (Latour, 2001), to have problems stem from the denial of the constructed nature of facts, and not the

3opposite. Yet, here, it is precisely the insistance of landscape to impose itself as the constructed thing (separated fromnature) that seems to generate experts and exclusions quite similar to the ones spawned by the pretended naturality offacts in science. The reason for this is that this assertion is a flip-side. In fact, the argument defines landscape firstand above all by opposition to the immutable and given Nature. A Nature that would be its dark side, its science part.A Nature that cannot be constructed because it saves the bastion of modernity intact, hidden in the shadow of theconstructed landscape. Indeed, if Nature (land or country, in our case) was constructed as is landscape, the pretendedneed for exteriority in the making of landscape and the double split land/landscape - local/outsider would no longerhold. The part played by local people would have to be re-integrated in the making of landscape. Hence, the fear oflandscape to be dissoluted (dissolved in the environment) appears to be a flip-over of naturalism11. It is then only byworking on the frontier between landscape and nature in order to trace their co-construction that we might be able tocast a new light on the construction of landscape.

The value of the practician's 'site' for this task relies on the fact that it is a category of action. Indeed, identifying this'site' requires tracing the ways in which the landscape designer reconstructs nature and landscape through it. It is thenlikely to help us understand how landscape gets reconstructed. This might open to a redefinition of the concept oflandscape. At least, this is what we will argue in this paper. In order to do so, we will invite the reader to follow theearly phases of development of a landscape project in the Parisian outskirts. The project takes place on a twelve-hectare evergreen plot, called "La Sapinire" (Grigny - La Grande Borne, Essonne). I will not analyse the project in itsfinal form but try to follow as closely as possible the work of the landscape designer and its links to the project 'site'. Iwill direct the analysis towards the making of things, the many ingredients, associations and negotiations generated bythe development of the project.

2. From "La Sapinire" to "Le Bois des Ventis": the emergence of a landscape

On December 26th, 1999, coming from the South West, the Lothar storm crossed France and devastated entireregions. In Grigny (Essonne), it tumbled down the safety zone of the Fleury-Mrogis prison. It whirled on the "PatiosHouses" of the district of "La Grande Borne", slipped on the "Private Fields" which face it and swept through anevergreen plot named "La Sapinire", leaving behind it a vegetable Mikado. The day after, birds were mute. Time hadsuspended its flight. Marie, a local sculptor, was contemplating with stupefaction the damage.

One year later, the weather is fine in Grigny. Everyone is on time at the town hall: professors of fine arts and schoolteachers; Marie; the head of a local bird watching association (Ligue de Protection des Oiseaux, L.P.O ); members ofvarious local non-profit organizations; Alain, landscape designer and author of these lines. They all came for the samereason: "La Sapinire". Teachers and professors are organizing art workshops there with Marie. The sculptor justfinished there a monumental art installation in memory of the 1999 wind. This sculpture was carried out on behalf ofthe municipality. The L.P.O is undertaking a bird-inventory in "La Sapinire" and might disclose its results in the nearfuture. Regional non-profit organizations want to organize a big cultural event in "La Sapinire" during the next spring.Last, but not least, Alain was contacted a year ago by Marie (following the storm), in order to develop a landscapedesign project in "La Sapinire" with Bleuet, a colleague of his. The head of the urban department explains to all ofthem that they have been called to come in order to coordinate their actions in "La Sapinire", keeping in mind theneed for "safety and compatibility", given that the storm had left a lot of damage on its way through the wood.As a matter of fact, the 1999 storm has been a turning point in La Sapinire. It triggered the emergence of twoprojects. Four years later, in 2003, Alain has produced several sketches, but money suddenly ran dry and put an endto his work. In the meantime, Marie has installed "L'Onde" (literally: "The Wave"). It is a three hundred meter longsculpture, made out of one hundred twenty trunks in line (and on feet) and of their corresponding windfallen woods.Trunks in this span had been broken by the storm following a sinusoidal-wave pattern. The artist put back part of thewindfallen woods together on their trunks, leaving a vacuum in order to show the tear caused by the hurricane. Shedid so by means of metal splints (twenty splints). Quoting the artist, the vacuum materializes the "Matter of the Wind",which is the subject-matter of the sculpture. The piece is alive. It is intended to be reabsorbed by moulds,mushrooms, parasites and vegetation, which will all gradually take their rights back. "L'Onde" provides the opportunityto follow this process of evolution; it is an "ecological laboratory"12.

2.1 Genealogy of a projectThe story of "La Sapinire" can be traced back to the Sixties way before the storm. Grigny is a small village perchedon the slopes of the Seine river, overhung by an agricultural plateau. The village lives off farming and quarrying. Afterthe war, levelling grinding is used to rebuild Paris as France develops its territory. The highway reaches Grigny and

4splits its territory into two parts. In the meantime, three huge State-projects are planned on this territory: "Grigny II"(5000 joint-ownership residences), "La Grande Borne" (3500 rental residences) and the prison of Fleury-Mrogis (thebiggest one in the Parisian region). The regional urban planning regulation requires the built-mass of the prison to beoffset by the plantation of a wooden area. Fifty hectares of evergreen trees (1,5 km by 0,3km) are thus planted inbetween "La Grande Borne" and the prison, in order to hide one from the other. This curtain of conifers is planted inrows after having filled up the last quarry (one does not know with what). As the layout of the new infrastructures doesnot match the communal borders, a complex exchange of land plots is made. In the game, part of the evergreen-curtain (350 meters of it, that is approximately 12 hectares) gets split apart and changes hands. Initially the property ofthe municipality of Fleury-Mrogis, it then goes into the hands of the Ministry of Justice under which it is part of thesafety belt of the penitentiary area. It finally ends up as a concession under Grigny municipality control. The barbedwire, which was facing the Patios houses, is then removed. The new penitentiary border is installed on the other sideof what will, from now on, be called "La Sapinire" by the neighbouring residents. This evergreen plot is now facingboth the last buildings of "La Grande Borne" and the district of the "Patios".

Thirty years later, in 1994, the community of Grigny buys "La Sapinire" from the State, with a vision of turning it into apublic park (Town council meeting of October 22,1994). As regards the social aspects, the plot is already perceived bythe residents as a place of danger. This reputation is supported by multiple events, such as: overdoses, the temporaryrefuge of a recently released prisoner, a rape, two murders, daily pitbull dog training. In order to make the place looksafer and entice people to use it, municipal technicians undertake cleaning and forest works (e.g. pruning, clearing,path opening, clearing of sick trees). They do it under the supervision of the National Office of Forestry (O.N.F). Anote by this Office (dated from that time) estimates that trees will start degenerating within thirty years, that is by 2024.Believing this expertise, a plan for the renewal of the timber cover should soon be devised and implemented.In 2000, that is to say six years later, the success of the cleaning operations is considered by the landscape designerto be very relative. People still frequent the place only sporadically. The ecology of the place is described as being ata turning point. Trees are high (25 to 30 m). The Lothar storm partly destroyed the timber cover. It allowed the groundto receive light and allow an undergrowth to develop.By this period, begins the story we mentioned in the beginning. Marie submits the idea of an art project to themunicipality team: a set of monumental sculptures to the memory of the storm. Her idea attracts interest and triggers adebate about the future of the place. The artist joins a landscape designer, Bleuet - who calls for Alain (secondlandscape designer) before withdrawing himself from the project - in order to submit a design sketch to the minicipality.The project ends up covering the 12 hectares of "La Sapinire". It becomes a "landscape with sculptures" named "LeBois des Ventis"13 by the artist and the landscape designer. In accordance with the wish of the municipality, the projectaims at preserving, diversifying and renewing the timber cover. It also proposes a new design on the borders of "LaSapinire" in order to insert it into the neighbouring urbanism: stadiums, "La Grande Borne" and the "Patios" districts,the prison of Fleury-Mrogis.

As a matter of course, the landscape project follows four phases. Each of them closes with the delivering of a reportincluding a new version of the design project. These phases are: a design sketch ("Sensitive Reading" [Dec.1999/Janv. 2001]/"blue" and "green" reports); an analysis ("Inventory" [Janv. 2001/Dc. 2001] / "kraft" report); a call fortender and the signature of the contract ("Regulatory Framing" [Dec. 2001/Mai 2002]/methodological note) between thecommunity of Grigny (sleeping partner MAXX) and the landscape designer (project manager MOXX); and a moredetailed sketch ([May 2002/Juin 2003]/ "Avant Projet Sommaire (APS)" document)14. As a result, the work seems toprogress through downscaling15, starting with a global apprehension of the project and moving towards a greater levelof detail and definition. However, a closer and more systematic look at it proves that its course follows a slightlydifferent logic. As the project unfolds, some entities which are part of the site, such as young oak tree seedlings,windfallen woods left by the storm or the underground of the former quarry, become increasingly salient among theissues at stake. They mobilize most of the energy and the work dedicated to the project. Even more, theyprogressively become entities from which and through which the issues at stake can be figured out and the projectdeveloped. The research work lined up the archives of the landscape designer and the artist (e.g., faxes, letters,meeting reports) and pointed out these entities in order to gather their story throughout the course of the project.These stories show the ways through which such entities become central in the many reconstructions allowing theproject to be developed. Based on this material, we propose to the reader to explore one of these stories: that of theyoung oak.

52.2 The Young oak tree: a wood-projectThe capacity of the natural seedlings of young oak trees to ensure the regeneration of the timber cover in La Sapinireis a key issue. It emerges gradually in the development of the project and turns the young oak into one of its mainactors. This salience of the natural seedlings gets built through different ways that we will now explore. The storyunfolds in four acts, each corresponding to one of the project phases.

Act I: The stooge

The preliminary surveys and the first sketch are strategic: the landscape designer and the artist have to convince themunicipality to engage in the project. The issue at stake, as formulated by the municipality, is to make it possible forthe residents to again frequent "La Sapinire", while preserving its timber cover. In order to answer it, Marie and Alaindevelop a strategy that takes three approaches.First, they dedicate careful attention to the ecology of the place. Indeed, the municipality has proved to be verysensitive to the environmental dimension of "La Sapinire". The first document, delivered by Marie and Bleuet at anearly stage of the work, is a photographic course through the fibres of the trees which have been torn by the storm.Pictures detail torn wood fibres, laid down trees and after-storm views of the span in which "L'Onde" is supposed to beinstalled by the artist. A short text of intention suggests repairing the "weakened place" by means of sculptures andlandscape design and "broadening out the reflexion to the whole site". Surreptitiously, the place (weakened) becomesa site in which the project aims at taking place in order to build a new place.The deconstruction, so to speak, of the place is the second trick used by Marie and Alain. "La Sapinire" isprogressively turned into a site of project by their argumentation. The first sketch echoes the poetry of the "weakenedplace" by underlining clues of the negation of the place. Pictures show tree collars covered by street embankment atthe border of the site. Traces of uses known as "illegitimate" (e.g. pictures of car seats or supermarket caddiesdumped into the middle of wood) are convened to set a scene in which the social is a metahor for the ecology, so thatthe place endorses a wavering identity: it is threatened with rejection by attempts to close it (fencing); it is threatenedwith disappearing if the dead wood is cleaned out without taking care of replanting ... "[...] Half-way measures werenot enough to allow the place to get a new identity [...] The place hesitates [...] La Sapinire is in search ofan identity, a wholeness that would open it to new uses, attract residents and allow them to developgenuine territorialities in it". The question, the stake of the project, is thus the place as a net of uses andterritorialities. The reading of the place by artist and the landscape designer starts with the ground, the plants, theecology and slips to the social and the uses. It starts with "La Sapinire" as a "weakened place" and slips to "LaSapinire" as a site for a project.The third way is the reconstruction. Whereas the project started by deconstructing the place in order to set the site,reconstruction goes into reverse. It recomposes the place by composing the site, as the successive mass plans drawnby Alain throughout the development of the project will show it. Reconstruction begins with the first sketch andgradually revolves around the young oak tree.

The cadrastal plan is the only one available map at this stage (autumn 2000). "La Sapinire" is figured as a whitepolygon in the urban fabric (cf Plan 1). The pattern according to which the trees had been planted has been lost. Alainstrides over the plot in order to identify it and derive statistics about the population of trees. Results and figures givereality to the apocalyptic account developed in the first sketch: only a third of the initially planted trees are alive, most ofthe standing trees are dead trunks. The feeling of there being a timber cover holds as much to these dead-timbersthan to alive trees. The counting is reported on the cadrastal map by means of black dots (cf Plan 2) roughly locatingthe trees. The new plan is used as a basis for the sketch.The issue of natural regeneration (i.e. from natural seedlings of young oak trees) is already present in the first sketch.The landscape designers describe an ecological milieu that is fast changing and needs some care to back up its moult.They propose to limit mowing and to clear out the wood by means of soft methods such as draught horses. Seedlingsof young trees should beforehand be "identified, protected or put aside" in order for them not to be injured by theworks. However, the role of the "natural seedlings" remains very secondary in the project. While the first sketch reportadvocates taking care of them, the budget relies mostly on the replantation of various species of trees (more than 50%of the total cost of the project). Replantation is planned to be transversal to the initial scheme of plantation in order toget rid of the rectilinear pattern and of the "functionalist spirit" that overarched the creation of La Sapinire in thesixties. Wet ditches, aimed at draining the soil, give a dynamics to the project mass plan. They echo the obliques of

6the town planning and break the tree alignments (cf Plan 3). The reality of this effect in three dimensions is lessconvincing as testified by some graphic and naive views of the project included in the project report. All thingsconsidered, the young oak tree is mostly an environmental rhetoric. It appears neither in the vegetable strategy nor inthe mass plan. At this stage, this plan reveals a graphic and pictorial approach to the project. The landscape designerused young oak tree to his ends, in order to convince the municipality, but he did not really convene it in thecomposition of the project.

Act II: 'Relying on' or the delegation

Whereas the natural seedlings were not very present during the first sketch, they become a key entity during thesecond phase of the project. Indeed, during this phase of analysis (the "Inventory") the landscape designer startsforming the project upon them.Inquiring into the history of "La Sapinire" [Spring of 2000], Alain discovers a note by the O.N.F. It is dated from 1995and gives, on average, fifty years of lifespan to the trees. This means that trees might approximately start decaying in2020 (plantation in 1967). The issue of the perenniality of the timber cover in "La Sapinire" is thus confirmed to be atstake. Pictures of the undergrowth in "La Sapinire", also dated from 1995, are found at the same time. They displaya carpet of pine needles, without any other vegetation on the ground. It is very different from the state of the placeduring this Spring of 2000: the undergrowth is made out of a dense cover of herbaceous and shrubby plants.According to Alain, the contrast attests to the dramatic change in the ecology of the place over the past twelve yearsand to its high potential for evolution. Alain decides to dedicate his work to the assessment of this potential. He isadvised in this task by Narcisse, who is landscape designer and ecologist.

Based on the survey undertaken during the Autumn of 2000, Alain draws up a map of the tree-cover densities in "LaSapinire". He picks out four forest stations (30 meter quadratic), each located in a zone of different density and sunexposure, and undertakes their analysis. The goal is to count the natural seedlings of young oak trees and to describethe undergrowth (herbaceous and shrubby plants) and tree cover under which they grow. The implicit assumption isthat the sunlight, the density of graminaceous plants and brambles are the determining factors. The young oak tree isheliophile: it requires plain sun exposure in order to grow. Under dry conditions, it might be threatened by hydric stressdue to the competition of graminaceous plants. If those have grown in a dense cover, they can also hamper acornsfrom rooting in the soil. Brambles (Rubus sp.) also like and colonize sunny places. Different from lianas (e.g.clematites of the hedge (Clematis vitalba)), which choke the young tree seedlings, brambles are said to protect and"educate" them. They protect them from both predators (which do not come under the brambles) and the competitionby graminaceous plants (which do not grow under brambles). They "educate" them by shading. The shade entices theseedlings to grow in search for light. It is a source of natural selection, favorable to the survival of the most vigorousseedlings. This overall approach to the issue of forest regeneration reflects Narcisse's empirical experience and view.

Again, Alain undertakes the analysis by striding over the plot and counting. Results confirm the importance of groundlighting and the density of the tree cover (shading). However, one question remains unanswered. Brambles havecolonized the southern part of "La Sapinire" because it is sunnier. There, they are invaded by lianas (e.g. clematite ofthe hedge (Clematis vitalba), bindweed (Convolvulus sp.) which form an hermetic cap. Apparently, neither the sunlightnor the young trees could pierce it. Yet, it is also impossible for Alain to explore through it and check the presence ofyoung oak trees in these thickets.

In spite of this unsolved mystery, Alain draws up a long-term forest management scheme, which relies upon so-called"natural regeneration". He is still advised by Narcisse in this task. Narcisse has experienced on his own plot of landvarious modes of regeneration developed by a non-profit organization called Prosylva. Prosylva's take on forest-regeneration contrasts with that of the O.N.F. The O.N.F approach to forest renewal has tradionally been one of massproduction, based on rough cut and mass-replantation. Prosylva has developed an individualized and more gradualpractice: it is based on targeted breaks, which aim at selecting and fostering the most vigorous seedlings already inplace. The sketch drawn up by Alain (autumn 2001) is based on five chronological schemes simulating the evolution ofthe forest cover within fifty years. On each of the schemes, the operations that have to be undertaken (clearing,pruning, clearing out ...) are represented and pointed out. Windfallen woods and brambles are kept in place. It isassumed that young oak trees will grow in and through the brambles in order to regenerate the timber cover. Theregeneration is "natural" only by name: it is in fact based on periodical human interventions over the first ten years. Forinstance, during the first five years, foresters (in fact, the municipality technical staff) would have to yearly stride over"La Sapinire", go through the brambles and cut the lianas choking the young oak trees.

7During the Spring of 2002, "La Sapinire" provides a real-size test for Alain's scenario. The Wave is in place since thefall. Workers are sent there by the municipality in order to clear remaining windfallen woods. The team supervisorpraises the "softness" of the operation: woods are cut up on the spot, manually taken away or crushed by means of asmall engine. No big trucks, no massive operation. The opportunity is even seized by the municipality engineeringdepartment to give reality to a dream: 'the old dream of an accessible, clean and sure undergrowth" as Alain names it.Windfallen woods and undergrowth, except for young oak tree seedlings, are cleared from spots located in differentparts of "La Sapinire". The seedlings are left in place. They are supported by a fluorescent stake in order to makethem more visible and prevent potential damages to them. A few days after, Alain and Narcisse are striding through"La Sapinire". They observe with caution the results: stakes are stolen; young oak trees are lonely leaning their headon an English lawn; they have sometimes been already damaged by the clearing; they are in any case exposed to thefirst comer who might want to lie down in these bucolic clearings. According to Alain and Narcisse, brambles woulddefinitely have better virtues than fluorescent stakes and English lawn. However, there are two conditions for thesevirtues to work out. The first one is that municipality technicians be ready to yearly go through the undergrowth and thebrambles in order to clean the young oaks from cumbersome lianas. The second one, which Alain could not check, isthat the young oaks actually grow under the impenetrable brambles.

As a consequence, several issues remain unsolved. Firstly, the landscape project delegates its future to a hypotheticalyoung oak tree. Secondly, the engineering-department-young-oak-tree is not likely to survive the frequentation of "LaSapinire". Thirdly, Alain-and-Narcisse-young-oak-tree is far from convincing the engineering department but, withoutthe assistance of its technicians, the young tree is condemned by lianas. No solutions are found to thesecontradictions but the survey, the countings and the striding through the place have deeply modified the design of theproject. The new mass plan displays these changes. Its scale is not different from that of the former one (1/1000) (cfPlan 4). Yet, windfallen woods and spots of natural regeneration do now appear on it. They are the spatial translationof a reconstruction under way: that of the young oak tree. This one has thus become an entity through which theproject, its logic and drawing are being figured out.

Act III: Cutting costs and competing

The regulatory framing gives the opportunity to the natural seedling to endorse a new role. It serves competition on thepublic market. Its mystery, still unsolved, becomes an argument in the economy of the project. It allows the landscapedesigner to justify selling an ecological expertise. This is, at least, what a methodological note included in Alain'sanswer to the call for tenders launched by the municipality dwells on: "[...] The objective is to preserve the timber coverand the natural aspect of the site while [making the project] rely as much as possible on natural regeneration [...]detailed analyses in different parts of "La Sapinire" are necessary [...] the complexity of the problem [...] justifies thecost of the expertise [...] A detailed ecological understanding might allow the project to better rely on the ecology of "LaSapinire" and reduce the cost of wood regeneration [...] This might allow us to increase the part of the budgetdedicated to the other parts of the project, such as the works on the border of "La Sapinire"". In short, the economygenerated by the comparatively low cost of natural regeneration (as compared to replantation) should make it possibleto invest more money on the other parts of the project and increase their quality. In other words, the signature of thecontract (May 2002), by devoting the project to the Alain-Bleuet team, also makes the young oak tree endorse thefuture of this project. The contract gives six weeks to the team (APS, detailed sketch) in order to make clear whetheror not the project can rely on the young oak tree and the "natural" regeneration. Alain has thus to assemble into aproject the young oak tree, the birds, the L.P.O, the Wave, the residents, the users, the municipality technicians, thetimber cover and so on.

Act IV: Regenerating a wood / reconstructing a place

The prospect of budgeting (in euros) the project and, eventually, having to choose between parts of it, entices Alain todivide the site into modules. Each module is named in order to make the discussions and negotiation with themunicipality easier: "Wood", "Northern Grove", "Patios Pier", "Southern Slope", "Stadium Entry", "South Edge" (cf. Plan5). They result from guesswork. Each of them is supposed to raise specific technical problems and to becharacterized by a particular function. For instance, "Blooming rooms" are installed in the wood along the maincirculations so that residents can safely settle there while being close to birds and regenerating spots. Each module isthus dedicated to a set of uses that makes it into a place. A meeting with the municipality around the modules massplan and some perspective views "Before/After project" allow the landscape designer to get the agreement to proceed.

8Alain has thus to assess the cost of natural regeneration in order to figure out the trade-off, if any, between themodules.In search for a regeneration strategy compatible with the municipal technicians, he orders a short expert assessmentby the O.N.F. The O.N.F technicians are categorical when they see "La Sapinire"'s undergrowth: the density ofnatural seedlings is not high enough so as to support a natural regeneration. Moreover, young oak trees need muchmore light than what they get there in order to grow. Clearings of at least twenty meters in diameter would benecessary around each seedling to ensure its growth. The O.N.F report advises replantation in spots, which would bemaintained manually during the first five years (e.g. cleaning, clearing, thinning, pruning, etc). Its management by themunicipality technicians seems possible to Alain: replantation spots are usually clearly delineated spots in which a"carpet of regeneration" (as foresters call it) is planted. They are thus easily identifiable and accessible by comparisonto natural seedlings disseminated in the brambles. However, the clearing of regeneration plots raises a problem inregard to the landscape. It would break both the continuity of the timber cover and the matrix of the place. In Alain'sview, the O.N.F-young-oak-tree would thus fit the municipality technicians practice but not the landscape design.

This young oak tree also does not prove to be very compatible with the L.P.O's approach to the place. The L.P.O'sreport describe birds through a synthetic table, entitled "Constraints", which lists their environmental requirements(biotope). According to this table, most of the bird species living in "La Sapinire" reproduce in the bushes andbrambles that have colonized the southern part of the wood. In addition, this part is less frequented by people becauseit is far from the main access to the place and close to the prison's edge. The L.P.O thus proposes to keep ituntouched and turn it into a bird zone.According to Alain, ecological dynamics are missing in this analysis. Brambles were not always in place in thesouthern part. They came to colonize it because it was strongly damaged by the storm (which came from the southwestern) and received a higher sun exposure. In short, bushes and brambles are there because there came to befewer trees. Yet, if there are fewer trees, a succession to them should be prepared in order to keep a timber cover inthis part of "La Sapinire" unless one is ready to give up the idea of a timber cover there, which even the L.P.O. wouldnot think of. The issue is then slightly different than what the L.P.O states: it is to know whether or not this undergrowthshelters a relay for the timber cover. In short, are there or not young oak trees in the bushes and brambles ? Alainlaunches a new survey aimed at counting the young oak trees and at locating the environment in which they electplace. Results show that natural seedlings do not grow under the brambles. They grow in their periphery or on theedge of open spans (under southern exposure), in places where the sun exposure fits their needs without beingenough for graminaceous plants to become invasive. Moreover, as brambles totally invade the southern part of "LaSapinire", they make it impossible for natural seedlings to grow there.Alain cross checks these results with the density and replantation thresholds that were provided by the O.N.F. Thisallows him to divide "La Sapinire" in four zones, each corresponding to a level of density and a specific need forreplantation. The overall quantity of replantation and surface dedicated to regeneration plots are significantly reducedcompared to what they were in the O.N.F prescription. The spatial distribution of the plots is devised directly whiledrawing the new mass plan of the project. The criteria guiding this spatial distribution are made explicit by Alain: "thelocation of regeneration plots follows three goals: to keep a diversity of milieu in "La Sapinire"; to manage a goodaccessibility for the maintenance of the plots; to keep a reasonable distance between the plots and the maincirculations". The choice of these criteria is driven by the future uses of "La Sapinire", so that regenerating the woodis composing the place. Indeed: the "diversity of milieu" is a request by the L.P.O for birds; the "accessibility formaintenance" is targeted at the municipal technicians; the "distance from the main circulations" aims at protecting theyoung seedlings from trampling by users without prohibiting access to certain parts of the wood. This hierarchy ofcirculations is the way through which the landscape designer defends a principle of cohabitation between birds, naturalseedlings and humans: "Social expectations [...] are translated into spatiality through a hierarchy of circulations:opened and safe-feeling main circulations [...] blooming rooms, place of vegetal sophistication and of a more intimatecontact with nature [...] no fencing or prohibited access, but natural barriers made out of windfallen woods, whichreduces public frequentation in the remote zones where only curious people will venture". These principles contrastwith L.P.O's view, which aimed at partitioning the place. The project report (phase APS) points at the antagonism. Itdoes so in order to entice the muncipality to open a debate on this issue. However, the municipality will never do soand the project will soon stop.Overall, the reconstruction of the young oak tree has been at the core of the reconstruction of the place. The newmass plan (scale 1/500) display the changes in the project (cf Plan 6). It clearly figures a new spatial distribution ofwindfallen woods, zones of natural regeneration (protected by clusters of windfallen wood) and replantation plots. The

9new sketches of the project feature the young-oak-tree and the natural regeneration. They play on a "contrast betweenraw and sophisitcated nature". For instance, some perspective views of the wood show an empty span before theproject that is converted, after the project, into a "blooming room". The after-project picture contrasts the sophisticated"blooming room" with a backstage of vegetation muddle figuring the wood under regeneration.From the economic point of view, the young oak tree holds its promises since the mix of natural regeneration andreplantation has reduced the cost of the module "Wood". This makes it possible to allow for all other modules in theproject budget.

3. Site: state of the place

The story of the young oak tree features a landscape designer who is asked to assemble into a landscape scenery aliving entity and the future of a place. The requirement to combine and to stage life and future is rather common in theprofession. Any architectural project deals with potential users and uses. The story of the young oak tree is theninteresting in that it is focused on the mediation of vegetable entity in the composition of the place. The overlaps andthe recombinings of the different forms of lives in the making of the project become then readable. The municipalityexpects the landscape designer to compose a place: people, birds and trees should become able to tune theirterritorialities under the new project. Landscape design should thus open a new perspective that makes it possible forthe young oak tree to enact this place -i.e. to combine regeneration and territorialities. In short, while the issue of theproject is rather common - to make a place- the story shows that it is dealt through a joint reconstruction of the placeand what we usually gather under the heading of "Nature". We will now have a closer look at the ways through whichthis joint-reconstruction proceeds in the story.The young oak tree gets recomposed through what we might call successive ontologies, in the sense that they aresuccessive accounts of its existence. We can summarize them as follows.Narcisse's approach to the young oak tree is shaped by eco-systemic and phyto-sociological considerations. Thecollective dimension of vegetative life is underlined in this approach, but the young oak tree is also endowed with anindividuality, as the expression "education by brambles" translates so beautifully. The ensuing forest managementrelies on the individual potentialities of the young oak tree. However, these potentialities are assessed and consideredin the context of its forest environment. The reccurring reference to nature ("natural" regeneration) in this type of forestmanagement does not mean the absence of human intervention. On the contrary, it relies on a wide range of technicalactions (e.g. pruning, selective clearings, etc), which allow the "natural" seedling to express its potentialities. The set ofactions targeted at each vegetative entity is a differentiating process. It builds both individualities and the nature that,assembled together, they will compose.

The O.N.F also seizes the young oak tree as an entity interacting with its milieu. Yet, it does not endow it withindividuality but approaches it as a generic identity: the young oak tree is heliophile, its existence is recognized andconsidered as long as it is shaped in a settlement, as the expression "carpet of regeneration" translates so well. Noconcepts of individualities then at the horizon of this ontology, but rather the idea of mass-management, matter, woodfibers and steres. The spatial display of the young seedlings and their maintenance fits these principles. Seedlings aregathered in regeneration spots where they are subjected to homogeneous conditions of milieu and grown as a genericidentity: a population. The famous foresters' "fullgrown timber tree" embodies this ontology.The users of "La Sapinire" do not seem to care much about the young oak tree. They steal its stake. They trample itinadvertently. Unfortunately, we did not interview them directly. Yet, the reader might allow us to have, here, onespoken for all them. Marie, artist and resident from the Patios district, evokes the prodigality and the absence of limit in"La Sapinire" as follows: "[...] This Sapinire is not a natural place [...] it is a natural lock [...] one goesthere as one breathes, whenever one wants, but at the same time it is a forbidden place [...] one takes whatone wants from this place [...] one goes there naturally to do anything [...] it is a place that one does notwant to see, a place that one would always like to have here. It is very ambiguous."16. Nature is seized herethrough its absence of limit: prodigal nature; nature with no end; nature that will always be there; nature that does notimpose any limit on anyone; nature which does not have any existence as an eco-system. In short, a nature to whichinteriority is denied.

Albeit under a different appearance, municipal technicians also seem to deprive nature of interiority, as attests theirneed to isolate the young oak tree from the undergrowth. It is only extracted from this undergrowth, staged on a greenlawn and maintained by a colourfull stake that the young oak tree acquires its right of existence. Otherwise, the youngoak tree has no future. The undergrowth is formless, invading, choking and threatening. The young oak is fragile and

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has no chance to grow older if it is not extracted from the vegetable magma. Identity, or even individuality, can only beacquired through the differentiation from the undergrowth17. Here again, ontology builds a future to the young oak tree:a future of isolation, vulnerability and dependance on human protection, as attests its shape a few days after thetechnicians work.The L.P.O has a static view (a "fixist" view, to refer to Narcisse's words). It approaches the undergrowth as a sort ofbuilt environment, already existing and stable, with no dynamics. The nature does have an interiority: trees, insects,bushes, herbaceous plants are parts of it. The nature is a complex entity made of many parts. However, it is givenonce and for all and has thus to be preserved. The young oak tree is present/absent in it. It is present because it ispart of the undergrowth. It is absent because, as a seedling, it is not necessary to bird life. By suggesting to prohibitthe access to a part of the undergrowth that does not ensure the regeneration of its timber cover and by proposing toleave it as it is for birds, the L.P.O builds a dubious future for the young oak tree: a future based on a hypotheticalpresence.

Finally, the landscape designer is acting on behalf of the municipality. He is missionned to compose a new place. Inthe case under consideration, he also has a predilection for ecology: he was the one calling for Narcisse to come workon the project. In order to compose a place, he has to devise a spatial display that weaves the potential uses and theterriorialities of the potential users of the place. Looking for a way of co-habitation, playing on continuities andcontiguities, he combines de facto into a spatial solution the many ontologies we just described. By doing so, he laysout the future of the young oak tree. For instance, regeneration spots are contiguous to "blooming rooms" so thatusers can see the former from the latter. They can glance at the tumble of brambles and bushes without having it beeasy to go there and trample the seedlings. This prodigal nature is staged through sceneries that are made textuallyexplicit and spatially perceptible by the landscape designer: for instance, laid down windfallen woods at thecircumference of the "blooming room" are supposed to manage both the contrast and the proximity between 'rough'and sophisticated 'nature'. In the same spirit, L.P.O's partition of the territory is replaced by a hierarchy of circulations,which makes it possible to play with the potentiality of the natural seedlings: forest regeneration is delegated to theyoung oak trees when they are present in the thickets; replantation plots are introduced when this is not the case.These situations are spatially distributed while drawing the project mass plan. Their display is decided according tocriteria of uses, which are then made explicit. There is thus a co-construction of the landscape - as a spatial,perceptible entity and a net of uses - and of what we usually include under the heading of "nature": the young oak tree,the wood. Regenerating the wood is recomposing the place and the reverse: constructing one is constructing theother.

This co-construction arises out of what the landscape designer calls: 'site'. We hitherto (Cf. introduction) designated bythis term the place subjected to the project work. It is now possible to define it more accurately. As we saw it, the firstphase of the project deconstructs the place. It makes it into a "weakened place" / "wavering identity" and gives way tothe emergence of the 'site'. The following phases ("Inventory" and "APS") reconstruct the place. They do it out of thesite, by crossing it time and again, scaling up and down, recomposing at each passage part of the place: the young oaktree, the empty spans, the thickets. The landscape designer undertakes these crossings litterally and figurativelythrough several ways: drawing (e.g. evolution of the successive mass plans), expert statements (e.g. Narcisse, O.N.Ftechnicians), analyses (e.g. urban history, ecological analysis), in situ observations (e.g. striding through the site,countings, observing the technicians works). He crosses the site in order to deal with concrete issues raised by thedevelopment of the project: senescence of the timber cover; possibility of saving money by relying on naturalseedlings; competition on the call for tender. These stakes and their related risks gradually converge to the young oaktree and makes it into the touchstone of the project. The young oak tree becomes salient in the development of theproject. It progressively becomes the unit, the monad endorsing and embodying the complexity out of which thelandscape designer is enabled to formulate the issues and design the project. The salience of the young oak treeemerges in several episodes. It is successively: an environmental stooge; a delegate to the regeneration of the wholetimber cover; a stake of competition; a delegate to the regeneration of only part of the timber cover. It is first quasi-absent in the project, then omnipresent and finally endowed with a singular ethogram. The protagonists who aregradually called to co-operate on the project shape this evolution in that they emphasize or even provide evidence ofthe multiple uses of "La Sapinire". By doing so, they entice the landscape desginer to take account of theses usesand wave the related ontologies (just described in the above) in the project design. In the way, the generic-young-oak-tree ethogram incorporates the uses of the place and acquires a translation that is singular and specific to "LaSapinire": the APS-young-oak-tree ethogram".The landscape project spatially mirrors this evolution. Its mass plan evolves from a schematic graphical designtowards a more complex and realistic display, which allows new uses to cross and overlap in the place. Through this

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process, the project becomes anchored as a new spatiality and net of uses in the ecology of "La Sapinire". The site isthus the state of the place which allows this transformation. We might then be able to define it, if we understand whatmakes it possible. Before the project, the young oak tree was quietly growing and crossing the old uses in theundergrowth of "La Sapinire" (e.g. unnamed birds, 'illegitimate' uses, sporadic visits by the residents). The projectcame to suddenly question these uses and pull the many links and ties that were holding the place together. Thedeconstruction of the place launched during the early phase of the project (preliminary studies/first sketch) opens theway to the 'site' by suspending what could be called the matter-of-uses, meaning by this the material and spatialdisplay allowing the current uses to hold the place. The project questions these uses where the answers are crucial forits development: What is the lifespan of the timber cover? Should "La Sapinire" be replanted or not ? Little by little,the net of the matter-of-uses is unweaved and the place is transformed into its open and unstable form, which is called'site'. Stakes that had been frozen in the former matter-of-uses recover life. They get tied to the development of theproject and change shape: the future of the wood leads to the young oak tree which leads to the ecologist, themunicipal technicians, the users, the birds, and the L.P.O. The undergrowth becomes regenerative; the empty spansbecome replantation spots, vegetal tumble and "blooming rooms". In short, the project work suspends the sedimenteduses in order to allow for a recomposition of the place under a new spatiality. The site, hitherto defined as the placesubjected to the work of the project, is thus this sort of plastic state of the place which is the place in suspense of itsuses.18

Towards landscape policy

Defined as such, the site of the landscape designer shares a lot in common with that of the virtual reality. According toAnne Cauquelin (2002), this 'site' is distinct from both place and space. It is virtual to the extent that it does notpreexist to its constitution. It gets built in the course of an action endowing it, at once, with both a spatiality and ameaning (e.g. the informational meaning and the spatiality of the net built by surfing on the web). It has a primarilycognitive virtue, as did the middle age maps: they were figuring the unknown territories, not in order to represent thembut in order to help discover them19. This site has thus a propensity to entice one to act-and-cross rather than to see-and-contemplate. Different from the site/situation of the classic age, which was worth the current visions it offered (e.g.the site of a city), the site of the virtual reality is worth the extent of the non-current visions it might reveal in the courseof action. This action gets spread through the links and networks that cross the site and allow it "to leave the place ofits conditioning", as Anne Cauquelin phrases it so beautifully.

However, whereas this author makes it into a contemporary category (i.e. it overcomes the traditional oppositionbetween place and space20) born out of the development of virtual reality and information technologies, we have justcrossed a site, which does not owe anything to these technologies or to the numerical network, but much more tosocio-technical networks in general21. More important even is the relation betwen the landscape designer's site andthe construction of nature. Indeed, this site somewhat recasts the relation between landscape, space and nature. Theauthor of "The invention of the landscape" (Cauquelin, 2002) argued for the built character of landscape; built characterthat has been unceasingly "confronted with an essentialism that tries to turn it into a natural data" (pp1). Admittedly,but the landscape designer's site clearly shows, if it was necessary, that nature and landscape are co-built: they are farfrom being separated entities, remote one from the other as the representation can be from the thing. The alledged"transparency of the landscape to what it figures [i.e. nature]" (Cauquelin, postface) is even probably due to this co-construction.We assumed, from the beginning on, a sort of parallel between site and country, project and landscape, uses andinhabitants. The implicit assumption was one of a set of analogies between these notions, as follows: 'site' wouldmean to 'project'22 what 'country' means to 'landscape'; 'uses' would mean to 'site' what 'inhabitants' mean to 'country',etc. If such is the case and if the 'site' is a state of the 'place', then the 'country' would be another state of the place,analogous to what the site is to the place, but in another register. This register would be the stable one of the essenceby difference to the plasticity of the proposal at work characterizing the site. Analogy relations would work as displayedin chart 1 (below): country, landscape and inhabitants would be the respective stabilized forms of project sketch, siteand uses. The way from one register to the other is bridged by the project work: (1) the shift from factuality to virtualitycorresponds to the opening of the project work and the emergence of the 'site'; (2) the opposite way corresponds to itsclosing and to the stabilization of the modern entities (space, nature, place). The register of "proposal" neither displaysnor requires the naturalists splits separating the usual categories of space, nature and place. As we saw in the story ofthe young oak tree, it is because the landscape designer works with entities without worrying about their essence (i.e.about the modern splits23), that he is able to jointly re-compose space, nature and place24. It is also for this reason thatthe resulting spatiality has an ontological reach. Indeed, it is by circulating time and again through the undifferentiated

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site that the landscape designer becomes able to play with the pooling of undifferentiated entities. This finally givesspatiality and materiality a new pooling embodying a new frontier between humans (place) and non-humans (nature).The way out of the project stabilizes the frontier. It separates the landscape from the country. It makes the countryinto a sort of substratum (a base, a land), which no longer seems to have played any role in the emergence of thelandscape.Chart 1: The making of landscape

space nature place

Proposal (virtual) project sketch site uses

Essence (factual) landscape(spatiality)

land(substratum)

inhabitants(territoriality)

Let us now venture a glance at landscape theory in light of this chart (chart 2, below). The "degr zro" of thelandscape to which Alain Roger reduces the country, a sort of given environment or substratum, appears to be onlyone of the possible states of what is called 'nature': its factual state, stabilized and inactive in the making of landscape.The other state, the active one, the 'site', has been forclosed. The same could be said about the opposition betweenthe constructed landscape and the given nature as argued by Anne Cauquelin (2002). Isolating in this way one state ofthings (be it nature, state or space) in order to oppose landscape only to it, raises a misunderstanding: it cutslandscape from its process of construction and makes it into an "essence" that no longer has any ties with the relatednature or place. Along the way, the representation of landscape also loses these ties and can mistakenly be taken asthe point where landscape orginates. Landscape becomes a framing, a view or a perception. The artist or thelandscape designer is posted as the outsider's viewer, in the place of the expert in charge of inventing the landscapethrough representation. Insiders, inhabitants are included with the country under the heading of nature. Yet, only onestate of nature is left in this scheme: the fixed and immutable essence which corresponds to the modern Nature.Chart 2: Current state of the theory

Culture Nature

Proposal (virtual) representation site uses

Essence (factual) landscape land(substratum)

inhabitants(territoriality)

As a consequence, the political issue of landscape preservation cannot be overpassed by only demonstrating thatlandscape is a constructed entity. Arguing that landscape is constructed does not free us from preserving it. As shownby table 2, contrasting landscape with nature on the basis of its construction leaves the modern nature intact. Evenmore, as the difference between table 1 and 2 shows, it is by reducing landscape to this opposition that the modernNature is founded. Defenders of Nature are then legitimate to oppose the evolution of landscapes. To put it in anutshell, "country" just gets vitrified into "Nature" and can thus pretend to be preserved. As these tables also show, the'site' is the only entity testifying to the co-construction of landscape and nature, and enfranchising both of them from theessentialist argument. This is why it promises a way out of the debate about landscape preservation. Indeed, if natureand landscape are co-constructed, the meaningful issue is no longer how we should preserve them in their currentstate but how we should have them evolve together. It points at the ways through which the making of landscapeshould open, devolve and close. To put it differently: it points at the ways through which landscape might pass fromvirtuality to reality and vice-versa. As shown by the story of the young oak tree, the site is endowed with a role ofmediation in these operations. It enables the landscape to be endowed with an ontological reach since it is the openstate of things (be it space, nature and place) through which the actors (in the broad sense of human and non-humanbeings) in charge of the making of landscape can be recruited and recombined. The question is then that of theprocedures ensuring both an open game and the proper (and temporary) stabilization of an essence.

(1) (artialisation) (2)

(1) (project work) (2)

countryartist / landscape designer

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Plan 1 : Cadastral Plan Plan 2 : Plantation scheme

Plan 3: Mass plan, first sketch (original scale: 1/1000) Plan 4: Mass plan, second sketch (original scale: 1/1000)

Plan 5: Plan of the modules Plan 6: Mass plan, third sketch (APS) (original scale :1/1000)

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Bourdieu P., 2000,"Esquisse d'une thorie de la pratique', Seuil, coll. points/essais, Paris.Boutinet J.P. 2002, A propos du projet de paysage, repres anthropologiques , Carnets du Paysage, ENSP-

Versailles, Automne 2001, pp64-83Briffaud S. 1995 Dcouverte et reprsentation dun paysage : Les Pyrnes du regard limage (XVIII-XIXimes

sicles) , in La Thorie du paysage en France (1974-1994) ed. A. Roger, Pays/Paysages, Champ Vallon , pp224-259

Cauquelin A. 2000 "L'invention du paysage", PUF "Quadrige".Cauquelin A. 2002 "Le site et le paysage", PUF "Quadrige", pp.191.Chabason L. 1995, Pour une Politique du Paysage(entretien avec Odile Marcel) , in La Thorie du paysage en

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Notes

1 I will use the term in this context, without defining it further at this stage. On the contrary, 'place' will be used in a ratherusual meaning, also accepted by the landscape designer, referring to the idea of a sedimented frequentation, that of a totalityor a spirit associated with a locality (e.g. genius of the place). The distinction between site and place is debated. At firstsight, our definition seems different from the ones proposed by art theorists who assimilate the site to a synthesis betweenplace, space and scale (De Duve, 2002) or between landscape and place (Escande, 2001; Tieberghen 2001).2 A set of potential uses are generally listed upstream of the intervention of the landscape designer. This list is established bythe developper and composed into a "program". Public consultation might take place either at this stage or, for the very bigprojects, later on, around a first sketch of project.3 The distinction between space and place is implicit in this situation. A "place" is already invested by uses, referring to theidea of a quality, a memory (choros), a presence (locus genii). Space has a more abstract meaning referring the the spatialdisplay (topos) that might be dedicated to specific uses.

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4 As cultural-geographers Berque and Cosgrove contributed to both theoretcial fields. Berque worked on the representation oflandscape distinguishing between 'landscape' and 'non-landscape' societies, depending on the existence of pictorial/linguisticrepresentations of landscape. Cosgrove worked on landscape as a social and symbolic formation and developped a history ofthe iconography of landscape with S. Daniels.5 The irony is that, in the meantime, EU agricultural policy attempts to entice farmers to become the keepers of the landscape.6 Dualism or naturalism, in the meaning given by Philippe Descola to these terms. Descola distinguishes between severalontological systems according to the role dedicated to similarities/differences in insideness(soul)/physicality(appearance)between existing entities in the definition of the border between human and non-human beings (a pair of concepts borrowedto Latour in order to account for the mobility of this border). The modern occidental border between mankind and natureappears to be one possibility among others, one that parts apart the existing entities into Nature and Culture. Among otherissues, it raises the political question of how to hold them (back) together into a collective (Latour, 2003b).7 In a famous speech, A. Roger argued in Japan for the restauration of the Mount Fuji, on the ground that it was part of thecultural heritage (Roger, 1997, p23).8 For instance, wine growers in the Saint-Emilion area worried that patrimonial labels could hamper them to implement futuretechnological changes in wine-growing if it happened to impact on the appearance of the Saint Emilion landscape.9 This pair of concepts has been proposed by B. Latour as a substitute for the modern couple of opposite subject/object inorder to account for the mobility (the constructed nature) of the border between the two terms.10 Gell (1998) analyses the making of art as the distribution of a collective agency in a network through which 'subjects' or

'objects' might alternatively be endowed with an active (agent) or a passive position (patient). Hennion underlines the role ofmediation endorsed by objects in these networks (Hennion, 1993). Yaneva (2003) analyses the interaction, association andinfinitesimal adjustments which, in the vicinity of art installation, are making up the process of art production.11 The inversion is typical of what Bruno Latour describes as the creation of gods "faitiches" by the moderns. Moderns who

are pretending to free themselves from the non-modern's fetishes inject their 'faitiches" (i.e. little gods of facts) in the non-modern cultures (Latour, 1996). In our case, theorists pretend to free the landscape from the modern Nature. In fact, bydoing so, they place the modern Nature at the heart of the definition of landscape and tie local people to it (peasants are partof the country, in Roger's theory).12 Unless it is specially mentioned in the text, the quotations are drawn from the documents of projects established by the

artist and/or the landscape designers.13 "Ventis": windfallen woods.

14 This phases are neither standard nor in a complete sery. The project "Sapinire" has been stopped, probably for lack of

money. However, as shown by recent surveys, the duration and the sucession of the phases is uneven (Lanton J.M., 1999).15 Downscaling is going down in scale (1 for 1000, 1 for 500, 1 for 100, 1 for 50). It allows the sketches to enter into the

details of the project. Upscaling is the reverse.16 Interview by the author.

17 The isolation and the cares provided to the seedling somewhat turn it into a specimen, both in the sense of a representative

item and of a curiosity.18 We might refer here to Bruno Latour's concepts of proposal (site) and essence (place) (Latour, 1999). The former is

badly/not yet articulated; the latter is temporarily stabilized through a set of proofs and procedures. However, we shouldkeep in mind that the place will be frequented by the public and run a life of its own. Public frequentation might also generatea set of proofs, so that the place might be a transitory state. Many public places become disfunctional (or considered as such)after a time and are put under project in order to be remade.19 See Jean Marc Besse's analyses about XV et XVI century cartography as a cartographical act (Besse, 2000) or

Tiberghien's analysis of Robert Smithson work with maps (Tiberghien, 2001, p70-75). Tiberghien quotes the landscapedesigner James Corner, who wrote: "for urban planners and landscape designers maps are sites out of which new or alternativemodes [of planning] can be devised" (p74).20 More specifically, Anne Cauquelin suggests a double analogy in order to describe the current renewal of the notion of site.

The site of the classics would be in between space and place. The contemporaneous site would be in between possible (set ofoccurrence that might happen) and virtual (built through action). The double analogy would work as follows: place would meanto space what possible means to virtual. This would lead to the "possible place" and the "virtual space" (pp138).21 The point here is not to deny the importance of new technologies. It is simply that the features of the site that we have

crossed in this paper do not depend on these technologies and on the emergence of virtual reality.22 'Project' sketch in fact, which is the provisional state of a future landscape.

23 As Thierry Vernant (1965) argued it, the isonomic, universal and democratic "space" is a production of greek democracy. It

derives from a split, a reification of the antic place.24 Emilie Gomart shows it (2004), in a detailed fieldwork analysis of a designers'work in Holland, how design images endorse a

political role. Her analysis of successive representations of a territory under work (what French landscape designers call 'site')at a designer's office traces how, playin g on formalism, colours and representation, the designer reframes political issues inthe course of his work. In her field, formalism seems the way through which, paradoxically, politics (as planning) is broughtinto suspense in order to be reframed. The designer follows a quite usual path in the work. He looks for current patterns inthe occupation of the territory, extracts them as formal patterns and argues a new planning based on a spatial repetition ofthese patterns. While working from and to the site through images, the designer puts politics into suspense to reframe it.Here again, it is because uses, spatiality and materiality remain unseparable during the course of the work that politics mightbe reframed through spatiality.