Michel Corajoud and Parc Départemental du Sausset

Abstract

Among the many significant contributions France has made to contemporary landscape architecture, Michel Corajoud counts as one of the towering figures and his Parc Départemental du Sausset as one of the great park visions of the 1980s. In France, and beyond, Corajoud has emerged as one of the protagonists of the great era that this decade has come to be considered in landscape architecture. He was the primary promoter of teaching landscape in France, the creator of the first landscape architecture school (ENSP at Versailles), a visionary and able designer of large projects. If Parc de la Villette can be considered the most significant project of this period, in terms of innovation of public open spaces, Parc Départemental du Sausset is, for its large and complex vision, an exemplary model of a periurban park that combines rural fringe, suburban settlements, and urban infrastructure with an ecological sensitivity that had not previously been envisioned in other parks. Sausset is a project that works on all scales of the landscape, from the garden to the natural park, and to agricultural fields. It makes multiple references to French landscape history. It presents itself as an ever-changing place, where landscape processes, with their evolutionary dynamics, can be perceived and witnessed by its users. Above all, Sausset is a park that successfully defines the philosophical dialectics between modernity and post-modernity by expressing a tension between innovation and the revival of a strong tradition.