Planetary Gardens: The Landscape Architecture of Gilles Clement

Gilles Clément confronts the homogenizing effects of globalization with the diversity of life. As a trained gardener, he places our current knowledge of plant utilization and ecology in the service of the “planetary garden,” in which plant species from a tremendous variety of cultures are collected, composed, and carefully overseen in their development by the landscape designer. Clément has taken this approach, which was developed for private gardens, and worked with celebrated architects – most recently, Jean Nouvel – to apply it in his large city parks, including Parc Citroën, the park at the Grande Arche de La Défense, and the museum park at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris. The high artistic caliber of his designs is attested by exhibitions and installations at the Canadian Centre for Architecture CCA in Montreal and the Centre Pompidou, where they stand beside the work of Daniel Buren, Nan Goldin, and others. Gilles Clément has been presenting his contribution to landscape architecture for decades in more than thirty publications and numerous lectures throughout the world. This is the first comprehensive English-language monograph on his work.