But in the last few decades more and more artists and architects have taken sides for a better environmental balance and decried the centurylong policy of exploitation. Two such people introduce this book, which came about during an exhibition in the Canadian Centre of Architecture in Montreal.
The French landscape architect and horticultural engineer Gilles Clément became famous at the beginning of the ‘90s for his concepts “garden in motion (jardin en mouvement)” and “third landscape (triers paysage)”. Instead of trying to impose a strange form from the outside on landscape, Clément’s landscape architecture understands itself only as a framework, within which the natural diversity of species should be able to unfold optimally. His preferred places are the residual areas (spaces that are not used any useful purpose) that have temporarily or permanently fallen out of favour, whether protected nature reserves or green spaces gone wild in the municipal area of our cities.
In his essay for this book, Clément stresses that he “always wanted to work for but never against nature”, whereas architect Philippe Rahm’s approach is less philosophical. He analyses physical phenomena of nature, such as light, temperature and the composition of the air we breathe and their influence on humans, animals and plants. In his installations, Rahm exposes the viewer to dazzling light, oxygen deficiency or water mist; he classifies whole buildings not according to function, but according to the dominant climate zones inside Shape and function are irrelevant to start with in Rahm’s rooms; they develop only as a consequence of the climatic conditions and the reactions they provoke in the human body.
At first glance, the differences between both artists could hardly be greater. Gilles Clément lets natural areas develop in which humans are happy with the role of being a viewer; Philippe Rahm, however, creates architectural areas in which he maintains total control – at least of the climatic conditions. But the publisher of the book, Giovanna Borasi, rightfully stresses the things both have in common: renouncing artistic form, the visualisation of the invisible in nature and the preoccupation with the processes of life at a scientific level. “Environ(ne)ment” is a visually unspectacular but nevertheless stimulating book on which to reflect about two artists who have each defined their own trend-setting term for ‘nature’ and ‘environment’.