Le paysage comme contre-pouvoir au service des habitants

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to attempt to lay the foundations for a critical approach to the legitimate use of the landscape and the meaning of the actions carried out in its name. It proposes a reflection on the normative nature of landscape architecture. Normative in the sense that it defines standard approaches to the ordinary lives of the people, of the inhabitants for whom it is supposedly intended. The relationship between the landscape and power is examined to explore the potential use of the concept as a countervailing power. The result challenges two major institutional and practical fundamental notions in landscape architecture embodied by the contemporary figure of the landscape architect : 1. A form of action conducted with a specific notion of the future : the project ; 2. The notion of existing when it tends to render invisible the medial dimension of the ordinary experience.

Keywords

• power and landscape
• countervailing power
• inhabitants
• ordinary experience
• Bourdieu
• Garfinkel