Parc André-Citroën Paris

The underlying geometry is modernist, embellished with post-modern ornament. It is a fine product of a late-twentieth century landscape design competition. Alain Provost and Gilles Clément explained their design as having four themes (artifice, architecture, movement and nature) with an overall transition from urban to rural. The use of water and clipped plants carry a distant echo of the French Baroque. A White Garden and a Black Garden are set into the urban fabric and lead on to the park's central feature - a vast rectangular lawn sliced through by a diagonal path. Two glasshouse pavilions, separated by a pavement of dancing fountains, stand at the urban end of the lawn. The River Seine flows at the far end. One flank of the lawn is bounded by a monumental canal and the other by two sets of small gardens: the six Serial Gardens and a wild Garden in Movement. The park is on the site of a former Citroen car factory, which was levelled.