Terrain d'entente

“Each city receives its form from the desert it opposes�

-Italo Calvino

Cultural Geographer. Or, as he likes to think of himself, a cultural “detective”

Dr.Rasa

Assigned, by the Institute for Landscape Urbanism & Semiotic Environmental Research to try and discover the “heart” of the Ile Lacroix district.

As a matter of principle, doesn’t use smartphone apps or physical maps to navigate urban areas.

Believes spaces and urban artefacts “talk” to him.

Has a notebook where he records paths and documents his dialogue with urban spaces and artefacts Urban Chronicler, Journalist, Novelist Italo Calvino

Architectural Theorist Kenneth Frampton

Architect, Theorist

Dilip Da Cunha

The City of Rouen

Landscape Architect, Theorist James Corner

Architect, Urban Designer Rem Koolhaas

Theorist, Urban Planner Kevin Lynch

Capital of Normandy Metropolitan Population 650,000 Situated on the Seine One of the Oldest Cities in France Execution place of Joan of Arc

On the 14th of January 2014,our hero arrives in the city of Rouen after a short but tumultuous stay in Paris. From the plane he glimpses the Ile Lacroix, an island in the city centre that looks to him like a giant ship trapped in the cross-hairs of the city’s roadways.

But i know better than to trust first impulses. I will soon be down there, amidst what seems like a lot of concrete Our hero trudges around Rouen, too poor to buy a tram ticket, walking the roads of the city centre, parks and benches nowhere in sight, wishing he’d taken better care of his wallet under the Eiffel Tower.

I think i’ll start with the old town.

He visits the Rouen Cathedral...

All Rouen roads lead here

AAAARGHHGH!!

All my money and cards! I’ll have to walk everywhere now!

He visits the Cathedral Jeanne d’Arc...

Postmodernist church,resembles an overturned ship and burning flames. Houses a markethall surrounded by a pedestrian zone

He plots his path on a map the Institute of Landscape Urbanism & Semiotic Environments Research gave him, trying to understand the city that surrounds the Ile Lacroix

In the north-east he encountered narrow lanes, intimate squares, Gothic architecture and a lot of granite.

OLD TOWN

Ile Lacroix

I’m 200m from the Seine and there is no sense of water

INDUSTRY

Seine

Who says shared streets don’t work? Works perfectly well here.

Mixed-use, legible old town.

Gordon & Kevin would be happy

Meanwhile, inside his head...

Don’t be seduced by the old town, if there is no response to topography then even this part of Rouen needs improvement

Listen, guys, i get what you’re saying, but i’m not here to judge, i’m here to discover the heart of the city centre. I’d appreciate some straightforward advice

Each city takes to resembling all cities, places exchange their form, order, distances, a shapeless dust cloud invades the continents.

In the south-western edge,barely a 15 minute walk from the old town, he came across wastelands, corporate parks and strip malls.

Wow. I could be anywhere. In the world. And yet...

The site for the future St.Sever metro station is overrun by wildflowers, and is currently used as a depot

Paris I’m beginning to lose my sense of place...and looks like i’m headed back to Paris

Walking back, he notices that the island is a giant screen, not allowing any sense of visual continuity

...and ends his day across the river from the Ile Lacroix, walking the waterfront

The city centre allows for no pause.

Walked all day and came across no park, not a single bench.

Bon Jour Monsieur. But you’ve come a few years too early.

Bon Jour to you too Bill.

Care to elaborate?

Well if you’d come next summer you’d get to see the redeveloped left bank with the “Prairie St.Sever”, complete with 191 trees, lots of seating...

The city centre allows for no pause.

Walked all day and came across no park, not a single bench.

...and kiosks, and green walls, and cafes, and windmills...you name it.

Is that appropriate you think?

Well why not? Before reconstruction the left bank was a grassy field that served the people

The left bank redevelopment is part of a larger plan called “Giraffe” to integrate the city and the river, extending 2 kms north-west up to the main port

Boating Clubs

Seine

School

Housing Estates

Seine

So much for shared streets and intimate squares. You can really tell when you’ve entered the 20th century..

La Cote Saint-Catherine

Yeah, i’ve been around a while. It wasn’t always like this you know. It wasn’t even always a single island

Oie, Hans!

You look quite old.

Has the island always been this dull?

Geez, its lunchtime and there’s not a soul in sight in the centre of the city

For most of the city’s history the two islands lay outside the city. It was only with the settling of the left bank that the island became inhabited, and only after WWII that it was reconstructed...

1835

1835-1950

1953-

which allowed for expansion of the existing port facilities and small industry flourishing on the island

So it was a landscape of production...

Yes. And that was preceded by a landscape of leisure

Rasa,it is the edges of Rouen that evolved, and they have changed, in turn, the nodes, the districts and the paths Oh,Kev, you and your Fordist understanding of the world...though i agree about the edges. Somehow they dictate everything

All this talk of sandy, grassy banks reminds him of a newspaper headline he read while he was in Paris...

.which reminds him of the Seine Axis...

The “Seine Axis” (Le Havre, Rouen, Paris, Caen) is not identical. The course from Le Havre to Rouen is the “Tidal Seine”, which even Ocean liners can access

Actually, there is no such thing as a flood. The river expanded is still a river I accept that philosophically DC, but you can’t let the river “expand” in just a kilometre of its course now can you?

He pulls out a flood map he was given by the Institute...could the floods be the key?

Aaaaaaaactualllllyyy, ...maybe you can.

I’ve tried it.

Try to think of this section you’ve drawn of the left bank not as a permanent condition but a temporary one, altered by the rise and fall of the Seine...

As you can see, though, is that the banks are the city’s most attractive public space

I took part in a competition for the redevelopment of Governor’s Park Island in New York. The island was designed in such a way that during low tide all of it would be inhabitable, but with increasing levels of water the area of inhabited land would decrease. We did this by proposing permanent development only at the high points of the island. In this way we “designed” the flooding.

You proposed to spend millions of dollars on a park just to let it flood?

Yep.

Nope Did you win?

The competition was won by West8, who suggested a “vertical” landscape in their competition entry. The new hills not only allow for unparalleled views and transform the landscape, they are also a response to the rising water levels. The creation of new views becomes an excuse, in a way, for responding to floods Both these approaches are almost exactly the opposite of the approach taken

by Zaha. Her Zorrozuare masterplan in Bilbao, for an island very similar to the Ile Lacroix, is based on the use of “tiles” that cut across the island and act as a platform that creates a line of defence against floods while also creating space for parking.

What i’m wondering is this; the city has a significant amount of open space and yet very little of that consists of parks or gardens.

Why is that? Clearly the future development of the left bank is also an attempt to address this shortcoming

Rouen: Open Spaces , Green Spaces & Wastelands

Would the introduction of a park on the Ile Lacroix improve the experience of the city centre? The island is 25 hectares of land, which makes it larger than the Parc Andre Citroen, which is 14 hectares and also situated on the Seine

Rouen: Housing, Mixed Use, Industrial and Corporate Land use

On the other hand, there is also the issue of the housing.

The island’s rhythm is the oppposite of usual city centres because it consists mainly of housing, which means that during weekends and office hours the island has a deserted feel about it

So perhaps a better model, if there is to be a park on the Ile Lacroix at all, is the Parc Diagonal Del mar in Barcelona, which is simultaeneously a housing landscape and a public park spanning 14 hectares

Right. I’m gonna ignore that bit about camels and sailors...but what desert is the Ile Lacroix opposing? The waters of the Seine? The pressures of commercialization?

what i observe is a series of internal oppositions. The figure ground reveals an opposition between the old town’s intimacy and legibility and the new town’s expansiveness, with the Ile Lacroix caught in no man’s land along with the void of the St.Sever

?

Agenda 1:

The Ile Lacroix & St.Sever stationprovide an opportunity to reconcile the city forms of the old town and the new town

There are clear signs here of the retreat of an industrial glacier... as one travels from north-east to south-west an industrial past reveals

Infrastructure is more important than architecture.

Yes but what kind of infrastructure should replace the industrial?

It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Look ahead. The 20th C city is dead.

-1835

1835-1950

1950+

I think it CAN matter.

But yes, maybe what is needed is to find an alternative to consumer landscapes

Agenda 2:

The withdrawal of industry from the city centre opens up valuable land which is as yet unclaimed. Typically this land is occupied by activities of consumption. Is it possible for a middle ground between production and consumption to be found?

Rouen 100 year flood map...

The river is not an enemy, its a frenemy. Fight it, but not too much.

How much is too much? Perhaps cities need to begin moving away from water

You can move away in two ways Dr.Rasa, vertically or horizontally.

Dr.Rasa’s diary

What ails the heart of Rouen is this:

1. There is nothing to unite the east and the west bank visually in the Ile Lacroix area. Such continuity is necessary for the island to be thought of as a space to be visited and not a dead end.

2. Rouen is aiming to address the issue of floods the same way as most other places in the world. The new development schemes do not use the opportunity they have to try out new approaches that are being tried out in other parts of the world. perhaps flooding should be allowed, or perhaps the land should be raised. Currently the city simply wants to maintain the status quo.

3. The de-industrialization of Rouen is opening up new spaces where diverse programs can be initiated. The inability to implement innovative programs will merely lead to more consumer landscapes

Agenda 3: The inevitability of flooding demands a response that is decisive. Build up land or allow the waters to dictate inhabitation?

Sketch Intervention

Response to Agenda 3 A return to the two island formation accompanid by building up of land to highlight Mt. Saint Catherine and also direct surface runoff

Response to Agenda 1 Visual Corridors to reconcile the east and west banks.

Created through landforms and building orientation

Response to Agenda 3 Productive landscape programs built into both banks in the form of urban agriculture.