Planism and Landscape

This article questions the means for effective territorial planning in the contemporary context. To do this, the author takes stock of some governmental planning projects that organized the development of the French territory between 1950 and 1975. It shows by a critical analysis, that the capacity of planning in producing the landscape finally is not linear and authoritarian, as is usually believed, but iterative and inductive. Between the planned space and the produced space, there is no direct causal link, and it is better to speak of "induced landscape" rather than "produced landscape" through planning. These characteristics invite us to think about a new form of planism by the landscape project. A renewal of planism is needed to address the current ecological and societal emergencies.
The article then presents three examples of landscape projects based on old territorial planifications to act massively on the landscape. Each of these three projects is built on a singular dialectic vis-à-vis the plan. The first, the Parc de la Deûle, is built on the exploitation of a direct planiste heritage. The second, the landscape plan of Marquise basin, has successfully tested the tools of a new institutional planism. The latter explores the ways of planism outside the frameworks of an operational command. These observations allow us to see some ways in which contemporary planism could be imagined. The new type of planism can meet the four following qualifiers: it is prospective, it is co-produced, it's based on landscaped approach, and it is critical.