The Garden of the Third Landscape by Gilles Clément
Not all architecture is built. Sometimes it is enough to observe, to yield, to let time and nature do their work. This is the line of thought behind the Third Landscape Garden, a project that not only challenges traditional notions of landscape design, but also proposes a new ethic of intervention. Behind this idea is the French landscape designer, gardener and thinker Gilles Clément, whose influence has crossed borders and disciplines.
Located in the former Lorient Munitions factory in Brittany, this garden was not designed from a blank sheet of paper. It was, rather, discovered. Clément proposed not to plant, but to observe what was already growing spontaneously in an abandoned space. Faced with the imposition of order, he chose the gesture of listening. Faced with the garden as an aesthetic object, he proposed the garden as a free territory. Thus was born this living manifesto of the Third Landscape, a concept that brings together all those spaces excluded from human control.
Instead of eradicating “invasive” vegetation, Clément revalorizes it. Weeds are no longer a symbol of abandonment, but an expression of resilience. In these interstices, unsuspected biodiversity flourishes. And the garden, rather than being designed, reveals itself.
Gilles Clément proposes a radically contemporary vision of landscape. The Third Landscape not only responds to climate change and the loss of biodiversity, but also questions our relationship with the territory. What if instead of dominating nature, we learned from it? What if gardens were spaces of coexistence rather than control?