Dietmar Feichtinger Architectes designed a new bridge for pedestrians and cyclists at the Angers Saint-Laud train station. The bridge is characterised by a soft, wide arch that crosses the entire width of 70 metres, carved into the topography of the city by the bundles of rails; and it is considered a new urban landmark.
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Angers is the capital of the departments of Maine-et-Loire, in the west of France. The Saint-Laud railway station is a major transport hub in the city centre. In the area of the station, the bundles of rails are about 70 metres wide and cut a deep corridor running towards the city. The old reinforced concrete pedestrian bridge, which crossed directly over the tracks, was badly damaged.
The urban development plans include an upgrading of the area. On the railway station side, offices and a multi-storey car park have been built on Rue Auguste Gaultier, and a hotel is under construction. To the south of the bundle of tracks, a new promenade and park will be built on Fulton Street. The bridge for pedestrians and cyclists is part of this modernization and has been won by Dietmar Feichtinger Architectes. Their design is based on the urban scale, overcoming the barrier of the railway tracks and providing direct access for disabled people to the platforms via lifts and stairs.
Expression of the renewal of the Station district
Dietmar Feichtinger Architectes change the spacing of the bridge; the substructure changes its cross-section, accentuating the character of the bridge depending on the situation – entering, ascending stairs, walking, waiting, sitting, watching, exiting. The bridge is a singular construction at the scale of the area with a high-quality course, which raises awareness of the specificity of the place. Its arched course ensures that its ramp gently touches the new promenade on Place Giffard-Lagenvin and the park. Three lifts and stairs create a direct, obstacle-free and bicycle-friendly connection with the station and hotel, as well as with the platforms of the trains to Paris and Nantes. In its aesthetics, the bridge is an expression of the renewal of the Station district.
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Above all, it is a singular traffic structure that becomes a landmark with its gently curved path, its constructive elegance and the remarkable laminated wood porticoes that support both, the lighting and the flat roof. The varying distances between these punctuated images of the path offer different views of the tracks, the trains and the city. Benches along the balustrades invite you to sit down. The bridge becomes a path and a place.
The rhythm of the movement
The wooden porticoes become strong identity elements of the bridge. They underline the crossing and enter into a dialogue with the city. They punctuate the journey. By their different distances, their slightly variable sections and the arched layout of the bridge, they open up constantly new perspectives on the tracks, the arriving and departing trains. They condense towards the middle of the bridge, creating a sheltered atmosphere that invites to pause, while the larger distances at the beginning and end of the bridge broaden more and more the view of the city. Work on the volume of this project also includes the shape of each portico. Its angle of inclination changes with the rhythm of the movement. In the middle, the cross-section of the frames is continuously enlarged. This continuous opening of the frames increases the significance of the bridge over the rails.
More than just a railway crossing
These wooden frames not only shape the relationship between the passers-by and the place, they also have a specific function: they serve to integrate lighting, protect against weather and wind. These elements are integrated into their construction. Anti-slip strips are embedded in the wooden footbridge, ensuring that the bridge can be used safely even under bad weather conditions.
The new bridge for pedestrians and cyclists at the St. Laid railway station is much more than just a railway crossing. It is a new urban landmark where people like to stop, linger, talk, watch the trains, arrive or depart.
The Place de la République, one of Paris’s most emblematic squares has been transformed from a car-dominated space into the largest pedestrianized zone in the French capital. The newly designed square encourages diversity and invites users to engage in multiple activities.
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Concorde, Étoile, Bastille … Paris is famous for its squares. The Place de la République is one of its most emblematic and has been completely remodeled. A space both of representation and demands, it has been radically transformed from a vast traffic roundabout where the car was king into a chiefly pedestrianized zone. Since its completion in 2013, following two years of building work, Parisians have been able to engage in a whole range of activities thanks to the provision of a platform that is open to everyone. The square’s dimensions have finally come to light, allowing for meetings, encounters and other manifestations, such as the historic march that took place on 11 January 2015.
Statue of Marianne has witnessed the transformation
The design of the Place de la République is directly linked to the construction of Paris itself, to a development by way of fortifications surrounding the city that have since become boulevards. The redevelopment under Baron Haussmann took this square from its suburban location and made it a central hub where the northern and north-eastern arrondissements of Paris converge. The statue of Marianne has witnessed this transformation; the symbol representing the French Republic faces the centre of the capital.
‘Répu’ was not a welcoming place
Until the square’s redevelopment by TVK (Pierre Alain Trévelo and Antoine Viger-Kohler) it was nothing more than the central point of a drab traffic roundabout, constantly surrounded by cars. Road traffic occupied more than two thirds of the square’s surface. Pedestrians had one single crossing, albeit a perilous one. The gardens were used by squatters, and the overall atmosphere was oppressive. Répu, as it is known to the Parisians, was not a welcoming place.
Giving public space “back to the Parisians”
TVK won the competition with a project that departed from proposals put forward by the City of Paris road planning authority. TVK’s design features a contemporary element that breaks with France’s traditional planning principles and joins the dynamic trend prevalent under the leadership of Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoë, to give public space “back to the Parisians”. The city conducted a study of the square from building to building, the square measuring 280 metres in length and 120 metres in width. The town-planning architects used the findings of this study to banish traffic to the square’s two shorter sides and to its south side that links to the Rue du Temple.
Traffic flow vs. time to cross the square
The pavements surrounding the square were widened. Along the square’s northern edge an intermodal transport lane links busses and taxis serving the Metro station to the Rue Faubourg du Temple. This radical measure inverts the ratio of space given to cars with that allocated to pedestrians, taking it from 12.000 to 24.000 square metres. Viciously criticised for fear of traffic congestion, the principle to eradicate the roundabout and relieve the square of its symmetrical layout was based on calculations of traffic flow rather than the time taken to cross the square.
Largest pedestrian space in Paris
A road with two-way traffic lanes was installed and an annual drop in traffic flow was estimated to reach 2 per cent thanks to a boost in public transport and the provision of cycle and car rental services (Vélib and Autolib); while the study and the construction work were still being carried out, traffic had in fact already fallen by 15 per cent. The Place de la République is becoming the largest de facto pedestrian space in Paris, opening up a free arena for multiple activities on a ground that was designed to encourage diversity. The Place de la République is just one example for how Paris is currently raising the level of living in the city.
Find more in Topos 91 – Urban Projects: Squares and Promenades.
“This project embodies the meeting of the Pyrenees and the beaches of the Landes, of the mountain and of the sand, of the earth and of the sea” explains Martin Duplantier. At Anglet, in the Basque Country, Debarre Duplantiers Associés has created a new urban and landscape development project for the Chambre d’Amour and the Promenade des Sources. The site is an exceptional one. To the left, the Lighthouse of Biarritz, proud and soaring, while to the right the impressive cliffs create a panorama that stretches from neighboring Spain to the Arcachon Basin. The area is known for its beauty and its landscape, but also for the presence of an incongruous pyramid-shaped hotel dating from the golden age of mass-tourism.
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At the heart of the Bayonne-Anglet-Biarritz agglomeration (or simply BAB, for short), the site offers a true breath of fresh air. The conurbation, limited by rocky outcrops and a steep change in grade, has had some difficulty in stretching itself all the way to the ocean side in the past. Hence, the location only achieved popularity amongst the surfer community. After riding the waves all afternoon, they would often welcome the coming nightfall with picnics in the back of their Volkswagen campers. With a general disregard for the traces they left on the beach, the area gradually accumulated litter, damaging the fragile seaside ecosystem.
The Town of Anglet therefore launched a vast redevelopment project. “During the design competition we proposed the development of a resilient concept that accepts the tricky nature of the coastline. We have imagined a design response that channels the flow of people while limiting development and maximising natural space” explains Martin Duplantier. Photos of the site before the transformation attest to a miserable situation where asphalt was so engulfing that not even the slightest of weeds could grow. Given this situation, it was crucial to imagine the creation of a master-planned landscape. In other words, the trick was to put in place a means of controlling the impact of humans on the site while maintaining its accessibility.
“There’s nothing like using the car to stop car culture” the architect says, smiling. The design created by the firm aspires to organise parking more efficiently while dissuading visitors from bringing their cars to the site in the first place. “We have succeeded in offering the same number of parking spaces into the project while reducing the total amount of roadways and paved surfaces” he indicates. Simply put, the solution provides order and nature in a project that embodies, with subtlety, the tensions between “the organic and the orthogonal, between straight line and curved, between rock and concrete.
“We have constantly worked to frame that which is nature” states the architect. In fact, this delicate intervention calls for both contemplation and the awareness of the fragility of this natural zone. Because of their unregulated use over the previous decades, the cliffs have fallen victim to serious erosion. The proposed developments will prevent any risk of future damage. “In the upper portion of the site we have created a belvedere, in the middle of which we have placed a ‘water table’. Symbolically, this fountain marks the origin of a stream which snakes along the promenade until it reaches the beach. We imagined a pedestrian path that is marked by the sound of running water. We have punctuated this route with concrete troughs that are fed by the springs that emerge here and there. All of the water produced by the cliffs has been channelled in this manner to avoid any further erosion” Martin Duplantier points out. More than just a development project, the firm has delivered a sensible, ecologically sound design approach to the site.
See more in Topos 89 – Urban Projects. Squares and Promenades.
A masterful landscape architect and generous teacher
Landscape architecture as a modern discipline is a very young profession and in France we were lucky that till now we could exchange ideas with and interview our seniors who had advanced the theory and practice of the discipline. Michel Corajoud was one of those who invested a major portion of their time to redefine the role of the discipline. On October 29, we have lost one of our most talented teachers and this marks a significant change for all those who received their education through him. The baton has been passed on to the next generation, it is they who are in charge of the discipline, of promoting, preserving and innovating it as Michel taught them.
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Michel not only had a strong emotional bond to the discipline but also disposed of a natural authority to bring up critical debates on landscape architecture. He was responsible not only for design thinking at ENSP Versailles, but moreover displayed an intense desire to convert thinking into practice that was exemplary. In this inspirational stance on the side of innovation and experimentation he had been very much encouraged by Jacques Simon, his principal teacher during Michel’s first years of work at the Atelier d’urbanisme et d’architecture (AUA). Among Michel’s collaborators at this studio was Paul Chemetov, who at the time specialized in new suburban districts.
From 1971 to 2000 Michel lead the Design Department at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure du Paysage of Versailles, in those decades the only school in France to offer a higher education degree in landscape architecture. He also directed ENSP’s efforts to modernize its educational methodologies, and when he left in 2000 he bequeathed an educational programme which in its basic parameters still determines the direction of the school today.
Michel’s relationship to his students was not just that of a respected master, he invariably encouraged his students to go further, to explore, initiate a debate and question a site’s potential and identity. He showed them that only by applying oneself rigorously it is possible to achieve interesting spatial sequences and give meaning to a place. He had a principled aversion against students imitating his method and instead goaded them on to embark on new research and develop their own approaches. By supporting his students’ ideas, he demonstrated to them that he had trust in their ability to reinvent the future of the profession and explore the role of the landscape architect in an era of rapidly evolving challenges. Such an openness towards the new could obviously not emerge if the students simply emulated Michel’s way of practising landscape architecture.
He knew also how important it was to teach and to have his own studio at the same time, for this would allow him to be engaged in two very different activities that would fertilise each other. Even so, he was quite suspicious of colleagues who taught only what they had learned from their professional practice. Michel was always aware of how complex the learning process is and the iterative phases which are necessary. He was not keen on the linear methods coming from the professional world of doing.
To help the students in their design methods, he wrote to them, in 2000, a “Lettre aux étudiants” (Letter to the students), which has since acquired the status of a foundational document at ESPN and far beyond. In this letter, Michel outlined nine steps of a design process – a structured description of the work of the landscape architect that other professionals in the field have found to be highly useful and which has become a received method worldwide. In the final sentence of his letter to the students, Michel calls upon them to have confidence in their own ideas and defend them against critique based on convention. To achieve this kind of confidence is probably the hardest lesson to learn in design, given the many influences, interactions and parameters a student has to negotiate.
Michel never relented in his fight for the promotion of landscape architecture as a profession and as a discipline that makes crucial contributions to both science and art. Even a few weeks before he passed away, he called the French Ministry of the Environment to alert their attention to new ways of thinking landscapes, which he considered crucially important for the future of the city.
Michel’s activism has helped significantly to increase the recognition of the profession’s contribution to urban planning and developing responses to environmental problems. Out of the 21 Grand Prix for urban planning, only three landscape architects have received the prize: Alexandre Chemetoff in 2000, Michel Corajoud in 2003 and Michel Desvigne in 2011. Michel Corajoud was also a member of the commission that created the new position of Landscape Architect State Adviser ( Paysagiste Conseil de l’Etat) for the French State as a measure to supervise the implementation of the Landscape Law of 1993. (Today 130 Consultant Landscape Architects work at the regional and provincial levels to advise and support a wide variety of landscape design processes.)
Michel’s professional practice, which he led together with Claire Corajoud, comprises an experienced team of about eight practitioners. The office has worked with some of the most talented architects and designers in searching for new responses to the urban and environmental challenges of today’s society. Among the significant creations of this team is the highly innovative Parc du Sausset in Aulnay-sous-Bois, northwest of Paris, a project developed and executed over a period of 25 years. The masterplan for the Plaine Saint Denis quarter, also in the Paris metropolitan region, and its sunken highway with on the top a linear park stands out as another long-term project that has transformed the social life of the district. At the Cité international of Lyon, a large urban redevelopment project headed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Michel had the opportunity to point to the importance of river banks as landscape entities by creating not only a new boulevard but also an intricate network of greeneries that structures the relationship between Piano’s buildings and the river Rhone.
It is characteristic of almost all of Corajoud’s projects that they are expressive of a distinct idea; the Avenue d’Italie in Paris, the Grand Terrace of Saint Germain-en-Laye west of Paris, the suburban park at Villeneuve in Grenoble are notable cases in point. The most well-known of Corajoud’s creations is the redevelopment project along the Garonne river bank in Bordeaux with its famous Water Mirror. An impressive and emotional landscape project, this revitalisation of the city’s waterfront has transformed the citizens’ relationship to their immediate as well as more distant geography. Everyone who worked with Michel Corajoud, whether at his studio or elsewhere, felt called upon to relieve him of his constant anxiety whether he was developing the right design for the right place. He was determined in his vision and yet ready put up his thoughts for critical debate.
Many of us will continue to be deeply admiring of his creativity and intellectual honesty. We have looked up to this couple, Claire and Michel, as our discipline’s “Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir”.
Karin Helms teaches at ENSP Versailles and was a devoted colleague to Michel Corajoud.
Michel Corajoud
Born in Annecy, July 14th, 1937
1957 Takes his A levels in Valence
1958–59 Art school at Atelier Baudry, Paris
1960 Enrols in evening classes at the Ecole des arts décoratifs, Paris
1962 Works at the Atelier d’urbanisme et d’architecture (AUA)
1964–66 Works with Jacques Simon
1967 Returns to the AUA as partner
1968 Founding partner of the landscape office at AUA: Ciriani–Corajoud–Huidobro
1971–74 Teacher at the Landscape Institute at ENSH
1975–76 Participates, as advisor to the Ministry of Cooperation, in a development project for urban design in Africa
1977–2000 Teacher, lecturer and later professor at ENSP Versailles
1976 Founds professional practice with Claire Corajoud, renamed Atelier Corajoud in 1980
1992 Grand Prix of landscape architecture, French Ministry of the Environment
2003 Grand Prix of urban planning, French Ministry of Culture
2013 Prix International André Le Nôtre for his entire œuvre, awarded by the French Federation of Landscape Architects (FFP)
