Françoise Fromonot: Lenscapes

Since the late 1990s, French urbanism has increasingly been under the spell of figures and practices issued from its rich landscape scene. Prominent landscape architects such as Alexandre Chemetoff and Michel Desvigne have been hired as “chief urban designers” for vast regeneration projects on the formerly industrial areas of regional cities. This historical evolution is partly explained by the exhaustion of the methods and patterns of the « projet urbain à la française », which had become largely dominant at that time : the specific paradigms and processes of landscaping acted as a magnifying glass on the standardization of mix-use master plans derived from ageing post-modernist aspirations to the “return to the city”. However, the motives and strategies behind these professional, institutional and theoretical shifts of urban design towards landscape as a discipline are complex and this new, national “landscape urbanism” far from uniform. Starting from a concrete situation – the ongoing renewal of Lens, a former mining town in northern France – which somehow exemplifies this new deal between architecture, landscape and urbanism, this lecture will explore these moves, return to their genealogy and references, and expose conversely some of their effects on architecture schools in search of a comprehensive ecology for the future.

An architect by training, Françoise Fromonot is a writer, critic and educator based in Paris, currently Professor (design, history and theory) at the ENSA Paris-Belleville. Her books include monographic studies of contemporary architects (Glenn Murcutt-Buildings and Projects (1995/2003), Jørn Utzon and the Sydney Opera House (1998), as well as critical essays on the current trends of urbanism, notably in Paris (La Campagne des Halles, 2005, then La Comédie des Halles, 2019). Her latest monograph, Transforming Landscapes, deals with the large-scale projects of Michel Desvigne (2020). She is also the co-editor (with Thomas Weaver) of a new book series for Park Books,  “Gumshoe” (detective stories on famous buildings envisaged as cold cases), and the author of its first volume, The House of Dr Koolhaas (2025). She also has a long editorial history with journals: a contributing editor to l’Architecture d’Aujourd'hui, then a joint editor of le visiteur, she was in 2008 a founding member of the independent magazine criticat (www.criticat.fr), and the editor in 2016 of a selection of articles from its first ten issues, Yours critically.

As practitioners, the ways we act in and with urban space is undergoing critical revision. While our cities are in multiple crisis, the parameters of what forms the city are dynamic, the urban landscape is essentially fluid, as is nature itself. In recent decades standards in planning and building have had to be challenged. Learning while doing, using tools of participation and collaboration, working with experts of other fields, as well as hands-on engagement with the site and the future project are gaining importance as ways of finding agency. The lecture series focuses on European landscape architecture and urbanistic practices, adjoining critical and theoretical voices for contextualization and speculation on future acting.

Earlier lectures in winter semester:
Daniel Ganz (CH / Zürich), Matthew Gandy (Otto Wagner Lecture 2025), Lilith Unverzagt, atelier le balto (D / Berlin), Sarah Cowles, Ruderal (GRG / Tbilissi)