STORY OF A LANDSCAPE (FEBRUARY 2022)

In 1995, François Tirot, then director of urban planning for the Public Planning Institution Sénart, was given the chance to imagine, design and organise the production of a territorial centrality located on the border between Essonne and Seine-et-Marne and spread over 10 different municipalities.
It was a blank slate, a project for which a traditional urban model was not adequate. It was an intuition, the drawing of a square, that gave this piece of territory both its shape and its name.
In this AA special issue, François Tirot tell the story of this territory in 26 chapters. A real instruction manual for the creation of an urban project, this book also invites the actors of the project to testify: the archaeologist Jean-Christophe Bats who led the preliminary excavations, the semiologist Pierre-Yves Chays who imagined the names of the streets of the Carré Sénart, the artist François Delarozière who animated the Carré with his merry-go-round machine, etc.

IN THIS ISSUE:
- editorial by Emmanuelle Borne, editor-in-chief of AA
- preface, texts and afterword by François Tirot
- Archives by Jean-Yves Petiteau, Rem Koolhaas, Bernard Tschumi, Yves Lunginbühl and Ildefons Cerdà
- Extracts from Hannah Arendt, Roland Barthes et Martin Heidegger
- Cartes blanches and interviews with François Delarozière, Jean-Chrisophe Bats, Pierre-Yves Chays, Guillaume Poitrinal and Aude Debreil

Graphic design by zoo, designers graphiques