From the Creuse to Paris…
In 1977, he moved to Crozant, in the Creuse; he devoted a book (La Vallée) in 1991 to his home garden, hidden at the bottom of a valley. In another book Le Salon des Berces published in 2009, he tells his personal story with this valley, for him “the Valley of the Butterflies.”
Horticultural engineer, botanist, landscape designer or “gardener,” as he likes to be called, but also a teacher at the École Nationale Supérieure du Paysage de Versailles and holder of the chair of artistic creation at the Collège de France, Gilles Clément has profoundly renewed thinking about the creation of gardens and landscapes, bringing a new look at nature and its dynamics.
Some of his major achievements:
- TheParc André Citroënin association with Allain Provost
- TheGardens of the Arche de la Défensein association with Guillaume Geoffroy
- Thegarden of the Musée du Quai Branlyin association with Jean Nouvel and the Acanthe agency
- TheParc Matissein Lille in association with Claude Courtecuisse
Gilles Clément: “The garden in motion”
This documentary film reveals the philosophy of landscape gardener Gilles Clémentand traces his atypical journey in his quest to respect biological diversity. Gilles Clément reveals hissecret garden “La Vallée” installed in the Creuse where he experiments with his theories including that of the garden in motion. A film by Olivier Comte (2013 / 52 min. / French version)
“La Creuse is a garden”
This quote from Gilles Clément says a lot about the landscape richness of the Creuse. In his garden in Crozant, he observes and experiments: a secret garden that he shares with relatives, students, researchers. He then invites the curious to visit the gardens of his friends, Philippe Wanty and his Arboretum de la Sédelle and Christian Allaert and his Clos du Préfons Garden in Villejoint Crozant. Like him, these enthusiasts have chosen the Creuse as their home garden, they all have in common the desireto preserve and enhance exceptional natural sites.
