Here, we have made an incision in the ground to read its entrails and reveal its invisible and thriving thickness. As in a pedological cross-section, we have dug a temporary path in the soil of Valency, transformed by humankind for centuries.
The park’s open ground provides large trees with a rare piece of freedom in the city. Here, their roots spread, stretch out and interweave as they please. Cambium invites us into the intimacy of two majestic beech trees.
Giant swings appear in strategic points at the top of Parc Valency. Sit down and marvel at one of Lausanne’s most stunning panoramas. Don’t leave your head in the clouds though!
Weed... Undesired but persistent, it grows in the cracks of several supporting walls on the route of Lausanne Jardins 2019, and a young girl looks after it.
Strange things are happening in Place Montétan. Extensively maintained, seldom used, it is a haven of peace for all types of residents, and especially for the overgrown wild grass that has reached almost 200 times its usual size.
Nature Vivante (“Living Nature”) reveals the behind-the-scenes by projecting on a stone façade what it is holding back: the ground and its three horizons, i.e. the bedrock, the substratum and the topsoil. A living image, continuously modified by natural processes of erosion, oxidation and decomposition.
Humankind has taken possession of the planet. 60% of wildlife species have disappeared in the last forty years, and biodiversity is in danger. But here in Forêt Clochettes, in the heart of the city, the creatures that used to live in the Lausanne area have returned.
Where does wood go when it dies? In the city, trees rarely reach their potential old age. They are usually felled before they do, often for safety reasons. Vanitas erects a sort of mausoleum for dead wood.
A hanging garden around Cour Galfetti — an ode to the groundless-looking stone verticality. The garden invites passers-by to stop and lift their heads to contemplate the poetry of this Kokedamas cloud floating between heaven and earth. Kokedama is a Japanese oral art, elevated here to a luxuriant chandelier.
Who dares follow me? Populated with, and hollowed out by billions of earthworms, the city is riddled with tunnels that the eye cannot see, except for this giant specimen here. Slide, disappear and experience the life of a worm in Lausanne to enter their alternative urban world for a moment.
9 m3 is an accusation made by a tree against its condition as a tree in the city. 9m3 is the minimum volume of soil considered as necessary nowadays for its development. It is also the size of the pot that hosts a young plane tree in front of the Chauderon administrative building. On the other side of the underpass, a wooden structure outlines the contour of a similar pot around a hundred-year-old plane tree.
Place Terreaux is a soilless square. Open ground is absent, kept at bay by underground installations. The loss of connection seems irrevocable. Providing a garden here is providing a fiction, i.e. the fiction of the irruption of nature in the city: islands of greenery emerging at the surface, seeping through the sterile paving stone.
Weed... Undesired but persistent, it grows in the cracks of several supporting walls on the route of Lausanne Jardins 2019, and a young girl looks after it.
In this small garden, laid out in a steep and unattractive place, now stands a strange memorial to open ground. Silent trees evoke the thirty or so fruit trees that Lausanne is committed to planting every year. Their root network calls for open ground, pretending to fall down into the grates or climbing up towards the light.
First of all, a garden is all about the feelings it triggers and how we use it. For an unusual stroll, let yourself be lulled by optical illusions that create mounds, dells and a winding route.
A water fountain interrupts the flow of traffic and the flow of our thoughts for a moment. The water erupts from the depths of the urban ground like a force of nature reclaiming its rights.
Depriving nearly all of the senses, on first glance a “tunnel” may act as the antithesis of a garden. Le Passage Végétal seeks to transform this unpopular urban space by filling it with a moving pattern of an increasingly medicinal plant that grows on the square at Saint-François.
Microorganisms were the first living beings to populate the Earth. They shaped and modelled it. Futur âge de pierre invites us into the workshop of Sphingomonas elodea, a bacteria that transforms and sculpts sand into stone.
Eight tall plane trees spurt out of the granite paving on Place Saint-François. Despite the undergound entanglement, a sufficiently generous space remains in the soil to host a ninth tree. It is in this perimeter that after nightfall, the ghostly portrait of the ninth plane tree is projected.
Between Aurore, Milo Martin’s statue, and the large poplar, there is a form of complicity, a silent conversation. For her, the poplar would lift mountains. For the moment however, it is mainly lifting the concrete that is cracking at its base: its roots spread towards the sky, and a whole garden has rushed into the cracks.
Weed... Undesired but persistent, it grows in the cracks of several supporting walls on the route of Lausanne Jardins 2019, and a young girl looks after it.
It is in the amphitheatre of Promenade Jean-Villard Gilles that La Grande Pimprenelle has naturally put on its costume of dark red petals. Some fifteen perennial plants share the stage. Passers-by, come stroll around here, come and admire the comedy of flowers!
The Bellefontaine terrace has an outdated charm, an odd location — perched atop the slab of a car park. Inversion offers a little experience for visitors: the users’ and the plants'place and activities are upturned. When car park users go to the machine to pay for their ticket, the roots that emerge from the ceiling invite them to discover what is happening above.
To attract the attention and incite passers-by to discover the hidden Bellefontaine garden, a sail unfolds every time the car park’s air vent is activated, like a landmark up in the sky. Up on the terrace, lampshades create dramatic scenes and a small fountain transforms into a bottomless abyss.
A multitude of clay creatures crawl out of the earth, forming a small, timeless garden. A garden of ruins, fossils and life. Do they bear witness to a past civilisation? Are they the fruit of a magical ritual?
Amour éternel addresses the use of the soil: how can we spare this non-renewable resource for the long-term? By imitating mistletoe, a plant that uses other plants to live above ground.
Enter an alternative story, that of Villa Mercier. In the late 19th century, the Mercier family, who owned the plot of land, planned to build a house there. The monumental effect of the installation shows the impact that this real estate development project might have had on the soil, which ultimately remained open and accessible to the public.
Promenade Jean-Jacques Mercier is trapped by its classical identity and unshakeable beauty. For a few months, Pranvera has reinterpreted the park, inventing a new narrative, thanks to a combination of poetic and baroque machines.
Welcome to the Cine-parc de la terre! The film is usually reserved for cars parked in the car park in front of Saint-Jacques Church but exclusively for Lausanne Jardins 2019, human visitors are invited to sit in the cars for a US-style drive-in session. Take a seat, watch and listen to the Earth’s story!
Weed... Undesired but persistent, it grows in the cracks of several supporting walls on the route of Lausanne Jardins 2019, and a young girl looks after it.
And one more time, the girl from Place to live. The one who takes care of the weed, all along the route of Lausanne Jardins 2019.
Whomever has noticed that you cross a waterway at that exact point? Echappement fluvial helps passers-by recon-nect with the river. Thanks to an old device, an ear tube, the murmur of the water climbs up to the level of the pavement to foster sound contemplation.
A ghost-like structure floats gently above Parc Guillemin. This ethereal form comes from the underground since its creation is based on the cast of six tunnels of abandoned molehills. Emerged and brought to light, this network offers an overview of the labyrinths that run under our feet some 40 centimetres deep.
To celebrate the mole, the Talpa europea, this small, harmless mammal that is so useful to our soil and yet unfairly castigated and fought off, here is a sundial in a wildflower setting that highlights the main points of the animal’s underground work.
Climb aboard the Vegibus! Connected to Line 9 on Lausanne’s public transport network like a mobile greenhouse for commuting plants, it travels across all the sites of Lausanne Jardins 2019, from Parc Valency all the way to Parc Guillemin.
A car park, dustbins and concrete: welcome to Faverges! Yet, adventurers of all horizons will discover wonders by venturing into this little-known. The installation of green towers, created during a participative landscaping workshop, will help draw attention to this passage and convey the spirit of the district.
What if this road, which is usually dedicated to cars with its two traffic lanes and three rows of parking spaces, became an oasis of greenery and a playground? Surrounded by prairie, this temporary square, created during a participative landscaping workshop, offers an environment conducive to chatting and relaxing.
A permaculture mound marks the boundary between the courtyard and the road. By involving schoolchildren in planting the small trees, SPADOM has raised their awareness to the issue of urban agriculture and permaculture, and teamed up with a whole bunch of budding gardeners who will look after what they helped plant!
A forest of flags painted by children brings Place de la Navigation in Ouchy to life every year, from spring until the following winter. This year, it is based on the theme of soil and gardens.