Alchemical landscape.

Parc Citroen in Paris is a modern version of the democratic, evocative, urban park.

Situated in the south-western quarter of the Left Bank, the new Parc Andre Citroen occupies part of what was originally the site of the vast Citroen works. The plant was relocated in 1972, and since then all traces of industry have been systematically eroded and replaced by new uses, for example Richard Meier's headquarters for Canal Plus television company (AR December 1994). The western edge of the site is bounded by the Seine, where the wharves were once used for trading in coal and construction materials. To the east, the land adjoins a lively sector of the 15th arrondissement and to the south lies the Grenelle freight station. Since the mid 1980s, the Parisian City Planning Unit has been engaged in developing an ambitious plan for the entire area, that extends well beyond the original Citroen works site. The brief included a hospital, offices, workshops, 3000 apartments and a substantial 12 hectare park, intended to form a green backbone for this new district.

Following an inconclusive competition, two teams of architects and landscape consultants were selected to work together on the design of the park. Their original competition submissions were broadly similar, but for logistical reasons, the site was split into two complementary parts. Patrick Berger, in collaboration with landscape architect Gilles Clement, undertook responsibility for the northern section, encompassing the white garden, two large greenhouses, six thematic, serial gardens and the garden in movement. The Viguier-Jodry Partnership, together with Alain Provost, concentrated on the southern half, including the black garden and gardens of metamorphosis, the central parterre and its frame of water, and the water lilies in the canal.

Through the interplay of differently scaled elements, the park is split into blocks or territories, delineated by views or screens of vegetation, animated by plays of water or coloured by planting. The resulting textural luxuriance and spatial complexity are not simply the out some of carefully chosen plants; the design is also underpinned by a metaphorical narrative based on the polar opposites of nature and artifice, architecture and movement. Throughout the park, this discourse unfolds with delicacy and rigour.

The entrance to the site is marked by a pair of monolithic greenhouses, one containing a permanent display of tropical flora and the other given over to changing exhibitions. These are symmetrically disposed around a fountain, framing views down to the River Seine and the new bridge that arches along its bank.

Water is an important defining element; a long canal bisects the site lengthways and the great rectangle of the central parterre is also enclosed by narrow channels of water. The serial gardens are aligned along the length of the parterre, each symbolically associated with colour and one of the senses. The blue garden, for example, is associated with smell, the silver garden with sight, while the gold garden is related to man's sixth sense. At the north end of the park are two explicitly contrasting black and white gardens on the themes of shade and light. The black garden is a sunken, labyrinthine construction, sombrely planted with firs, cypresses, purple and black flowers, all reflected in black polished stone. Drawing on ideas from alchemy, botany, geography and numerology, the park's designers have attempted to restore the noble, democratic and evocative power of the urban park, providing an inspiring paradigm for the future.