Kim Bong-ryeol

The author is an architect and professor emeritus at the Korea National University of Arts.

On the Left Bank of the Seine in Paris's 15th arrondissement once stood the Citroën automobile factory. When production moved elsewhere in 1970, the fate of the site became a subject of long debate. In 1985, the city launched an international design competition for a "park for the 21st century" on 14 hectares of this land. The jury made the unusual decision to select two winners - landscape architects Alain Provost and Gilles Clément - because neither of their complementary visions could be discarded.

Since the 19th century, urban parks aimed to replicate natural forests, as with New York's Central Park. Parc André Citroën, however, broke that tradition. Named after the car company's founder, it introduced a rigorously geometric and artificial order. The design reflected both the site's industrial legacy and the evolving aesthetics of the modern city, suggesting new possibilities for future-oriented urban parks.



At its core stands a monumental greenhouse with vertical proportions reminiscent of a temple to plants. Along a linear water channel are seven pavilions that evoke everyday scenery. Together they create a hybrid of landscape and architecture - what critics have called architectural landscaping. Even the trees are planted in grids, forming a forest defined by straight lines.

The park's six themed gardens, aligned in sequence, are named for colors and metals - gold, silver, red, green, yellow and blue. Each symbolizes planets, days of the week or sensory experiences. At the park's entry and exit points, independent gardens explore other ideas, such as black and white contrasts or the theme of movement.

Overall, the project is a collection of nine smaller gardens unified under a geometric framework. Each landscape architect designed distinctive sections, but the order is consistent. Visitors encounter diverse sensory experiences that remain anchored in symmetry and proportion.

Binding the park together is a vast central lawn, measuring 23,400 square meters. This open space provides a communal area that contrasts with the more enclosed gardens. Cutting across the grounds is a diagonal path stretching 630 meters. It functions like a skewer, linking the various elements from one edge of the city to the riverbank. Following this path, visitors move through a sequence of landscapes before reaching the Seine itself - Paris's largest natural presence.

Parc André Citroën combines fragments into a coherent whole. Architecture and landscape, geometry and symbolism, industrial memory and urban future converge in a park that still feels original decades after its creation.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.