Feyssine Park in Lyon is a gentle intervention in a well-established alluvial forest, executed on-site more than 20 years ago. The distinctively formal design language of the 90’s does not seem to obstruct the qualities of the park in any way. Moreover, the park turned out to be visionary and prophetic for its time, as nowadays, there is a widespread tendency to keep more of the untamed natural succession in city centres. The main part of the design is a system of paths that transverse the area or wrap it, as is the case of the circular path that surrounds a grove of poplar trees and orchids. With its strong axes, the park offers spacious vistas, clearings, views of the river Rhone and plenty of soft green tissue to escape the ‘too-muchness’ of urbanity.
The jury appreciated Feyssine’s reluctance to impress as its goal is to offer a simple, no-nonsense, yet high-quality open space on a very tight budget of 10 euros/m2 (early 2000s, app $1/ft2). It’s also worth noting the long-term relationship between the large-scale projects of several generations of contemporary landscape architects on large areas of land, reflecting the interpretive spirit of l’Ecole de Versailles, influenced by one of the founders, Michel Corajoud.
- from the award statements
The 20-year-old Parc de la Feyssine illustrates a recurring paradox since the invention of urban landscape design: how to enhance, develop, and perpetuate a 100% natural public space in the heart of the city.
In 1999, when the competition was launched, the site was a 45-hectare alluvial brownfield site resulting from the industrial extraction of drinking water for the Lyon urban area, abandoned in the 1970s. The Greater Lyon local authority then redeveloped the peripheric boulevard and created the T1 tramway line adjacent to the site, making it accessible. The alluvial forest could finally be reconsidered as a potential open and important natural piece in the linear landscape of the Rhône’s left bank in the continuity of the historic Parc de la Tête d’Or (117 ha, by Frères Bühler in 1864), Parc de Gerland (100 ha, by Michel Corajoud in 2000), Parc de la Cité Internationale (by Michel Corajoud and Renzo Piano in 2000) and the banks of the Rhône (5 km, by In Situ in 2007).
This forgotten alluvial forest, covering 45 hectares and almost 1,200 metres of riverbank has become within these 20 years a great piece of untamed nature and a balcony over the Rhône, in the heart of Lyon’s dense urban area.
Far from the traditions of landscape design of the early 2000s, this park has experimented radical choices of simplicity and freedom, to maintain these free natural spaces while opening them up to the public, and turning them into a genuine urban open-air facility. The human intervention had to be minimal and respectful of the forest in place.
After a long history of landscape architecture, from the classical gardens in the XVIIth and XVIIIth century to the highly-architectured parks of the 1980s, the idea of having an extensive piece of nature with little intervention at the heart of a metropolitan area was, back in 1999, groundbreaking. The principle of encouraging a certain “controlled wilderness” involved framing the existing strengths of the park, with minimal but targeted interventions, such as sculpting topography. In the Parc de la Feyssine, the designed valley creates a unique place where one can wander below the park’s ground level, while being surrounded by the existing forest. Over time, the design disappears and becomes landscape, embodying the principles of this nature-centred narrative.
2002-2010 (plan from 1999):
2017-2024:
The site has been redesigned and managed as a system of edges, interfacing dense woodland areas and large open meadows, with limited mowing to help biodiversity thrive. By playing with light and co-visibility, with open and closed areas, introducing clear-cuts and limited pedestrian paths, the project encourages spontaneous plant regeneration and habitat corridors, while opening up new spaces in the woodland to the public and ensuring a feeling of safety.
To protect the existing habitats and the forest’s character, little earthworks were carried out and no topsoil was imported, no equipment was introduced, no car parks, no furniture or mineralisation of the ground with hardscape material, just a meticulous principle of gentle reforestation.
Along its length, the Rhône can be seen and approached via a simple dirt path with windows onto the river. The metropolitan cycling path along the Rhône takes place on a central route along the trees. The inaccessible heart of the woodlands can be seen from a new, slightly above-ground, perfectly straight and graded line of use, linking the two entrances to the park: the hectometric walk, graded every 100 metres.
A footbridge transversely links the boulevard to the river, offering a glimpse of the canopy and the trees’ thick foliage. Finally, the circular walk, a perfect circle 1km in circumference, encircles and highlights the importance of the poplar grove and its orchid meadows.
These human traces finely imprint this alluvial forest with a new status as a “living untamed” piece of nature, capable of continuing to evolve without losing its landscape.
Opened in 2001, the evolutions of the park only became a lasting reality after negotiations based on the establishment of a park management team, with a thorough knowledge of the site and who have accompanied it on a daily basis… for more than twenty years.
Because of its approach, both ambitious but minimalist, and economical in terms of investment (equivalent to 10€/m²) but demanding in terms of support, the Parc de la Feyssine is a testimony to a shared vision, enthusiasm and successful partnership between city council and landscape architect that already in 1999, demonstrated the attention paid to respecting and promoting natural environments in urban areas, for the public good. It remains a park which, 25 years after its conception, is still living, growing and thriving, offering a generous natural space for leisure and freedom to the whole Lyon urban area.
