The term “ fabrique ” is used to designate any construction intended to embellish a garden and whose primary purpose is to produce an effect on the visitor. They are generally used to punctuate the walker’s route, where they are arranged in a variety of viewpoints organized as picturesque paintings. These constructions, sometimes antiquity-inspired, exotic, natural or rural, appeared in English gardens at the beginning of the 18th century and became part of the picturesque or Anglo-Chinese gardens that became fashionable in France in the second half of that century.
Located in Tourves in the Var department, the Valbelle’s castle is unusual in more ways than one: laid out as early as 1765, they are a particularly early and rare example of a “ fabriques park ” in the south of France. A singular and unusual site, in the image of its creator, Count Omer de Valbelle, this park is a precious testimony to the Enlightenment. Over the course of its history, it has been dismantled and reclaimed by the people, then reclaimed by the garrigue. The elements are still there: buildings, paths, relics of groves, viewpoints over the landscape, a pyramid camouflaged in luxuriant vegetation. All they are waiting for is to be re-read and reassembled into a park that offers surprise, knowledge and the ever-renewed pleasure of discovery.
In 2017, the Var department, which owns part of the 8-hectare historic park, launched a project to design a new park based on the landscape qualities of the site and its rich history. The initial brief was to recreate the English-style park and the regular garden evoked in the historical sources, with high expectations in terms of planting.
The advanced degree to which the 18th-century landscaping had been erased quickly led our team to undertake a meticulous survey of the site, corroborated by the few historical sources available, in order to determine what the layout of the Count’s landscaping might have been and, in essence, what events could have wiped out so much effort in the space of two centuries. These hypotheses will be supported by further archaeological excavations.
At the end of this investigation, it was the poetry of the “ return to the wild ” that emerged as the real strength of the site: revealing through the project the impermanence of even the most monumental things. The uniqueness of the site lies above all in the paradox between the scale and splendor of the ruins scattered over this long hill (obelisk, colonnade, feudal castle, stables, pyramid) and the rather ordinary vegetation of the scrubland that serves as their backdrop today.
So it seemed obvious that the job was to bring out this historical depth with care and restraint, while preserving the poetry of time and abandonment that so delightfully echoes the thoughts of the Enlightenment.
The project is therefore based first and foremost on the delicate task of gardening the existing vegetation, in order to highlight the precious heritage of trees on these skeletal soils and to rediscover the depths, transparency, axes and perspective of 18th-century composition. The vegetation was enriched very modestly by young plantations thanks to the help of Véronique Mure (botanist and garden historian).
The exposed framework was then restored using noble materials and local expertise, in collaboration with heritage architect Jean-Denis Schauer. The work focused on the prestigious areas of the park: the pathway leading to the château, the regular garden, the paving and edging of the main driveway, the monumental staircase, the boundary and retaining walls and the restoration of the mysterious pyramid at the edge of the park. In addition, secondary pathways will allow visitors to explore the site in its most natural state. Furnishings, benches, statue plinths and interpretive and entertaining features give life and meaning to the spaces, making it a pleasure to discover the different lives of Valbelle Park.
- Project typology: Historical park
- All landscape architecture offices involved in the design of landscape:
ESKIS Paysage (leader)
Atelier LADANUM
- All architecture offices involved in the design:
Jean-Denis SCHAUER architect
- Other credits:
Véronique MURE Botanist
