Le petit livre: Gilles Clément’s paper garden

[EN] The Garden in Motion is a concept that was developed by Gilles Clément in the early 1980s as the result of the experimentation conducted in his garden-house, La Vallée. Clément’s interest in promoting this garden archetype based on managing neglected land led him to write a number of works in order to explain the conceptual underpinnings of his model, with the ultimate aim of having them published. From the writing of the first manuscripts, dating from 1984, to the first edition of “Le jardin en movement” in 1991, he produced a series of different documents that would form the basis of the text that was finally published. It was a long process in which Clément not only had to fully develop his ideas but also to overcome the difficulties involved in finding a company to publish what he called his ‘petit livre’. The aim of this article is to show the creative process behind Clément’s book and its relationship with the creative process of building his garden, while endeavouring to reply to the question of whether it is possible to establish an equivalence between both processes. This is made possible through the analysis of documents kept by Clément in his personal archive, some of which have never been published.
[ES] El Jardín en Movimiento es un concepto desarrollado por Gilles Clément a principios de los años ochenta, que surge de la experimentación llevada a cabo en su casa-jardín de La Vallée. El interés por dar a conocer este arquetipo de jardín basado en la gestión del baldío, lleva a Clément a elaborar un conjunto de escritos en los que desarrolla las bases conceptuales de dicho modelo. Su objetivo final es poder llegar a publicarlos. Desde la redacción de los primeros manuscritos, que datan de 1984, hasta la primera edición de “Le jardin en mouvement” en 1991, se suceden diferentes documentos que servirán de base para el texto finalmente publicado. Un largo proceso en el que Clément no solo se enfrenta a la maduración de sus ideas, sino a las dificultades para encontrar una editorial que publique su “petit livre,” como él lo denomina. El artículo pretende mostrar la génesis de este libro y su relación con la construcción del jardín, intentado dar respuesta a la cuestión de si es posible establecer una equivalencia entre ambos procesos creativos. Todo ello a través del análisis de los documentos que Gilles Clément conserva en su archivo personal, algunos de ellos inéditos.