We are thrilled to share with you the interview with LILA 2022 Honour Award winner Gilles Clément. The interview was conducted in Paris in November 2022 by Zaš Brezar and Joost Emmerik.
The editors wrote in the award statement:
Gilles Clément (1943) is a French landscape architect or better ‘paysagiste’, having a more garden design-related background. He is also a botanist, entomologist, and writer. His most important achievements are both in theory and practice. Through his work, Clément shows many paths to a more biodiverse future as he focuses on what truly matters to the well-being of all species. His approach is about effortlessness, working with natural forces and always celebrating diversity. It is a treasure of knowledge and a showcase of attitudes fit for the future, hence of great importance to our global professional community.
Zaš Brezar (b. 1984, Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia/Slovenia) is founder and editor-in-chief of Landezine. Educated as a landscape architect (University of Ljubljana), he spent several years in practice, later establishing Landezine in 2009. He is focused on the production of space, specifically mapping, tracing and interpreting the course of landscape architecture and questioning its role in society and politics of public space.
Gilles Clément (born 1943) is a French landscape architect (paysagiste), botanist, entomologist, and writer. Both in theory and practice, his work advocates for biodiversity, ecological processes, and working with rather than against natural forces. He is widely known for formulating influential concepts such as the Garden in Motion, the Planetary Garden, and the Third Landscape. Clément’s designs and writings emphasize effortlessness, diversity, and ecological coexistence, positioning him as a central figure for a more biodiverse and sustainable future. He is also the winner of the 2022 LILA Honour Award.
Joost Emmerik (b. 1979) is a Dutch garden and landscape architect known for his serene, restrained designs that emphasize robust materials and lush planting. His work treats the garden as an autonomous world, equal to the house, shaped by clarity and quiet growth over time. Emmerik heads the Master’s program in Landscape Architecture at the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture and lectures across the Netherlands. He collaborates widely with artists, architects, and designers on cross-disciplinary projects. His practice insists on the enduring power of gardens in contemporary life.
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