Promenade en sous-bois, lumières et transparences > French Garden of Peace, 2020

Promenade en sous-bois, lumières et transparences > French Garden of Peace, 2020

To the north-west of Arras, the Notre-Dame-de-Lorette hill is an important heritage site: it was in the midst of the battles of the Great War and it now hosts the National Cemetery and the Circle of Memory. Landscapers Elise and Martin Hennebicque have created a garden where visitors to the site can gather outside the cemetery, a garden with a soft and intimate atmosphere giving pride of place to light and dark. Located on the lower area of the site, their creation is on a fallow meadow where birches from the Mining Basin and fruit trees of the Artois orchards can be found. The space relies on the identity of the territory to reveal the beauty of the landscape. Inspired by meadow orchards, the garden uses the regular rows of broad leaved trees to create an atmosphere of undergrowth. Grassy paths which alternate between natural meadow and wooded areas can be explored. In places, the dense wooded areas are interrupted by shafts of light. Visitors are invited to sit in the hollow of the vegetation where they will become immersed in an atmosphere to remember and to contemplate.