Passerelle sur l'Ource et Passegiatta
Jacques Vieille, Marc Mimram
Mediator - Xavier Douroux
Supporters - La Maison de la Forêt et du Tourisme et le conseil municipal de Leuglay, Fondation de France
Leuglay, Bourgogne, France, 1999
The commune of Leuglay has created a facility for cultural and tourist purposes, a reception centre intended for the activities of the Maison de la forêt et du tourisme association. This is a space for training and heightening awareness of woodlands and wood crafts and arts. The centre also represents a halt on the route of the railway linking Chatillon-sur-Seine to Is-sur-Tille. The patrons wished to develop a reception area for the public, and put an installation in the garden adjoining the building. To enhance their activities and reinforce their identity, it seemed to them that the intervention of an artist would be appropriate.
Vieille has made a plant-based work for the garden, and one of his wooden sculptures that belongs to the public collections has been placed in the reception hall. From a single tree trunk, Mimram has made a bridge that spans the Ource to link the Maison de la forêt et du tourisme to the adjacent car park.
The mediator suggested Jacques Vieille. Vieille had a long-term interest in architecture before becoming involved with gardens, and nowadays landscapes. As a boarder at the Villa Médicis at the beginning of his career, he found Rome an ideal field for his research. In the early 1980s, he introduced plants with strong connotations (the acanthus, reminiscent of antique architecture; the thuja, a reminder of suburbs with detached houses…) into his buildings. Ten or so years ago, Vieille branched off into landscape with its aesthetics of immediacy. His work always takes account of the natural characteristics of the sites where he intervenes. Marc Mimram is a well-known architect – the name of his practice is Marc Mimram Ingénierie – interested both in architecture and structural design. He has designed a number of bridges and footbridges (Viaduct over the River St Sauveur, 1999; Art works on RN 19, 2001, among other things) as well as buildings (swimming pool and skating rink at Roissy). For him, the bridge is not a simple crossing, the asphalt road welcomes a migratory flow. And it is wrong to set design and implementation against one another, so leaving all the power to the field of engineering and high technology.