The landscapes of Ile-de-France

The Ile-de-France has a very fine heritage of architecture and landscape. Some of its sites and monuments are world famous. Its many villages, churches, châteaux, forests and valleys, of local and regional interest, make it one of France's most beautiful regions. And lighting is also important, as landscapes change with the sky, the weather and the time of day.

But the threat to the landscapes is even greater in the Ile-de-France than anywhere else, because of the size of its population, the extent of its urbanisation and the importance of its infrastructure.

Whether it be deplored or appreciated, suffered or assisted, the evolution in the landscape of the Ile-de-France is likely to continue.

If it is to reconcile tradition and innovation and take place without discord, simple statutory measures are no longer sufficient.

An overall project must be worked out, with coherency between one area and the next, one sector and the next.

The State and regional authorities must be the mainspring in the implementation of such a project. On the scale of the Ile-de-France, the Region is naturally the authority that is in a position to support such a project. But it must be everybody's concern, involving socio-economic forces, administrative bodies and inhabitants alike.

Providing an inventory of the various aspects of the regional landscapes, defining general and localised objectives, putting forward a variety of means, are all important elements in creating a strong regional landscape policy.

Above all, they bring out the fact that it is now absolutely necessary to go beyond approaches that are spatially, thematically and institutionally over-compartmentalised.