Architecture and landscape for democratic living #3
From Monday, February 2, 2026 to Monday, June 8, 2026
MucemLabFor its third year, this multi-disciplinary seminar series explores the uses of public space and landscapes.
The different ways in which contemporary landscapes are constructed and inhabited are explored through three main axes: the question of landscape law, that of art and artifacts situated as activators of social bonds, and finally that of the public square as a key element in the notion of neighborhood.
Events (4)
Landscape law; What is a river law?
Architecture and landscape for democratic living #3
Moderated by Jean-Marc Besse, philosopher, geographer and CNRS research director, EHESS Guest: Sacha Bourgeois-Gironde, legal philosopher ENS Title: Can a river have rights? In March 2017, New Zealand’s Whanganui River acquired legal personality. Since then, similar cases have arisen around the world. How does a river become a subject of rights? Can we believe in such a proposition, and what sense does it make? Are all these cases based on the same principle? Are we witnessing a return to...
On Monday, Jun 8, 2026
de 14h à 17h
Fort Saint-Jean / MucemLab
Situated art and artefacts as activators of social bonds: from the outside to the laboratory and vice versa
Architecture and landscape for democratic living #3
General introduction to the seminar, by Jean-Marc Besse, Eugénie Denarnaud, Joëlle Zask Session moderated by Eugénie Denarnaud Guests: Stephen Rostain, archaeologist, director of research, CNRS, title: “The ‘gardens’ of Amazonia”. A member of the Archéologie des Amériques laboratory at CNRS and Panthéon-Sorbonne University, he is a research director at CNRS and the first French archaeologist to specialize in the Amazon, where he has lived part of his life. In 2022,...
On Monday, Feb 2, 2026
de 14h à 17h
Fort Saint-Jean / MucemLab
Neighborhood architecture: a survey from Cours Julien in Marseille
Architecture and landscape for democratic living #3
The Mucem, the venue for our discussions, echoes this theme by raising the question of its spatial design, including its gardens, and the public place it embodies in its operation. By observing the Cours Julien, we’ll explore what might constitute the architecture of the neighborhood. Voted one of the “coolest neighborhoods in the world” by British magazine Time Out in 2023, the Cours Julien is one of Marseille’s best-loved and most frequented spots. Through a series of...
Session moderated by Joëlle Zask, philosopher, Director of Research, IUF, Aix-Marseille University. Guest: Nicolas Memain, title: “Promenade au Cours Julien A specialist in twentieth-century urban planning and architecture, he has organized numerous architectural walks in several communes of the Bouches-du-Rhône region and participated in an architectural inventory for heritage departments. An urban planner without a degree, he has developed a form of local tourism motivated by a love of...
On Monday, Mar 2, 2026
de 14h à 17h
Fort Saint-Jean / MucemLab
Droit du paysage; Du droit de déambuler?
Architecture and landscape for democratic living #3
In the West, the question of land law is a structuring factor in approaches to spatial planning, and conditions our relationship with landscapes and architecture. If we imagine a law that challenges this approach, from the perspective of the environmental humanities, how can we think about landscape law and make natural entities subjects rather than objects of law?
Moderated by Jean-Marc Besse, philosopher, geographer and CNRS research director, EHESS Guests: Sarah Vanuxem, jurist, Université de Côte d’Azur, title: “Du droit de déambuler” (“The right to stroll”) Since the dawn of modernity, the right to roam and subsist freely on the land has been progressively prohibited. From an ecological and ethical point of view, however, it is vital to recover a world that is porous and traversable, both for humans and for other living...
On Monday, May 11, 2026
de 14h à 17h
Fort Saint-Jean / MucemLab
To live in a democracy is to live as a democrat, to practice "self-government". And if anything, this is happening somewhere. It is by situating ourselves and interacting with our environment that we participate in the creation of our conditions of existence, and it is by virtue of the qualities of certain places that we have the opportunity to do so.
For example, what does the architecture of the classroom, the hospital or the public garden allow, and what does it forbid? How can we “read”, in the light of self-government, the landscapes formed by a cornfield as far as the eye can see, a commercial zone, an oil palm plantation, an open space?
These questions introduce us to an intermediate zone between more conventional conceptions, notably between those that decontextualize the practices of citizenship, and those that reduce our relationship to place to one form or another of “rootedness”. The result is a multi-disciplinary reflection on the ways in which contemporary landscapes are constructed and inhabited, with a view in particular to questioning the possible forms of realizing the common good. Mucem’s collections will be invaluable in supporting these approaches and “giving them substance”.
In partnership with
Aix-Marseille University, École nationale supérieure du paysage, EHESS, Centre Norbert Elias and Géographie-cités
Coordination
Jean-Marc Besse (Géographie-cités, EHESS, CNRS), Eugénie Denarnaud (ENSP Marseille) and Joëlle Zask (Centre Norbert Elias, Université d’Aix-Marseille, Institut universitaire de France)