Near the center of Amiens, hundreds of islets seem to float on the Somme, forming a mosaic of gardens.
A few steps from the center of Amiens, hundreds of islets seem to float on the waters of the Somme, forming a mosaic of gardens of nearly 300 hectares. For centuries, this lake landscape has been devoted to agriculture. In the 15th century,
the Picards give them the name of hortillonnages, of the Latin hortellus, "little garden": the dawn of a golden age. A thousand gardeners, the "hortillons" then feed the whole city of Amiens, even exporting their productions to London. But in the 1950s, some farmland becomes pleasure gardens, while others are abandoned. How, then, to safeguard this immense garden on the water, green lung of the city, and avoid it dark ?
Since 2010, the House of Culture of Amiens organizes the festival Art,
cities & landscape to reinvent the hortillonnages.
17 мар 2018
