Issue 46 of the Cahiers de Mariemont undertakes to explore the various ways in which ruins, real or fake, have been incorporated into the art of gardening.

In gardens, man has always sought to make nature, in its most subtle forms, coexist with the most refined. Among the latter, monumental traces of the past, the materiality of their obsolescence and destruction, and the fragile balance they represent between memory and oblivion, have always aroused interest and fascination. Once seen as a testimony to the past that should be preserved and enhanced, a collapsed or incomplete building, that can no longer fulfil its original purpose, can take on other symbolic or ornamental functions in the garden. In Mariemont, for example, the wealthy entrepreneur and philanthropist Raoul Warocqué had the remains of the palace of Charles de Lorraine (1712-1780) incorporated into the English-style landscaped park surrounding his residence in 1893, combining the romantic staging of the ruin with the enhancement of an archaeological reality. Today, there are other practices. At the Grand archaeological garden in Lorraine and the Saint-Acheul archaeological garden in the Somme department, for example, the art of gardening is used to make the archaeological fact, whether monumental or not, clearer and more accessible. The ruins are no longer just another ornament. These ‘archaeological gardens’ are designed as natural sites planted with trees, in which the ruins are the subject.

The Cahiers de Mariemont therefore calls on historians, art historians, archaeologists, architects, town planners, botanists, gardeners and other garden design specialists to identify the common features and major developments in the practice of integrating ruins into European gardens over the centuries. The aim will also be to identify the current issues and strategies for managing and promoting this practice. More than being specific case studies, the articles will focus on diachronic, thematic (types of archaeological fact, public, environment, climate, etc.) or territorial analysis and perspective.