Aire : The River and its Double

A documentation of a seminal and internationally recognised re-naturalisation project for a river in Switzerland. Text in English, French and German

South of Geneva, Switzerland, the River Aire runs across a plain that for centuries has been agricultural land. From the late 19th century, the waterway has been embanked for flood protection, also causing the gradual loss of habitat for a large variety of plants and animals. In 2001, decisions were taken to re-naturalise the river. Yet rather than to merely reconstruct its former natural bed, Superpositions, the association of firms commissioned with the project, applied ''topographic imagination'', a method termed by American landscape designer Elissa Rosenberg. It combines the embanked channel with a newly designed pasture landscape. The channel indicates a work in progress and serves as a reference line that makes ''before'' and ''after'' traceable.This new book documents this much recognised, award-winning re-naturalisation project with drawings, images of construction work and of the new waterway. Essays and comments by international contributors Jean-Marc Besse, Lorette Coen, Gerorges Descombes, G. Mathias Kondolf, Elissa Rosenberg, Gilles A. Tiberghien, and Marc Treib demonstrate how the restored River Aire has been upgraded to become again a characteristic feature of this landscape on the fringe of the city.Text in English, French and German.