The garden territory: Politics, aesthetics and the invention of green infrastructure in post-war Belgium

Abstract

This article contributes to the genealogy of green infrastructure design by shifting the focus from science and technology to include broader societal, political and aesthetic issues, using a critical historical analysis of landscape design. We examine post-war Belgian green infrastructure projects by landscape architect René Pechère (1908–2002) to uncover the complex negotiations between politics, aesthetics and technology. The focus of this article is Pechère's conception of the ‘Green Plan’, which merged the motorway and the garden to create the Belgian landscape as a ‘garden territory’. We argue that this landscape policy was not merely a ‘green’ compensation for a ‘grey’ infrastructure project, but a strategy to create a modern infrastructural landscape for Belgium. Pechère's plans served as instruments for modernisation within the post-war welfare state in combination with aesthetic principles rooted in fascist Germany. His objectives were to mitigate urbanisation processes, create an aestheticised landscape representation of the nation, and redistribute green spaces across the territory. This article aims to foster a critical re-engagement with contemporary infrastructure design discussions by developing a nuanced understanding of green infrastructure as a sociopolitical tool for territorial organisation.