Gardens

Un Cercle immense

The project in brief

Today, the Saline royale is being reinvented around Claude Nicolas Ledoux’s City of Chaux project: Un Cercle immense. A unique project to turn a UNESCO site into a haven of biodiversity inspired by the ideal city of its architect, to make the Saline royale into a laboratory for landscaping professions combining experimentation, the circular economy, education and high environmental quality.

Cercle immense - bref

At the heart of the Circle

Between now and June 2022, the Saline royale is enriching its five-hectare visitor trail with a landscape design by the company Mayot & Toussaint and by Gilles Clément, which includes:

  • A transformation of the temporary gardens into permanent gardens “in motion”, based on the book by Gilles Clément, in the existing semi-circle. These gardens, inaugurated in June 2021, are divided into four triptychs that can be visited all year, with the plant it its various aspects as the focus.
  • 10 new educational gardens in the new, second semi-circle, where the themes echo the “gardens in motion” (opening in June 2022)
  • 10 temporary gardens which will make up the Garden Festival created every year by landscape gardening students (opening in June 2022)
  • A central meadow, a garden representative of the ecosystems in the Jura Arc, an edible stroll and a poetic stroll focusing on the work of Ledoux will complete the visitor trail. (Opening in June 2022).

Area map