Atlas des Régions Naturelles, Vol. 4

Volume 4 of Atlas des Régions Naturelles, known as ARN, continues Eric Tabuchi and Nelly Monnier's survey of France's roughly 450 historical "natural regions". The project began in 2017 and treats the country as a set of repeating vernacular forms rather than as scenery.

The fourth volume follows the format fixed by the first: sixteen chapters in runs of three regional portraits followed by one thematic chapter. The regions here are Argonne, Bresse bourguignonne, Champagne berrichonne, Crau, Flandre maritime, Grand Ried, Minervois, Perthois, Plateau de Saint-André, Saintonge romane, Vallespir and Velay. The four thematic chapters are Écussons, Garage, Silos and Tours Eiffel. They collect painted town crests, the roadside garage, agricultural silos, and the miniature Eiffel Towers that French towns build for themselves. Across 384 pages and more than 500 photographs the book is softcover with a screen-printed cover, Otabind bound, with a folded map slipped in at the back as an index. Volumes 4 and 5 appeared together in May 2023, the first time the series issued two books in one season.

Tabuchi and Monnier photograph the same way in every region, frontal and level, in flat light. A war memorial in the Morvan and a café in the Médoc read as entries in one inventory. The library holds Volumes 1 through 8 as separate records; each volume uses the same cover design in a different colour.