contextual gardens

Strange Brew Pt.2 - Urban Physic Garden

2011-08-20T01:47:00.025+01:00

Well-being has been a much overused buzzword during the past few years of economic uncertainty. Uttered across the political spectrum by those who seek salvation from the havoc wreaked by unfettered consumerism and unregulated markets, it is proffered as an aspirational alternative endgame to the one we currently find ourselves in. And very often in such pondering pitting profits against peace of mind, gardens are invoked as panacean places which play a role in redressing the perceived imbalance between contemporary social systems and the individuals who inhabit them.

Obviously the association of gardens with well-being, health and the good life is nothing new, given that they have historically always provided spaces of safety and sustenance. Whilst the concentrated cultivation within them of plants exulted for their beneficial medicinal and therapeutic applications is a common thread which links the medieval monastic hortus conclusus, Islamic paradise gardens, and present day plots.

It is a thread picked up by the Urban Physic Garden, a worthy successor to last year's successful Urban Orchard on the same Union Street site in Southwark, London. Organised by Heather Ring and her cohorts from the Wayward Plant Nursery, in partnership with Better Bankside's Urban Forest regeneration project, the Urban Physic Garden transforms an unused brownfield site into a space of intrigue and enchantment.

As with last year's project the design aesthetic is a bright lo-tech eco chic, cobbling together a variety of recycled elements into a coherent and appealing whole. Split into distinct zones formed in the shape of the pharmacy cross, hanging signs announce them as specific wards, each one containing plants relating to treatments in their relevant medical fields. A striking use of colour (red, white and blue) creates a strong backdrop for the planting whilst graphic elements adorn walls and structures adding to the eye appeal.

Whilst the plant associations may at times appear to be rather obvious or overly didactic, it is the overall use of the space which truly addresses the issues around ideas of well-being. An old ambulance acts as a cafe dispensing tonics for the weary who coalesce upon a long communal bench, whist the the site acts as a venue for a varied series of events over the summer. The garden serves as a community locus with plants as both the relational context and content for generating networks and strengthening bonds between locals and visitors.

As if this project wasn't enough to keep landscape architect Ring fully occupied, she also contributed the fascinating 'AlgaeGarden' to this year's International Garden Festival at Les Jardins de Métis in Quebec. Created in collaboration with plant scientist Dr. Brenda Parker and artist Synnøve Fredericks, the installation explores the aesthetic and productive possibilities of algae.

Whilst this year saw the end of the break clause in the lease on the Union Street site, 2012 holds the promise of a longer term Recycled Nursery Garden project for the next three years in nearby in Borough - all's well that ends well!

Strange Brew Pt.1 - Jardin de l'Alchimiste

2011-08-16T18:29:00.044+01:00

Jardin de l'Alchemiste in Eygaliéres in the Bouches-du-Rhone department of France, is situated next to the 16th century Mas de la Brune, the historic residence of Pierre Isnard, a steward to the Duke de Guise. Isnard evidently harboured a medieval fascination with magic and as a consequence incorporated certain alchemical symbols into the architecture of the mansion. This provenance inspired the current owners Marie and Alain de Larouziére, and provided them with the conceptual framework for the garden which they made in 1997. Spurning traditional ideas of arrangement in favour of creating a metaphorical journey representing the alchemical quest for the philosophers stone, the legendary substance thought to be capable of turning lead into gold, the garden is certainly unique.

Intended as a philosophical essay on the process of enlightenment, evoked through the spatial layout of the garden and it's horticultural arrangement, the narrative drive of the garden is provided by the historical associations of local plants, their forms and colours. Numerology plays a role in the design layout (the numbers 5, 7, 9, 11, 22, 33 having a alchemical importance), whilst reference is implied to astronomy (Saturn, Mercury, the moon and the sun). As such the garden suggests a certain element of theme park whimsy, yet the planting manages to counterbalance any such tendencies with it's imaginative array of Med-friendly plants which form a kind of hermetic vocabulary enunciating the ideas the garden presents.

The design of the garden by Arnaud Mauriéres and Eric Ossart, the French/Moroccan duo responsible for creating a hybrid design style fusing the Modernism of Luis Barragan with traditional aspects of Islamic paradise gardens, is certainly not typical of their work but rather reflects a more arts based approach to gardens which nods to their involvement in the early years of the International Festival of Gardens at Chaumont-sur-Loire.

The garden is entered though an Eleagnus maze formed from the Hebrew word 'Bereshift', the first word in the Torah, meaning appropriately enough 'in the beginning'. This leads through a wooded area of cypress, oak and pine into an ethnobotanic garden which explores the historic uses of local herbs and plants in medicine and magic, with an emphasis placed upon the relationships between place, belief and tradition. The planting palette incorporates such usual suspects as sage, lavender, nettle and St John's Wort, alongside walnut, olive, almond and apple trees, as well as roses.

The formal aspects of the layout of this part of the garden bear certain recognisable Mauriéres and Ossart trademarks such as the use of square geometry, with four large and eight small beds, and a central linear rill. This neatly breaks up the space into distinct areas whilst a bi-secting arbour covered with twenty-two types of vine, provides an effective visual screen and a practical place for repose and reflection.

From this area the visitor progresses through what are described as the three Works - the Black, the White and the Red, symbolising periods of personal development, and distinctly differentiated from each other through the use of colour, light and enclosure.

The Work in Black represents the individuals birth and physical growth and utilises a reduced palette of black and green elements. Slate pathways lead between tall beech hedges creating a series of alleyways, the first empty, the second and third containing eleven pots. The Aeonium arboreum in the third passage providing striking sculptural counterpoints to the rhythmic motion through the space.

The dense, dark and slightly claustrophobic atmosphere of these spaces is dramatically contrasted with the Work in White, an enclosure filled with Miscanthus sinesis 'Variegatus' and Rosa 'Iceberg' and 'Snow Fairy', representing intellectual and emotional development.

A circular portal in the hedging projects the visitor in to the Work in Red, the garden of the soul and spiritual enlightenment planted with red roses. A circle of pomegranate trees frame a pond in the form of a six pointed star with a singular central fountain, representing the philosopher's stone, and the culmination of the journey from darkness to light, from the base to the precious.

Given that the garden is defined by the ideas it attempts to articulate, it undoubtedly requires a certain leap of faith to appreciate it's intent. Whilst certain areas provide habitable spaces, it is definitely less a place to linger than a performance in which each visitor is the central actor. However the deft design work of Mauriéres and Ossart manages to balance the conceptual with the corporeal, and succeeds in producing an individual and quirky work of artifice.

Mediterranean Modern Pt.2

2011-08-14T09:24:00.023+01:00

Whilst not as prevalent in garden or landscape design as it was in architecture, Modernism nonetheless gained significant ground through the work of a range of international designers in the early and mid parts of last century. Christopher Tunnard, Garrett Eckbo, Thomas Church, Pietro Porcinai, Luis Barragan and Roberto Burle Marx, all embodied Modernism's bold social vision and gave it expression through their designs in a variety of unique ways.

But an iconic work by a lesser heralded figure is the garden at Villa Noailles in Hyères, situated just 65 km east of Unité d'Habitation in Marseille. The house designed by Robert Mallet-Stevens for avant garde art patron Charles de Noailles, occupies an enviable position above the town with sweeping vistas of the Mediterranean's azure waters, which in it's heyday were enjoyed by the likes of Picasso, Man Ray, Dali and Bunuel. The garden, constructed in 1928, was designed by the landscape designer and architect Gabriel Gueverkian who had worked for Le Corbusier in Paris in the early 1920's.

Much in the spirit of the period it was created in, the garden's design is based upon geometrical abstraction, reducing the landscape to a series of coloured modules, mostly tiled with occasional outbursts of planting adding textural contrast. The design of the triangular site creates a flattened perspective, effectively reducing the 3D space to a 2D picture plane intended to be viewed from above, through especially framed viewing windows on the lawn terrace. The employment of such painterly strategies of line and plane removes any reference to the organic forms of nature, strongly stamping it with the mark of cultural artifice (perhaps somewhat ironically given that Charles de Noailles later became president of the French Horticultural Society and wrote the book 'Mediterranean Plants and Gardens' with Roy Lancaster).

The fact that it exists almost as an isolated promontory to the side of the property, with little to encourage entry or occupation, questions it's role in terms of conventional garden activities, reinforcing it's aesthetic role as a visual work. Such a rejection of function, shifts the form of the garden into the realm of decoration, or even ornament (a fundamental crime in the rulebook of Modernism!). The use of pattern and perspective shedding utilitarian concerns in favour of the visual, challenges traditional horticulturally defined notions of what a garden is supposed to be.

As such it fits nicely into Modernism's quest for novelty and to overturn the old order, but it also embodies the more playful aspects of Radical Post-Modernism which highlight surface, trompe l'oeil and the power of the image. This playful tension exposes the fact that the dividing line between the two movements is far from clear, suggesting that the underlying impetus of each is a questioning of orthodoxy, albeit expressed in different vernaculars. As French philosopher Jean-Francios Lyotard suggested in his seminal text on the subject 'The Postmodern Condition', "A work can only become modern if it is first postmodern. Postmodernism thus understood is not modernism at it's end but in the nascent state, and this state is constant".

Villa Noailles provides just such a sense of constancy, an enduring sense of continuity between two centuries, linking the radical tendencies of Modernism with the contemporary critical agenda of Post-Modernism, by creating a creative tension between the visual and the functional features of gardens and encouraging a new plurality of design languages.

Mediterranean Modern Pt.1

2011-08-12T22:53:00.018+01:00

By the end of the 20th century the high flying ideals of Modernism which had launched with dreams of a brave new world one hundred years earlier, had become rather grounded in the fin de siécle age of Post-Modern pluralism. To a large extent Modernism's progressive tendencies in architecture and art throughout the century, with their enlightenment drive to improve social organisation through creativity, ran aground in a socially fragmented era of global communication age, disenchanted with grand narratives.

Perhaps the most widely acknowledged failure of Modernism was in architecture's attempt to redefine living by using design as the blueprint for social organisation. The movement's high priest, Le Corbusier, laid out a series of manifestos in his books from the 1920's, 'Towards a new architecture' and 'The City of Tomorrow and it's Planning', employing an industrial vocabulary to suggest that homes would become 'machines for living' in a future golden age.

These ideas found idealistic purchase in the post-war years with enthusiastic public authority responses to designing the urban realm. Yet over the following few decades the combination of low quality materials and changes in the social fabric turned dream homes into nightmares, as concrete jungles of tower blocks and streets in the sky became poverty traps, creating geographic and political divides, as neatly expressed in J.G. Ballard's classic novel 'High Rise'.

Although the causes of such failures were actually manifold, it was often the architects who took the brunt of criticism. Indeed Le Corbusier's most notable social housing project Unité d'Habitation (also known as Citié Radieuse) in Marseille has suffered the vicissitudes of adoration and attack ever since it's construction. Built in 1947-53, the original intention of the block was to be a vertical garden city for industrial society, in which high density would allow liberation of the soil for nature. Obviously such urban aspirations were admirable in the era of post-war settlement when European reconstruction was funded by the Marshall Plan, but subsequent decades took their toll in terms of neglect. Today the block has a certain fashionable BoBo chic and an air of being a heritage treasure, with renovation being accorded due care.

Design-wise the modular bottle rack structural concept of the plan was conceived in terms of harmonious proportion, with all elements associated with the building, from exterior spaces to door handles, designed in relation to human scale, based upon the golden section and Fibonacci series.

Le Corbusier's idea was to create an overall system based upon natural laws governed by mathematics. Although given the severe geometry of the building the references to the structures underlying nature seem to be somewhat stretched, with the possible exception of the roof terrace.

Perhaps intended as a witty diversion from such rigid formality, a series of amorphous planters contrast strikingly with with the straight lines of the surrounding seating and pool, providing a little incongruous light relief. Almost a visual echo of the hills 5 miles in the distance surrounding the city, the planters suggest another vision of the future to that of Modernism's ambitious intentions, with their organic forms suggesting a dystopian world in which nature has reclaimed the constructed urban realm.

Although a sense of balance of the organic and synthetic is present, given that the material the planters are constructed from is beton brut (bare concrete), and also the fact that currently they are barren of any flora. Whether any appropriate planting could ever survived the sun baked site for any duration would indeed be a matter of speculation.

Or perhaps the planters reflect the subliminal aspects of Radical Post-Modernism lying in a pre-nascent state in the belly of the Modernist beast. They can be read as hints at a contextual counterpoint which plays off the wider landscape as an essential element of cultural habitats, mutely undermining the grandiose anthropocentric impositions that ultimately undermined the Modernist project.

The Long View

2011-08-02T00:11:00.001+01:00

The work of Richard Long provides a healthy antidote to the beloved and much overused mantra of garden designers 'the spirit of the place' which invokes an essentialist approach to creating place. As a pioneer in the fields of Conceptual and Land Art, Long has focused on the transitory and subjective elements of time and space which define the landscape, as encountered in his chosen form of practice - walking. Long has traversed the length and breadth of the UK and latterly many other parts of the globe in his process of exploration and documentation.

His meticulously crafted minimalist stone sculptures created in-situ in the landscape as well as inside galleries, create dialogues with their surrounding environments, whilst their respective forms of representation investigate the temporal notions of Here, Now and Then, within each context. But at the heart of Long's work is the solitary nature of experience and the means by which we communicate this with each other. The most obvious form of recourse is through language, a tool Long employs with a haiku-like economy and dictionary style succinctness, with his accounts of the walks he has undertaken. Descriptions of trajectories, weather conditions, objects encountered, geographical landmarks and the physical acts of the excursions themselves, create narratives of journeys and scenarios of place. Imbued with an ephemeral and solipsistic sense of proprietary, they question the materiality of site and give lie to fixed identities of location.

The journeys travelled join place to place, striking an accord with a contemporary sense of global connectedness. Yet far from the glamour of the digital age, the act of walking suggests a much more base enterprise, indeed a very fundamental means of transport and communication, and an embedded sense of rapport with the world. Through walking, Long decodes space, time, materials and movement to reveal both the similarities and the differences between landscapes.

His exhibition 'Human Nature' at Haunch of Venison roams as far afield as Spain, Switzerland, China and South Africa, as well as in his West Country 'home' environs of Dartmoor. Gathering together the various mediums he employs, presenting texts, sculpture, mud wall paintings, photographs, as well as stone sculptures. The show ably articulates his investigations into the temporal and spatial aspects of experiences which shape notions of place and our relationships with it.

The work of fellow traveller Hamish Fulton has traversed similar terrain over the years, charting in a similar manner to Long the process of walking across the landscape. '31 walks from Water to Water 1971-2010' at the Folkestone Triennial, catalogues a series of such walks with an aquatic theme, undertaken over his 40 year career, on an impressive large scale 5 x 4.6m metal sign.

Whilst A2 sized posters on various walls located around the town, linguistically map out walks of a more local nature, all having been completed in Fulton's native Kent county, in which Folkestone is located. Fittingly the street locations weave Fulton's walks into those of passing pedestrians creating their own urban trails, and their own personal narratives of place.

Seasonal Change

2011-07-25T10:52:00.024+01:00

Whilst the unseasonably early approach of warm weather in April this year may not have lasted long, it nonetheless had an effect on gardens across the country with blossoms and blooms bursting forth at a rapid rate, after a long hard winter. This spurt of premature pollination served not only to create horticultural confusion in the months that followed, but also to challenge designers of show gardens at Chelsea Flower Show, who had to prove their plant prowess by discarding spent stamens, and quickly substitute much of their intended floral structure for specimens in their prime. This resulted in a refreshing change, with many plants appearing in show gardens, which are not usually suitable for display in May.

But this climatic deviation seems also to be reflected the RHS flower shows this year in another manner, as the early impetus of design inspiration trailed off as the months and weather progressed. For whilst Chelsea and Hampton Court seemed to thrive, RHS Flower Show Tatton Park seemed but a shadow of it's former self. After an impressive event in 2010, this year's offering resembled more a country fair than a national exhibition of horticultural and design excellence. The lack of Gold medals awarded to show gardens reflected this, but whether this was due to exhibitors failing to rise to the occasion, or misjudged selection in the first place is uncertain.

The Visionary Gardens category launched at last year's show, had little titular insight to offer this time around. Conceptually weaker and lacking in construction finesse, the category failed to live up to its mandate. A notable exception to the rule was 'Do Not Step Over the Fence' by Jon Tilley of Dragonfly Design, whose positively pink design was visually show stopping. The simplicity of execution utilising a minimal palette of plants betrayed the gravity of the message it aimed to present.

Addressing the subject of HIV, the garden's design translated the biological structure of the virus into horticulture and hardscape. An irregular semi-sphere rockscape was threaded with lavender representing the fatty envelope out of which protruded pink powder coated steel balls reflecting the cellular matrix, and standard bay trees suggested the spikes which stick to the fatty membrane and fuse with the cells, allowing the virus to release HIV particles into it. Contained within a barrier of prophylactic intent made of pink latex rubber barrier, a strong safe sex message was made luridly clear.

Also of interest were the Sci-fi Mondrian stylings of 'Metamorphosis 2' by Peter Styles. Influenced by neo-noir film 'Sin City', the idea behind the garden was one of a monochromatic realm transformed into colourful display of flowering plants by a supposedly powerful energy source emitting from the earth through strands of red, yellow and green coloured energy. Despite such flights of fantasy the modular design scheme featuring clipped Box, Cineraria and Ophiopogon, interlinked by plastic tubes, made for a strong display with bold colours. Although the execution of the idea could have done with a closer eye to detail to counter the rather pre-loved appearance of the woodwork.

Winner of Best Show Garden, 'Save a Life, Drop the Knife', was a Ministry of Justice project produced in association with HMP Everthorpe. Addressing issues of knife crime, the garden proposed a metaphorical journey of transformation and rehabiliation, expresed through a tripartate design divided into areas representing firstly, the dead end of crime, then prison, and finally a brighter harmonius future, suggested through a verdant area planted with Achillea, Hosta, Sedum, Catalpa and Jasminum. Slightly over prolific in the number of species employed, the garden nonetheless created a colourful and confident articulation of its message.

Although perhaps heavy handed and a bit overworked in symbolism, the quality of construction and strong planting combinations well justified its deserved accolade and public acclaim, setting it apart from others in the show. Potential exhibitors for 2012 could do worse than to take note of it as a bench mark for attention to detail, in order to return the show to its former glory.

Out of Sight

2011-07-10T22:20:00.034+01:00

Hidden off the beaten track at the Folkestone Triennial 2011, sits Spanish artist Christina Iglesias' hortitectural hybrid work 'Towards the Sound of Wilderness', perched upon the cliffs above the beach and English Channel.

Located on the overgrown ramparts of a Martello Tower (a small circular fort erected for defence purposes during the Napoleonic Wars), the work is accessed precariously by a narrow path cut through the undergrowth of brambles and weeds. Upon reaching a box-like building, viewers find the surrounding wilderness reflected in the folly's mirrored stainless steel walls, and replicated in barbed textural relief on the interior of the structure in resin mouldings.

A window at the far end of the room allows the previously obscured tower to be viewed, but not in the full glory of the architectural anomaly that one would expect to see, but rather in a state of neglect, covered in a dense mass of climbers and foliage.

The work presents a battle between architecture and nature, in which the latter has the upper hand, evidenced in both a literal sense by the overwhelming growth on the tower, and in an artificial manner through the installation's reflective exterior which serves to camouflage itself. The act of disappearance is conceptually reinforced through the play between the natural and the cultural, the real and the simulacrum. Yet a question mark hangs over the work as to whether this is a passive defeat in the form of a post-apocalyptic back to nature scenario, or rather a pro-active adaptive strategy of cryptic colouration for survival.

The inversion of exterior and interior spaces, through the employment of the detailed resin walls feature in of many of Iglesias' vegetation room installations, which have appeared both in outdoor and gallery situations. The small enclosed space with it's dark Triffid-like entwined creepers is a hortophobic's worst nightmare, playfully invoking a sinister twist on Laura Ashley floral wallpaper. Hinting at the density and menace of a medieval forest and welcoming it inside, it presents a neat reversal of the traditional hortus conclusus intended to keep the wilderness at bay, displacing the safety and tranquiltiy of a garden and effecting a novel take on the idea of the outside room.

Lighting up the show

2011-07-06T04:41:00.050+01:00

Martin Creed's Turner Prize winning exhibit in 2001, entitled 'The Lights Going On and Off' caused a great deal of controversy for it's minimal and obvious simplicity. The installation's literal juxtaposition of idea, title, and act, formed a tight and indisputable unity, whilst on a meta-art level it illuminated the basic phenomenological premise upon which vision and consequently the gallery experience is predicated.

Whilst the show gardens in the Conceptual Gardens category at RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show are not quite conceptual in the rigorous art sense of the term as expressed by Creed, or indeed as extremely concise in their execution, they have nonetheless provided a degree of controversy since their debut at Hampton Court in 2006.

However over the years the eye catching appeal of the category has done much to win the hearts and minds of the public, who have warmed to the notion that show gardens can be more than simply a floral display. Indeed 'It's Hard to See' by Rebecca Butterworth, Victoria Pustygina and Ludovica Ginanneschi in 2007 was widely heralded as the best exhibit at the show. A growing recognition of the fact that all themed show gardens are metaphorical facsimiles to a greater or lesser degree, allows for those of a conceptual bent to be read in a similar manner, and as a consequence the variety and styles of gardens in the category has increased. This year an apparent theme was manifest in the gardens on display, and perhaps appropriately redolent of Creed, the theme was vision.

Mixing the on/off simplicity of Creed with the hedonistic appeal of a nightclub, 'The Bright Idea' by Tom Harfleet provided a central focal point for the category, despite having to work against the surrounding visual interference from the surrounding parts of the show. The work offered a neat interplay between ideas and their biological genesis, reflected in the dynamic pulsations of lights coursing there way along the garden through the planting. Inspired by the pulsations of the brain in operation, the almost infinite permutations for programming allowed by the software, the sequences of flashing lights could be varied to differing effect. Colourful bedding plants took centre stage as they did in the 'Pansy Project' garden Harfleet did with his brother Paul last year, interspersed between swathes of Stipa tenuissima.

The form of the work evoked Sci-fi movie connotations, the large LED studded tubes weaving themselves along the length of the garden even bearing a surprising resemblance to the spice worm form David' Lynch's film 'Dune'. Bringing together the relationships between nature, technology, and biology, it probed the nature/nurture debate and the symbiotic relationships involved in our relationship with the environment, as well as providing provocative design directions for the future.

Hugo Bugg, winner of Young Designer of the Year at Tatton Park last year, took a more hands on approach, or at least invited the public to do so. A work of seductively reduced chromatic appeal, 'CoppaFeel!' presented a spatial journey in which visitors are encouraged to reconsider themselves through a myriad of reflections. The hall of mirrors provided a direct and powerful way of driving home the message of breast cancer awareness for charity CoppaFeel! and their attempt to raise consciousness.

The use of bright and bold pink and blue pop colours for the enclosed structure complimented the stone and wood which accompanied it and contrasted nicely with the Buxus balls surrounding it. Invocations to look and feel took the form of text adorning the structure and pathway through the work, suggesting a wordplay between experience and idea, the physical construct itself and the message it represents. The garden's eye candy appeal made it seem more direct than truly conceptual, but it was nonetheless a well realised and constructed space, inviting closer inspection, as was it's intention.

This year's Best Conceptual Garden accolade went to Dan Lobb's subtle work 'Landscape Obscured'. The idea behind it was quite missable at first glance, given that the garden appeared to be a relatively sparse and floral free plot, but further investigation revealed a concept of cavernous intent, featuring an underground fungal realm of various forms of mushrooms growing in colonies. These were visible either by peering through a gap opened up by the slightly tilted square of turf under which they resided, or through periscope style portals surrounding the work.

Reflecting upon aspects of biodiversity which are often unobserved, the work's land art minimalism evoked a surprisingly carnivalesque sense of joyful exploration, through it's mycological 'What the Butler Saw' style format.

If the link between coneptual gardens and art needed to be reaffirmed in any way, then Melissa Jolly's garden 'Picturesque' made it in a bold and literal manner. Drawing upon the history of modern art, she created a gallery of well known artworks rendered in horticultural form. Interpretations of Claude Monet, David Hockney, Henri Rousseau, Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian and Damien Hirst formed a novel exhibition of finely crafted detail bringing 2D images to life.

'Excuse me while I kiss the Sky' by Anoushka Feiler took the visual aspect of gardens to another level through the inversion of the ground plane and the sky. Suggesting a boundless space, mirrored surrounds pulled the clouds down to body level, whilst suspended plants in pots reached downwards challenging gravity, creating a hallucinogenic hortus conclusus.

Hampton Court Palace Flower Show 2011

2011-07-04T23:43:00.072+01:00

Hampton Court Flower Show has always played something of second fiddle to Chelsea's kudos, despite it being a bigger show. Sometimes this has been reflected in the scale and scope of the show gardens on display, perhaps understandably so given the difference in budgets between the shows, but often also in terms of design and imagination. Yet there appears to be something of a sea change this year which is playing a role in distinctly defining the difference between the sibling shows. Rather than competing with Chelsea's focus on tasteful design, the zeitgeist at Hampton Court for 2011 indicates a turn towards an open embrace and celebration of artifice.

Imagination has been given the upper hand over horticultural veracity, with the show gardens reflecting a self awareness of their stage set inauthenticity, which has been expediently utilised to novel effect. Perhaps this is a case of mission creep from the Conceptual Gardens category, with such gardens now popping up interspersed among the regular show gardens, as well as inspiring quirky and playful elements within them. Or perhaps it is also due to the fact that Hampton Court designers are afforded the luxury of applying wider brush strokes of colour and texture than their Chelsea counterparts, who are restricted to a spring palette of plants which inevitably determines much of the horticultural design of the gardens. As a consequence colour is this year's dominant trope writ large across the show, both in planting and design detail, giving it a bright and bold pop feel, with the pervasive presence of pink wonderfully clashing with purple, orange, yellow and green in a riotous manner.

'Control the Uncontrollable' by Jill Foxley saw the return in a scaled down form of the iconic pink tap water feature from her garden last year, complimented by a hydraulically rotated globe. Taking brave from the shock tactic success of the colour the pigment has been plied across the whole of this year's effort, punctuated with accents of Achillea's and Kniphofia's and Clematis to dramatic effect.

The Japanese stylings of the 'Virtual Reality Garden...?' by Bruce Woodstock created a reflective environment which muses upon a number of contemporary garden trends influenced by changing lifestyles. The idea of the garden as a retreat from the pressures of a media saturated world is rotated 180º with a spherical folly at the back of the plot, ironically replete with large screen TV. Whilst low maintenance is taken quite literally to a new stylish extreme with resin bonded gravel raked neatly into circular and curvaceous patterns.

Similarly spherical, 'The World Vision Garden' by Flemans Warland Design was playfully duplicitous in it's singular intent. The key feature of the installation was a large reflective pool containing two grass domes, one concave the other convex, metaphorically symbolising the economic disparity between the global north and south. An appeal to a unified future is suggested through the reflected semi sphere forming a whole with buoyant mound, in a nice visual ploy

Caroline Comber and Petra Horackova's garden 'I am, because of who we are' took Best in Show with their fluid airy stylings of grasses and birch trees, woven into interlocking circles suggesting the interconnectedness of social relationships. Semi-circular walls of cor-ten offset the planting recalling the material and horticultural predilections of Chelsea regular Tom Stuart-Smith.

Paul Martin's 'Vestra Wealth's Gray's Garden' also tipped it's hat to Stuart-Smith, 'borrowing' his cor-ten water troughs from The Telegraph 2006 garden at Chelsea, surrounded by some effective texturally contrasted planting. The garden's inspiration was seminal modernist furniture designer Eileen Gray, which was expressed through a disproportionately large pavilion as a centrepiece, redolent more of the aspirations of contemporary Tasteful Modernism than it's Mid-Century precursor.

Whilst post-industrial landscapes have been an important area of interest for many designers, as the work of Latz + Partner in Germany, and installations at Bilbao Jardin festival will attest, the minimal palette of textures and materials utilised in 'Diamonds and Rust ' bear the unmistakable hallmark of RHS show stalwart and arch conceptualist Tony Smith. As with all his work, such minimalism drives home a simple idea, delivered in a concise and eye catching manner. The motive of the work is the different time frames of geoglical development and human endeavour and the myriad ways in which they are intertwined. The occasional plumes of smokebelch drifting from the stacks adding a nice dynamic touch to an otherwise static ensemble.

The life aquatic as displayed in 'The Naked Garden' by David Domoney was a playful take on alternative soilless planting methods, providing not only a top down but also a bottom up view of horticultural splendour. Whilst transparency was the proposed theme of the garden, it unwittingly made an ironic statement on traditional garden centre culture by suggesting a unique way of integrating the dual fascination of said retail emporiums with both gardens and aquariums.

William Quarmby managed to hit a new low for the show with his subterranean inclinations in the 'Heathers in Harmony' garden filled with the titular plants. Appearing in the Small Gardens category in which novelty is all too often used to slight effect, Quarmby has followed up his Artisan Garden at Chelsea earlier this year with another inspired installation. The sunken garden defined itself from the others surrounding it as an assured design of form and quality construction, raising the bar for the category in the future.

Inner Space

2011-07-01T07:40:00.075+01:00

Following last year's rather unsuccessful attempt at horticultural co-option in Jean Nouvel's pavilion at the Serpentine Gallery in London's Kensington Gardens, it is certainly a welcome relief to see inspired planting as not only an integrated part of this year's project, but quite literally at the heart of it.

As is the premise for all who are invited to design a pavilion at the Serpentine, this is the first constructed building in the UK for Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, whose name may not have quite the familiar ring as previous participants such as Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid and Rem Koolhaas. Unsurprising perhaps since he keeps a low profile working for a select few clients from his studio in the small mountain village of Halderstein in eastern Switzerland. But his reputation in the architecture world is nonetheless most formidable. A winner of the highly esteemed architectural accolade The Pritzker Prize, his work engages in a contemplative dialogue with it's surrounds, and fittingly includes the Brother Klaus Field Chapel in Eifel, Germany, and Saint Benedict Chapel in Sumvitg, Switzerland, as well as Thermal baths in Vals and other local residential projects.

Zumthor's pavilion entitled 'Hortus conclusus', as the name suggests, plays with the traditional idea of the garden as an enclosure against the world surrounding it, an interiorscape of safety, beauty and reflective tranquility. It utilises this ur-garden topology to investigate the relationship between the built and the natural realms, the architectural and the horticultural. Indeed Zumthor sees the very process of it's construction as an essential act of place making, "A garden is the most intimate landscape ensemble I know of. It is close to us. In it we cultivate the plants we need. A garden requires care and protection. And so we encircle it, we defend it and fend for it. We give it shelter. The garden turns into a place."

Zumthor has spoken of his inspiration for such a structure in relation to his fond recollections of fenced vegetable plots on farms in the Alps. Yet enclosed gardens have a long and distinguished pedigree from the original Persian gardens in the 6th century BC, through Islamic riyads reflecting paradise, the Edenic myth, the cloistered enclosures of medieval monasteries, and right through to today's urban dwellings. They have always represented a controlled and considered response to environments of either over or under abundance, as well as the vicissitudes of nature from which they provide security. Something that is etymologically reflected in the Old English word 'geard' meaning a woven fence creating an enclosure.

It is the monastic angle which is to the fore in the pavilion design. From the outside it appears to be a monolithic black box, dropped into the rolling parkland surroundings. The minimalism of the architectural structure with it's black painted burlap walls provides an unassuming modesty, but this is in effect a device which sets up a dialectic between the distinct garden vernacular of Kensington Gardens and the one inside the structure. The experience of the work is a journey from the green horizontal lawns punctuated with large vertical trees outside through a black, dark, claustrophobic corridor, into a riotous wilderness of colour, highlighting the sensory and textural qualities of the plants. Entrance is via doorways which open into a continuous peripheral corridor, punctuated by bursts of natural light from the exterior and interior doorways. The sense of compression generated by the the corridor accentuates the sense of release as one enters the cloistered interior and is confronted with the plant packed garden.

In previous years the architecture of the pavilion has often been designed as to create a forum for events including the now infamous weekend-long discussion, performance and participation Marathon happenings organised by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-Director of Exhibitions and Programmes at the Serpentine Gallery. But Zumthor makes a break with this tradition, providing no open central nexus, no point of obvious congregation, with the main body of the inner space occupied by the garden instead. A blue bench rims the perimeter whilst scattered silver tables and chairs are dispersed around the edges of the 30m x 3m garden, providing spaces which seem more intimate rather then communal, but in fact strike a successful balance between the two.

But it is to the planting itself that all eyes are inevitably focused. Despite never having collaborated with Piet Oudolf before, Zumthor the Dutch master plantsman to fill the core of his edifice with a sense of horticultural wonder. Aware of his work on The High Line in New York, Zumthor's assumption that Oudolf could meet his brief, has paid off admirably, but this is less a design issue than a question of ethos and approach.

Zumthor stresses the importance of plants to the greater life cycle processes on a planetary level as well as on a very direct personal one. "Plants embody everything that I like to have around me: presence, personality, character. They are supple and therefore strong, yet softly-spoken and gentle; they are fragrant and delicate; they have movement, colour, structure, scale and proportion. Plants are large in form, tiny in detail and always a single whole. Plants are beautiful in sun and rain, in tropical heat, fighting immortal cold, dancing in the wind, buffeted by storms."

Whilst obviously on quite a different scale to The High Line project, and indeed other Oudolf works such as Trentham Gardens in Staffordshire, and RHS Wisley in Surrey, the pavilion garden nonetheless exhibits his distinctive style, which has gradually become familiar with British gardenistas over recent years. As such it is a welcome public recognition for the New Perennial movement's inroads into dethroning the traditional rule of Arts and Crafts style herbaceous borders, which have dominated garden the length and breadth of the country for the past century.

The plant list includes a trademark Oudolf mix of perennials and grasses creating a seemingly spontaneous blend. Key plants include, Angelica archangelica, Astrantia major 'Claret', Cimicifuga ramosa 'James Compton', Deschampsia 'Goldschleier', Eupatorium maculatum 'Riesenschirm', Euphorbia 'Kings Caple', Geranium psilostemon 'Patricia, Iris sibirica 'Perry's Blue', Liriope x 'Vedriensis', Molinia litoralis 'Transparent', Monarda 'Jacob Cline', Persicaria amplexicaulis 'Alba', and Stachys officinalis 'Hummelo'.

Given that the relationship between architecture and gardens is often one that is ill considered, the pavilion suggests, a more symbiotic coexistence between the two disciplines, which synergistically enhance each other rather than compete. But the real success is perhaps in the fact that two fine craftsmen who deal in their respective practices with making long term embedded places, have managed to communicate their ideas so concisely in a temporary format.

A coincidental synchronicity seems to be at play at the Serpentine, linking Zumthor and Oudolf's work with the installations inside the gallery by Italian Arte Povera pioneer Michelangelo Pistoletto whose work entitled 'The Third Paradise' in his solo exhibition 'The Mirror of Judgement' investigates the possibilities of the union of nature and artifice. Pistoletto's reflections on such a relationship neatly echo the ideas embodied in the pavilion, "originally you know, paradise was not a religious concept. It comes from an ancient Persian word meaning 'protected garden' - a place where you live well defended from the desert all around. We should see our planet as a garden which we must defend."

The Line of Beauty

2011-06-30T10:07:00.072+01:00

In Ian Kitson's presentation at the Society of Garden Designers Spring Conference in April, he introduced a new genre to the armoury of contemporary design styles, albeit one that applies uniquely to his own work. Serpentiniousness is the moniker coined by Kitson and horticultural installation artist Tony Heywood. The term aptly describes the sinuous curves Kitson has been evolving throughout his design career, which have now resulted in a sophisticated curvaceous language of form.

The ebb and flow of the serpentine in garden design history has an entwined relationship with the straight and narrow. Sweeping away the formality of the High Baroque garden with it's stylised Cartesian geometry, the English Landscape movement replaced it with a reverence for the natural flows and contours of the countryside. Charles Bridgeman and William Kent work's were early excursion in the style which reached it's apotheosis in the idealised English landforms of Capability Brown.

Whilst striking a critical note of caution in relation to his predecessors, Humphry Repton called for a contrast between formality, immediately surrounding the house, and serpentine sweeps in the larger landscape inspired by Hogarth's aesthetic device the 'Line of Beauty', as elaborated upon in the 1753 treatise 'Analysis of Beauty'.

In the 20th century the California school of Thomas Church and Garrett Eckbo rejected the constraints of the symmetrical, combining curves with the novelty of newly available hardscaping materials for the domestic market. The post-war designs celebrated a new found consumer freedom embracing outdoor lifestyles, and rejecting the authoritarian appeal of straight lines with their implications of the recent militaristic past. Church's work at El Novillero at Sonoma CA (1947-49), is both a landmark in garden history an icon of 20th century design.

Although perhaps it is Brazilian modernist Roberto Burle Marx who is most renown for his reverence of the non-rectilinear, and whose wavy works hits new heights of abstraction in landscape design.

Kitson's Serpentinousness is a distinct style which places this historical trajectory within a very personal vernacular. Perhaps the pinnacle of his output to date is a large garden at Alfriston in East Sussex, which was open to the public as part of Open Gardens, an event featuring gardens designed by SGD members, in celebration of the society's 30th anniversary.

The garden which occupies an area 80m x 40m is part of an overall redevelopment of the property by owners Geoff and Anne Shaw who purchased the property in 2006. The trails and tribulations of the inception and construction of Kitson's design was documented on an episode of the Channel 4 series 'The Landscape Man' presented by Matthew Wilson, which revealed the various planning setbacks and budget fluctuations encountered en route.

At the top of the garden a circular sunken seated dining area adorned with a few planting highlights of Buxus, Salvia nemorosa 'Caradona' and Alchemilla erythropoda, nestles close to the house with the surrounding walls giving it a sense of secure intimacy. It's entrenched location affords it no vistas out to the wider surrounds, but conversely allows it to disappear from view as one traverses the rest of the site. A bottleneck exit funnels through to another enclosed sunken circular area intended as a more informal seating arena with views across the surrounding South Downs. The use of irregularly shaped slabs of Purbeck limestone in the path contrast nicely with the flint walls which meet them as they meander down the slope. The materials create a dialogue with the Grade 2 listed house, and are fine contemporary update on traditional country garden materials, working well to embed the garden into bigger picture of the landscape.

But what really provides the shake appeal is the manner in which the design neatly deals with the dramatic level change of the slope upon which it is situated. The pathway not only provides a snaking contour down the side of the hill, but by being inset into the ground also creates a sense of spatial enclosure in which movement down the path becomes a motion of compression and then release as the path then winds it's way down towards a natural pool, creating an effect of opening up to the surrounding environment.

The path neatly morphs into an iroko hardwood board walk replete with recliners, which crosses the breadth of the pond before eventually appearing to disappear into the depths of the waters, in a nice optical illusion. The pool was a welcome later addition to the original plan, and replaced a former incongruous tennis court.

The planting design by fellow SGD member Julie Toll, employs a palette of grasses and perennials to maximise the effects of both colour and texture, whilst being drought tolerant and chalk loving. Key plants in the scheme include Achillea 'Moonshine', Anemanthele lessoniana, Carex flagellifera and Stipa gigantea, providing verticals and accents to contrast and compliment the sinuous hardscaping, adding another dimension to Kitson's distinct serpentinious strokes and impressive work of contemporary design.

Bilbao Jardin 2011

2011-06-25T10:09:00.089+01:00

The opening of the Frank Gehry designed Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao in 1997 put the city on the international art map and created the architectural phenomenon which came to be known as the 'Bilbao effect', in which museums across the globe sought to raise their profiles and increase their footfall through the construction of starchitect designed iconic buildings. Perhaps due to the plethora of museums which have followed, Bilbao has faced increased competition for the art tourist market, but the vision and impetus behind the Guggenheim, to put culture at the heart of the city, has not faltered.

Over the past 15 years the Basque city has been involved in a comprehensive and well considered design driven regeneration of it's post-industrial landscape, which seeks to place green spaces at the heart of civic life. The Bilbao council's commitment to creating parks and gardens has been nothing short of impressive. The statistics speak for themselves, with 1m² green space per city inhabitant 10 years ago, the council has exceeded the EU recommendation of 12m², to provide 18m² for local residents. The result is a user friendly urban realm where design of the highest standard has been employed, with an eye for detail and quality of finish as essential ingredients of every project.

In keeping with their green aspirations, Bilbao Jardin 2011, organised by Bilbao council and local arts body Fundación Bilbao 700, marks the third appearance of the biennial citywide garden festival. Following the success of the previous two excursions into the interface of art, design and gardens, the festival presents a variety of garden installations embedded into the urban fabric at various locations around the city.

Inspired by the conceptually based International Festival of Gardens at Chaumont-sur-Loire and the Gardens at Cornerstone Sonoma, the festival organisers transferred the idea of temporary garden installations into the city's streets and parks, in an attempt to engage the public with ideas about gardens and the important roles they play, in a very direct and visual way.

The show runs over six weeks from late May until early July and features installations in every district of the city, designed by landscape architects, garden designers, architects and multidisciplinary teams. The majority of participants are Basque or Spanish, but the international mix is increasing with entrants from Italy, France, Portugal, Denmark and even as far afield as Costa Rica.

Selection of twenty works is via an international competition, whilst an invitation is extended to three celebrity practitioners from various artistic disciplines to also contribute. This year guest exhibits include 'Hands', a visually concise but surreal installation by actor and theatre director Angel Pavlovsky, Landscape architect Benedetta Tagliabue's parterre of bedding plants 'Metal Rabbit 2011 Rainbow' situated outside the Guggenheim creating a dialogue with Jeff Koons' floral dog, and 'Alice's Burrow', a tableau take on Lewis Carroll by Basque author Kimen Uribe.

Once the works are completed a judging process takes place to determine the top three exhibits, the first place winner being bestowed with an opportunity to create or revamp an existing public space. The best in show accolade this year went to 'HaziheziHasi (GrowEducateStart)' by the Basque team of MEI. Naroa Oleaga, Ula Iuretagoiena, Lurkoi, Maite Barandika and Sabina Arteta. The tabletop garden design has an educational purpose incorporating a semi-enclosed wooden environment dressed with a micro society of companion planting.

[(Graffiti) Garden]³ by another Basque collective featuring Urtzi Arteagoitia, Mikel Sarriegi and Igor Rezola were runners up with their intriguing foray into living graffiti and political sloganeering. Incorporating a controversial political slogan from the Franco era painted onto a whitewashed willow wall, the work reflects on the role of memory in the interplay of past and present, and the ephemeral nature of social discourse. This is all given a real-time dynamic as the willow stakes sprout shoots and start to grow, covering the graffiti over the course of the show.

Third place went to 'In Praise of Shadows' by Valencia duo Sergio Garcia-Gascó & Ann Santacreu, who drawing inspirations from Japanese author Junichiro Tamizaki's classic titular paean to the subtle details of everyday Japanese life. Utilising a light box installation with a horticultural tableau, illuminated by a skylight and pierced holes in the wooden structure, which subtly intersperse light and shade. The result is a meditative work reflecting upon the balance between interiors and exteriors, and Eastern and Western cultures.

'pixel[Green] 'is a physical representation of the core digital visual unit, transforming the virtual into the real. Andalusian David Pérez Roca's installation utilises a minimal palette of green shades juxtaposing horizontally layered squares of grass with the vertical stems of centrally planted trees.

Forstudio from Portugal delivered a nice take on minimal simplicity and the transitory nature of gardens in their work 'Purple Daedalus'. Playing upon the Greek myth of the Minotaur's labyrinth in Crete, the installation utilises a Donald Judd style form through the regular placement of a series of plastic construction bags, each one containing modular plantings of lavender. The contrast of similarity and difference in the structure of the garden opens up myriad avenues of circulation, creating a multiplicity of personal pathways and perspectives for visitors to experience.

Reflecting upon the city's recent industrial past, François Travert from France played with old railway tracks in 'Post Factory' to create a simple yet effective linear plantscape.

Perhaps the most effective use of public space which integrated the existing with the transitory installation was 'Plant Cave' by TallerDe2, which neatly frames a street bench with a stage set of crimson carpeting and ceiling of suspended air plants (Tillandsia Usneoides). The simple contrast of colour and form combined with the utilitarian features making an immediately arresting installation.

A more frivolous note was struck by ' 'Uncork the Landscape' by Basque team Lorena Torres, Gaizka Zuazo and LASUMA Paisajistas which created a fine bottlescape divided by cork partitions. Although closer inspection revealed the more serious manner in which the idea of' 'the good life' is entangled in the relationship between agriculture and urban lifestyles, whilst at the same time, playfully suggesting new vernacular of recycled design.

Bilbao itself was the focus of Monika Anaut, Arantza and Ainara Sertutxa's piece 'In the Background, The City', in which three structural frames of black metal and tape, were planted up with bright orange and purple Crysthanthemums. The installation's pictorial portals encourage the viewer to view the city, considering the everyday from a new perspective and reflect upon the relationship between natural and built environments and their permanent or temporary durations.

The work perhaps most succinctly encapsulates the ethos of the festival and the council's vision for the future, in which gardens are essential elements of a contemporary sophisticated city.

Continental drift

2011-06-09T21:41:00.031+01:00

The debut appearance in London of the Latin American art show Pinta, provided an opportunity for galleries from across the continent to present their artists in the capital. Yet ironically some of the most interesting art on display had little to do with their origins, but rather reflected the global altermodern world of the contemporary art scene.

Mexican artist Alejandro Pintado's series 'The Planning of Randomness' is a fine example of this multi-layered approach which not only crosses continents, but also centuries, juxtaposing different art historical references, drawing parallels, weaving connections and and creating post-colonial critical narratives. Pintado's fascination with his native landscape and it's historical depictions has in the past provided a basis for his practice. But since relocating to London he has employed an outsider's eye to create this series of works which meditates upon the problematics of landscape representation in relation to the English countryside.

The critical thrust of his series aims to illuminate the cultural construction of the 'natural' environment, and particularly the evocations of bucolic bliss entailed in the idea of the picturesque. Reflecting on the manner in which designers William Kent and Capability Brown physically re-sculpted the landscape, inspired by a classical aesthetic of idealised ruralism, Pintado, investigates the forms of national identity which they in turn helped to construct.

As such the works, sketched in charcoal on unprimed canvas with three dimensional acrylic interventions, highlight the cross referenced layers of historically constructed meaning which exist between painting and the landscape. Pictorially they nod to 18th century engravings and the work of Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin, whose paintings were key markers for the English landscape movement. Further reference suggests the paintings of Gainsborough and Constable, whose romanticised works further reinforced the structural relationships between place, class, ideology and identity, and which continue to inform ongoing interactions with the English landscape today.

The acrylic threads self consciously employed by Pintado as both objects and representations, give the works a spatial web-like quality, which along with small sculptural castings upon the floor, turn the exhibition space into an installation. The space operates as a network of complex pictorial and physical trajectories, linking relationships between past and present, paintings and spectator, in an effective interplay of real and idealised environments.

The Theology of Geometry

2011-06-07T22:13:00.123+01:00

A sense of almost religious anticipation surrounded the appearance of Spanish garden designer Fernando Caruncho at the Garden Museum in London. Perhaps somewhat appropriately, the museum is housed in the former church of St Mary's on Lambeth Palace Road, providing Caruncho with an illuminated stained glass window backdrop for his presentation, all heightening the fervour of the garden world cognoscenti in attendance. The affair certainly proved to be a case of preaching to the converted, who lapped up his sumptuous images and semi-mystical proclamations with a fanatical reverence, in a presentation which fused the shaman with the showman.

Caruncho is a master of ordered visions, his bold clean lines and minimal planting schemes, based upon simple geometry and a carefully defined sense of spatial proportion, are finely crafted works. Coveted by many in the garden world, they embody aspirational qualities of culture and style, the influence of which can be evidenced in the many contemporary facsimiles produced by exponents of Tasteful Modernism. Images of his works, gracing many a glossy page, are seductive and enticing, yet the explanations of his design aesthetic and approach are all too often obfuscated by a form of poetical metaphysics. Given his biography this is perhaps unsurprising, for he switched his academic endeavours to garden design after initial studies in philosophy, and the insights he garnered from the writings of classical Greek philosophers are to be found today at the root of his ideas about gardens.

In architecture conjecture about abstract ideas and how they relate to buildings is commonplace, as can be evidenced in the work of practitioners such as Rem Koolhaas, Bernard Tschumi and Daniel Libeskind, amongst many others. Even landscape architects are not affraid to dip their toes into the icy waters of theory when investigating approaches to civic space. James Corner and his practice Field Operations, responsible for the High Line and Fresh Kills projects in New York, being a fine example. Yet outside of show gardens and a few private spaces, theoretical ideas largely remain anathema to the garden world, in which abstract ideas are derided as having no accord with green fingered dirt digging.

So in many ways, Caruncho's ambition to provide his accomplished work with a conceptual backbone is something to be welcomed. Which is why it is disappointing that he chooses such a dubious cloak of rhetoric in which to clothe it. Many of his ruminations on gardens and their role throughout the development of culture and civilisation, such as the "garden cannot exist without memory" and that they are a "meditation on the origin of the world and our own origin" retain a certain decipherable integrity under scrutiny. But others such as gardens are a "collective act of love" and a "mirror of ourself" resound as the emperor's empty words. His zen-like insight that "one lily in the middle of the room is a garden" offers no serious insight into design or horticulture, whilst the snappy soundbite paraphrasing Andre Malraux, "the 21st century will be the century of the garden or will not be' echoes with Andre Breton's declaration in the Surrealist manifesto that "Beauty will be convulsive or not at all". The oblique manner of such pronouncements pre-emptively dissuades any form of investigation or deeper discussion, providing an opaque linguistic fog, which whilst seductive for those easily impressed, does little to further a critical approach to design.

Likewise his adoption of the moniker 'gardener' rather than 'designer', may strike many in the traditional British gardening world as ironic, given that the minimal deployment of plants in his largely evergreen static sculptural designs can often seem to be almost hortiphobic attempts to deny the dynamics and vicissitudes of nature. But to be fair it is intended to indicate the considered role which designers have in developing deeper relationships with the environment they interact with. Unfortunately such hubristic hyperbole serves to alienate a great percentage of the garden world and negatively reconfirms incorrect assumptions about designers and ivory towers.

His appeal to the universality of gardens throughout history, and geometry as a defining feature and ubiquitous force behind them, is undoubtedly not without foundation. But such assertions require justification not mystification. For whilst the attraction to idea that the 'truths' of antiquity are omnipresent is a powerful one, such historical privileging ignores the complexities and contradictions we have learned from science, mathematics and philosophy over the past two millennia. Geometry is a language through which we interpret the world around us, and as developments in neuroscience suggest such constructs are tools developed from the relationship between hard wiring and the external events we navigate, rather than a priori Platonic forms. Recent revelations from physics concerning the multidimensional realms of string theory reveal that the universe is much more complex than we ever considered it to be in the past, and the discovery of topological manifolds in mathematics has revised Euclidean geometry with a plethora of new forms. Whilst these changes may not yet have made redundant set squares and rules, and have little practical application on the ground when dealing with a physical site, they reflect the increasingly sophisticated models we now have of the the world around us. The digital age has been profoundly reconfiguring our perception and experience of space, with the most manifest design developments in this respect coming from the virtual imaginations of architects armed with software packages that were unimaginable twenty years ago. The works of Zaha Hadid and Frank Gehry continue to radically redefine notions of proportion and harmony, as they shape the urban environment. And surely the time is immienent when this approach also manifests itself in novel ways in the world of garden design.

The classical geometry promoted by Caruncho for it's simplicity and beauty, obviously still has a strong appeal, but it should be understood as an aesthetic not an imperative. It's deployment cannot avoid being embodied with layers of self aware cultural reference, and values of aspirational social status. Certainly it is a useful, and indeed essential tool for designers to employ, but it is no longer the only pencil in the case.

Another discomforting aspect of Caruncho's presentation was placing his work in a "tradition of heroic landscapes", a grand lineage of European garden history, which he suggests combines ideas from Greek, Roman and Islamic cultures, and can be evidenced in gardens stretching from Alhambra to Blenheim. Such esteemed company is impressive, but quite what bestows the parallels between Capability Brown's masterpieces and his own is unclear, and was a topic he failed to elucidate further in the Q&A session. Such a blue-blooded garden lineage appears to set his work apart from that of other contemporary practioners, suggesting that it is distinguished by a type of transcendental pedigree, rather than part of the contemporary design world. Furthermore such a Eurocentric vision seems somewhat at odds with universalist assertions that the "garden is man's homeland", by ignoring garden histories and cultures from outside the Mediterranean area.

Perhaps Caruncho's approach is understandable if read as a form of catholic mysticism, something which may be borne out by his statement that it will be in a "garden where God will make himself manifest one day". Or possibly it is a strategic marketing strategy for the Caruncho brand, in which he is presented as type of guru dispensing obscure aphorisms. Indeed a business approach was quite evident in the heavy handed use of copyright symbols on all of the images in his presentation. For whilst the universalism of geometry and the language of gardens may well be open source, obviously the intellectual property of his creations is not. Protectionist approaches in the creative world are commonplace and understandable, but the fact that such credit didn't seem to be extended to the loop of Debussy's classic 'Clair de Lune' which soundtracked the presentation, seemed slightly contradictory.

Whether Caruncho's weighty proclamations actually attract the coterie of wealthy patrons he produces highly stylised and refined gardens for, was a subject left unaddressed at the event. But it is clear that his creative output will ultimately be measured by the gardens he actually designs rather than the metaphysical ones he describes. Maybe his current work on a large English garden in the Cotswolds, bringing him face to face with the legacy of Brown, will prove the instrumental value of his ideas. Only time will tell whether the result of this this cross-cultural engagement will be more Lorca or Lutyens .

The regrowth of Reford

2011-06-07T22:08:00.036+01:00

Whilst the International Festival of Gardens at Chaumont-sur-Loire inaugural exhibition in 1992 was the pioneering force in fusing art, design and horticulture into novel garden installations and environments, the International Garden Festival at Les Jardins de Métis, has also been pivotal since it's inception in 2000, in developing the conceptual genre within a show garden format.

Situated in Québec approximately 530km North-East of Montréal on the Gulf of St Lawrence, the festival takes place in Reford Gardens, a location with a history of pioneering ambitions, which are charted in a fascinating 52 minute documentary 'Twice Upon A Time' by director Phillipe Baylaucq. Reflecting upon both the garden's history and the development of the festival, Baylaucq presents a drama of determination, covering the frontier fuelled entrepreneurship of two separate generations of the Reford family, and examining the role of gardens in both the 20th and the 21st centuries.

The film traces the garden's establishment in 1926 under the maternal direction of Elsie Reford, who at the age of 54 embarked upon a process of transforming, with the employment of a local labour force, the fields and forests at the gateway to Gaspé Peninsula into an impressive garden. Much of the narrative focuses upon the endeavours of Elsie, who continued to garden the site until she eventually left in 1958. After her departure the property went into the hands of the Quebec government, and eventually fell into a state of neglect. It was acquired in 1995 by the not for profit organisation Les Amis des Jardin de Métis, established under the directorship of Elsie's great-grandson Alexander Reford. The charity have given the garden a much welcome second lease of life, through extensive replanting and the establishment of the festival, making it a firm tourist favourite with a formidable international reputation.

The film also reveals the build up process of the show gardens, following the travails of various participants including the construction of the exhibits 'Pomme de parterre' (2007) by Angela Iarocci, Claire Ironside and David Ross from Quebec, 'Réflexions suspendues' (2008) by Italian studio Sospese Riflessoni, and 'Poule mouillée!' (2008) by Montreal practice À4.

The Society of Garden Designers, as part of their 30th anniversary celebrations, presented a London screening of the film, followed by a Q&A session chaired by Tim Richardson and featuring Baylaucq and Alexander Redford, as well as two exhibiting designers, Deborah Nagan whose 'Every Garden needs a Shed and a Lawn, was installed in 2010, and Heather Ring, who working with Brenda Parker and Synnøve Fredericks has created the intriguing work Algaegarden (featuring bioluminescent algae!) for this year's show.

Whilst the discussion kicked off with insights into the garden and the film, it soon broadening into a discussion on the nature of conceptual show gardens and the manner in which their temporary status can respond to a specific site. A topic particularly resonant, as a feature of Métis is that each installation should somehow address Reford as a location or it's history. Much circular conversation resulted concerning the installations engagement with place, and exactly what kind of dialogue this generates. The almost perceptible presence of the well-worn 'spirit of the place' could be felt hovering over the debate, held only at bay by the contemporary spectre of conceptualism. Unsurprisingly little consensus was reached given that the dialectics of time and place, and mind and matter, are always open ended processes. Indeed such dynamics are the very things which define gardens themselves, and which also provide such fertile ground for the imaginative acts of interpretation seen at shows such as Métis.

Theme Tunes Pt.3 - Space Oddity

2011-05-27T16:27:00.136+01:00

In the past the RHS have appeared to have a love/hate relationship with Irish designer Diarmuid Gavin. Their antagonistic interactions creating a media friendly frisson, with his arrogance acting as the perfect foil to the society's sobriety, generating the kind of publicity that is hard to put a price on. Whether this was real or simply hyperbole is almost irrelevant, as it's success as a marketing strategy to pique the public's interest, proved immensely beneficial to both parties.

Consequently Gavin's show gardens at Chelsea Flower Show in previous years garnered attention above and beyond that of his fellow exhibitors, as much for his over-hubristic personality as for his pop-friendly contemporary design stylings, which play a supporting role in his performance. His track record as a BBC presenter provides the corporation with good reason to allocate airtime to his prima donna antics, exaggerating his appearances in a self-congratulatory media feedback loop.

Yet the promotional buildup to this year's show garden was somewhat more subdued than previously, possibly due to the fact that it was something of a late arrival on the scene. But not simply content with his usual lofty aspirations and proclamations, and driven by a determination to be awarded the gold medal which his previous efforts were denied, Gavin made sure that this appearance would send his reputation sky high.

The Irish Sky Garden proclaimed to draw inspiration from the likes of Capability Brown, Rennaissance cardinals, and Charles Jencks, but the primary source of reference was Dublin animator Richie Baneham, who created the visual effects on James Cameron's 3D film 'Avatar', and in particular the floating islands which appear in the film.

With this in mind Gavin attempted to translate the digital realm into the mechanical by floating a little slice of Ireland above the salubrious surrounds of SW3 London, in an act of eye catching provocation. The central feature of the garden being a 52 foot pink metal framed, turf covered and flower filled pod, which was raised and lowered by means of a large crane situated behind the garden.

Endeavouring to provide the funfair ride to end all funfair rides, and rise above the competition at the show, the idea of such a dynamic and interactive work at Chelsea was indeed a novel idea. Interactivity isn't high on the agenda of the show gardens on Main Avenue, which all too often look like static stage sets in search of actors. Press day provided a celebrity cast list to match a West End premier, supplying Gavin with a VIP list of exclusively selected glitterati, whom he treated to a birds eye view of the show from the garden pod (although Ringo Starr, suitably unimpressed, remained grounded despite the endless entreaties of the garden's publicity team).

The suggested Irish theme of the garden was reinforced by securely grounded lush green planting on the banked site, all with the intention of hammering home the idea of tourist touting for sponsors Fáilte Ireland. But in reality the subtle balance of green foliage evinced a familiar contemporary design vernacular familiar at Chelsea in recent years, more than any emerald isle idealism. Yet the overblown extravagance of the whole venture gave lie to it's real intent. As with all his gardens at Chelsea, the theme was pure spectacle in which design (although undoubtedly often accomplished) takes a backseat. Gavin's appearance is always an attempt to upstage the main attraction - the show itself, and act as a vehicle for the celebrity phenomenon Gavin has come to represent. Ultimately Diarmuid's theme is always Diarmuid himself, at least the self he presents to the media - the showman, the brand, in a postmodern process of self-referential simulacrum.

And to that extent the endgame was successful, evidenced not only by the coveted Gold Medal the garden was awarded by the RHS judges, but also by the fact that it scooped the People's Choice award, accorded by public nominations.

However such accolades obviously overlooked certain details and practical constraints which prevented the garden hitting true heights. The inability of the crane to operate in anything more than a gentle breeze somewhat undermined it purpose, revealing the gimmicky side of the affair - not quite those magnificent men in their flying machines!

Also ironically the fact that the most photographed garden in the show, with it's unique image appeal to snap-happy visitors was marred by it's North facing orientation, resulting in a plethora of under exposed shots taken facing into the sun. Surely not the most media savvy sense of positioning.

Whether the spectacle brings anything useful to the realm of garden design is something which no doubt will continue to be debated, which is after all the ultimate result. But Chelsea successes and failures aside, it appears this time Gavin's high flying ambitions may well have risen above his station and queered his pitch. For the garden is part of a larger publicity project, which was diverted to Chelsea before it's eventual installation in Ireland. The original conception for the garden was as a tourist attraction in the Mardyke area of Cork, and overall project was sponsored by Fáilte Ireland and Cork City Council, to the tune of €2.5m. Given that public funding to such a figure was involved, and the fact that Ireland has been on the brink of bankruptcy recently, it was hardly surprising a public furore would ensue, into which have duly stepped two cabinet ministers. The core of the issue seems to be a matter of transparency over the costings which include €222,00 design fees, €513,000 crane hire, €80,000 associated capital outlay and €201,000 contingency.

No doubt such altercations will have little effect in bringing Gavin's reputation's back to earth, but rather provide more media fodder to further fuel his mythology. But the big question surely remains whether the duelling swords of the RHS and Gavin have now been laid to rest, or whether, like The Terminator, he'll be back.

Theme Tunes Pt.2 - Holidays in the Sun

2011-05-27T16:27:00.078+01:00

At the beginning of the year when the Telegraph revealed details of their show garden for Chelsea Flower Show designed by Cleve West, the fact that they were touting it as a Libyan themed garden seemed rather incongruous. Quite what affinity there could be between the newspaper's conservative middle-England readership and a revolutionary Islamic authoritarian socialist dictatorship seemed rather perplexing (even before the Arab Spring and the international community's subsequent invasive search & destroy response).

However further elucidation revealed that it was not a garden for Gaddafi, but in fact one which took inspiration from the land's turbulent past rather than it's present. Yet the fact that this inspiration came from a holiday West took in the country in 2006, didn't completely assuage a slightly dubious anxiety about the theme, sounding off an echoing ironic refrain of 'Holiday in Cambodia', the 1979 anthem by San Francisco punks Dead Kennedy's. But Chelsea is certainly not the place for politics, and protocol dictated that such matters remained unmentioned at a show which has entertainment at it's heart.

The garden's theme in fact had deep roots, with the Libyan reference being to earlier, yet equally dubious regimes who ruled the roost in the area now occupied by the current Mahgreb state. West's visit to the classical site of Ptolemais left him with lingering and haunting memories of the ruined city, whose turbulent past included being under the dominion of various foreign powers including Alexander the Great, Ptolemaic Egypt and the Romans. The latter being responsible for creating much of the remaining architecture. Whilst the rest of the cities in the area were destroyed by an earthquake in 365, Tolmeta (as it was known in Latin) was left undisturbed, only to suffer it's eventual fate in 428 when it was destroyed by the marauding northern Vandals.

One of the city's impressive remnants is the 'Villa of Columns' which could almost serve as a sketchbook blueprint for West's design. The sunken ground plane of the garden with it's white paving almost providing a dusty sunbaked xerox of the original, albeit one given a masterly cultural mashup, with the stone coming from the Cotswolds, adding another layer of meaning to the work with it's reference to an all important region in British garden history.

The theme of ruins also conjures up another British association, in the form of the 18th century English Landscape movement. William Kent, Charles Bridgeman and Capabilty Brown wove the Arcadian appeal of classical references into the fabric of their landscapes, taking inspiration from paintings such as those by French artist Gaspard Dughet, whose works often featured ruins, presented in a style which mixed the pastoral scenes of Claude Lorrain with the sublime wilderness of Salvator Rosa.

And French artistry played a defining role in West's garden portrait through the deployment of six columnar sculptures by artists Serge Bottagisio and Agnes Decoux. The sculptures in themselves are skillful works of contemporary craftsmanship with an atemporal totemic quality, something West recognised in choosing them for the garden. Whilst this affords them the ability to be displayed in the most modern of settings, it was the latter aspect which was utilised to set the scene and ram the theme home. The arrangement of the sculptures suggested remnant pillars from an abandoned architectural structure, with one strewn upon it's side with an abandoned air for good measure, just in case the point had been missed. Cleverly the horizontal column could also double as a seat, but whilst such an array worked to create the narrative setting, it somewhat detracted from the superb qualities of sculptures themselves.

West's intention to construct a contemporary garden utilising various aspects of traditional vernaculars, resulted in a successful melange, which effectively stood out from the crowd with an assured confidence. Detailed hardscaping and a relaxed planting scheme with an ample scattering of self-seeders, framed an expansively open central space, which suggested a sense of loss. All in all, it's a pretty weighty theme he choose, one which sails close to pastiche, but in the end the garden triumphed through design rather than association, something recognised by the judges in awarding it the highest accolade of 'Best in Show'.

But perhaps the garden was assured popular public appeal as it managed to strike a chord with a wider zeitgeist fascination with ruins that finds expression in many gardens today. Any survey of the nation's domestic plots will quickly reveal a penchant for decay, in the form of disbanded furniture, garden sheds beyond any possible repair, and even occasionally the highly prized rusting shopping trolley, all carefully dispensed amongst a fine selection of overgrown grasses and weeds. And surely the most covetable item of all, the modern folly par excellence, is the the abandoned motor vehicle, now long invisible to the owners eye, but a sure visual treat for neighbours. So maybe it's all part of an new aesthetic movement sweeping the country, one which could tentatively be dubbed 'The New Vandalism'. Designers take note!

Theme Tunes Pt.1 - That's Entertainment

2011-05-27T16:26:00.103+01:00

The presentation of show gardens at Chelsea Flower Show these days, places design in the shadow of the garden's designated 'theme'. Originally the designer's brief was all important in articulating the design intentions to the RHS selection panel, and was consequently used for judging purposes, to consider whether the finished product lived up to it's own expectations. Whilst this is still the case, another layer of representation has increasingly developed on top of it, one which can far too often dominate or even undermine the design basis.

Garden themes now effectively Disneyfy the show, with each garden vying to create newsworthy angles, aspiring for media attention. For the RHS this creates something of a carnivalesque atmosphere, a sense of novelty intended to keep things fresh, and create added entertainment value for the public, many of whom are horticulturally inclined and wary of all matters design-wise. For the BBC it provides an opportunity to create narratives around the gardens, and construct travelogue style journeys from conception to completion, for their week long saturated coverage of the show. And for the show garden sponsors it can be an opportunity to articulate their mission and corporate values, or even occasionally promote their products, however tenuously this may realised.

Yet themes can all too often be distractions which trip designers up, diverting their efforts from sound design principles, by attempting to shoehorn too much or too little into an idea. The resulting mismatch between content and context, can in turn sway the public's and indeed the RHS judge's attentions and affections.

Indeed this was apparent in the main show garden category when it came to dishing out the medals, with Tom Hobblyn's Homebase Cornish garden possible proving too literal, whilst Ann-Marie Powell's conceptual bent seemed to fall foul of the judges favour. The former, holding true to it's Cornish brief by packing a varied array of 4500 plants into the plot, reflecting the county's clement climate and a colonial plant hunting legacy. The fidelity of Hoblyn's planting to the Cornish penchant for specimen burdened schemes was captured well, perhaps too well, and maybe to the judge's displeasure, who accorded him a silver medal, despite the finely detailed hardscaping and inspired design on display. Meanwhile the British Heart Foundation garden quite directly articulated the sponsor's identity, through it's form. The arterial structures, cellular stepping stones, and circular route around the garden were finely articulated realisations of the design's cardiac concept. Although it was a spatially enticing, formidable achievement, the silver medal it was awarded may well suggest, that whilst such conceptual candour is acceptable at the Hampton Court and Tatton Park shows, it's not deemed appropriate for Main Avenue, Chelsea.

Robert Myers possibly over egged the thematic content of his Cancer Research garden, to the detriment of the design, by incorporating not one but two metaphors into his scheme. It was intended to represent coastal planting rising in height from shore inwards, which in turn was supposed to reflect the journey from illness to health made by cancer survivors. The admirable intent was undermined by a lack of horticultural substance and vertical structure, which failed to engage due attention.

Perhaps most perplexing theme-wise was The Times Eureka garden by Marcus Barnett, which was meant to represent the scientifically derived uses of plants in medicine and industry, echoing Eureka magazine's concerns of science and society. But despite the futurist lo-fi architecture of the pavilion, premised upon the cellular structure of plants, the planting plan had rather a premodern feel. Conjuring allusions of religion rather than science, it suggested the herbalist practices of medieval monastic medicine. Perhaps rather than co-sponsors Kew Gardens, the patron saint of the garden should have been Hildegard of Bingen, whose horticulturally informed text 'Causes and Cures' (c.1150) discerned the beneficial properties of plants, whilst her notion of veriditas (or greening - premised upon the fertile power of all living things) recognised the symbiotic relationships between plants and people, essential for maintaining a sense of well-being.

Surely it was a case of potential squandered, as the alliance of Eureka and Kew could have provided a truly innovative investigation into horticulturally scientific issues. It would have been more modern and relevant to explore the new system of classification of plants according to DNA, or more controversially to tackle head on the issue of genetic modification in horticulture and it's relationship to breeding and hybridisation. That would indeed have been food for thought.

Global gardens always provide a popular themed allure, adding a sense of something exotic to the show, one all too often executed with overblown jingoistic aplomb. Yet this year's efforts turned the tables on such an approach and were not to be considered lightly, expressing as they did serious examples of international design rather than simply national kitsch. James Wong and David Cubero's Tourism Mayalsia garden seriously engaged with the various design languages derived from Tropical Modernism, whilst Sarah Eberle's Monaco garden, despite it's big bright boldness, was nonetheless refreshing for being nothing more than a garden, albeit a very well-heeled Mediterranean one.

Longstanding advocates of exaggerated thematic overkill, Leeds City Council once again jettisoned any inclinations of design in favour of sideshow satisfaction. This year's Hesco garden was another slice of Northern rural pastiche involving a mill house replete with rotating waterwheel. Intended to offer a theme park feel-good factor for a certain demographic of the audience, it hardly strikes accord with an event which purports to present the best in international garden design.

In the Urban Gardens category, much media attention was focused upon The Land's Across the Pond Garden designed by Adam Frost. But unfortunately the finished product had very little to do with it's suggested inspiration, the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright's seminal Falling Water house, except for a slight bit of cantilevered paving. Disappointingly failing to get to grips with Wright's organically integrated architectural innovation, the garden was instead fairly typical of it's type, adding little to the usual language deployed by these style of gardens.

However the real standout garden in the category, one which forsook a themed approach, was The Bradstone Fusion Garden from The Chris Beardshaw Mentoring Sponsorship Team, which looked to innovative ways in which materials could be utilised to create a truly contemporary styled garden, artfully and accurately rendered.

The Courtyard Garden category has always been the true transgression of design sensibility, given over instead to fantastical pursuits of absurdist themes. Although now renamed Artisan Gardens, not much has changed. The 'Best in Show' award for this realm, was a well familiar articulation of a twee seaside cottage scene, which if it were a real garden would no doubt meet with much local disapproval for it's disrepair. Most of the other exhibits in the category were similarly a la mode facsimiles, having little to do with design per se. Exceptions to the rule were Martin Cook & Bonnie Davies Literary Garden, and William Quarmby's Basildon Bond Centenary Garden. Quarmby's novel approach with it's playful use of paper, seemed to suffer in the judges eyes for it's conceptual bent and temporary nature. Yet it certainly played up to it's stationery theme in a very direct way, with an engaging and entertaining sense of showmanship, which surely encapsulated the uneasy balance between design and eye appeal, which the show with it's theatrical suspension of disbelief, always attempts to juggle.

Site (un)specific

2011-05-25T00:56:00.032+01:00

The idea of contemporary art at Chelsea Flower Show has always been something of an oxymoron, saturated as the show is with commercial stalls hawking garden statuary of every kind of unimaginable aesthetic inclination, anathema to the modern art world. Rare exceptions have been in some of the larger show gardens, such as Cleve West's deployment of sculptures by French artist's Serge Bottaggisio and Agnes Decoux in his garden this year and in 2008.

Even so it has always been large scale organic or design led sculpture, which has appeared and nothing of a more graphic illustrative nature. But now in collaboration with local Knightsbridge gallery Andipa Contemporary, the RHS have made a bold move into the modern world of visual representation and pop culture.

'Constructed Nature' by artist Hugo Dalton, is a 20m x 4m hand painted canvas featuring interpretations of flora he observed in the area surrounding the Chelsea show grounds, at such sites as Chelsea Physic Garden and National Army Museum. The large scale black and grey graphic images with fluorescent Day-Glo highlights, depict a world of techno-nature mutation, in which flowers grow from stems of chains and pinions. Dalton's work, which often has a strong horticultural element with large scale flowers such as those in this piece, is usually directly painted upon interior wall surfaces, but this commission has provided an opportunity to take his wall drawings alfresco.

The work purports to investigate the juxtaposition between the constructed nature of the show and the perceived permanence of the show gardens. Although given the transitory stage set affectations of the gardens, the concept is somewhat unclear in this respect, as everything in the show is recognisably temporary and cultural rather than 'natural'. The gardens are perceived by visitors as theatrical artificial installations, intended to dazzle and inspire, simulacra rather than verisimilitude. But the immediate visual appeal of the work is striking, fusing elements of botanical illustration with an updated take on the fresco techniques of Cinquecento Italian painting, filtered through Warhol's pop appeal.

However the work was draped in an unceremonious manner on a hoarding at the bottom of the show, tucked away at the end of the commercial stalls on Eastern Avenue, sandwiched between a toilet block and vehicle exit to the main road. The chevron patterning of the background of the piece did little to dispel the suggestion that the work was actually anything other than a utilitarian device for directing traffic flow. Surely a site more befitting than this was necessary to not only celebrate the work's appearance at the show, and the RHS' foray into the world of art, but also to actually make the most of it's bold neon graphics. An open site with ample light would have been the minimum requirements to present the work, and also to give visitors a chance to actually see it.

The gallery have produced a series of limited edition prints to accompany the occasion, available to any interested parties who happened to notice the work. The appearance of Dalton's work also compliments the group show 'The Secret Life of Flowers' at Andipa Contemporary, featuring horticultural installation artist Tony Heywood, whose installation 'Space Ritual' was the centre piece of the RHS Tatton Park show last year.

Chelsea Flower Show 2011

2011-05-25T00:55:00.094+01:00

Chelsea Flower Show's annual catwalk procession of garden design novelty never fails to entertain, engage, and enrage the critics and punters alike. Those who are to quick to disavow the show gardens for their often tenuous relationship with 'real' gardens, are perhaps missing the point that the show provides a kind of barometer, revealing a zeitgeist slice of the contemporary design mind and the garden world. Something which is usually both flattering and unflattering in equal measures, and this year, as always, the show proved no exception to the rule.

Much media pre-show rumination was afforded to the early summer conditions accelerating the development of many plants, possibly as a pre-emptive attempt to manage public expectations of the quality of the show. Whilst obviously the unseasonal conditions did result in a number of horticultural substitutions in the eleventh hour in the show gardens, it's effect was negligible, given that inspired planting schemes seemed low on the design agenda this year anyway.

Something the media takes great delight in each year is discerning trends at the show, by bundling together often tenuous similarities in features and planting. But this year any distinct fashions were conspicuous by their absence. Yet if anything was noticeable it was the decline of 'Tasteful Modernism' which has been haunting the show for the past decade. Such designs all too often confuse aspirational values for considered design strategies, producing mannerist results which privilege architecture over horticulture, and materials over spatial arrangement, resulting in an abundance of uninspired straight lines on orthogonal plots.

One of the leading lights of this inclination, Marcus Barnett, bucked the temptation to repeat such strategies, offering instead a more adventurous approach for the Times Eureka Garden. Whilst full of promise it was unfortunately let down by the materials and quality of finish, as well as a fairly pedestrian planting scheme.

Another TM adherent, Luciano Gubbelei also veered away from his usual paired down style, picking up on a more romantic direction, suggested by his 2009 appearance at the show. Yet he seemed to be stepping into well worn boots, delivering a recognisably branded Laurent-Perrrier garden. Looking very much like a facsimile of the kind of garden usually made by L-P alumni Tom Stuart-Smith, the garden featured multi-stemmed Parottia perscica (sculpturally akin to Stuart-Smith's 2006 Viburnum rhytidophyllum), emerging from a hazy soft focus beds of pastel perennials. The blurred effect of of the delicate planting, intended to represent Rose champagne, had a rather washed out look in the bright light of late May. The beds framed a hard edged water rill inset with roughly hewn boulders, rather reminiscent of Ulf Nordfells's Telegraph garden from 2009.

The overall finish of the garden was characteristic of Gubbelei's attention to detail, yet the garden was let down by the spatial arrangement, with a wind-activated pavilion by Kengo Kuma, a water table feature, and organic sculptures by Peter Randall-Page, crammed into the rear section of the garden creating a sense of discomfort rather than the intended relaxed ambiance suggested by the airy planting. From a designer who purports to be concerned with 'perfect proportion', this detracted from the finer detail of the structural elements, and possibly suggests that dealing with flowering plants, rather than sculptural evergreens, is a step into a comfort zone he has yet to conquer.

Space played an interesting role in Cleve West's design for the Telegraph. An expansive openness caused by a wide Cotswold stone linear central pathway, had a slightly disturbing effect, which gave a suggestion of something missing. However it confidently managed to make a coherent whole of a series of seemingly disparate elements. A yellow wall inset with water pipe outlets, bringing to mind Luis Barragan's classic works from the 1960's in Mexico City, framed the backdrop, for a colourful array of medium density planting, and tall columnar sculptures by French artists Serge Bottagisio and Agnes Decoux, vertically occupying the rear ground.

Whilst the planting palette, with an abundance of umbellifers, in an array of white, yellow and red tones, played out in a considered manner against the backdrop.

An overriding sense of openness dominated Robert Myers Cancer research garden, which undermined his often impressive grasp of the relationship between materials and their arrangement. Whilst the garden attempted to present a graded effect rising from a sparse 'coastal' frontage to a denser area around the obligatory architectural artefact at the rear, the planting was substantially under-realised, simply leaving a vertically challenged perspective from the public viewing points.

Density was the order of the day for Thomas Hoblyn's planting scheme for the Homebase garden, reflecting the flora typically found in Cornwall. As such it succeeded, but whether that is a good thing or not is dependant upon one's experience of the Cornish colonial pic n' mix garden aesthetic. Hobblyn has been setting his own style at the show the past couple of years, and this garden was no exception, yet the disjuncture between the over-planting and the highly finessed and original water feature and hardscaping, didn't really do justice to his design abilities.

Ann-Marie Powell's simplicity of concept, and the direct articulation of it, within her design for British Heart Foundation was striking and effective. Standing out from the surrounding gardens on Main Avenue by using a bi-colour palette, relying on subtle textural differences of green in the planting in contrast to red structural elements. She transformed a difficult shady site buttressed behind the Great Pavilion, into a delightfully tranquil space, much coveted by viewers. The structural features invoking arterial passages and blood cells, utilised a minimalist sculptural appeal to maximum potential without crossing over into an overworked pastiche, which it could all too easily have done.

Bunny Guinness should well have taken note of Powell's approach in her garden for show sponsors M&G. The RHS have in the past been resistant to the use of vegetables in the large show gardens, but now given their timely evangelical grow-your-own proselytising, they allowed Guinness to create an overstuffed potager. The result resembled little more than a collection of large pots crammed onto the site with little room to spare for anything or anyone else.

The Australian contingent put in two appearances this year. Fleming's Nurseries Trailfinders Garden by Ian Baker, took an untypical turn from their usual presentations of brash and bold barbecue emblazoned outdoor lifestyle rooms. Instead opting for an understated Anglo-Oz infused effort, was a brave move which failed to live up to potential promise. Meanwhile Jim Fogarty, responsible for Fleming's design in 2004, delivered a reinterpretation of the Australian Garden at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne. The original design work by landscape practice Taylor Cullity Lethlean, which was the primary visual focus of the design, was rather unfairly underplayed in Fogarty's favour. Although given the rather theme-park feel to the exhibit, perhaps they should be thankful.

Tourism Malaysia's garden by James Wong and David Cubero, may have seemed rather conspicuous with it's unashamed lush tropical botany, framing refined architecturally modernist features. Reconfiguring the Bali Resort Style of Asian garden design within an anglicised context is an interesting project. But given the lack of familiarity in this country with the style, there is perhaps a framework missing upon which the public can base an appreciation, beyond merely summing up notions of the 'exotic'. As with last year's effort, the design had a distinctly aquatic focus, and high degree of attention to quality of finish. Perhaps letting the garden down was the uneven placement of the pavilion, which rendered an amount of the space unviewable and underused. Usually the RHS are keen to avoid such design kinks, so it was surprising to find that an alternative accommodation had not been sought, which would have made a strong design with fresh ideas, even stronger.

Also on an international note was Sarah Eberle's garden for the Principality of Monaco. Given the sponsor's reputation for Med-style affluence, the garden was predictably larger than life. Replete with swimming pool, it was a forthright statement of status, accurately fulfilling it's brief. But Eberle's skill in offsetting a wonderful array of exotic planting against an impressive pavilion at the rear of the garden was masterful. The garden was the brightest in the show, and quite a relief for it, adding a sense of warmth and life which was lacking in many others. Her attention to the finer aspects of both the planting and the hardscaping was second to none, and recalled a sense of craftsmanship reminiscent of shows from yesteryear, which has been all too often absent recently.

Returning to the show after a three year absence, Diarmuid Gavin, with his enfant terrible reputation and penchant for tantrums amongst the topiary, was determined as ever to create a spectacle. His love/hate relationship with the RHS always generates kilometres of column inches and occupies a substantial amount of BBC broadcast time, which might explain why his design was evidently fast-tracked through the usual application process.

Bigger and bolder than his previous efforts, the garden displayed some of his characteristic features such as larger than life buxus balls, offset by softer grasses. Arrayed around a serpentine pathway meandering through a patchwork of ponds, the predominantly green planting plan was subtly articulated. But certain hardscaping details lacked finesse and appeared to have been hurriedly finished.

Yet most eyes no doubt missed such fineries, as they were averted skywards towards a red steel capsular garden room, which was repeatedly raised and lowered by nothing less than an enormous crane. The idea was certainly novel and challenged the idea of a garden, and the kind of imaginative modern follies it may possibly contain, which was no doubt meant to be it's controversial intention. The performative aspect had a limited entertainment value, but such gimmicky showmanship naturally overshadowed the horticultural and spatial design points the garden deployed. Perhaps after being finally awarded the all important Gold medal which he so dearly sought, perhaps Gavin has now finally quelled his Chelsea obsession, with this as his swan song.

Lack of Trust

2011-05-07T14:56:00.064+01:00

Dame Fiona Reynolds, Director General of the National Trust made a passionate plea in the May/June issue of Resurgence magazine for the organisation to take a more active role in their conservation efforts, to address the 'extinction of natural experience' which causes an anthropocentric disconnect from the rest of nature around us. Echoing Octavia Hill, one of the Trust's founders, she declared that the Trust's mandate, as the largest private landowner in the country, should be to strive to improve the quality of the environment, in order to restore opportunities to experience natural surroundings as a form of social welfare. Reynolds suggests that this should be implemented through considered custodianship of their land, and by swinging their organisational weight to influence national policy, in order to let those living in cities experience the beauty of the natural world.

Much research does indeed indicate positive benefits of green therapy, and the Trust should certainly be applauded for picking up the baton. However the link between engagement with green spaces and well-being, is a theme which has been kicked from pillar to post in recent years, used for both meritious and nefarious political ends, and due caution should be exercised when it is invoked.

Unfortunately there is something of a Victorian refrain to Reynold's sentiment, which polarises the rural and the city, with the former being uncontestably wholesome and 'natural', whilst the latter is a Dickensian morass of vice and disease. There lies behind it an unstated belief of an earlier golden Edenic age, which if restored would provide a panacea for brow beaten estranged urbanites.

Urban density is a global phenomena and has been now for many years, with over 50% of the population living in cities since 2007. And as Reynold's recognises, it is a trend which is increasing. Although her example of Cambridge as "one of England's most densely packed and pressurised cities", neglects to take into account that it fails to get a peek in the top ranking 15 densest UK cities, and even it's projected growth over the next twenty years will do little to alter the city's fabric from the state Reynold's would have experienced it in her undergraduate years at Newnham College, a few decades ago. Perhaps a more appropriate and surprising example would have been Portsmouth, which pips London to the post as having the UK's highest population density, or even Southampton which is not far behind.

But what is overlooked is the fact that cities are in less need of charitable patronage than she may assume. They are extremely resilient in dealing with problems, and driven by necessity, open to rapid adaptation, more so than in the conservative countryside. City dwellers, organised in community groups, civic organisations and as individuals, have already embraced a plethora of different responses to creating greener spaces within the urban fabric, in order to create new forms of 'natural' connection. Gardens, parks, allotments and unused brownfield sites have all played roles in this process, and all are as 'natural' as the historically formed wider landscape is 'cultural'.

Every improvement to the magnificent landscapes owned by the Trust should surely be welcomed by citizens, wherever they dwell. But perhaps the NT should also apply their logic to their impressive portfolio of historic properties. For whilst an historic integrity must obviously be observed, the preservation of gardens and parklands in a form of policy aspic, does little to address the interests of a large percentage of the urban demographic they wish to serve. As continually evolving artifacts, gardens are ideal for providing grounds for novel adaptations, and making them relevant to contemporary society.

A light handed temporary approach to this, which leaves the sites extant, are the Sotheby's sculpture and design art exhbitions at Chatsworth and Sudeley Castle, which pit historic landscapes against contemporary art. Such initiatives are not uncommon in properties in private ownership, where new business models are essential to survival.

But more excitingly, would be to see NT gardens engage contemporary designers to create new designs, planting schemes, and architectural features, to create a relevance not only to the past, but also the present and the future. In many places space exists to be able to do this alongside existing historic features, without interference or compromise of their accorded value. Whilst other properties no longer have 'original' garden structures but merely assumed facsimiles, to which such projects could well be an improvement.

No doubt such strategies would find objection on the grounds that the Trust's remit is to conserve and protect. But if such an attitude had been employed in the past, the superb designs of Capability Brown or Humphrey Repton, which they now hold so dear, would never have been created. Adopting a sensitive progressive approach to the living landscape and it's cultural heritage, would ensure that historic fidelity and contemporary relevance are intertwined with the social and economic interests of both city and rural areas, and that the National Trust remains a national treasure.

Open invitation

2011-05-02T16:23:00.033+01:00

Celebrating the organisation's 30th anniversary, the Society of Garden Designers are again hosting their Open Gardens event (formerly known as The Great London Garden Trail). As with with event the past two years, it serves to showcase member's work and give a rare opportunity for the public to visit these gardens. Following suggestions last year, the event has expanded to include three open days spread across a five month period (1 May, 26 June, 25 September), and it now also boasts a national program, rather than just London.

This year the SGD have entered into an alliance with the RHS to promote the event. Given that current RHS President Elizabeth Banks is a qualified landscape architect, and gave a presentation at the SGD Spring conference in 2010, this possibly is unsurprising. Hopefully it will prove to be a fruitful partnership rather than a Faustian pact, with the SGD playing second fiddle to the larger organisation's horticultural kudos. For whilst the SGD could certainly benefit from the RHS' marketing might, design needs to be kept at the forefront of the agenda, and the event needs to continue to be seen as more than simply visits to pretty gardens. In promoting it's member's work, the SGD needs to make clear that the event is something quite different from the NGS Open Garden scheme, and is precisely about the opportunity to visit designed gardens which the public usually don't have the opportunity to view.

It is certainly a good idea to have the visits spread out across a five month period, allowing the opportunity to see gardens in different seasons. Perhaps an extension of this would be to have the same gardens open on each occasion, for those who wish to chart their progress, (currently it is different gardens on each date). And also the geographic spread of the event now allows more people to see more different kinds of gardens, but it perhaps needs a little extra padding and stretching, after all calling it the best of British design when all of the gardens are in England, could be a little contentious.

The first London date presented only four gardens, one which was open last year, and one which can be viewed by the public any time (Dan Pearson's Maggies Centre in Hammersmith).

Also perhaps more quality control needs to be employed. For whilst it is not always easy to get clients to open their doors to the masses, perhaps a more critical eye in the selection process could be employed. After all patchy planting on certain projects hardly instils enthusiasm and confidence, or really showcases the heights to which garden design can truly fly.

All in all, the event is certainly a great step in the right direction, and needs to be taken further if the SGD really wishes to instil in the public's mind, the idea that it is the recognised organisation responsible for pushing excellence in garden design, in the same way in which the RHS promotes excellence in horticulture.

Planting with Invasive Intent

2011-04-30T13:29:00.020+01:00

The leading news item in the May issue of the RHS magazine The Garden brings to attention recent research by plant conservation charity Plantlife, on the 'critical' dangers posed to the very fabric of the British environment by seemingly innocuous invasive imports. Through a process called 'horizon scanning' the organisation has drawn up a hit list of 92 plants with threatening potential, including garden staples such as Lauris nobilis (bay), Rosa multiflora and Cotoneaster, fearing these to be the next Japanese knotweed.

This of course invokes the ever recurring native vs exotic debate, and neatly glosses over the reason why these plants are in the country in the first place. Given the colonial legacy of plant hunting and the more recent voracious consumer appetite for horticultural novelty, it is little surprise that most gardens are given over to foreign species, and indeed they are central to the very (romanticised) idea of an English garden.

Obviously there is a serious issue at stake here, concerning the ways in which plants are used, their potential hazards, and the public education surrounding them. But the language it is clothed in is problematic.

The article states "The Government estimates that invasive non-native plants already cost the UK economy more than £2 billion a year, and are out-competing native plants and wildlife." Perhaps this has something of a zeitgeist feel to it, appearing as it does at a time when the issue of immigration, the old conservative bulwark ever since Enoch Powell's 'Rivers of Blood ' speech in 1968, has been raising it's xenophobic head again recently in parliament.

Add to the equation that Plantlife's current chairman just happens to be ex-Conservative MP for East Surrey Peter Ainsworth, and the fact that the government have employed a body called the Non-Native Species Secretariat to implement and police such matters, the figure of Big Brother starts to loom large. It seems something of an odd contradiction for the government to be cultivating a culture of fear around garden plants, given their libertarian political stance, and at a time when other economic and environmental matters are more pressing. But perhaps most ironic is the government's use of the third party NNSS organisation in the matter, at a time when they have a rampant proclivity for disbanding quangos such as these

The NNSS are currently risk assessing Buddleja daviddi, Eucalyptis glaucescens, Quercus ilex (Holme Oak) and Robinia pseudoacacia (False Acacia), so buy them from your garden centre at your own peril!

On the road again

2011-04-27T01:54:00.020+01:00

In it's ever expanding bid to dominate the garden retail industry, The Garden Centre Group have been coming up with an increasing amount of novel incentives to drive punters into their horticultural emporiums. However they now seem to have manoeuvred into reverse gear in an attempt to drive them away.

With a bespoke regional schedule customised to satisfy their clientele's appetites for all things gardens, they are organising local garden tours. Taking care of all the details such as coach travel, admission fees and refreshments, the package offers step-on/step-off simplicity.

The garden tour industry is a big money spinner in itself, with national and international sojourns organised by travel companies and garden magazines, often featuring luminary tour guides from the world of gardening celebrity (TV presenters, authors and experts) willingly press ganged into an all expenses paid holiday. With such a precedent, and given the popularity of garden visiting as an increasingly popular form of weekend entertainment, the idea seems most apposite.

The group seems intent not only to tap into every possible revenue stream, but also to actually redefine the notion of what a contemporary garden centre actually can be. They are making strident bounds away from the perennials, peat and pets formula, so recognisable from garden centres of the 1990's, with innovative marketing ploys geared towards today's savvy consumers. Their strategy neatly taps into the fact that the garden lifestyle market involves more than just patio furniture and Wellington boots, and is a smart attempt to capitalise on all areas of activity which appeal to the nation's ever expanding number of hortiphiliacs.

Substantial Style

2011-04-19T17:44:00.032+01:00

Design matters were to the fore at the Society of Garden Designer's Spring Conference entitled 'Style and Substance', at Imperial College in London. The day sought to investigate the rare moments when the fusion of sense and sensibility cohere in a garden which is truly more than the sum of it's parts. Sporting a formidable cast of international design luminaries, the event presented the strongest line-up of speakers for a SGD conference to date.

First up to the podium was Chilean ex-architect turned landscape architect, Juan Grimm, whose presentation placed his gardens neatly within the context of his native landscape. He presented four significant works, the highlight being his own impressive garden Bahia Azul on the coast of the central zone of Chile, perched precariously upon a clifftop with superb vistas of the South Pacific ocean. The other gardens, two in other regions of Chile and one in Argentina, all displayed a sympathetic response to the surroundings of their setting. Distinctively their planting plans involve a movement from conscious stylings around the houses, gradually transitioning to a more naturalistic arrangement at the points where they eventually blend with the larger landscape, a method he referred to as repairing the landscape with perfect sutures. The use of many exotic evergreen shrubs created the structural backbone of the gardens, providing them with a verdant lusciousness, the product of a temperate climate. The use of rugged hardscaping materials are realised with a finessed eye for detail, their organic nature placing them within a recognisable order of landscape. Underpinning each design was a conceptual basis creating interplays between vegetation, meadows, water bodies and routes of circulation through the spaces.

The work of masterful modernist Christopher Bradley-Hole was more familiar territory for the assembled SGD members, given his reputation for gardens of sleek and stylish hard-lined hardscape offset with New Perennial style planting. Although sharing with Grimm a background as an architect, his approach bears little similarity, with a distinct focus on geometry providing the leading principle of his designs. After a brief synopsis of his methodology based upon the early 20th century dictum 'form follows function', he traced his career trajectory showing how the abstraction of Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg had shaped his approach to the landscape. Covering both private and public projects he brought things up to date by presenting a current commission in Paddington Basin, London, which seeks to fuse elements of both realms.

The Moroccan gardens of French/Moroccan duo Arnuad Maurieres and Eric Ossart were, given the aquatic scarcity of their locations, almost diametrically opposed to Grimm's green landscapes. The pair of designers have a formidable resume which includes working at the International Festival of Gardens at Chaumont-sur-Loire and creating the innovative design language for the civic plantings in the city of Blois, something which has now become de rigeur across France. Their presentation 'New Oases Gardens' was a distillation of their design approach informed by Islamic gardens. Seeking to reinterpret the ideas of Paradise in their work, the projects they showed were imbued with an exotic otherness. The primary work, and indeed a labour of love, was their own home at Taroudant in the south of Morocco, for which they were responsible for the design and construction, of not only the garden, but also the surrounding architecture. Given the fact that it was their own property allowed them a certain freedom to treat the garden as something of a test bed, trialing plants from across the globe, suited to such arid conditions. Their current work in Mexico suggests a logical leap in climatic conditions, as well as an opportunity to engage with a design vernacular dominated by the towering figure of Luis Barragan.

Rounding up the day with his presentation on serpentiniousness style (a neologism to his credit) UK landscape architect Ian Kitson got into full swing explaining the ebbs and flows of his work. As with Grimm he aims to create a conversation between the garden and the surrounding landscape, and does so through a free flowing organic style. Scale and detail play an important role in defining his style, and each were well expressed in the projects presented including a subtle small garden intervention at Stationers Hall in the City of London, and at the other extreme a sprawling country garden, snaking it's way down a hillside at Alfriston in Sussex.

The presentations of all of the designers admirably proved their mettle, highlighting the different local and national design vernaculars at play in their signature styles. As such the conference certainly lived up to it's remit, providing a substantial slice of contemporary design culture.

The Well Connected Garden

2011-04-15T02:37:00.031+01:00

Whilst gardens have always been social spaces, their role in an increasingly connected world is evolving. As mobile technology continues to change the ways in which we communicate and where we do it, gardens become stage sets for an ever increasing array of digital dramas.

With this in mind, Cyber Parc Arsat Moulay Abdessalam in Marrakesh is a civic space which reconfigures the idea of how a public park can be used. Started in June 2003 with sponsorship from Maroc Telecom, and opened in February 2005, the 20 acre site was originally a food producing pleasure garden created in the 18th century for Prince Moulay Abdessalam, which in recent years had fallen into neglect.

Fulfilling public planning criteria to fuse the traditional with the modern, it is a veritable contemporary oasis providing respite from the bustle of the medina, resplendent with verdant planting and impressive water features. But what surely provides it's USP is the provision of public internet stations, a cyber cafe with computer terminals, and free wi-fi throughout the park.

Design-wise it is a modern take on various Islamic ideas of the paradise garden, and is effectively split into two parts according to archaeological evidence of it's former usage. One area retains the more traditional rural formality of a bustan or adgul, a garden of flavours and fragrances, the central feature of which is a geometrically arranged olive grove featuring many 300 year old specimens, as well as lemon, orange and mandarin trees, artfully bordered by mass plantings of Pennisetum setaceum .

The other part of the park housing the internet facilities, makes a modern reference to the gulistan garden, an earthly rendering of heaven, intended to exalt the senses. Built around a traditional central quadrilateral pool with orange trees and fountains, it creates a space of Edenic tranquility. And in keeping with the Arabic tradition of story telling, which can still be evidenced in the nearby Place Jemaa-el-Fna, the provision of an amphitheatre allows for modern variants of the art, including performances and film screenings.

In it's fusion of the traditional and the modern, the religious and the secular, bustan and broadband, the park ably demonstrates a contemporary design sensibility, whilst the provision of the technological facilities recognises the ubiquity of the internet and the manner in which it is changing our everyday lives and environments.

Cult of the Personality

2011-04-14T15:52:00.068+01:00

In a media dominated world saturated with X Factor aspirations, celebrity has become a common aspect of everyday life, and one to which the garden world is not immune. In fact, one of the factors which drives the public to visit gardens has always been celebrity - one only has to consider the popularity of Sissinghurst, to see the effect at work. Whilst the garden is a formidable work in itself, it's status would without doubt be rather different were it not for Vita and Harold's literary credentials and their roles in the fashionable firmament of their day.

The mythology surrounding certain garden makers inevitably plays into the experience of the garden visit, framing the public's expectations. But there is something of a twofold structure at play in the garden world, whereby gardens made by green fingered gardeners are credited a certain horticultural kudos (Christopher Lloyd's Great Dixter , Beth Chatto, etc), whilst those made by others are accorded acclaim for their artistic associations (Ian Hamilton Finlay's Little Sparta, Charles Jencks' Portrack).

The appeal of the latter category of gardens is often a product of tantalising images in the garden glossies, or by hearsay of their reputation, rather than driven by any knowledge or appreciation of their maker's artistic output in other fields. The garden made by Derek Jarman at Prospect Cottage in Dungeness annually attracts thousands of garden pilgrims, who duly trudge around the unfenced property (much to the current owners annoyance), most of whom are quite unaware of his films or artwork. Indeed during Tate Britain's 'Art of the Garden' exhibition in 2004, the gallery presented a well attended showing of Jarman's film 'The Garden', which most of the garden-loving audience left well before the end, somewhat shock by it's poetically overt gay content.

Obviously a garden can be approached in a tabla rasa manner and appreciated upon it's face value, possibly at times this may seem an advantage, but failing to take into context the garden maker's aesthetic means that one cannot accurately consider if their achievement succeeds or fails according their own specific criteria and standards. Context provides added value when viewing any garden, and affords a certain language through which to interpret it, whether it be horticultural or artistic.

Yet an interesting case which takes the celebrity phenomenon to another remove is Jardin Majorelle, in Marrakesh, Morocco, whose infamous appeal lies more with it's ownership than it's creation. French painter Jacques Majorelle moved to the Gueliz, the modern part of the city outside the older fortified medina, when the country was a French protectorate in 1919. After acquiring land in 1924, he shaped what has become a highly recognisable landscape which was opened to the public in 1947. The garden reflects a painterly eye for colour and abstraction, familiar from the artistic movements of the first half of the 20th century, offset by the sharply defined textural qualities of exotic planting. As Majorelle had a serious horticultural habit, the garden is something of a botanical treat, with a collection of plants from five continents suited to the dry conditions of the Sahara. The botanical treasure trove includes various species of palms, cycads, cacti, hibiscus, bougainvillaea, yuccas, bamboo, jacarandas, roses, sago, papyrus, olive and orange trees and water lilies.

Marrakesh boasts some fine examples of Islamic gardens (the city is awash with riyad courtyard gardens, and the landmark Bahia Palace gardens are a worthy example of traditional design principles), the influence of which can be evidenced in Majorelle's incorporation of mosaics, fountains and a long rill. But he eschewed fidelity by mixing such features with Oriental elements, and even a Monet-esque lily pond. Given the colonial period of it's construction, and his professional penchants, it is perhaps unsurprising that such idiosyncratic aspects coalesce in the garden. This may well account for it's uniqueness, and also explain it's broad appeal to the public, which relies more upon the novel juxtapositions of colour and form rather than any distinct design fundamentals, giving the space an unbounded and alluring sense of both intimacy and abundance.

Red painted pathways are sunken below raised beds and adorned with brightly painted pots.The distinctive use of bold cobalt blue paint (Majorelle blue), on much of the house and hardscape, inspired by a shade used by the Berber's in the nearby Atlas Mountains when painting window frames and alcoves, has become the garden's immediately recognisable branded trademark, and indeed Majorelle's legacy, rather than his watercolours.

But these days even Majorelle himself, who died in Paris in 1962, has become a minor player in the garden's international reputation. In 1980 the property was acquired by French fashion designer Yves Saint-Laurent and his partner Pierre Berge, in a somewhat dilapidated state, and restored with help from American landscape designer Madison Cox and Moroccan botanist Abderrazak Ben Chaabane.

As possibly the most celebrated and consistently influential designer of the latter part of the 20th century Saint-Laurent's renown precedes his actual creative oeuvre. Indeed the YSL logo is an immediately recognisable iconic symbol of aspirational consumerism and status. As a consequence the garden's audience goes far beyond dedicated fashionistas and gardenistas, making it one of most well known gardens by repute in the world. It certainly serves the local economy well as one of the city's major tourist attractions, even drawing coach loads of day tripping passengers dispatched from cruise ships docked at Casablanca, 220km away on the coast.

Upon Saint-Laurents death in June 2008, his ashes were scattered in the garden. The property has since been run by a foundation Saint-Laurent and Berge established to ensure its continuing existence. Given that Forbes, the US business magazine, rated Yves Saint-Laurent as the Top-Earning Dead Celebrity in 2009 with a figure of $350 million (beating Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley and Andy Warhol), it seems fairly safe to assume that the star-dazed crowds which continue to throng to Jardin Majorelle are not all simply going there to get their fix of hortiphilia, but are a testament to the power of celebrity culture rather than to any enduring appeal of gardens.

Impressions of Giverny

2011-03-31T03:03:00.038+01:00

The relationship between gardens and art has a long pedigree, but one particular period of association still resonates strongly today. The fin de siecle Impressionist movement is acknowledged as the starting point of modern art and abstraction, but it's importance was also in framing everyday life within the painting, creating an expanded field of representation which continues to this day.

Landscapes had long been part of the traditional repertoire, but Impressionism ushered gardens into the limelight as a source of suitable subject matter. Perhaps most pertinent in this respect was the garden Claude Monet created at Giverny, 80 km west of Paris, breaking down the distinction between object and subject, life and art. The garden not only provided ample subject matter for his paintings, but also became in itself a distinct artistic endeavour and a fitting part of his oeuvre, which has since continued to provide a source of inspiration for other practitioners.

Korean artist Lee Lee Nam's work features almost imperceptible real-time alterations of well known artworks. What appear to be static framed pictures are in fact actually gradually changing video images. One work in his solo exhibition at Hong Kong Arts Centre provides a slyly humourous take on Monet's water lily series of paintings from his Giverny garden. Imbued with a gentle sense of screen-saver style motion, Nam enlivens the scene with raindrops rippling the water surface, moving lilies, and swimming fish.

By invoking the transitory nature of time, the work not only induces a sense of tranquility, but also creates a Zen-like space for meditation upon processes of seasonal change and the vagaries of the weather, as well as reflecting upon the framing of the work which situates it both in the gallery as an artwork and within the wider context of art history. Deconstructing the dualism of the static and the moving, the East and the West, and past and present, he manages to create between the work and the viewer, an open ended dialogue about temporality, culture and history.

'Flotsam' by New Zealand sculptor Jeff Thomson is also a knowing take on Monet's water lilies. The installation at Brick Bay Sculpture Trail is twist on kiwi vernacular, transforming the everyday into the aesthetic, by creating a work using corrugated iron, a material ubiquitous in it's use for sheds on farms, as well as for roofing and water tanks. Thomson visually plays with form to give the material a seemingly weightless quality, freed from traditional utilitarian roles. The work is a serenely changing intervention framed by the picturesque landscape, featuring gently drifting lily forms in a large pond, given to the vicissitudes of the breeze, creating a gradually corroding collage.

Hong Kong Garden

2011-03-30T13:12:00.021+01:00

Despite it's urban density and concrete jungle credentials, Hong Kong packs as many plants within it's perimeter as it does people. Whilst Singapore may have a hegemonic hold on the moniker 'Garden City' within the Southeast Asia region (something they have since exported globally as a brand), the number of public parks in Kowloon and Hong Kong Island sets a respectable standard of civic provision.

Reflecting a design aesthetic which mixes local vernacular with Tropical Modernism, they fuse a socialist realist utilitarinism with aspects of traditional Chinese gardens. The sinuous stylings of Roberto Burle Marx are much in evidence in the hardscape sphere in terms of planes, perspectives and materials, whilst other projects reveal the influence of the 1970's Bali Resort Style, with open space and water features counterpointed by lush tropical planting.

Another design vernacular will soon be appearing in the city, after Norman Foster won a recent international competition for the development of West Kowloon peninsula, beating off stiff opposition from the likes of Rem Koolhaas. Foster + Partners originally won an earlier contest in 2002 for the project, with a design featuring a massive canopy as a centrepiece, which was eventually shelved due to financial and maintenance concerns.

However this new project (endorsed by U2's Bono no less!), takes quite a different tack, more in keeping with the city's existing green fabric. The 'City Park' will be a 19 hectare landscape with a 2.2 kilometre coastal promenade interfacing the harbour and the city, and featuring more than 5000 trees, a tea pavilion, sculpture garden and picnic areas.

The importance of provision of spaces for public activities, so central to Foster's design, is a reflection of the heavy footfall in the city's existing parks, which are continually occupied for all manner of leisure and recreation activities. Their social success suggesting that their form ably matches their function. To paraphrase designer Thomas Church, 'Parks are for people'!

Figures in a Landscape

2011-03-21T00:54:00.005Z

A 'sense of place' is a much overused mantra by garden designers, which has been endlessly invoked to the point of meaninglessness. Derived from the line 'Consult the genius of the place in all' in Alexander Pope's poem 'Epistle IV', the genius loci has subsequently become a quasi-mystical paean to the landscape. As a consequence it's common use too often fails to take into account that any 'sense' is not inherent in a location but is rather always an interpretation from an anthropocentric perspective, overdetermined with layers of cultural baggage. As we are unable to situate ourselves outside of it, 'place' only has a meaning through our relationship with it.

Two installations which take a novel and humorous approach to our place in the landscape, utilise graphic interventions to playfully toy with opposing ideas of nature and culture and the positive and negative consequences of our engagement with the environment.

Christian Nicholson's 'Barebottomland', in the Headland Sculpture on the Gulf exhibition on Waiheke Island, takes the traditional role of the naked form in the history of art and mixes it with a dash surrealism inspired by Spike Milligan's 'Bad Jelly the Witch'.

The sculptures feature figures screen printed on laminated wood, and are located across a pastoral hillside overlooking the Hauraki Gulf. Given such a benign location, they suggest a harmony between our species and our surroundings, one which is free of external threat or the inclemencies of weather. The public exhibitionism of the work chimes a naturalist note, recalling the early 20th century German Lebensreform movement, which conflated nudism with health and an ideal of the good life, liberated from social restraints, a refrain echoed in 1960's hippiedom. Overall the edenic nature of the tableau invokes a sense of innocence, whereby the symbiotic relationship with the environment is one that is blissfully beneficial to both parties.

But all is not well in the garden in 'Mask Parade' by Ecko Chan Chit in the Gasp exhibition in Kowloon Park in Hong Kong, which paints a darker picture of anthropic activities on the world around us. Images with an almost Hirst-like sensibility portray local children buoyed with the joys of youth, wearing gas masks, on a colourfully pop styled dotted backdrop.

The message about pollution and the effects of carbon on climate change may be somewhat didactic, but given the increasing urban density of Hong Kong it is nonetheless poignant.

Yet the work's ambiguity between the children's bonheur and the incongruous masks to filter the air, can possibly provide a more upbeat note if interpreted as a species ability for adaptation in response to a changing environment, and the recognition that our relationship with it is a dynamic process of cause and effect, always in a state of flux, a dialectic of people and place.

Sea change for land use

2011-03-16T17:08:00.066Z

Landscape is often an afterthought for architecture, the bits between the buildings, considered only at the end of a project when the coffers are empty. As such the role of landscape architects has often been to play second fiddle, adding a cursory cosmetic gloss.

However the importance of the designed environment for citizens well being, has a long pedigree from Ebenezer Howard's Garden Cities through to Mid Century Modernism's attempts to blur the social distinctions between the private and public realms. Yet the influence of such ideas somewhat fell off the radar in the latter years of last century, only to be reawakened in the past couple of decades, fuelled by a new growing international cognisance of the benefits of improving the quality of everyday life through civic spaces.

Given New Zealand's reputation for it's picture postcard natural beauty, the quality of it's outdoor spaces is something often taken for granted from a foreign perspective. Yet the increasing urban sprawl of it's largest city Auckland, has devoured the surrounding countryside at a seemingly unregulated pace, fuelled by developers avarice in the domestic property market, over the last twenty years..

Perhaps as a consequence, a distinct attempt to address the design of civic space has been evidenced in recent years, with a more considered approach to the environment, both in aesthetic and social terms. This situation has given a newfound boldness to the burgeoning landscape architecture profession which has increasingly been engaged in larger and more creative endeavours.

Whilst parks have always been an important part of the city's geographical fabric, the design of Quay Park (Mahuhu ki Te Rangi) by Ted Smyth in 2004 was something of an artistic milestone, setting a new benchmark for urban development. Smyth created a pocket of breathing space within the dense fabric of the downtown docks area, a subtle and tranquil space despite being surrounded by the tall buildings of the Central Business District.

A landscape of rough natural stones contrasts with the sharply defined architectural surrounds, whilst the use of water seemingly echoes the play of light on the nearby harbour. The incorporation of stylised Maori symbolism into the hardscape involved a respectful process of negotiation with local iwi, eventually resulting in a design which confronts the conflicted cultural past of Maori and Pakeha inhabitants, with an eye to a more positive future.

Smyth's light handed 2006 design for Basque Park in Newton again drew upon Maori mythology and symbolism through it's employment of stone circles. A masterwork of minimal land-forming the design subtly accentuates the existing amphitheatre nature of the site to an impressive yet understated effect, with rings of Nikau Palms circling the central water feature.

Smyth's collaborative project with landscape designer and theorist Rod Barnett for Aotea Square in the heart of the Central Business District, proved something of a more arduous effort. Beleaguered by local council politics, and attempting to address too many user agendas through consultation, the project became something of a drawn out process, leaving Smyth disinclined to tackle the public realm again under such conditions.

Local landscape architectural practice Isthmus has been something of a rising star in the design firmament in recent years with many NZLA awards to their credit. A recent ongoing project is the large scale development of Barry Curtis Park in Flatbush, South Auckland. responding to multi-use criteria, the practice have carved a playground and an innovative skatepark into a landscape of native wetlands.

Whilst a dalliance with the commercial sector at the Silvia Park retail complex has employed a somewhat striking pop approach.

The new industrial area Highbrook Business Park on the Waiouru peninsula, another commercial development involving Isthmus' participation, reflects the growing globalisation of the landscape architecture profession, and the fact that competitions for public projects now hold an allure for international players. The master planning and design of Highbrook, was awarded to American landscape supremo Peter Walker who has has consequently created 100 acres of dedicated public parkland on the site.

Despite the area's commercial nature, local council stipulations at the planning stage sought to create a private/public balance and recognise aspects of the site's original rural heritage, retaining the original farmhouse on the property, complete with exotic garden, for public use. Walker responded with with a linear park of walking paths, opening onto the Tamaki estuary to maximise the locations scenic advantage. A series of trees planted on rock formed jetty's to create windrows, jut out across wetland areas toward the harbour, parallel to the view lines towards Mt Wellington in the distance.

Whilst the project has been lauded by bureaucrats and acknowledged by the landscape industry with awards, only time will actually prove it's popularity with it's intended public.

Material World

2011-03-02T14:07:00.044Z

Groundcover takes on a new meaning in an installation by sculptor Jeff Thompson in the Headland Sculpture on the Gulf 2011 exhibition on Waiheke Island in Auckland harbour. 'Carpet' is a formidably woven ground covering of shredded corrugated iron strips, placed across a large area of bushland, intricately installed around the existing trees and subtly integrating the local flora. Playing with the exterior/interior displacement of an everyday object, the work extends the idea of the garden as the 'room outside' to the wider landscape, drawing upon New Zealanders penchant for outdoor living.

Thompson's work utilises a distincly kiwi vernacular through the use of his signature material, corrugated iron, a ubiquitous feature of the New Zealand landscape since it's introduction in the 1850's. Although considered to be a poor man's building material, it nonetheless adorned the rafters of NZ's first parliament in 1852, and many a roof since. It was the DIY architectural choice for the construction of the original coastal holiday bach, whilst corrugated iron barns picturesquely grace many a farmland hillside.

But a long pedigree of textile history also lies behind the work's interplay of culture and nature, from Islamic rugs with abstracted floral patterning through to Arts and Crafts influenced carpets. Further reference to the garden world can be seen in the work of French/Moroccan designers Arnaud Maurieres and Eric Ossart, whose fascination with North African rugs led to the development of a planting style suggesting a three dimensional carpet, called 'Tapestry of Flowers'.

Yet most pertinent to Thomson's work is the reference to the Maori craft of weaving phormium (harakeke) leaves to create mats (whariki), something reinforced by the number of such plants in the area in which the work is located.

Crafty interventions also make a showing at Corban Estate Arts Centre in West Auckland where grafitti meets knitting to fashion the landscape. Tight fitting and tree hugging, the works are part of a history of transitory urban art which modifies the local environment in a non-destructive manner through acts of respectful disrespect in public places.

Installed by knitty graffiti blogger Alison Milne and unnamed associates, the arboreal accoutrements play with notions of nurture and dominance over nature, masculinity and femininity, the relationship between art and craft, and individual and group endeavours.

As the work shares with guerilla gardening an un-commissioned rationale for the unexpected to enhance the environment and stimulate the public's aesthetic imagination, perhaps next season's most fashionable garden accessory may well be balaclavas for buxus balls!

Island Life

2011-02-19T01:35:00.000Z

The work of New Zealand garden designer Ted Smyth garnered much international acclaim during the past decade, with the sparkling sheen of his stainless steel and neon creations gracing many pages of coffee table tomes. Often referred to in such publications as a Modernist, Smyth disregards such an ideologically charged tag, preferring instead to think of his work quite simply as contemporary. In a similar vein, the same writers attempted to compare his work to such landscape masters as Luis Barragan and Roberto Burle Marx, whose designs he was quite unfamiliar with until such comparisons were made. For when it comes down to it, Smyth is quite simply a self taught Kiwi maverick, with a distinct and unique style, unfettered by precedent and external influences.

Since the 1990's techno tinged, clean-lined creations with their considered sculptural plantings of cycads (such as the Sanders garden), a significant shift has developed in his modus operandi, with a move towards a more organic style. Imbued with references to Maori mythology, and employing a sensitive integration with the site, it is an approach Smyth refers to as 'Landscape Poetry'.

Two significant works in this vein are situated on Waiheke Island in Auckland's picturesque Hauraki Gulf. As a setting it provides a magnificent backdrop in which sea, land and sky intersect to an almost sublime effect, something which Smyth harnesses effectively without ever overplaying it, a skill which has been recognised with two Gold medal awards for Residential projects from the New Zealand Institute of Landscape Architects.

One garden for realtor Deborah Kelland, presents a minimal approach to earthworks with a considered and consistent planting palette. An impressive extended catwalk amidst a swathe of Poa grasses effortlessly gives an appearance of reaching out from the hilltop to the sea beyond. The project became something of a collabrative and creatively fertile endeavour, with design input from both Smyth and his client, effecting a result to both parties satisfaction.

The other project, Pie Melon Farm, was the second commission Smyth has completed for freight magnate, Bruce Plested. This ongoing relationship instilling a sense of confidence in the client whose only brief was "Do what you think is right". Such instruction provided ample scope for Smyth to flex his creative muscle in a sensitive and subtle manner.

Sitting in seclusion in a sheltered bay (Roro Hara) on the northern side of the island, Pie Melon Farm has at it's centre a contemporary homestead around which Smyth has managed to arrange a landscape, sweeping between the cove headlands, encompassing rough farmland, manicured lawns and a fine array of sculptural planting.

Approached via a 1km driveway the site is completely hidden from the road, and only reveals itself after descending the winding drive. From above the house sits nestled at the foot of the hill with it's doorway obscured by a dense thicket of palms and cycads. The carefully arranged architectural effect set off against the rough hewn stone of the building.

The front of the house provides the sites most exposed aspect, opening out towards the sea. As it's principle orientation embraces such a magnificent vista, Smyth has been careful not only to avoid distracting from it, but has managed to carefully enhance it. The immediate surround of the house sports a selection of inlaid stones which not only echo the rocky coastline, but provide a discreet drainage solution to the rain which falls directly from the roof (the owner wishing to enjoy the sound). Finely cut lawns drop down to the foreshore, interrupted by an area of grasses, through which cuts a line of large stones forming a physical and metaphorical protective barrier between the sea and the house. Smyth employs the stones to deliberately invoke Maori guardians Kaitiaki, drawing upon their reassuring presence and referencing the cultural history of the island.

The visual interplay of the garden rests upon a minimal use of colours, grey stone for the architecture and the various shades of green foliage, echoing the surrounding coastline and farmland. The colours are dispersed in an almost tidal fashion, approaching wavelike from the beach to the hillside. Textural contrast is offered by the stonework, architectural planting and the lawn.

The garden is subtle intervention into an impressive landscape, which defines itself from it's surroundings in a distinct manner whilst also managing to enhance it in a gracious way, which surely must be the highest accolade a garden can achieve.

Flavour of the Month

2011-02-16T20:06:00.031Z

The merits of architectural plants are widely debated in the garden realm, with the fashionable status of species waxing and waning over time with popular opinion. For whilst the greater proportion of the British planting palette are immigrants, the exotic shapes and defined textures of many trees and shrubs still remain outsiders, shunned and scorned by those of a traditional bent. The continued dominance of Gertrude Jekyll inspired perennial planting is something which continues unabated, over a century after it's inception. And whilst the European New Perennial movement introduced a certain degree of architectural styling through the advocation grasses as structural elements for beds and borders, it's central thrust nonetheless reinforced perennials as the garden staple.

Perennials tend to conjure up a timeless sense of the temperate English garden whilst many architectural plants summon thoughts of hotter climes which can seem somewhat awkward in a green a pleasant setting. Even contemporary minimalism's gestures towards the architectural are neatly framed in the classical geometry of clipped box and yew, suggesting a ongoing 'tasteful' obsession with cultured affluence, rather than an openness to global novelty.

Perhaps the disparity lies in the fact that successfully combining both types of plants within a single garden can often seem an unachievable art, as many gardens in Cornwall will attest, with their mix of herbaceous swathes and towering palms appearing as a confused mess.

The feverish 1990's media makeover boom, saw the promotion of architectural species as de rigeur elements for the outdoor room, with the spiky features of plants such as Phormiums and Cordylines touted as epitomes of satorial suburban style. But whilst today Phormiums still sometimes put in a bold appearance in gardens, their staus has been unfairly relegated to that of a trusty supermarket carpark filler, much as they have in their native New Zealand. Meanwhile the popularity of their erstwhile kiwi cousins the Cordyline has significantly declined in the past decade, perhaps as due to the discord effected by their explosive towering heads of angular leaves, when set amongst leafy native trees. But even on the tussock filled hillsides of their homeland their appearance is rather incongrously outstanding, and their popularity as domestic plants in New Zealand gardens has been superseded in recent years by a penchant for palms and cycads.

But Cordyline australis, or Ti Kouka as it is known in Maori, has played an important role in New Zealand history. It's popular appellation 'Cabbage Tree' perhaps gives a significant clue as to it's role in the food chain for Aotearoa's initial immigrants. It was extensively grown as crop as well as harvested in the wild by Maoris for their stems and new shoots, the taste of which resembled the aforementioned brassica, whilst in the South Island an elaborate oven based cooking ritual produced a sweet delicacy. Their leaves also proved an indispensable material as a fibre for use in anchor ropes, fishing lines, cooking mats and baskets.

In the 19th century, Pakeha settlers begun incorporating them into their planting schemes as the local gardening culture began to blossom, before being usurped by the Victorian mania for formal bedding. The politically motivated arch Modernist landscape designer Odo Strewe, an immigrant who fled Nazi Germany in 1937, recognised the sculptural beauty of architectural natives when used in moderation, whilst the homegrown movement of the 1970's saw Cordylines used as an essential element for a wilder styled 1/4 acre plot.

As such the tree's history is woven like a thread through the history of the nation itself, something which is played upon in a multi-faceted manner in an installation by A.D. Schierning, 'ti kouka/cabbage tree', as part of the Headland Sculpture on the Gulf 2011 exhibition on Waiheke island, in Auckland's Hauraki Gulf.

Playing upon ideas of the troubled multi-cultural past and disputed land rights, the work makes gestures to both Maori and Pakeha cultures by framing the tree with a white picket fence, reminiscent of those surrounding early colonial villas, whilst a bronze plaque marks the use of the tree to denote Maori burial sites. The work suggests a dialectic between the cultures, in which the tree itself not only encapsulates aspects of each, but also towers above them as a sculptural signifier of the contested landscape, and as an icon of the country's gardening history.

The Linguistic Landscape

2011-02-10T03:14:00.041Z

Whilst the Brick Bay Sculpture Trail, situated near Matakana, 40 minutes north of Auckland, has gained something of a local reputation for showcasing a fine array of art, it's lack of recognition outside of New Zealand fails to do justice it's collection of truly international stature. Situated in the rolling hillside landscape of the Brick Bay winery, the trail presents an ever changing roster of sculptural works for sale, viewed by walking a circular 1-2 hour route. The picturesque setting provides an obviously apt framing for works of a visual nature, but perhaps most interesting are a number of artists who utilise language and narrative as a core component of their practice, resulting in works which are inscriptions on the landscape both figuratively and literally.

Highlights include the permanent staircase 'Meterol' by Mary-Louise Browne, featuring a succinct wordplay progression, inscribed into a bluestone walkway. Reminiscent of Ian Hamilton Finlay's work in it's linguistic and situational interplay, the installation takes a step-by-step conceptual walk through both an idea and a place . The monumental solemnity of the work suggests tombstones, echoing the lifecycle of decay and regeneration, an aspect reinforced by the ecosphere bush setting. The inevitability of such cyclic processes are also subtly suggested by the transmutating sequence of the inscribed words - MIST MOST LOST LOSE LOVE LORE LORN LOIN LAIN RAIN. Read either from top to bottom or visa versa, states of emotional engagement and suspension are bookended by ephemeral states of passing weather.

Another work by Browne, 'Live Wire', is a neon installation, a displaced display of urban familiarity marked in sharp contrast with it's placement in dense bush. The electrification of the work providing the titular sense of vibrant energy, pulsating with the rustling trees within which it resides. The nature/culture juxtaposition of the piece illuminates high/low, art/commerce cultural oppositions of the use of neon signage.

Further Finlayesque follies are provided by Dane Mitchell's series 'Commemorative Plaques 1-4'. Mixing profundity with a wry sense of humour, the plaques mounted on rocks and dispersed around the site, subvert the traditional monumentality of memorial markers. Gone are the references to great lives and deeds, and in their place are memories of inconsequential acts, in homage to the unrealised ideals and irritations of social interactions in everyday life, such as 'This tree was planted in commemoration of irreconcilable differences' and 'This plaque was laid in honour of maligned intent'.

The wonders of the woodland are investigated by Jim Wheeler's gilded bronze sculptural mistletoe 'Golden Bough', suspended several metres above the ground. Whilst not directly linguistic, it nonetheless engages with narrative forms and the roles they play in history and culture. As a subtle intevention into the landscape of coniferous native Kauri trees, it references both local and universal symbolism. Alluding to mistletoe as the Golden Bough of classical mythology which bestows authority to the King of the Wood, as well as an art historical nod to J.M.W. Turner's similarly titled painting of a scene from the Aeneid, the installation also cross-checks the sacred role the hemi-parasitic plant plays in Celtic lore.

The aspect of arboreal majesty is further enhanced by the work's hanging, invoking Tane Mahuta (Maori for 'Lord of the Forest'), the tallest Kauri tree in New Zealand. Situated in the Waipoua Forest in Northland, the tree is 52 metres tall with a trunk girth of 14 metres, and is estimated to be between 1250 and 2500 years old.

As a comment on colonialism, the work's mixed metaphors of Euopean and Maori significance, challenge traditional notions of parasitical cultures, instead reflecting on their interactions and interdependence for continued survival.

Plastic Passion

2011-02-09T08:07:00.013Z

The use of brightly coloured everyday objects in her sculptural art, has garnered New Zealand artist Judy Darragh the fitting sobriquet of 'Queen of Kitsch'. Her Post-Pop sensibility reconfigures objects in unlikely juxtapositions of form, material and place, carefully straddling a fine line between modernist good taste and a trash aesthetic.

Taking a cue from floristry and interior design, her installation 'Laser Bloom' in the group exhibition 'Call Waiting', draws upon impulses of hortiphilia and notions of well being, transposing the outdoors with indoors and the natural with the synthetic.

A mass blossoming of flouro flowers make a sweeping gesture in the upper gallery, rising from the stairwell and sprawling across the gallery walls, as if they were the mutant blooms of an invasive creeper. With the light pasing through the coloured acrylic petals, they radiate with an unearthly glow, as if they were the demon crossbred offspring of a lily and a neon sign.

City of Light

2011-02-06T01:38:00.082Z

Robert Irwin's career as an artist has taken several turns over the past five decades. His early years experimenting with Abstract Expressionism was a dalliance with the popular American avant garde mode of the day. But it wasn't until the 1970's, after a brief period working with painted aluminium discs, that he found his unique voice creating installations with light as his primary material. Utilising scrims to create visual volumes, the works were subtle interplays of light and shade, creating phenomenological shifts of perception, throwing the position of the viewer into question by challenging their assumptions about their relationship with appearance and visual veracity.

The time based nature of these works, and their seasonal light variations eventually lead Irwin to a greater engagement with the wider environment, and eventually to working with plants. His most publicised forays into the garden realm, at the Getty Center and at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, are articulate responses to local conditions. Drawing upon his experience with light works, the gardens utilise line, colour and light to affect experiential relationships with their surroundings. Alongside his earlier works they form an oeuvre with a decidedly Californian flavour.

As a response to place, the Central Garden at the Getty Center, is in keeping with Richard Meier's architectural surounds, which is something akin to a small Postmodern Neo-Itlainate town. The play of edifice and artifice is reflected in the garden design through it's lack of acknowledgement of 'naturalism' in favour of a geometric formalism.

Whilst the planting palette is of a sculptural nature, deployed with an artist's eye rather than than that of a traditional plantsman, Irwin took an informed approach to his materials, researching plants and taking advice from horticultural advisors, to enable an imaginative and captivating scheme. The use of native and exotic plants with similar characteristics, takes in a fair selection of species, running the gamut from succulents, through herbaceous perennials to fruit trees and grasses.

The plants are arrayed in bold geometric patches of colour and texture within a landscape of contrasting rock and water features. The visitor's descending passage through the garden is a dynamic progression from turbulence to tranquility. A pathway weaves it's way down across a stream which provides the garden's central axis. The impressive water feature begins in a rill on the upper courtyard and finds a suitably contemplative conclusion in a pool with a unique, seemingly floating maze.

Most evident is the effect of light which accompanies the movement through the different spaces in the garden, giving each a distinct character, and effecting a disorientating sense of perspective and distance. Shadowplays are an integral feature which enhance the sculptural aspects of the planting and hardscape.

The Palm Garden at LACMA, as it's name suggests, uses a more reduced planting palette to generate similar perceptual effects as those at the Getty. Such a palette serves not only to reinforce the location's primordial history as a tar pit, but also to provide a sculptural impact within an architecturally dense area. Dispersed over nearly half the landscape of the museum's campus, the design takes the form of a T shape, filling areas with palms planted in differing degrees of density, which in inimitable Irwin style, fragment, redirect and disperse the light, between the surrounding buildings.

The Cantor Sculpture Garden, which provides a setting for six Rodin sculptures and two busts, forms a hermetic area distinctly demarcated not only by the metal fencing surrounding it, but also by the strict grid format planting of 32 Washingtonia robusta palms, which filter the light in the space.

Elsewhere the sculptural aspect is realised in metaphorical form with Phoenix dactylifera (date palms) set on plinth-like Cor Ten planter walls. Perhaps it is an attempt to reinstate sculpture to a respectful pedestal, in response to the overwhelming Richard Serra works 'Band' and 'Sequence', made from the same material, occupying an entire floor inside the museum, which dispense with such a framing device in favour of sitting directly on the ground.

But it is Irwin's determined sense of positioning for the planting which gives the garden a special quality, informed as it has been by the long term development of the project which has allowed him to monitor the seasonal changes of light across the site.

But beyond it's phenomenological effects, the garden has a political and cultural significance in it's choice of planting. In a city where palms are ubiquitous, the garden challenges their often overlooked commonplace status, reinforcing it as symbol for the Los Angeles itself. But also given the fact that mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in 2006 stopped the planting of palms in civic spaces, it can be read as a direct challenge to authority.

The Washingtonia robusta (Mexican fan palms) and Phoenix canariensis (Canary Island date palms) placed at the site's southern entrance serve as an apt backdrop to a work by one of L.A.'s other favourite sons, Chris Burden. 'Urban Light' is an impressive dense installation of antique cast iron lamp posts, collected from the city streets after decommissioning . In form it mirrors Irwin's Cantor Sculpture Garden plan, which it sits aside, in it's grid layout and vertical stature. The work not only offers a fitting tribute to Los Angeles, but also provides a succinctly playful metaphor for Irwin's light-handed, landscape of light.

Succulent City

2011-02-03T11:48:00.012Z

As both a striking panorama and an enlightening perspective on the relationship between cultural and natural habitats, the sun baked view of the succulent and cacti garden at the J. Paul Getty Centre, perched regally on a hilltop above Los Angeles, is an example second to none.

The manicured desertscape on the south promontory designed by the practice of landscape architect Laurie D.Olin in the mid 1990's, simultaneous suggests both drought and abundance, nature and artifice, and is a fitting corollary to both the imposing architecture of the centre, designed by Richard Meier, and the collection of classic European artwork it houses.

The promontory and terraces feature a collection of plants arranged loosely according to their global origin, As such the international selection rather than simply native species, reflects the global cultural mix of the city, which since it's genesis has been a magnet for immigration. Included in the scheme are Aloe bainessi, Euphorbia candelabrum, Pachanoi trichocereus, Agave americana 'Marinata' and Opuntia santa-rita.

Viewed from above, the promontory is an in-situ visual display, inaccessible to the public due to security and health and safety concerns. Indeed access provide something of a challenge during the garden's construction, which had to be executed without cranes, resulting in the barrel cacti, weighing between 25 and 50 pounds, being transported to their positions wrapped in newspaper and burlap, carried up the slope on workers backs.

The garden features a succinct architectural and geometric interplay between colour and form. The plant selection based on extreme environmental constraints is perhaps the perfect metaphor for the architecture of a city built in a desert. The theme of adaptation, perseverance, and tolerance of local conditions, is quite apparent, with a further parallel drawn between the city and garden through the juxtaposition of the grid layout of the planting and the streets below.

Hollywood & Vine social climbers

2011-02-02T21:51:00.019Z

Whilst public art too often resorts to tried and tested forms of sculpture, a recent installation by Los Angles new media artist Jennifer Steinkamp takes a rather more glamorously high tech approach to the transposition of nature onto an urban setting.

'Hollywood and Vine' positioned unsurprisingly at the intersection of the two famous Hollywood thoroughfares, noted as part of the star spangled streetscape 'Walk of Fame', is a delicately distracting work of digital manipulation. The sidewalk intervention is a series of eight animations on large screens placed upon concrete pillars of the Wells Fargo Bank at 1600 Vine Street. Each animation references a specific movie star immortalised on that particular section of the walk, including Orson Wells, Cary Grant, Donna Reed, Jane Wyman, Ray Milland, Margaret O'Brien, William Bendix and Audrey Hepburn.

The animated flowers in drifting descent, reference plants which appear in particular films alongside the actors - Roses, Carnations, Peonies, Magnolias for Orson Wells in 'Citizen Kane', Phlox, Azaleas, Lillies and Violets for Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady', and so on.

The work draws upon the media manipulation of flowers in creating symbolic meaning and driving cinematic narrative, as well as the way in which the surrounding landscape has been shaped by the industry, It neatly reflects upon the distancing effect of media by creating yet another layer of significance upon the existing mythologies, as well as adding a material aesthetic layer to the actual environment.

In a similar manner Steinkamp's installation 'Orbit' at MOCA's exhibition of L.A. artists 'The Artist's Museum', utilises similar digital floral motifs within a gallery context. Flowers, leaves and vines are projected on to a wall in a flowing display of seasonal change, creating a mesmerising cyclic immersive environment, in which one is seduced by the artifice of pixel based naturalism. The biological laws of horticulture are unshackled in a manner which invokes a cross breeding of both the romantic imagination of past and the scientific future of genetic manipulation - horticulture for the Internet age!

Elevated ideas

2011-01-30T16:57:00.018Z

The light industrial Hayden Tract area in Culver City, Los Angeles is well known for it's quirky take on Postmodern architecture. Developed by 'L.A. school' architect Eric Owen Moss, the experimental development brings together fragments of disparate and distorted architectural styles to create a cityscape of uniquely futurist buildings, with names such as 'Stealth', 'Beehive' and 'What Wall?'.

This high flying conceptual approach has found an appropriate corollary in the garden realm at 3585 Hayden Avenue. Literally taking the idea of planters sky high, a formidable installation makes a most eye catching landmark. A gridded arrangement of steel planters with one cacti potted in each, hang suspended from a re-employed 60 year old steel structural framework, originally the skeleton of the Hayden Tower. A translucent removable proscenium curtain wraps the framework to a height of 30 feet, enclosing a gatheringspace for employees of Superfad located in the adjoining building.

An exercise in post-industrial reuse, the edifice now towers above the area as a monument to the past and a signpost to the future. The act of displacing the ground plane transforms the relationship between earth and sky, whilst locating the planters within the tower's elevation plays with notions of interior and exterior spaces, as well as the interplay between nature and culture.

The minimalist form and industrial material of the work suggests a relationship with the artwork of Carl Andre and Donald Judd, or the subsequent application of their ideas in landscape architecture by Peter Walker and Martha Schwartz.

The tower is a fitting example of a Postmodern approach to landscape. But with the exception of a of rolling lawn surrounding the 'Beehive' building, it is an approach underused in the Hayden Project. As is often the case when architects take on planning roles, landscape is of secondary importance, mere window dressing to the buildings themselves, rather than an equal element in an integrated environment. Given that the tower successfully provides more than mere novelty value, it seems that the opportunity for extending such strategies to the whole development, is one which has been woefully neglected.

California dreaming on a winter's day Pt. 2

2011-01-29T08:24:00.041Z

As an architectural style, Modernism exited the 20th Century with a tarnished reputation for blandness and failed dreams. From it's socially progressive intentions of creating 'machines for living' through the integration of form and function, it metamorphisised into the ubiquitous 'International Style', with it's banal universal language of corporate glass and steel, and utilitarian town planning.

But in the height of it's mid-century summer, it found it's creative force employed to fine effect, not as a global style but rather in envisaging new vernaculars when engaged with local situations. Perhaps the most successful realisation of this was in California, with Art & Architecture magazine's series of Case Study houses, designed between 1945-1966. The architect's brief was to respond to the specificity of the Californian conditions of light, space and terrain, as well as a post-war burgeoning consumer market with desires for new forms of lifestyles, fusing indoor and outdoor living.

Correspondingly landscape architects, often working in collaboration with such architects, rose to the same challenges. The work of Californian Modernists Thomas Church, Lawrence Halprin and Garrett Eckbo shaped the suburban landscape in accord with these novel social trends, envisaging a brighter future for the second half of the century. Developing new responses to the changing demands for gardens, in terms of use, spatial arrangement, maintenance and horticulture, their work sort an integration of human, environmental and aesthetic criteria.

Whilst the iconic aspirational images of Church's 'Donnell garden' have come to typify this period, it was nonetheless Eckbo who most doggedly pursed the socially democratic ethos of Modernism in his work with community landscapes. Whilst many projects never left the drawing board, the low cost Modernique Homes development at Mar Vista in 1948, and the Wonderland Park project in Los Angeles in 1952, today stand as testament to his legacy of integrating the needs of individuals with those of the group, through landscape design.

Wonderland Park situated on the sinuous slopes of Laurel Canyon, provided a somewhat more formidable and expansive landscaping challenge for Eckbo, than the compacted grid format of Mar Vista. The site was terraced for the construction of 67 homes with Eckbo's masterplan describing a planting scheme in which the tree density and height decreased as the street ascended, giving a sense of narrative development between the relationship of human scale and the wider environment. The original planting list included Eucalyptus sideroxylon rosea, Ecalyptus citriodora, Magnolia grandifloria, Prunus pissardii, Cupressus sempivirens fastigiata, Pinus canariensis, Olea europaea, Liquidamber styraciflua, Platanus acerifolia, Washingtonia filifera, Trachcarpus excelsa, Cedrus deodara, Tipuana tipu and Melaleuca stypheliodes.

Planting for erosion control was implemented, with regard given to the specific benefits of the deep rooting trees as well as other horizontal rooting plants such as Solanum, Cistus, and Plumbago. The amelioration of solar effects through tree placement, was also a key consideration, given Los Angeles' annual amount of sunshine, geographic position and climatic conditions.

Aside from the general landscaping and streetscape, Eckbo designed about half the gardens for private residences including the Goldin and Stubbs properties at numbers 8967 and 8978 Wonderland Park Ave, respectively. He also designed his own garden at number 9042, around the house designed by architect Josef Van Der Kar, both a friend with whom he shared socially progressive sympathies, and a professional collaborator with whom he worked on many residential projects.

Eckbo's transformation of the garden in the late 1950's as part of the 'ALCOA Forecast' program, was a unique attempt to transform traditional garden features through the use of new materials. In an attempt to shift from a military to a domestic client base, the Aluminium Company of America, sponsored a selection of artists and designers to use the new wonder material in suitably creative fashions, for publicity purposes. Eckbo used sheets, mesh panels and structural beams in the construction of a pergola, roofing pyramids and a large fountain shaped like a flower. As a focal centrepiece the olive green fountain, fabricated from 1/4 inch aluminium plate, stood 3 1/2 feet tall and 6 feet wide, with five tapered tube water outlets rising stamen-like from the centre of the work.

In later years the property was owned by the recently re-elected, three time democratic Governor of California, Jerry Brown, who retained most of the original features when he purchased the property. In 1987 he employed Eckbo to consult on the maintenance and development of the garden, whose suggestions included refreshing the paintwork on the aluminium structures, removal of a Pampas grass, Liquidamber and large old Chinese Wingnut trees, as well as reshaping the shrubbery and groundcover. Unfortunately the aluminium works no longer remain in the garden due to eventual deterioration.

Although not one of the gardens included in Eckbo's original landscaping plan, the Bailey House designed by architectural Modernist maestro Pierre Koenig and constructed in 1958, is a significant architectural landmark on the avenue. Like his seminal Stahl House, built two years later also in Laurel Canyon, the house is a fine example of Art & Architecture's Case Study program. A basic single story white cube with full size north and south facing glass windows, it forms an interior courtyard with the adjoining carport. Surrounded by shallow pools, the design neatly utilises water to soften the concrete pathways and fuse the house with the garden. Although given California's ongoing water scarcity problem, the pools are currently drained, and perhaps accordingly the garden planting is fittingly composed of architectural cacti and succulents, the defined shapes of which are framed and accented by the rectangular white walls of the building.

Today Wonderland Park exudes a lazy tranquility enhanced by the maturity of Eckbo's arboreal masterplan which serves to generate a majestic sense of coherence to the residential area. It has blossomed into something of a horticultural oasis in which homeowner's have made manifest their individual hortiphiliac tendencies to the greater benefit of general environment, as if bringing to fruition the Modernist ideals which Eckbo originally intended, in a manner in which he no doubt would justly approve.

California dreaming on a winter's day Pt.1

2011-01-28T15:58:00.030Z

Modernism's 20th century dream of establishing a new relationship between individuals and society, found it's most obvious concrete expression in architecture, but the translation of such ideas into the wider landscape were perhaps most significantly realised in the work of landscape architect Garrett Eckbo in California.

Whilst Eckbo's enthusiam for modernist ideals are most clearly expressed in his seminal book 'Landscape for Living', their material expression found thier most conise form in the Mar Vista housing tract, just east of Venice in Los Angeles in 1948.

Working with architect Gregory Ain, the original proposal envisaged the construction of 100 low cost properties, of which 52 were actually completed. The idea of the development ran counter to the prevalent real estate trinity of 'banker/builder/realtor', substituting it instead with 'architect/landscape architect/developer', in order to provide the grounds for greater creative expression and social responsibility, unfettered by traditional economic motives.

The Modernique Homes project consistred of 1,050 square foot houses on 75 x 104 foot lots, featuring a basic modular plan configurable into eight possible permutations, by changing the relationships between house and garage, and house to street.

Driven by Modernism's desire to create houses that were 'machines for living' rather then mere commodities, the project attempted to adapt to both the local climate and the mid-century needs of indoor/outdoor living. A direct connection was made between the living room and garden at the rear of the house, creating a sense of openness and facilitating greater functionality for modern lifestyles, whilst the frontal aspects featured gardens which embraced the daily social interactions of suburban life.

The properties original sales tag was $12,000, which contrasted with the average developer style properties of the time priced at $5,000, thus orientating them towards a slightly more aspirational socio-economic sector. Whilst this may have seemed slightly at odds with the affordable ethos of the project, this was offset by the long term sustainable nature of the homes. As adaptable housing they featured folding interior walls allowing accomodation of changing family sizes and circumstances. Hence the initial investment meant that they were homes for all stages and styles of life. But perhaps most at odds with the original intention are the current day prices the properties fetch. Now a designated conservation area, the fashionably des-res properties ironically fetch upwards of $1,000,000.

From a design perspective the gardens were an expression of some of Eckbo's core concerns of relating people to landscape. Through manipulation of ground plane and the interaction of openness and enclosure, his plan manages to create a novel expression of neighbourhood identity, which balances expressions of individual aspirations with spaces of social parity which encourage positive local bonding.

The rear gardens of Mar Vista were intended as arenas for homeowners to define their own horticultural aesthetics in accord with their lifestyle needs. The front gardens and streetscape designed by Eckbo, create a sense of cohesion and continuity through the free flowing planting scheme, blurring the distinctions between private and public property. The large front gardens and grass areas buffering the streets suggest a parkland feel rather than seperate relams of real estate. The expansive communual effect is facilitated by the use of large scale trees - Magnolia on Meir Street, Melaleuca on Moore Street and Ficus along one side of Beethoven Street.

Even today in a city brimming with verdant gardens, the signature qualities of Eckbo's design retains an uniqueness which sets it apart from the surrounding area. Whilst many of the front gardens have in recent years have been stamped with the homeowners horticultural personality, the maturity of the original trees planted on each street has bestowed upon them the tranquility of tree lined avenues most commonly associated with 18th century European estates. Their uniformity implies an orderly and considered approach to suburbia, too often negelected in postmodern potluck urban planning. As a consequence, the charm of the area also carries a whif of nostaglia for Modernism's dream of better living through architecture and landcape. As such it is a pertenant reminder of the need to address the uneasy contemporary balance between individual and society, and the role in which the design and use of gardens can play in such a task.