EFTA01780606

From: Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 2010 11:11 PM To: [email protected] Subject: (no subject) A completely fascinating man, he designed a tropical dry ga=den that is heavemly, I will bring his book with me Friday. <http://www.gardendesign.com/> ` Log=in <http://www.gardendesign.com/usen ▪ Register <http://www.gardendesign.com/user/=egister> Search this site: p=ants <http://www.gardendesign.com/plants> • l=Love This Plant <http://www.gardendesign.com/plants/i-love-this-plant> • Edibles <http://www.gardendesign.com/plants/edibles> =20 • Designing With Plants <http://www.gardendesign.com/plants/designing-with=plants> products <http://www.gardendesign.com/produ=ts> • Wa=er Features <http://www.gardendesign.com/products/water-features> • Hardsca=e <http://www.gardendesign.com/products/hardscape> • Lighting=/A> <http://www.gardendesign.com/products/lighting> • Furnitu=e <http://www.gardendesign.com/products/furniture> • Decor<=A> <http://www.gardendesign.com/products/decor> • Struct=res <http://www.gardendesign.com/products/structures> • Eco=20 Friendly <http://www.gardendesign.com/products/eco-friendly> ▪ O=tdoor Fabrics <http://www.gardendesign.com/products/outdoor-fabrics> • =utdoor Kitchens <http://www.gardendesign.com/products/outdoor-kitchens> ` =eeds and Plants <http://www.gardendesign.com/products/seeds-and-plants> " Fir= Features <http://www.gardendesign.com/products/fire-features> articles <http://www.gardendesign.com/artic=es> • Gre=t Gardens <http://www.gardendesign.com/articles/great-gardens> • Flo=al Design <http://www.gardendesign.com/articles/floral-design> • Designe=s <http://www.gardendesign.com/articles/designers> p=otos <http://www.gardendesign.com/photos> EFTA_R1_00099294 EFTA01780606 • Gardens <http://www.gardendesign.com/photos/gardens> =20 • Plants <http://www.gardendesign.com/photos/plants> =20 • Designer Portfolios <http://www.gardendesign.com/photos/designer-portf=lios> • D =A9cor <http://www.gardendesign.com/photos/decor-photos> ▪ Wallpaper <http://www.gardendesign.com/wallpaper> Plus: • conte=ts <http://www.gardendesign.com/contests> * living green <http://www.gardendesign.com=living-green> ▪ blogs <http://www.gardendesign.com/blogs> follow us: <http://www.gardendesign.com/sites/all/themes/gardendesign/images/r=s.jpg> Home <http://www.gardend=sign.com/> I articles <http://www.gardendesign.com/artic=es> I Designers chttp://www.gardendesign.com/articles/design=rs> IGroundbreaker: Gilles CI=C3 ment email chttp://www.gardendesign.com/forward?path=3Dnode/26751> print share <http://www.addthi=.com/bookmark.php> articles Groundbreaker: Gilles Clement By: Louisa Jones <http://www.gardendesign.com/sites/=II/files/imagecache/article_imageLimages/201002/GRD1009_GB1.jpg> + zoom photo: Georges Leveque Gilles Clement is a hard man to pin down. Best known as the=designer of original public parks in France and gardens from Chile to New Caledonia,=he also writes popular fables, novels and philosophical reflections. He is an outs=oken ecologist, botanist and entomologist who discovered the butterfly Buno=opsis clementii in 1974 in Cameroon. Clement has always been a leader=rather than a follower of fashion. In the early 1970s, having just graduated with degr=es in both agronomy and landscape design, he was already defending "biol=gical gardening," an early version of today's "work with= not against nature" theme. He champions a "humanist ecology" — not the Romant=c veneration of nature unspoiled by man, but partnership. Now a professor at the prestigious Vers=illes National School of Landscape Architecture, he is its only lecturer to teac= natural history as well as design concepts. Young admirers turn out in dro=es to hear him lecture all over France and would make him into a guru, were he=not humorous and unassuming. Not unlike other masters of the profession, he hi=self prefers to be called, simply, a gardener. Life-changing moment: As a teenager, helping his father spray roses wit= a highly toxic chemical, he got some in an open cut and spent two days in a=coma. Soon after, Clement escaped his father's highly regimented ga=den in the beautifully wooded Creuse area south of Paris to study nature in a nearby=20 valley, and in 1977, he was able to buy the land in Creuse where he had so=ght refuge when he was young. He built a stone house there with his own hands=and transformed the clearing into one of France's most admired gardens= now called La Vallee. It is still a sanctuary for himself, family, friends and=other fauna. At La Vallee, Clement first experimented with the "Mo=ing Garden" (le jardin en mouvement), influential as of 1985. Abandoned farmland, lef= to its own devices, gradually evolves toward forest growth. For Clement,=the gardener's intervention is not only admissible, it is central. He=observes: "Watching wasteland, I am not only fascinated by the energy of nat=re's reclamation, I also want to know how to insert myself in the midst of this=20 powerful flow." He 2 EFTA_R1_00099295 EFTA01780607 chooses the moment when spontaneous growth invo=ves all the elements usually found in a garden: trees, shrubs, vines, bulbs, grasses=— even wild roses. The gardener's role then is to guide and enrich in sym=athy with natural process, integrating accidents like fallen trees. Clement use= no chemicals, no supplemental watering and no noisy, energy-wasting machinery= But he does prune: A self-sown willow is trimmed to show off its multiple trun=s; wild hornbeams are clipped into smooth domes; a path uphill meanders throu=h the heart of a sprawling smokebush (Cotinus obovatus). Most paths are=20 simply mown grass, their routing changing from year to year to preserve self- sown clumps of foxglove, verbascum or hogweed, which draws many inter=sting insects. "A garden is always artificial," he insists, =80 but home gardens can become wildlife preserves." Movement, as he sees it, involves seasonal variation and change=due to self-sowing and species migration. Moving gardens, lived in or visited, ar= never purely visual but very tactile — you kneel, lie down, rub ag=inst, smell, inhale. "My gardens are meant to be brushed against," writ=s Clement. His first book devoted to the Moving Garden has been reprinted five times. In the late '80s and '90s, Clement worked on mainl= public projects such as a main section of the Parc Andre-Citroen in Paris (with landscape=designer Alain Provost and architects Patrick Berger, Jean-Francois Jodry and Jean-Paul=20 Viguier), the Valloires Abbey gardens (Les Jardins de Valloires) in Picard=, the Jardins de la Grande Arche de la Defense in Paris, the Henri Matisse=Park in Lille, gardens of the Chateau de Blois and the Mediterranean Gardens (Le=Jardin des Moditerranees) of the Domaine du Rayol. His most influential=work internationally has perhaps been his part of the Parc Andre-Citro =ABn. It includes a Moving Garden managed by the park staff: It is they who decide wher= the paths will be mown from year to year, to respect self-sown plants. Nearby,=his color-themed gardens have a complex symbolism, which visitors might sense=even if uninformed. Mothers report that when they enter the Green Garden,=linked to the theme of silence, their children often stop talking. In 1997, Piet Oudolf, Henk Gerritsen and Michael King commented on thes= gardens (in Nieuwe bloemen, nieuwe tuinen): "Gilles CI =A9ment's triumph at Parc Andre-Citroen demonstrates the range of possibilities th= art of gardening offers for both self-expression and communication. He has shown=how ideas may be presented both on the grand scale and in the tiniest detail,=making his approach as relevant to the private gardener as it should be to the br=ader world of the landscape architect." Clement refuses the romantic idea of an artist's signature= but his public projects have common elements: He often links separate spaces — fo=mally, as at Citroen or informally, like clearings in a forest — each with=its own character. Connecting paths are meandering and multidirectional. Where he includes a=single long axis (at Le Grande Arche de la Defense in the Domaine du Rayol),=it never dominates in the sense of imposing a hierarchy and reveals little of the=20 mysteries on either side, easily accessed from the long line but invisible=until you happen right upon it. He sometimes uses geometric shapes, especially=around historic monuments or where symbolism is suggested, but this formality is=20 open-ended, almost subversive in its unpredictability. His rejection of hierarchy, in garden design as in life, is almost obsessive. For several=years running, Clement refused the French national prize for landscape arch=tecture, insisting it should be given to the anonymous farmers, engineers and fores=ers who are the real architects of the landscape. In 1999, the prize was besto=ed on him without his consent. Clement calls the Moving Garden a conceptual tool. His second one,=the Planetary Garden, emerged after he had seen the first photographs of Earth=from space. He imagined extending the confines — and care — lav=shed on home gardens to the whole globe. In 2000, Clement directed a major science exhibit=in Paris to explain and provide positive examples of this theme. He also took a sta=ce on species migrations similar to that of American writer Michael Pollan, whic= has not always made him popular in the scientific community. "The main=objective," writes Clement, "is to encourage biological diversity, a sour=e of wonder and our guarantee for the future." For the past few years, Clement has been developing another concep=, which he calls "landscapes of the Third Kind." A study of highly ma=aged farm and forest land south of Paris led him to seek out hidden spaces that escape monocult=re and are forgotten by human industry, in-between spaces often abandoned aft=r misuse, still capable of spontaneous 3 EFTA_R1_00099296 EFTA01780608 revival. He has always had sympathy=for marginal and neglected spaces — as La Vallee once was. His at=empts at integrating such freedom into municipal design have proved controversial.<=P> Clement continues to publish, consult and create worldwide. You ne=er quite know where or when. Constant however is his faith in the garden: "=eal terrain, mysterious but explorable, it invites the gardener to define its space, it= wealth, its habitat. It holds humanity suspended in time. Each seed announ=es tomorrow. It is always a project. The garden produces goods, bears symbols= accompanies dreams. It is accessible to everyone. It promises nothing and=gives everything." Read More: articles, Designers <http:=/www.gardendesign.comfarticlesidesigners> , Groundbreaker NEWSLETTER 4 EFTA_R1_00099297 EFTA01780609