The Contemporary Garden

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"The Contemporary Garden" is an illustrated survey of 100 iconic and innovative gardens in the world, spanning from the early 1920s to the present day. Accessible and easy-to-use like Phaidon's popular "The Garden Book", this informative source book includes an unrivalled range of gardens by designers, makers, architects and land artists - from Garrett Eckbo's Alcoa Forecast Garden (1925) and Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye (1929) to Ian Hamilton Finlay's Little Sparta (1966) and horticultural installation artist Tony Heywood's Split (2003). Each garden has been selected for its unique design, marking a break from traditional gardens and presenting new and sometimes conceptual designs. The selection ranges from the public to the private and all types are featured - Modernist gardens, conceptual spaces, roof and water gardens, contemporary interpretations of traditional garden styles and urban parks and landscapes.Other examples include Gabriel Guevrekian's Villa Noailles (1927) in France, Fernando Caruncho's startlingly unusual Wheat Garden (1990) in Spain, Kathryn Gustafson's Diana Memorial Fountain (2004) in England and Tadao Ando's Zen-like Garden of Fine Arts (1994) in Japan. "The Contemporary Garden" presents projects by forward-looking garden designers from around the globe. Today's most arresting garden designs are often based on traditional principles but the interpretation - with the use of innovative materials, unusual plants and unexpected forms - offers a new approach to planting and alternative solutions to garden, backyard or outdoor space design. Featuring the use of artificial materials, such as Robert Mallet-Stevens' Garden with Concrete Trees (1925) and Dean Cardasis' Plastic Garden (1995), "The Contemporary Garden" also offers an examination of the impact of unique, iconic gardens designed by the likes of Isamu Noguchi, Roberto Burle Marx and Luis Barragan, among others.In addition, the selection includes gardens by famous artistic and architectural figures such as Henry Moore, Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, Joan Miro and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Organised chronologically, readers can trace the development of the non-traditional garden in all its variations from the early experimentations of the twentieth century to the visionary ideas of today's practitioners. Each entry consists of a full-page image with an accompanying text, placing the garden and its maker in stylistic and historical context. The book also features a glossary of terms and movements, a directory of gardens open to the public and an index. "The ContemporaryGarden" is a practical resource and an easy-to-use guide, unique in its appeal to both the general reader and the practicing gardener.