GIARDINA 2006
Showgarden title: “Der Hofgarten” (The Courtyard Garden), Halle 1, Stand 17, 15.-19 März, GiardinaZÜRICH 2006
City Gardens® presents a showgarden at the Swiss Garden and Lifestyle Show, GiardinaZÜRICH 2006, for the third time, with the generous support of „Do-it + Garden Migros. The showgarden is the creation of the Swiss/British garden designer Susan F. Ernst-Peters.
Many of the ideas and principles featured in the designs of gardens of ancient civilizations have a particular relevance to contemporary life in the 21st century. The vast majority of our gardens, private or shared, are small, urban and are desired not for working in but to escape the hectic pace of life. The idea of the garden as a refuge or sanctuary and a place of pleasure is as important today as it was in earlier times.
This showgarden invites the visitor to explore connections between the ancient and the new, the classic and the contemporary, and to join in celebrating the small town garden, private or shared, as a sanctuary and a place of pleasure.
The showgarden comprises a main courtyard or Hofgarten (‘Hortus conclusus’) flanked by four, smaller, enclosed courtyards, two on each side, leading into it. The perimeter of the site is partially open to enable views and access into the garden. The central courtyard garden is designed in a chic and minimal style around a pool fed from a fountain and transported through the garden via smaller channels that sub-divide the garden symbolically into quarters (four smaller garden rooms). The quality of light (white/cool), the choice of materials (terracotta paving and white rendered walls) and retrained use of planting (laurel underplanted with Ophiopogon planiscapus and fragrant white hyacinths) creates a sense of ethereal beauty, stillness and unity. The design mirrors a love of simplicity and order.
The four small courtyard gardens are in comparison, rustic, cosy and romantic. A strong emotional impact is achieved through the choice, selection and combination of planting, architectural elements, trompe d’oeil as well as objects that bring character and ambience. The gardens reflect the contemporary love for the antique and traditional, for stone and iron, things that border on the arcaeic and appear almost to be on the point of decay, as if dug from the ruins of ancient Egypt. In these gardens one finds relics that could have come from ancient Rome, satifying our collector instinct for ancient and historical things from the past.
The City Gardens® showgarden, “Der Hofgarten”, is a celebration of the ancient and the new, the classic and the contemporary, and the way in which the smallest space, in the middle of a city, the country or the outskirts of town, can be a private sanctuary - and a palace of pleasure for “everyone”.
© 2006 All Rights. City Gardens® / Susan F. Ernst-Peters.
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