It might be a bit of an exaggeration to say that everyone walks through Piet Oudolf’s garden. But hundreds of millions have: The Dutch landscape architect is the mastermind behind New York City’s High Line and Battery Parks, Chicago’s Millennium Park Lurie Gardens, London’s Queen Elizabeth Park, the entrance to the Toronto Botanic Gardens and the Vitra campus Southwest Germany. (Just to name a few.) Currently, he is considered by most to be the most famous person in the field. “I’ve always had a strong feeling that I could have done something different,” Odolf said previously. “This is what happens when I come across plants.”
Phaidon’s new book coming out tomorrowPiet Oudolf: At Work proves how indisputable his influence was. A photographic anthology of his greatest outdoor work and a poetic ode to his creativity (thanks to several essays by his contemporaries), it offers a complete look at Odolf and his legacy. “Thus, Oudolf has successfully liberated planting design as an art form, bringing it from the niche to the big stage,” writes gardener Cassian Smith.
Oudolf’s hand-painted floor plan of Vitra Campus in Germany
Courtesy and © Piet Oudolf
As fascinating as the photos of the end result of his project are Drawings that Oudolf used to plan these projects. Fussy, colorful, and vibrant, they look more like abstract maps than sketches, with soft plant borders penetrating into each other, and deep pink echinacea among others. Roughly written shorthand, purple calcium and orange helium . In fact, Hauser & Wirth (another of Oudolf’s many clients) found them so ingenious that they held a a special exhibition.
Oudolf is credited with founding the New Perennial movement, which advocates gardens that use grasses and plants that regrow each year, rather than grow once and die. The scale of his designs is astonishing and the variety of plants; for example, his Vitra project includes over 36 species and 000, Total number of perennials. result? In a garden that feels like natural grass and landscape, structure is as important as color. “A garden is not a landscape painting as you see it, but a dynamic process of constant change,” Oudolf said. new book.
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