Author(s): Phaidon Editors

Gardening

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.