Achille Duchene (Duchesne)

Achille Duch�ne was the son of Henri Duch�ne, himself a well-known restorer of French gardens. He worked on Vaux le Vicomte, Le Marias, Champs sur Marne and Courances. In England he designed a water garden for the Blenheim Palace. By 1935 he had concluded that there was no future in designing great parks for the aristocracy and wrote a book on The Gardens of the Future (Les Jardins de l'avenir) in which he suggested they would be smaller and more functional. The Duch�ne style was Arts and Crafts in the sense of taking an old tradition and using it inventively and with close attention to construction and planting details.