http://www.gardenvisit.com/blog News and debate from Gardenvisit.com Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:47:56 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en [caption id="attachment_3170" align="alignright" width="775" caption="Thames Area Strategy zones from the 2009-10 Mayor's London Plan"][/caption] You can download the .pdf and comment the draft of Mayor Boris Johnson's London Plan 2009.  The most interesting chapters, for me, are Chapter 6 on Transport and  Chapter 7 on London's Living Spaces and Places. The ... http://www.gardenvisit.com/blog/2009/11/17/comment-on-the-landscape-aspects-of-the-mayors-london-plan-2009/ [caption id="attachment_3152" align="alignright" width="775" caption="Nemea has the only sacred grove proven by archaeology"][/caption] Western cities are full of  echos Greek architecture, almost all inspired by surviving Greek temples which were built in sanctuaries and sacred groves as houses for gods. Greek temples were not buildings in which people congregated to pray, ... http://www.gardenvisit.com/blog/2009/11/17/sacred-groves-in-ancient-greece-landscape-architecture-london/ Channel 4, in the UK, did a programme on Cothay Manor Garden this evening. Mr Alastair Robb (78) and Mrs Mary-Anne Robb (68) spend £40,000/year on running the house and only get £15,000 from opening the garden to the public. Mrs Robb said, rightly, that 'most National gardens have ... http://www.gardenvisit.com/blog/2009/11/11/cothay-manor-garden/ Following in the footsteps of Britain's most quoted historians (W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman) we should ask: is the London Eye is a Good Thing or a Bad Thing? 30m people have ridden in the Eye (@ £17.5 each =£525m) and the owners pay the South Bank Centre ... http://www.gardenvisit.com/blog/2009/11/10/is-the-millennium-london-eye-a-good-thing-or-a-bad-thing/ Colin suggested adding Anne Whiston Spirn's book on The language of landscape to the list of 100 Best Books on Landscape Architecture and I said I would re-read it. It is a good book, and as a commentary on a host of landscapes, it is inspirational. As a text on ... http://www.gardenvisit.com/blog/2009/11/09/anne-whiston-spirn-and-the-language-of-landscape/ [caption id="attachment_3083" align="aligncenter" width="775" caption="The Yew Army at Sericourt"][/caption] The title of Yve Gosse de Gorre’s book about his Jardin de Sericourt translates as ‘Wisdom and Folly in the Garden’. The garden lives up to the name and is filled with deep thinking leavened with humour. Like Jencks’ Garden of Cosmic Speculation ... http://www.gardenvisit.com/blog/2009/11/08/sericourt-a-garden-for-remembrance-sunday/ Sometimes the best way to see something - is to see it differently. Thanks to Christo and his project Wrapped Trees, Fondation Beyeler and Berower Park, Riehen, Switzerland 1997-98    the humble tree can be seen more clearly as part of the three dimensional compositon of space. The exaggerated sense of presence wrapping ... http://www.gardenvisit.com/blog/2009/11/07/when-is-a-tree-not-a-tree/ [caption id="attachment_3062" align="alignright" width="775" caption="The Olympic Games should be re-formed on a Delphic or Celtic model"][/caption] According to Wiki the Pythian Games at Delphi: "were founded sometime in the 6th century BCE, and, unlike the Olympic Games, also featured competitions for music and poetry. The music and poetry competitions pre-dated the ... http://www.gardenvisit.com/blog/2009/11/02/pythian-games-and-olympic-games-culture-and-athletics/  http://sojamo.tumblr.com/post/74728983/synetic-textile-architecture-environmetally The Made of Light project by Speirs Major and Associates Lighting Architects  http://www.madeoflight.com/mol/site_map.htm is a wonderful e-book that discusses the relationship between architecture and light in 12 simple themes. 1. Source - natural and artifical 2. Contrast - light and darkness 3. Surface - light and texture 4. Colour - spectral colour 5. Movement - where time meets ... http://www.gardenvisit.com/blog/2009/10/30/light-2c-by/ Charles Jencks has been making the most interesting postmodern garden in Britain, with the Prince of Wales Highgrove garden as its only rival. Jencks, as the leading theorist of postmodernism, has the stronger theoretical base and I daresay there is not much to chose between the gardens with regard to ... http://www.gardenvisit.com/blog/2009/10/28/charles-jencks-portrack-garden-of-cosmic-speculation/