In & Out of Paris: Gardens of Secret Delights

by Zahid Sardar

Overview

Among the more than 30 great and small projects within In & Out of Paris are Vaux-le-Vicomte, Versailles, and Courances—all classic André Le Nôtre–style French gardens. Also discover the Paris gardens of celebrated artist Jean-Michel Othoniel and art aficionado Pierre Bergé, architect Kenzo Takada’s Japanese retreat in the Bastille, Australian couturier Martin Grant’s tiny terrace in the Marais, Mexican painter MariCarmen Hernandez’s Montmartre rooftop, and American architect Michael Herrman’s homage to Le Corbusier’s surreal ChampsÉlysées garden for bon vivant Charles de Beistegui.

Modern masters Louis Benech, Gilles Clement, Pascal Cribier, Christian Fournet, Camille Muller, Hugues Peuvergne, and Pierre-Alexandre Risser are also featured, representing a new era of experiments, color, and asymmetry in the Paris garden.

ZAHID SARDAR is a San Francisco–based editor, writer, and curator specializing in architecture, interiors, and design. His work has appeared in Dwell, Interiors, Western Interiors & Design, Interior Design, House & Garden, Elle Décor, House Beautiful, and Landscape Architecture. He has taught design history at the California College of the Arts and has written several other books, including West Coast Modern and New Garden Design.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781423632719
Publisher:	Smith, Gibbs Publisher
Publication date:	10/16/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	264
File size:	122 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Zahid Sardar is the design editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and has reported on garden, interior and architecture design for twenty years in the Bay Area. His work appears in Chronicle Magazine and other national and international design publications such as House & Garden, Western Interiors and Design, Elle Décor, Architecture, Metropolis, Elle Decoration and Schoner Wohnen magazines.

Read an Excerpt

Magnificent Versailles

André Le Nôtre’s garden for the senses

“Such symmetry,” nineteenth-century poet Lord Byron observed in Louis XIV’s enviable gardens at the Chateau de Versailles, “is not for solitude.” Designed for pleasure, the baroque gardens represent the zenith of the jardin à la française, with long sight lines and breathtaking details.

After 1661, landscape architect André Le Nôtre, architect Louis Le Vau and sculptor Charles le Brun transformed Louis XIII’s former hunting lodge into a palace, and 2,000 acres of farmland and woods to its west became a stirring display of fountains and structural effects for the king’s entertainment. Circular ponds, parterres with flowers and arabesque boxwood hedges, conical topiaries and statuary in the tiered garden all outshone any they created for the king’s hapless minister at Vaux-le-Vicomte.

The sun, Louis XIV’s emblem of royal divinity, was the underlying conceit. Radiating gravel paths, symbolizing rays of light, broke the garden’s axial cross plan centered on a palace that was the epitome of French power.

Table of Contents

Introduction

15 Outside the Walls

Garden Estates

29 Inspired Vaux-le-Vicomte

39 Magnificent Versailles

49 Reflections at Courances

58 Rodin’s Sculpture Garden

63 Désert de Retz Follies

65 Monet’s Colorful Giverny

71 Experimental Parc Méry-sur-Oise

Private Paris

78 Surrealism Near Madeleine

85 Louis Benech in Faubourg Saint-Germain

89 An Artful Hideout

95 Hôtel George V Courtyard

99 Kenzo Takada’s Perfect Retreat

105 Follies at Villa André Bloc

111 Jean-Michel Othoniel’s Herbier

119 Up on the Roof

123 Contemporary Folly

124 Patrick Blanc’s Jungle Inside

133 Camille Muller’s Call of the Wild

141 Chimneys and Sweeping Views

147 Hide-and-Seek Garden

150 Rooftop Edens in the 16th

158 A Crater with a View

165 Hugues Peuvergne at Play

173 Montmartre Gallery Garden

179 Where the Wild Things Are

184 Outdoor Rooms

190 A Gardener’s Retreat

199 Poolside Roof Garden

200 Miniature Estate in Suresnes

205 A Private Key to Parc Monceau

Public Parks

208 Parc Monceau’s Illusory Past

213 A Living Archive of the Planet

217 Uncommon Sculpture Park

223 Fondation Cartier’s Botanical Theater

227 Gilles Clément’s Steamy Jungle

233 When Plants Make Waves

239 A New Leaf for the Archives

242 The New Metro Style

247 Lofty Promenade Plantée

251 A Dockside Landscape

255 Novotel’s Secret Courtyard

Resources

259 Web Sites

261 Bibliography

263 Acknowledgments

Editorial Reviews

Like most European cities, [Paris] hides many of its charms behind towering walls and locked gates. In and Out of Paris: Gardens of Secret Delights, by Zahid Sardar, an ambitious, meticulous and impressive tour of some of those places, is an oversize volume that features the vibrantly romantic photographs of Marion Brenner, who can make even a toad look chic…Any woman (or man) who tires of floriferous France must be tired of life.

The New York Times Book Review - Dominique Browning

For the green-thumbed, In & Out of Paris: Gardens of Secret Delights is a gem of a book — offering unbridled access to the capital’s private dwellings, garden estates and public parks.

My French Country Home Magazine