I don't know...this looks pretty straight...and are those perfect circles as well:

{{gwi:22931}}

Though there might be a valid argument that bamboo was created by Satan!

- Brent

I would say that for the most part the creation of a garden is not an imitation of nature...at least my garden is not. How often in nature to you run across things like a mortared flagstone patio or a bed of flowers cleanly separate from the neighboring field of grass with a cleanly cut and mulched edge?

I have to admit that I am happier with the layout of some of my beds when I introduced straight lines and 1/4 circle curves. This was to redefine a few edges that wandered for no real reason. I do like curves, but for curves to work the need to have a reason for being there.

- Brent

Horizon

There is beauty in order and simplicity. I recently heard Raymond Jungles speak and he said something that made more sense to me that much of what I've heard over the years...
'let what it wants to be become what it is'...

Horizon: let what it is become what it is. any minute now Mohave will come in with one of his. Explain please.

I personally want to snort everytime people say they want their garden to look "natural". Gardens are NOT natural, they are highly artificial creations. I have a "natural" woods, and a "natural" field, and I don't know anyone who would want to emulate that look.

Instead of trying to make it "natural" with swoopy-doopy lines curving every which way, try making it "beautiful". That very well could involve long straight lines to give it order and separate it from the "wild". (whether woods or wild neighbors.) Long lines, whether straight or gently curved, seem more visually powerful than spaghetti squiggles.

I'm just pointing out that a horizon on a body of water or even any water surface of size creates a natural line (someone will bust in explaining that it is curved with the earth, I suppose). Then there are sun beams breaking through clouds, threads of rapelling spiders, and other things when we think about it.

I've never seen a backyard pond that looked natural, 90% look like someone piled rock on the ground and then filled it with water.

When we worked with a designer a few years ago, the first design presented to us was overflowing with curved beds, spilling across the line of the sidewalk, looping hither and yon.

My husband, who can sometimes closely resemble a large primate, is also extremely good at critiquing design and form. His father, an art historian, was the "curator" of Vienna in charge of renovating interiors and exteriors of buildings and monuments in Vienna. His sister, also an art historian, now works in the same office, and his brother is an artist.

I mention this because my husband and his sister, when she has visited us, love American kitch. If I opened the floodgate my husband would people our yard with angels and gnomes, dwarves and pudgy children carrying flower baskets, reindeer and skeletons. It would be a bizarre jungle of Halloween and Christmas out thereÂbut when he wants to, my husband has a "good eye".

He also sounds like Arnold Swarzeneggar. His comment on the first design was, "Too much. Simple house. Simple lines."

I have to confess I was a little worried. At the time there were several threads running on this forum praising the superiority of curves over lines. But I prefer straight lines for a different reason, a different function. Curves are a nightmare for orientation. I have been known to wander for long periods of time lost in my own, relatively small front yard after taking a direction based on a curved edge. (Side note- I always try to look like I know exactly what I'm doing out thereÂbend down and examine the grass for a momentÂhmmmmÂtake a step or twoÂWhere the h*ll is the sidewalk! DangÂwhaere am I? Whoops I'm in the neighbor's drivewayÂI think?)

So, we talked with the designer. When he came back, it was clear that he was much happier with the design. It was simpler, bolder, much more fitting in style, proportion, and scale. We haven't built it yet--that's another story--but the process has definitely clarified the direction we'd like to take.

Wellspring

What I was alluding to was that there is a natural order to all spaces. We have an impact--straight or curved--but when one or the other is forced it can (but doesn't always) fight with what the site really is and can be. Sometimes a designer will intend to create tension by forcing a curve where there would naturally be straight and visa versa. There are, as laag has pointed out, straight lines in nature.

Curved lines do not necessarily make something natural. Frank Gehry knows that.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:22930}}

Is that the building at MIT?

I *think* it is the Disney Concert hall in LA. (I cheated a little by looking at the web address - most of Gehry's recent work does look pretty similar!).

But then, most buildings are built mainly of straight lines. And aren't gardens usually the space between a building and the rest of the world? So, isn't it appropriate for gardens to use a combination of straight lines and curves?

If you had a garden without hardscaping and without a divider between grass and flower beds, would there be any lines at all?

Wouldn't a blade of grass be a line? ;)

Not if it was a meadow.