Not really new, but fairly recent style of planting. My husband had the opportunity last week of seeing Westgarden when he was in Munich on business. This was the first time I regretted not accompanying him on a business trip. He's not really a gardener, but enough has rubbed off on him that he was able to enjoy seeing some of it.

Here is a link that might be useful: german gardens

Thanks for the link, it was a great read. It is sort of funny how it seems like all the "new" fads were described in out of print books written 50 to 100 years ago.

I notice that the article mentions James van Sweden and Wolfgang Oehme. I was just reading an article about Wolfgang Oehme recently. That article focused mostly on his use of ornamental grasses, but I have seen other pictures of his work and it can be beautiful. Since these guys are out of the DC area, I need to get out and actually see some of their work in person.

I searched the web and came up with their web site linked below. They term their design style "The New American Garden". What ever it is called, many of the pictures in their portfolio are incredible (and look very expensive!).

- Brent

Here is a link that might be useful: Oehme, van Sweden & Associates

I agree, I'm moved by the work of Oehme van Sweden and have seen a couple of gardens first hand. It's the exact type of distinct, named style I was thinking of. But it's not very new. Someone can correct me, but I think I've been looking at their recognizable designs for 15 years.

And there are the lush plantsmans' gardens full of exotics and temperate plants that have been popular for 8-10 years? Just guessing.

Also, I have seen a resurrgence of ecologically motivated gardens, gardens respecting or encouraging ecological diversity, and living roofs, but I'm not sure that there is a cohesive trend there or a single wellspring of design ideas.

I was thinking of the landscaping that accompanies new buildings like the Disney Center/ Concert Hall. Nice landscaping, but even the dramatically new style of architecture hasn't seemed to inspire a radically new type of landscape design.

Brent, van Sweden et.al. have a few books published that you might enjoy. Check the library.

Dramatically new architecture is usually inspired by dramatically new construction techniques. It isn't always a matter of a new material or concept. Sometimes it's simply a different application. But you can't build skyscrapers without steel beams, or modern parabolas without reinforced concrete. With landscape design, it is usually a different application that creates major change, but it has also been the introduction of new plants.

The restlessnes for the "Next Big Thing" is mostly avoided by designers who want to stay the course. The reticence of landscape design to keep up is seen as backward by some yet the major influences may date back further than last week. There is a new edition of the "Oxford Companion to the Garden" and its editor Patrick Taylor lists 20 gardens "with impact" in the latest journal of the RHS. I have his list in front of me but it would be more fun to read yours, not 20 but what are the top 5 most influential gardens, in your opinion, gardens that influenced what it is you want to recreate? From anywhere at any time. I will post his list later.

Have any of you seen the new Millennium Park in Chicago? As a enormous planted roof, covering the vast old railway yards, it seems to fit the ecological mold, and the art, structures and gardens are exciting. Last summer we walked through a lavender field, taking extra delight from the sleight-of- hand: it was such an ugly industrial area when I attended a nearly university many years ago but now this was a vibrant space where Chicagoans and visitors of every description enjoyed the summer day together.

There is also at least one major difference between architecture and landscape architecture, most all gardens are dependent on nature and natural systems, and will change with time as plants grow, die, and systems change. Architecture is much more static, gardens are not, unless they are designed to remain constant, such as French formal gardens or those in the Japanese style.

Gardens are much more dependent on context with their surroundings, and those that fight this context need much more human intervention to maintain. Buildings are less so, but still do need maintainance and periodic inputs of labor and materials to avoid decay.

I am not sure that it is really a good thing to bemoan a lack of innovation in garden styles, or perhaps it is missing the point of gardens as links to the natural surroundings and refuge from stress. In my mind, the best garden design captures a sense of place rooted in the geography and local climate, and works with them to result in a style that fits the locality.

The example of the new Disney Theatre in Los Angeles is perhaps a red herring, in that the landscaping is very much subordinate to the building design, and is mere window dressing of the left over spaces rather than a great garden in its own right. Even so, the plantings were designed to provide interest at a more human scale as one walks around the buildings, while providing the typical needs of shading, screening, and seasonal visual changes in contrast to the unchanging character of the buildings. I thought the plantings were sensitively done, and well represent the range of plantings in combinations that are appropriate and often unique to Los Angeles and southern California. This garden doesn't pretend to be somewhere else in another climate, but uses the subtropicals and mediterannean plants that thrive in this coastal setting that rarely sees any frost. In this respect at least, it represents a new pragmatism of using regionally well adapted plants, massed or individually placed to best show off their individual qualities, while not trying to upstage the architecture, but instead work with it.

To sum up, I don't personally think there will ever really be a "Next Big Thing" in landscape design the way stylistic changes in architecture are heralded. Materials used will change,(however slowly), the plants in style will change, perhaps the use of outdoor space will change, in response to population increases and the cost of land. The trend is toward ever smaller private gardens as the cost of urban land continues to increase. This has resulted in major design changes in areas most affected, and is probably not yet felt in less expensive areas where land costs have not shrunk the space for gardening. The trend manifests itself here in coastal California as an intensive concentration of plantings and multiplicity of species used in ever smaller spaces, while large expansive lawns and huge specimen trees are becoming dinosaurs in the landscape. The cost of fuel and expenses associated with transporting non-local materials across continents may serve to focus landscape design on more sustainable and local use of materials. This is already happening here, where broken concrete slabs from demolition sites is already as commonly used for landscape walls as is real stone. Or it could be that limited resources such as water,(at least here in California where 10 million more people will be living in the next 20 years), will have a greater impact on landscape design than any arbitrary stylistic trends.

It is not always obvious when stylistic trends take hold, and may only be passing fads. From history, it would seem that design is like political power in a democratic system, they both are in constant reaction and counterbalance to what went before. It takes powerful artistic vision and sense of self to create a new style that is not built on the standards taught in design schools. It may take a refusal to accept that the common ideas about what a garden should be are always valid. Artists such as Martha Schwartz or Noguchi may approach landscape design in a very non-plant manner and create some varied and interesting results, but are they truly gardens, or isolated art? Do their designs which often have no site context or relationship to the surrounding natural systems represent a garden style that will be emulated on a larger scale?

I don't have the answers to any of these questions for the profession or public direction. I find that my own designs are in reaction to the local context, an attempt to be both sensitive to ecology and natural systems while also incorporating the manmade. For me, gardens are a dialogue between the built and natural, and should be both beautiful to look at, interesting and comfortable to be in, and memorably distinct and apart from the larger natural natural surroundings, while also using plants and/or materials that relate to them. This is certainly not any big departure from what is currently taught at design schools, but is tempered by personal experience and outside influences, and especially travel to see gardens and great landscape design. I don't think there will or can be one universal design trend or style that will work everywhere, and the trends of plantings of the German School or east coast don't necessarily work here in a mediterannean climate. For one, natural ecosystems in our climate evolved with major catastrophe and renewal through periodic fire, and succession of species is dependent on this constant renewal. It would be difficult to replicate the cleansing by fire in a built environment, therefore plantings here will necessarily be artificial and representative, not an exact naturally functioning ecosystem. We can, and should use our local native plants, but will never truly create a functioning natural system that replicates the wild. Far better to try and preserve our remaining natural areas in large enough amounts to allow their continued funcition, than think that planting only natives in our gardens is the same thing.

I'm appreciating all the thoughtful comments so far and waiting for the first installment of ink's list--it will give me fodder for thought and keep Google busy for some time.

I thought someone else might suggest their's but anyway Patrick Taylors list (the first ten): Bagel Garden USA: Beth Chatto Gardens UK: Cogels Park Belgium: Garden of Cosmic Speculation UK: Gibberd Garden UK: Hellen Dillon's Garden Ireland: Jardin Atlantique France: Kirstenbosch South Africa: Les Quatre Vents Quebec.

Well, I've been thinking hard about my list, and I can identify personally inspiring gardens I've seen either in person or photographed. Some of these gardens, I think, are seminal but I simply don't know enough about garden history to know how they'd stack up in the bigger scheme of things. Also, I didn't want to co-opt someone elses list because that wouldn't represent MY opinion anyway. I'm surprised to learn that I'm familiar with at least some of the gardens on Patrick Taylor's list--among his choices, I was considering both Beth Chatto gardens and Francis Cabot's les Quatre Vents. I saw Frank Cabot speak about the creation of his garden and was absolutely charmed by his presentation. My list might also include Linda Cochran's garden, here, on Bainbridge Island.

I'll keep thinking...and Googling for the ones I don't know.

The more I read on this forum, the more I realized how little I know. Fascinating discussion. I'm alternately scratching my head in wonder, and nodding my head in agreement.

Here's the other ten, remember this is a choice of gardens with impact not necessarily picked for their outstanding design. Little Sparta, UK: Maison Picassiete, France: Palacio Fronterira, Portugal: Parc Andre Citroen, France:Parc de Villette, France: Ryoanji, Japan: Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, USA: Sitio Roberto Burle Marx, Brazil: Valentine Garden, USA: Villa Lante, Italy.
I have to say that it was the work of Luis Barragan that had the most impact on me recently and perhaps helps to define the difference between 'garden' and built landscape.

See? I'm not familiar with any of those gardens except for the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden (I think). I have a lot of looking-up to do. I've admired the work of Luis Barragan. Superficially, I see some similarity between his use of colored walls and created spaces and some of Martha Schwartz' work. Is her work classified as Post-modern? Some looked it and some looked strictly modernist. Also, I ended up looking at the earthworks of Robert Smithson and I saw some of the shapes and ideas that later showed up in the Garden of Cosmic Speculation. I'd imagine that Smithson stopped short of creating gardens (or even built landscapes) in that his earthworks are pretty barren. Nothing growing there at all. But he did explore both the spiral jetty idea and the pyramidal-spiraling hill thingie and I believe he predated Charles Jencks, so I'd be leaning towards giving him some kind of credit for moving things along (innovation-wise).

Two very different threads going on here, seminal gardens versus the "Next Big Thing". I have had the good fortune to have visited many of the gardens listed so far, and would include among my personal favoites Linda Cochran's garden,(masterful use of plants, spatial layout and color, but I would also like to see what it looks like in the dead of winter), Barragan's work outside Mexico City, Villa Lante, (yet why not include Isola Bella in Lago Maggiore), the Valentine Garden in Santa Barbara,(the front garden and container plantings with their zen-like feel impressed me more than the pseudo-balinese rice terraces of the back garden whose wall materials and forms and too busy plantings did not in the least conjure Balinese rice terraces as indicated as the design inspiration by the designer, Isabelle Green).

The main meadow of the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden has a powerful sense of place and uses our native flora superbly, but almost any garden looks brilliant with the backdrop of those beautiful peaks behind Santa Barbara. The Taft Garden for International Concerns in Ojai is another masterful example of using plants from one country to great effect, the Australian and South African sections of this garden approach the beauty of Kirstenbosch or the wild areas around Perth, Australia. Sitio Burle Marx is also a must see for international travelers, and Roberto gave the property to the government which has opened it to the public. I would also have to add some favorite international botanic gardens such as Kew, the San Francisco Botanic Garden, UC Santa Cruz, Peradeniya in Sri Lanka, the Huntington in San Marino,the Fairchild Botanic Garden outside Miami, Florida, the Rio de Janeiro Botanic Garden, and the Bogor Botanic Garden in Java as must see places that really show case the plants appropriate to their particular settings, in combination with those plantings imported from around the world in combination with the natives.

After just getting back from a visit to North Carolina, I would also highly recommend the J.C. Raulston Botanic Garden in Raleigh, a tribute to a great plantsman and personality who has influenced a whole generation of southern and east coast designers and nursery professionals. There were also several other superb botanic gardens to be seen in North Carolina, such as the new Daniel Stowe Garden in Belmont, and the North Carolina Botanical Garden at Chapel Hill, one of the best native plant gardens I have ever seen. I also was most impressed with the Airlie Gardens in Wilmington, which has managed to retain a slice of native coastal/lowlands gardens of Camellias and Azaleas set within Southern Live Oaks dripping with spanish moss, lagoons filled with alligators and water lilies and Sabal palms. Very romantic, historic and in such contrast to all the development surrounding it.

When I framed the question, I think I was using "seminal" and "the next big thing" somewhat interchangeably. I was thinking of "the next big thing" not as a trend or fad, but as the next important, substantial development in the landscaping field or as a significant garden that one feels showcases a decisive, new design concept that is likely to have ongoing impact. Probably, "the next big thing" sounded more flippant than I had intended--I meant BIG, REALLY, REALLY BIG!

I'd argue that some of the gardens listed are wonderful, well executed, and timeless but not seminal. I think a garden like Linda Cochran's might be both because it is a wonderful example of the tropicalesque/plantsman style and, through having been often photographed and published as an example of this style, has been instrumental as a tool in further popularizing and developing this garden style. I'm not sure botanic gardens fit my personal definition.

I am still enjoying the garden list which has given me lots of food for thought. I got stuck on Parc de la Villette--when I felt I neded more research/knowledge about deconstrunctionism, deconstructivism etc. I got a lot more than I bargained for and I'm still wading through it. Is deconstructionism really so entertwined with all the psychological, socio-political BS or can it just be the sort of raw, exposed, disected and examined bones of the architecture and surrounding landscape? Also, is it worth defining a landscape as "deconstrustionist" or are we talking about a fairly innocuous landscape that is serving only as a park for structures that carry the style? Are there deconstructionist gardens that carry the theme through plantings alone in the absence or near absence of architectural emlements?

Deconstruction is a kind of anarchy that seeks to upset the applecart without defining exactly what was wrong in the first place and exactly how to improve the situation. By surrounding their anti theory with impenetrable suggestions that we are not supposed to see as concepts means that words only serve to describe other words. Make sense? No? Exactly.
I think it is fine for a public garden to be challenging which is the only point, as far as I can tell with the Bagel garden, "Are plants really necessary?" But I would suggest that a garden appeals to a somewhat less esoteric audience mostly and whilst deconstructionists dismiss meaning as some kind of crusade so do the general public. A garden is less to do with the intellect and more to do with emotions.

The list went up before I finished my five.

I would have substituted Garrett Eckbo for Robert Burle Marx.

Twentieth Century Leaders

Here is a link that might be useful: Beginning with Jens Jensen

I think we have to look at a mechanism that drives the "big change". In the mid 20th century we had the new suburbia that was the result of the automobile being owned by everyone. It changed where we lived, commuting, and added a few major physical changes to both house lots and public space.

Find the next thing that dictates a widespread change in our physical use of our own lots, or public space and the reaction to it or effect from it will drive the next "big thing". It won't simply be an artistic expression born of the imagination on its own. You can hang as many orange sheets in Central Park as you like, if it is only an artistic expression it does not take root, but merely entertains us for a short time.

The Vietnam War (I mean conflict) Memorial was oohed and ahed and very moving, but copying it repeatedly is fruitless.

Maybe it will be adjusting our home lots and public spaces to accommodate wind turbines and/or solar panels or perhaps some new energy source. Maybe it will be to react to microclimates caused by excessive moisture caused by hydrogen fueled cars. We probably won't know until it is something we are trying to run from rather than embrace.

This is a very pedestrian answer, but I would think that the proliferation of McMansions will have an impact on landscape choices, if not design. Given that McMansion owners tend to live in them for brief periods of time, they choose quick impact landscaping (therefore planting way too close to the house, for example) and lots of screening, along with very THIN hedges because one's neighbor's home is merely a few yards away.

This is 180 degrees away from the landscape as art and expression discussion, but zoning laws that allow for large homes to be built on tiny lots may have greater consequences on the future of landscaping design.

My boring response to this very interesting thread
Patty

Patty, you might be on to something if we are talking about the home landscape arena as opposed to the municipal/corporate/public sector. There are a great number of 'Help-Me' questions on the Shrub, Garden Design and Cottage garden forums dealing with screening and privacy. This seems to be the major landscaping issue for individuals living in all sizes of homes and properties, not just the big ones. An incredible number of posters seem to have neighbors who either spy on them, attack their landscaping or own destructive animals.

It's probably not going to be the next 'really really really big thing', but somewhere out there is a future gazillionaire who is developing an impenetrable, soundproof perimeter fence that is reflective on both sides. This would make each yard feel bigger while allowing the homeowner to view only his own chosen stuff. Sort of like I-Pods for housing developments.

Annie

When I log on to the Garden web this forum is my first port of call I have a glance at the other subjects considered 'professional' then Japanese Gardens and Gardening with stone maybe Restoration. In my opinion the Next Big Thing is that this forum will go the same way as those others even Trees, that is, it will be swamped with trite questions that are followed by trite answers and interest will gradually dwindle as the blind realise that they are being led by the blind. The responses to this question have me hanging to a hope that we can salvage something worthwhile here. If you have a question that can rise above those currently threatening to take over please ask it.

I think Annie's on to something--personal household biospheres--they solve so many common problems of the day.

I picked a name at random to investigate, and it was Luis Barragan. What fantastic color and shapes! What beautiful Mexican influences! What I mean by that is, we've all been exposed to "Mexican" as it is used commercially everywhere. But here's something very intensely Mexican at it's most beautiful. Thank you, INK.
The exterior architecture I saw (not really very many photos, maybe 10 or 12) was very much architecture, and very little "garden," but I was looking for clues to "difference between 'garden' and built landscape" and saw only the inseparability of one from the other.

Well, I'm not very great at talking about things in this way, but I just had to tell the experience of one amateur in gardening, design, whatever.

That is the most beautiful use of shape and color I have been aware of for a long time. I have to take some time and look for some of the other names, and definitely more of Luis Barragan.

Are any of you familiar with the landscaping at the new Getty museum? I was just reading a funny piece, and now I don't know to whom I should attribute my favorite part of the whole museum--the watercourse. I think this water garden is important and captivating for the way it involves the visitor in the myriad ways that water can look and sound as it crosses different surfaces. Maybe this garden is part of a growing trend towards making gardens more appreciated by visitors by making them more interactive. I definitely think people are becoming more demanding of landscaped space. A square of grass and a shade tree just isn't going to cut it anymore--it's got to DO something or to inspire thought etc.

I had to laugh at the thought of Richard Meier being banned from the gardens for removing plants which offended his vision. At the same time, this explains something I always thought was weird about the gardens--the informal, at times cottage-y, nature of the plantings in the ampitheater, which (I think) don't suit the architecture or the site very well. Right now, I'm imagining that Meier held sway over the barrel cactus and sage brush at the Southeast portion of the museum, but lost out in the ampitheater.

Ink, in another thread you were saying something about inviting life into gardens...one of my best memories of time spent at the Getty was standing in the balcony and watching 100's (literally 100's) of hummingbirds viciously defending their territories in the native scrub brush far below.

Here is a link that might be useful: About the landscaping at the new Getty

I have mixed feelings about the Getty garden myself. Although I think the central water course is fun and interactive as you say, it just doesn't work for me visually, and philosophically I find the idea of using plants as disposable colors and textures rather than a well thought out melange that is intended to work together and get better over time, a difficult concept to accept. The maintenance budget for the Getty must be astronomical, and while Jim Dugan is an expert horticulturalist, he seems somewhat incapable of saying no to Irwin. I would consider the Getty central water course more akin to a Garden Show exposition than a traditional garden that gets better over time. The disposable plantings is a concept I find repellent. I also found the site design of the large bowl at the bottom of the garden a missed opportunity to take in the expansive view of the Los Angeles basin and Pacific Ocean, it is completely blocked from view by a large berm and hedges. The bowl and water feature are completely cut off from a larger connection to the city below. The deciduous Sycamores also seemed a poor choice in both the denseness of the spacing and constant need to keep thinned out to allow enough light for the plantings below. This may sound like a rant, but reflects on the attitude that gardens need not be mere eye candy, but have a more sustainable and perhaps rational design, even if they are meant to be art with a capital "A" rather than a traditional landscape garden. By the way, I thought the rest of the gardens around the museum were very well done by Meier, and especially loved the roof top cactus garden peninsula overlooking the city of Los Angeles below...

Bahia--what you said about the "throw away" gardens...I completely agree. You pointed out something I didn't notice until you wrote about it. When I first visited the Getty garden, I saw the plants and they looked new to me (and the museum itself was new at that time). When I returned to the museum several years later, the plantings still looked new and I didn't think twice about it. I guess I should have been looking more carefully at the plantings to appreciate how they had matured etc., but I didn't. Viewed in this manner, the plan is kind of a failure and the exhibition garden reference is completely valid. This casts the whole watercourse garden in a gimicky light and destroys the possibility (in my mind, at least) that it has true, lasting design impact.

Not to keep patting Linda Cochran on the back, but one of the things I really notice about her garden is the extreme good health and maturity of her plants. She has enormous clumps of tovara, dactylorhiza, myosotidium and mature hosta and grasses that just knock my socks off. It's kind of disappointing that I missed evaluating this aspect of the Getty garden when I visited it. The comparison brings into focus a point that you've made several times already about the maturity and lifespan of great gardens.

Why do you think the Getty planners intentionally solicited garden design advice from someone other than Meier? I know he's not specifically a landscape designer, but seems that the parts he designed are pretty good and the parts he didn't are pretty lousy. Maybe they hoped for a more "approachable" style in the ampitheater? IMO, even grass in the concentric paths would be an improvement over the spindly arbors and mixed plantings.

In my hodgepodge way of learning things, I became familiar with the work of Robert Royston before I became familiar with Garrett Eckbo. In this forum, Eckbo seems to have gotten the nod as being the more influential of the two even though they were contemporaries and colleagues. My first impression is that Royston's work may have strayed into the kitsch a little bit.

So, two questions...1) Is Eckbo the more influential of the two and the stronger designer? 2) Why?

maro I think you picked up on exactly what Luis Barrigan brings to landscape design "the most beautiful use of shape and color" you say. When asked to design a garden with these attributes most would reach for plants but Barrigan seems to excite the same emotions by other means. If we are looking for a certain something (you name it) and we boil it down to shape and colour yet assume that this comes via plants and only plants then quite possibly we are missing something.
sammie Eckbo was one third of the trio (James Rose and Dan Kiley being the other two)who challenged the Harvard status quo and therefore it was possibly the philosophy rather than the built work that moved things along. Rose was a wild card and deserves more study and respect but I guess Eckbo was the better publicist or something.
It is not impossible that the problems surrounding the Getty project are more to do with ego than anything else. But whose?

I don't think that the powers that be at the new Getty are unhappy with the central water garden, they intentionally selected Irwin because he is an artist, and not a landscape architect, most probably based on previous well published landscape work in Los Angeles he had done, and Irwin is exceptionally good at self-promotion, no struggling artist he... The gardens will appeal to those who like their plants any way they may be presented, and don't see the larger issues of time and growth, or the desirability of plants combined to reach a greater beauty because of their artful combinations. Sammy is exactly right in comparing the artfullness of Linda Cochrane's garden, (who by the way is self taught and originally an attorney, not a landscape designer), and whose garden will most likely be seen by all as a great thing of beauty and timelessness. (However, I imagine it takes a great deal of work to keep it up, and would also look pretty bleak in winter to those of us further south who can use the same subtropicals and achieve better year round looks). Therefore, I can't say that Linda's garden is the ideal model of a garden for the PNW, but then I am priveleged to work where winter is a season of growth, not death...

I spent my first few years working in Robert Royston's office, and felt privileged to be there, and may be somewhat biased in my opinions about Eckbo's work. I do admire Eckbo for breaking the mold, but I don't think he had a timeless command of design that will hold up against other masters such as Barragan, Burle Marx or Russell Page,(do please google Page or see the book on his work, The Gardens of Russell Page). Much of Eckbo's work seems rather dated and forced, in the same way that some of Tommy Church's designs or Burle Marx's lesser projects also seem clumsy, or should I say, less than classic?

I find myself looking to Barragan for inspiration in many of my own residential designs, and especially love using the geometry of vividly colored stucco clad walls in combinations with the sculptural qualities of xerophytic plants and tropicals to create contrasts of form, color and texture. It is easier to do in our local climate, as we have that same quality of light and often cloudless skies, (except in the summer fog season), that complements the use of strong, vivid colors.

Thanks, ink and bahia, for more thoughtful posts. I am doing a lot of Googling to try to keep up with the level of information on this thread. Also, I am trying to put together a library of architecture and garden design books so I can learn in a more organized manner than I have done in the past. The lists of relevant designers/gardens are really helpful in sorting out comprehensive resources.

The "Big Things" in landscape trends have never been anything that is not effectively reproducible by many people. The artistic expressive works may be things people want to emulate, but unless they are easily reproduced they will not be a "Big Thing". They will be trends because the masses will attempt them, but fall short on the execution. It takes an artist to do art. Those are fewer than we all would like to think. It takes a xerox machine to make a trend.

I have to assume that I am not the only one that has only heard of a few of the names mentioned in this thread. What time do those guys have a show on HGTV? ;-)

- Brent

Does not really answer your original question sammie070502, but these are the gardens that I have personally visited and left a deep impression in me - Gaudi's Park Guell (my personal favorite) in Barcelona and Le Blond's Peterhof near St Petersburg.

Brent, I haven't heard of a single name here, but that isn't so surprising, after all.

I did look up several to get an idea of what's being discussed. And I really got excited about the work of Luis Barrag.

One afternoon IÂll go to la biblioteca and investigate some of these people.

I need to make a new thread.

Maro