The Idea of Villa Castagna
A garden is both a real place, and a cloud of possibilities. What you will find here will be both something real, and something that may or may not become real. For this reason you will find no map: Instead you will meet fragments, part real, part possible.
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Category Archives: Baroque Gardens
The Scale of Schloss Luisium in the Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm
Looking at Montacute through the autumn leaves I was reminded of Schloss Luisium near Wörlitz. I have always like the way this little vertical building is tucked away in the woods. It struck me as a delightful miniature building, and … Continue reading →
The Roof of Burghley House
The first thing you see as you approach Burghley House (Stamford, Lincolnshire) is the amazing roof, with its curious hybrid of Tudor and classical and the gleaming golden flags In Fig. 1 there are interesting pairings: between the two-column chimney … Continue reading →
Posted in All Posts, Architecture, Baroque Gardens, Elizabethan Architecture, Uncategorized
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Tagged Burghley House, Elizabethan architecture
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Highgrove’s Berninian Fabrique
A new book on Highgrove arrived today, by Bunny Guinness. I was interested to see if one feature was illustrated there—the Oak Pavilion—as it does not appear in any other book and they don’t let you take photos. Indeed, it … Continue reading →
Posted in All Posts, Architecture, Art, Baroque Gardens, English Gardens, Fabriques, Town and Village
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Tagged Arundel Castle, Baroque Gardens, creative gardens, Fabriques, Highgrove, Poundbury, suburban design
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On Garden Sculpture: Giant Milk Crates
Gardens are the acid test of sculptural genres. One popular genre is the overscaled object, such as the giant milk crate currently proposed as a public sculpture in Sydney. The Sydney Morning Herald tracked down the designer of the original … Continue reading →
Posted in All Posts, Art, Baroque Gardens, Fabriques, Uncategorized
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Tagged Dunmore Pineapple, Garden Sculpture, Marcel Duchamp, milk crate
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Fabriques: principles of design
A fabrique is a small garden structure that has no functional purpose, but exists only to make a visual and cultural statement. (This does not preclude it having a function, but if its form is dictated by its function it … Continue reading →
Notes on Rodmarton Manor: The Circle
Kelmscott Manor is a Museum that feels like a private house, but Rodmarton Manor, curiously enough, is a private house that feels like a museum. The interiors feel oddly unlived in, even though the sofas (a sure sign of inhabited … Continue reading →
Posted in All Posts, Architecture, Art, Baroque Gardens, English Gardens, Garden History
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Tagged Arts and Crafts, Garden History, Kelmscott Manor
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The Autonomous Garden
The literature on gardens always comes back to the relationship with the house. The garden associated with the house forms part of living; it is a ‘lifestyle’ thing. You get up in the morning and there it is. You may … Continue reading →
The Garden of Bagatelle, Paris
Visit to Bagatelle, May 2011 Bagatelle was a disappointment. Partly it was the effort getting there. My guidebook rather unhelpfully listed various metro stops and left it at that, and it was off the edge of their map. I made … Continue reading →
Posted in Baroque Gardens, Design, Fabriques, Garden History
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Tagged Bagatelle, Baroque Gardens, Garden History
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Villa Castagna 
On Baroque Gardens
I picked up Tim Richardson’s The Arcadian Friends. Inventing the English Landscape Garden at the local remainder bookshop. Although the subject is the landscape garden it has an unusually sensitive account of the Baroque garden: ‘there is a tendency today … Continue reading →