Gleaned over the years……… and some very recent – as in last week.
A somewhat perfect Vertical Garden – from Portland, Oregon.
(click any image to enlarge)
The lasting virtue of this relatively new technology is in its space-saving reclamation of Nature over Cement – among other things. Of course, who doesn’t like the otherwise fascinating look at small works of art hung on a wall or hallway?
Roses called in – said “Get a load of us!”
The Portland, Oregon Rose Garden proves yet again why Portland calls itself “The Rose City” – not that I doubted its claim.
Such a gorgeous setting, overall……
This humongous Weeping Beech always captivated me. It just keeps growing, too, quite happily. The entire “weeping” element of trees has captivated me for some time -
I began using them shamelessly in my own designs after seeing them in such circumstances – and in such profusion as exists around Portland.
I even remember when the picture above was looking like this:
But, yes, the fascination with Weeping Trees stayed. There was always something “sympathetic” about the downward direction of limbs and the coursing water looking so “in place” beside it.
It became something of a trademark in my water feature constructions -
But weeping trees may also claim their very own environment and stand gorgeously on their own in a soft, appealing gesture.
Did someone say roses? Let’s get drunk on some.
On my most recent visit to the Portland Rose Garden, my wonderful friend Annette and her family accompanied me – or I them – Annette played with her filter on a few -
to interesting ends……….
Of course, some require No Filter – Nature does it for us……
For some supremely stupid reason, I often laugh when I see this picture:
My Current Quandary Is What To Like Most About Spring??
Which blooms rock most?…………..Is it the Rhododendrons?
The absurd profusions of the Spring-blooming Crabapples and Cherries?
Or did we miss something?
Dogwoods, for example?
Speaking of “absurd profusions”…………
This is an excellent method of exposing some archives………..Hope you enjoyed it!
I got a huge break in the timing of this event. At the time of my departure from Louisville, the temperature was an unbearably high-90′s phenomenon, complete with a humidity which drove the “feel’s like” temperature (an excellent and appropriate categorization, I must say) to an unlikable 110 degrees or so. Even breathing the air was hot on the lungs. The stillness of the air added a completely intolerable element, lol, particularly for those – such as myself – stupid enough to try working in it.
Ah, blessed Portland. Rapidly becoming an alternate Urban Universe and my definition of a very ideal habitat for countless reasons (which I aim to address at another time), the city still has some of the greatest-ever hanging baskets spread through town, hanging from lamp posts and the likes – always absurdly full and cascading down in these wild floral masterpieces.
(click any image to enlarge by one or two times)
Old Town, hard by 2nd Avenue and Burnside contains gorgeous 19th Century designs on those few buildings which survived the numerous floods, fires and various and sundry vicissitudes of early Portland.
This is the neighborhood bordering on – or composing – “The Pearl District”, Portland’s historic Chinatown, and it was my destination this beautiful, fresh early morning. This is where Portland’s now-famous Chinese Garden is located. The Garden has a very special meaning for me inasmuch as I figured somewhat in the installation of the irrigation system which feeds it all. I was also connected with overseeing some of the gathering of plant materials and liaising with the Union company which did all the foundation work and original excavations. I also spent ample time with the Chinese fella’s themselves who composed the 150 person workforce, sent directly over from Zou Chou for the construction. They did amazing work – much of which was fully fabricated by them in China prior to coming here.
Such as this stunning piece of woodwork which has always simply blown me away:
Which is all to say I went to a few fascinating seminars, worked on the job next to the contractors on every side of the construction and that I also shared my smokes with some pretty cool Chinese craftsmen. Big smokers, these guys.
So I had a chance to watch this edifice from the ground – up and I can assure you, it was totally fascinating. I don’t think I had a bad day. I recall watching the guys using these monstrous 2″ thick hemp ropes, suitable for circus workers, hauling around the very first basic products – chiseled granite – hand-formed into hard rectangles used as walkway borders, bridge spans and even railings as the picture below reveals. Granite was everywhere and formed to make an absolutely perfect fit where ever it was used. Absolutely everything one sees in this picture below the level of the buildings is granite, topsoil or water. Based on the fundamental solid concrete framing below all the posts and floorings, the entire edifice itself is from Chinese Granite – that is to say, everything visible.
Prior installations of Chinese Gardens by this particular group had taken place twice: In Sydney, Australia just prior to the Olympic Games held there and at the Museum Of Natural History in New York, New York. Since Portland had a Sister City relationship with Zou Chou, I believe it became a natural fit to use these absolute experts for the celebration and admiration of some of the very greatest Chinese contributions to architecture – and more specifically, to Landscape Architecture.
Man, it sure worked. Let’s view some random shots of this precious resource.
Below is a view available to pedestrians outside the garden via a few well-placed windows inside the containing network of walls, engineered to relish a little bit in its own right, and to excite visitors enough to check it out.
A sense of unlimited space and upcoming mystery is what these interesting openings are all about:
Even small windows are engineered to provide a big barrel’s worth of exceeding interest as we gaze at complexity and robust health – the ultimate Feng Shui.
Windows and doors perform vital functions as true “Gateways”, producing and solving mysteries as we sojourn through these artful passages -
Sweet views – magnificent surprises – gently surround us as we suddenly realize how rich a relatively small space can really be.
One third water, one third plants and landscaping and one third buildings of ineffable delicacy the entire place simply redounds with a passion of ultimate competence and plain great sense. Yes, things make sense in this Garden – of course all those small stones should be arranged this way – it’s what the Nature of Beauty is all about, isn’t it? Using natural elements in novel and beguiling ways?
These stone pathways massage a passer-by’s feet. They perform a literal function aside from just sitting there like me – all dressed up – pretty as heck – and no where to go. Truly, the functionality of garden paths in the lore of Chinese Garden Architecture is deeply embedded in the notion of providing pleasure sensually and not merely visually. It’s hard to imagine a deeper regard for the body in simple architectural terms.
They added fish, finally!!
Always a sure winner for me, these little guys ought to find themselves a bit bigger in due time. You have to appreciate their organizing impulses in this cute picture:
I’ll return for another post about this gorgeous place in a day or two. For now, I’ll close with just a couple shots from a larger perspective. The Willows are doing well!:
The “Mountain” looming over the enclosed water fall has filled in magnificently:
The Chinese Garden has most definitely improved with age. My respects are freely given to the stewards of this gorgeous place and certainly as well to those splendid early designers. Everything has gone a bit beyond perfect, marching right on into the Sublime.
OK, this is a stretch for a simple landscaping blog. Just know this: I know that and let me say my piece. It’s never stopped me before, has it? This one deals with the Earth, having said that, and that’s my own area. Dirt rocks and so do rocks.
I recently went to the movies, chucked on my 3D glasses and watched one of the most stunning movie events I have ever seen. The film is called “The Cave Of Forgotten Dreams” and I cannot possibly recommend it high enough. It was directed by Werner Herzog and deals with an inside look at the astonishing Cave of Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc, where artists as long ago as 32,000 years plied their art of cave-paintings, using the walls of this gorgeous, previously-hidden cave as their canvas and using the folds and 3 dimensional aspect of the terrain itself to provide depth, apparent motion and breathtaking artistic ability.
The extremely cautious French Government goes overboard in scrupulous preservation paranoia, and the film mentions this. Protecting the inside treasure is testified to when references to them shutting the cave off to visitors for a few months was felt necessary owing to “The breath of visitors is causing a mold to adhere to the walls.” This is a look inside – a rare moment in time and one which may or may not ever be replicated.
The cave simply reveals life at that time in a manner which nothing else possibly could. The genius is inside the art itself, of course, but the creative genius of Werner Herzog amplifies it, juxtaposing all this with modern perceptions of an era, seen from the best anthropological, psychological and paleantological minds of our generation.
Borrowing this piece of breathless excitement emitted by a movie review in the New York Times:
“The cave was discovered in December 1994 by three French cavers, Jean-Marie Chauvet, Éliette Brunel Deschamps and Christian Hillaire. Following an air current coming from the cliff, they dug and crawled their way into the cave, which had been sealed tight for some 20,000 years. After finally making their way to an enormous chamber, Ms. Deschamps held up her lamp and, seeing an image of a mammoth, cried out, “They were here,” a glorious moment of discovery that closed the distance between our lost human past and our present.”
How cool is that?
The movie possesses so much depth and range of emotion and the hidden tension of discovery, that it nearly stands alone as an experience of brotherliness linking ourselves with our incredibly ancient past. I have to suspect this is an instant classic, no matter how uneven it might seem at its start. The punch is delivered as we advance, revealing all the incredible wonders this cave has to offer. Bear skulls, complete vertebrae of gigantic land animals, pictures of the rhinos, the Ibex, horses, lions, bison adorn these walls in graduated impact as the camera gets released later to fully explore.
Anyway – I guess you can tell I enjoyed the film! ;-)
And here is where we return to the premise of this post. That Herzog has created a masterpiece I have little doubt. When you feel literally blessed and extremely fortunate to view a film, then these emotions tell us something very important: either we are nuts, or else this guy put together a magnificent piece of pure genius. I naturally choose the latter. As I said, the uneven beginning to the film requires a bit of patience. There is information coming in rather placid and somewhat pedantic ways, although there are indeed gorgeous pictures of the paintings and the access to them at the same time. The geological wonders alone are fantastic and impossible. Calcite galore, stalactites and stalagmites adorn the view – some literally impacting the paintings as well as such things as footprints of a bear as well as that of a child. The protective measures taken by the French is also droned on about at length – but – and here’s the thing:
It all makes sense and comes together incredibly effectively as we witness what a treasure this is. The drama of this discovery is served well by Herzog and the ineffable music streaming from the cello of the master cellist, Ernst Reijseger, which takes on an increasing urgency and even pathos as we discover this enormously ancient past of all of ours. The musical work of Reijseger is of a quality I have rarely seen before – it is clearly evocative and it seems utterly spontaneous as it impacts us concurrently with the images we behold and the verbalized statements from the long list of exceptional people. It courses through the film in a sensuous, even mysteriously sinewy way – somehow absolutely perfectly emotive and even responsible as we peer into who we once were. It is somehow totally fitting that we should answer the very height of their art with some of our own.
There is humanity here and a respect for our past. I mean a deep respect for our past. Oddities galore – it appears Neanderthal man was around as well as our own Homo Sapiens species evolved in the same neighborhood. Entire skeletons of the animals of the day appear, close up and personal.
I’m including aspect of Herzog and Reijseger’s traveling “Cine-Concert” which is entitled “Requiem For A Dying Planet” which toured to rave reviews globally. The reason I include this apparently non-related and somewhat disjointed piece is merely to illustrate the level of artistic genius this group operates at. Obviously, their goals are as high in terms of the stewardship of our planet – a message it would seem we could use ample measure of. I give you the “Requiem”:
Things move so fast in our world. Every day, by plying away with so many hours at the computer as I seem to any more, I learn so much which is new to me and I see such wonderful accomplishments by others. It really just blows my mind. What one would consider a very tightly-niched subject – paving materials – is frankly immense, it turns out. What has occurred over time is a stunning array of breath-taking artisan creativity, from even ancient days up to now.
I am old enough to recall a time when “interlocking concrete bricks” was a term given to either the straight-ahead ‘blocks’ of square and rather boring brick pavers or to the ‘star-shaped’, or the serrated engineered brick of the past. At the time, the revolutionary aspect of this product was in their structural properties, above all. With a PSI Rating of 8,500 PSI, they seemed the next thing to Granite itself. By using manufacturing processes which produced absolutely perfect fitting elements, the segmentation and the physical durability seemed just plain off the charts, even then. But they were not known at the time for being particularly gorgeous.
My, my, what a few years has wrought:
(left click images to enlarge)
This piece above was installed by a company entirely devoted to installing “Labyrinths”. I adore looking at their work and gladly share it with you now. Their success as an incredibly successful niche business is testified to at this website – Labyrinths In Stone – and it supplies the outermost reaches of sheer professional craftsmanship, to say nothing of their fascinating designs. Below is a somewhat “pedestrian” issue of almost “average” quality:
But these gorgeous constructions are mere reminders of what is possible. I have personally worked with products whose mere shape and color provide a stunning effect, simply by laying them down properly. Design, in these cases, means far less than simply presenting a course over which they can be seen.
Here is a favorite brick style of mine called “Bishop’s Hat” (Tan and Cream) we installed for a Reno family:
(enlarged, this looks incredible, even up close)
There are some things which – installed in the right spot – make it more than it was and maybe better than someone might have hoped. Paver technology has advanced like a rocket, from occasional patios and walkways to entire airports such as that of Hong Kong. Once again, as I have mentioned often in this blog, their innate durability, their breath-taking level of ‘hardness’ – 8500 PSI – and their amazingly engineered tight fit make them a superb choice of surface. Obviously, the ability to simply replace those ruined by stains or breakage factors in as a huge plus.
But suppliers and designers of brick also brought an “Antiquing” ability, by tumbling pavers inside sand-filled machines and prematurely aging them. “Tumbled Pavers” now represent an entire niche of their own and supply a very ‘walked-on’ appearance. Combined with media such as concrete edging, the results can be impressive:
My own constructions, for example, have led from the above to the below over the course of an ‘old favorite’ project:
(combined with the soft security lighting (7 Watts) along the edge, this very rural home had a minimum of interference with the gorgeous night skies.)
But these are the more pedestrian examples, pardon the pun. There are far more bizarre and excitingly-designed edifices out there to beguile us with, created by wondrous designers and installers, both.
Interlocking bricks can now be made as custom pieces, allowing a range of creativity that unleashes an entire new galaxy of possibilities.
Now a brick can be engineered for purposes of producing patterns in their actual laying which reveal a designer’s intent in its display of complexity or resonance with other factors.
The patterns below are seen outside the Music Conservatory in Toronto, Canada. The architect worked with a computer simulation of phonic graphs, displayed in these laying patterns, whereby the patrons cross over the very music they are entering the place to hear.
