Chaumont sur Loire – Festival international des jardins 2022

COSMATESQUE SUGGESTIONS

Finalist of Festival international des jardins 2022

In collaboration with Vincenzo Tomassi and Rosa Montebovi

Who amongst  us is perfectly well-balanced? Negative experiences, neurotic work habits, increasingly virtual and fragile relationships make our inner equilibrium swing like the pendulum of a clock.

Today, like never before, that which Gertrude Jekyll said of the therapeutic value of the garden is relevant. That the garden is the ideal resting place for the body, where the spirit rediscovers its lost harmony.

The garden is intended as a refuge, a place of rest and meditation, a return to oneself, of renewed creativity, where life can appear as a mosaic that time composes and colours, in a yearning for harmony and beauty.

Let’s consider how much our days continue to be  conditioned by the coronavirus pandemic and what an indispensable resource it is to to find beauty in a garden

The idea of this garden was born from the vision of one of the masterpieces of Roman marble art, the 12th century Cosmatesque floor of the Church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome. In it, the inlays of polychrome marble arranged in geometric patterns with an esoteric meaning seem to depict a succession of flower borders and suggest the image of an ideal garden, a place of refuge and contemplation.

In our project, four circular areas are outlined around a central ring divided into three zones, from the edges of which the paths branch out developing throughout the garden. Arch-shaped flower beds follow one another flowing into each other, giving unity to the layout.

Planting design will be close-packed to reduce need to weed, and the plants used have been chosen to suits the local conditions, and to thrive with minimal maintenance.

Crossing the threshold of the “Cosmatesque” garden, the visitor can see a safe place, where herbaceous perennials, trees, bulbous plants and annuals contribute to reducing apprehensions, guaranteeing a tranquil rest essential to the optimistic vision of life and the world that awaits her or him outside.

Once again, the garden will save us.