The garden at architect Louis Kahn's Salk Institute, La Jolla, California was designed by Luis Barragan, a famous architect himself and one of the fathers of the modernist style. 1963.
The modernist garden is clean, formal, simple. Whereas the arts and crafts garden responded to industrialization by looking back, the modern garden looked forward - just as modern architecture of the Bauhaus and International school did.
Look for asymmetrical formality, geometry, and bold plant shapes - placed in harmony with the architecture of the home. The emphasis on texture and entire spaces filled with one specimen: tidy, easy to care for, and beautiful all season long.
Famous proponents of this style include "new world" designers Brazilian Roberto Burle-Marx and Mexican Luis Barragan.
Check out the posts below for other examples of gardens inspired by the modernist style.
In 1962 John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth. His passing this month is a good excuse to remember the Space Age and Atomic Era and how this period influenced gardening. The Sunken Garden we see above at West of the Lake Gardens in Manitowoc, Wisconsin provides a great example...
Nothing is more fun than having a friend take you through one of their favorite landscapes. On my recent visit to the Hudson River valley, I had the luck to run into a friend who introduced me to Manitoga – pioneering designer Russel Wright’s home and studio. “What, you’ve never been to Manitoga? Let’s go!”
The Rio Olympics may have ended, but we have another month to visit “Roberto Burle Marx: Brazilian Modernist” at The Jewish Museum in New York City. The exhibit exposes us to Burle Marx, the pioneering landscape architect who brought us modern landscape design...
What happens when a successful lifestyle designer takes control of an abandoned quarry? The designer was Russel Wright and the site was the Old King’s quarry. It was there that he created his home and studio: Manitoga...
“The good building is not one that hurts the landscape, but one which makes the landscape more beautiful than it was before the building was built.” - Frank Lloyd-Wright Among the things that Wisconsin is famous for it is Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin, that has most intensely captured my attention...
Visiting Innisfree in Millbrook, New York, is like stepping into another world. Actually many different worlds. This amazing landscape uses Chinese garden techniques in a very modern American context. Innisfree has been on my garden visit list for some time. I was intrigued by people’s description of the garden. It is considered one of the “world’s ten best gardens”...
This garden offers a snap-shot of the history of Cuba: it recalls the ambition in the 1920’s to create a beautiful city; it remembers the roaring 1950’s modernist movement, and also the 1959 revolution; it reminds us of the important role of theater to create a sense of community...
Lawrence Halprin, the award-winning landscape architect, described Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studio, as the place where he "heard trumpets." Curious to learn more about how Wright integrated buildings and landscape I set out to Spring Green, Wisconsin to see for myself...
The Brazilian Garden at the Naples Botanical Garden is a celebration of plants, modern architecture, and access. And designer Raymond Jungles’ new book The Cultivated Wild provides a wonderful guide ...
I learn something new every time I visit a garden. What struck me the most about Russel Wright’s home and studio, Manitoga, was how he used garden paths as his organizing principle for the landscape. Everything is selected and arranged so that the visitor has a deliberate experience...