Architectural Form and the Garden

 by Arif Javed

            One of the first misconceptions about the nature of architecture that was shattered when I began my architectural education was that architects primarily shape buildings. Over the course of studying architecture it has become apparent to me that what architects really deal with is space. Space is both the material an architect sculpts with as well as what he creates. By the same token, architects also primarily deal with form; the form an architect imagines is what defines the spaces that are created.  It is easy to think about the architectural form of a building and how that form shapes the spaces in and around the building. However, a perhaps less obvious yet just as important and fascinating use of architectural forms is when they are used to shape urban garden spaces. Gabriel Gueverkian’s cubist garden at Villa Noailles in France and Bernard Tsuchmi’s Parc La Villette are both excellent case studies for the use of architectural forms in landscape.

            Gabriel Gueverkian was the designer of three “Cubist” gardens, which were highly modern gardens designed in the Art Deco style, taking influences from Cubist paintings. One park was a hortus conclusus style private garden designed for a French family that was living in Villa Noailles. This park is triangular in plan and is enclosed on two sides by walls that recede in perspective to the tip of the triangle. The architectural nature of the design of the garden comes across with great clarity due to the way Gueverkian used strongly defined geometric forms to divide the space. It seems clear that the architect viewed the design as a composition of forms within space. Gueverkian’s careful placement of greenery, selection of geometry, and changes of elevation all contribute to the way the garden is experienced.

              Another highly modern garden that embodies the way that architecture can be used to shape space is Bernard Tschumi’s Parc la Villette in Paris, which came about 50 years after Gueverkian’s work. Tschumi’s Parc was done as an experiment in deconstructivism. I think Tschumi’s essential thesis for this project was an examination of using architectural form to shape an urban green space and in turn shaping the experience of the occupants of the park as they move along. He wanted to challenge the way parks conventionally function: as places for ordered, static relaxation. To do this he imposed a grid system of 35 structures called follies on the park that provide points of reference to people walking through the massive 100+ acre green space. This ordered grid of structures is the counterpoint to a free and unsystematic collection of paths that manipulate the circulation through the space. The follies are architectural forms that evenly divide the space and thus form visual landmarks for someone moving through the vast park, but the lines of the path almost force the occupants to get lost trying to find their way to those landmarks. This achieves Tschumi’s goal of turning the park into something that promotes activity, interaction, and movement.

            While these two projects are clearly completely different in terms of design and overall experience of the space they are interesting to examine in conjunction because they both in a way show the range of methods by which architects have used theories of form and space to shape experiences in an open public area rather than something that is more traditionally considered architecture.  Thus, they are a true testament to the ideal that architects are both figuratively and literally sculptors of space. 

Cubist garden

Parc la Villette design diagrams

Parc la Villette