20.01.2025

The art lies in nature

Building design

Dumfries

A travel guide and illustrated book of the opulent kind.

The illustrated book “Die Kunst liegt in der Natur” presents 25 sculpture parks around the world that are well worth seeing: from Dumfries in Great Britain to Makarau in New Zealand, expertly selected and commented on by art historian Silvia Langen. For this volume, she spent two years traveling to remote islands, the desert and the rainforest and, among other things, explores the question of why the most interesting art landscapes are usually created by private collectors and artists and not by public institutions. Her conclusion: it is the special passion for the works and the regional nature, the personal concern with which the park is designed, that makes this unique combination of art and landscape possible. She not only provides insights into the location and the art itself, but also creates a fascinating portrait study of the park’s founders. They all seem to have one thing in common: they all want to get a little closer to paradise with their initiative.

Silvia Langen: Art lies in nature. Spectacular sculpture parks and artistic landscapes, hardcover book with dust jacket, 208 pages, Prestel Verlag 2015, 49.95 euros

06.09.2025

Industry news

Historic Gardens – Restauro 05/2025

Building design

They are places of beauty, silent witnesses to bygone eras, places of relaxation – and increasingly spaces of change: today more than ever, historical gardens are caught between the poles of preservation and adaptation. In the next issue of our magazine, we will be devoting ourselves entirely to green cultural assets and the questions that determine their continued existence. How can the authenticity of listed gardens be preserved when climate, water availability and vegetation cycles change fundamentally? What role do restorers play in the conservation of listed gardens – and how far can intervention go in order to preserve the substance and still create living landscapes? Discover the diversity of historical garden art – and what is needed to preserve it for future generations. […]

They are places of beauty, relaxation, silent witnesses to bygone eras – and increasingly spaces of change: today more than ever, historic gardens are caught between the poles of preservation and adaptation. In this issue, we devote ourselves entirely to green cultural assets and the questions that determine their continued existence. How can the authenticity of listed gardens be preserved when climate, water availability and vegetation cycles change fundamentally? What role do restorers play in the conservation of listed gardens – and how far can intervention go in order to preserve the substance and still create living landscapes? Discover the diversity of historical garden art – and what is needed to preserve it for future generations.

Yes, it’s green – but not everything that grows thrives in a manner befitting a listed building. In this issue of Restauro, we enter the world of historic gardens, those often underestimated cultural monuments that need to be cared for with secateurs but understood with historical sensitivity. Whether monastery flowerbed or castle park – gardens are designed nature, tamed wilderness, symbol and system at the same time. They tell of monastic medicine and courtly representation, of the idea of divine order in the Baroque period and the Romantic urge for natural freedom in English landscape design. But what to do when avenues are ageing, the parterre is overgrown or the original planting scheme has long since gone wild?

This time, our journey takes us to places where history survives not only in stone, but also in shrubs and perennials: from the newly developed structures of the monastery gardens of St. Gallen and Corvey to the Italian splendor of the Boboli Gardens and Portuguese groves where tradition and innovation flourish. Even England’s garden art is not to be missed – with its ingeniously staged “natural” visual axes that leave nothing to chance.

How can such gardens be preserved without degrading them to mere scenery? Restorers, garden historians and monument conservators discuss this with expertise – and sometimes with the patience of a gardener who knows that good care takes time.

Because one thing is clear: historic gardens are not rigid fossils, but living cultural assets. Anyone who restores them is working with nature – and against its oblivion. And sometimes a quiet walk through a lavender labyrinth is enough to understand how much history lies in the scent of summer.

All of us on the Restauro editorial team look forward to your feedback on this and all other issues.

Sincerely, Tobias Hager & Team
t.hager@georg-media.de

instagram: @restauro_magazine

The magazine is available here in the store.

Our last issue was all about materiality. Read more about it here.

13.12.2024

Opportunities

The walking stonemason

Building design

Master stonemason and stone sculptor Andreas Rosenkranz from Cologne has developed the first QR gravestones in Germany.

Master stonemason and stone sculptor Andreas Rosenkranz from Cologne has developed Germany’s first QR gravestones and believes that this is the case: Anyone who denies that today’s cemetery has a digital mourning component has missed the change in society. Advertorial Article Parallax Article