Overview
"If the world is to make great gardens again, we must both discover and apply in the changed circumstances of modern life the principles that guided the garden-makers in the Renaissance, and must be ready to learn all that science can teach us concerning the laws of artistic presentment." -- Sir Robert Sitwell, On the Making of Gardens, 1909, quoted by the author in his "Introduction"MORE THAN ORNAMENT
Air conditioned villas in ancient Rome...windproofed, solar-heated stone seats for toasty-winter horizon-gazing in the Italian Renaissance...Peter the Cruel's self-heating outdoor walkway...cooling summertime chairs fashioned from earth, grass, and flowers, attended by butterflies and breezes, from classical gardens on Mediterranean islands.
These are but a few of the wonderful historical finds Rome prize-winning landscape architect/artist Chip Sullivan uses to launch modern methods for modifying the climate in your own garden. For Garden and Climate brings you not only a beautifully illustrated tour of many of the greatest gardens of the past--from Babylon to Majorca--but also expert instructions for bringing elements from these immortal landscapes to your own backyard--for microclimate creation, temperature and humidity control no matter what the season, energy savings, and beauty, and yes, to serve the time-honored function of soothing your spirit and restoring your soul.
From the inside flap:
Not only the gardens of the Renaissance, but the gardens of ancient Greece and Rome yield up their secrets in this stunning tribute to the practical--as well as aesthetic and spiritual--virtues of landscape.
Divided into sections on "Earth,""Fire," "Air," and "Water"--the four elements that traditionally explain the nature of reality--Garden and Climate shows you how great architects and designers of the past turned these elements to the creation of microclimates. With each ancient invention, you'll find suggestions, examples, and adaptations that work in modern gardens.
You'll discover the importance and uses of fountains, allees, orientation to the sun, earthen seats, grottoes, sunken gardens, subterranean rooms, underground passages, outdoor paintings, boscoes, "hot seats," and more, from famous gardens such as those for the Capponi and the Medici. You'll discover how to create delightfully breeze-cooled bowers that invite escape from the August sun, and warm and cozy winter nooks that tempt you outside in January.
Sullivan neglects no dimension of landscape. He takes you into the cool, fragrant--and sacred--gardens of ancient Persia, where meaning saturates beauty and pathways symbolize the acquisition of knowledge on the quest for wisdom. You'll also accompany Sullivan to the recessed, comtemplative garden at the Villa Medici, where serenity ws inspiration and invitation to an important literary circle of Italian Renaissance.
You'll share Sullivan's perceptions as he pursues his quarry through the avenues of time, drawing original sketches from observation and redrawing ancient plans. As you travel from storied garden to immortal woods, you'll see how designers of old used the elements of nature to create and modify the climate, soothe the spirit, delight the eye, and serve that timeless objective of all garden designers--the encouragement of desire and love.
More than merely an enticing, beautifully illustrated tour of the greatest gardens of all time (with keen attention to features used to create microclimates and practical suggestions for adapting the wonders of old to the needs of the new), Garden and Climate synthesizes all the virtues of gardens--metaphysical journey, the benefits of passive design, and the idea of garden as art--into one inspiring whole, interweaving proportion, function, and comfort.
You cannot read this book without wishing you were in a garden. And, if you are the creator of one garden or many gardens, this book will be the source of a lifetime of inspiration.