Historical Gardens, Truth and Fiction
Critical readings of historical models in the landscapes of the 20th and 21st centuries
Monique Mosser, José Tito Rojo, Simonetta Zanon (Eds.)
Fondazione Benettton Studi Ricerche, 2021
€30,00
Historical gardens, truth and fiction casts an apparently ironic, almost irreverent eye on those occasions in the last century when history was exploited to replicate garden forms and designs, sometimes overt copies. In many cases these were ‘genuine fakes’ that expressed and attitude to the past that we are now in a position to appraise with sharper insight.
The same period, however, also produced many more convincing examples that reveal sensibilities of a different kind, thanks to which work in the field of historical gardens has fostered continuity and developed a passion both for understanding and for the creative exercise of a critical interpretation of history.
Starting with the themes tackled by the 2019 International Landscape Study Days and other research and experimentation workshops organized recently by the Foundation, eighteen authors explore various lines of enquiry in sixteen contributions. Together these chapters reconstruct a complex geography of relationships, exchanges and richly fertile reciprocal influences on which contemporary garden and landscape culture continues to draw, inspiring projects that don’t simply freeze-frame the forms of the past but which rather raise questions about the continuity of places and the contexts to which they belong and on the presence of those who inhabit them and take responsibility for their future.
ISBN: 9788884352309