Temporary Gardens

By Raffaella Sini

The last 30 years have seen a surge in temporary gardens. The flexibility and new challenges investing non-permanent landscapes has made them a creative and stimulating testing ground for professionals and impromptu designers.

Raffaella Sini examines the historical evolution of the genre, exploring theory, narratives, and strategies informing 80 worldwide temporary gardens built in France, Germany, Spain and Portugal, Italy, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, New Zealand, Canada, Singapore, and the United States.

Key topics include:

temporary gardens in 1970s avant-garde art and 1980s public art;

temporary gardens as opportunities to work with live processes, practice inclusion, and explore concepts of social justice and ecology;

temporary gardens to re-invent the vocabulary of garden design; and

temporary gardens in tactical urbanism.

The book comprehensively decodifies the full range of ephemeral gardens: 'uprooted', 'mobile', 'itinerant', 'movable', 'postmodern', 'installation', 'exhibited', 'conceptual', 'theme', 'pop-up', 'guerilla', 'grassroots', 'meanwhile' 'interim', 'provisional', 'activist', 'community', and 'parklet'.

Beyond physical duration, time-focused design in gardens affects the entire process of conceptualizing, building, experiencing, and managing green spaces; using short-term formats, anyone can invent, trial, and experiment in a condensed experience of landscape.

The temporary garden emerges as critical cultural ground for the discourse in landscape architecture, art, ephemeral urbanism, and in urban, landscape, and garden design. It is inspirational reading for designers and students alike.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1138917885
• ISBN13: 9781138917880
• Release Date: May 2022
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 272 Pages