Jeffrey Bale's World of Gardens

Melilla, an architectural gem on the Moroccan Coast

2012-02-19T18:50:00.000-08:00

Palacio de Asamblea

Melilla is one of two Spanish enclaves on the Moroccan coastline that are remnants of Spain's occupation of parts of North Africa. The other is Ceuta near the city of Tangier, which I visited at the beginning of this year's adventure in Morocco.

Ceiling in the Palacio de Asamblea

The reason I didn't make it last year, and barely did this year is that it isn't all that easy to reach from the rest of Morocco. The road along the coast that I will be traveling by bus soon is said to be rough, and slow going. I took a 5 1/2 hour train from Fes to Oujda on the Algerian border, and then a 3 hour bus to Nador. From there I took a city bus to the border, and then walked across the border zone to another bus that brought me to the city center. Traveling can be hard work.

Door of the Casa de David Melul designed by Enrique Nieto i Nieto

I have wanted to come to Melilla for some time, as it is a jewel box of eccentric architecture. There is a medieval fortress built up on a rock promontory over the Mediterranean, and the Ensanche, which prospered at the turn of the 20th Century as the main sea port between Tetouan, Morocco and Algeria. The new city has the largest collection of Modernisme buildings outside of Barcelona and Valencia, as well as a number of other styles including Art Deco.

Model of the Melilla la Vieja

The old city, Melilla la Vieja, is comprised of a spectacular fortress complex built on a rocky promontory over a long period after the Spanish conquest of the region in 1496. The fortress was added to over time to create a multi layered impregnable conglomeration of high walls and stone buildings. These are accessed by tunnels and spanned by draw bridges over a wide moat connected to the sea.

Gate with a drawbridge leading in to Melilla la Vieja

Each alteration or expansion incorporated the latest technology in defensive architecture. The fortress was recently and meticulously restored by the European Union and contains some small but excellent interactive museums with exhibits on history, ethnography, Catholic art, and the military. On Sunday, rather than being besieged by pirates there was a brass band playing popular standards in a plaza to a happy crowd.

Live music on a Sunday afternoon

Melilla la Vieja from the port

Melilla la Vieja at dusk

Under the encouragement of King Alfonso XIII, Melilla expanded beyond the old city after the turn of the 20th Century. The King made three separate visits to motivate the design and manifestation of a new district called the Ensanche. The Rio de Oro was realigned to make the expansion possible and streets were laid out in the fashion of the time.

All original architecture on Avenida Juan Carlos I Rey

A bronze statue of Enrique Nieto by Mustafa Arruf

But Melilla's real claim to fame is it's grand collection of Modernisme buildings. Modernisme is a style of architecture that flourished in Catalonia, found mainly in the city of Barcelona where the architect Antonio Gaudi brought the movement to it's pinnacle of expression. This was a response to the Art Nouveau movement in the rest of Europe and the colonial world. Although several architects contributed to the design of the city, the most renowned was the architect Enrique Nieto y Nieto. A student of the great Catalonian architect Luis Domeneque Montaner, Nieto engaged in his studies with a group of students who would all go on to become exemplary architects, including Josep Maria Jujol, who was responsible for the tile benches in Parque Guell (see my December essay about this) and the ornamentation of many of Gaudi's most important projects. Nieto worked on Gaudi's Casa Mila project for a time before he moved to Melilla, as there was an opportunity to work independently of his powerful mentors. He arrived in the North African city in 1909 in his late 20's, and remained for the rest of his prolific life. He was designated the city architect of Melilla in 1939, and undertook the design of a thousand different projects and the completion of an astounding 457 buildings in the city, 148 of them considered to be Modernisme, continuing the tradition long after it went out of style in Catalonia.

He also designed a number of Neo Arabic buildings with keyhole arches and tessalate geometric patterning on the facades. Later on the Art Deco style came in to vogue and his deco buildings tend to have an aerodynamic look to them. They also have a different color palette, frequently using more sombre grey and tan tones. He worked right up until 4 years before his death in 1953. He was responsible for the design of several buildings for the Catholic Church, Melilla's Or Zaruah Synagogue, and the Grand Mosque.

Beautiful drawing for the Junta Municipal y Juzgados building

A handsome home overlooking Parque Hernandez

So everywhere you look in this confectionary town you see these wedding cake like buildings smothered in floral and geometric ornamentation, or with the busts of women with ribbon plaited hair. The buildings pale in comparison to the fantastic brilliance of Gaudi's work, but the fanciful exuberance of Modernisme and other styles makes Melilla visually a very fun city. The area called the Golden Triangle is packed with Nieto's work and other architects like Francisco Hernanz, and Emilio Alzugaray. This area prospered during the first half of the 20th Century, with the construction of wide streets and boulevards. The grand Parque Hernandez and round Plaza de Espan~a were designed by Jose de la Granada in 1913.

Wavy Tile Walkway in Parque Hernandez (it is flat, although it has the illusion of undulation)

Plaza de Espan~a

Two Lions on a door

Melilla is also interesting in it's cultural mix. It was inhabited for over 2,000 years ago, first by Phoenicians and later by the Romans. There were conquests by Berbers and the Caliphate of Cordoba in Spain. Catholic Spaniards conquered the city after driving the Moors out of the European continent. There were numerous rebellions by Berber factions against the foreign occupation but Melilla and Ceuta have remained under Spanish dominion ever since. The massive fortifications in both cities were intended to maintain sovereignty. Like Gibraltar in Spain, which is a colony of Great Britain, these cities are a mix of cultures unique to their locations.

Enrique Nieto designed the Sinagoga Or Zaruah in the Neo Arabic style

Plastic on the beach

There is a small remnant Jewish community with about 1,000 people, a large number of Berber Muslims, and a Spanish majority. Tourist literature likes to point out that there are about 100 Indian Hindu's living in Melilla as well, calling it the 'Land of Culture'. There is a small Chinese community as well. You find all the trappings of Spanish society here, with theaters, bars, cafes, tapas bars, and grand parks. Although I don't see a huge amount of cultural mixing, everybody seems to live in relative harmony. The city is very clean, in stark contrast to Morocco, unless you are on the beach. The sea is full of plastic, a true environmental tragedy we are all responsible for. Land of Plastic Culture.

Cheap Red Wine with lunch

Melilla is rather quiet compared to the bustling towns on the other side of the well fortified border. You can eat late here, but if you want to have dinner before 9:00 it is virtually impossible unless you want to dine alone in an empty restaurant. It appears that the Spanish subsist on pastries, coffee, cigarettes, and beer, and finding a meal outside of a late lunch or dinner seems next to impossible. As I poked my head behind a few doors I did manage to find subsistence. And there is a Turkish Doner place catering to people who want to eat before bedtime. When you have a Spanish menu del dia at lunch time and say you want red wine you get an entire bottle included in the price. Cheap wine in Spain is really cheap, and not too bad. The best meal I've had here was Chinese at the Golden Dragon Restaurant.

The downtown area is dominated commercially by the franchise businesses typical of the Spanish retail economy. You have your Zara and Massimo Dutti and Pull and Bear, and Benneton and Etam, but not so many little independent market stalls selling everyday essentials you would find all over Morocco. Europe, like the United States, is frighteningly dominated by corporate franchise, which takes away the distinction of any particular place. It is the same stuff everywhere. My favorite shops in Melilla are the ones with old fashioned facades and signs that lend to the time warp feel of the place.

Red Wine colored windows

But more than shopping and eating out, I will feast on the architecture while I am here. I did a fairly exhaustive survey of historic buildings over three days. I found a lot of variety and some repetition that was probably the result of economy, what I would call 'budget Modernisme'. These are stuccoed brick buildings with cast mass produced cement ornamentation attached to the door and window frames. They are not necessarily extraordinary for their innovation but are rather derived from a lot of different styles. The more money budgeted for a building, the more ornate it tended to be. The art deco movement may have come about in part as a necessity of thrift that came with recession in the 1930's since the facades were much cleaner and without all fanciful detail.

Art Deco detail on the Teatro Cinema Monumental by architect Lorenzo Ros

Blue Confection

What is most remarkable about Melilla's historic architecture is that there is so much of it that still exists. There is an enormous body of work by Enrique Nieto and other architects that is preserved in relatively good condition, but few of the buildings have been restored to the point of looking like parodies of what they once were. Rather they are just nice old buildings, showing some wear and tear, but not falling apart at the seams. There is great charm in the peeling paint and chipped moldings. I even like the funky electrical wires wrapped around the decorative brackets as part of some low budget upgrades. It is real, and it is wonderful that they haven't been torn down and replaced with sad modern structures like you see in so much of the rest of the World. Spain and the city of Melilla values it's architectural heritage and it shows. The part of the cities buildings that has suffered the most are the street level facades, which have been greatly altered in many cases to make them more functional for commercial use. Roller security doors and plate glass windows have replaced what must have been elegant doors and windows.

A Cake Shop Block

Casa de Tortosa by Enrique Nieto

A building with Sgraffito style ornamentation

Sgraffito is a type of ornamentation where a contrasting color of stucco is layered on to a building and then literally scratched to create the design. It was a popular form of ornamentation during the Renaissance and made a resurgence in Spain during the first half of the 20th Century. I saw a lot of this type of ornamentation on buildings in Firenze and Rome in Italy. This style of facade ornamentation was also popular in Bavaria in German. The shapes of the Sgraffito buildings in Melilla tend to be very simple with horizontal lines dividing the walls and ornate surrounds on the doors and window.

This is in sharp contrast to the most opulent buildings in town, which rival Rococco and Queen Anne Victorian buildings in their extreme ornamentation.

Edificio La Reconquista

Its easy to spend a couple of days wandering the streets admiring the fanciful details and variety of styles and influences the went in to this eclectic but harmonious array of buildings. Corner buildings often have ornate balconies topped with a cupola. The cupola's on the Edificio La Reconquista are covered in a dragon scale like tile pattern similar to buildings in the Eixample district in Barcelona.

Laundry on fancy balconies

Two Griffins over a door

Filling water jugs at a public fountain

Simple facades could be ornamented by attaching molded ornamentation to give them the popular decorative look without great expense.

Stenciled frames on tall windows

Door Knocker

The busts of women are a popular motif on Enrique Nieto's Modernisme buildings.

Casino Militar by Enrique Nieto on the Plaza Espan~a, built in the classical style demanded by the military

Casino Militar at sunset. There must be a gymnasium inside.

Stairwell in the Casino Militar which has Neo Arabic decor

An eclectic array of buildings, one with a facade decorated in tile

Curvaceous windows are a popular element of Modernisme buildings

Interesting windows with a reflected detail at each end

Neo Gothic Colegio-Capilla del Buen Consejo by Francisco Carcan~o Mas

I love this one for its wave pattern at the top

The Plaza de Toros

Melilla's beautiful Plaza de Toros was designed by architect Alejandro Blonde Gonzales in 1945 after Enrique Nieto's retirement. It is one of three bull rings built on the continent of Africa and is the only one functioning to this day.

A monument to the Republican forces by Enrique Nieto

Melilla tends to fall to the right when it comes to politics. The city sided with Republican forces, and General Franco used it as one of his launching points for his military campaign at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. The only statue of Franco remaining in Spain is supposedly here, although I haven't found it yet. It may have finally been replaced by a modern work that looks like squeezed out toothpaste. But there may be a little old fashioned facism still around in the mindset of some Melillans. It might be one of the reasons that Melilla's architecture is so well preserved, as many cities in Spain were heavily bombed by Franco's forces for opposing him during the war.

Plaque in the Museo Militar

Border crossing between Morocco and Melilla

Morocco would very much like to reclaim the colonial cities of Melilla and Ceuta, but it is unlikely that Spain will be giving them back any time soon. To do so would bring dramatic change to these eccentric and unique enclaves and the predominantly Spanish inhabitants are very much opposed to such a notion. Spain runs an expensive subsidized ferry service to both cities and has invested enormous capital in to restoration and infrastructure of both cities. The European Union has also invested vast sums of money to fortify the borders to discourage illegal immigration. I have crossed them both this year and they are are two of the strangest in the World, along with that of Spain and Gibraltar. They both function as thriving trading centers with Morocco as an intrinsic link to the European continent. I'll be going back through this bit of political purgatory again tomorrow.

Looking down the coast of Morocco from Melilla

Thanks for reading yet another wandering tale from a wandering man.

Chefchaouen Blue

2012-02-12T06:28:00.000-08:00

A view of Chefchaouen, Morocco

Chefchaouen is a small city in the Rif mountains of Northern Morocco known for its climate, blue houses, and kif, or marijuana that is grown in the surrounding mountains. It is a heady combination to say the least, though I have been passing on the hashish, as the blue is intoxicating enough on it's own. I wrote an essay called 'The Colors of Morocco' while I was here last year, discussing the meaning of various colors used throughout the country. Many people have written and posted images of this incredible town. Here is my personal blue spin on the situation.

Pink Leopard Slippers on a blue doorstep

Chefchaouen was founded in 1471 by Moorish and Jewish refugees fleeing the Reconquista of Spain, led by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabela the Catholic. The town has an Andalusian character like the larger city of Tetouan near the coast. The houses are typically white washed in the tradition of those found all over Andalusia in southern Spain, with related architectural styles. This makes for a wonderful pedestrian Medina with beautiful homes tightly clustered along narrow winding lanes.

A blue street in the Medina

The blue color on homes came about as a pigment wash used by Jewish refugees in the 1930's who emigrated to Morocco fleeing Europe as anti Semitic oppression grew there. Although the Jewish community has largely moved on to other countries, the color has become emblematic to the city. Blue is said to represent the sky to Jews, and therefore heaven. Blue threads have been traditionally woven in to prayer shawls for this reason.

Angel ladders over the Grande Mosquee

The day I arrived in Chefchaouen, I was up in a wonderful tower in the contrasting orange red mud plastered Kasbah. There is a fantastic view from there of the Plaza Uta el-Hammam, the main gathering space of the Medina. I was gazing out over the town when I heard a group of men singing. The sound was quite beautiful. Then, from the narrow lane below, the singing men emerged, wearing the typical tan colored Djellabas of the region. These are the long winter robes with a pointed hood that are the traditional overcoat of men in Morocco. These men were leading a funeral procession. A group of men behind them appeared carrying a casket draped in a green cloth embroidered in gold with inscriptions from the Koran. Green and gold are the colors of Islam. When I turned around toward the mosque, with its beautiful red tiled roof, the sky had exploded with a spray of magnificent Angel Ladders. It was as if Allah was shining down on the city in response to this moment of transition between life and death, a binding of Heaven and Earth. It was so beautiful I started to weep. The beauty of being blue...

Funeral Procession entering the Plaza Uta el-Hammam

The original blue pigment from what I have read, was derived from a type of Murex shell, which is usually a shade of royal purple once prized by the Romans and Byzantine empires. Shades of indigo were apparently made for the use of dying the blue thread used in the Jewish shawls. I have also seen blue powdery stones for sale by Tuareg people of the Sahara in the Djemma el Fna in Marrakech, who prefer indigo dye for their clothing.

Bags of powdered pigments for sale in the Medina

The vibrant pigments used today for painting in Chefchaouen are probably synthetic. The colored powders are mixed with water and applied as a wash on a regular basis, often with a primitive brush made of coarse dried grass bound together in a bundle. They come in many colors. In Tetouan I found that virtually every color was used, red, pink, blue, green, yellow, charcoal, purple. But these colors don't sell very well in Chefchaouen. Adding additional layers of color over time gives the surfaces a luminous glow, especially in the evening.

Number 16

They say that blue is used to trick mosquitos, who perceive it as clear flowing water, which they are not attracted to. In fact it sometimes feels like you are swimming when walking down flights of blue painted steps surrounded by blue walls and ceilings.

A blue passageway

I have heard that the blue washes most commonly used were predominantly pale, but that over time, due to the availability of varied shaded pigments, and creative impulse, combined with civic encouragement as tourism in the town developed, the shades of blue have become more varied, vibrant, and intense. What is most extraordinary, is that places that normally don't get painted, like pavements, are often washed, so that the entire view in some walkways makes for a surreal blue world.

Pale blue treads and deeper blue risers

A wall can be painted blue, but then it is trimmed in a darker shade. The risers of steps can be a darker shade as well, giving a flight of stairs a wonderful undulating ripple affect. Doors will be painted to throw the whole mix in to the realm of psychedelia. It could be women inhaling the second hand smoke of their husbands kif pipes in small rooms. Who knows for sure. But in the end it is utterly inspiring, and beyond beautiful. It is like a blue dream.

A woman painting the stairs at dusk

As the evening sets in the colors become more intense, and they glow in an entirely different way when the lights come on at night.

Grape vines form a tendril canopy over a street in the Medina at dusk

I find myself walking up and down and around and around, absorbing the lush chilled saturation of colors, taking photos at every turn. Women often wear vibrant blue kaftans here, complimenting their surroundings. But every color looks electric in this blue world. I have painted the ceilings in three of the rooms in my home blue, so that when I look up it is like looking in to the sky, to the heavens, or in to a crystaline pool, or the deep blue sea. It is transportive and transcendent, and oh so beautiful.

Colorful Life in the Medina

Blue Hole

Blue doors at night

Blue trimmed everything

Blue Scallops

Technicolor Blue Door

My favorite blue ruins

The vivid colors seem to trigger a response in the brain that makes the people here some of the sweetest, kindest, and most gentle I have ever met. Complete strangers will engage you in ways that seem impossibly penetrating in no time at all. A baker gave me fresh cookies from the wood fired oven for free. A boy playing a game blindfolded in the street grabbed me and hugged me as if I wasn't a stranger. Girls shake my hand, and so many people say hello. I find myself smiling more, and often laughing, and crying from the sheer beauty of it all. The color blue may just be a cure for the blues!

Thanks for reading as always. I'm going back out there to swim around Chefchaouen.

Blue and Silver

Bags of Hand Spun Thread

The Intensity of Blue can be astounding at times

Bags of Sand

Blue Steps to a Blue Door

A Blue Door with a Black Flower Pot design

The Sweetest Boys

The Sweetest Girls

Water trickling down blue steps

Doorway to another World

Morocco and my work

2012-01-27T01:57:00.000-08:00

A Pebble Mosaic Carpet I built in a garden in Los Angeles

I am in Morocco again for the second of what may be a continuing series of trips to discover and revisit all that is wonderful about this country. For over 20 years I have been inspired by it's art, and this has been reflected in my work and my home for at least as long as that. Several years ago I purchased the Taschen Press book 'Moroccan Interiors', and poured over the pages absorbing the rich colors and patterns that have been a part of North African history for over 1,000 years. I painted rooms in my house to capture the ambience I saw in Yve Saint Laurent's house at the Villa Oasis and the Jardin Majorelle in Marrakesh, which is featured in the book.

A Mint Green room in my homeinspired by the Villa Oasis with a Moroccan silk velvet tent door

I taught myself how to cut tile and made my own zellijes emulating the style of tile work found there. I used a selection of tile seconds from the Pratt and Larson company in Portland, Oregon to create a zellij in the kitchen of my home. They manufacture tiles that can be assembled to create zellij like patterns. I like the hand cut look, and only used their 8 pointed star tiles, which I gold leafed. I hand cut the rest of the tiles using a score and snap tile cutter and hand tile nippers. I now own a Moroccan tile cutting hammer because I can no longer use the nippers as they aggravate my tendonitis.

Moroccan Zellij behind he kitchen counter in my home

I have built a number of pebble mosaics using Arabic tessalate geometric designs that originated in Morocco as well. One Portland garden has a long path running down a side garden. At a halfway point, I built a small patio with a bench and a fountain that is visible from the long terrace that wraps around this historic home, with an eight pointed star and geometric patterns radiating out in a simple square frame.

Tesselate Star Pebble Mosaic

In a garden in Los Angeles I have incorporated several Moroccan inspired mosaics and a sunken garden, inspired by the client's love of the country and it's arts and design. The first project was to build a pebble mosaic carpet. This elaborate design took a month to lay out and set. I first arranged the entire mosaic in a bed of sand on site and then disassembled it and set it in mortar, using forms to break it up in to sections.

I was also commissioned to build a fountain covering a concrete block form that was not of my design. I was not particularly happy with the shape that I had to work with but I made the most of it. Water flows in a sheet from a copper ledge over a 'Tree of Life' mosaic that is fashioned after a Liquidambar Sweet Gum tree adjacent to the fountain. The tree mosaic is framed with a band of eight pointed stars and connecting bands, similar to the carpet mosaic. The fountain is surrounded in white glazed brick to cover the sides of the concrete block form and pool, matching the white brick walls on the first story of the house.

Tree of Life Fountain

My next commision in the garden was to build a round gas fire pit for gatherings on cool evenings to roast marshmallows. I built up bands of pebble mosaic using black and gold Mexican beach pebbles and then capped the ring with a band of eight pointed stars matching the other mosaics in the garden. The stars are made of Turkish limestone tiles that I cut with a stone cutting blade. The fire pit is connected to a natural gas line and has a double round metal ring perforated with holes that is covered in black gravel. A Moroccan brass tray fits over the fire pit when it is not in use.

A elegant fire pit for roasting Marshmallows

We also erected a restored Indonesian pavilion in the garden to use as a tea house. I recycled carved wooden panels from the roof of an old Rajasthani swing from India to use as steps, and built a landing incorporating the eight pointed star motif, and red pebbles to compliment the wood steps.

Tea House steps and pebble mosaic landing

My last big project for the garden was to remodel an area that once contained a sunken trampoline. You an see the essay that I wrote on this project called 'A Sunken Garden'. We removed a large trampoline and I built a sunken garden utilizing the hole that was there. I was inspired by the shape of a Moroccan key hole door in designing the space. We stenciled a border around the wall, and I added a fountain and Moroccan tiled table and chairs to furnish the space.

Looking down in to the Sunken Garden

The underground garage concrete pour

I was commissioned to build a cut slate roof terrace on an elaborate new underground garage for clients in Portland, to be used as a terrace for entertaining and dancing. I used the eight pointed star design again in repeated medallions framed by colored bands of cut stone. This was probably the most difficult project I have ever undertaken as it had to drain perfectly in to two very small drains on one side. The terrace is quite large and took about 3 months to build. The colors of the stone reflect those of the imposing house adjacent to it. It is quite an elegant space, considering that there are two cars parked underneath it, and they have had some lovely tango parties on it, so that it is now called 'The Tango Terrace'.

Laying out the pattern for slate terrace

Star Medallion

The completed Tango Terrace

I've been working with a steel fabricator for several years now to build wonderful steel structures in my garden and some of my client's projects. We cut these beautiful tesselate medallions to hang on walls and fences or trellises. This pattern is a classic Moroccan design, representing a story from the Koran, where the Prophet Mohammed, escaping men who were pursuing him in order to kill him, hid in a cave. A spider built a web across the entrance to the cave, so when the men came, they saw the web and decided he could not be inside as the web would have been broken. The rays emanating from the central star represent a spider's web.

Steel Medallion hanging on the rusted steel fence in my garden

I have been collecting Moroccan lanterns over the years as I love to light my garden at night with candles. The patterns that spray across the garden through the lattice patterns cut in the metal, and the colors of the glass are quite magical.

I was first inspired to float flowers in water filled bowls in my garden by an article I saw many years ago about the Hotel La Mamounia in Marrakesh. There they had strewn rose petals in the fountains, an idea I find quite beautiful, ritualistic, and romantic.

Rose petals in a fountain at Dar Donab in Marrakesh

Dahlias are my favorite flower to float in water as they look like fabulous water lilies, and last for days if the raccoons don't come along at night and shred them to bits, which they love to do.

Dahlias and chrome balls floating in a carved stone bowl in my garden

I now have a small library of books on Moroccan design and gardens. Perhaps the finest of all the books I own is called 'Arabesques, Decorative Art in Morocco', from ACR Publications. This incredible book takes on the daunting task of defining the mind boggling complexity of geometric patterning in tile, painting, marquetry, stucco carving, and most amazing of all, three dimensional muqarnas.

The reason I am so fascinated and inspired by Moroccan design and that I have incorporated so much of the influence in my own work is that I find the artistic expression found in that country to be some of the most beautiful and profoundly meaningful I have ever encountered. I am forever grateful to have the luxury of exploring this magical land and to see first hand the treasures that it has bestowed upon humanity.

Berber Me

Thanks for reading this, Jeffrey

The Koubba El-Badiyn

2012-01-24T20:00:00.000-08:00

Looking up in to the interior of the Koubba El-Badiyn

Marrakech is a city rich in history and architecture. The city was founded by the Almoravid people nearly 1,000 years ago on a plain near the Tensift River in a strategic location for trading routes through North Africa. The Almoravids were a Berber dynasty from the southern Sahara who's rule eventually spanned an area covering the Maghreb, being most of North Africa west of Egypt, and Al-Andalus. This region of Southern Spain is known today as Andalusia, famous for its Nasrid capitol at Granada, with its palace fortress, the Alhambra.

Painting of a Berber tent camp at the edge of a walled city

Originally a tent encampment, the city of Marrakech was begun as the new capitol of the Almoravid kingdom by Abu Bakr ibn Umar but largely completed by his successor Youssef ben Tachfin. They built a sophisticated underground irrigation system for the cultivation of date palms and crops, and the signature pinkish red mud brick walls, parts of which surround much of the Medina to this day. Within the walls, they constructed the great Ali ben Youssef Mosque, now lost, and the Koubba El-Badiyn, which was a hall of ablutions for cleansing one's self before prayers. It is the oldest remaining building in the city.

A Palm Oasis near Ouarzazate in Morocco

The reign of the Almoravid dynasty was a short lived one lasting a little more than 100 years. They were an austere sect of Islam, and destained the decadent ornamentation that flourished in Andalusia, but eventually adopted a greater flair for architectural refinement over time. The kingdom was overthrown by the Almohad sect of Islam in 1147 AD, who destroyed everything that had been built up until that time except for the irrigation system, and the Koubba El-Badiyn, which was buried over during the construction of new buildings. The Almohads built the great Koutoubia Mosque and extended the walls that you see today.

Excavation revealing the Koubba El-Badiyn

The original ground level of old Marrakesh has risen considerably, as is the case of most ancient cities. When the Koubba was excavated in 1953, two stories of fill had to be removed to expose the original ground level of the building. What you see today is perhaps my favorite building in Marrakech. This structure and the architectural legacy that was lost became the prototypes for the great architecture of the following Almohad empire. There are many details on the building that are used in some form in later structures throughout Morocco.

The Koubba is a relatively small building, with simple but beautiful doorways with 6 cupped indentations flanking a circular scallop on each end of the rectangular base. There are two keyhole shaped doorways on the other two sides. The construction is mud brick covered in a smooth layer of stucco with a natural ochre coloring.

On the second level are rows of varied shaped windows giving the facade a simple elegance. The cap of the wall is crenelated with a zig zag edge to the merlons, or raised parts, like the profile of a terraced ziggurat. This is a motif that you see on roof lines all over Morocco to this day.

Zig Zag edge Merlons on a building in the Medina in Tangier

The central dome of the building has a beautifully patterned lattice of narrow elliptic pointed arches interlaced to frame a star shaped crown. The interior of this dome is sculpted with an elegant 8 pointed star connected by petal like tear drops.

Upper level windows and the sculpted dome, with zig zag crenelations

Interior view showing the different shaped doors and brickwork revealed behind a layer of stucco

Carved and pigmented stucco arch

Inside the Koubba are two arches at either end with varying simple but very elegant carved stucco arches, both incorporating 6 pointed stars. They are painted with a red pigment that may be derived from original remnants but I have no historical reference to prove that. What I write here is purely from observation and the extremely limited amount of information that is available to me. If a knowledgeable historian were to read my account they might be horrified, but then I am often left doubtful of what I read as interpretation of things I have seen that tend to be taken as fact because they have been reiterated so many times. So I will indulge my hypothesis, and you can take me seriously or not.

There is a small rectangular depression in the floor with angled sides that might have been a small pool used for washing or to reflect the beautiful ceiling and cool the air inside the space. This might have originally been tiled.

The interior dome is square, so there is a small balcony on each end that is not accessible, but only architectural to allow for the change in form. The openings of the windows are a different shape and smaller than they are on the outside, allowing for structural strength and architectural harmony, but allowing adequate light in to illuminate the dome. They are angled to create the shape of an eight pointed star. Eight pointed stars can symbolize two overlapping squares with alludes to the overlapping of time and space, with one square representing the cardinal directions while the other represents the four seasons. It is like looking at a time piece and a compass at the same time. The arches are beautifully shaped in a form seen in many later Moorish doorways, like a keyhole but with a pointed top. The space in between is decorated with garlands of carved stucco leaves, perhaps those of the Oriental Plane Tree, Platanus orientalis, which is an important shade tree planted throughout the Mediterranean. This tree is sacred in ancient Greek and Persian texts. The garlands and a pinnate foliage form frame large scallop shells, which could be derived from Roman buildings that would have been seen in ancient Volubilis and Chellah near the royal Moroccan cities of Meknes and Rabat.

Sculpted arches create an 8 pointed star, with foliage garlands framing shells

To make the transition between the square shape at the beginning of the space to the eight pointed space, there are four corner recesses culminating in seven pointed stars. These are rarely represented in Islamic architecture but can allude to the seven known planets of the time, which rule the seven days of the week. They allow for a geometric connection between the shape of the square to the shape of the octagon in the form of the arches in the rising dome. There is a smaller seven pointed star inside the larger one and a seven petaled flower in the center of that.

Seven pointed stars in the corners of the transition between the square space and the 8 pointed space

It is quite extraordinary to look up in to this dome, which takes geometric shapes and brings them in to the three dimensional form. This is called a Muqurnas dome, where niche shapes are combined in profusion to create a dome. The Alhambra in Granada has extraordinary examples of Muqarnas that are so elaborate as to look hallucinogenic. The sculpting is sometimes referred to as honeycombing, because it looks like gazing in to a bee hive.

Sala de los Abencerrejas in the Alhambra, Granada, Spain

Above the eight arches is another eight pointed star, and then an octagon shape that forms the base of the cupola at the top of the building. Inside this is the geometric form of an eight pointed star with slender rays, connected by the round petal like shapes of a cosmic flower. The perfection of the entire space is entrancing and transcendent, like the experience of enlightenment intended when praying devotedly to Allah. It is a magical thing to behold. The Koubba El-Adiyn is a prototype that inspired a plethora of gorgeous buildings found throughout Morocco, a country that is a virtual treasure chest of architectural gems professing to the brilliance of Islamic mathematics and art and engineering. My breath is taken away to behold such brilliance, leaving me spellbound with awe.

A straight on view of the interior of the Koubba El-Badiyn

Thanks for reading, Jeffrey

Tragically Magic Tangier, Morocco

2012-01-21T16:44:00.000-08:00

A film poster with Calla Lilies in the Cinema Rif

Its Friday the 13th of December and I have been in Tangier for a week now. The prankster spirits were out in force today, and I made the mistake of undertaking the preparations for my first ever exhibition of photographs here in this very city in the midst of such a thin veil between worlds. But that is what Tangier is all about, the junction between two worlds. It is one of those cities you can get stuck in, like all of the odd and intriguing mix of people that have wound up living here at some point in their lives. The stories you hear are the stuff of legends.

Two kinds of Tangerine

The Two Pillars of Hercules
The Rock of Gibraltar in Europe and Jebel Musa in Africa

Hercules kicked off the list of luminaries. It is believed that he rested in a cave on the nearby Cap Spartel coast before undertaking his 11th labor in the quest to be granted immortality and atone for killing his six sons while under the spell of the Goddess Hera. His task was to steal 3 golden apples from the garden of the Hesperides, the Nymphs of Evening who tended the magical trees behind a high wall. He tricked Atlas in to picking them for him while he held up the world, giving Atlas a much needed break. He tricked Atlas again into taking the job of supporting the World while he adjusted his cloak, and took off with the apples. The high mountains that cross Morocco were named for the beleaguered god Atlas. The lore of the garden and golden apples of the Hesperides Nymphs inspired the design of many Renaissance gardens in Italy imbued with a link to the divine.

Fountain of the Garden of the Hesperides in the Villa de Este in Tivoli, Italy
This garden is devoted to the God Hercules

In the 14th Century, the Tangerine Ibn Battuota traveled further than any other human on Earth until the advent of the steam engine 4 1/2 Centuries later. He covered some 75,000 miles in 30 years exploring vast parts of Africa, Europe, and Asia as far as Beijing. He dictated the tale in the epic manuscript 'The Rilha'. The short title literally means 'The Journey'. A translated quote from the story reads as this: "I set out alone, finding no

Tile Plaque on the Tomb of Ibn Battouta

companion to cheer the way with friendly intercourse, and no party of travelers with whom to associate myself. Swayed by an overmastering impulse within me, and a long-cherished desire to visit those glorious sanctuaries, I resolved to quit all my friends and tear myself away from my home." I am overcome by the same wanderlust and head out for 3 or 4 months every winter with the help of jet fuel. Ibn Battuta's tomb is in the Kasbah of Tangier. It is a strange tribute that the world's largest theme shopping mall in Dubai, the one with the snow skiing, is named after him. The more widely renowned Venetian Marco Polo came in a distant second in his travels to and from China.

Pebble Mosaic Courtyard in the American Legation

Tile Pattern in a courtyard in the American Legation

Morocco was the first country to recognize the United States as a sovereign nation after it gained independence from Great Britain. The Sultan of Morocco gifted a house in the Medina of Tangier to the fledgling country and this house became our first foreign property and diplomatic center of the U.S. in the world. It is also the only site within the National Park Service that is outside a U.S. territory. The two countries have had a lasting pact of friendship that was created in 1786. It is important for Americans to know that our first and longest ally is a Muslim nation. The American Legation, as it is called is now a foundation for Americans to learn the Arab language. It is also a popular cultural center where meetings and events are staged. I recently attended the screening of a Moroccan film there titled 'A Muslim Boy growing up in the Medina'. It was a fascinating event and I got an introspective in to the life of Moroccans during the colonial period, when there was a certain amount of segregation between the native people and their occupiers. There are two attractive courtyards and nicely furnished rooms with a wonderful collection of eclectic paintings in the Legation. It is a curious blend of Moroccan and American styles.

A Berber Rug American Flag

When you pass through the traditional front door on a narrow pedestrian alleyway, you enter an attractive pebble mosaic courtyard with a central fountain surrounded by an arched arcade. This may very well be the only pebble mosaic in a United States government property. The place is relaxed and I enjoy hanging out there, as nothing is roped off. You can even sit on the furniture. Interestingly, Pasadena, California is Tangier's American sister city.

Colorful Doorway to Vidal Sassoon's current residence

Mick Jagger and Malcombe Forbes, Barbara Hutton (Poor Little Rich Girl), Vidal Sassoon and Yves Saint Laurent are just of handful of 20th Century's most notorious people to have set up camp in this gateway to Africa. Paul Bowles and William Burroughs were creative junkies and quite messy publicly at times from what people who have been here the longest tell me. I stay in the Hotel Muniria when I'm here, where Burroughs wrote the book Naked Lunch. Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac helped pull the piles of paper strewn about his room in to a publishable work the year I was born. My friend Karla and I passed a man shooting up in the lane above the hotel today. He was just sticking the needle in his arm when he yelled 'Hey, look!" It could have been William reincarnated! I have a high tolerance for the darker side of society from many years of budget travel and my own pioneering move in to the what was at that time a pretty hard core ghetto in Portland 30 years ago. I have a nice room and a huge beautiful terrace that looks out over the bay.

Tangier became an international zone, which drew people from all over the world to this exotic lair and enabled them to stay.

Sunrise view from my terrace at the Hotel Muniria

The city was full of hippies in the 1960's, the time when most of the people I have gotten to know here moved to Tangier. Morocco grows a substantial percentage of the world's marijuana crop and turns much of this in to hashish, which is then smuggled to Europe and the U.S. There is an intriguing mix of Moroccans and foreigners and they all seem to have incredible stories to tell. One couple I met last year own the Volubilis Gallery in the Kasbah. This is where I conjured up the idea yesterday, after a nice lunch at their house, to have an exhibition of photos called 'Eccentric Morocco'. The gallery was booked with a show for the month of February, but the woman scheduled to have her show of illustrations here called and canceled while we were having tea at the Cafe Espanol a few hours later. So I pulled a bunch of my favorite images of Morocco from my digital files on my laptop and we took them to a printer. I quickly learned a lot about what looks good in print as opposed to on the computer screen today and am now changing the focus of my selection. I came up with the title 'Eccentric Morocco' after the laptop crashed 4 times while trying to send the email to the Tanger Pocket to promote the show. The deadline was today, Friday the 13th. Eventually we got the 5 times rewritten text and a photo sent off and I am officially committed.

Image from the exhibition of a clothes line in the Kasbah of Tangier

Then I picked up the photos at the studio that I took the disk to and later found that the trimmed ones were badly done with jagged scissors, so I will be going back tomorrow to try again. If I sell 5 photos I will be amazed, but it is a kind of self financed manifestation of a new career, like the 4 books I have self published. One will be the image that is on the cover of my book 'Kitty', which I took last year in Tangier. It is one of the most magical photos I've ever taken. I am now shooting like a mad man (nothing new really), and some of them are quite wonderful. It should be a very fun show!

View from a plane of the Straights of Gibraltar

Spanish Colonial buildings near the waterfront

Just a 35 minute trip from Tarifa in Spain on the other side of the Mediterranean Sea, the ferry drops you off on this beguilingly seedy doorstep. A grand group of sculpted stucco colonial buildings from the Spanish occupation period, with old signs advertising passage to ports of call throughout the Mediterranean greets you with a row of competitive fish restaurants, each with its own tout ready to drag you in for lunch. In summer here it must be crazy with day trippers coming for a quick taste of Africa.

Its an architectural time warp around every corner, with a blending of styles spanning centuries and numerous cultures. The French, Portuguese, and Italians have tried to run the show here. For decades it was an international zone with many fingers in the pie. The waterfront is undergoing a massive redevelopment scheme under the royal patronage of the King of Morocco. They are building a huge new marina and luxury condominiums, as well as a congressional palace, a museum, and large public area. There will also be a gondola cable car that will take you over the city, a rather peculiar and invasive scheme that will change the look of the skyline and no doubt invade the privacy of many residents.

Conceptual view of the new waterfront marina for the city of Tangier

The heart of the city is called the Gran Socco, which is Spanish for Big Market. This is an expansive plaza with a large fountain in the center that has been refurbished from its former market place status. It was more like a smaller version of the famed Jma el Fna in Marrakesh, a place where musicians and snake charmers lured money from foreigners and vendors spread their blankets. It is more like a European plaza now and is surrounded on one side by the walls of the Medina, and on others by more contemporary colonial period buildings.

The Gran Socco

The Cinema Rif is the primary land mark, and popular cultural center today. While many of the old theaters of Tangier and throughout Morocco have fallen in to decay, the Rif has a regular screening of international films and live theater, and has a popular tea house where people gather to chat or use the free internet access. I saw the wonderful silent movie 'The Artist' there last week. They also just showed 'Cat on a hot tin roof' with Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman as part of a series sponsored by the American Legation. The Gran Socco is the link between the old city Medina and the Ville Nouvelle, which has an interesting mix of colonial era shops, cafes, tea houses, and night clubs indicative of a port city.

The Piano Bar in the Hotel El Minzah

People have been coming here to party for decades and there are plenty of lurid options to be had. Tangier has an active night scene with a number of dark clubs catering to drinkers and prostitutes. I walk through a rowdy area to get back to my hotel with loud Arab music pouring out from behind tasseled curtains screening the view inside these smoky dens of iniquity. Stout bouncers keep an eye on the door and make me less inclined to take a look inside. A more civilized cocktail can be had in the bar at the Hotel el Minzah, the grand 5 star haven in the heart of the Ville Nouvelle that has a fair number of its own stories to tell.

The stairway down to the Bar Monocle

Drinking tea is a Moroccan passion practiced on the grandest scale in Tangier. It is said that there are some 800 tea cafes in the city, and many of them are opulent in their scale and decor. Most are filled with men, who all face the big screen TV's when the local football team is playing. They are busiest in the mornings and evenings. A large part of the day is spent hanging out with friends with pots of mint tea or small Spanish style coffees. Patisseries offering delicious French style pastries also serve tea and coffee, and are more likely to be frequented by women.

Salon de The' Metropole, where I often meet friends for coffee

Many of the streets in the Ville Nouvelle are like stepping back in time to the 1950's, with wonderful neon signs and businesses that have become lasting institutions in the city. Rachid's, where I had my photos printed is one of them. There is a great sense of trust here, and when I didn't have enough money to pay for a printing Rachid would tell me to just bring the money later, without having even a written receipt.

The Borsalino Club's sign has sadly been replaced by a plastic one since I photographed it last year

Just behind are the fortified walls above the vast old Jewish cemetery lies the Medina. The Cemetery is crammed with above ground coffins from the once thriving Mellah or Jewish quarter of the city. Most of that community has since moved to Israel, as is the case throughout Morocco, though some families remain. Jews and Muslims were both expelled from Spain after Ferdinand and Isabela the Catholic conquered the Moorish kingdoms there in the 15th Century.

The Jewish Cemetery

You climb up steep stairs to arched gates and enter the Medina, a warren of pedestrian streets lined with hidden houses, cheap pensions, and small shops carrying products that are often made on site. There are stalls selling fresh produce, meat, and eggs, and communal bakeries where families can bring their dough to be baked in wood fired ovens. Hammans are communal bath houses for residents who don't have indoor plumbing in their homes, and there are public fountains to fill jugs with water. Many people embroider elaborate kaftans in their shops, or have looms for weaving cloth for robes in Fondouks, which are a kind of collective with affordable housing for craftsmen and nomadic traders. The walls and doors of homes facing the street give little indication of what lies behind them. If the door is made of fine cedar there is a good chance that a grand old dar, or riad lies behind them. These are large houses of well to do with inner courtyards paved in fine tile work, with beautiful carved stucco columns and painted ceilings.

Carved and painted dome in the Dar el-Makhzen, now the Museum of the Kasbah

A Berber Amber necklace in Boutique Majid

There are plenty of shops in Tangier filled with Moroccan treasures for the foreigners that cross the Straights of Gibraltar to cart home. One of the best of them is Boutique Majid. I spend a lot of time in this grand old house, sitting on a comfortable divan beneath silk velvet wall panels, listening to my friend Majid tell tales of grander times in Tangier. I met him last year when I came to Tangier with an actress friend of mine who had made a film in the Alhambra in Granada, Spain 33 years ago. She used to come to Tangier to party on the weekends and hadn't been back since then. I lured her to come visit by sending her enticing photos from my travels. Once you visit Morocco it remains in your blood for life, and she couldn't resist the opportunity to join me. She hadn't been in contact with any of the people she had befriended here since, but amazingly to us we were able to find all of them, and it is of course a fascinating group. I myself had to come back again and see them. They are that good, and so the story goes... Majid's shop is filled with beautiful things from North Africa and collections from his travels in Asia. He specializes in Moroccan embroidery and fine textiles. There is a building filled with doors and architectural pieces that would make you want to rebuild your house. The ceilings are covered in lustrous canopies and hanging with colored glass lanterns. You could spend the entire day hanging out drinking fresh mint tea and visiting with interesting people from all over the world who come to admire his wares.

The beautiful couch I hang out on in Boutique Majid

When I leave the shop I go in various directions. Medinas are like mazes, without an organized grid system to guide you, so its very easy to get lost. Because you cant see the horizon or the direction of the sun it can be disorienting and I have gone in circles a number of times. Children are always ready to give you directions for a dirham or two, although if you do know where you are going or just want to wander this can get annoying. The old cities of Morocco grew organically, fitting to the topography of the land. They are surrounded by defensible walls that are pierced by ornamental gates like medieval cities in Europe, so sometimes it is easier to go outside and around to another gate rather than trying to navigate from inside.

There is a strong influence from Spain mixed with the Moroccan style in Tangier, as is the reverse case on the other side of the Mediterranean Sea. As the modern world drew people to the outlying neighborhoods and their modern conveniences, buildings in the Medina began to crumble with age. Many of them are is poor condition, but there is great charm and marvelous patina in the decay, and if I lived in Tangier I would want to be in this area, because it has the most magical quality. It is like passing through a different era. The streets are narrow so you have to make your way around people, and that contact is engaging and social, as opposed to driving in a car, where you are completely isolated and are polluting the air and consuming fossil fuels at the same time. If we are to survive as a species we very well may have to make a return to this pedestrian lifestyle. And we will be all the better for it. I know this because I feel excitement and vitality when I am walking around the Medinas in Morocco, where as I am often stressed or utterly bored when I am driving around the city at home.

A wonderful conglomeration of colors revealed in a peeling wall

At the top of the hill above the Medina is the Kasbah. This is a separate walled compound where the Sultan's palace lies. This is now the beautiful Museum of the Kasbah. There are narrow twisting streets, as in the Medina, with a mix of rich and poor. The views from the roofs are wonderful, looking out over the sea and the sprawl of the new city.

View of the Medina from the Kasbah

Hanging out in the Kasbah

Many of the old houses have been restored to be comfortable and beautiful homes. One of the most spectacular, and for a long time the residence of hair care mogul Vidal Sassoon and his family, has partially collapsed after being undermined by excavations on the steep slopes below. It is now a bizarre, cracked ruin filled with trash and excrement that I went inside for the first time with a guide just a couple of days ago. I revisited it again on my own later, drawn to its macabe atmosphere. It is rather mysterious, and looks as if it were hit by an earthquake. I'm glad they left it in its precarious state rather than demolishing it, although the heaps of trash can be disconcerting, and it might be a little dangerous to walk around. My friend Karla said she used to swim in the pool there before the house collapsed.

The Collapsed Palace in the Kasbah

As the Medina grew to be exceedingly crowded, the affluent of Tangier began to build grand new houses in the area to the west called the Marchan. While several of the stately mansions are inhabited by the rich and famous, they sit amidst swaths of decay, and many of the houses are abandoned and collapsing, while others are being restored by the King of Morocco and his family, as well as wealthy families from other Arab countries. This is the site of the infamous Cafe Hafa, a steeply terraced tea house where men come to smoke hashish and marijuana kif while looking out over the Mediterranean Sea.

Cafe Hafa

On a bare rock crest above the sea lie the remains of ancient Roman tombs. The rectangular tombs were cut directly in to the rock and are now filled with water and trash. The views are spectacular and people gather here to look out over the sea towards Spain. Below the tombs is a dilapidated old neighborhood that is fascinating to explore, though few tourists ever venture here. It reminded me of the favela slums in Rio de Janiero in Brazil, without the menace of danger. If you go with a guide, people are quite friendly. Sadly many of these houses are being torn down to make way for future hotel development along the coastline, which will dramatically change the character of the area for the worst if they look like the ones being built along Tangier's beach front.

The Roman Tombs and a Spanish style house in the Marchan

Things are rapidly changing in this city along the same lines as the overdeveloped Costa del Sol across the waters in Spain. Much of the beauty that makes Tangier so incredible is being stripped away to make way for big ugly hotels and residential buildings geared towards a wealthy foreign clientele. The pine forested hills are disappearing at an alarming rate and being replaced by luxury cookie cutter villas, each with their own swimming pool, or nondescript high rises. One of the only remaining old buildings along Tangier's beach has been converted in to a McDonalds, complete with a Ronald McDonald play structure.

Modern High rise development along Tangier's beach

The beach is littered with a broad string of trash, mostly plastics from a disposable consumer society. The way we treat our beautiful oceans is appalling. A foul smelling open drain empties in to the middle of beach helping to make the sea unsuitable for swimming.

Garbage carpets the beach

Many of the people who have lived here a long time speak with some melancholy about how wonderful Tangier once was. They talk of the old days when there was pageantry and the spectacle of the Sultan's entourage, Barbara Hutton's amazing limousines and Malcombe Forbes grand parties. The hills were still carpeted in thick green forest instead of construction cranes. The houses were proud and well maintained. A rich and varied culture thrived in the Medina. As one man told me, "You have to turn a blind eye." That is unfortunately impossible for me to do.

A ruined mansion in the Marchan

But when I ask if they still love living here they always answer yes. A young woman who moved here from Casablanca a few years ago told me that when she goes home to visit her family, she doesn't stay long because she has to get back to Tangier for reasons she doesn't fully understand. I had to come back myself, and I hope it happens again as many times as I can pull off during the remainder of my life. Tangier is like a drug, magic, tragic, and addictive.

Sitting on a tile zellij fountain in the Kasbah of Tangier

Thanks for reading my ramblings, Jeffrey

A Photography exhibition: Le Maroc Excentrique

2012-01-20T04:58:00.000-08:00

I am very excited to announce that I will be having my first ever photography exhibition in the Volubilis Gallery in the Kasbah of Tangier, Morocco. The opening will be on February 3rd, 2012.

I have spent about 3 months traveling in this marvelous country both last winter and now, and I document what I see rather obsessively trying to capture the magic that this country embodies. This exhibition features a full spectrum of images from the classically beautiful to the ridiculously hilarious. Here are some of my favorite images of the over 100 that will be featured in the show.

A doorway in Chefchaouen at night

Boats in the El Jadida Harbor

Camel Caravan Shadows in the Sahara

A Kitty in Tangier

Tangier Cracked Mannequin

Poulet et Pomme Frits

Marrakesh WC

Asilah ruined house

Casablanca Door with Trash near the Gran Marche

Tangier, Calla Lilies in Cinema Rif

Green Door

Essaouira, Bab Doukkala

Tangier, Mauritania Cinema

Marrakesh, Jma el-Fna

Tangier, Club Al Madina

If you happen to be in Tangier on February 3rd, please come to the opening. It should be a lively and interesting discussion, and very fun!

Thanks, Jeffrey

The Alcazaba of Malaga

2011-12-30T02:17:00.000-08:00

View of the Alcazaba from the lower ramparts

The Alcazaba is a Moorish citadel built on a spur of a hill overlooking the harbor of Malaga on the southern coast of Spain. The site was formerly a Roman fortress and there is an ancient amphitheater at the base of the walls. The citadel was built by Muslim rulers starting around the year 1057, at the base of the hill crowned by an 8th Century fortress, the Castillo de Gibralfaro. There are Alcazaba citadels in other Arab towns in Spain, including Granada, but this is the best preserved. The Alhambra in Granada is the best known of the Moorish architectural complexes in Spain, as it was the capitol of the Nasrid Dynasties, and is one of the most beautiful palaces in the World. The Alcazaba in Malaga is very modest by comparison, but in that is where it's charms lie.

Moorish Pebble Mosaic in the Puerta de Torre Cristo

You enter the complex through a series of angled gates beneath towers that make the citadel easier to defend. This also makes for a wonderful series of twists and turns in a relatively small space. There are narrow walkways on top of the walls to supervise the paths below. Visitors can explore these paths to get great perspectives of the way the fort is laid out.

The pavements are varied and elegant blends of stone, brick, and pebble mosaic, with border strips and central panels that change around every corner. This makes the progression climbing the slope a delight as the designs, while simple, are very beautiful. How different this is from your average American sidewalk! It is rare to see such wonderful compositions, one after another, each as beautiful as the last. As a designer and builder of garden structure I really pay attention to how things are laid out. In the path on the left, a diagonal chevron pattern creates the center band. Then there are two lines of vertically laid brick, and then the outside bands of perpendicular bricks, also laid on edge. This creates a relatively smooth pavement to walk on. Flanking the path are stone cobbled bands to contrast the orderly brick. These are slightly raised so that cart wheels would be deterred from straying from the path. The paving inside the gates is usually a pebble mosaic medallion acting as a point on which to rotate and pass in to the next corridor.

Once you enter the Citadel proper, the element of water appears. First there is a courtyard divided in to four parts in the form of a classic Chahar Bagh. This is derived from the Persian prototype where the paths symbolize the four Rivers of Paradise, flowing with water, milk, honey, and wine. This patio is called the Plaza de Armas. The four planting beds are bordered by clipped hedges, with a central marble fountain. Water channels, called rills, come from small openings in the terrace walls that in this case flow through a tiny tunnel under 3 of the four brick columns that center on the four paths. These columns support a trellis planted with Jasmine to bathe the garden in heavenly fragrance. Water rills are derived from irrigation channels used to flood beds or water trees in orchards. In their ornamental capacity they still act as canals to bring water in to garden area for irrigation.

Plaza de Armas

The water rill becomes the binding thread between the Plaza de Armas and the next gardens. It runs down a curved ramp, dividing in to two rills on either side of the stairs on the next terrace level. These emerge through a central wall fountain and the channels that flow down the steps, framing the hedged patio, and then becoming the four rivers of paradise leading to the central fountain. The water in the rill channels shimmers in the sun light making silvery bands. A set of steps flanked by he rill lead up from the patio around the wall fountain and you follow the rill up the path to the next gate.

A water rill splits to frame a set of stairs leading down to the Plaza de Armas

Water Rill passing through the Puerta de los Cuartos de Granada

The rill disappears under a step, but the sound of water trickling around the corner of the next gate lures you around to a lovely fountain made from an ancient Roman marble sarcophagus with a simple faucet dribbling in to it. Arab fountains are always simple and restrained, never extravagant displays.

Another set of steps climbs against the wall to the next terrace, where you again turn in to a larger patio terrace with another central fountain on a pedestal with four spouts dribbling in to the basin below. Italian Cypresses frame the space and a flock of green parrots likes to hang out there eating the cones. Beds of blood red roses splash color in front of the rough walls made of a mixture of brick and stone. There is a well with a star pattern pebble mosaic adjacent to this patio, called the Patio de los Surtidores (Jets of Water), which lies below the next terrace. This is the beginning of the palace, where rooms surround classic Andalusian courtyards.

Fountain in the Patio de los Surtidores

The first set of palace rooms is in the Torre de la Armadura and Torre de Maldonado. Beautiful keyhole and double arched doors with carved stucco remnants lead to modestly sized rooms and a terrace with spectacular views of the Mediterranean Sea. Again the spaces are intimate in scale when compared to the Alhambra in Granada. Much restoration has been done so the tile work and detail is surely different from the original palaces, which were probably much more sumptuous, but the simplicity of the details works quite well in the scale of things.

Double arches in the Torre de Armadura

View of the Malaga Harbor from the Torre de Maldonado

After passing through interior rooms you come to the Patio de los Naranjos, the Patio of the Oranges, where there are round marble basins and rills spilling in to two deeper pools at each end. A row of four orange trees are planted in recessed squares connected by rills for irrigation. Handsome arches frame the view from each end, providing a shady place to contemplate the space on hot or rainy days.

Patio de las Naranjas

The adjacent patio is of similar scale. It is called the Patio de la Alberca, and is similar but much smaller than the famed Court of the Myrtles in the Alhambra. It has a simple rectangular pool framed on both sides by clipped rectangular hedges. The pool reflects the central arch and cools the space on hot summer days. A matching pair of marble basins are connected by rills at each end of the pool, bringing the water element in to the forecourt of the interior spaces. It is a wonderful detail of Moorish palaces that is so simple and elegant and captivating as the water ripples from a simple spout of water at the center. The sound of the water trickling is everywhere throughout the garden, yet it is used in such a restrained way as to not be wasteful in this dry environment. It is a far cry from our American swimming pools and out of scale 'water features' as we have relegated them. There is much to be learned from the Arab model.

Patio de la Alberca

The Alcazaba is very close to the hotel I am staying in and I have revisited it again a couple of times because I loved the experience so much. It is an ideal place to meditate and is not inundated with tourists in the winter time, when the light is golden and the day time temperatures quite pleasant, at least in December. If you find yourself here, dedicate some time to indulging yourself to hanging out in these wonderful gardens.

Thanks for reading, Jeffrey

A Model of the Alcazaba showing how it is built in to the hill

The Roman Amphitheater below the walls of the Alcazaba

Carved stucco window looking out on the Patio de la Alberca

The Botanic Garden of the University of Valencia

2011-12-27T12:15:00.000-08:00

A Lush Desert Garden in the Botanic Garden of the University of Valencia

Jardi Botanic de la Universitat de Valencia

Botanic Garden of the University of Valencia, Spain

I have a thing for botanical gardens. When I was studying landscape architecture at the University of Oregon in the late 1970’s we had 3 terms of Plant Materials classes. These were outdoor classes, wandering the campus and surrounding areas. We would learn to identify plants by looking carefully at them, the leaf structure, the way they are arranged on the stem, the shape of the bud, the flowers and fruit, and the form they take on from a distance, as well as how they like to be grown. When you learn how to identify plants you start to see them as individuals, and you see the World in totally different way. I was so in to it I used to ace the tests.

Frequently when I first meet with new clients, or talk to friends or family about plants, it is like talking about an alien world. I sometimes call it the Tree/Bush syndrome. You can point at a tree and say, “what is that?”. “A tree”. You can point at a shrub and they will say “a bush”. And that one over there? We’re heading in to new territory for most people at that point. It is one of the main reasons roses are so popular. Most people know what they are. But in reality, most people don’t really look at plants when they pass them, at least not as individuals or related plant communities. Believe me, to have this knowledge makes the World a far more interesting place. The same goes for architecture, hence the reason I write about what I do and see. I want to share the joy I derive from having an understanding of what is out there. That is to assume that I really know what is going on. I’m probably just making it all up.

Plant Pens

Botanical Gardens are sort of like plant zoos. All too frequently they look like plants in pens, in straight academic lines, as is frequently the case of much of the Jardi Botanic de la Universitat de Valencia on the Mediterranean coast of Spain. This is in large part because the gardens are old, the oldest in Spain. They started out as a place to study the medicinal properties of herbs in 1567. Many new introductions were flooding in from the New World, a great time of discovery for Spain. The present gardens were started in 1802 in the Tramoieres Orchard at the edge of the city. A grid of rectangular beds were laid out with irrigation canals running axially through them in order to water the beds. The plants and trees in the collection were placed in their blocks in part to teach Darwinian ideas of how they evolved, or according to Phylum, or agricultural and industrial and medicinal value. The beds filled up over time with collections. Some of the trees would get very large. 210 years is suitable for venerable old growth status. Here in lies the reason to visit this garden. Formality can have it values and faults. It makes for perspective axis that takes the eye to the termination of straight symmetrical lines. Fountains can embellish the junction of paths. Buildings can easily be arranged in relation to the layout of paths as well. Or it can be as boring as a dial tone at times depending on how well the elements are arranged. Plants need to be combined to play off of each other in beautiful ways. There are a lot of rose gardens in the World that can be the saddest places if the paths and walls aren’t laid out to cover for the thorny broomsticks of Tea roses in winter. I know, I live in the ‘City of Roses’. There are some beautiful sections of the botanic garden in Valencia. It does not have the level changes that make the Real Jardin Botanico in Madrid so interesting (see my blog on that garden from December, 2011), but there is enough geometry and opening and closing of spaces and variety to make the garden a pleasant place to stroll.

Fountains were originally used to irrigate the garden beds

The modern botanic gardens in Parc Montjuic in Barcelona in contrast are planted in a fashion to allude to the environment that the plants grow in naturally. This sort of works but for the difference in climate and geology of the site they have been forced to inhabit. The garden is too young to be all that exciting yet, but it will be amazing in a hundred years if global warming doesn't wipe them out. The wide white angular concrete paths and rusted steel walls will always be the unfortunate downfall of that garden, although I love the use of steel and the way it patinas as it rusts. I had a hard time finding attractive sight lines for photographing that garden because it was probably designed predominantly in the plan view and not from the perspective of ground plane vistas. The paths feel more like highways.

A flattering view of angled paths and walls in the Barcelona Botanic Gardens

Plants are curvaceous creatures if you look closely at them. The use of rough limestone to create more natural looking environments works a little better, but the work was not masterful. I was spoiled by the works of Antonio Gaudi and his ilk that I was immersing myself in around Barcelona. They have set a very high bar to aspire to. I can only imagine how World class fabulous the Jardi Botanic de Barcelona would be if Roberto Burle Marx had designed it.

I wish this path was paved in gravel. I feel like I should be driving

It was interesting to see and compare these two gardens. The one in Valencia is tricky to find. I am used to some big gate and high fence. Maybe there is the enticement of a hothouse poking up through a mass of foliage. I have a knack for taking the long way around. I started in the park in the dry bed of the Rio Turia. This park is great because it lies below the level of the rest of the city so it feels separate. There are some great masses of plantings in it and some interesting fountains and pools, and the best play structure I have ever seen. This is a giant fiberglass sculpture of Gulliver that human Lilliputians can climb all over and slide down. It was crawling with happy Lilliputians when I walked around it. The ultra futuristic and magnificently bizarre Ciudad des Arts y de Science is in this long beltline park as well. That is a whole different topic, but for the fact that the future features nature in a zoo format as well. The Jardi botanic was full of doves. The Ciudad was empty but for captive aquatic Ocean creatures in the Oceanografic and a scattering of awestruck people.

Hercules in the Garden of the Hesperides

After consulting the map I saw that I had probably gone too far in the river bed, so I found a ramp to get back up to street level and located a garden across the road. This turned out to be an ultra modern park called the Jardi de Hesperides. This relates to a classic tale of Hercules. Lines of sheered Italian Cypresses must have looked great on the plan, but as well built as this garden is, it was so quiet that the only people there were 3 homeless people sleeping on sleek benches in the shade. A modernist statue of Hercules posed where it was placed on the drawing on one side of an arrow straight hedge from a very rectangular reflecting pool. It needed something to reflect in it. I love to take photos and I had a really hard time finding a good view of this place.

Botanical Scooter

There was lush exuberance of tall trees on the other side of a high masonry wall so I tried to figure out how to get to it, but once again I went the long way around. It was long blocks of tall residential blocks with iron balconies. And then there was a clue, a white motor scooter painted with plants and insects. You don't see botanical scooters all that often...

Around the corner was a wall covered in high end graffiti of anthropomorphic plants with roots like fingers and an octoplant. I felt I was getting warmer, but where were the grand iron gates with a jungle of botanical riches trying to be made to behave that I was seeking.

A marvelous fantasy mural near the Jardi Botanic

Entry Atrium to the Botany Building of the University of Valencia

A drab rather ugly building has a totally unceremonious entryway in to a spatially cool round atrium with a large tree reaching up to the circle of light at the top. A veil of Pothos hang from the round balconies like green cascades. Beyond that is a 210 year old grove of everything that survived being planted there. Half the beds are rather scraggly because of the root competition with some true giants but there are many magnificent trees and shrubs to be found here.

Giant Gingko biloba

The largest Gingko biloba tree I have ever seen was in full gold fall color to one side of the first set of perpendicular paths, maybe 20 meters tall (60 feet). Then the biggest Zelkova carpinifolias. A 120 foot Italian Stone Pine surpassed it in height. Massive oak species native to southern Spain I didn’t know existed soared over me. A huge Chorisia speciosa from Argentina with its spiny bulbous trunk must be spectacular when covered in pink blossoms.

A towering Quercus cerris, the Turkey Oak

The smaller Nolina longifolia was only 5 meters tall (16 feet) but that is gigantic for the species. I was starting to get a botanical boner! You know what they say...big plants...

Cousin It, a magnificent specimen of Nolina longifolia

A beautiful specimen of Podocarpus nerifolius

Zelkova carpinifolia, native to the Caucasus Mountains of Eastern Europe

A Casurina stump had a badly translated elegy by its stump, but they are kind of ugly trees and certainly not rare, so if you had to lose one…

There is a wonderful iron shade house that was restored after a fire in 1990. It shows that you can still build things like this. It was originally made of cast zinc. My favorite thing inside was a small ball of Tilandsias hanging on a long wire over the central fountain. The hot houses, that are a big draw for me in botanical gardens were not all that exciting. They are old but not particularly elegant, being a half arc in front of a heat absorbing wall and were full of overgrown specimens that no longer fit gracefully in the spaces. One has the usual collection of orchids and another has bromeliads, but these were not open to visitors.

A reconstructed iron Shade House replaces a zinc structure of the same design that burned in a fire

The most sculptural and interesting part of the garden is the Cactus and Euphorbia Succulent area. Aeoniums are native to the Mediterranean and grow in to beautiful specimens here. Cactus grow in the western hemisphere, while their biological cousins the Euphorbias fill th dry environmental niche in the eastern hemisphere.

Aloes, Euphorbias, and Palms

Barrel Cactus

A potpourri of cactus

Agaves and Aloes and Yuccas add a spiky contrast to the linear and platy shapes of the cacti and candalabra forms of tall Euphorbias. A large Euphorbia candelabrum in the garden has wonderful wavy ridges in the bark of the trunk that look like serpents climbing the plant.

A beautiful specimen of Yucca brevifolia shows how stately this plant can become with age, developing an elephant foot like trunk.

North American native Yucca brevifolia

Must be fun to weed around Agave americana

Cycads in a bed of prehistoric plants

Spending the afternoon in the garden was a much needed haven from the bustle of the city. Turtle doves were cooing all over and lighting on fountains to drink. I looped around for a second or third look at various parts of the garden. There are vegetable beds and a collection of citrus that were laden with fruit, and I filled my day pack with a delicious assortment for later. Now I am in the beautiful city of Malaga, which also has a Botanical Garden. I look forward to indulging my botanical fetishes there once again.

Thanks for reading, Jeffrey

Tarragona, Spain A legacy of stone work

2011-12-20T17:55:00.000-08:00

Stones from a mix of different eras form a wall in Tarragona

I just spent 3 days, from December 17 to the 20th in the town of Tarragona, southwest of Barcelona, an hour and a half by train. I was drawn to this municipality because of it's long history and the layered remains that have made the city what it is today. Phoenicians first settled here possibly 5,000 years ago, perhaps on previous habitations, and built stone structures and fortifications. The Romans later built Tarraco, as it was called, the capitol of their Iberian conquests which covered most of present day Spain. They built a magnificent city with a forum, Circus for chariot racing, an amphitheater for blood sports, and temples to the Roman Gods. The city was partially abandoned when the Muslims arrived, but became an important Christian center in the 11th century.

A model of Roman Tarraco

Old Tarragona sits on a hill above the Mediterranean. The Roman amphitheater is near the city's beach. Above that are remains of the Circus, with a curve in the racing track on he sea end and remnants of walls excavated from under city streets. Towering above it is a tall building of Gothic origin using stone pilfered from Roman structures. This became a notorious prison used as late the Franco's fascist regime, where hundreds of people were sentenced to be executed after the Spanish Civil War.

Roman Amphitheater

This tower built over Roman walls was used as a prison for centuries

When you walk around old Tarragona, you see old stone walls appearing around every corner. Long medieval blocks have massive stone foundations that could be thousands of years old. Sometimes these take on an almost Flintstone cartoon quality because of their sheer size and rough forms. Free standing ruins sit in plazas that have been used as gathering places for millennium. The town's administrative square sits on top of the old chariot race track, with vaulted walls built over by adjacent buildings that can be seen inside restaurants and shops.

Gothic stone walls built over Roman Foundations

The magnificent Cathedral, the largest in Catalonia, was built between the 12th and 14th Centuries on the site of an important Roman temple and a later mosque. It is a blend of Romanesque and Gothic styles, with Moorish elements and later Renaissance additions. There are perhaps 3,000 years of quarried material in the building of the Cathedral and surrounding buildings. The deeper you go in to the ground the farther back you go. Old buildings were filled over and built on top of so that ancient foundations can be as much as 3 stories underground!

The Cloisters of the Cathedral contain Romanesque columns, Gothic pointed arches, and round Moorish windows

A pair of public water fountains flanks the broad staircase leading to the Cathedral

A column section becomes part of a wall in the ruins of a church built to honor martyred Christians in the Amphitheater

Pilfered materials were used to build new structures, creating historic collages of various types of stone. Some of the softer stones have eroded to add a natural organic element to the character of the walls.

Eroded forms give geologic character to an ancient wall

Much damage was done to the city in various wars, including the Spanish Civil War in the 20th Century. Major reconstruction has been undertaken to give Tarragona, like many Spanish cities, a level of elegance that is seldom seen in the United States. Streets are paved in cut limestone blocks, and river cobbles, sometimes mixed with colored concrete. Curbs are made of cut stone and attain a polish from years of foot traffic. Because the medieval streets are narrow, the care taken to pave them beautifully makes the city a joy to walk around in. There are some fine pebble mosaic walkways along the outer walls of the city in foliage arabesque patterns.

Pebble Mosaic panels in a limestone walkway

When river stones are used in the streets they are usually larger in size and are set deeper in to the mortar so that they wont pop loose under the weight of car tires. Bands of cut stone break up the areas so that the river stone mosaics are framed in squares and rectangles. A curving street going up the hill paved in this method is truly a beautiful thing. Steps are artfully incorporated in to the adjacent sidewalks with perfect proportions.

Street cobbles in black and white river stones with bands of limestone and limestone curbing

A freshly washed cobblestone street with limestone sidewalks

Beautiful Stonework frames a round window on the 20th Century Colegio de Sant Pau

Palo Verde trees are planted in skewed squares to follow the irregular line of a narrow street

It is clear that space is a precious urban commodity in Spanish towns, and they are given the finest quality treatments. Experiencing them is a real treat, especially when coming from the United States, where the crappiest and least attractive materials, white concrete and asphalt, are used with abandon. We have much to learn from Europe. Just a reminder that I can build such things, so if you ever decide to invest in lasting and beautiful stonework for you garden, my years as a hard laborer are numbered, but I am interested in manifesting great things while I'm still capable.

Thanks for reading, Jeffrey

Parc Guell and its amazing tile mosaics

2011-12-13T04:38:00.000-08:00

Wall at the front of Park Guell

Roof of the Pavello de Consergeria

Window on the Pavello de Consergeria at the entrance to the park

Park Guell is one of those emblematic places in Barcelona that was something of a pilgrimage point for me when I first visited this city 24 years ago. The park is one of the most surreal landscapes ever built on the planet, the vision of the architect Antonio Gaudi and his wealthy patron the Count Eusebi Guell, after whom the park was named.

Tiled wall flanking the entry staircase

Built originally as a housing development, the Park was built in response to the English garden movement that was becoming popular in Europe at the turn of the century. 66 triangular lots were offered for sale on a barren mountain outside the city, promoted for it's healthy atmosphere away from the industrial pollution of the urban center. The design of the development was possibly inspired in part by influences from other places such as the building of the mental hospital at Sant Boi de Llobregat near Barcelona, which featured grottos and an undulating tile bench built by the patients as a form of therapy.

In the end only two houses were built and the development as a residential garden city failed and the project was abandoned. It was later deeded to the city as a public park.

Straight columns support tree wells, while angled Stone columns support access roads in Park Guell

Spiraling stone columns

Beginning in 1900, Gaudi designed 3 kilometers of undulating roads to access the lots on the hill using an ingenious method of cantilevering out over a double row of columns, the main structural ones being sharply angled in to the slope. Tree wells were incorporated in to the tops of the columns to help vegetate the barren hill. Pedestrian paths beneath the columns provide a sheltered walkway through the park. At a dramatic curve in the roadway, the columns have a wonderful twisted form like water spiraling down a drain. The stonework has a rustic texture to emulate natural forms, creating a visual link between architecture and nature.

At one point the road becomes an elevated bridge with rustic stone columns planted with agaves. Between the columns are benches with angled backs for resting and taking in the expansive views of Barcelona. The forms in all of the architectural elements are curvaceous and organic, creating an explicit bond to forms in nature.

Agaves planted in stone columns on an elevated roadway

Entry Staircase to Park Guell

Dragon-Lizard Fountain

The entrance to the park is through gates leading to a dramatic white tiled staircase that wrap around two tiled fountains, one with a wolf or dog mask dripping water in to a grotto and another with a lizard/dragon like figure covered in colorful tile mosaic that is emblematic of the park. This staircase leads to the Sala Hipostila, what was intended to be a marketplace, with 88 massive Doric columns supporting a white mosaic tiled ceiling with inset colored glass medallions. The space has the feeling of a forest plantation of trees. The columns are hollow so that water can flow through them in to a cistern underneath the structure for storing rain run off.

Mosaic ceiling of the Hipostila

Glass mosaic medallion in the ceiling of the Hipostila

On top of the market space is a broad earthen paved terrace bordered by an undulating mosaic tiled bench in the form of a serpent. The bench is covered in broken tile, which was used for its artistic expressive qualities and for the relative economy of using large quantities of scrap tile. This method is called Trencadis, thus the Catalan name for the bench 'Banc de Trencadis'. It is said to be the longest bench in the World. It is also said that in creating the ergonomic form for the bench, Gaudi had workmen press their naked buttocks in to wet clay. I have unfortunately found no historical photos to support this claim! The benches have raised oval bumps evenly spaced along the seating area to allow for the bench to dry quickly after rains. They are as a result very comfortable to sit on.

Oval bumps and drain hole incorporated in to the benches design to keep the seating dry

Banc de Trencadis, Park Guell

The trencadis designs were implemented by Gaudi's younger collaborator Josep Maria Jujol, who also worked on the mosaic facade of Gaudi's masterpiece house Casa Batllo. The tile work varies constantly to maintain interest and contains numerous symbolic references to Christianity, nature, and the tile patterns themselves. My favorite parts are actually on the back side of the benches which are only seen by leaning over the edge or looking down the undulating profiles. The serpentine form creates wonderfully social spaces that are evidently successful by watching the way people use them. While much of the tile is broken scrap, there are bands that were made specifically for the top and bottom of the back rest. There are also disks and plates and the bottoms of glass bottles imbedded in the wall. Some of the plates are said to have come from Jujol's own dinner wear. One of my favorites had cherubs painted on them but they have been lost in recent restorations, which were undertaken to improve the deteriorating that occurs with glazed ceramics when exposed to the elements over time. The restoration process has been very difficult and is well documented in an article at: http://www.gaudiclub.com/ingles/i_links/rest2.htm

White enameled ceramic circles replacing what were once ceramic plates

After my first visit to Park Guell in 1987 I returned to Portland and taught myself how to cut and set tile mosaic, and built a number of projects, including two clients kitchens, and my bathroom, which took two years to complete. I also covered my chimney with tile to conjure the memory of Gaudi's fantastic chimneys. I cut all of my tile using hand nippers, which in the end gave me extreme tendonitis. I brought back an old tile cutting hammer from Morocco which I will have to try out because I am going to have to start doing tile work again now that my head is filled with new visions of trencadis.

I went over the entire length of the Banc de Trencadis obsessively to record these photos of every part that spoke to me for it's inherent beauty. Enjoy the gallery of images. Gracias, Jeffrey

Curves in the bench make for intimate social spaces in an expansive area

The back side has a gutter that collects rain water and a chip bag

Moorish tiles

A Carob Tree behind the Banc

The two ends of the Banc de Tencadis are lovely planters

My favorite parts are actually on the back side!

My favorite photo from that day!

The Guard house tower rises above the edge of the Banc de Trencadis at sunset with a panoramic view of Barcelona

The Next Adventure

2011-11-27T22:42:00.000-08:00

Column in Parque Guell in Barcelona

As I've mentioned before, I leave Portland, Oregon every winter for someplace that is the stuff of my dreams, and that is hopefully warmer. The Mediterranean is not a surefire sunshine holiday in winter, but it seems to the the stuff of my dreams the last few years. In a week (December 5th) I will be flying to Barcelona, Spain, a place I haven't been in 24 years. The first time I visited this utterly surreal city was a turning point in my life's work. Like so many other artists, I was exposed to the work of Antonio Gaudi. His buildings are as organic as architectural form gets, and are embellished with the most finely rendered finishes. There are vast quantities of ceramic and glass mosaic and some of the most extraordinary metal work ever executed.

Faviana's Wedding Altar

When I returned from that trip I began teaching myself how to do stone and tile mosaic. An eccentric client hired me to build a 'Gaudiesque' altar in her garden for her wedding after I showed her photos of his work. It looks rather Miss Haversham in its current state of ruin but it is still one of the coolest things I ever built. The couple then hired me to tile mosaic their kitchen while they were on their honeymoon. I can only imagine what I could do now if somebody was daring enough to commission a work along these lines as my skills and access to materials have greatly improved.

I also built a patio for myself in my garden based on the book 'The Tao of Physics', which had a profound effect on the way I see the World. This was my guinea pig for learning how to set mosaics in mortar. For me there is a clear connection to the influence Gaudi's work had on me at that time, and it still does today.

My Patio Mosaic

The Nativity Facade of La Sagrada Familia

The December 2010 issue of National Geographic had a wonderful article on La Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's ultra ambitious Cathedral of the Sacred Family project, which they called "Barcelona's Natural Wonder". It is undoubtedly the most unusual building on the planet and is projected to be finished in 2028, 144 years after it was started. It's architectural principals are derived from nature and the laws that govern it, so that the building can be understood much as you would a natural organism. It has a kind of DNA. The article showed the progress of the construction of the building over the years, and a great deal of work has been done since my last visit.

The design was derived from building models rather than plans. I have always been prone to designing my gardens by mocking them up on site rather than drawing them out before hand for similar reasons. You can get a sense of what you are really trying to do rather than trying to flatten it and make it look good on paper.

I read this article before I returned to Spain from Morocco on last years trip. That trip focused on Andalusia and Moorish architecture in the south and didn't allow for time to revisit Barcelona. There are several essays on the blogsite from that adventure.

I hope to document every fascinating detail of what I see now that I am shooting digitally rather than with film. I took about 20,000 photos on the last trip after editing out the bad ones. I will be writing about Gaudi's incredible Parque Guelle, as well as other aspects of his work. I will also be traveling to Figueres to visit the Teatre-Museu Dali to explore the surreal mind of the great artist Salvador Dali. This should make for some very interesting photo essays. Joan Miro, another great Spanish artist who influenced a series of mosaics I built for clients in Portland (see my blog 'The Miro Mosaics') is also going to be featured in an essay.

Detail of a mosaic I built called Cyphers and Constellations in Love with a Woman

I am so excited to be returning to experience it all over again, and hopefully this trip will inspire a new series of projects for me. Stay tuned!

A Pleasure Garden in San Francisco

2011-11-16T19:51:00.000-08:00

In 2006 I was asked to draw up a design for friends for a small garden behind a Victorian house that was under major renovation in the Castro neighborhood of San Francisco. I wound up backing out as the scope of the project was stressful at the time with so much work and money being funneled in to the house. What was originally there was a sad garden with terraced decks and a brown fiberglass hot tub.

They undertook the initial garden project with the help of an energetic wheeler dealer kind of guy who oversaw the hauling of tons of material through a new underground garage and narrow flight of steps. My original design was rectangular to reflect the lines of the house and fences, but they successfully opted for a round flat space surrounded by curved retaining walls to deal with the slope. Re-sculpting the Earth's surface is how I describe much of garden building, having to move huge quantities of soil and bringing in truckloads of material. I was happy to have skipped the re-sculpting phase due to the difficult access to the site, and all the chaos of other work that was going on.

A bath tub was added to one side of the circular area, and small beige colored tumbled granite pieces were chosen for the paving and wall caps. They set tiny pebbles in to the mortar joints between the paving stones and stuccoed the curved concrete blocks walls. Funky vertical mixed stone sections were used to create transitions between the walls and steps.

Round patio in the new garden

The round area was planted with sod, which soon became a muddy mess where the dog liked to poop, and was none too inviting. So I was asked to come back and build a pebble mosaic patio, and a tile mosaic to cover concrete retaining walls directly off the new kitchen.

Since my friends are very artistic we put a great deal of effort in coming up with the perfect design. Eric owns the E.G. Smith sock company which makes a line of thick baggy socks that are hugely popular with school girls in Japan, so he and his partner Marc have a strong connection with that country. Marc works at the DeYoung Museum and Legion of Honor, two world class institutions. We went to Japantown to look at books for inspirations and found one with illustrations of various medallions that are essentially like western Coat of Arms for prominent Japanese Families. We were particularly drawn to a simple lotus design. So we adapted that form in a rather Islamic way to create a knot pattern lotus flower. We cut out plywood jigs to use to lay out the design on the ground.

Pietra dura inlay of colored stone in marble at the Taj Mahal

The tile mosaic design for the concrete terrace walls was based on Pietra dura inlaid patterns in the marble walls of the Taj Mahal in India. Curving arabesques frame botanical images on this most marvelous of buildings. Flowers and geometry are popular in Islamic architecture because it is considered idolatrous to depict images of people or animals.

I used a brown tile for the background to match the stone they had already used, purchasing seconds from the Pratt and Larson Tile Company in Portland. These are tiles that had small imperfections when made to order and are then sold for a couple dollars a pound. The quality of the tiles and matte glazing are premium. I have purchased over a ton of various colored tiles for a number of mosaics, though I stopped doing this work because nipping tile caused me to have severe tendonitis in my hands.

Grouting the tile mosaic

I hand cut all of the tile with nippers in Portland and overlaid the composed mosaic with wide masking tape so that the panel could be cut in to sections, which I then drove down to San Francisco. I used acrylic tile thinset to adhere the panels to the wall and then grouted the mosaic. The panels form the backdrop for a concrete bench which is large enough to place a small bed in the summer. This forms the terrace that fronts a planter dividing the lower area from the patio. There is a nice view of the bed and mosaic from the kitchen and makes a nice place to take a nap.

Matty takes a nap on the bed. A Taj Mahal inspired tile mosaic forms the back wall

Sorting white quartzite pebbles in San Mateo

We had the guy who's crew did most of the previous work come back to prepare the site for the new mosaic. First the grass was dug out and hauled away. We had a drain pipe installed around the perimeter, and had a bed of compacted gravel put in where the lawn used to be. All of this had to be hauled in 5 gallon buckets through the garage and up the stairs. This is one of the reasons I opted to live and work in Portland rather than San Francisco, where row houses make up the majority of urban residences. Difficult access can make a project many times more difficult to execute.

I then went about the laborious job of finding the right pebbles to construct the mosaic. I went to three different Bay Area stone yards to find black Mexican Beach Pebbles, Indonesian turquoise, white quartzite from the Sierra Nevada mountains, and red sorted out of a mix from Montana which is called Pame at the yard. A pastel blend from the same mix was used to make the border, and to fill in the drainage strip around the perimeter. This part of the project took about 5 days. Once an adequate supply of pebbles had been collected we were ready to start constructing the mosaic.

Pouring a concrete sub-slab

We hand mixed bags of concrete to pour a wire mesh reinforced sub-slab so that the patio wouldn't crack if there was an earthquake. We had calculated the grade so that the finished mosaic on top the sub-slab would be at the perfect height, being highest in the center and gently sloping toward the edges. Then we laid out the plywood jigs and used green marking paint to transfer the design to the slab so that we could begin setting the mosaic, starting on one side and working toward the other.

Marker paint was used to transfer the design to the poured concrete sub-slab

I purchased about a ton of Type S mortar mix in 60 pound bags since that is all I could find at the building supply store in San Francisco. I prefer to use 80 pound bags but it made it easier to carry them up the stairs. I do the mosaic a section at a time in a wet mortar base, so having the plywood jigs to overlay on top of each batch of mortar, aligning with the painted pattern underneath kept us from straying from the intended pattern. I would do the outlines using the black Mexican beach pebbles and then fill in with the other colors. I trim away the edge of partially set mortar in each section before setting the next batch so that the work appears seamless. The mosaic is flattened with a 3 by 3 foot piece of plywood that I step on to press the pebbles in to the mortar. The excess the is forced up through the pebble is then rinsed away with a gentle spray of water. This process is repeated over and over until the entire area of the mosaic is covered. This took about a week of sitting stooped on a little stool over the work. My poor back. It is amazing that I can still stand up after all these years of mosaic building!

Setting the first batch of mosaic in wet mortar

Various people tried to help set pebbles along the way, but eventually I banned access to the area when someone stepped in a freshly set area a couple of times. It can be deceiving because the dried mortared mosaic looks the same as the wet ones unless you are paying attention. Once the mosaic was finished we had a wild party inviting Bay Area marvelous celebrity gardeners such as Marcia Donehue, Cevan Forrist, and Richard Ward. I wont tell you what I wore, but it was slinky and outrageous.

Making progress

I came back a month later and cleaned the mosaic with Muriatic Acid once the mortar had cured. The acid reacts with the base in the mortar to dissolve away the grey film that sticks to the pebbles during the work. The patio looks wonderful, especially from the second and third floor balcony terraces. Seeing it from above makes me think that if aliens were to fly over in a space craft, that they would be lured down to Earth to check out this cosmic symbol of a lotus. I also wonder if it doesn't rotate when nobody is looking.

View from the second story terrace

Afterwards, Marc designed and built a form for a lovely little fountain, with a stone niche set in it that I brought back from India. The shape of the fountain is sort of like a little Nepali temple, with flexible copper tubing set in the mortar that can be attached to flexible tubing connected to the small pump that recirculates the water. This sits in a buried basin with a grille on top that is covered in river stones. The water spits in to a stone bowl and overflows in to the reservoir basin. It makes a lovely sound and birds like to come and bathe. Hummingbirds also like to drink out of the little stream of water arcing in to the bowl. It is quite magical. I recently build a larger similar shaped fountain for another client who loved the design.

A simple fountain spills in to a carved stone bowl from China, surrounded by lush plantings

Dahlia imperialis in full bloom in November

We planted the beds with an odd assortment of experimental plants that have been fine tuned over the years to create a lush subtropical eden. The garden is somewhat shady so there are a number of ferns, including tree ferns. Potted bromeliads and orchids are set in to the beds for added color and texture. In the sunnier areas we used succulent Aeoniums in varying colors. A large Brugmansia hangs its night fragrant trumpet shaped flowers overhead. At the back of one of the narrow beds they planted a lanky but impressive tree dahlia, Dahlia imperialis, that is in full bloom in November, towering above the garden and spectacular from the upper terraces.

Marc and Eric are avid flea market shoppers and have filled the garden with art, and covered the fences with a collection of mirrors, giving the garden a feeling of greater size. The garden is simply furnished with a hand tooled brass table from Morocco and teak folding chairs. Round cushions are set on the patio in summer for lounging. It is a wonderful place to entertain, or to take a hot bath. In fact it has the same allure as my garden does, a little slice of paradise. I hope to do more work like this in San Francisco in the future. If you have a garden you would like to develop, let me know.

Resin balls hang from a spiral staircase connecting the garden to the second story terrace

Thanks for reading, Jeffrey

The Spiderweb Mansion

2011-11-10T12:09:00.000-08:00

Man at a bus stop

In the winter of 1998-99 I spent two months of a four month trip to Asia exploring the country of Vietnam, from the Chinese border in the north to the bustling Mekong Delta. Vietnam is a fascinating and intense country with over 90 million inhabitants. Reminders of what the Vietnamese call the 'American War' are everywhere, from vast cemeteries to the scrubland that was created by repeated sprayings of the Monsanto manufactured defoliant Agent Orange. To this day there are many thousands of horrific third generation birth defects caused by the excessive exposure to Agent Orange. The people are tough, hardworking, and resilient as a result of years of suffering and survival under the worst possible conditions imaginable. Why this war was waged by the United States is very difficult to understand when treading on Vietnamese soil. Over 3,000.000 Vietnamese were killed during the war.

Some of the 10,000 names of Vietnamese people who died at Cu Chi

There are few places that weren't destroyed by a massive bombing campaign during the war. Some cities were obliterated entirely by what is called carpet bombing. Those places that were spared give a glimpse of how beautiful the country must have been.

Limestone Karst mountains near Ninh Bihn

Black Hmong Girls in Sapa on market day

I entered the country with my friend Sally from Laos at the remote and seldom used mountain border crossing at Cao Treo. We traveled north through the gorgeous limestone karst landscapes of Nihn Bihn to Hanoi, and then up in to the Tonkinese Alps to Sapa and the surrounding area. This is a region rich in hill tribe culture, and a frequent destination for plant explorer and friend Dan Hinkley, who has made 10.000 ft. Mt. Fansipan a focus for gathering high altitude subtropical plants.

Tomb of Emperor Minh Mang, Hue

From there we returned to Hanoi and made a tour of picturesque Halong Bay. Then we headed south to the imperial city of Hue, with its amazing cosmic garden tombs of the Vietnamese emperors. I hope to write about these tombs at some point in the future.

Then we made our way to Danang and the town of Hoi An, an architectural gem since it wasn't destroyed in the war. This is also a culinary center for delicious Vietnamese/French cuisine. Further south on the coast is the resort city of Nha Trang. We visited the hometown of my my mechanic Tuan in Phan Thiet. He hadn't seen his family since fleeing the country after the war. He has since made two trips after I checked things out for him. From there we visited Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City. Sally flew back to Bangkok and I traveled alone around the Mekong Delta, and visited the notorious Cu Chi Tunnels, where thousands of people lived like moles during the war.

Planting rice in the Mekong Delta

When I got back to Saigon, I decided to exit the country overland to Phnom Phen in Cambodia. I was on my way to the Cambodian consulate with my passport when I was set upon my children selling postcards. The next thing I knew my fanny pack had been unzipped under my shirt and my wallet with my passport was gone. So much for going to Cambodia. Instead I was introduced to the frustrating world of Vietnamese bureaucracy. I was able to get a new passport from the US. consulate in a day, but it took more than a week to get an exit visa to leave the country. Saigon is lively but not all that exciting after 4 or 5 days, and you cant check in to a hotel without giving them your passport to keep during your stay. I somehow managed to get official permission to travel to Dalat for a few days on a government document. It was the one place I really wanted to visit but hadn't, mainly because of the Spiderweb Mansion.

Dalat Market

Dalat is a French colonial hill town with a population of about 200,000 people in the central highlands of the country. Surrounded by pine plantation forest at an elevation of 4,900 feet (1,500 meters), the climate is temperate and the region supplies cool temperature crops for the mostly tropical country. The vibrant market was heaped with giant cabbages at the time of my visit.

The city was founded by the French as a resort retreat from the sweltering low lands and is sometimes called the 'City of Eternal Spring'. There is a French cathedral, train station, and many villas, including the summer villa of the last emperor of Vietnam, Bao Dai. It is a popular destination for honeymooners, as made evident by geographical names like the 'Valley of Love' and 'Lake of Sighs'. My accommodation was officially fixed, and turned out to be a huge musty room with 4 double beds (group honeymoons?) with pink floral satin sheets that made sparks in the dark when I came in to contact with them. Definitely one of the stranger places I have ever stayed.

Dalat Train Station

By far the most interesting site in Dalat is the Spiderweb Mansion, or Crazy House. I went straight away, not wanting to linger in my satin dormitory. It was dusk when I arrived but I easily spotted what in my journal I called "an amorphous glob of structures protruding from the surrounding French villas.

Approaching the Spiderweb Mansion

When I got to the gate a woman came and told me I needed to buy a ticket. I told her I just wanted to take a peek, and would return tomorrow, at which point she handed me a menu and invited me in. So I went to the dining room and ordered a hot milk and visited with a Vietnamese/French woman named Lillian, who had married an American serviceman many years ago. She had traveled all over the world and was currently living in Seoul, Korea. We talked for two hours while a woman worked at a desk in another room. I assumed she was Dang Viet Nga, the person who created the Spiderweb mansion. I never got a chance to talk to her though. She studied architecture in Moscow and had obviously been influenced by the work of Antonio Gaudi in Barcelona, where I am going this winter, and the surrealist artist Salvador Dali, also from Spain. Organic architecture is a wonderful thing but doesn't always go over well with conservative minds, including communist officials in Vietnam. Fortunately for Hang Nga, as she is known, her father was a high ranking official under Ho Chi Minh, and later became president of the country in the 1980's. In 1983 she moved to Dalat because of the climate and began construction on the Spiderweb Mansion complex and a few other less undulating buildings around the city. She operates the Crazy House as a small hotel with varying themes in each room.

A tangle of concrete roots and painted steel spiderwebs leading to the garden

Giraffe and Spiderweb window

Said to resemble a banyan tree, the buildings twist up from the ground in to a tangle of vine like appendages that spread out to form trellises in to the garden. Everything curves and twists in to other forms. Stairs resemble little rice terraces curving down around trunk like posts, some covered in masonry snails. Others are like stumps with liana vine railings. The colors are earthy and natural to compliment the overlapping surfaces in a jungle faux bois. Some forms are geologic, abstract and surreal, while others are literal, suggesting giant culms of bamboo, or animals, like a large giraffe, a bear, a tiger, an ant, and an eagle.

Giant mushrooms (very psilocybin)

There are tall masonry mushrooms that lead me to think there might be some mycological inspiration growing in the surrounding forests, because this is a very trippy place in the realm of psychedelia. Spiderwebs form aviaries with a variety of fowl inhabiting them. Living vines climb up through the masonry ones. Other structures are emerging nearby and the complex has grown since I was there after looking at photos of a hotel booking site you can see at http://vietnam.com/hotels/Dalat/crazyhouse_hotel.html

It just gets more and more bizarre as if it were alive. It would be so interesting to see it now having gained so much knowledge of art and architecture over the years. I was so young and naive back then. Also, shooting photos digitally makes it possible to take as many images as I want without the limitation of running out of film, so I tend to document things much more thoroughly these days.

There is also a good gallery of images of the Crazy House at http://izismile.com/2010/03/18/dalat_crazy_house_in_vietnam_51_pics.html

Lounge chair

Organic table

The Crazy House Hotel has unusual guest rooms in this curvaceous complex and I would have loved to have been residing here rather than my government sanctioned wedding dorm. When I returned the next day I had a fruit salad in the dining room and met a couple staying there who showed me their room. The beds are amoebic in shape and probably hard to make with rectangular sheets and blankets. There was an amoebic mirror over their bed in keeping with honeymoon atmosphere of the town. The furnishings continue the rippling forms so contrary to architecture as we usually know it. Little rounded windows with spider webbing look out on to other parts of the building and garden. Children would love it here as it is full of imagination and fantasy. There are visual surprises around every corner in constantly changing shapes.

An adjacent building under construction

Tree Trunk Steps

Stairways wind around the building or bridge open space providing views from varying angles of forms that have no angles. It almost seems strange to go back in to the world of right angles after spending a few hours here.

A tangle of masonry vines at the top of a building

Snail like forms on a root shaped post wrap around a flight of steps

Vines forming an aviary in the garden

Spiderwebs in the garden

An alligator coming down a wall in to a geologic foundation

An alien mountaintop room

At least one of Hang Nga's public buildings has been demolished apparently because it didn't compliment socialist ideals. Her creation is unique in Vietnam, though I did see some inspiring art and interesting garden design in other parts of this rapidly emerging country. The only other building I remember that she designed in Dalat is an A-frame style villa overlooking the lake. It is nothing like the Spiderweb Mansion but does contain some interesting curved forms and windows.

At any rate, if my passport hadn't been pick pocketed, I never would have come here, and I am so glad that I did. I wrote in my journal back then that if I had to live in Vietnam, I would want to live in Dalat.

A house in Dalat designed by Hang Nga

Before I left I rented a motorbike and toured the countryside. There are tea and coffee plantations beyond the forests of exotic Caribbean Pine. Vietnam is one of the worlds largest producers of coffee, and you can get a decent French press there. I also had to see the Giant Chicken, which was written up in my guide book. Built in a rather poor Montagnard village of Lang Ga 18 kilometers from Dalat, the giant concrete chicken crows to a culture distinct from the Vietnamese and the government that resettled them here. The chicken apparently was a gift after they made the move. Lucky people. It could have been a Soviet era apartment block. While I was there a bus full of French tourists pulled up, snapped a bunch of photos, and drove on. Another roadside attraction....

Montagnard people and the Giant Chicken at Lang Ga

I'm excited to be returning to Barcelona after 24 years since the last time I was there. The work of Antonio Gaudi changed my life's path as a creator of gardens and art, as it seems to have done to the Vietnamese architect Hang Nga. The French artist Niki de Saint Phalle, a prolific woman I plan to write about was also thrown in to the organic realm of expression after being exposed to his creations. May we continue get away with creating more undulating wonders for the World to behold! Thanks for reading this.

The Gardens of Roberto Burle Marx

2011-10-17T23:33:00.000-07:00

Strunk Garden, Petropolis

Stone mosaic in Parque Flamenco with the Pau d'Azucar

Brazil is one of those countries I always dreamed about visiting, and in the winter of 2005 I made my first journey there. Over the next 3 years I spent 10 months total exploring parts of the vast and fascinating country. One of the main reasons I wanted to come here was to see first hand the gardens of the Brazilian landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx. Widely considered to be the father of modern landscape architecture, Burle Marx was a renaissance man of many talents, an accomplished abstract painter, sculptor, jewelry designer, florist and vocalist. Born in 1909 in Sao Paulo, his family eventually settled in Rio de Janiero in a house in Leme, at the end of the Copacabana beach near the iconic stone mountain, the Pau d'Azucar or Sugar Loaf. At that time the houses had gardens. Now it is one of the most densly populated places on Earth, a strip of high rise apartment buildings wedged between soaring granite cliffs and the sea.

Roberto Burle Marx at the Sitio
photo by Mert Hauck

At that time in gardening history, native Brazilian flora was shunned, as European influence was paramount. The plant palette was limited to what was imported and laid out in formal borders of little originality. It wasn't until the Burle Marx family moved to Germany that Roberto discovered the beauty of his homeland's biological richness, in the hothouses of the botanical garden at Dahlem in Berlin.

When the family returned to Brazil, Roberto developed his skill at arranging flowers for events, and was asked to design gardens for residences. His first commission was to design a garden for a project of the eminent Brazilian architect Lucio Costa. But the availability of native plant material was sorely limited. After many years of searching for the ideal property in which to develop a new garden and nursery, he found his dream property in a valley some distance south of Rio near the small town of Guaratiba, a two hour trip at the time. There he restored the old house and chapel and began propagating plants collected on numerous expeditions in to the wilds of Brazil. Over the years he developed an extraordinary landscape climbing the hill and introduced hundreds of previously unused plants to the gardening trade.

His interest in painting had a great influence on his designs. His drawings for gardens look like abstract works on paper. The gardens themselves usually contain large masses of vividly colored plants in a wide variety of textures, relying more on foliage than flower. They are laid out in bold sweeping forms. Garden structure tends toward the architectural, often with rectangles that reflect the forms of surrounding buildings.

Philodendrons, Alocasias, and granite boulders covered in Bromeliads flank a pond at the Sitio

Agave flanked steps in the Sitio

As his fame grew, he was commissioned to design parks and gardens throughout South America and abroad. When traveling, he most appreciated the economy of a space's design, using a limited variety of plants for a homogenous look. The look of the period was decidedly modern. In his own garden, called the Sitio Burle Marx, the economy is more relaxed than in his other projects, as there are some 3,500 species of plants in it. Still, plant groups are massed for harmonious composition. There are large areas of a single type of ground cover surrounding clumps of sculptural agaves, bromeliads, plumerias, dracaenas, clusias, palms and a myriad of other plants. Plants are always used to emulate the way they would grow in their natural environment. Large clumps of colorful bromeliads spill over boulders as they would in the jungle. Wet areas swirl with voluptuous bands of alocasia and thalia. Trees and palms are clustered in natural looking groups.

Bromeliad Towers by the Visitors Center

There are colorful enameled steel structural towers covered in bromeliads flanking the entry drive by a long pink stucco visitor's center. Beyond this are large shade houses filled with an enormous collection of tropical plants, some of them named after him. It is one of the most beautiful gardens I have ever seen. Everything is used in a sculptural way, with contrasting shapes and colors. A winding stair passes through treacherous plantings of spiky Agaves leading up to the house, where a small lawn flanked with bromeliads and Sansaveria and palms ends at a architectural lily pond. Behind this is a wall composed of old granite pieces from demolished buildings in Rio.

Architectural lily pool with salvaged columns supporting epiphytic plants at the Sitio

Salvaged architectural pieces are composed to make a stunning wall draped in Bromeliads at the Sitio

This wall was the primary inspiration for the one in my garden. I loved the way he mixed varying shapes and details to make a vertical mosaic. The wall is planted with a variety of Bromeliads.

A lovely chapel dating from the 17th Century forms one side of an area with trees draped in huge Staghorn Ferns. A connecting covered dining area is covered with blue and white Portuguese style tile painted by Burle Marx. Dried seedpod encrusted chandeliers hang overhead. Burle Marx would create lavish arrangements for parties, and sing to his guests with an operatic voice. From what I hear his parties were legendary.

A curtain of water spills from the roof of the barbeque terrace at the Sitio

Jade Vine

Behind the house is a large covered barbeque terrace. Water cascades in a sheet off the flat roof into a lush pool, cooling the air. The surreal turquoise colored claws of Strongylodon macrobotrys, the Jade Vine from the Phillipines hangs from the roof as well. Beds are mulched with large cannonball like stones that are a signiture of his designs.

Studio

Further up the hill is a beautifully crafted studio that was built near the end of his life of carved granite pieces from a dismantled old coffee mill. The studio has a comfortable apartment and a large airy gallery displaying some of his art works and project models. All around the building are beautifully composed masses of plants with colored foliage and bold textures.

A cobbled road winds down the hill providing access and being attractive at the same time. It curves in a way to provide vistas of the garden after crossing a ravine with a trickling creek. I have been to the garden 3 times as it is something of a pilgrimage to visit this spectacular place. There is an affordable mini bus that makes the journey back and forth from Ipanema so that you don't have to go to the great expense of taking a taxi.

Agaves spike a hill in the Sitio

Haruyoshi, Isabela Ono and I at the Burle Marx & CIA LTDA

I spent half the time I was in Brazil living in Rio, as it is a captivating city in the most dramatic of settings, with breathtaking beaches and a vibrant social life. Add to that the frenzy of Carnaval and you have a city that is hard to leave. I was fortunate both of the first and second trips to be able to accompany a tour of Burle Marx gardens led by Englishman Jeff Sainsbury. He organizes excellent garden tours, usually in Europe, but also in the Caribbean and Brazil. He has a web site at www.jeffsainsburytours.com. In fact he still uses two photos of Burle Marx gardens that I took on the second tour. A Landscape Architect friend of mine, Mert Hauck had been on one of his tours in Italy and put him in contact with me when he did his first scouting trip to Rio. I took him out to the Sitio in Guaratiba and showed him around the area close to the hotel in Ipanema, and to meet with Isabella Ono, the daughter of Haruyoshi Ono, who became Burle Marx business partner in 1968 and now runs the firm. They made the arrangements to visit the private gardens, which are seldom open to the public, and Isabela accompanied us on part of the tour.

Curvaceous beds backed by a forest of Araucarias in the Camargo Garden

Early one morning we set out from the Ipanema Plaza Hotel for Petropolis, an idyllic rural retreat high in the mountains inland from Rio. We passed through the ugly squalor of the Zona Norte, but then as we approached Teresopolis, the landscape grew dramatic, with valleys covered in blooming purple Tibouchina, orange African Flame Trees, and yellow Tipuanas, which is a truly electric color pallet. Our first stop was high in the mountains at the estate of Ralph and Anna Lisa Camargo. They graciously greeted our group and walked around the expansive grounds with us. One of the most interesting areas was one that had been used to test out the viability of various plants, which were then retained for their grown in beauty. The plantings are richly mixed rather than in bold swaths. It is actually something of a relief at times as bold sweeps of identical plants requires a more conceptual mindset to appreciate. On slopes backed by dark Araucaria trees are sweeps of Phormiums and Pampas grass, surrounded by purple Tradescantia and yellow daylilies in graceful curving beds.

A sweep of daylilies with the Game House in the distance in the Camargo Garden

Clumps of spiky foliage frame a series of steps in the Camargo Garden

The Montiero Garden, Petropolis
We visited magnificent private gardens not usually accessible to the public. The most famous is the Monteiro Garden, commissioned by his enlightened original client Odette Montiero, and later restored by Roberto for a new owner. It inhabits a spectacular valley in the granite loaf shaped mountains of Petropolis, a cool retreat from the sometimes oppressive heat of Rio. The narrow valley is a living painting of vibrant colors. Swaths of purple and pink flowering native Tibouchinas were in full bloom on both visits in early March.

Tiboucina is bloom paint the hillsides at the Odette Montiero Garden

Winding paths lead up the valley with incredible mountain views. On the valley floor are amoeba shaped pools fed by a stream that drops at leveled cascades. Equally curvaceous beds contain single species of plants to create swaths of color. The shapes emulate those of the surrounding terrain in a harmonious composition. At the upper end is a barbeque terrace with a bright yellow tile mosaic wall designed by Haruyoshi Ono. Above this the stream is channeled in to a series of cascades running in an awkward straight line, totally unlike the rest of the garden. This feature was added later and feels inappropriate to the overall design.

Undulating lines reflect the form of the mountains in the Montiero Garden

Painting with plants in the Montiero Garden

The Strunk Garden

Red Iresine makes a bold form n the Strunk Garden

Checkerboard lawn and Iresine around the pool in the Strunk Garden

Another incredible garden is the Strunk Residence, with a simple low slung transparent house designed by the Brazilian architect Oscar Neimeyer who was responsible for the monumental architecture of the new capitol at Brasilia. The forms in the landscape play off of the curved roof on the simple rectangular house and the undulating jungle covered hills.

A lawn, planted in two colors of grass in a checkerboard pattern surrounds the rectangular swimming pool. An otherworldy sweep of red Iresine creates one of the most visually dramatic plantings I have ever seen on the other side of the house, leading to a voluptuously curvaceous pond.

A view of the house designed by Oscar Neimeyer

A sinuous pond at the Strunk Garden

Raul Martin's Garden, Petropolis

Brick terrace with a Bromeliad tower over the Pool House

Another garden in Petropolis that we visited is the home of Raul Martin. He graciously greeted us and walked us through his verdant gardens and lovely home, telling stories about times he had spent with his friend Roberto.

The paving here features red brick, an unusual material for a Burle Marx garden. Terraces overlook dense jungle at various levels on the steep slope connected by wide steps. A terrace off the house forms the roof for the pool house below, which has blue and white tiled walls and comfortable furniture. The ordered architecture of the house and terraces blends wonderfully with the wild surroundings. What a pleasure to visit this garden!

Pool terrace in the garden of Raul Martin

Raul Martin in the tiled pool house, with pillows designed by Burle Marx

Cascades in formed concrete spilling in to a rectangular pool at the garden of Raul Martin in Petropolis

Back in Rio we visited another private garden behind the soaring twin peaks of Dos Irmaos above Sao Conrado, the home of Meninho Magalhaes Lins, another prominent banking family. My photos of this garden are grainy, but the garden is best known for its fabulous naturalistic swimming pool, fed by a clear stream coming out of the jungle. The house has an elegant long low terrace where the live in staff served us snacks. Parking is on the other side of the stream, which is crossed by a bridge to reach the house. A small dam creates the pool, which would be a delight to swim in with the heat and humidity of the region. Terraced plantings step down the hill in bands of varying texture.

Garden of Meninho Magalhaes Lins, Rio de Janiero

Lush terraces in the Meninho Magalhaes Lins Garden

Sinuous lawn and a stream fed swimming pool in the Meninho Magalhaes Lin Garden, Rio

In the upscale neighborhood of Gavea Alto near the Jardim Botanico in Rio there is a beautiful modern house that is now the Instituto Moreira Salles and is open to the public. Built by one of Brazil's wealthiest banking families, this is one of the finest examples of modern residential architecture I have seen, mainly because the details in the construction are so finely rendered. There are lush gardens at the front of the house playing off the surrounding jungle of Parque Nacional Tijuca which protects Rio's watershed. To the right of the simple entrance door is a terrace of polished granite diamond shaped tiles and a perforated white painted concrete screen. Below the terrace is an unusual modernist take on a parterre, with green and gold shrubs clipped in angular forms.

Abstract Parterre at the Casa Moreira Salles, Gavea

Courtyard in the Casa Moreira Salles

Inside the house is a simple courtyard with a fine central fountain of white marble, and a breezeway with an undulating wave like roof. Sculptural small trees in the courtyard have colorful Bromeliads attached to their trunks, and large leaved Philodendron vines climb others for bold contrast.

Beyond the breezeway is a swimming pool with a sleek white pool house and a pond backed by a tiled wall with a famous mural designed by Burle Marx. Heliconias, daylilies, and grasses fill the island beds, and there is a popular cafe with tables to sit and enjoy this part of the garden over lunch or tea. A beautiful cluster of Pau Mullato, or Calycophyllum spruceanum trees, with dark, polished skin like trunks is perfectly placed in one of the rectangular beds. I first noticed these handsome trees in the nearby Jardim Botanico planted in alleys along straight paths. There are so many wonderful plants native to Brazil.

Pool and tiled wall at Casa Moreira Salles, Gavea

Ohe of the largest of Burle Marx numerous public projects was the enormous land reclamation of Parque do Flamengo in Rio, a huge landfill created when the Sao Antonio hill was leveled in 1965. The project consumed a great deal of his energy and was at times surrounded by controversy. He was the primary supplier of many of the plants because his nursery was the only available source for many of the species. Most notable in the garden are wonderful groupings of unusual trees. The park contains an array of activity and sports areas designed with innovative forms to create a modernistic cohesiveness. The designer was greatly dismayed by the later addition of towering light poles that rise high above the trees.

World War II monument in Flamengo Park, Rio

At the center of the park is a sprawling modernist Monumento Nacional dos Mortos da II Guerra Mundial, a monument to soldiers who fought in World War II. Huge swaths of purple Tradescantia and yellow daylilies play off the dramatic architecture of the building.

There is also a strange little bunker like building containing the Museu Carmen Miranda with a wonderful collection of costumes and jewelry from her films. The doors open like gull wings on one side.

At the downtown end of the park is the Airport terminal like Museu de Arte Moderno. Around the angular building are interesting gardens, with large areas of round stone mulches and sculptural plants. There is a lawn with the wave pattern done in two shades of grass called the Gramado de Ondas, or wave lawn. Next to this is the Jardim Geometrico, a garden patterned on rectangular forms with massive sculptural blocks of granite. Purple ajuga and other ground covers fill rectangular blocks of color under a canopy of Plumeria trees.

Gramado de Ondas, Parque do Flamengo

Museu de Arte Moderno in Parque do Flamengo

The famous Copacabana waterfront with its long wave patterned mosaic sidewalk is perhaps the most renowned work by Burle Marx. The beach once fronted the buildings along the shore, but was actually moved to make room for the new Avenida Atlantica and large underground parking lots. The wide sidewalk adjacent to the Avenida is paved with the classic wave pattern that was originally used in Lisbon Portugal for pavements when rebuilding parts of the city destroyed by a massive tsunami in 1755. The sidewalk is 2.5 kilometers long and is one of the largest mosaics in the World. The design perfectly frames the famed arc of sand backed by the Pau d' Azucar. Traffic islands have abstract organic mosaic patterns laid in the Portuguese style to contrast the continuous wave pattern of the main sidewalk. The whole design can be taken in from high up in the many thousands of apartments and hotel rooms that line the beach. The walk makes a classic promenade and is lined with kiosks serving food and caipirinhas. Every New Years over a million people dressed in white gather on the beach in Copacabana to throw white flowers and offerings in to the sea to honor the Orisha Goddess of the sea Yemanja. The fireworks at midnight are incredible, with 3 barges launching rockets over the water. It is one spectacular party, and Rio parties like no other city on Earth.

Sidewalk on Avenida Atlantica in Copacabana

Mosaic sidewalk in Botafogo, Rio

Burle Marx also designed the gardens surrounding the buildings at Brasilia, which I haven't visited. These public gardens are not always as well maintained as one would hope, but the vision is still there. The beautiful massing of trees in groves, the wildly curvaceous paths, the large riverstone mulches, architectural ponds, and the modernist mosaic patterns done in the Portuguese style using small hand cut limestone blocks are signiture to his work.

Outside of Rio I visited Burle Marx projects in Belo Horizonte and Sao Paulo. A favorite small garden are the dramatic plantings at the Banco Safra in Sao Paulo. Here, patterned sidewalks play off the of the cantelivered architecture of the building. Carefully pruned trees and giant Vriesea Bromeliads bring the building in to scale and provide lush respite from busy Avenida Paulista.

Banco Safra, Sao Paulo

Sao Paulo is a sprawling metropolis, one of the largest cities in the World and the largest in South America. Parque Burle Marx is a wonderful garden completed in 1995 after the master's death. Access to the garden is difficult without a car and I paid dearly for trying to get there by public transit by having to walk several miles from remote bus stops. But the garden was worth the trouble as it is very well maintained and is a classic example of his work. There is a geometric arrangement to the park spaces, with a checkerboard lawn and rectangular pools and a sculptural wall backing the space.

Parque Burle Marx in Sao Paulo

Checkerboard Lawn, Parque Burle Marx, Sao Paulo

Rectangular planting beds and pools contrast with lush plantings in the Parque Burle Marx in Sao Paulo

I've skipped a few places I visited that were designed by the master because the scanned slides don't do them justice or they were in poor condition. Gardens are one of those things that don't last unless there is diligent maintenance, and things grow fast in tropical Brazil. But for the most part, his legacy is being preserved as well as possible.

The bed where Roberto Burle Marx passed away at the Sitio

Roberto Burle Marx died of stomach cancer in June of 1994 at the age of 85. His legacy is far too great to cover in one article, but he single handedly brought the use of native Brazilian flora in to vogue, and created a style that is unique and often emulated to this day. The Landscape design world would not be what it is today without him.

Bathing in the Garden

2011-10-04T01:17:00.000-07:00

Bathing in my garden at night

I have been giving a lecture to various horticultural organizations in the past year called "The Pleasure Garden". I start out giving some historical context as to how and why gardens first came in to existance. I talk about how irrigation systems formed the outlines for a structured landscape. The first gardens were built around oasis, water sources that could be secured by building a wall. Within the walls, persons of privalege could relax and savor the gifts of irrigation. Plants bearing fruit and scent were planted in orderly quadrants divided by the Four Rivers of Paradise. And you could bathe.

Pietra dura inlaid marble fountain pool in the Red Fort in Old Delhi, India

When you enter the harem quarters of a Maharaja's palace in India, you enter a world built for pleasure. Fountains cool the air, while hot water and steam heat the baths. In Turkey and surrounding countries, and in Morocco, the Hammam is where many people go to bathe, lacking such features in their ancient homes. You can lay on a heated marble slab and have all of your old skin scrubbed away in a thick lather. Then you melt in to a puddle. Its wonderful. Portland should have hammams.

Inca Hot Springs, Cajarmaca, Peru

Hot springs pools are one of those things that I would have bubbling up in my garden if I were granted 3 wishes. We have some of the loveliest hot springs on Earth in the Pacific Northwest and I make a point of visiting them when traveling in other countries as well. So the idea of taking a hot bath in the surroundings of my own garden, which I modeled on Indian palace harems seemed rather essential to me when I built it.

I learned to love claw foot bath tubs because I am 6 foot 2 inches tall and I can fit fairly comfortably in a large one. When I bought my house it came with the original clawfoot tub. When I bought the house next door I put one in there too, and spent two years surrounding it with a tile mosaic of undersea memories from snorkling and diving trips in S.E. Asia and the Galapagos Islands. And then I put a tub in the garden, with a beautiful stone wall encasing it, so now I have 3.

Undersea Tile Mosaic in my bathroom

Its early October in Portland as I write this. Last night it was drizzling and cool. I went out in the garden and lit candles in a mixed assortment of Moroccan style lanterns and drew a hot hot bath. I like it hot enough that it hurts a little bit when you get in, and then you relax in to it. I can stay in longer that way. I have a hot water tap plumbed to the outside of the house, next to the cold water spigot. I buried a black rubber hose connected to the spigot that is rated for hot water use that runs under the gravel terrace to the tub. The overflow is sealed so that you can fill the tub deeper.

The Clawfoot Bathtub in my garden in Spring

On this cool night I slipped in to the piping hot water. I have fountains that sound like trickling streams built in to the walls and a raised pond that sing to the garden. Steam rose up from the bath through candlelight flickering through colored glass panes. The experience was so exotic and magical that I flashed for a moment on some Disneyesque Ali Baba scene planted somewhere in my memory. Cleopatra's Baths, in my back yard.

Cleopatra's Baths at Heiropolis, Turkey

One of the most amazing hot spring baths I have ever seen is called Cleopatra's Baths. It sits in the ruins of the Roman city of Heiropolis, Turkey, which itself sits on a giant snowy white mount of travertine deposited by hot springs trickling out the hillside at Pamukkale. The setting is incredible. Houses were built with running hot water from channeled springs, so many well to do Romans came here to soak thier weary old bodies in their final years that Heiropolis has one of the largest Necropolises in the Roman World.

Cleopatra's baths had a couple of busloads of Russian tourists in them when I was there, floating around and magnified by the water to look sort of like Manatees. The water is blue green, with the toppled columns of an Apollo Temple destroyed by an earthquake submerged on the bottom. Talk about fantasy landscapes, its the stuff of dream sequences in exotic films.

Pool at the Jahaz Mahal in Mandu, India

The Sultans of Mandu had a fortress city high on a mountain plateau in the present day state of Madhya Pradesh in Central India. The Jahaz Mahal is called the "Ship Palace" because of its long narrow shape flanked by two lakes. It was built as a pleasure palace for a harem reputed to be 10,000 women! Sounds rather decadent. But it was done with extraordinary taste. Pools that are filled using Monsoon Rains have steps so you can reach the water at any level. The bath at the Jahaz Mahal has spiraling water channels that carry roof runoff in the most beautiful way imaginable in to a fancifal pool that is masterpiece of Afghan style architecture. Mira Nair filmed scenes here for her movie 'Kama Sutra'.

At the ruined city of Hampi in Karnataka, more to the south in India is the Queen's Baths, a massive MC Escher like tank with crisply cut steps radiating in graduated rectangles. It is utterly surreal to behold in this Utah like landscape, but it ensured that the Queen got her bath, no matter how dry it has been.

Queen's Baths, Hampi, Karnataka, India

One of my favorite royal bathing experiences was in Sri Lanka in the early 1990's. There had been heavy rains and some flooding, and the ancient ruins at Anuradhapura, Sigiriya, Mihintale, and Polonaruwa were filled to the brim. The refreshment from the heat and humidity in these cool and elegantly framed tanks bordered on divine.

Bathing Tanks in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka

Tirta Ganga, Bali

Bali has some magical springs that have been become sacred temple sites, or in the case of Tirta Ganga, a royal water park. Crystal clear water gushes from springs through the mouths of anthropomorphic creatures into sparkling pools on terraces studded with fountains. When I was there in 1989 there were two rooms for rent by the gardens, and we had access to the garden at all hours, akin to being in heaven. Children would come and play during the day, filling the garden with delight.

What makes all of these places so special is that they celebrate water and the pleasure it brings.

Pink Camellias are abundant in Spring

My bath tub needs maybe 35 gallons to fill. That drains the gas waterheater of hot water by the time the time the tub is full. When you get in, the water is hot, but it cools off, unlike a conventional hot tub, so you don't get cooked. The water is fresh, rather than treated, and there is no whirring motor or thrashing jets. It is just quiet, with the light sound of the fountain drowning out city noises. When the water has cooled I can use it to irrigate the garden, so the water isn't wasted. The plants I cultivate around the bath tends to have psychedelic looking foliage. In spring there are Arisaemums and Podophyllums. A huge ornamental Rhubarb becomes moderately Jurrasic in June. In late Spring I plant out a mix of trippy Coleus, Calendulas, and Gartenmeister Fuschias to attract hummingbirds. It is amazing to see their tiny tongues sucking nectar from a flower at close range when you are blissed out in a hot bath. In summer I hang Epiphllum Orchid Cactus baskets from a simple but elegant steel trellis strung with temple bells that frames the sky and arching bamboo overhead. The flowers are huge and otherworldly. A varigated Porceline Berry Vine laces through it all with pink tendrils and with no two marbled leaves alike. I put a plywood cover on the tub when I'm not bathing and put a lounging bed on that strewn with nice pillows, so the tub becomes a divine place to recline. Laying down in the garden is second only to bathing in it.

Lounging bed on top of the bath tub

A client of mine came once to take a bath on her birthday as a gift request. I set up tea service and put lavender oil in the water and floated rose petals on the surface. Later when she came in she asked if I had drugged her. No, its always like that. She now has her own garden tub.

Martina and Mirabella in a rose petal bath

So tell me, is there anything lovlier than bathing in a beautiful garden? I suppose taking a bath with a beautiful somebody else in that garden.

The steam swirling through the candlelit lanterns makes me sigh relief and let go............................................

Peterson's Rock Garden

2011-09-26T00:59:00.000-07:00

A circular pond with a stone mosaic church on a central island

Grandpa's Petunias

There are a number of reasons that I became a person obsessed with the art of crafting with stone. The earliest influences planted seeds in my psyche that became the focus of my labors for most of my adult life. My Mother grew up in the beautiful Central Oregon town of Bend. My grandparent's back yard there had a tall lava rock fireplace next a concrete patio with red painted ornamental metal furniture, some of which I still have. Grandpa sold Maytag and Gibson appliances and the lawn was lined with washing machine tubs filled with rich soil and cascading with technicolor petunias that smelled of heaven. I have a couple of those tubs in my garden today...

Up in the fireplace's wall like chimney built of locally collected lava and obsidian was an abalone shell with a colored light bulb set in to it that would shine magically at night. I for some reason found this mesmerizing. Strange pieces of native geology were carted home and mortared in to a fantastic structure where you could roast marshmellows on cool desert evenings. This is childhood fantasy material.

My Grandparents Elmer and Edith and the newly finished fireplace

Building things 10 feet tall out of stone I have learned, requires a certain amount of drive. Masonry is really about arduous toil. You need something powerful to motivate you. Obsessive compulsive disorder is one of the better motivations, and seems to be the drive behind the builders of most of the World's visionary monuments.

A Mountain built of colorful minerals

Thats where Peterson's Rock Garden comes in. North of Bend and just south of the town of Redmond is a property that was once a potato farm, purchased by a Danish Immigrant named Rasmus Peterson. The essay I found online at http://www.3dstereo.com/ezine/petersen_rock_gardens.html says that he moved to America at the turn of the century at the age of 17. The relatives on my Mother's side were in the Pendleton area at that time.

My Mother and Grandmother at McKenzie Pass

House of Rock, near Sisters, Oregon

Oregon is all about geology. A chain of snow capped volcanos runs down the length of the state about a third of the way in from the Pacific Ocean. It is lush and green to the west and high desert to the east. Central Oregon is dotted with cinder cones, small eruptions where magma reached the surface on the flanks of the major volcanoes. There are vast lava fields, and lava tube caves, and some of the Worlds largest flows of obsidian, a material ideal for making arrowheads and points by native peoples. What I'm getting at is that if you live in Central Oregon your life is going to be full of rocks. The land is dotted with pitted lava, and Rasmus Peterson got a property with lots of lava rock on it.

When you drive down the highway from Redmond to Bend you pass some large rock shops. Huge chunks of obsidian and petrified wood lure people off the road to pick through the boxes of crystals and cut and polished agates and thundereggs (the Oregon State Rock) collected from the region and beyond. Some people in the area gathered up huge collections of fantastic minerals during their lifetime. Rasmus Peterson was one of them. He first started building a rockery around his home in 1935, with raised beds and miniature buildings that may be memories of his native Denmark. But he was just getting started. Over the next 17 years he built 4 acres of gardens that drew thousands of visitors from all around.

Early stone work by Rasmus Peterson

Bridge over a water lily moat

Statue of Liberty showcased in a mount of fantastic multi colored minerals

God Bless America

What he created was a kind of mineral fantasy, with ponds and bridges and villages. The miniature buildings were wired for lighting to extend the fantasy in to night. The ponds are filled with waterlilies and fringed in mortared stone borders and surrounded by colorful annual flowers in summer. Peacocks stroll the lawns for a touch of the exotic in the high desert, which gets incredibly cold in the winter. There used to be swan boats on the largest pond but today they are gone. In essence though, what Rasmus Peterson created here is a fantastic world of tributes to his imagination. There are feats of engineering, like buildings and planters balanced on a narrow pedastles. There are monuments to patriotism to the country that offered Mr. Peterson the opportunity to express himself, like a locally carved image of the Statue of Liberty, and a blue glass, white quartzite pebble, and red cinder mosaic American flag that says "God Bless America" over it. This flag was maybe the first pebble mosaic I had ever seen.

My Mother Mary Louise, feeding a peacock

Obsidian encrusted suspension bridge

Lava Mosaic

When I go back to revisit Peterson's Rock Garden as a stone masonry artist I marvel at the spectacular material Mr. Peterson had to work with. Huge chunks of many colored minerals are collaged in to showcase walls. There is a wonderful grouping of various kinds of unusual lava as you come up the staircase to the a grand state capitol like building. The path circles the building and connects to the adjacent mount via an arched bridge over a water lily filled moat.

My cousin's daughter Chayse sees a garter snake in a lily pond

Most amazing of all is the entrance to the Museum and Gift Shop. Here you climb a pair of curved steps leading over a rise encrusted with stones and then down in to a circular sunken courtyard. Petrified wood tree trunks flank the steps. The Museum walls are studded with minerals, and inside is a major collection of stones from around the world.

Museum Courtyard

One of the most unique features inside is a room where black lights illuminate a day glo landscape of phosphorescent stone mosaic objects. This stuff borders on cheesy unless you do it for a living. For me I see a person with vast ambition manifesting the dreams in his head. And for some of the thousands of visitors who came here, like my grandfather, the dream of making something grand at home rubbed off on them, which in his case resulted in a volcanic fireplace that must have required a few tons of material and a great deal of time to construct. Seeing these stone wonders of the imagination introduced me to the world of visionary art.

The stone work that I do has been directly influenced by the way Rasmus Peterson and other visionary artists combined minerals to showcase their unique beauty. Colors and shapes are carefully composed into functional works of geologic art.

Phosphorescent Room

Cut Polished Stone Mandala, Walker Rock Garden

I have since made a point of visiting visionary landscapes in my travels around the globe. Some of them are famous, like Watts Towers in Los Angeles, and some are more obscure, like the magical Walker Rock Garden in West Seattle. That property recently sold and its future is unknown. By far the largest of this type of landscape is Nek Chand's Rock Garden in Chandigarh, the capitol of the Punjab province of India. Here a man has spent most of his adult life building a garden from found objects that now covers 18 acres. Inside are many thousands of sculptures depicting people in every day acts of life, as well as thousands of animals. The garden was begun in illegally and in secrecy on government land, but was saved from demolition on the merits of its monumental creativity after its discovery. It was dubbed 'The Rock Garden', but Nek Chand himself said that "Its a child's dream, and not a garden of cold rocks...it is my poetry with rocks". An article at http://www.uncorneredmarket.com/2010/08/panorama-nek-chand-rock-garden-chandigarh-india/ has an interesting circle cam showing a panorama of part of the garden.

Mosaic Figures in Nek Chand's Rock Garden

There are so many more places created by obsessive compulsive persons and several interesting books have been published documenting them. A favorite is the photo packed 'Fantasy Worlds' published by Tauschen Press, and 'Gardens of Revelation' by John Beardsley, which delves in to the psychology behind visionary environments. Often the people that create these environments don't have a formal history of education in the arts. They are driven by internal desire and a need to express their visions in material form. The medium is often stone and found objects, which can be gathered at minimal expense if one is willing to go through the hard work to gather and place them. I know first hand what is required, a willingness to suffer for one's art. But the rewards can be very rich indeed.

Garden entry I built in Southeast Portland in 2003

The Trouble with Mow and Blow

2011-08-20T12:40:00.001-07:00

String Trimming , and a cloud of dust and exhaust

The Trouble with Mow and Blow

I was just out in the garden having lunch when my neighbor’s mow and blow company arrived. Soon there was the roar of gas powered edgers, mowers, and then blowers. A half minute later a visible cloud of dust and exhaust drifted in to my garden. I had to run inside to protect my food and lungs and ears from the onslaught, and close the doors and windows. When I came out later my pond had a layer of film on it. The real irony is that it is summer and the neighbor’s lawn didn’t need to be mowed. They don’t water it and it hadn’t grown since the last time it was done. The only reason it was being done was it was scheduled for maintenance. The guy blowing was just standing there going through the motions, stirring up the cloud of dust that probably traveled for hundreds of yards through the neighborhood for everyone who was home to breath while the handful of leaves he was targeting came flying over in to my garden.

The only real benefit I could see from this ritual was that it provides employment for the guys who do it. They drive around in a big truck with a trailer all day long like hundreds of other mow and blow companies, filling the air with hazardous pollutants and incredible levels of noise. The people who do the work for the companies rarely wear protective gear and are subjected to the significant health risks of frequent exposure to hydrocarbons and dust and ear damage. I’ve asked people if they are bothered by the impact of having the service and they often say “No, we aren’t home when they do it so it isn’t a problem”.

So, here are some of the facts on the matter. 2 stroke engines which power most gas powered lawn and garden equipment produces 15 times the exhaust of an average automobile. Using a gas mower, blower, or string trimmer for one hour produces the same amount of smog forming hydrocarbons as driving a car 200 miles according to an EPA report. You can see their information at: http://www.epa.gov/oaqps001/community/details/yardequip_addl_info.html

This contributes to ozone and global warming that is expected to help lead to the extinction of up to 30 % of the species on Earth in the next 50 years!

Cutting out an existing lawn and replacing it with 3/4" River Rock

I am removing another lawn from one of my client’s gardens this summer and replacing it with 3/4 inch pea gravel. It is only 5 feet wide and 25 feet long, but when we calculated the amount of money she spends on the mow and blow service a year it came to $3,600. They routinely weed whack the plants in the beds and never actually pull any weeds in the garden. Mow and blow is pretty much one of the most boring jobs around. The guys who do it don’t seem to like to bend over, or sweep, or rake, or exert any more energy than is absolutely necessary to get the job over with. I even had a guy run over a garden hose once with a mower while I was working on a mosaic project because he didn’t want to bend over and move it. The hose was cut and water sprayed everywhere, and delayed my project by half an hour. The same company chopped up my client’s garden knee pad, leaving shredded purple foam all over the lawn. I don’t think the idea was to make the garden look better, just to get in and out of there. Mow and blow is not a fun job, it is just a job.

Lawn replaced by a carpet of 3/4" River Rock, never needs mowing again!

I know there are a few, very few companies that will mow your lawn with a hand push mower. When I was a kid we had hand clippers for edging the lawn, or a round saw toothed edging tool on a handle for trimming along pavement. We raked the garden with a hand rake. Gas mowers have been around for a long time but the other equipment is a thing of modern society. Leaf blowers became popular in the 1980’s for garden maintenance, and in 1990, 800,000 of them were sold in the United States alone. It seemed to coincide with the rise in obesity in America. People don’t do things that require physical exertion when it comes to accomplishing tasks anymore. I’ve even seen an escalator leading to a Gold’s gym. Wouldn’t want to climb stairs on the way to the treadmill. Needless to say our carbon footprint has escalated as a result. We are polluting our atmosphere at an alarming rate, and we don’t seem to care enough to alter the way we live. Eliminating the need to use power equipment to maintain your garden is a substantial way to reduce your carbon footprint.

The health risks from mowing and blowing are rather alarming as well. The state of California estimated that leaf blowers alone account as much as 5% of all fugitive dust sources in the state. A few towns have banned their use, most notably Beverly Hills and Carmel by the Sea in California because wealthy residents didn’t like the noise. But worse than the noise is the fact that using a leaf blower for one hour can propel the equivalent of a 5 gallon bucket of particulate matter in to the air. This can contain pesticides and herbicides used in lawn and garden fertilizers, fecal matter from pets, and pollution that settles on the ground from all forms of air contamination. This affects people with asthma the worst, and children and the elderly, but everyone gets a lung full in the end.

There is an old fashioned alternative, one that worked for decades before the advent of convenient power tools. A well maintained push mower cuts grass better than a gas powered mower. There are electric alternatives to the gas powered tools that don’t produce the exhaust, but they still make dust. Rakes and brooms are quiet and you get some exercise while you do it which will make you healthier in the long run. Having a more natural looking garden that isn’t spotless and overly groomed is a possibility.

I would love to see more alternative garden maintenance companies that use hand tools and push mowers. It seems like there is a market there, like there is for organic food. This planet needs all the help it can get, and we as gardeners should be playing an active part in making that happen, rather than making things worse because our aesthetic requires a neatly trimmed golf course and not a leaf in sight.

And we can certainly use the exercise. I recently had a garden tour come to lounge in my garden. I have carpets and pillows on the ground, but everyone stood around. I laid down to demonstrate the idea of reclining and relaxing and asked people to join me, but the most common excuse was that they were afraid they wouldn’t be able to get up again! Time to get out a broom and start sweeping your walkways!

My garden is quite beautiful and I don’t have a lawn to mow or weed or fertilize or edge or blow. I save a lot of time that I can spend doing other things. My neighbors don’t have to listen to me mow, or breathe the resulting pollution. My garden is peaceful, filled with birds singing and the sound of trickling fountains. It is paradise. And then somebody starts up the lawn power equipment somewhere in the neighborhood and that peace is shattered. Nature has once again been subdued and controlled and violated, and we take one more small step towards the end of a what was once magnificent planet. And that makes me sad. “We’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden”.