theory lab lecture series

Baroque landscape architecture of the 17th Century represents the culmination of a

design system where man stands at the centre of the world in formal opposition to

the roughness of nature. The Baroque must, therefore, be understood as the complex

hybridization of our two original archetypes. Here the forest clearing meets that of

the walled geometric garden. What is the main difference between the Baroque and

Renaissance periods in landscape architecture? It is the leap in scale and the syste-

matic measurement of the territory, as well as the confrontation of the park with a

vast expanse of existing forests. What the Renaissance developed at the scale of Villa

estates, the Baroque developed through triangulated parks and roads at the scale of an

entire territory.

Baroque must, therefore, be understood as the measure of man implemented at the

scale of an entire landscape. A measure in itself explained through enlightenment and

reason, which shows a particular understanding of the world. It is the age of Cartesian

rationalism and Pascalian mathematical order. The gardens of André Le Nôtre are first

and foremost the platonic expression of that reason with a clear geometric order. It is

meant to demonstrate a formal understanding about the world we live in. It is the ma-

nifestation of Alberti’s perspective system at the scale of an entire city and park. Very

much like the Renaissance gardens, the Baroque park places itself within a narrative

structure at the forefront western mythology. The genealogy of this mythology stems

from archaic times with the Titans and the Grotto of Thetys, and takes us all the way

to the pristine clarity of the clearing. A clearing where nature is reduced to the most

minimal expression of pure geometric form and space. Within the Baroque axis, there

lies also the ultimate expression of man’s power over nature. The spreading apart

of the wild forest gives way to the path of manifest reason. It is the time of absolute

monarchy, with a king seated at the very geometric heart of this complex mythologi-

cal web. He is the sun king, who also occasionally dresses up as Apollo as he wanders

through the park. The park becomes the theatre for the enactment of countless my-

thologies, through the staging of temporary «fabriques» and elaborate water displays.

Landschaftsarchitektur HS 2013 Seite 01

Louis XIV. as Apollo in the ballet «La Nuit» 1653In: Lablaude 1995.

Geometries of Power. HS 2013 V07Baroque Gardens and Territories

www.girot.arch.ethz.ch

www.facebook.com/LandscapeArchitectureETHZurich

Literature:

Cavaillé, Jean-Pierre: Descartes, la fable du monde, Vrin and Paris 1991.

Conan, Michel (ed.): Baroque garden cultures: emulation, sublimation, subversion, Washington D.C. 2005.

Dezallier d’Argenville, A.J.: La théorie et la pra-tique du jardinage, Hildesheim 1972. (Reprint)

Gothein, Marie Luise: Geschichte der Garten-kunst, Band 2, München 1926.

Hansmann, Wilfried: Gartenkunst der Renais-sance und des Barock, Köln 1983.

Hazlehurst, Hamilton: Gardens of Illusions - The Genius of André Le Nôtre, Nashville-Tennessee 1980.

Lablaude, Pierre-André: Die Gärten von Ver-sailles, Worms 1995.

Steenbergen, Clemens / Reh, Wouter: Architec-ture and Landscape. The design experiment of the great European gardens and landscapes, München 1996.

The alteration of the Baroque park aesthetic into the romantic and picturesque

aesthetic of the 18th Century English Garden, coincides precisely with the advent

of the Newtonian revolution. The leap into the universal laws of gravity questions

all of a sudden the pertinence and scale of the static geometric order. The dynamic

order of this hidden force of gravity make rational and geometric projection when not

obsolete, at least marginal in comparison with the Newtonian force of nature. One

could almost say that the Baroque garden style is the culminating point of geometric

expression in Western landscape architecture. From that point on the tendency in our

understanding of landscapes and nature is expressed in simple rectilinear geometric

patterns. We enter the more elaborate elliptical patterns and winding paths of English

Landscape Gardens that take us away from the sole reason of man, and project us back

into the mystery of it all.

© Christophe Girot 2013

Landschaftsarchitektur HS 2013 Seite 02

La Carte des Chasses du Roy, 1764–1807, Depot de la Guerre, by order of Louis XV. Source: Zentralbibliothek Zürich.

Vaux-le-Vicomte. View from the terrace. Engra-ving Israël Silvestre. In: Gothein 1926.

Architecture of hedges. In: Dezallier d’Argenville 1972.