Temporary Gardens

Book excerpt: The last 30 years have seen a surge in temporary gardens. The flexibility and new challenges invested in non-permanent landscapes has made them a creative and stimulating testing ground for professionals and impromptu designers. Raffaella Sini examines the historical evolution of the genre, exploring theory, narratives, and strategies informing 80 temporary gardens built in France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, New Zealand, Canada, Singapore, and the United States. Key topics include: • temporary gardens in 1970s avant-garde art and 1980s public art; • temporary gardens as opportunities to work with live processes, practice inclusion, and explore concepts of social justice and ecology; • temporary gardens to redefine the vocabulary of garden design; and • temporary gardens in tactical urbanism. The book comprehensively decodifies the full range of ephemeral gardens: uprooted, mobile, itinerant, movable, postmodern, installation, exhibited, conceptual, theme, pop-up, guerrilla, grassroots, meanwhile, interim, provisional, activist, community, and parklet. Beyond physical duration, time-focused design in gardens affects the entire process of conceiving, building, experiencing, and managing green spaces; using short-term formats, anyone can invent, trial, and experiment in a condensed experience of landscape. The temporary garden emerges as critical cultural ground for the discourse in landscape architecture, art, ephemeral urbanism, and in urban, landscape, and garden design. It is inspirational reading for designers and students alike.