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A Glimpse of Paradise
A Glimpse of Paradise
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Other Projects by Landscape Architecture Bureau [LAB]
A Glimpse of Paradise
Type
Cultural ›
In
2010, RefordGardens, in Grand-Métis, Québec, held an
open competition to design a 6-month to two- year temporary installation on
their property. Submissions were to be
based on a response to the concept of “Paradise.” The Call for Entries put it this way:
“Since time immemorial mankind has re-imagined the idea of
paradise on earth through the garden and has imagined places of great beauty.
These places, by evoking our senses, have pulled us out of our everyday world
to experience the sublime.
What does paradise look
like today?
….. We ask you to imagine
your garden of paradise; a creation that will speak to the history of
gardening, to philosophy, to religion and to history in general, as well as to
contemporary society and to your own personal history.”Our
response is based on the concept of Paradise
as understood in many religious traditions:
a place of peace, tranquility and limitlessness.
The
journey through life is an indeterminate one; painful, we fear, pleasant, we hope. Many traditions hold out the assurance of a Paradise at the end of this journey. Some of the concepts are more explicit than
others but all of them involve relief from the tribulations of life, from the
Christian promise of eternal abundance to the Buddhist promise of a peaceful
and limitless merging of the self with the Absolute. What they all share is the impossibility of
inhabiting paradise while we still live.
The
visitor enters the site through woodland, finding him/herself in a grid of White
Birch trees, its order quite distinct from the chaotic nature of the forest
beyond the grove. The trees are planted in a manner that allows
free access to Paradise: mainly in stone dust, only a few have plants
at their bases. As in life, there is no
designated path. The visitor/pilgrim,
wandering through the trees, can see a structure at the far end of the grove—Paradise, a mirrored cube, pure and insubstantial. There is a portal cut into one side of the
cube, allowing one to view into, but not to enter, Paradise. The interior is also mirrored, with a shallow
pool that reflects the sky. The view
shows the limitlessness of paradise, the pool and the sky receding into
infinity.
2010, RefordGardens, in Grand-Métis, Québec, held an
open competition to design a 6-month to two- year temporary installation on
their property. Submissions were to be
based on a response to the concept of “Paradise.” The Call for Entries put it this way:
“Since time immemorial mankind has re-imagined the idea of
paradise on earth through the garden and has imagined places of great beauty.
These places, by evoking our senses, have pulled us out of our everyday world
to experience the sublime.
What does paradise look
like today?
….. We ask you to imagine
your garden of paradise; a creation that will speak to the history of
gardening, to philosophy, to religion and to history in general, as well as to
contemporary society and to your own personal history.”Our
response is based on the concept of Paradise
as understood in many religious traditions:
a place of peace, tranquility and limitlessness.
The
journey through life is an indeterminate one; painful, we fear, pleasant, we hope. Many traditions hold out the assurance of a Paradise at the end of this journey. Some of the concepts are more explicit than
others but all of them involve relief from the tribulations of life, from the
Christian promise of eternal abundance to the Buddhist promise of a peaceful
and limitless merging of the self with the Absolute. What they all share is the impossibility of
inhabiting paradise while we still live.
The
visitor enters the site through woodland, finding him/herself in a grid of White
Birch trees, its order quite distinct from the chaotic nature of the forest
beyond the grove. The trees are planted in a manner that allows
free access to Paradise: mainly in stone dust, only a few have plants
at their bases. As in life, there is no
designated path. The visitor/pilgrim,
wandering through the trees, can see a structure at the far end of the grove—Paradise, a mirrored cube, pure and insubstantial. There is a portal cut into one side of the
cube, allowing one to view into, but not to enter, Paradise. The interior is also mirrored, with a shallow
pool that reflects the sky. The view
shows the limitlessness of paradise, the pool and the sky receding into
infinity.
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