Piet Oudolf - interview


Dutch landscape architect Piet Oudolf, the man behind the planting on the High Line in Manhattan and Peter Zumthor’s Serpentine Pavilion in 2011, talks to Cate St Hill about his garden for Hauser & Wirth Somerset, including the perennial meadow that sits behind the gallery buildings.


Blueprint

Blueprint: Tell me a bit more about how you became involved in Hauser & Wirth Somerset.

Piet Oudolf: I had friends in Hadspen House, near here, who were gardening there in the Eighties and Nineties. I also have a lot of friends in England, so in the garden world they all knew me, but now I'm coming to work in the art world.

Blueprint: What was your inspiration for this garden?

Oudolf: Talking with [gallery founders] Iwan and Manuela [Wirth] the brief was that people coming to the gallery should be surprised to find a garden. It was to be an extension, something special that people would come across unexpectedly. So we kept the landscape at the front very easy, like the farmyard that was there before, and this [the meadow] we would make more spectacular. We wanted to create this very dynamic perennial landscape.

Blueprint: The gallery is currently showing some of your preparatory sketches, which show a patchwork of colours and symbols. Talk me through your design process and how you start a project.

Oudolf: I first have an idea and I start to think how it will look. I start with a drawing, bringing a list of plants together that will make the performance. It's like putting actors on a stage; you need particular characters to make it happen.

Blueprint: Your designs are always very natural and unconstrained. How much is down to nature and how much is down to you?

Oudolf: All the plants used here are not competitive, not overseeding, so that is an advantage. They have a longer lifespan than most other plants so they are not annual, or biannual, they don't die after flowering. That's part of the game, they shouldn't push each other out. The meadow here isn't wild, it's all in groups, like you see on the drawings.

A sketch — part of a collection on show at Hauser & Wirth — shows how Piet Oudolf plans a garden by using layers of symbols and blocks of colour. Piet Oudolf. Courtesy: The Artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Alex Delfanne
A sketch -- part of a collection on show at Hauser & Wirth -- shows how Piet Oudolf plans a garden by using layers of symbols and blocks of colour. Piet Oudolf. Courtesy: The Artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Alex Delfanne

Blueprint: Had you worked in England before? Do you think gardens in this country have a national identity, a certain 'Britishness' for example?

Oudolf: They've lost that since I've come here! I've worked in England since 2000 and earlier. Everyone in the plant world knew my name, there was even a time when they thought I was English -- people thought I was living here. I was once quoted as 'one of the most important garden designers in England', and I was the only one outside of England!

Blueprint: Did you have any gardeners or designs that influenced you when you were a young designer?

Oudolf: No, there were people in the plant world who had different ideas. I was influenced by friends; we were trying to escape the traditional way of gardening, which was all about decoration. We tried to create more spontaneity in a garden and gardens that appealed more to people. We tried to put another layer on the design, a deeper, more emotional layer. It's more than prettiness, it touches your soul. If you think of decoration it's about a nice flower, but if you think of gardens as a metaphor then you think of life and how you feel -- it's more romantic and it gives you a strong sensation of feeling good.

Blueprint: What are the ingredients for a perfect garden?

Oudolf: The perfect garden needs knowledge and the intensity of what you can bring to other people, and that's not easy. It's like in art: you paint and not every painting is art, but if you can really bring to other people what you feel, that is the secret.

Blueprint: How do you feel about letting the garden go to the public now? Are you protective of your gardens, are they like your babies?

Oudolf: I like children in the garden but not running around without their parents. It's more about the parents who don't respect the garden. But if I was a child I would love to run through here and play hide and seek. You should be aware of how easily you can destroy a garden. Gardening is a never-ending product. You cannot go back to all your gardens. I can take distance but as long as people take care of them; I see them as my babies. But if they don't take care, I can let them go. I also see them as attempts, to try to give people something that they will want to nurture.








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