For the past five years French photographer Laurent Kronental has been documenting the dilapidated Modernist estates of his country. Architects of these sometimes stigmatised buildings include the incredible Richardo Bofill, Emile Aillaud and Martin van Trek. Kronental also focusses his attention on the elderly residents of these estates, and how easily forgotten they have become.
All photographs by Laurent Kronental.
Dior, already famous for its creative use of flowers in its shows (see here) has gone next level to create the most magnificent delphinium mountain in the middle of the Cour Carrée of the Lourve.
The show took place inside the structure where the models walked in front of a smaller but no less impressive hill of flowers. In total 400,000 stalks of blue Delphinium were installed by mega production company Bureau Betak.
Images from WWD and Paris in Four Months.
A little flashback to Paris last August.
All photographs by Sophia Kaplan.
I wrote about The Garden Edit store back in February but they have since launched The Garden Edit Journal which is definitely worth a look. Here are two gardens they have posted about which are truly inspiring.
Carlo Scarpa photographed by Arianna Lago.
Princess of Wales Conservatory photographed by India Hobson.
I am very excited to properly introduce our latest contributor. Géraldine Mahé is the founder and editor of a great french garden, landscape and architecture blog BUD UP. It’s awesome to have a contributor all the way from Paris.
Hermès Rooftop Garden by Géraldine Mahé
The perfumer of the house of Hermès, Jean-Claude Ellena, has a long relationship with gardens. He has chosen four special gardens to inspire the creation of four special perfumes. The first a secret Mediterranean garden hints of orange and fig trees. The second, inspired by a garden on the nile of Egypt smells of roses and mangoes. The third comes from the idea of a garden in India after the monsoon – fresh, lemon-scented and spicy.
The final perfume is inspired by the Hermès garden itself. The garden is located sur le toit – on the roof – of the Hermes head office on rue du Faubourg Saint Honoré in Paris. The perfume reflects the three main trees of this garden, magnolia, pear and apple. In the video below the head gardener Yasmine and Jean-Claude give a little tour of this special space (in French!).
All photographs by Quetin Bertoux, translation by Sophia Kaplan. Be sure to check out BUD UP!
The striking home of Italian home wares maker Maurizio Zucchi. The height of the ceilings and plants along with the flooding of natural light make this a very appealing space.
All images from Elle Korea via Plant Propaganda.
These images are from Forgotten Spaces: the Barbican Conservatory, a collaborative project between photographer Luke Hayes and writer Sarah Simpkin. The conservatory, built in 1980 in a post war estate, is beautifully wild against the bulbous architecture of Chamberlin, Powell and Bon.
All photographs by Luke Hayes.
Two thousand thirteen was a hell of a year and I am so grateful for all the experiences I’ve had. There were some tough moments, some things I reluctantly had to give up, but I also managed to kick a lot of crap to the side and start doing what I really wanted to do, make a career out of my love of plants.
During the past year I travelled to New Zealand, Japan, France, Italy, the US and some places closer to home. To those I travelled with and others that I met along the way, thank you for making it all so incredibly fun. It’s also been a pleasure to return to Sydney after all of this to the birth of my brother’s first child and the sun and glow of family and friends and this amazing city.
I started this blog a little over a year ago and it’s been very gratifying to watch the number of readers grow and to get such nice feedback from you all. Thank you for reading!! Here is the first of a few posts looking back at the year that was.
In January we talked architectural, gardening and design greats Ricardo Bofill, Monty Don, Raf Simons and Stella McCartney, and explored decaying flowers, New York rooftops and some plant based gift ideas.
In February we followed The Little Flower School‘s visit to Australia, enjoyed the beauty of Zippy Seven and Kate Moss, and appreciated and then received a lovely fiddle leaf fig. We explored the Japanese art of kokedama floating gardens, I had my mind blown by nature documentary Microcosmos and happily discovered cabin porn.
In March I commissioned Lucy Allen to create some quirky images, visited the IS./WET exhibition, followed Lisa and Neil’s South African adventures, explored Madison Cox’s Tangiers retreat, took a look into some of Sydney’s kitchen gardens and a peek into the backyard of some friends in Redfern, found some dreamy images from Old Chum, got excited about new Sydney flower delivery business Little Flowers, and last but not least, discovered the incredible floral artist Makoto Azuma.
The rest of the year will follow shortly!
Image 1: Ricardo Bofill, image 2 Billy Kidd, image 3: Tim Walker, image 4: String Gardens, image 5: Beaver Brook, image 6: Lucy Allen, image 7: Neil Francis Dawson, image 8: Shunsuke Shiinoki.
The always gorgeous Tiff visited me in Paris last weekend. We spent one afternoon wandering through le marais where I introduced her to one of my favourite little gardens in the entrance to the Musée Carnavalet.
Swirling hedge designs are bordered by seasonal bright flowers and even some rainbow spinach. I used to live just around the corner and it was a always peaceful spot for me to escape the bustle of the street.
All photographs by Olivia and Sophia Kaplan.
Photographs by Sophia Kaplan.
The Secret Garden 