5 Top Books on Interior and Garden Design April 2015

‘Gardens in France’ is a reminder of the French preference for formality. The fashion for the more naturalistic landscape gardens of Capability Brown from the 18th century, known to the French as the ‘jardin a l’anglaise’, never took hold in quite the same way in France. On the whole the French have preferred to majestically command nature, whatever the cost in time and money. The taste for highly formal geometric gardens are as evident in the stunningly ornamental potager parterres of the Chateau de Villandry, as in the iconic monochrome gardens of fashion designer and stylist Nicole de Vesian.

The book opens with that great exemplar of French gardening style Vaux-le-Vicomte created by the hugely influential 17th century designer Andre Le Notre. The expansive embroidered scrolls of the elaborate parterres stretch out from the chateau like vast oriental carpets. The theatre of exotic sculptural fountains and waterfalls animates the scheme along the many lakes, ponds and canals. The soon to be disgraced financial secretary to Louis XIV, Nicolas Fouquet was rather ironically demonstrating that he was as much in command of his ministerial portfolio as he was of nature. On 17 August 1661, Fouquet entertained the king on such an unprecedentedly lavish scale – with gardens and architecture to match – that Louis was convinced of the need to cut down this towering aesthete who threatened to cast the Sun King in the shade. The magnificence of Vaux was soon to inspire Versailles, the gold standard of not only French architecture, and interiors but also French garden design, setting the benchmarks and taste that have influenced garden design in France to this day.

Many of the magnificent gardens featured in TASCHEN’s ‘Gardens in France’ are open to the public and this book is an exceptional travel guide and resource for garden lovers. The climatic diversity of France is also fully reflected in the vastly varied horticulture represented in these gardens, from cactus displays on the Cote d’Azur to the roses, irises and delphiniums of the North.
The gardens featured reflect the work of designers across the centuries from the great Le Notre to the Impressionist Monet.