LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

French Gardens

For CSPA – Semester-VI

 ORIGIN

 The French gardens are the most Ambitious works of art ever created. Born
of a taste for regularity & symmetry.
 The garden display progression from
RENAISSANCE (In Renaissance, the gardens became larger, grander and
more symmetrical, and were filled with fountains, statues, grottoes, water
organs)

to CLASSIC &

then influenced by italian craftsmen.

FRENCH GARDENS

 As in earlier times, French artists of the late 1700s used their gardens and
parks as places of amusement and delight.
 The gardens of renaissance time, demonstrated a magnificent blend of
subtle harmony and perfect proportions.
 Italian craftsmen merged architecture, flowers, green vegetation, sculpture,
trees, & water course to form a unified garden.
 The nature dressed by geometry, small axial layout symmetry,
mathematical proportions and reflect the wealth, power, rigid, social
structure of France.
 HISTORY

 Since 52 BC, when Paris was a roman town called Lutetia, gardens existed
to produce fruits, vegetables and medicinal herbs for monks and nobles.
 Île de la Cité had a walled garden located at the southern point of the royal
palace. It is one of two remaining natural islands in the Seine within the
city of Paris. It is the center of Paris and the location where the medieval
city was re-founded.
 HISTORY

King Charles VIII and his nobles brought the Renaissance garden style from
Italy after the unsuccessful Italian War (1494-1498)
The new French Renaissance gardens, designed by imported Italian gardeners,
landscape architects, and fountain-makers illustrated the Renaissance ideals
of measure and proportion.

The First examples were the gardens of the

Royal Château d’Amboise (1496),  
Château de Blois (c. 1500), 
Château de Fontainebleau (1528), and 
Château de Chenonceau (1521)
 Features of French Renaissance Garden

• geometric planting beds

• plants in pots
• paths of gravel and sand
• Terraces
• stairways and ramps
• canals, cascades and monumental fountains
• labyrinths and statues of mythological figures
• a view of the whole garden
Royal Château d’Amboise
 Royal Château d’Amboise

The gardens are compact, limited in size by the size of the rock platform on which they
have been created. They were first to be laid out in what is now considered to be 'the
Formal French Style.'
Royal Château d’Amboise
 Royal Château d’Amboise

On the slopes at the end of garden, topiary with hundreds of perfectly pruned buxus
globes.
 HISTORY

 The first royal garden of the Renaissance in Paris was the Jardin des
Tuileries, created for Catherine de’ Medici in 1564 to the west of her new
Tuileries Palace, inspired by the Boboli Gardens of her native Florence.

 French Formal Garden , or Jardin a la francaise, was envisioned by Louis

XIV, in the late 1600s, in his grand scheme for France which replaced the
Renaissance Style garden. It is more formal and geometric, and symbol of
the dominance of the King over nature. The most famous example are the
Gardens of Versailles.
Garden of Versailles
Garden of Versailles
Garden of Versailles
 HISTORY

 In 1853, Baron Georges-Eugene Haussmann (1809–1891) was appointed

Prefect of the Seine (city manager) by Napoleon III.
 He implemented the emperor’s plan for modernizing the city of Paris,
which involved
 upgrading the existing infrastructure and
 adding new tree-lined boulevards, road junctions, green squares, and
parks

 Prior to Haussmann, Paris had only four public parks:

 The Jardin des Tuileries
 the Jardin du Luxembourg, and
 the Palais Royal,
 the Jardin des Plantes, the city's botanical garden and oldest park.
 HISTORY

  Napoleon III had began

construction of the Bois de
Boulogne, and wanted to
build more new parks and
gardens for the recreation
and relaxation of the
Parisians, particularly those
in the new neighborhoods
of the expanding city.
 Napoleon III's new parks
were inspired by his
memories of the parks in
London, especially Hyde
Park, but he wanted to
build on a much larger
scale. 
 HISTORY

 Haussmann’s plan keyed public

parks to the city’s geography:
 Bois de Boulogne to the
west,
 Bois de Vincennes to the
east,
 Parc des Buttes-Chaumont to
the north, and
 Parc Montsouris to the
south.

BOIS DE BOULOGNE: A naturalistic,

English-style landscape replaced the
formality of the 18th-century Baroque
design.
Bois de Boulogne
Bois de Boulogne
 Bois de Boulogne

Bagatelle Rose Garden

 FRENCH GARDENS - FEATURES

 French gardens are the formal gardens.

 A symmetrical garden laid out on an axis & projecting as strong geometric
form & feeling in its hard & soft landscape elements.
 They are basically on high scale.
 The elements of landscape is very much similar to Italian gardens.
 Another important aspect of these gardens was water.
 FEATURES

 FOUNTAINS: A man made spring of water often emerging from a jet, used
for drinking or amenity.
 GROVE:A small grouping of trees.
 BOSQUETS:A cluster or clump of trees or shrubs.
 GAZEBOS:A covered &often elevated open air pavilion with a view,often
found in parks or squares.These are used for public & private functions &
are made of cast iron.
 PAVILIONS:A fancy tent,especially erected for celebrations.
 FEATURES

 MOAT:A ditch full of water traditionally used as a landscape hazard.

 CHATEAU:A country estate or castle
 GROTTO:A natural or manmade cave
 CASCADES:A small scale waterfall or series of rushing water.
 CHARMILLE:A formal french clipped hedge of hornbeans or other trees.
 ALLE’E:A shady lane or road with lines of overhanging trees on either
side.
A narrow clearly bordered passageway.
 TOPIARY:This term is used for evergreen shrubs or trees for unnatural or
purely geometric shapes.
Eg-shapes of some animals,monument.
 17TH CENTURY FRENCH GARDENS

 In the 17th century French gardens were constructed in a style that

emphasized the control and manipulation of nature.
 Nature was apparent in two very popular aspects of French gardens:
aviaries, and fountains.
 The inclusion of these aspects in private gardens was a statement of wealth,
as well as an easy was to entertain guests.
 The bird's cages were covered with branches so that visitors could be
entertained.
 Another very important aspect of French gardens was water.
 The French garden was the formal subordination of nature.
17TH CENTURY FRENCH GARDENS
 17TH CENTURY FRENCH GARDENS

 Architects could alter the flow of water and manipulate it in the form of
fountains and pools.

 Water always maintained a certain level of freedom with the light and
images it reflected.

 These reflections also played into the idea of French gardens as a step out
of reality and into an almost dream-like atmosphere.
 18TH CENTURY FRENCH GARDENS

 In the 18th century

England gave birth to a
style of gardens that
focused on the
rediscovery of nature.
 In this century, the style
of French gardens began
to change towards a, more
natural view.
This picture shows the plan
for Petit Trianon during the
18th century.
Here the paths wind around
numerous free-formed
gardens.
 18TH CENTURY FRENCH GARDENS

 The long, winding pathways surrounded by gardens and acres of natural

lands, seen in the plan ,allowed visitors to escape into the peacefulness of the
countryside.
 All sense of geometry and organization is gone, and is replaced with a very
relaxed, natural setting.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 17TH AND 18TH
CENTURY FRENCH GARDENS

During the 17th century this The same mansion having

clearly shows the traditional undergone a make-over to
geometric rigidity of the suit the free style of the 18th
period. century.
 19TH CENTURY FRENCH GARDENS

In the 19th century, gardens had reached their peak in the daily life of the
bourgeoisie (the capitalist, middle class).

It provide visitors an interesting path on which to walk, the appearance of free-
formed nature and the addition of flowers.

In the 19th century flowers were not the main focus of the garden.

Flowering trees and bushes would be present, but there was no emphasis on
flowerbeds.

This provided the final touch needed to make strolling through a garden the
ultimate relaxation and enjoyment.
 19TH CENTURY FRENCH GARDENS

A standard 19th century flowering garden. The idea of flowerbeds was relatively
unexplored until this time.