Forerunner and inspiration for contemporary landscape architecture: the avant-garde work of Swiss garden architect Ernst Cramer.
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In recent years, the discipline of landscape architecture has repositioned itself between ecological and artistic design, and as a result, landscape architects have been searching for leading figures to provide new focus and inspiration. One of these figures is Ernst Cramer.
Ernst Cramer who died in 1980, was the most fascinating character on the Swiss garden architecture scene and ranked among the best known European landscape architects. Active in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, he worked in close cooperation with architects and artists, leading garden design from romantic images of nature to more abstract forms, paving the way for the subsequent orientation towards modern art and architectural forms.
With his provocative exhibition gardens, which include the Poet's Garden in Zurich and the Theatre Garden in Hamburg, Cramer prompted international controversy not least in the USA where his work was honoured by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. However, most of his 1400 projects were private gardens and urban spaces commissioned by well-known companies and private individuals of the time and can be found in Switzerland, Germany, Italy and the Middle East.
In this volume, author of the best-selling publication Between Landscape Architecture and Land Art, Udo Weilacher, investigates the groundbreaking work of Ernst Cramer. Using previously unpublished material and illustrations, he reveals the full scope of visionary genius behind this designer of garden architecture.
Reviews
«Cramer's development is traced by Udo Weilacher in his book Visionary Gardens, (...) from domestic gardens to the search for beautiful forms and the concept of the landscape as sculptural space. Numerous projects are documented and placed in the context of international developments. Weilacher dedicated this book to the memory of another great Swiss landscape architect, Dieter Kienast, whose projects, influenced by Cramer's, serve as important examples for contempory architecture themselves.»publiarq.com