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BETWEEN BLUE & GREEN

CHAUMONT SUR LOIRE, FRANCE

Date: 2005
Client: Domaine de Chaumont
Area: 80m2
Status: Competition Entry

Wandering, playing hide and seek, swinging high up. Climbing up a tree house… One does not simply play in this garden; one gets taken in, immersed. The garden is active and playful. It invites us and offers hiding places and surprises. As Alice in Wonderland falling down the endless tunnel, one would experience effects of scale, a distortion of time, and a loss of references. The garden is a green maze of large leafed spectacular plants: gunnera, tetrapax, astilboides. One is lost within a dense green mass. A small irregular path wanders through. The horizon is obstructed, close, green and dense. We are immersed. A small voice whispers in our ear: 1,2,3 here I come… It is an invitation to play hide and seek.
We are within.
Lifting our heads… High swings stand out from the green mass, high colored poles. Their swinging paths cross in a light ballet on top of the garden. We call each other from a distance, we appear and disappear.
We swing from blue to green between two horizons: one lush, green and closed, the other blue, open to the sky.
We are in between.
Watch-towers above the green, high treehouses way above the garden accessible using ladders, our gaze embraces the open horizon.
We are above.