Post-Modern – Sustainable garden, 1970s-1980s
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Fig. 65 |
This is a reaction by a small number of designers to the perceived sterility and intellectualism of Modern design, and not a widespread trend. These homes and gardens are very individual and difficult to describe in general terms. There is an attempt to add site, historic or cultural references, with ideas borrowed from the Beaux Arts style around 1900. Post-Modern architecture and landscape design is not as antiseptic as Modern architecture, and landscape designers include historic references, and eclectic materials that are its’ defining features (Pregill, 1993). Some Post-Modern gardens may be as intellectual as Modernist gardens, with the disadvantage that the visual is not decodable without a textual explanation.
Interesting materials used include mirrored glass, and colored plastic walls (ideas borrowed from Abstract and Art Deco gardens). The use of historic reference in these gardens can feel familiar, disjointed, or a simple recycling of classical design. An interesting option for the Midwest garden is creating a prairie look with a variety of native grasses, and wildflowers. Native trees in this setting could include oak, hickory, sugar maple and basswood.
