CRISTINA CASTEL-BRANCO is a practicing landscape architect and professor of landscape architecture at the University of Lisbon. As a Fulbright–ITT Fellow, she received an MLA from the University of Massachusetts followed by a PhD with a focus on garden history. She has published widely on landscape architecture and history, restoration, and ecological design. She has served as President of the Board and founder of the Historic Gardens Association, the Botanical Garden of Ajuda, and is a unesco-icomos Cultural Landscapes Advisor. Since 1990, she has run the ACB Studio, a prize-winning professional practice in Lisbon. She was named an Officier des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 2015 and received the Japanese Praise of Merit in 2020.
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Word, Image, GARDEN TRANSMISSIONS Experience, Future
GARDEN TRANSMISSIONS: WORD, IMAGE, EXPERIENCE, FUTURE examines the ways in which the exchange of garden forms, designs, technologies, and styles created a global garden culture at the intersection of nature and cultural expression from the early modern age to the present. Europe, at the center of this global exchange, drew inspiration from Islamic and Chinese garden traditions and benefitted from the traffic of botanical novelties from the Americas. In turn, European models were successfully exported to other parts of the world and adapted to other landscapes, environments, and climates. The appropriation of new design ideas, methods, and trends resulted in new garden types and invigorated earlier approaches to horticulture. These garden transmissions—effected through the exchange of writing and images as well as direct contact between cultures—provided the tools for fruitful cross-pollination of knowledge and skills as a mode of mediation between humans and nature.
GARDEN TRANSMISSIONS
Word, Image, Experience, Future Edited by cristina castel-branco
This volume’s jacket illustrations are by Watanuki Hirosuke (1926–2021), a Japanese artist who lived in Portugal and Spain between 1956 and 1966 and whose art fused elements of Eastern and Western cultures. His later paintings incorporated poems and other texts, including some by ancient Asian philosophers.
Front cover: The reflection of the garden I love to dip my hands in the garden’s spring water Perfume is in the air, my hands seem green Ripples on the water slowly slide Fishes startled and hide in the darkness of the ponds’ depth. Sitting on the sand at the far end of the garden I try to scoop the floating petals. Difficult it is to catch a reflection. Translation by Lamyaa Kanai (Japanese-English) and Yuko Kase (Japanese-Portuguese)
Back cover: The invisible road The great path lies right in front of us, but seeing it is not easy. Written by the Chinese Zen master Xuedou Zhongxian (雪竇重顕) during the Tang Dynasty and adapted by Watanuki. The original phrase in Chinese is found in many Zen texts and is commonly translated into English as “The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.” Source: Muhouan Sohkei Inc.
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