A breakthrough in landscape design: from traditional garden of ancient despots to the avant-garde "garden of Cubism"

Abstract

The article traces the process of moving away from traditional landscaping with millennial traditions to the revolutionary breakthrough of the 1920s, based on the views of the avant-garde and Cubism. One of the oldest traditional examples is the Chinese Garden, whose principles have been developed and refined over the millennia. In the Chinese garden and the natural environment in general, architecture played a secondary role, only emphasizing the beauty of the landscapes. It was the natural environment that dictated appearance of small architectural forms – pavilions and arbours, their sizes, silhouettes and colouristic solution. The maximum conservation of natural landscapes without human intervention was aimed at the so-called landscape English garden. Instead, the French garden was aimed at improving the natural environment of man, that is, the parks are provided with regular planning, the introduction of green with molded crowns, flower beds with a complex pattern, widely used included in the regular composition fountains. All of these techniques were discarded in the early twentieth century, when, in parallel with the revolutionary changes in urban planning and architecture, there were dramatic changes in landscape design. In the so-called “garden of Cubismˮ of the period of constructivism-avant-garde, the natural environment no longer plays a major role, such a role is taken over by architecture and sculptural forms, and the garden is actually transformed into an installation.