Louis Benech: Twelve French Gardens
It wasn’t the garden designer Louis Benech’s idea to do a book on his work: How, Benech wonders, can one really get to know a garden without walking it? But fortunately for his admirers, next month’sLouis Benech: Twelve French Gardensoffers the chance to take an imaginary stroll through a handful of the designer’s projects, like a private estate designed around a babbling stream in Normandy, France, and the paved public garden at Square Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier in Paris.(New York Times Style Magazine, Summer Culture 2013)This is a volume you need to hold and leaf through the pages. Benech has designed more than 300 public and private gardens around the world, but the guy isn't a showboater. His work has great subtlety. Some gardens are more naturalistic, others are formal, depending on the architecture of the place. His gardens lie somewhere between modern and traditional, each well-suited to its site. All are about space, light and shadows, forms and shades of green. This is the book to curl up with and dream the winter away.(Valerie EastonThe Seattle Times, October 18, 2013)While I have little talent in the arena of landscape design, I can certainly recognize someone who does, so I was delighted to discover Louis Benech in the new book of his work,Twelve French Gardens. Whether you are an actual or armchair gardener, Louis Benech Twelve French Gardens is a volume you will enjoy reading as much as ogling.(Quintessence Lifestyle Blog, October 29, 2013)[The book] provides an excellent introduction to his work, which so deftly combines classic formal garden design with a more relaxed contemporary approach.(Gardenista Blog, October 11, 2013)