EUROPEAN GARDEN AWARD 2015
The 6th Award Ceremony of the European Garden Award by the Schloss Dyck Foundation and the European Garden Heritage Network - EGHN was held in Hamburg on 4th September 2015
In the category of Contemporary Park or Garden:
Bosco della Ragnaia, San Giovanni d’Asso, near Siena, Italy (Finalist)
Is it a garden? Not in the English sense of the word, as it is not a place full of flowers. Is it a landscape? Yes, partly, but it requires more detailed, close-up attention than landscapes usually demand. It is certainly the product of a human ‘interfering’ with nature for the sake of meaning, and perhaps beauty, and therefore it must be a horticultural work of art.
The “Bosco della Ragnaia” is a woodland park and garden created by the American artist Sheppard Craige at San Giovanni d’Asso, a small town near Siena, Italy. Although some parts may appear ancient, the park is a contemporary work that began in 1996 and continues today.
The site is divided into two complementary parts – the shady woodland where it has been necessary to thin the trees before planting some formal hedges and adding some manufactured objects, and the open field, full of light, where Sheppard has been able to start construction and planting from scratch. In the wood, like a sculptor chipping away at a block of marble to reveal the chosen form, he has been removing the scrub so that the great evergreen oaks are revealed; in the field he has worked like a modeller, adding piece by piece.
The wood, which now seems well-established, if not finished, is set in a steep-sided valley, and as the visitor looks down, the colours, lit by the shifting light filtering through the canopy, are all green and brown – moss, evergreen hedges, fallen leaves of oaks, the fresh leaves of spring, an occasional glint of water. The descent is steep. Under tall oaks one may find many inscriptions that gather moss while waiting to be noticed by a visitor. Some will be familiar, others enigmatic, while yet others merely express Sheppard’s sense of whimsy.
Notable built features include: an Altar to Scepticism, the Center of the Universe, and an Oracle of Yourself.
The Bosco does not offer a meaning, but is, on the contrary, open to all interpretations. Sheppard tells of a time long ago when the woods were ruled by sages. He repeats the sonorous question with which they concluded all their incantations: Se Non Qui, Dove? (If Not Here, Where?)’
The mysterious woodland takes its name from the ‘ragnaia’, the nets in which birds were caught. The work that Sheppard has created similarly captures his visitors’ imagination. Like the garden at Little Sparta, created by Ian Hamilton Finlay, (one of the great influences on this garden) this is a highly original and challenging art work.
