This spring, a new landscape created by West 8, a Dutch landscape architecture firm, will appear in Xian, China for the international horticultural expo. With its series of undulating bridges that will rise and fall into bamboo gardens, this poetic new garden is designed to perhaps convey the idea of life’s ups and downs, while also immersing visitors in nature.
Visitors will follow paths, stepping up and down the red bridges, which are set within a dense bamboo forest. Fast Company thinks it’s designed to confuse: “It’s designed so that you never know where you are or how far you’ve traveled; in other words, it’s supposed to make you feel lost.”
However, West 8 describes their conception of the landscape, which is far richer: “Gardens are telling stories; they are poetry and have a narrative. Our garden represents the human life, the path of people’s lifetime. This path is a path of uncertainty and burden. Many bridges over troubled water. The garden design takes this path of life as a meandering, winding road – continuous and like a labyrinth. The path through nature takes you over 10,000 bridges.”
Unlike West 8′s award-winning bridge project in Toronto, which was made out of wood, the new bridges will be concrete.
The International Horticulture Exhibition will be held in Xian from April 9 to October 9, 2011.
Image credit: West 8 / Fast Company
Very Cool!