A garden for all seasons

The garden renowned Dutch Landscape Designer Piet Oudolf designed for the Vitra Campus in Germany is already in full bloom and welcoming visitors, thanks to its abundance of quickly-maturing perennial plants.

Located in Weil am Rhein, the 4,000 square-metre garden at the furniture company’s production site encompasses buildings designed by famous architects such as Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry and Renzo Piano.

Renowned Dutch Landscape Designer Piet Oudolf designed this garden for the Vitra Campus in Germany.

Oudolf’s landscaping, “complements the buildings and imbues them with new perspectives,” while also aiming to, “draw the visitor’s attention away from the buildings and down to the ground, creating a state of inspiring disorientation.”

Beginning as an architecture park in the 1980s, the landscape design was not considered in the first few decades of Vitra Campus’ development.

Today however, a series of winding gravel paths are complemented by over 30,000 plants including shrubs, ferns, grasses and herbaceous perennials.

The garden and its purposefully meandering walkways are designed to distract visitors from the buildings and, in the words of Oudolf, “lose themselves in the garden instead of just passing through it.”

The 4,000 square-metre garden at the furniture company’s production site surrounds buildings designed by renowned architects such as Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry and Renzo Piano.

Known for his naturalistic approach, Oudolf worked on Manhattan’s High Line, and plans carefully to give his landscapes a wild and untamed appearance.

To create balanced compositions, he builds a ‘community’ of plants with different flowering periods and life cycles, providing a lush experience year-round and accentuating decay as much as high-season phases.

Oudolf is known for his naturalistic approach.

The garden features two sculptures designed by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec in 2018. “Ring” is a circular bench under a cherry tree, while “Ruisseau” is a line of marble featuring a narrow channel filled with running water.

Planted in the spring of 2020 and designed to mature quickly, the garden is already established and welcoming visitors.