A spectacular survey of site-specific works by contemporary landscape architects, designers, artists, sculptors and gardeners who have taken inspiration from the ancient landscapes of the Mediterranean region

With hundreds of exceptional photographs by award-winning photographer Clive Nichols, and drawing on thirty years of exploration by Louisa Jones, this book offers a fresh vision of the Mediterranean, linking gardens, landscape design, literature, art and architecture.

Creative talents from many contexts meet here, such as Gilles Clément and Andy Goldsworthy, Nicole de Vésian and Ian Hamilton Finlay, Arnaud Maurières and Eric Ossart, Mary Keen, herman de vries and Paolo Pejrone.

Today’s artists, designers, architects and gardeners explore vernacular materials, skills and sites to produce extraordinary landscape art that affirms an ideal of partnership with nature. Whether in France, Greece, Italy, Morocco or Spain, the logic of place is determined by climate, geology, flora and fauna, architecture and land use.

About the Authors:

Louisa Jones has lived in southern France for nearly forty years. She is the author of many books on gardens and landscape. She is the author of many books on gardens and landscape, including Kitchen Gardens of France, The French Country Garden, Reinventing the Garden and The Garden Visitor’s Companion. Clive Nichols is one of the world’s most successful flower and garden photographers, and in 2005 was voted Garden Photographer of the Year by the Garden Writers Guild.

Human beings have been transforming Mediterranean landscapes into art for at least 30,000 years. Millennia of human negotiations with the land prove that to "tread lightly" on the earth need not be at odds with our interface with nature.

Today's landscape architects, designers, land artists, sculptors, and gardeners are taking inspiration from age-old materials, skills, and sites to produce landscape designs and art that celebrate living in this multifaceted region. All involve a strongly graphic vision of the landscape; are site-generated; and observe the logic of place as determined by climate, geology, flora and fauna, architecture, and land use.

Contemporary landscape designers and land artists from Nicole de V‚sian to Fernando Caruncho, Heidi Gildemeister to Paolo Pejrone, Andy Goldsworthy to Gilles Cl‚ment, and Jacqueline Morabito to Ian Hamilton Finlay are featured.

Provence today is a paradise for garden makers, a natural haven where designers from all over the world mingle with homegrown family gardeners and local horticulturists. Few places have seen as many contemporary garden creations, in as wide a variety: from picturesque to minimalist, private to public, suburban plot to rural field, miniature landscape to vast environment. New Gardens in ProvenceV features 30 of the most extraordinary recent gardens in this remarkable region. Written by Louisa Jones, a specialist in Provencal food and culture and author of the now-classic Gardens in Provence, this breathtaking book visits new gardens along the Côte d’Azur, in Marseilles, Saint-Rémy, and Aix, and throughout the gorgeous countryside of southeastern France. Almost 300 stunning photographs take us behind the garden gate to experience the beauty of meadow and woodland tableaux, magnificent stone terracing, formal topiary arrangements, lush flowerbeds, and even a mountainside project by artist Andy Goldsworthy.

While these man-made landscapes may reflect international trends in garden design, they never lose their harmony with the countryside. As this beautiful book demonstrates, today’s gardens are not only a reflection of the region’s “sense of place,” but also an integral part of the Provencal art de vivre.