Product Description

The secrets of plants that cling, grip, and climb, from the inventor of the vertical garden.

Patrick Blanc, an artist with a green thumb, has created dozens of his admired botanical tapestries in public and private spaces around the world, including the Marithé & François Girbaud boutique in Manhattan; the Jean Nouvel-designed Quai Branly Museum in Paris; the aquarium in Genoa; the Siam Paragon mall in Bangkok; and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan. In this luscious, oversize, all-color book, he explains how to create plant walls using more than one thousand plants, drawing on his observation of natural milieus, his technique of growing on vertical surfaces, his savoir faire, and his passion for plants.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #33456 in Books
• Published on: 2008-08-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

Review
Besides charm, Blanc infuses The Vertical Garden with generosity. He reveals his methods for creating vertical gardens, from building the armature…to his selection and arrangement of plant species….Blanc attempts a critical eye, elucidating the poetry of his work and his oeuvre’s prospects for changing architectural vocabulary. (David Sokol - GreenSource )

This book is fascinating….[T]here should be a vertical garden on every block of every city in the world. (Dominique Browning - The New York Times )

[A] must for anyone who wants to create a magnificent arrangement of plant life… (The Midwest Book Review )

[B]eautifully conveys and illustrates the fruits of Blanc’s lifelong passion. (Landscape Architecture Australia )

[D]ream-like constructions of a modern-day Henri Rousseau, whose single-minded botanical pursuit has become an art form. (The New York Times )

[E]xquisite….filled with gorgeous photos and plenty of practical insights, and is recommended both for general-interest libraries strong in home and garden design and for college-level art collections strong in architecture. (Bookwatch )

[O]f equal value and interest to the serious horticulturist and botanist, artist, landscape and garden designer, architect and engineer…beautifully produced. (BBC Gardens Illustrated )

About the Author
Patrick Blanc has been a scientist at CNRS (Centre National de Recherche Scientifique) since 1982; he won the French Society Award for Botany in 1993. He lives in Paris.

Customer Reviews

The green man's the dude
Saw him live. Funny man and a genius in his own rights. The book is a bit of a dry read and the design is disappointing. Not user friendly in regards to extract the "know how" to create your own vertical garden. If you're patient, it's content heavy. I would've liked more technical information on how to make it myself.

A must for anyone who wants to create a magnificent arrangement of plant life
A different type of garden, designed for an area where real estate is invaluable, "The Vertical Garden: The Nature of the City" is Patrick Blanc's look at these creations that can be created in almost any urban setting. To the city they bring a visually pleasing image in an area where people only ever see is asphalt and concrete. The gardens can range from any height, from half a story tall to slowly growing up the sides of skyscrapers. Covering the history and skills involved in creating such gardens, "The Vertical Garden" is a must for anyone who wants to create a magnificent arrangement of plant life and doesn't have much horizontal to work with.

Green growing buildngs
I viewed by chance the book "The Vertical Garden: From Nature to the City." I was stunned at the beauty of the buildings shown with entire green growing floors and growing plants creeping up the entire side of the building. Details of how to construct the ladder up which these plants grow and how they can receive water even during dry weather is simple yet profound. The effect of seeing these buildings, all over the world, is stunning. The concrete jungle can disappear and the increase in oxygen and decrease in carbon dioxide can be extremely affected with these techniques. Of course that is to say nothing about the beauty of the building. The growing plants up the side of a building or throughout an entire floor or even roof top has got to be the best idea for city dwellers and workers to breathe easier! Imagine a city covered in plants instead of cement!