What is Modernist Garden Style?

If you're into sleek, uncluttered design that emphasizes hardscapes and limits planting, Modernist style may be for you. Get to know it, here.

Excerpted from Garden Design
Filed under: Modern

Bamboo Screen Contained in Cubes Provides Privacy

Modernist gardens celebrate elegant leisure space where outdoor life can be enjoyed; they view planting as only one element of the whole composition, not the main reason for the garden's creation. Hardscapes are emphasized, in horizontal expanses of wood, stone and concrete, often complemented by water. Clipped hedges, specimen trees and large blocks of planting provide simple, sculptural surfaces or screens. The Modernist approach flourishes in temperate climates, where the garden can be used as an outdoor room.

Modernist Style in Detail

Crisp and clean, Modernist designs suit gardens of any size, and can provide welcome relief from crowded cities and hectic lifestyles. Modernist style relies on scale, proportion and open space to create drama in a deliberately sparse atmosphere. These gardens offer the perfect setting for outdoor living.

Most Modernist gardens are based on a geometric layout, with the horizontal lines of rectangles providing a sense of movement. The vertical lines of trees, hedges or walls provide balancing contrast.

Materials are selected for their surface qualities — decking, polished concrete, limestone and gravel make surfaces seem to expand, and they are often punctuated by reflective water or specimen trees. Fine lawns, clipped hedges and simple planting are typical of most Modernist gardens, although there's no reason not to use a more complex palette if it fits the desingn.

Key Element: Asymmetry

Although Modernist design may be guided by a central visual line, it is used as a subtle guide rather than a dominant feature. Rectangles of lawn, water, paving or planting interlock irregularly to create sharply defined but irregular patterns.

Blocks of Lawn, Water, Paving or Plants Interlock

Modern Materials

The clean lines of steel, concrete, glass and wood emphasize the precision of the design. Lighting, whether natural or installed, is used to enhance the surfaces.