Bilbao Jardín 2009

Photos via Iwan Baan

Breathtaking garden by Diana Balmori of New York based Balmori Associates, entered in the 2009 Bilbao Jardín competition.

Photos via Iwan Baan

The design is an undulating vegetated strip of core ten that sprawls up and down an imposing and perhaps otherwise bare set of stairs. From the designer:

"The garden climbs the stairs, running in undulating lines of different textures and colors. Envisioned as a dynamic urban space; it moves in time and with the seasons. Its lush planting cascades down as though the garden was flowing or melting, bleeding the colors into each other. In one gesture, it narrates a story of landscape taking over and expanding over the Public Space and Architecture, therefore transforming the way that the stairs and the space is perceived and read by the user. It is a garden of contrasts: the contrast between native and exotic plants, between the red flowers and the green grass, between the green grass and the grey paving. In form, the garden engages the horizontal plaza with the rising vertical plane of the steps and the upright gesture of Eduardo Chillida’s sculpture. Like the famous Spanish Steps in Rome, the garden is not only designed for visitors to ascend and descend, but for them to linger, and just be."

Photos via Iwan Baan