Reford Gardens / The International Garden Festival announces the designers for its 16th edition
The International Garden Festival announced the names of the designers selected by the jury for the 16th edition of the Festival presented at the Jardins de Métis / Reford Gardens from June 26 to September 27, 2015. The competition attracted 309 proposals for contemporary gardens submitted by over 700 architects, landscape architects, designers and artists from 34 countries.
“Buzz” is the operative word guiding the 2015 Garden Festival with new creations by designers from Canada, France and Israel. The installations selected by the jury have a special energy and connection to the natural world. The temporary gardens have a degree of interactivity that encourages visitors to enter with enthusiasm. The goal is to intrigue visitors with the unusual or to impress by new ways of presenting what is common.
The new gardens selected for the 2015 edition are:
• Around-About by Talmon Biran architecture studio [Roy Talmon, architect & Noa Biran, architect], Tel Aviv, Israel.
• Carré bleu sur fond blanc by o.k. [Kihan Kim, landscape architect & Ophélie Bouvet, landscape architect], Paris, France.
• I like to move it by DIX NEUF CENT QUATRE VINGT SIX Architecture [Mathilde Gaudemet, architect & Arthur Ozenne, architect], Paris, France.
• Popple by Meaghan Hunter, landscape architect & Suzy Melo, landscape architect, Winnipeg (Manitoba) Canada.
• Se mouiller (la belle échappée) by Groupe A / Annexe U [Jean-François Laroche, architect, Rémi Morency, architect and urbanist, Erick Rivard, architect & Maxime Rousseau, architect], Québec (Québec) Canada.
• The Archipelago (An Atlas of Biomes) by Pedro Pitarch Alonso, architect, Madrid, Spain, received a special mention from the jury.
All of the 309 entries are exhibited on-line on the website of the Festival as part of the annual exhibition of competition entries.
The International Garden Festival
The International Garden Festival is the leading contemporary garden festival in North America. Since its inception in 2000, more than 150 gardens have been exhibited at Grand-Métis and as extra-mural projects in Canada and around the world.
Presented at Les Jardins de Métis, at the gateway to the Gaspé Peninsula, the Festival is held on a site adjacent to the historic gardens created by Elsie Reford, thereby establishing a bridge between history and modernity, and a dialogue between conservation, tradition and innovation. Each year the Festival exhibits conceptual gardens created by more than seventy architects, landscape architects and designers from various disciplines in a pristine environment on the banks of the St. Lawrence River.
About the Reford Gardens / Jardins de Métis
A National Historic Site and Québec heritage site, the Reford Gardens / Jardins de Métis are an obligatory stop for all those visiting eastern Québec. Cultural space and tourist destination for over 50 years, the Reford Gardens is one of the most popular attractions in the Gaspésie region, providing visitors with experiences for every sense. Located on the banks of the St. Lawrence and Mitis rivers, they were created between 1926 and 1958 by avid gardener and plant collector, Elsie Reford. Hydro-Québec has been the lead sponsor of the Reford Gardens since 1999.
The gardens will be open every day from May 30 to September 27, 2015. Children 13 and under are admitted free of charge.
