Oriented on making people closer

Every day on the Internet you can see new interesting places on the planet, making visual journeys around the world, marveling at the natural diversity and admiring the talent of people who managed to turn this diversity into an amazing sight. So this time, we at ORIENT could not pass by one amazing landscape project and want to share with readers the wonderful views and wonderful ideas that the authors and their partners came up with and implemented in the French city of Eretra.

This project is not only the main tourist attraction of the French Channel region, but also the winner of the prestigious European Garden Award 2019 in the category "Best restoration of a historic garden".

The park opened in May 2017 and has already received hundreds of thousands of visitors, becoming the most visited attraction of these places. Hundreds of tourists come here every year to see the unique landscape solutions with a lot of visual tricks and take pictures against the backdrop of giant rubber heads dozing on green pillows.

By the way, they have an amazing property - you pass, turn around and see that the expression on the frozen face has changed. You try again - and here again. Futuristic whirlpool hedges and sheared rock trees create an alluring vista.

The garden at Etretat is the work of Russian landscape architect Alexander Grivko. The art director of landscape company IL Nature moved to France a few years ago.

“We had been eyeing this villa in Etretat for a long time and rushed in as soon as we heard it was for sale,” he says. “With the exception of a few pines, beeches and a maple grove, the site was almost bare, but its unique location and topography had great potential. The natural landscape of Etretat is under the protection of UNESCO, so it was necessary to coordinate not only the repair of the facade, but also every tree. However, as soon as the authorities learned that the park would be open to the public and host annual land art festivals, the project was given the green light.”

The villa was built in 1905, at the same time it was named "Roksolana" - in honor of the star role of the French actress Madame Thibaut, the first mistress of the house. In preparation for the role, she grew rare varieties of orchids, symbolizing the concubines in the harem of Sultan Suleiman, where each "concubine flower" expressed a special beauty and character.

“The creation of a two-hectare park took a record time - less than a year and a half,” Alexander continues. — We have restored all varieties of orchids that Madame Thibault grew. And they suddenly faced the problem of selecting plants to create large-scale sculptural forms in that part of the park that overlooks the ocean. Although the temperature in Normandy rarely drops below zero, the sea salt carried by the ocean destroys everything except the varieties we have selected.

The Gardens of Étretat are futuristic living sculptures, streamlined forms of which are borrowed from nature itself. According to the idea of the project, on one site the beauty of the entire coast of Etretat, its mysterious underwater world, stone arches protruding from the water, the famous alabaster coast, are glorified. Thematic areas move from one to another.

Plants turn into rocks and merge with the shoreline of the horizon, while the modern art collection complementing the idea of a garden opens up new meanings and ways of perceiving the world around. Alexander Grivko created a fantasy world, a wonderland, where no one will find it strange that if you turn the key in a tree, music will play.

The key in the trunk is a real music box implanted in a tree. The work was done by a group of London-based artists Gray World and is called Clockwork Forest.

This part of the park is called "Emotions and the bottom of the ocean." The relief in the form of scallop shells was created in honor of the famous oyster farm in Etretat since the 18th century. Evergreen boxwood and Japanese enkianthus were used.

Garden "Element" symbolizes the movement of the ocean, the ebb and flow. Waves and whirlpools are formed from angustifolia.

The wicker figure of Claude Monet is the work of Victor Schostalo. It was from this point that the famous artist painted “Sunset at Etretat”.

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Photo: mydecor.ru