Piet Oudolf, the Dutch garden artist who changed the face of New York changed, is best known in the Netherlands as an ennobled plant book author. After many big cities worldwide, Rotterdam is the first city in the Netherlands to have a public garden designed by the now 69-year-old designer. And it immediately becomes clear what we have been missing in our 'public green space' for all these years. Quite right, then, that Oudolf received the Prince Bernhard Culture Fund Prize gets awarded.
Last weekend Oudolf was a guest at The New Institute in Rotterdam, better known as the Nai. The occasion was a day the Friends of NI organised around his now mature gardens on the banks of Rotterdam's Nieuwe Maas river. Oudolf's gardens grow quickly, because there are no trees or shrubs. This is because he finds trees and shrubs, the traditional material of all great garden artists of the past, difficult.
Are many parks in the Netherlands still in the English landscape style of the late 19th century park designer Zocher, such as the Utrecht Singels, The Vondelpark and the Park near the Euromast in Rotterdam, in Chicago and New York are now all doing it with Oudolf's waving grass work. In fact, those soft shapes turn out to go very well with the hard lines of the modern big city.
The landscaper explained how difficult it was for this location to develop something in Rotterdam. After all, the population of the Maas city was not at all waiting for a sweet little park by the river. After all, the quays still breathed the atmosphere of formerly, when handcarts, steam engines, huge ships and floating derricks dominated the scene. And true Rotterdammers have fuel oil in their veins, where others have blood flowing. They like stench and noise.
So the overs had to remain tough, according to the Rotterdammers, and Oudolf could do with that. After all, grass can be very tough. After a walk from the Nai, through the Museum Park that, according to one of the followers, "Still didn't want to succeed", the arrival at the Leuvehoofd was indeed a surprise. Especially for someone who had last consciously seen it when it was still a coach car park.
And anyone who might think that a lawn of grasses is simple is making the same mistake as the person who thinks his little daughter can also mess around abstractly very well. No plant is there 'just like that' and he notices neglect immediately. Oudolf is very strict about how his grass beds are maintained. And he comes at least once a year to check if things are going well. Even at his gardens in New York, Venice and Paris.
The Leuvehoofd is Oudolf's first but also only city park in the Netherlands. Those who want to see more of his work have to go abroad. Hopefully, this will change after 11 November.
English (UK) 
Nederlands 
Français 
