The exhibition Garden Futures, Designing with Nature, held at the Vitra Design Museum (Weil am Rhein) from 25 March to 3 October 2023, is being renewed with four new venues at the Design Museum Helsinki and Museum of Finnish Architecture in Helsinki, from 10 November 2023 to 31 March 2024; at the Vandalorum in Värnamo, Sweden, from 23 April 2024 to 13 October 2024; at the Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, from 15 November 2024 to March 2025; and at the V&A Dundee in Dundee, UK, from April 2025 to December 2025.
The exhibition explores how every garden bears the marks of social and historical developments, political and commercial interests, and cultural value systems: wherever man sets out in a piece of nature to create a garden, its layout and design reveal much about the way he relates to nature, both as an individual and as a society. This is demonstrated by the works of various artists and architects. They show the garden as an idealised space that pervades our everyday life and imagination, a place where immediate practical function and deep symbolic, philosophical or even religious meaning are easily compatible.
The final section of the exhibition examines contemporary projects that address the integration of greenery and the city, including the Bosco Verticale in Milan, designed by Boeri Studio. In an era of climate crisis, threatened biodiversity and social isolation, greenery offers a place to reimagine the future and develop solutions – a place of healing, spirituality and learning. In the age of the Anthropocene – this is the message of these and similar projects – the entire planet emerges as a garden that we must cultivate, care for and use responsibly.
For more information: https://www.design-museum.de/en/exhibitions/detailpages/garden-futures.html