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For over 30 years, Jean Mus’ gardens have been inspired by the tangible sensuality of the Mediterranean and the ancient memories and customs of the land itself. He and his team approach landscapes with a strong classical discipline as regards the location, native plants and history.
No matter whether the brief is to create something extravagant or minimal, the result is a landscape that has integrity and looks as though it has always been there. Respecting existing landlines, the presence or absense of a water source and playing with the balance of light and shade, the outcome is always natural, undoctored and intrinsically imbued with his passion for nature and authenticity.
Larger than life with a natural exuberance deep at his core, Jean Mus takes the most delicate approach to each element and species, moulding native vegetation into a pattern and form that is always coherent and relevant. His desire is to share his love of scent and sensuality, of touch and colour to create settings that appeal across several dimensions. For one client he recreated memory of scent so that even with eyes closed, the client was transported back to his childhood.
Clearly, though, the skill in creating such visual verdant richness relies on the strict learnings of science, geography and ecology, and the knowledge and expertise of highly trained professionals in landscape architecture, surveying, project management, and civil and hydraulic engineering. Sciences aside, Jean Mus also has recourse to the inspiration and imagination of artists, painters, sculptors, scent-makers and lighting designers who use the landscape as a canvas to which they add their own imaginative sprinkling of gold-dust.
As one of the world’ s most important professions, landscape design and architecture is said to knit the fabrics of built environments. In the case of Jean Mus, his work is the seamless stitching of gardens and parks into the wider landscapes.“ As humble servants of nature,” he says,“ our work must ensure that gardens above all must live and prosper within the landscape and with the architecture.” Combining botany, horticulture, fine arts, architectural indsutral design, soil sciences, environmental psychology, geography and ecology, landscape architecture has its roots in ancient cultures from Persia and Egypt to Greece and Rome, where central courtyards created the balance between built and open spaces.
It was during the Renaissance that interest in gardens was revived, which gave rise to ornate villas and piazzas, and the great tradition of urban gardens in 17th century France. In this period figures of landscape architecture became widely recognised such as André le Nôtre, Capability Brown who rejected symmetrical formality in favour of natural forms, and Sir Humphry Repton.
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