A modern take on a walled garden?
Surrounding walls. Flowering borders. Pergola. Strategically placed benches. All are components of an old-fashioned English walled garden.
As they are in the garden in the above photo. Which can, on the face of it, hardly be described as old-fashioned. Nor particularly English-looking. Mind you, the latter might be explained by the fact that it’s situated in Sweden. Gothenburg to be more specific.
In this case, the walls are not as high as they would have been in a classical example. And they consist of massive greyish granite slabs rather than redish brick. The borders do, however, dazzle with obligatory roses and lavender. Although the pergola is a tad difficult to spot towards the back of the photo, it’s most definitely there. But rather than having been constructed in traditional wood material, it’s made out of steel.
Needless to say the ultra modern apartment block adjacent to the garden is not the backdrop one would expect to see next to a traditional walled garden.
Differences aside, however – there are too many similarities here to be a coincidence. At least the way I see it. Sweden may be a country 1000% dedicated to modernism (read functionalism), but this particular garden is certainly not without references to the traditional.
