Best parks authorship André Le Nôtre

March 12, 1613 was born André Le Nôtre – the greatest landscaper, leaving several dozen magnificent parks. Today we will talk about three of his best works.

Park at Vaux-le-Vicomte

With the first masterpiece of André Le Nôtre, who made it a favorite landscape architect ambitious Louis XIV, linked tragicomic story. The palace, built near Milena for Finance Minister Nicolas Fouquet in appearance looked more like a medieval fortification, surrounded by moat. But the park, on which the creative trio bother with the letter “L” – Le Nôtre, the Left and Lebrun – became the first representative of lush gardens in the Baroque style.

In order to build a bright flower beds, if associated with lace, water parterres, wide channels with caves and cascading fountains were destroyed three surrounding villages, shifted the riverbed and cut down hundreds of acres of forest. Green “light”, the castle is surrounded by air, made Palace Fouquet vacation destination and meeting the iconic figures of the 17th century: here there were Moliere, La Fontaine, Lully, and of course, Louis XIV. Numb from unheard Minister for simple luxury, angry monarch deprived upstart Fouquet and fasting, and the castle with a marvelous park, and sentenced to life imprisonment the poor guy in the castle Pignerol. Talented team of architects and builders much more fortunate – they had to work on the gardens of Versailles. Today the castle of Vaux-le-Vicomte – a museum, open from 10 am to 6 pm during the warm season (from mid-March to mid-November).

Gardens of Versailles

Magnificent palace of the Sun King, surrounded by gardens with unprecedented beauty, was the peak of the career of André Le Nôtre and role model for the richest monarchs in the world. Creating a green corner of Versailles, first is a small hunting lodge, lost among the forests and swamps, has become the most ambitious project of the century: prolonged half a century, it was worth a quarter of a million French louis. Breakdown AONB became fixed idea for Le Nôtre: every day he was chasing an unattainable perfection, realizing more and more new architectural ideas. Thrown his town house, he settled on the territory of the gardens of Versailles, leading to endless discussions with the king about how to achieve the ideal. But the result is worth the effort: a huge park spanning 6,600 acres and Flawless, became a style icon and one of the main attractions of France.

Gardens of Versailles

Versailles Gardens – a real green city, cut into pieces with wide streets, alleys and small alleys channels. For every green lawn or flower bed, a new architectural wonder: whether water or fountain Theatre “Pyramid”.

Tuileries Park

Their golden hands and brilliant mind of André Le Nôtre and put to popular among residents and visitors to Paris a place of rest, stretching along the right bank of the Seine. Until the 17th century the Tuileries Gardens, created a century earlier at the behest of Catherine de Medici, was a shining example of Italian Mannerism. Le Nôtre, remembering stories of his father, who worked as a gardener in the large garden of the Tuileries, and armed with a chronicle of the “Garden of Joy” written Mollier in 1651, designed the green area on the newfangled trends Versailles.

Tuileries Park

Baroque regular park parterre beds and got two swimming pools, and is divided into three brackets: large square, decorated floral ornament, area, forested, and octagonal pool. Landscape designer figured out all the little nuances that even skyline perfectly fit into Parisian ensemble, leading from the Louvre to the Arch of La Defense. Yet this creation was not destined to be the pride of Andre: at the time of his death in 1700 replaced the regular style of Chinese and English gardens, the Tuileries was abandoned due to lack of funding. Now Parisian park again at the peak of popularity: here are the gallery Jeu de Paume and the Orangerie Museum. Tuileries welcomes guests from 7.30 am to 19.30 weekends and holidays.