–snip–Another major project is the 10-hectare Aga Khan Museum + Ismaili Center in Toronto. The 10,000-square meter rectangular museum will revolve around a central courtyard. Your landscape will then bring together the museum with the new center. What guidance has The Aga Khan given you for the design of the landscape? How will you design the landscape to reflect Islamic art and culture?
His Highness The Aga Khan has been a major influence on me personally ever since he sent me on a world tour of historic places, from the Humayun Tombs and Fatipur Sikri in India, to ancient public spaces and mosques in Egypt, terminating with the truly timeless gardens at Al Hambra in Spain. The one thing that struck me following that is that projects we design should be planned for generations to come and not only to satisfy temporary programs and ambitions.
Our vision for the project is one that captures the essence of the Islamic garden and translates it into an expression that reflects its context and contemporary age. Embracing the five senses as the means to reach the soul, every space and garden are imbued with the delicate sensations that we seem to have lost in this fast-paced era. The ephemeral and the eternal are both essential to our composition of spaces. Shadows, light, petals, leaves and water in motion are complemented by the solidity and purity of created forms. All is not at once apparent; the garden reveals itself slowly to the visitor, who experiences hidden aspects with serendipity, a sort of search for the contemporary garden of paradise.
via Interview with Vladimir Djurovic on His Poetic Cultural Landscapes « The Dirt.
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