Gardens through Stained Glass

 

Kristin Newton. Calligraphy beyond words. 1976. Artist's collection.

As I mentioned in my first post "Inbuilt Landscape," a garden is not an ornament of the house. I intend to strengthen here the dialectics between inside and outside, without forcing the geometries, but having a fluid space where the garden or landscape participates of the house interior space as well, bringing home, wilderness, the sacred, and cultivation evolving together.

 A conceptual primary idea can be found in my previous post about arts incorporated to landscape, where the artist is working on a plastic film held by two pine trees. The spatiality of the painting becomes part of the landscape behind and around.

As an architect I see both exterior and interior as integrated spaces. And one way to enhance the house and garden connection is the use of stained glass as translucent pieces of art in between.

I am sharing here some beautiful stained glass art next to the landscape, all my pictures have been taken from the book "New Glass. Stained Glass for the Age of Handmade Houses", by Otto B. Rigan with photographs by Charles Frizzell. New York Edition, 1976.

Paul Marioni. Homage to Chicken Little. This window is located in Paul's kitchen. The sky is cracked glass. It is a beautiful twilight, regardless the stain glass theme.

Peter Mollica. An architect's office at home. California, 1973. Note the scale of the window on the left, it is designed for the seating architect. Also see the organic design and the reflection of the stained glass on the wall. 

Terry Markarian. Autonomous hanging panel. I like the motif as a sun above, or even a sunset.

Ed Carpenter. Portland residence. This is the view of the window from the backyard. See how the pond edge continues up to the wall surrounding the window. Even in a different material, the continuity is obvious in the water that becomes the glass. I would have avoided the horizontal frame though, to emphasize the water concept.

Ed Carpenter. Untitled autonomous panel, 1976. Private collection, Portland, Oregon. I see it as a bright geometrical idea, the straight vertical lines of the bamboos behind and the circle above, closing the composition. Of course I am seeing it as only one single art composition, panel plus nature.