DryStoneGarden

The Tree Museum by Enzo Enea

While I’m posting about the value of trees, here is someone who really values his trees. Swiss landscape architect and tree collector Enzo Enea has created what he calls a tree museum for his collection. Explains Enea:

“This is a collection of trees I’ve gathered over a span of about 20 years. They come from construction sites; they would have been cut down to make way for new buildings. I needed to build a space to display them all and I wanted the trees to be seen as objects, so I set them off against sandstone.”

Inhabitat has details of the museum, World Landscape Architect has a video interview, and Arch Daily has photos of many of the trees. It reminds me of the work of Myoung Ho Lee, who makes photos of trees with a giant canvas hanging behind them. Lee’s work showed up on various blogs last year, including DryStoneGarden; the tree museum seems to be getting a similar, well-deserved run. Some of the trees are very cool, including one that is full of staples from decades of serving as the town bulletin board.

I really like the combination of the walls and stone, and if I lived just a little closer to Zurich, I’d go check it out. There are few things in the world better than a tree with a backdrop that showcases its character.

The Tree Museum by Enzo Enea

Tree #8 by Myoung Ho Lee

If you ever wondered about the term ‘specimen tree,’ this is it. The photo is done as art, but it might as well be for a class on garden design. This is the affect you want when you plant a Japanese Maple.

The photo is from an art exhibition called “TREE,” by Korean artist Myoung Ho Lee. There is a slideshow at Lens Culture and an interview at The Morning News. He uses a cherry picker, out of sight behind everything, to hang a giant canvas, and he has some big ideas when he does it — “seeing trees in a refreshing way or restoring the value of trees is to awaken all beings on earth in my work.” It’s probably best not to quibble with anyone who aims to awaken all beings on earth and who creates images this cool in the process.