Rooftop Gardens celebrates the convergence of landscape and architecture. Ranging from Antiquity to the present day, this exploration reveals the sense of poetry and romanticism that clients and designers breathed into each one of their creations. Popularised in the early 20th century with the use of reinforced concrete and the principles of Modernism, and evolving over time by virtue of technical, regulatory, and societal innovations, the rooftop garden has become a contemporary urban model in its own right. As climate challenges impact cities and architecture is being asked to meet the moment, in terms of both its form and function, the rooftop garden, whether the result of individual or political initiatives, has become an essential – and by now also a regulatory – tool for building a city.
To study, compare, and analyse this “fifth façade”, the architecture firm ChartierDalix and the landscape architecture studio serp have selected 19 European buildings, some of which are well-known historical treasures, some less famous, ranging from the Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii to Hundertwasser’s building in Vienna, by way of the brothers Perret’s apartment building on Rue Franklin in Paris. The architects used surveys, site visits, and archival documents to redraw and analyse each building and its garden, whether it was built for a single family, an individual, or a collective. This volume is dedicated to all those who seek to reconcile architecture and the living world.
