Arend Jan van der Horst

Arend Jan van der Horst (* 1943 in Barneveld , Veluwe ) is a Dutch landscape gardener.

Life

childhood

His parents were followers of the Arts and Crafts Movement , their house in Barneveld was designed in this style by the architect Hamdorf. The garden was based on a design by Mien Ruys . The parents were readers of the magazine "Onze Eigen Tuin" published by Ruys, purchased plants from the Moerheim nursery of Bonne Ruys and also visited the gardens of Mien Ruys there. Van der Horst grew up in Barneveld and worked in his parents' garden as a small child. He increased his pocket money by selling wreaths and dried plants from "his" garden. Van der Horst first attended the Juliana elementary school in Barneveld, when his mother had to observe that he was adopting the Veluw dialect of his classmates, she sent him to a private school in Amersfoort . Then he attended secondary school in Amersfoort. When, at the age of 14, he and the Erdmann family, who owned the Terra Nova estate near Utrecht , went to an auction of garden ornaments, he decided to become a gardener. Later, however, he also considered a career as a painter and worked briefly as an interior designer.

Vocational training

Van der Horst studied garden architecture in Leiden and initially concentrated on tree nurseries. However, he missed a historical perspective, economic questions and mathematics bored him. He therefore skipped lectures to visit the Oudheidkundig Museum . During this time he also visited the City Museum in Amsterdam and the exhibition of the Boijmans van Beuningen. 1968–1971 he studied in Boskoop . He applied for an internship with Roberto Burle Marx in Rio de Janeiro , but was rejected. In 1970 he did an internship in the ornamental vegetable garden of Versailles .

Professional activity

1971–1986 he worked in Mien Ruys' design office in Amsterdam , where he was based in Spiegelstraat. He designed a canal garden that was open to the public during exhibitions at local antique shops. He became a co-founder of the “De Amsterdamse Grachtentuinen” foundation. Van Horst publishes articles in Mien Ruy's magazine Onze Eigen Tuin . His book Een tuin voor jezelf , published in 1979, was understood by his colleagues as an attack on the school of Ruys with its clear lines and right angles. In 1980 van Horst founded his own office, the "Arend Jan van der Horst landscape architecture office" in Amsterdam. His partners were the landscape architects Marjanka Rijk and Rik Koppejan. Together with his partner Gerard Rakers, he organized garden trips all over the world, first for the magazine Onze Eigen Tuin, then for the KNAC Pullman Club in The Hague . He bought the Hofstede Heuvelhof in Zeeland (now owned by the artist family De Nooijer), which was on the site of an abandoned monastery, and designed a garden that incorporated many elements of a monastery garden . He then moved to Trouville-sur-Mer in Normandy and to Deauville there .

Membership and Organizations

Van Horst founded the "De tuinen van Mien Ruys" foundation, which works to preserve the Mien Ruys gardens in Moershof, and was involved in the establishment of the Nederlandse Tuinstichting , which aims to preserve the work of Dutch gardeners and maintains a photo archive. The “De Amsterdamse Grachtentuinen” foundation makes gardens in Amsterdam accessible to the public.

Gardens

Van Horst designed gardens in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and France. It is strongly influenced by Mien Ruys, but pursues natural planting. He also took inspiration from Japanese gardens. In general, he prefers formal, symmetrical gardens, which are given structure by trimmed hedges, as described in his book "Art of the formal Garden" (1995). On behalf of the “Nederlandse Tuinstichting” he is responsible for the care of the garden of Walenburg Castle .

Works

• Een tuin voor jezelf, 1979 (illustrations by Henk Gerritsen )
• Inspirational Tuinen. Ideas en voorbeelden uit Nederland en Belgie
• Hortus Spiritualis
• Tuinen van Vlaanderen.
• Flower beds and borders, tips and ideas for borders
• Art of the formal garden. London, Cassell & Co., 1995 (Dutch original edition 1994)
• Movements in Green. Conceptual Landscape Gardening / Conceptuele tuinarchitectuur. Terra, Lanoo 2008.

literature

• Arend Jan van der Horst: Movements in Green . Conceptual Landscape Gardening / Conceptuele tuinarchitectuur. Terra, Lanoo 2008.

Web links

• Office website  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gerritjan Deunk, Arend Jan van der Horst, a biographical summary / Een biografische schets. In: Arend Jan van der Horst, Movements in Green. Conceptual Landscape Gardening / Conceptuele tuinarchitectuur. Terra Lanoo 2008, 6