Patrick Blanc

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Patrick Blanc, 2008

Patrick Blanc (born June 3, 1953   in Paris ) is a French botanist who worked at the CNRS until 2014 , and an internationally known garden architect and artist. Blanc became known for his " plant walls" (murs végétaux), vertical beds on which he lets plants that are adapted to the local climate grow. The invention of green walls goes back to a patent in 1938 by Professor Stanley Hart White at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign , Blanc modernized the process and made it known worldwide.

life and work

Patrick Blanc in front of a newly planted wall, 2006

Patrick Blanc attended a Protestant school. He kept aquariums when he was around 10 to 12 years old. In the German trade journal Die Aquarien- und Terrarien-Zeitschrift ( DATZ ) he had read a report with the help of a dictionary that it is possible to use the roots of philodendrons to purify aquarium water . When new roots sprout in the water after a few weeks, it became a key experience for him. Plants can do without soil and do not have to be laboriously tilled.

At the age of 19 he went to Thailand as a student in the rainforest of the Khao Yai National Park . He also noticed here that plants grow in almost every imaginable place and do not need soil if they only get water and light. He watched plants hanging from cliffs , clambering up cliffs , or clinging to cave ceilings. Upon his return, he developed his first vertical garden in his Paris home in 1982 .

Vertical gardens

In 1988, Blanc was granted a patent for the technology of his greening process. The construction begins with a light metal frame that is attached to a house wall and onto which PVC rigid foam panels are then attached. At the very top, irrigation pipes are installed, which dispense water for three to five minutes three to five times a day by means of a timer. The first layer of acrylic felt , made from recycled acrylic fibers from old laundry, is then placed on the panels . These proved to be the most tear-resistant and they also do not rot like coconut fibers, rock wool , moss or cotton cleaning rags. “What sets this material apart are the tightly entwined threads. This can hold back a lot of water. And it serves as a breeding ground for many microorganisms, bacteria, fungi and the like. They capture organic molecules that pollute the air and turn them into fertilizer, which the plants then absorb through the roots. So dust particles in the air are biologically converted, the abrasion of car tires and the like. The whole thing works a bit like a biofilter. "

On top of this is a second layer of felt, in which slits are cut, into which seedlings are then placed. To prevent the felt walls from tearing and the plants from falling down , the two felt walls are stapled with stainless steel clips . The success of the planting depends on the selection of plants, which must be adapted to the location, solar radiation, direction and climate. This is where Patrick Blanc's extensive knowledge as a botanist comes in handy. In Central Europe he chooses a mixture of hardy ferns , mosses , grasses and bushes.

various

He has been coloring strands of hair green since 1984. From 1986 he lived with the musician Pascal Héni, according to Blanc "probably the most famous French in India", as Héni speaks fluent Hindi and Bengali . Under his stage name "Pascal of Bollywood" he had success with Bollywood hits in Hindi and completed many tours. In their house in the Paris suburb of Ivry-sur-Seine , he installed a vertical garden as well as a 20,000 liter water basin as a walk-in aquarium made of safety glass in a former commercial yard. It keeps fine finches and spectacle birds as pest eaters. The wall plants get their nutrients from the water in the aquarium.

He had his breakthrough as a garden architect in 1994 at the Festival International des Jardins (International Garden Festival) in Chaumont sur Loire at the invitation of the garden architect Eric Ossart.

In 2001, designer Andrée Putman asked him to green a bare concrete wall in the courtyard of the Paris five-star hotel Pershing Hall . As a result, he also worked with prominent architects. His green walls on the administration building of the Museum Quai Branly by Jean Nouvel (2004) became famous . In 2007 Herzog & de Meuron had him designed a 600 m² wall on the Caixa Forum opposite the Prado in Madrid .

In 2010 he was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).

In 2015 he worked again with the architect Jean Nouvel on the tallest high-rise building with vertical gardens in Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur .

research

Patrick Blanc in 1978 his doctorate with a thesis on forest plants of the undergrowth, which manage around one percent of the sunlight. In 1989 he completed his habilitation (Docteur ès sciences) at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie ( Université Paris VI ) in natural sciences. Until May 2014 he was a member of the research group Ecosystèmes tropicaux: réponses aux perturbations naturelles et anthropiques (ECOTROP), which deals with the ecology of tropical rainforests . The research group operates under the name UMR7179 Mécanismes Adaptatifs: des Organismes aux Communautés in the Center national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) and in the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle (MNHN) at the Brunoy site .

gallery

Green walls (selection)

See also

Roof greening and trees on the Viennese Hundertwasser House by Friedensreich Hundertwasser
  • Another advocate and designer of green and planted houses was Friedensreich Hundertwasser . However, its focus was on the horizontal plane, while Blanc's specialty is the vertical.
  • Tita Giese

Publications

  • Être planned à l'ombre des forêts tropicales. Nathan, Paris 2002, 428 pp., ISBN 2-09-278476-5 .
  • Le bonheur d'être planned. Éditions Maren Sell, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-35004-018-6 .
  • Le Mur Végétal: de la nature à la ville. Préface de Jean Nouvel , photographies de Patrick Blanc et de Véronique Lalot, Éditions Michel Lafon, Neuilly-sur-Seine 2008, ISBN 978-2-7499-0685-0 .
    Vertical gardens: nature in the city. Translated by Sabine Hesemann, Verlag Eugen Ulmer , Stuttgart 2009, 383 color photos, ISBN 978-3-8001-5910-9 , illustrated book, book review:.

literature

  • Alain Guigonis: The green wall by Patrick Blanc - using the example of the facade of the Galeries Lafayette in Berlin. In: Yearbook Bauwerksbegünung 2010 , ISSN  2363-5509 , pp. 62–66, online , (PDF; 1 MB).
  • Anna Lambertini: Vertical Gardens. DVA , Munich 2009, hardback, ISBN 978-3-421-03777-0 , ( reading sample, 12 pages ).
  • Marc Vorwerk: The hanging gardens of Patrick Blanc . In: Taspo Gartendesign , ISSN  1862-1511 , vol. 39, no. 1, 2009, pp. 42–44.

Movies

  • A vertical garden artwork for Berlin. Documentary, Germany, 2013, 30 min., Script and direction: Sylvia Rademacher and Martina Hiller, production: rbb , series: rbb Gartenzeit spezial , first broadcast: May 1, 2013 on rbb, summary by rbb, ( memento from June 30, 2015 in the web archive archive.today ), online video .
  • Vertical gardens. TV report, Germany, 2010, 9 min., Production: 3sat , series: Wissen aktuell , first broadcast: December 15, 2010 on 3sat, table of contents by 3sat.
  • In the jungle by Patrick Blanc. Documentary, Germany, USA, 2003, 26 min., Script and director: Christoph Schuch, production: Ilona Grundmann Filmproduction, arte , ZDF , series: Neue Gartenkunst / 21st Century Garden Art , first broadcast: June 7, 2003 by arte, summary by Christoph Schuch.

Web links

Commons : Patrick Blanc  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Interviews

items

Videos

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Blanc, Patrick (1953 -....) In: BnF , accessed June 30, 2015.
  2. ↑ a b Former lab members , in: MECADEV , accessed on June 30, 2015, (English, French).
  3. ^ Richard L. Hindle: A vertical garden: origins of the Vegetation-Bearing Architectonic Structure and System (1938). In: Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes: An International Quarterly , (2012) 32: 2, 99-110, doi : 10.1080 / 14601176.2011.653535 .
  4. ^ A b Danielle Birck: Patrick Blanc, inventeur des murs végétaux. In: RFI , May 29, 2009.
  5. ↑ a b c d David Schumacher: Jungle in the big city. The steep wall gardener. In: Financial Times Deutschland , October 13, 2009, supplement how to spend it , issue 8, (PDF; 3 pages, 115 kB).
  6. ↑ Anke Schipp: Vertical gardens: the green avant-garde. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , June 6, 2010.
  7. ↑ a b Paula Almqvist: Nature on the wall! In: Geo , August 2011, No. 8, 86-95.
  8. ^ Suzanne Krause: Vertical Gardens. In: Deutschlandfunk , July 1, 2010.
  9. ↑ See planting technique for green walls in: A vertical garden artwork for Berlin. ( Memento from June 30, 2015 in the web archive archive.today ) In: rbb , May 1, 2013.
      Alain Guigonis: The green wall by Patrick Blanc - using     the example of the facade of Galeries Lafayette in Berlin. In: Yearbook Green Building 2010 , pp. 62–66, (PDF; 1 MB).
  10. ^ A b Paula Almqvist: The desert is blooming. In: Geo , August 2011, No. 8, 86-95.
  11. ↑ Sybille Korte: The Parisian botanist Patrick Blanc designs vertical gardens: upright green. In: Berliner Zeitung , July 17, 2002.
  12. ^ RIBA announces 12 Honorary Fellowships ( Memento of March 8, 2016 in the Internet Archive ). In: RIBA , March 16, 2010.
  13. ^ Katja Liersch: garden artist Patrick Blanc. The green man. In: Deutsche Welle , Series: euromaxx , May 27, 2015, 4:30 min.
  14. ^ Paula Almqvist: Jungle on synthetic fiber. In: Geo , August 2011, No. 8, pp. 86–95.
  15. ↑ cf. Doctorat en sciences , Doctor of Science and Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences , p. 50.
  16. ↑ UMR7179: Mécanismes Adaptatifs: des Organismes aux Communautés , accessed on June 30, 2015, (English, French).
  17. ↑ Book review by Heike Rau: Vertical gardens: The nature in the city. In: leselupe.de , August 31, 2009.
personal data
SURNAME Blanc, Patrick
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French botanist and horticulturist
DATE OF BIRTH June 3, 1953
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris , France