Do you like maps? Do you like gardens? “Map Gardens” are designed landscapes located at the intersection of cartography and placemaking. Gardens translate ideas into physical form. Maps are functional artifacts and works of artistry that embody history, ideas, myth and symbol.
In a sense, every garden/site is a 1:1 “map”, a projection on the land of a set of ideas and images of how we conceive of and visualize the world. “ Map Gardens” employ the conventions of cartography, addressing the numerous topical and thematic subjects of maps. Some may even be conceived of as an atlas. “Map gardens” add a third dimension: being on the map, where mapping is elevated to the creation of a place. This concept is commonplace in botanic gardens and zoos, but has other manifestations as well.
This talk presents designs that have a cartographic reference, including vernacular, historical and especially Modern examples such as Noguchi’s California Scenario, Charles Moore’s Piazza D’ Italia, Paris’s Jardin Atlantique, Catherine Mossbach’s Bordeaux Botanical Garden and Canberra’s The Garden of Australian Dreams.
Kenneth Helphand is the Philip H. Knight Professor of Landscape Architecture Emeritus, University of Oregon. His previous, very popular, landscape presentations at Modernism Week included "McUrbia: The 1950s and The Birth of Contemporary American Landscape" (2025) and "Learning from Linksland: Golf's Migration from Scotland to the Coachella Valley" (2026).