The Case for More Magical Gardening
If, judging by the headline, you were hoping to find something here about garden gnomes, I’m sorry to disappoint. This is not an article about gardening (in the horticultural sense), nor is it about magic (in the Harry Potter sense). No, the focus of this piece is the built environment and, more specifically, so-called art environments, with a focus on one such environment, in particular.
There is art that one can view as an observer or spectator, and then there is an entirely different kind of art that must be, as they say, experienced. Art environments like Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens no doubt fall into the latter category.
True to its name, Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens (or PMG for short) is, indeed, a magical wonderland. And, despite being composed of mostly would-be waste materials—found objects, scraps of tile, ceramics, bottles, broken mirrors, toys, all sorts of offcuts, rubble and debris (basically what most people would consider junk)—I would concur that it also rightfully earns the title of garden, for it has quite literally been planted and cultivated and has grown organically over the years.
Dictionaries might suggest words like common, mundane or prosaic as antonyms to magical. Ironically, it is the fusion of seemingly ordinary, everyday items that create the magic at a place like PMG.
As cliché as it sounds, pictures don’t do it justice, but I offer you here a handful of images that hint at what is on offer should you have the privilege of visiting in person like I did in March of this year while visiting a friend who is a Philadelphia resident:
Although it seems that the Magic Gardens has been described over the years as a hidden gem and one of Philly’s best kept secrets, it’s safe to say that the secret is well and truly out these days, probably helped along by its appearance on shows like Netflix’s Somebody Feed Phil. If you haven’t already, definitely check out Episode 1 of Season 6 wherein the affable Phil Rosenthal visits the Magic Gardens with his wife and afterwards sits down with the creator of the Magic Gardens, the artist Isaiah Zagar, who is, unsurprisingly, what you might call a bit of a character.
It was after seeing this episode that I wanted to learn more about Philly’s Magic Gardens and the mad genius sculptor/muralist behind it. The story of how the whole thing came to be is fascinating. There are plenty of videos about Zagar and the Magic Gardens on YouTube. I recommend taking a few minutes to watch the relatively short one from Travel + Leisure in which you’ll be treated to a nice overview of the story and a small dose of Zagar’s eccentricity.
For a more in-depth backstory, there is the award-winning documentary titled In a Dream that was filmed and directed by his son, Jeremiah. You’ll have to rent or buy it if you want to watch it, but it is well worth it for both the art and the storytelling. It is a very personal, unfiltered, poignant glimpse into the life of the Zagar family.
In a Dream, a documentary about the life and work of Isaiah Zagar, creator of Philadelphia's Magic Gardens, is available to rent or purchase on Vimeo
It was interesting to learn when visiting that the Gardens itself is really just the epicentre of what is actually an expansive precinct of Zagar’s mosaics.
Wandering the city blocks near the Magic Gardens on foot, it would be hard for anyone not to notice that there are mosaics around every corner.
In the immediate vicinity of the main Gardens installation, it feels like every side street and back alley has its own little imprint of Zagar’s signature mosaic fixation.
In some cases every surface of entire buildings is covered in mosaic.
It’s a remarkable spectacle to behold and obvious that all of it must’ve taken decades.
According to Emily Smith, Executive Director of the Magic Gardens, there are some 220 mosaic installations around Philadelphia which equates to 24 acres (9.7 hectares) or roughly 1 million square feet (92,900 square meters) of fully mosaiced public spaces, noting that, ‘It is quite possibly the most mosaic by one living individual artist in the entire world.’
The PMG website has a great resource on Art Environments with links to many other examples and creators of environments similar to PMG like the Watts Towers in Los Angeles which reopened last year ‘after a five-year multimillion-dollar restoration effort’ under the care of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Watts Towers was designed and built by Italian immigrant construction worker Sabato (‘Simon’ or ‘Sam’) Rodia over a span of 30 years from the 1920s to the 1950s. Architect and inventor Buckminster Fuller once said of Rodia, ‘I think Sam will rank, not just in our century, but will rank with the sculptors of all history.’
The Watts Towers or Nuestro Pueblo ('our town' in Spanish) in Los Angeles, designed and built by Simon Rodia
Freedom for Architectural Improvisation
While such environments and this particular style of art (often called folk art assemblage) might not be to everyone’s liking, I would argue without hesitation that we desperately need more places like this in our cities, magical places that are the result of creative people being given the freedom to create and improvise or, if necessary, demanding it.
I’m not just talking about freedom of artistic expression but freedom of architectural expression and improvisation. We should be free to create and modify the environments that we inhabit. I’m all for standards to ensure safety, but the amount of red tape in most jurisdictions in the ‘developed world’ preventing most citizens from having any sense of ownership over their very own dwellings and neighbourhoods is utterly absurd.
I’m not suggesting that I want the entirety of our built environment to look anything like Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens or the Watts Towers (although I certainly wouldn’t mind having something like either example within walking distance of my front door). I do think, though, that our cities would be far more interesting—and all the better for it—if zoning, planning and building regulations were relaxed so as to allow more of these kinds of art environments to exist.
More ‘magical gardening’ probably means more risk. But maybe that’s not a bad thing. Risk comes with responsibility. For a community to be truly vibrant, everyone within the community should feel completely unencumbered to shape and reshape the built environment, or else they have no meaningful stake in it.
If it so happens that the inhabitants of a particular building or neighbourhood are inclined to create something along the lines of the Magic Gardens or Watts Towers, then I don’t think they should need a special permit or approval (especially from any non-local authority) in order to do it. They should be free to alter their environment, to the extent it is theirs to alter, however they see fit and within reason. The confusion is around who gets to decide what alterations are permitted and what ‘within reason’ means. State departments and local councils obviously have jurisdiction over things like street art and building code compliance, particularly where public access is concerned, but there is a lot of grey area around what property owners are ‘allowed’ to do in terms of modifications to their own property. I take issue with the fact that every day people have to ask (often with great anxiety) the question, ‘Do I need Council approval?’ and that the default response from experts is almost always ‘Yes’.
Again, I’m not proposing that we allow a total free-for-all (I don’t think anyone wants to allow totally unsupervised structural modifications to buildings), I’m simply advocating for what one might call guidelines in place of restrictive rules, at the very least as far as things like façades and landscaping are concerned. If that sounds like a recipe for disaster, I understand the concern, but I think it’s short-sighted. I’m sure there are countless examples of incidents where a well intentioned property owner went ahead with minor renovations or cosmetic alterations to a building’s appearance (changes that they presumed were harmless) with disastrous results for themselves and/or the local community. This is a question of how to balance the costs and benefits of deregulation versus public protection. My contention is that, yes, more ‘magical gardening’ probably means more risk but that maybe that’s not a bad thing. Risk comes with responsibility. For a community to be truly vibrant, everyone within the community should feel completely unencumbered to shape and reshape the built environment, or else they have no meaningful stake in it.
That said, I will note that City of Sydney has thankfully made genuine efforts to support arts venues and encourage more street art through advancing planning amendments in recent years and in the provision of applicable guidelines. The following are links to a few relevant resources:
City of Sydney Interim Guidelines for Public Art in Private Developments
City of Sydney - How to commission or create street art on a property in the city
City of Sydney Indicative Locations Map for Exempt Street Art
A More Natural Way of Building
As the late Friedensreich Hundertwasser said, ‘Everyone should be able to build, and as long as this freedom to build does not exist, the present-day planned architecture cannot be considered art at all.’
There are parallels between Zagar’s work and Hundertwasser’s (similarities which I hope to explore in more detail in future posts). Their free-spirited approach and activism seems to stem from a mutual unspoken (or, in some cases, outspoken) deep frustration about the disharmony between nature and the manmade built environment. Whereas we humans tend to impose our will upon nature, I think it’s fair to say that both Zagar and Hundertwasser would insist that we work with nature, not against it, and although not all contemporary architects may agree with the aesthetic sensibilities of Zagar or Hundertwasser, few would disagree with that sentiment.
Hundertwasser went so far as to say, ‘The straight line leads to the downfall of humanity.’ Antoni Gaudi believed much the same:
“The straight line belongs to men, the curved one to God.”
Gaudi’s work, perhaps more so than Zagar’s or Hundertwasser’s, although not always well received during his lifetime is now widely celebrated and admired for being highly intricate and distinctively freeform, organic and nature-inspired. It was seminal in that regard. Indeed, there is nothing else quite like it. And isn’t that sad?
Casa Batlló in Barcelona, considered a masterpiece by Antoni Gaudí
All of these men—Zagar, Rodia, Hundertwasser, Gaudi—challenged conventions about art and architecture. Their work looks so strikingly different from pretty much everything else in its vicinity that it makes one question any basis for contextualism in architecture. When architecture (or environmental art) breaks the mould in such a compellingly original way, one looks around at all the nearby art and architecture and finds it lacking by comparison. Or, perhaps the reality is that the stark contrast is necessary. Perhaps we need boring buildings and works of art to appreciate ones that are not boring. It begins to get quite complicated when one considers if and where the lines should be drawn.
In any case, I believe there is an innate desire for creative freedom in all of us. I think we crave not just artistic freedom of expression but also architectural freedom of expression (if these are not one and the same). We take for granted the effect that the built environment has on our daily lives, and I think we owe it to ourselves to not only allow but encourage more creative license in building processes and methods.
Perhaps I am being naïve. Then again, Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens is in some ways a story of naïvety. It is also one of defiance and hope, a story about real grassroots community action in the face of what are often stifling constraints on public art and the built environment. It needn’t be the case that the Magic Gardens are exceptional. As will likely become a repetitive mantra on this Art of Diversion blog, that is the whole point: we need places like it to become the norm instead of the exception. We need more magical gardens. We need more magical gardeners to take ownership of their built environment.
Good Things Take Time
The Magic Gardens is also a story about patience. As I’m sure Isaiah Zagar would agree, good things take time. I’m hopeful that in time we will see more places like the Magic Gardens in our cities.
Back home in Sydney, a puzzle that we picked up while visiting the Magic Gardens proved to be quite challenging and… time-consuming.
Frustrating at times (it was like making a puzzle of a puzzle), it was also very rewarding. In fact, it was such a joy to work on and complete, that I have yet to dismantle it. It has remained intact on a table for months, and I often revisit it and examine it. Maybe that says something about the kinds of things that I think are worth preserving.
A message worth preserving: Let’s be kind to each other.
