New Gardens of the 22nd International Garden Festival
The International Garden Festival unveiled the names of the new designers and their gardens chosen for the 22nd edition of the Festival. Five new projects from Canada, the United States, France and Sweden have been selected to be featured at the 2021 edition of the International Garden Festival. This year, a total of 160 projects by designers from 17 countries were submitted.
The theme for the 2021 edition is "Magic Lies Outside". This year’s festival strives to bring us hope, to inspire creativity, and to brighten up the world as we struggle to make it through the global pandemic and get back on our feet after many difficult months of lockdown. The five projects selected this year will be integrated around the existing gardens to create an open-air museum for visitors to explore.
The new gardens will be on exhibit at Les Jardins de Métis / Reford Gardens from Saturday, June 26 to Sunday, October 3, 2021. For its 22nd edition, visitors will enjoy more than 25 gardens, each one pushing the frontiers of contemporary design and offering a unique mix of curated environments, natural experiences, horticultural staging and human creativity.
Selected Gardens
- Choose your Own Adventure
Balmori Associates [Noémie Lafaurie-Debany, Javier Gonzalez-Campana, Simon Escabi, Chris Liao, Cristina Preciado, landscape and urban designers]. New York, United States
- Hässja
Emil Bäckström, architect. Stockholm, Sweden
- Miroirs acoustiques
Emmanuelle Loslier, landscape architect, Camille Zaroubi, landscape architect. Montreal (Quebec) Canada
- Open Space
legaga [Gabriel Lemelin, Francis Gaignard, Sandrine Gaulin, interns in architecture]. Quebec (Quebec) Canada
- Porte-bonheur
David Bonnard, architect DE-HMONP, Laura Giuliani, landscaper, Amélie Viale, visual artist. Lyon, Villefranche sur Saône et Lissieu, France
Projects Received Special Mention from the Jury
- Bonheur plat
Céline Arnaudeau, multidisciplinary designer, Marc-Antoine Goyette, designer and traditional carpenter. Montreal (Quebec) Canada
- (in) between soils
ONE-AFTR [Joon Ma, architect, Ryu Ahn, architect]. Boston and New York, United States
The Jury
- Lydia Brown, producer and lawyer, secretary of the Board of Directors of the International Garden Festival
- Marie-Claude Massicotte, Senior Landscape Architect, AAPQ AAPC, consultant and chargée de cours at the Université de Montréal
- Kiel Moe, architect, Gerald Sheff Chair of Architecture, Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture, McGill University
- François Leblanc, Technical Coordinator, International Garden Festival
- Alexander Reford, Director, Reford Gardens and International Garden Festival
About International Garden Festival
Since the first edition of the Festival 21 years ago, over one million visitors have enjoyed, explored and been moved and inspired by almost 200 exciting and innovative installations. The International Garden Festival is a blank canvas for architects and landscape architects to develop new ways of perceiving and designing public spaces.
About Reford Gardens
Les Jardins de Métis / Reford Gardens are located on the shores of the St. Lawrence and Mitis rivers in Québec, Canada. Created from 1926 to 1958 by avid gardener and plant collector, Elsie Reford, the gardens are a national historic site designated. Les Jardins de Métis are considered one of the premier gardens in North America. Open every day from Saturday, May 29 to Sunday, October 3, 2021.