Anouk Vogel

© Jeroen Musch

Anouk Vogel's projects often oscillate between design and art.

She was born and grew up in Geneva, Switzerland. She studied landscape architecture at the Metropolitan University of Manchester in England where she graduated in 2001 with Honours and Distinction. After her studies she moved to the Netherlands. In 2007, after a few years of working for various firms like West 8, Bureau B+B and Inside/Outside, she set up her own landscape architecture practice in Amsterdam.

She established a good connection with nature. She's renowned for her gardens, installations and street furniture, which always are delicate, polished, gentle. With her works she whispers daintily the message to public.

Recently she was selected, with Johan Selbing, to design the new Westersingel Bridge, near Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in the heart of Rotterdam.

© Jeroen Musch

© Jeroen Musch

© Jeroen Musch

Anouk Vogel created an amazing paper garden for an exhibition commissioned by the Gardening World Cup in Nakasaki, Japan. The installation titled "Folding for Peace" was inspired by an ancient Japanese legend which promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish, such as long life or recovery from illness. The garden is the physical remain of a wish for world peace. All the plants that compose the garden are folded out of white paper. It was awarded the Silver Medal and Judges’ Special Award at the Festival of Flowers and World Peace.

© Jeroen Musch

 

The twin park bridges combine function and ornament. Both bridges form a continuation of the path and undulate slightly to allow the passage of small boats. The deck rests on an artificial rock, which is also an allusion to the addition of artifacts such as grottoes in early landscape parks. The ornamental balustrades are both based on a leaf pattern. While the ‘winter bridge’ tends to blend into the landscape through a brittle leaf skeleton pattern, the ‘summer bridge’ imposes itself through a dense pattern of summer foliage.

© Hermanna Prinsen

© Hermanna Prinsen

In collaboration with the fashion designer Mattijs van Bergen Anouk Vogel produced a crossover piece: a living dress that brought each season to life with changing floral arrangements.

The tempo at which van Bergen produces his collections is determined by the dynamics of the fashion industry, whereas Vogel’s living work endures the seasons in various forms. Devised from used bicycle inner tubes, the dress’s dahlia-like surface is the result of myriad individual vases that can hold water. Depending on the type of flowers used and how they’re positioned, the appearance of the dress can change radically. When worn on its own, the frock possesses its own innate beauty, offering an empty canvas for a lifetime of shifting looks.

© Jeroen Musch

© Jeroen Musch

In 2009, for the second edition of the urban garden festival Bilbao Jardín, she realized a sculpture composed of more than 900 cacti from the same species but varying in height from 10 centimeters to 1 meter. It was temporarily located in front of the Fine Arts Museum. The cacti were placed in an offset grid and the different heights were arranged in such a way that they formed an undulating carpet. The garden was also selected for the Dutch Design Awards 2009.