Art in a botanical park

 

I've been showing pictures from our trip to the  Gardens at Trautmansdorff Castle to date, I've only show photos from only about halfway around the park. There's still plenty more to the park named the International Garden of the Year by the International Garden Tourism conference held in Toronto this past March.

Besides being a spectacular destination - where you could spend easily a day, if not two in a visit - there is plenty of original art throughout teh park - large and small scale.

One of my favorites is at the top of the post - Adam and Eve reaching for an apple on the apple tree beside the statue. Others are below. 

In addition to the statues around and about, there were 10 Artist's Pavilions and even more Experience Stations, designed by artists intended as educational or interpretive tools, but all are creative. And all are designed with kids in mind.

This artist's pavilion is in the Downy Oak Forest, alluding to downed oak trees in the forest. It looked like one of those "bug hotels" that people have in their gardens nowadays - but human scale!

In the deciduous forest area, this pavilion represents a tree canopy.

Inside the rusty steel dome, you get light and shade and color. The wind moves these colored glass tiles and you do feel as though you're caught in a blend of an autumn tree and a church of stained glass windows.

Representing spring, these steel rods can be tugged on and left to vibrate on their own. Sometimes the wind is enough to get them going a little bot. They had tiny bells on the tops originally to add to the experience, but very few had bells on them when we were there.

Not one of the artists pavilions, but this interpretive geological mosaic was quite wonderful. It shows the geological formations, stone and regions of North and South Tyrol and neighboring Trentino.