Poule mouillée! by À4
More from the 2009 edition of the International Garden Festival. Poule mouillée! (wet chicken in french) is the name of the sprinkler garden at the IGF. A few visitors I spoke to doubted the validity of calling Poule mouillée! a garden. What they may have missed was the choreography of the common sprinklers, the memories of spontaneous childhood water games it evoked and the “perpetual movement colored by the tones of umbrellas” as visitors walked through the garden…
From À4 (Claudia Delisle, Karine Dieujuste, Philippe Nolet, Sami Tannoury):
Water dances to the choreography of garden sprinklers, creating a space in perpetual movement colored by the tones of umbrellas, offering moments of fleeting beauty. This garden takes its form from the most common garden tools: 66 sprinklers that remind us of the residential garden. This installation takes roots in the collective memory, reminding us of spontaneous childhood water games. The 66 sprinklers operate in a closed circuit, by using a pond liner and a reservoir, the water is recycled and reused. À4 is a team made up of three architects and one landscape architect, based in Montréal, Canada.
