On the former site of a popular 18th-century bathing pool,
an extensive new pleasure garden is provided for the enjoyment of today's
public in this part of London. Small theatres, water landscapes, and bags full
of optical trickery are all employed within the gardens to bring back
sensuousness and playfulness into what is otherwise a tough urban site. Illusions
are combined from Italianate and Chinese cultures, such as the water-gardens of
Suzhou, with names like 'The Garden of Matter' and The Garden of Falling
Skies'. Buildings and plants become fused together in a delirious and joyous
riot of forms, materials and colours. To the south, the gardens also
incorporate the gravestones of the previous cemetery as a memento mori.
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