Connected gardens. The Vera brothers’ green Art Deco

In 1925, the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts consecrated and baptised a style that had already – over a few years – made a name for itself: Art Deco. For the first time in the history of international exhibitions, garden art was also on the agenda, around twenty fleeting gardens punctuating the visit.

Regular and geometrical, offering architecture and sculpture pride of place, they prefigured the modern French formal garden. The very one that André Vera – member of the jury – defined for the first time in Le Nouveau Jardin, published in 1912. It was Vera’s hope that this orderly and sober style, later named Art Deco, could be applied to all forms of art.

Assisted by his brother, Paul, André Vera put his theories into practice through the creation of several private and public gardens in the period between the two world wars. Although the majority of their creations have since disappeared, their story remains via their plans and sketches, the striking geometry of which freshly approaches notions of abstraction.