Studio: international art (90.1925)

HARRY MAASZ, GARDEN ARCHI-
TECT a a 0 a a

THE garden work of Harry Maass in
Liibeck is now to be studied in many
places of Germany. It is the wise com-
bination of the realist's and the idealist's
endeavours. He calls a garden the home
made of foliage, flowers and scent, but
his conviction is that beauty in a romantic
or sentimental sense ought not to be its
originator. The essential is, as he says,
the technique, the planning and forming
of space and surface : this thoroughly
mastered, beauty will automatically make
her appearance. The deliberate plan is
necessary in creating a garden, as in
composing a piece of music or poetry.
Maasz has mastered vast stretches of
ground, has maintained the landscape
style, where nature was lavish, and for
parks and house gardens rhythm in surface

and space, colours and planting, was an
important view-point for him. Whatever
commission is carried out, the character
of the garden is first laid down in precise
contour, and anything acceptable from
nature is made an essential help. Although
nature's nakedness in late autumn and
winter often reveals the beauty of con-
structive elements, the glory of the garden
is its envelope of green and blossoms.
Maasz is a thorough botanist, understands
planting and feels the lover's tenderness
for his floral materials. In his opinion
the mission of the garden-artist is only well
achieved when he understands how to
present the fullness of the flower wonders
duly in his domains. He is no friend of
the unelective massing of shrubberies, for
they spoil rhythm by their tendency to
shapeless exuberance and are breeding
places of rottenness and vermin. 0 0

Jarno Jessen.

PART OF A GARDEN DE-
SIGNED BY HARRY MAASZ
307