Kathryn Gustafson's design for the Millennium Garden reflects the elegance and strength of Chicago with bold, undulating hedges in wavelike forms.

While most of Kathryn Gustafson's award-winning work over the past two decades has been in Europe, she recently designed the Ross Terrace at the Museum of Natural History in New York City.

The irony of Gustafson's award is that, although she is one of the best-known landscape architects in the world today, with grand-scale projects in France, London, New York and Chicago, it may well have been the first time people here in the Northwest heard of her. I discovered her work in a British magazine piece featuring a photo of a tall, elegant woman striding across a field wearing a swirling spotted coat. Then to find out that this Paris-trained, former fashion designer grew up in Yakima! It has been said that the rolling hills of Eastern Washington remain an inspiration, a personal iconography, for the sculptural nature of Gustafson's work, her shaping of land forms.

After a year at the University of Washington in the early 1970s, Gustafson moved to New York to study fashion and textiles. It was fashion that led her to Paris, and the sensual nature of her landscapes, the undulating lawns and organic forms, may be in part a result of this early training in fabric, patterning and shaping. Perhaps, too, this background has contributed to the drama of her landscapes, known for mysterious lighting and the surprise of water shooting up out of the ground or channeled into shimmering basins.

Kathryn Gustafson

Gustafson began gardening professionally in Paris, earning her degree in landscape architecture there. She started her own firm, and from the beginning was commissioned to do large-scale public landscapes. Projects for French President Mitterand and her design for the Shell headquarters at Rueil-Malmaison won her recognition, as did the landscaping for the National Botanic Garden in Wales, and the plan to redevelop a 220-acre site at the Crystal Palace in London.

Due to the conceptual and sculptural nature of her work, Gustafson has been known variously as landscape architect, designer and environmental artist. This shows clearly in her work for the new Millennium Garden in Chicago, where she teamed up with Dutch plantsman Piet Oudolf and set designer Robert Israel. Gustafson's design of bold, brawny hedges called The Shoulder Garden resembles enormous sculpted waves aimed at directing visitors on a perception-altering journey.

Gustafson moved back to the Northwest in 1997 for family reasons, settling into a home and garden on Vashon Island and an office in Pioneer Square. After two decades of living and designing in Europe, what does Gustafson think of our gardens and landscapes? "Everything grows better here — there is such a vast palette of plants that do well. And we have such an extraordinary landscape here that is so strong," she says.

Now In Bloom Every remaining leaf counts in the winter landscape, even those that cover the ground. The colorful varieties of the common carpet bugle light up the early winter garden, with plump leaves in shades of pale green, lavender and cream. Ajuga reptans 'Multicolor' has a metallic sheen that reflects any available light; 'Burgundy Glow' has wine-red leaves mottled in mauve, pink and cream.

She is working on two major Seattle landscapes with very different sites and functions — one for the new Seattle Civic Center and a second for the Seattle Performance Hall and Theater District along Mercer Street.

For the City Hall and Justice Center, Gustafson Partners has teamed up with Swift and Company Landscape Architects to transform one of the steepest sites in the city. As with all her projects, Gustafson started by considering the uniqueness of the site, studying its history, light patterns, water and geology. What she finds exciting is the variety of views and grade changes, and the design emphasizes this "perch above the water" feel. Water will provide the lure to keep visitors moving through the space, with streams, pools and waterfalls bisecting and connecting the two-block site, to be completed in 2003.

The Mercer Street/Seattle Center landscape, while still in the conceptual phase, promises the excitement and site specificity that is the hallmark of Gustafson's work. The goal is a recognizable, user-friendly theater district. The glow of high-tech lighting will create a colorful, festive, sophisticated evening landscape, which during the day will retain the crisp, park-like feel suitable to Seattle.

Gustafson's monumental work, her sculpting of the earth and emphasis on movement through space, will now shape the Northwest landscape as it has helped shape Europe's. For a further look at her projects and philosophy, you might enjoy the book "Kathryn Gustafson Sculpting the Land" by Leah Levy (Spacemaker Press, 1998).

Valerie Easton is a horticultural librarian who writes about plants and gardens for Pacific Northwest magazine. She is the co-author of "Artists in Their Gardens" (Sasquatch Books). Her e-mail address is vjeaston@aol.com.