Living Walls

Using plants for architectural and artistic statements is as old as time, but I am fascinated about how it is becoming part of the main stream.  I was driving down 10th and spotted this newly installed gem at the corner with Bryant.  These things are so amazingly versatile.  Indoors, outdoors, sun, shade, they apparently create their own atmosphere when inside so they aren’t bothered being inside shopping malls or the like.

Patrick Blanc a  French artist has been covering entire walls of buildings for 40 years.  This one below is his at Marché des Halles in Avignon.  You can read all about him, his structures, his methods and his life outlooks.

Blanc is presently working on a “mur vegetal” right here in San Francisco. It’s under scaffolding but almost finished. The newly-planted living wall is on the facade of the Drew School’s new assembly building at California & Broderick. It is Blanc’s first adventure in San Francisco and his biggest to date on the West Coast.

Drew Schools – living wall – Update – 2012

I became intrigued with these when I saw a photo of Jeff Koons Puppy, at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain.  It was created for an exhibit in Germany in 1992 and then moved to the front of the Bilbao in 1997.  I think it is incredible that you have a living breathing piece of art such as this.

I love the concept of creating whole living and breathing walls, what an amazing and creative way to bring fresh air to a city, and add art to a building at the same time.