New Gardens of the 22nd International Garden Festival

The International Garden Festival unveiled the names of the new designers and their gardens chosen for the 22nd edition of the Festival. Five new projects from Canada, the United States, France and Sweden have been selected to be featured at the 2021 edition of the International Garden Festival. This year, a total of 160 projects by designers from 17 countries were submitted.

Miroirs acoustiques"  Photo credit: Emmanuelle Loslier, landscape architect, Camille Zaroubi, landscape architect

The theme for the 2021 edition is "Magic Lies Outside". This year’s festival strives to bring us hope, to inspire creativity, and to brighten up the world as we struggle to make it through the global pandemic and get back on our feet after many difficult months of lockdown. The five projects selected this year will be integrated around the existing gardens to create an open-air museum for visitors to explore. 

Photo credit:
Emil Bäckström, architect

The new gardens will be on exhibit at Les Jardins de Métis / Reford Gardens from Saturday, June 26 to Sunday, October 3, 2021. For its 22nd edition, visitors will enjoy more than 25 gardens, each one pushing the frontiers of contemporary design and offering a unique mix of curated environments, natural experiences, horticultural staging and human creativity.

Selected Gardens

• Choose your Own Adventure

Balmori Associates [Noémie Lafaurie-Debany, Javier Gonzalez-Campana, Simon Escabi, Chris Liao, Cristina Preciado, landscape and urban designers]. New York, United States

Photo credit: Balmori Associates [Noémie Lafaurie-Debany, Javier Gonzalez-Campana, Simon Escabi, Chris Liao, Cristina Preciado, landscape and urban designers]

• Hässja

Emil Bäckström, architect. Stockholm, Sweden

Photo credit: Emil Bäckström, architect

• Miroirs acoustiques

Emmanuelle Loslier, landscape architect, Camille Zaroubi, landscape architect. Montreal (Quebec) Canada

Photo credit:
Emmanuelle Loslier, landscape architect, Camille Zaroubi, landscape architect

• Open Space

legaga [Gabriel Lemelin, Francis Gaignard, Sandrine Gaulin, interns in architecture]. Quebec (Quebec) Canada

Photo credit:
legaga [Gabriel Lemelin, Francis Gaignard, Sandrine Gaulin, interns in architecture]

• Porte-bonheur

David Bonnard, architect DE-HMONP, Laura Giuliani, landscaper, Amélie Viale, visual artist. Lyon, Villefranche sur Saône et Lissieu, France

Photo credit:
David Bonnard, architect DE-HMONP, Laura Giuliani, landscaper, Amélie Viale, visual artist

Projects Received Special Mention from the Jury

• Bonheur plat

Céline Arnaudeau, multidisciplinary designer, Marc-Antoine Goyette, designer and traditional carpenter. Montreal (Quebec) Canada

Photo credit:
Céline Arnaudeau, multidisciplinary designer, Marc-Antoine Goyette, designer and traditional carpenter

• (in) between soils

ONE-AFTR [Joon Ma, architect, Ryu Ahn, architect]. Boston and New York, United States 

Photo credit:
ONE-AFTR [Joon Ma, architect, Ryu Ahn, architect]

The Jury

• Lydia Brown, producer and lawyer, secretary of the Board of Directors of the International Garden Festival
• Marie-Claude Massicotte, Senior Landscape Architect, AAPQ AAPC, consultant and chargée de cours at the Université de Montréal
• Kiel Moe, architect, Gerald Sheff Chair of Architecture, Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture, McGill University
• François Leblanc, Technical Coordinator, International Garden Festival
• Alexander Reford, Director, Reford Gardens and International Garden Festival

About International Garden Festival

Since the first edition of the Festival 21 years ago, over one million visitors have enjoyed, explored and been moved and inspired by almost 200 exciting and innovative installations. The International Garden Festival is a blank canvas for architects and landscape architects to develop new ways of perceiving and designing public spaces.

About Reford Gardens

Les Jardins de Métis / Reford Gardens are located on the shores of the St. Lawrence and Mitis rivers in Québec, Canada. Created from 1926 to 1958 by avid gardener and plant collector, Elsie Reford, the gardens are a national historic site designated. Les Jardins de Métis are considered one of the premier gardens in North America.  Open every day from Saturday, May 29 to Sunday, October 3, 2021.