‘There is no freedom in the desert. Though there are no fences, no posts.
It is better – if you wish to be free – to elegantly wander through a labyrinth.’
Gerrit Komrij, 1984
The Invisible Labyrinth – poem by Gerrit Komrij
The Enclosed garden. The first time I heard this term, I felt a sense of mystery. It sounded not only like a place of shelter, but also – maybe odd given that the name itself suggests the opposite – like a place of freedom. A sheltered, confined place where nature, although supervised and regulated by humans, plays the lead role. Aben and de Witt state in the Enclosed Garden that ‘awe at the grandeur of nature translated into architectural space – not to trivialise it, but for man to be able to relate to it’. Aben and de Witt, the Enclosed Garden, 12 Constructing nature as an architectural space, thus, allows humanity to connect with it, without necessarily dominating it.
An enclosed garden is more than the classical idea of a garden as greenery surrounded by fencing. An enclosement’s boundaries are not always as straightforward as walls or fences; they can be intangible as well. Imagine you are walking in the woods on a cloudy day and you see a shadowy forest glade just ahead. As you reach the glade and step on its grass, the sun comes through. You feel how it warms up your skin and see how it pushes away the shadows. This is your enclosed garden.
My first memories of an enclosed garden are of the summers I spent as a kid on the Finnish Archipelago. Once on the island, I was free to go wherever I wanted. It was only a little piece of untouched land, yet it was large enough to have the biggest adventures. At the same time, it had the perfect size to get to know each little spot and turn. To me this was the truest kind of freedom, created by an illusion of endless opportunities. I say ‘illusion’, because there was of course no question of me being able to actually break free from the island. An illusion of freedom as a result of an enclosement, that is what it was. The water made for a strong fence, a wall around my own little world where I felt so safe. This feeling of freedom, because of framing, I never experienced in the city as I grew up. Even though there were no physical or natural borders barring me from doing so, I could never go further than two blocks; I was not allowed to.
I experienced something similar in a completely different way when I moved to the tiny ‘Claesz Claesz hofje’ in Amsterdam. Sick from living at the busy Rembrandtplein where there was no place to feel sheltered, I moved to this enclosed residence, a beautiful old courtyard, where I was protected from the ever-busy streets and tourists. High, old, brick walls hid my apartment as well as a garden right outside my front door. Once again I felt free because of frames. I was protected inside my own little world.
An enclosed garden is both inside (internal) and outside (external), landscape and architecture. Aben and de Witt, the Enclosed Garden, 17 The garden gathers the landscape around itself and at the same time shuts itself off from it. An enclosed garden is more than the classical idea of it: it is mine, my own world where I feel enclosed, protected and free. My whole life I have found shelter in enclosed gardens, have I found freedom in enclosement. Feeling protected on islands into having my own place in a courtyard. My happiest memories are ‘enclosed’, it makes a beautiful paradox of feeling free and finding freedom in frames.
