Passionately rooted in nature

Aachen and Maastricht lie just a stone‘s throw away from each other. The office of garden architect Cornelia Lehnen is located on a hill in Herbesthal, near Maastricht. Here, in the immediate vicinity of the Gardenforum garden centre, which she also runs, is where she plans her gardens.

Lehnen’s boundless enthusiasm, her powerfully developed language skills (she speaks French, German and Dutch) and the location of her business ensure that she also lands a considerable number of highly attractive projects in Germany and Luxembourg. Cornelia Lehnen began to design and create gardens independently in 1983. Before that, she had worked for three years as an assistant to an architecture lecturer in Aachen while studying garden and landscape architecture. This period, as she says, influenced her future career. This is because she learnt to view garden architecture from an architectural point of view. This ultimately led to her clearly structured gardens, with their powerful, pure lines. Only in the course of the years did these develop from somewhat playful and organic to stricter forms, which she now also likes to combine, but in which the planting is always accorded the function of a greater, architectural whole.

Clearly personal

However, Cornelia Lehnen did not opt for the path of least resistance. In a field in which mostly natural stone and coloured concrete dominate both architecture and garden architecture, she had the courage to focus on pavers, which she mostly uses in combination with other materials such as coloured stone, wood, natural stone and stainless steel. The garden planner knows no fear of opposites, but she is certainly not interested in creating upheaval solely for the sake of revolution. She always works knowledgably, in accordance with the wishes of the client and takes into consideration existing structures as well as the surrounding landscape. An excellent example of the use of paving bricks in combination with natural stone is the marketplace in Butgenbach, which she designed in 1985. Lehnen’s public and private garden designs bear witness not only to a strong personal vision, but also to her perfect knowledge of plants and materials.

Passionately practical

A deep-rooted passion for the subject and for nature directs Cornelia Lehnen as she plans gardens, squares and parks. And with each new project, this passion takes on a new form. With her gardens, she reflects the style of the architecture; garden and building merge into a strong and harmonious whole.

“I spend almost no time at all at my plotting table or computer. I create a garden in my head. I sometimes ponder over a project for days or weeks, imagining all the possibilities and combinations, mentally filling the stark lines with shrubs and other structural elements. And when I intuitively feel that everything has come together as a whole, it is all then drawn in an instant,” Cornelia Lehnen explains how she works. “My mind is also constantly challenged in my garden centre. It’s an ideal place to keep right up to date on various related innovations in planting or on decorations and garden furnishing. A true ‘crosspollination’ takes place here, as a botanist would say.”

Challenge and opportunity

In the little Wallonian municipality of Aubel, a new building arose on the site of the former stables of a farm. A somewhat makeshift, romantic and idyllic garden was originally to be found here. This style may have suited the old buildings well, but not the new one. When Cornelia Lehnen was contacted to create a new design, she immediately recognised the challenge and opportunity on offer. The objective for the tract facing the road was to overcome a height difference of more than three metres between the public footpath and house further down, while at the same time retaining the magnificent view of the untouched, hilly landscape at the rear of the building.

A game of contrasts

For the design of the large areas at the front, Lehnen chose paving bricks by Wienerberger and decided to use the colours of mocha from the Trendline Mokka range and black from the Scala Dresden range. She created embankments and differences in level from the elevated public footpath towards the entrance doors and garage door. The brown clay paving bricks have a slightly old look, while the black ones are clearer and more modern in their appearance. Weathering and the way the light strikes them underscore the interesting contrast. The large paved surface was divided into smaller sections, which are further separated from each other by drainage gulleys and stripes of blue hard rock. The result is a rigorous and impressive play of lines. Due to the harmonious overall impact, even a stretch of the public footpath was re-laid. The exterior LED lighting placed between the stones impressively stages the entrance area; in other places, spots have been sunk into the paving bricks.

Unrestricted view

Paving bricks were almost exclusively used at the rear of the house as well. The two large terraces were merged with the existing swimming pool into a single area. The design exhibits a somewhat organic tone and the garden transitions almost seamlessly into the surrounding landscape. Footpaths totalling around 150 metres in length were paved with clay paving bricks and now wind their way picturesquely through the garden. Here and there, almost fifty types of shrub place deliberate accents and provide both structure and colour. Lehnen placed the darkest tones near to the house, the lighter ones further away. The plants were kept deliberately low to avoid blocking the lovely, open view. A stricter planting scheme was followed at the front of the house, where shrubs and decorative grasses dominate, as well as box trees and yew hedges pruned into ball shapes. The result is an entirely uncommon overall structure within an equally uncommon landscape.