Antonio Perazzi, Principal, Studio Antonio Perazzi Landscape Architects, Italy - 14 January 2026

Описание: "Giardino di Piuca: Inspired by Wilderness"
Antonio’s work explores the profound relationship between plants and people. He designs gardens throughout Italy but also in far-flung locations such as Jaipur and Quebec, creating spaces that are rich in biodiversity, low in maintenance, and are instinctively welcoming. His goal is simple yet ambitious: to make people feel at ease in nature. He is the author of four influential books - Contro il Giardino; Il paradiso è un giardino selvaggio; I giardini invisibili. Un manifesto botanico; La Natura selvatica del giardino. He currently writes a monthly column for Gardenia, Italy’s leading gardening magazine and contributes regularly to Il Sole 24 Ore’s weekend edition, Domenica.
At just nineteen, long before he became a landscape architect, Antonio was given a plot of land surrounding an abandoned monastery in the Chianti hills near Florence. There, 600 meters above sea level, he began what would become a lifelong experiment: a garden shaped by curiosity, patience and climate. For years, while he was still immersed in his university studies, the garden was his true home. His companions were plants - countless species tested for resilience on a Mediterranean hillside defined by cold winters and long, arid summers. This early immersion in a demanding landscape laid the foundation for his approach to garden-making. Decades later, after a long career in garden design, Antonio still says that his deepest knowledge comes from Piuca, a garden he continues to tend with his own hands. It has grown into an expansive landscape of many microclimates and habitats, where an extraordinary diversity of plants thrives. Most are propagated from seeds and cuttings gathered during Antonio’s travels across the Mediterranean and beyond - from Iran to Yunnan to India - each carrying a story of place and adaptation. In his talk to members, Antonio recounts this gardening story and shares some of the lessons to be drawn from it.