Mien Ruys - The Mother of Modernist Gardens

From 1923 until 1980, Mien Ruys created over 3,000 gardens and landscapes. While most of these are in her native Netherlands, the influence of her designs and approaches spread far wider: many of us will have a little bit of Mien in our gardens, be it a railway sleeper, a diagonal line, a Phlomis russeliana or a water ball. Her work was extraordinary in combining two exceptional elements. Firstly, Mien was one of the leading proponents of modernist design: having trained and collaborated with architects such as Ben Merkelbach, Charles Karsten, Aldo van Eyck, Jan Piet Kloos, Hein Salomonson and Gerrit Rietveld, she introduced clean lines, geometric shapes and innovative materials into garden and landscape design. One of the few women members of CIAM, she was also one of the first to call for architects and landscape architects to collaborate fully from initial design onwards. She did so regularly, often on much needed social housing schemes, but also on schools, hospitals and nursing homes. All her projects shared a desire to offer users a better quality of life