Designer Made Wijaya carves a garden oasis in Bali

By Mehru Jaffer

SANUR, Bali (JP): As Made Wijaya led the way through one of the six gates of Villa Bebek in Sanur the realization did not dawn that this was a visit into the sacrosanct sanctum of a museum of living art.

On that trip the concentration was entirely on the charming company while the walk over quaintly arranged stepping stones -- interlocking a network of gates, courtyards and grassy expanse crammed with exotic plants, statues, fountains and dotted with ponds and pools -- were treated merely as a beautiful background to a very animated conversation.

Now with Tropical Garden Design, Made Wijaya's wondrous publication lying heavy on the lap it all seems like such a lot of missed opportunities. For the breathtaking photographs of different nooks and cranny of Villa Bebek point out to what was seen but not really experienced, like the squiggly lap lines of the central swimming pool that are inspired by pop artist David Hockney's famous pool paintings.

Or the small walled court with a verandah strewn with white thunbergia grandiflora and jasmine vines, making one wonder exactly where the end wall powdered with the majorelle blue brought from Morocco was hidden.

In the eye of the mind there remain faint recollections of shady spots, moss painted walls, leafy water gardens, bougainvillea trellises, shimmering pools and pathways carpeted with pebbles.

Leafing through the glossy pages, one is transported back to other memories of Bali, like the stroll in the "orderly jungles" of the Bali Hyatt hotel parklands and past the seductive wilderness of a dozen estate gardens also along the Sanur beach.

It is not without reason that Bali inspires many to treat it as the last paradise on earth.

The Balinese who insist on a holy alliance between nature, religion and art harbor the best gardens inside the island's countless temples.

"Every temple is an extraordinary garden, a sublimely beautiful mix of ornamental trees and shrubs, and sculpture-like buildings.

"Ponds, carved walls and grassy expanses are occasional features: but it is really just the height of the temple architecture artistry and the garden inventiveness that reward the senses ... so it is not surprising that one finds so much inspiration in the thousands of temples of Bali, and to an extent, the remains of the Hindu candi in Java," feels Made Wijaya who has made Villa Bali no ordinary home but almost a prayer in plant and plaster in worship of his adopted homeland.

It is the permanent Bali studio and muse of the architecture school dropout who arrived on the shores of the fabled isle of Bali in 1974 and ever since has remained wide-eyed over the exotic lushness and wild colors found in such abundance here.

His love for tropical fecundity led him to team up with his rice farmer friend Ketut Marsa and together they took upon themselves to tame parts of the Balinese jungles into tropical gardens, giving birth to the Sanur School.

He was quick to learn that to the Balinese a home, garden and temple is one complex where spirits dwell alongside humans. Every patch of space is peopled with plants and shrines mainly to placate the spirits.

In the bargain if the enchanting environment that is created happens to please humans as well then that is considered a sheer coincidence.

Bali likes its gardens to be used that are attractive for their sheer simplicity where a unique variety of plants are grown in the courts outside the living area. Most of the plants are essential to ritual ceremonies and offerings like the hibiscus and others for cooking, including the coconut palm and the fragrant dwarf pandan.

The planting here is loose and informal, often with sugar cane, bananas, tree fern and lots of kitchen herbs. It is the romantic attitude of the people here who tend to the garden and home as homage to their love for life that has made the landscape of Bali so different to any other.

Mother Nature is the reigning deity in the heart of the Balinese and it is not unknown to spend an entire lifetime perfecting this love by trying to create an ideal dwelling place that is able to balance the fecund with the ornamental and mystical.

This could be one reason why Bali seldom fails to evoke an almost overpowering sense of joy and tranquility among all those who visit the isle.

Standing in the midst of a Balinese courtyard with its mossy decor and inhabitants of sensual silhouettes, shrines, pots snuggled up against trees with trunks twisted by time and pagodas many others unable to cope with all the fascination before them are also known to feel faint.

While the Sanur School of tropical gardens carries with it a fusion of the best parklands around the world displaying hysterical magentas and hyper yellows, the Rustic Charm Movement encourages little more than a plot of swept dirt, a scattering of palms and colorful free standing shrubs.

The movement took root nearly half a century ago in the mud wall and statue gardens of European artists like Rudolf Bonnet and Hans Snell, who liked to do nothing better than to soak in beauty from Ubud.

Australian poet John Darling, living north of Ubud among rice fields, eventually erected a bamboo cottage for himself with a hibiscus hedge, a quaint lily pond with an island shrine, built in the Zen-like style of the high mountain villages he so admired and a cow in a manger.

Made Wijaya acknowledged Darling's influence on his own home.

"My own walled mud-walled studio-home in Sanur built during 1979 to 1984 was inspired by John Darling's house and garden," Made Wijaya said of his own tropical oasis of calm amid all the hustle and bustle of Sanur.