Designer Made Wijaya carves a garden oasis in Bali
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.