Daniel Ganz is a founder of a renowned office based in Zurich, Ganz Landschaftsarchitekten, whose work received many recognitions by opening the field into diverse directions resulting in unusual designs. In 2021, the monograph Ganz – Contemporary Swiss Landscape Architecture was published, presenting the reader with 10 works outlined by key themes like pleasure, labour, cooking, aesthetics, and music. Ganz’s work is influenced by found objects, materiality, a sense of curiosity and infused with wonder, as if nothing in a place is without a story, interesting enough to look into it deeper. We had the opportunity to ask Daniel Ganz a few questions about his inspiration and process.

What are you doing differently from what you were taught in school? What is the personal line of work you developed?

During my studies, I acquired basic knowledge in botany, geology, meteorology, ecology, sociology, art, architecture, and more. This basic knowledge helps me as a foundation in my design work, but there is so much that was not taught at school. There were no courses on quality, photography, fashion design, gastrosophy (the art of eating well), cooking, rhythmics, vulcanology, ethnology, philosophy, film, textile science, and other things. But these are things that can enrich design work enormously. Passion, interest, curiosity, and enjoyment of all things foreign and unknown (people, cultures, art, culinary specialities) have been significant influences in my work.

Your designs seem bare, minimalist, perhaps more sincere, as in Primary school Kraemeracker, with exposed materiality and by letting nature run its course. Or, on the other hand, as cabinets of curiosities, collections of impressions on their own. What is your design process, and what influences it?

The design process changes with each new project. Context and appropriateness are the principles that must be considered. Analysis of the place follows questions and analogies as the basis for discussion in a dialogue. Working with a model and with hand, heart, and brain clarifies the scale and the spatial relationships. Sketches and written texts aid the search for an aesthetic that is appropriate to the site. The design should fit itself into the context quietly and calmly, as if it has always been there.

The Wunderkammer or Kunstkabinett can be traced back to times of imperial discoveries when collections of exotic objects, art and objects found in nature were showcased as world miniatures. It’s a fetish (for systematic knowledge?), a passion. What does the cabinet of curiosities mean for your work, and how do you use it? What does it consist of, tell us more.

Books, pictures, ceramic vessels, found objects, preserved plant specimens, material samples, photographs, colour samples, newspaper articles, natural objects, and much more make up the collection with which we surround ourselves. This cosmos serves as a source of inspiration for our design work. The concept of the cabinet of curiosities as an expansion of the universe that we find in nature and the landscape allows us to organise, compare, and identify. 

Do you think “political correctness” influences landscape architecture design and if so, in what way? What are the “correct” codes stemming from the societal shifts and what is perhaps missing for the sake of correctness, or too rigid? 

Landscape architecture is independent and distances itself from political correctness!

Landscape architecture is apolitical, undemocratic, and not subject to any dictatorship.

Landscape architecture is conservative, liberal, and progressive. Landscape architecture always submits to nature and humbly serves people, animals, and plants.

If C. G. Jung analysed your designs, what do you imagine he would have to say about you? Or vice versa, what did you learn about Jung when renovating his garden?

In C. G. Jung’s analytical psychology, the Explorer archetype travels and explores and embraces all things new. When we restored and further developed C. G. Jung’s garden it became clear that changes had crept in over the years. Through careful research, analysis, and also interpretation, we were able to adapt the garden for its new use requirements without erasing the original idea of the garden design. With a lot of time and patience, the spirit of C. G. Jung could be newly awakened in the garden. Really listening to the inner voice of the existing substance of the garden made it possible for us to further develop the garden in what we hope is the spirit of C. G. Jung.

Tell us what is sexy about the meadow. What else is sexy in landscape architecture?

I lie in the grass on the flowering meadow and look at the sky and think how wonderful it is to lie in the grass on the flowering meadow and look at the sky. I am thankful as I feel the pleasure of this experience. Trailing clouds, buzzing insects, chirping crickets, the summery fragrance of the fresh grass and wildflowers…I open up in that moment, which dazzles with facets of pure pleasure and contentment. The atmospheric quality becomes an experience when poetry and sensuality intertwine.

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About

Daniel Ganz is a landscape architect and founding director of Ganz Landschaftsarchitekten which opened in 1995. He studied landscape architecture at Interkantonales Technikum Rapperswil, Switzerland, he was a lecturer at HSR Hochschule für Technik Rapperswil on the use of plant materials, a guest Professor at the Department for Architektur at EPFL and a guest lecturer at the chair of Prof. Christian Inderbitzin at KIT (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology). Since 2015 Ganz has been a lecturer at Studio Tom Emerson at ETH in Zurich.