India Landscape and the British Museum

This Indian themed landscape designed for the British Museum's West Lawn in central London "marks the first of five specially commissioned projects celebrating Kew and The British Museum's shared vision of strengthening cultural understanding through creativity and supporting biodiversity conservation across the world." http://250.kew.org/News/KEW_050027.html

This landscape was truly inspirational as it seemed to me such a rarity to find something so culturally diverse outside such a quintessentially English Museum. Many people are unaware of the variety of different historical cultures and exhibitions showing an insight to countries all over the world that the museum actually contains, mainly due to the name of the Museum. Therefore i think that the Landscape outside the museum is important in reflecting the nature of what the museum consists of before anybody visiting actually enters the building. I found the landscape to be a space of tranquility and a place to escape the hectic london world surrounding it. It is filled with an ornate and diverse range of plants that allow you to feel as if you are in a remote place in India. The garden was designed by Kew's Steve Ruddy and Richard Wilford and was inspired by the rich diversity of plants native to India. It contains plants from the temperate woodlands of the Himalayas and subtropical habitats eg. Lotus flowers and also has a scholar tree called an Aistonia Scholaris which is where the slates for British school children in India where made from. It is a place to relax and think, where you can appreciate the natural surroundings of an Indian inspired garden directly in front of one of London's most iconic buildings.