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The Baroque palace and gardens of Het Loo are located in the Veluwe region of the Netherlands. Much like the Palace of Versailles, Het Loo had its origin as a hunting lodge, dating back to the late 17th century, and is often referred to as the Versailles of Holland. The designers, Jacob Roman and Daniel Marot, completed Het Loo in 1716, appropriating much of the 17th century French landscape style, but lessening both grandiosity and scale to suit the site’s topography, as well as social expectations in the country at the time. Sadly, the gardens were subjected to 300 years of decline. Thankfully, due to the palace being deemed of great national significance, the site was fully restored, opening as a national museum in 1984.

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Stourhead, Stourton, Warminster, Wiltshire, England, UK

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Stourhead, Stourton, Warminster, Wiltshire, England, UK

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Stourhead, Stourton, Warminster, Wiltshire, England, UK

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Another exquisite example of the English landscape style, Stourhead gardens in Wiltshire, England, possess a picturesque itinerary rich in allusion and meaning. The circumambulatory nature of the garden can be interpreted through a series of stations, whose unifying theme is that of the voyage of Aeneas from Troy leading to the founding of Rome. It is thought that the whole ensemble was to a degree a monument to the dead, as Henry Hoare II, Stourhead’s owner, witnessed the death of many family members over the years. It was in 1743, however, when Hoare became a widower, that he and architect Henry Flitcroft (a protégé of William Kent) embarked upon the major garden enterprise that is today one of the consummate works of art achieved by Western culture.

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Stowe House, Buckingham, Buckinghamshire, England, UK

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Stowe House, Buckingham, Buckinghamshire, England, UK

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Stowe House, Buckingham, Buckinghamshire, England, UK

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The gardens of Stowe House in Buckinghamshire, England, are some of the most celebrated in the country — worthy of such because within its lifetime, the garden has witnessed all three periods of the English style of landscape gardening: the formal phase by Charles Bridgeman; the phase of classical allusion characterized by William Kent and James Gibbs; and the final naturalistic phase established by Lancelot “Capability” Brown. The grandiose layout of Stowe directly reflects the shifting currents of garden design in the 18th century. Kent’s work at Stowe and his invention of the ha-ha, or sunken fence/ditch, put an end to the bisection between formal garden and surrounding landscape, resulting in him becoming one of the most influential figures of the Romantic generation and adopting the notion that all nature was a garden.

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Villa d'Este, Via Regina, Cernobbio, Province of Como, Italy

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Villa d'Este, Via Regina, Cernobbio, Province of Como, Italy

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Villa d'Este, Via Regina, Cernobbio, Province of Como, Italy

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Akin to many of the world’s other superlative gardens, Villa d’Este in Tivoli, Italy, is the product of an eager owner with a willingness to spend gargantuan sums of money. The garden was designed between 1550 and 1572 by Pirro Ligorio and is famed for apotheosizing the use of water through the inventiveness of 16th-century hydraulic engineers, who utilized gravity and hydraulics to choreograph water through the garden. Together, the palace and gardens at Villa d’Este are considered to symbolize Renaissance culture at its most refined.

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Ryōan-ji, 13 Ryōanji Goryōnoshitachō, Ukyo Ward, Kyoto, Japan

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Ryōan-ji, 13 Ryōanji Goryōnoshitachō, Ukyo Ward, Kyoto, Japan

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Ryōan-ji, 13 Ryōanji Goryōnoshitachō, Ukyo Ward, Kyoto, Japan

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The rock garden at Ryōan-ji Temple in Kyoto, Japan, is considered one of the finest surviving examples of kare-sansui, or dry landscape garden. It is not known exactly who designed the Ryōan-ji Garden, nor exactly when. Speculations regarding this date range between the late 15th and 17th centuries. The garden itself is gracefully simple: An encircling wall of earth and clay frames 15 rocks arranged in a rectangle of raked white gravel. Constructed as a visual form for users to attain meditative states of consciousness, this garden also acts as a familiar reference symbol for Eastern mysticism.

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Piazza del Campo, Siena, Province of Siena, Italy

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Piazza del Campo, Siena, Province of Siena, Italy

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Piazza del Campo, Siena, Province of Siena, Italy

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Siena, Italy’s 700-year-old plaza is one of Europe’s great public spaces. Originally the site of a Roman forum, the square has acted as the cultural heart of the city since the construction of the town hall in the 12th century. “Il Campo”, as the Sienese call it, functions superbly as a civic and social space because of its active edges and affordability toward social gatherings and interaction. Renowned Danish architect and urban designer Jan Gehl lauds The Piazza del Campo as a champion of the human scale, describing it as a “one hundred percent place”.

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Patio de los Naranjos, Calle Cardenal Herrero, Córdoba, Spain

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Patio de los Naranjos, Calle Cardenal Herrero, Córdoba, Spain

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Patio de los Naranjos, Calle Cardenal Herrero, Córdoba, Spain

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Located within the Mosque of Córdoba (or Mezquita de Córdoba, as it is known in Spanish), southern Spain, the Patio de los Naranjos is thought to be one of the oldest gardens in Europe. It was established at the time of the Great Mosque’s initial construction in 784. Originally containing plants such as pomegranate, cypress, and palm trees, the garden today is comprised of a simple grid of orange trees — 98 to be exact — planted in rows dating back at least to the end of the 18th century. The Patio de los Naranjos stands out due to the designers’ sapient response to the limits imposed by the garden’s environment, transforming the necessity of irrigation into artwork, and coalescing nature and religion.