In the past decade, garden and landscape design has witnessed a burgeoning of new ideas. The leading edge of recent garden design has not only embraced the latest thinking in science and materials, but has also appropriated ideas from related disciplines, such as architecture and product design, redefining and blurring the borders of nature and the man-made in the process. Plants, too, have been the source of surprising new expressions in avant-gardens, even if many practitioners are suspicious of horticulture's importance. One indication of the rise in popularity - and controversy - of these gardens has been the growing number of conceptual garden festivals, which have become the premier international showcases for new ideas. "Avant Gardeners" presents the fifty most exciting and innovative contemporary garden- and landscape-design practices from around the world, profiling the work of each designer through informative texts, photographs and plans. Topical essays explore the underlying principles of these highly individual approaches, and show how a rising generation has rejected the naturalistic tradition of Western garden design, favouring instead the influences of Modernism, Postmodernism, Pop Art and Land Art. Tim Richardson, one of the world's leading garden and landscape critics, brings a broad base of knowledge and an engaging style to the subject. With over 100 projects, the book is an encyclopaedic look at the most advanced contemporary thinking in garden design and offers an inspirational archive for practitioners and enthusiasts -indeed for anyone who delights in the great outdoors.