The theme of paradise is presented in eight illustrated essays that are based on individual and collective activities: community gardens in Berlin, war gardens in Iraq, the prayers rugs of Muslims and eruvs, which are fences that enclose a Jewish residential area and allow the circumvention of the rule of not carrying anything on Shabbat. Other contributions are dedicated to a putative paradise to which trusting borrowers succumb or The Whole Earth Catalog, which was a kind of precursor of the Web search machines in the early 1970s. Franziska Bark Hagen and the invited authors searched for locations in which operative directives for gardening soldiers, praying Muslims and pro-active gardeners, allow the idea of paradise as the ultimate utopia of perfect living to be resurrected again in a new form.

Franziska Bark Hagen, Professur Günther Vogt, Departement Architektur, ETH Zürich

Available from Lars Müller Publishers