In a recently published essay in Drawing Matter, Diploma 7 tutor Hamed Khosravi, revisits Gabriel Guevrekian’s designs for a ‘Garden of Water and Light’ at the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris. Guervrekian, an Armenian-born native of Iran, who studied architecture in Vienna, produced intensely colourful geometrical designs for the Persian section of the Exposition’s gardens, with strong triangular plans decorated with coloured glass and water. The garden became an iconic and celebrated example of modernist design, included in Man Ray’s surrealist 1929 film Les Mystères du Château de Dé.

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Image: Gabriel Guevrekian (1900–1970), conceptual painting for Jardin d’Eau et de Lumière, 1925.. From 1925 Jardins de marrast (Paris: Editions d'art Charles Moreau, 1926).