Life and works
Born in an agricultural area in northern Holland in a family with ten children, his father early deceased, Chris Goedhart as a young boy experienced a lot of poverty, he tried to soften by dreaming away in an old Dutch magazine with lots of images of classic Italian structures.
He preferred a blocks set as a toy and made himself small building blocks by allowing cement to harden in matchboxes.
This project being completed, he turned his desire to build on creating an Italian dream garden, fascinated as he was by classical mediterranean architecture.
To protect a palm in the garden against the winds that can blow firmly on the flat countryside of northern Holland, close to the sea as it is situated, Goedhart constructed a wall.
This was the beginning of a forty-year project, resulting in a wonderful garden with various gates, arches, pillars, cascades, a Roman bath, ponds and a tea dome.
Goedhart's art environment is an ensemble of carefully constructed classical works with a focus on the beauty of forms and without fuss. It is the sheer joy of building as such, what drives him. Aedifiare vitam est
In the Netherlands the site is appreciated by lovers of gardens and the members of the dutch branch of the British Folly Fellowship.
Documentation
*Link to a webpage with a video of a dutch tv program (2011) with scenes of Goedhart ssurrounded by his family, his birth place, his constrcutive activities and the garden as it is nowadays
Chris Goedhart
Iatliaanse droomtuin
Koningspade 37
1718 MP Hoogwoud NL
can be visited on appointment
