Departures of note

Fernando Caruncho was a Spanish landscape designer who became one of the most important figures in contemporary Spanish landscape architecture. Born in Madrid in 1957, he studied philosophy at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid before turning to landscape design, training at the private Castillo de Batres school in 1979, the same year he founded his own studio.

Caruncho conceived of the garden not as ornamental gardening but as a form of architecture, in which geometry, light, water, vegetation and space formed a unified whole. He drew decisive inspiration from the Spanish garden tradition, particularly the Alhambra, the Reales Alcázares of Seville and other historic gardens. Over his career he completed more than 150 projects across Spain, the United States, Japan, Italy, France, the United Kingdom, Morocco, New Zealand and Switzerland.

Among his best-known works are the garden of Mas de les Voltes in the Ampurdán, the Casa Caruncho in Madrid, the Spanish Embassy in Tokyo, the Garden of the Seven Mountains in Lugano, and the renovation of the Jardines de Pereda in Santander in collaboration with Renzo Piano for the Fundación Botín. His work gained international reach through major architecture and design publications, beginning with Vogue Décoration in 1987. He was an honorary member of the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno of Florence and a member of the Círculo Fortuny. He preferred to call himself a gardener rather than a landscape architect, seeking to create spaces in which nature appeared governed by a deceptively simple order.