Jules Buyssens and le Nouveau Jardin Pittoresque

Jules Buyssens (1872-1958) is a key figure in the world of garden and landscape design in Belgium. After a 15-year training both in Belgium and abroad, which he concluded as bureau chief of Édouard André in Paris, he conceived more than a thousand designs in Belgium and a dozen other European countries (France, Russia, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Monaco, Poland, Lithuania). He designed parks and gardens for the international aristocracy and wealthy bourgeoisie (Prince and Princess Napoléon in Ronchinne, the Solvay family in La Hulpe and Brussels, Béatrice Ephrussi de Rothschild in Monte-Carlo, Countess de Pourtalès in Switzerland), was commissioned by several town councils and, during the interwar period, devised charming urban gardens, combining the picturesque with the Art Deco style. In addition to initiating the movement and the magazine Le Nouveau Jardin Pittoresque, he was also the landscape architect of the city of Brussels (1904-1937) and responsible for the landscape design of the International Exposition at the Heysel in 1935.