Emma Clark (garden Designer) on:
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Emma Clark is a British
Clark is the great-granddaughter of the former British prime minister,
garden designer
A garden designer is someone who designs the plan and features of gardens, either as an amateur or professional. The compositional elements of garden design and landscape design are: terrain, water, planting, constructed elements and buildings, ...
, historian, and author. She specialises in designing Islamic garden
An Islamic garden is generally an expressive estate of land that includes themes of water and shade. Their most identifiable architectural design reflects the ''charbagh'' (or ''chahār bāgh'') quadrilateral layout with four smaller gardens di ...
s.
Life
Clark is the great-granddaughter of the former British prime minister, Herbert Asquith
Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, (12 September 1852 – 15 February 1928), generally known as H. H. Asquith, was a British statesman and Liberal Party (UK), Liberal Party politician who served as Prime Minister of ...
. She developed an interest in Islamic gardens while studying under Keith Critchlow at the Royal College of Art
The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It of ...
in London. She is a convert to Islam.
Clark designed the "Carpet Garden," inspired by two Turkish carpets at Highgrove House, with Charles, Prince of Wales
Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. He was the longest-serving heir apparent and Prince of Wales and, at age 73, became the oldest person to ...
, and Mike Miller for the Highgrove gardens.
She was approached by Muslim scholar Timothy Winter to design the Islamic gardens at the Cambridge Central Mosque
The Cambridge Central Mosque is Europe's first eco-friendly mosque and the first purpose-built mosque within the city of Cambridge, England. Its mandate is to meet the needs of the Muslim community in the UK and beyond by facilitating good pract ...
, Europe's first eco-friendly mosque. The garden was inspired by the Quran
The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , sing.: ...
ic depiction of heaven
Heaven or the heavens, is a common religious cosmological or transcendent supernatural place where beings such as deities, angels, souls, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be enthroned, or reside. According to the bel ...
.
Clark is also an instructor at The Prince's School of Traditional Arts.
Publications
* ''The Art of the Islamic Garden'' (Crowood Press, 2004) * ''Mehmet the Conqueror'' with illustrations by Laura de la Mare (Hood Hood Books, 1997) * ''Underneath Which Rivers Flow: the Symbolism of the Islamic Garden'' (Prince of Wales's Institute of Architecture, 1996) * ''Sinan: Architect of Istanbul'' with illustrations by Emma Alcock (Hood Hood Books, 1996)References