‘Holland Eight’ wins prizes for horticultural art

The Dutch pavilion at the Hamamatsu International Mosaiculture event in Japan was awarded the prize for the most beautiful design.

Deputy Mayor Frits Huffnagel posing by the scene of the Peace Palace

Deputy Mayor Frits Huffnagel (City Marketing) of The Hague, who received the prize, also heads the Holland Business Promotion Office. The office promotes the four biggest cities in the Netherlands (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht) as well as the three corresponding provinces (North Holland, South Holland and Utrecht) and Flevoland, otherwise known as the ‘Holland Eight’ (Holland Acht).

Mosaiculture

Mosaiculture is a horticultural form of expression which allows the creation of spectacular works of art to be made using living plants. In Mosaiculture, plants are not only selected for their colours or textures but to create designs, motifs, sculptures and reliefs.

The art of composing drawings or sculptures with plants, using carefully maintained plants of different colours. In two dimensions forms the Mosaiculture portrays coats of arms, clocks, animals, characters, action scenes, objects, messages, geometric shapes or fantasy worlds. In three dimensions, the Mosaiculture has more volume giving further life to these forms.

The world expo in the Japanese city of Hamamatsu was opened in September 2009 by Prince Akishino. The exposition attracted 1.3 million visitors last autumn.

Dutch pavilion

The Dutch pavilion featured horticultural art works including the Peace Palace in The Hague, the Erasmus Bridge in Rotterdam, Amsterdam’s canals and Nijntje, or Miffy, a creation of the Dutch illustrator Dick Bruna.