Elie Lainé (1829–1911) was a French landscape architect, chiefly remembered for the restoration of the gardens at

Vaux-le-Vicomte The Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte () or simply Vaux-le-Vicomte is a Baroque French château located in Maincy, near Melun, southeast of Paris in the Seine-et-Marne Departments of France, department of Île-de-France. Built between 1658 and 1661 ...

, the layout of the grounds at

Waddesdon Manor Waddesdon Manor is a English country house, country house in the village of Waddesdon, in Buckinghamshire, England. Owned by the National Trust and managed by the Rothschild Foundation, it is one of the National Trust's most visited properties, ...

and the creation of numerous parks and gardens for

King Leopold II of Belgium Leopold II (9 April 1835 – 17 December 1909) was the second king of the Belgians from 1865 to 1909, and the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908. Born in Brussels as the second but eldest-surviving son of King Le ...

Biographical information

Lainé was born in 1829 in the northern French town of Brain-sur-l'Authion in

Maine-et-Loire Maine-et-Loire () is a department in the Loire Valley in the Pays de la Loire region in Western France. It is named after the two rivers, Maine and the Loire. It borders Mayenne and Sarthe to the north, Loire-Atlantique to the west, Indr ...

, where most of his family were small-scale farmers. He worked as a gardener in the nearby town of

Angers Angers (, , ;) is a city in western France, about southwest of Paris. It is the Prefectures of France, prefecture of the Maine-et-Loire department and was the capital of the province of Duchy of Anjou, Anjou until the French Revolution. The i ...

in his twenties. Once he was established as a landscape architect, he set up his home and studio in the

Petit-Montrouge The quartier du Petit-Montrouge () is number 55 of the 80 ''quartiers administratifs'' (administrative districts) in Paris. It lies in the XIVe arrondissement, 14th Arrondissement, in the south of the capital. It owes its name to the adjacent commu ...

area of

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, and lived there between 1879 and 1898. Lainé never married, and retired to a grand house he designed in his home town, Brain-sur-l'Authion, where he died in 1911, aged 82.

Projects in England and France

His first project of note as a landscape architect was for Ferdinand de Rothschild, whose home at

in Buckinghamshire, England, was designed by the Parisian architect Hippolyte Destailleur. Lainé worked at Waddesdon for at least eleven years, laying out roads, terraces and plantations of mature trees, and helping turn the site from a wild, muddy hill into one of the finest gardens in England. At

Seine-et-Marne Seine-et-Marne () is a department in the Île-de-France region in Northern France. Named after the rivers Seine and Marne, it is the region's largest department with an area of 5,915 square kilometres (2,284 square miles); it roughly covers its ...

, Lainé was employed by the new owner of the chateau, Alfred Sommier, from about 1876 to restore the classical gardens originally designed by Andre Le Nôtre in the mid-17th century. While Hippolyte Destailleur led the restoration of the chateau, Lainé worked on the grounds, which had lain abandoned for many years. He laid miles of pipes so that 20 of the grand water features could work again, and raised the level of the entire garden by some 20 cm so he could add fresh topsoil. By 1891, the French press was hailing the gardens (with their pools, canals, cascade, fountains, terraces, statues and magnificent hornbeam hedges) as being fully restored to their original state. Lainé worked for other private clients in France: from 1881 he laid out the grounds of the Château d'Armainvilliers in Seine-et-Marne for Edmond de Rothschild, creating a park that the family remembered as "particularly awe-inspiring and a great luxury" and he designed the garden and grounds for Baron Eugene Roger at La Triboulette in Vouzeron, Cher (1887).

Belgian projects

From 1889, Lainé worked for Leopold II, having been recommended to the Belgian king by Ferdinand de Rothschild. His designs included the neoclassical gardens at the Palace of the Colonies (now the

Royal Museum for Central Africa The Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA) (; ; ), communicating under the name AfricaMuseum since 2018, is an ethnography and natural history museum situated in Tervuren in Flemish Brabant, Belgium, just outside Brussels. It was originally b ...

) in

Tervuren Tervuren (; ) is a municipality in the province of Flemish Brabant, in the Flemish region of Belgium. The municipality comprises the villages of Duisburg, Tervuren proper, Vossem and Moorsel. On 1 January 2006, Tervuren had a total population o ...

, created for the 1897

Brussels World's Fair Expo 58, also known as the 1958 Brussels World's Fair (; ), was a world's fair held on the Heysel Plateau, Heysel/Heizel Plateau in Brussels, Belgium, from 17 April to 19 October 1958. It was the first major world's fair registered under the Bu ...

; the naturalistic Woluwe Park in Brussels; the grounds of the Royal Castle of Ardenne; and the Royal Castle of Ciergnon and Villers-sur-Lesse in the south of the country. He produced a master plan for

Ostend Ostend ( ; ; ; ) is a coastal city and municipality in the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It comprises the boroughs of Mariakerke, Raversijde, Stene and Zandvoorde, and the city of Ostend proper – the la ...

, the king's summer home on the Belgian coast, and also designed the grounds of various villas owned by the king in the south of France. His last known project was in 1905, at Jenneret Park in the Ardennes, for Baron Paul-Louis de Favereau, the king's foreign secretary.

Legacy

An obituary described Lainé as "the celebrated Parisian landscape architect." Many of his projects still exist a hundred years after his death, but very few of his plans and other papers have survived. In the early part of the 21st century, his name became confused with the unrelated Vendéen architect Emile Lainé (1863–1930), who has therefore wrongly received much of the credit for Elie Lainé's work in Brussels.See for instance Région de Bruxelles-Capitale, ''Le patrimoine et ses métiers'', Mardaga, 2001 (), p. 43.

Gallery of projects

File:76-Tournan-Avenue du Château-d'Armainvilliers-1903.JPG, Avenue du Château d'Armainvilliers File:Waddesdon Manor formal garden, Buckinghamshire - geograph.org.uk - 681639.jpg, Part of the gardens at

File:Vaux-le-Vicomte Panorama.jpg, The restored gardens at

File:CiergnonCastle3.jpg, Royal Castle of Ciergnon in the

Ardennes The Ardennes ( ; ; ; ; ), also known as the Ardennes Forest or Forest of Ardennes, is a region of extensive forests, rough terrain, rolling hills and ridges primarily in Belgium and Luxembourg, extending into Germany and France. Geological ...

File:Royal Museum for Central Africa Garden.jpg, Part of the classical garden at

File:2286-00020 Parc de Woluwe (2).JPG, Woluwe Park in Brussels File:Parc_de_Forest_-_20080325.JPG, Forest Park in Brussels File:Garden Royal Palace of Laeken and a view on Brussels.jpg, Royal Domain of Laeken in Brussels File:01-Namur-290305 (2).jpg, Circulation routes at the

Citadel of Namur The Citadel of Namur () is a fortress in the Walloon capital city of Namur, at the confluence of the Sambre and Meuse rivers. It is originally from the Roman era, but has been rebuilt several times. Its current form was designed by Menno van Co ...

File:Winter4.JPG, Maria Hendrikapark in

References

External links

Waddesdon Manor entry on English Heritage Register of Historic Parks and Gardens
{{DEFAULTSORT:Laine, Elie French landscape and garden designers French landscape architects 19th-century French people French urban planners 1829 births 1911 deaths Waddesdon Manor