A new design product is sold from a landscape architect’s online shop: a bronze bagel with a weight of about one kilogram which was designed by landscape architect Martha Schwartz. The limited edition of 100 pieces is manufactured by a Beijing Metal Craft Factory and is exclusively available through the website of Martha Schwartz Partners.

Martha Schwartz created this first design product of her online shop in commemoration to the Bagel Garden which she had invented at the beginning of her design career. In 1979, the Bagel Garden was a small but highly imaginable temporary installation.

Within Schwartz’s written manifesto she decried the lack of creativity and intellectual vitality in the profession of landscape architecture at that time. As a humorous critique, Schwartz explained her use of the Bagel as an “appropriate” landscape material in that it was inexpensive, easily installed, did not need watering and did well in the shade.

The Bagel comes in a black lacquered display box. Photo: Martha Schwartz Partners

The garden was publicized by Landscape Architecture Magazine and appeared as the front cover story in January 1980. What followed was a heated debate with her husband Peter Walker about the installation, and within the profession about the ability of the landscape to be a form of cultural expression.

If the MSP shop will offer other items such as T-shirts or baseball-caps in the near future is not yet known.

Speaking of art: Read more about the Emscher Art Trail (Emscherkunstweg), the permanent collection of art in public spaces.