One of the most influential designers from this region in the so called area of the horticultural planning is Blagoja Sotirovski. Unfortunately due to the discretion agreements that he had to sign and which hide the authorship and due to his great modesty, as well, this designer of parks and green areas remained locally almost unknown. The significance of his influence and the greatness of his authorship can be found in the adequate periodic around the world. He had two largest influences for his “green poetics” which was the Japanese gardening and the traditional Macedonian garden. The first influence is based on the static energy accompanied by the everlasting calmness witnessed by the layers of time; moss in the Japanese gardening is considered to be the mostly aristocratic element since for its growing it needs 1 century for 2 mm. The traditional Japanese gardens imitate the landscapes with adequate stones, mold, bonsai trees and small channels that resemble the rivers or the waterfalls. We can see this influence in the authentic design of the City Park in Skopje which’s for e.g. wooden bridges look like small pagodas. The Macedonian garden on the other hand is a free grass space surrounded on the edges with- whatever you have (flowers, ivy, even pumpkins…). His poetics was highly inspirational for the design of the garden of the building of the UN- although never denied the authorship for this was never confirmed. The other element of his green poetics is that he respects only the form, not the colors. As you may see from his authentic designs there are no flowers in his designs. Everything is dedicated to the beauty of the positioning vegetation in the landscape.

Sotirovski is particularly proud of his accomplishments he did in Washington- the Park-City, where he went after he finished Faculty of Forestry in Skopje. In one period of time he managed to impose his style to almost all USA. Amongst his designs are the gardens of Robert and Edward Kennedy, the senators Charles Percy and Alan Dixon, state secretary Alexander Haig, the ex-American ambassador in the UN Jeane Kirkpatrick, the director of National Geographic- Gilbert Melville Grosvenor, ex-player of NBA Moses Mallon, ex-boxing champion Sugar Ray Leonard… The senator Charles Percy wanted the cherries to be bloomed during his garden party. Since it wasn’t the season for this, Sotirovski invented special system for this by injecting warm water. His opinion of the rich and famous in America is that they were very philanthropically oriented with a determination to listen to and help everybody in need.
More recently he was 1 of the 2 authors of the unique Bosai collection in the Skopje City Park.

author of the text and photographer: Igor Pop Trajkov