Édouard André

Édouard François André (17 July 1840 – 25 October 1911) was a French horticulturalist, landscape designer, as well as a leading landscape architect of the late 19th century, famous for designing city parks and public spaces of Monte Carlo and Montevideo.

Born into a family of nurserymen in Bourges, Cher, Édouard André assisted Jean-Pierre Barillet-Deschamps in 1860, at the age of twenty, and participated in the redesign of the city of Paris in cooperation with Jean-Charles Alphand and Baron Haussmann. Eventually he was appointed Head Gardener (Jardinier Principal) of Paris. During eight years of public service he designed and planted many public spaces, including the Parc des Buttes Chaumont and Tuileries Gardens.

His international career was launched in 1866, when he won the competition to design Sefton Park in Liverpool. During his life André designed around a hundredpublic and private landscape parks, mainly in Europe: the Russian Empire, Austria-Hungary, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Denmark and Bulgaria (the Euxinograd palace park). Among the most famous of them in addition to Sefton Park, Liverpool, are the Luxembourg Castle Park, Funchal Garden in Madeira, Portugal, Weldham Castle Garden in Markelo, Netherlands, public park of Cognac, France and the Villa Borghese gardens, the major public park in Rome. His experience in designing public parks was distilled in Traité général de la composition des parcs et jardins, (Masson, Paris) 1879.