Andre Le Notre

Andre Le Notre (1613 to 1700), also rendered Le Nostre in his own time, was a French landscape architect and the principal gardener of King Louis XIV. He designed the gardens of the Palace of Versailles, work that marks the height of the French formal garden style, the jardin a la francaise. Before Versailles he collaborated with the architect Louis Le Vau and the painter Charles Le Brun on the park at Vaux-le-Vicomte. His other commissions include gardens and parks at Bicton Park, Chantilly, Fontainebleau, Saint-Cloud and Saint-Germain. He also shaped city planning: at the Tuileries in Paris he extended the westward vista, which later became the Avenue des Champs-Elysees on the Axe historique.