The Eden Project in Cornwall, England, is made all the more mystic with a glowing landscape by artist Bruce Munro.
By Ellen Himelfarb

In the most remote county of Cornwall, England, towns have names like Land’s End, Saltash, Mousehole, Lost­with­iel, places that sound otherworldly – but aren’t. Then there’s the innocuously named St. Austell, where the popular ­eco-village Eden Project is nothing short of celestial. Eden is surrounded by a lot of nothing: industrial wasteland, defunct clay mines – biblical, yes, but not in a good way. Inside, however, you appreciate the genesis of the name. Eight interconnected “biomes” resemble the bubbles formed in a milkshake when a child blows into the straw; they cling to the bleak valley like supernatural cocoons. And they are cocoons of a sort, cradling all manner of plant life – medicinal to edible, originating everywhere from distant rainforests to the temperate Isles of Scilly off the nearby coast. Built by architect Nicholas Grimshaw, they form the world’s largest greenhouse.

Recently, visitors got an added treat: a spectacle of 6,000 bulbous night flowers that spills out onto the grounds in the shadow of the great domes. The creator, British lighting artist Bruce Munro, was inspired by “that incredible moment of fertility” when desolate fields are made lush by fruitful rains. Laying thousands of metres of fibre optic cable “like root systems that grow out of the ground,” he injected it with light from 11 projectors. “The light travels through the cable like a mini–garden hose and pops out the end,” says Munro. “Those little glass spheres are diffusers that catch the light.” Viewed in the dark, the masterpiece highlights Eden’s two great causes: sustainable living, and the crucial role of plant life in our future. Munro dubbed it Field of Light. Eden calls it a Winter Wonderland. We call it simply out of this world.

Ellen Himelfarb is a freelance writer living in London, England. She writes regularly for the Sunday Telegraph, the Sunday Times Travel Magazine, The Globe and Mail and the National Post.