Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Garden was built in the 60s, according to the project of the landscape architects António Viana Barreto and Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles; it is one of the most emblematic gardens of the modern movement in Portugal and a reference to the Portuguese landscape architecture.

This kind of design, based on subtle geometry, which provides spaces and atmospheres instead of axes, and paths can be found in other American and Danish parks of the time, or in the Japanese landscape tradition, but the vegetation used here is, internationally, pioneer.

The reproduction of the Portuguese landscape ecology codes, reflected in the choice, and intercropping and location of plant species creates situations, "micro landscapes", which are familiar, not only to humans, but to the wildlife it attracts.This way of working the space, starting from the respect of landscape rules, is a strong feature of the Portuguese landscape architecture school, with roots in the German school, and it achieves, in this garden, the peak of its expression. The place where today the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation is located , in the city center of Lisbon, was in the XVIII century, one of the city gates.Under the name of Quinta do Provedor dos Armazéns, and property of Fernando Larre, it was a place of recreation, like many that then characterized the outskirts of the main Portuguese cities with building, garden, orchard, kitchen garden, vineyards and cereal fields.