Willy Guhl Conical Planter

This Willy Guhl planter sits low and open, a wide flaring bowl on a small base that reads as a single clean line without asking for attention. The fiber cement has weathered to limestone beige, soft gray and a faint mossy green. The surface is dry and chalky, pitted and lightly eroded; the rim is thick, uneven and worn, and it frames a grainy interior that has taken years of rain and soil.

It measures 21 1/2 inches across and 11 1/4 inches high. It is an original Eternit planter from Switzerland, mid-century, and we have left the patina as we found it. The wide mouth gives generous room for roots relative to the low height.

Use it as the centerpiece of a terrace table, set it on a courtyard floor, or stand it on a broad ledge where the planting is seen from above. It sits comfortably next to raw concrete, limestone paving or gray decking. The low profile keeps the view across the room or the garden open, which is the point of this shape. The Willy Guhl planter is in Marina Del Rey; ask us for more photographs or come and see it.