View the set here.

About the book:

“Gardens for a Beautiful America,” a 400-page hardcover book presents 250 garden photographs in large full-color illustrations. The book includes informative essays that describe the importance of Johnston’s work with gardens and explain the techniques she used to compose lantern slides that resemble delicate miniature paintings. The book is available for $79 in bookstores nationwide and in the Library of Congress Shop, 10 First St. S.E., Washington, D.C., 20540-4985.

But that is not all: the author tied the photos to specific locations, and found out when these photos were taken. He also gives information about the current state of the garden. So aside from the apparent beauty of the images, the book is a valuable source of information for garden historians. Both for the depicted gardens themselves, and as a vital source of information about the colour schemes of the borders, the specific species used, etc.

More information about the slides and the publication: here. I have tried to find the book in the LOC’s online store, but did not find it. That’s either just me being clumsy, or an indication of how new the book actually is…

1. Sam Watters, Gardens for a Beautiful America, 1895-1935: Photographs by Frances Benjamin Johnston, Acanthus Press (April 15, 2012). [back]

I was surprised to find out that this pavilion was placed here only 80 years ago (in 1932), after it had been removed from a bustling Paris boulevard (as can be seen on this postcard) to make room for the Palais Berlitz.
There, on the corner of the Boulevard des Italiens and the rue Louis-le-Grand, the pavilion was originally designed in 1756 at the end of the garden of Hôtel d’Antin (indicated by the red circle), the Paris dwelling of Maréchal de Richelieu. It was built between 1758 and 1760. The pavilion’s name probably refers to Richelieu’s occupation of Hanover in late 1757, but as this initially successful campaign ended in his sudden resignation in a storm of accusations (corruption being only one of them) early in 1758, that seems a bit odd. The designs made in august 1756 originated at a happier time: just after the more successful endeavour on Minorca, which took place between April and June 1756.

Rebuilt, or built anew?
Situating this pavilion at Sceaux formed part of the restoration of is its gardens between 1928 and 1932. All online sources I have seen go on to say that the pavilion was ‘rebuilt’ here, but we’ll see that that is not entirely the case. Admittedly, it took me a while to spot the differences, but they are noticeably abundant.

First of all, the current building misses one complete storey: either the complete second floor was lost in transport, or they decided to do without the first floor. Slightly less conspicuous is the fact that in its original state -and very much in line with architectural fashion in 1756- the Pavillon de Hanovre was an asymmetrical building, as opposed to its current perfect symmetry. The images below illustrate those points.

Ground plan and original location.

Architect Chevotet produced several designs for the pavilion (they can be found here along with some 18th century views and early photographs), but this ground plan seems to be the closest match to the actual building.¹ We see the asymmetry in both images. I hope the photo I made conveys the pavilion’s current symmetry. What should at least be clear is that the left side of the pavilion retained its original form, with the angle in its façade. New is that the right side mirrors the left façade. All sides do now face one of three avenues leading up to (or from) the building: the patte d’oie.²

The pavilion was planned and built here in 1932 by the architect responsible for the restoration of Sceaux’s park, Léon Azéma. He also restored the Grandes Cascades elsewhere in the park, using mascerons made by Auguste Rodin. So Azéma was not afraid to combine old and new. Together with architects Louis Plousey and Urbain Cassan he relocated the Pavillon de Hanovre to the most logical spot it could have in this park. But they also made sure their signature was all over the building.
The adaptations may have been forced upon them: building material could have been in such a bad state after disassembly, that they could only create a smaller version. But to me it seems they made some deliberate choices: a two-storey building would have been too big in this part of the park; and the symmetry may be seen as an hommage to the style of the great architect of Sceaux’s original garden, whose design features were still quite visible in the by then somewhat dilapidated park: André le Notre.³

When we look at Pavillon de Hanovre in the park of Sceaux, we see a 20th century rendition of an 18th century garden pavilion. The original 18th century building materials are shaped and bent in a way that makes it fit neatly into a restored, predominantly 17th century French garden. The architects did not just rebuild the disassembled pavilion: they created their own.

The new, symmetrical Pavillon de Hanovre in its (relatively) new setting. Use the ‘HGmap’ link under this post to zoom in on the park.

[Edited for spelling]

1. When Chevotet made his designs he also worked on the gardens at Beloeil in Belgium. [back]
2. This patte d’oie itself seems to be a new invention as well: it does not show up on 17th designs or maps of the park. [back]
3. Le Notre designed the park after 1670, for Jean-Baptiste Colbert. The dilapidated state of the park is visible in photos made by Eugene Atget between March and June 1925. Many of them can be seen here. [back]

Luckily, the archaeologists were not deterred by my critique (no reason to) and happily kept on working. They now have come up with news that is unmistakenly spectacular: analysis of pollen entrapped in layers of plaster in the garden’s irrigation system has revealed which plants populated the garden around 2500 years ago (via). And because the layers of plaster can be rudimentarily dated, they are also able to tell when variations in the planting took place.

In other words: it is possible to date the introduction of exotics at Ramat Rachel. The finds thusfar show that periods in which only indigenous plants occupied the garden, alternate with periods in which all kinds of exotic species were planted in the garden. The rise and decline in the life of a garden can thus be exposed.
From the announcement:

Among the unusual vegetation are willow and poplar, which required irrigation in order to grow in the garden; ornamentals such as myrtle and water lilies; native fruit trees including the grape vine, the common fig, and the olive; and imported citron, Persian walnut, cedar of Lebanon, and birch trees. Researchers theorize that these exotics were imported by the ruling Persian authorities from remote parts of the empire to flaunt the power of their imperial administration.

I hope this success inspires garden researchers in The Netherlands. Many country houses (originally built in brick) were plastered at the end of the 18th and in the early 19th century, thus trapping the pollen of the plants that surrounded the buildings in the previous years. Analysis of that pollen could give us a (much needed) better idea of the assortment used in -for example- the early landscape period gardens of the time.
Unfortunately, many of those original plaster layers have been removed since. In some cases for restauration purposes, in some cases to expose the underlying brick walls in an attempt to show the original building. The big question is: are there any original plaster layers from that period left?

Theekoepel in 2008 (left) and in 2012.

The previous restoration took place in 1958. The then owner of the estate could not afford the upkeep of the theekoepel, so in the 1950s it was sold to the council of ‘s-Graveland for ƒ1,-. ‘s-Graveland took care of the restoration and further maintenance. In 2003 the Christengemeenschap bought it back from the council of Wijdemeren (name change) for €35.000,-.² Natuurmonumenten bought the whole complex in 2007.

The theekoepel was probably built between 1782 and 1788 by Lodewijk Hovy. When he bought Land en Bosch in 1782 it was not mentioned, but it was when he sold the estate to Louis Samuel Meynet in 1788.³

1. Via. [back]
2. Via. [back]
3. Dates taken from this source, who somehow did not put 2 and 2 together. [back]

Presented with the task to create a new design for one of the gardens in such a block (Het Grachtenhuis), Van Gessel decided to recreate the surrounding housing block, using a combination of corten steel and box for the houses, and flowering plants that represent the gardens within them. The work was presented on the Cascade weblog in 2011. The result is a rectangular area with irregular blocks of clipped box, with an open area in the middle where the flowering plants go.

The photo by Lonneke Stulen, compared with my own photo made in Paris, shows the similarities between the two. And although there are many differences, I cannot imagine that Michael van Gessel never visited Parc André Citroën or saw pictures of it. The image must have stuck in the mind and -probably subconsciensly- influenced the designer.

An inspirational garden indeed
And while I was thinking about the subject, I realised that a very different design in another European capital may also be indebted to this relatively simple garden feature. From a formal perspective, the Memorial for the murdered Jews of Europe (Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas) in Berlin bears remarkable resemblances with the blocks of box. Peter Eisenman won the design competition in 1997 (after a long selection process that had started in 1994), only five years after the completion of Parc André Citroën in 1992. The similarity lies not only in the use of blocks placed closely together, but also in the undulating surface area of the total element -the result of using blocks with a height difference.
Scale, meaning, impact and materials used are quite different of course, and architect Peter Eisenman may not have been familiar with the relatively isolated part of Parc André Citroën where the box blocks are. But the landscaping in Berlin was supervised by landscape architect Laurie Olin.¹ I do not know how the artistic process evolved, but somewhere in the process Olin must have realised he had seen something like this before, in a relatively new park that received much attention from landscape architects in the first years after its completion. If not, he may do so now, together with the rest of us.

1. A less mentioned fact, but it is mentioned in the margin of the rerelease of one of his essays on landscape architecture: Laurie Olin; ‘Form, Meaning and expression in Landscape Architecture’, in: Marc Treib [ed], Meaning in Landscape Architecture & Gardens. Four Essays, Four Commentaries (Abingdon/New York 2011), pages 70 and 80, image 1.10. [back]

The forecourt in the circle. Note especially the big group of trees in the southwest section of the forecourt (the lower left part of the circle).

The plan was presented by a special purpose foundation (Stichting Plein Elswout) that is supposed to maintain the forecourt and organize events there and on other location in the large park:

The presentation drawing. All trees at the southwest corner are left out.
Or planned to be cut?

The central part with the oval lawn seems to fit historical developments: this section appears to have been unchanged over the past 200 years. The empty areas between the walls and the water do not seem to be in line with historical developments, nor are they consistent with the current situation. The large trees that are currently there -visible in the lower left part of the circle on the aerial view- are not shown on the presentation of the plan.
One can only hope the trees are left out of the presentation drawing for reasons of clarity, not because there is no place for them in the new layout. A drawing of the house and forecourt dated circa 1810¹ already shows thick planting outside the walls:

Elswout circa 1810. The area outside the walls is planted like a forest.

The total cost of the operation is estimated at € 1.2 million. The organization received funding commitments from the estate’s owners and stakeholders, but is still looking for financial support. They expect to be able to realize their plan within the next two years.

1. Source information: TU Delft [back]

Parc Monceau (8e arr), originally uploaded by George Eastman House.

This photo is not in the exhibition, it is in the collection of the George Eastman House. When I saw this in their photostream on flickr, I immediately knew I had seen this tree last year. I took my photo from the opposite side, from a group of trees and shrubs where on Atget’s photo the path runs into. Needless to say the tree is enormous now, after 110 years of additional growth.

(Edited @ May 6th, 2012, to delete the slideshow and place the actual photo in the post. And altered the text a bit to reflect changes.)

According to a local newspaper article, the trees are around a century old and cut down because the current view is that in a wooded area like this, only ‘ecologically correct’ trees are wanted. If that is true, stupidity has reached new levels.
And it is partly true, as the local IVN group states in its newsletter of December 2011 that ecological reasons are the main driver of this action. Besides that, they claim safety reasons, as a lot of the older trees apparently are in a bad state – which is to be expected when architectural garden and park elements are treated as ‘nature’ over a period of 4 decades. Architecture needs maintenance, not neglect or a watch-what-happens-when-we-do-nothing approach. This whole action simply seems to be the result of ignorance, nurtured over a prolonged period of time.

Architecture?
The description of the gardens in the register of monuments state that many trees in this monumental garden (nr 470141) date from this period.¹ Part of the axis belonging to the 18th century garden was elongated towards the top of the Wijngaardsberg around 1900, and was then loosely planted with Quercus rubra. The register specifically states that there was no actual avenue planted in this section.

So not only is ‘ethnic cleansing’-to use a rather big word for once- possibly performed under the cover of ‘ecological maintenance’ (definately as a result of such maintenance), it is also quite possible that a deliberate landscape design from a century ago -prolonging an axis that itself was over a century old at the time, using plants that were ‘en vogue’ in the early 20th century- is demolished. A landscape design that may be attributed to Dirk Tersteeg (1907) or, after simplifying the design, to Leonard Springer (1915).²

The worst thing seems to be that the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, the governing body that keeps an eye on these things, has been informed and apparently approved of the plans. I would like to see their motivation published somewhere, just to see what their considerations were.
At least all necessary parties have been asked for an opinion, it should be said…

And just as a pointer for future actions (and because it is a source I did not know of yet): here’s a nice view at monumental trees in the garden of Vliek.

1. The link leads to a somewhat more extensive description on ‘Rijksmonumenten.nl’, which is not related to the official governing body concerning monuments in The Neherlands: RCE. [back]
2. But the Springer design seems to be limited to the garden around the house. [back]

The current felling follows extensive restoration works carried out in Elswout over the past year, which mainly concerned its pavilions and bridges.

The work has started today, as the situation appears to be too critical to wait till after the holidays. First up will be trees along a public cycling path, on the grounds of Duinvliet. Staatsbosbeheer expects the investigation of potentially dangerous trees and -when necessary- felling of more trees will last through the first half of 2012.

Counting rings?
I just hope someone makes the effort to count growth rings on the older trees, as parts of nowadays Duinvliet are remnants of one of the oldest landscape gardens in The Netherlands: Sandenhoeff in Overveen. In my article on the subject I make a case for that claim, by pointing out that although we know very little of the actual layout of the garden at the time, the fact that plants from the New World are purchased for it as early as 1756, can only mean an attempt was made to create an English garden in the dunes west of Haarlem.¹

In letters to his friend Jacob Boreel, Sandenhoeff’s owner Cornelis Backer exclaimed that he very much enjoyed the layout of those gardens, although he had admittedly never seen one for real. While Boreel was in Engeland during two tours on behalf of the Dutch government (1759/1760 and 1761-1762), he was constantly pressed by Backer to send home drawings and prints of gardens in England, as well as plants he had heard about. In the mean time Backer sent fruit from Boreel’s garden (Beeckestijn) and grapevines to England, in order that Boreel could entertain his guests during meals and have some gifts ready for people who he might want give one.

Let’s just hope that the current cutting of trees can confirm the early landscape layout I have discerned from Backers letters and cash register…

1. H. van der Eijk, “Sandenhoeff: een vroeg landschappelijke tuin?”, Cascade 18 (2009), nr. 2, p104-110. He called them ‘Americaansche boomen’ and paid for the complete package of getting trees from the other side of the ocean: retrieval, freight, transport and -not the least- provision.
   At the time, Dutch gardens were still laid out in a traditional manner, full blown landscape gardens did not appear till the 1780s. One of the first was Elswout itself, by the way, initiated by a member of the Boreel family. [back]

This consistency might have its roots in the history of the garden itself: in 1870, a fire destroyed the castle, leaving only the garden to focus on in terms of monumentality and maintenance. But that explanation is too easy, there is more.¹

• Rejuvenated avenues and the pond area.

  http://www.historicalgardensblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/P9080472.jpg
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• Saint-Cloud in 1811.

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• Site of the old castle.

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• Saint-Cloud pond area.

  http://www.historicalgardensblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/P9080435.jpg
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• Looking towards the location of the former orangery and castle.

  http://www.historicalgardensblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/P9080433.jpg
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• Plaquette.

  http://www.historicalgardensblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/P9080434.jpg
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• Dated statue in the pond area.

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• 19th century addition to the garden.

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• Saint-Cloud - click to see the texts and lines.

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All photos by HvdE 2011.
Mind: this slideshow may not work well on iPad.
Fact: clicking any separate picture in the slideshow opens the original image.

One of the central parts of the garden still leans heavily on the original Le Notre design. Slightly west of where the castle used to be it has retained the terraced layout, the ponds with their many fountains and the avenues radiating from (or towards) one central point of focus. The statues dotted along the side of the paths that enclose the ponds, are consistent with an original 17th century layout. But the statues all seem to be 19th century productions. More than one have the date 1866 chisseled in their bases. Nearby an elegant but weird pond-cascade-statue combo displayes clear late 19th century features (this may be dating from a bit later, 1890s or something). What happened in this section the garden?

It seems these 19th century features are not directly connected with the 1870 fire, as the statues are from around 1866 and I do not want to presume the fire was premeditated.² A plaquette in the garden points out that there used to be an orangery placed near the west facade of the castle. The orangery formed part of the original 17th century garden, but it was demolished in 1863. That destruction might have been part of a larger plan to restore or renovate the garden near the west facade, including fixing the pond area. But there is no sign in the garden that could tell me anything about this part of its history. I could be wrong, you know…

At the moment, only the plaquette and the dates on the statues’ bases testify to what might have happened during that period. Restoration work still continues in other parts of the garden, and one avenue that borders directly to this part of the garden wil be restored or renovated in the next years. It would be great when the domain’s owner, Le Centre des monuments nationaux, could set up one of their famous signs to further detail this otherwise forgotten part of Saint-Cloud’s history.

After all, it is often hard enough to reconstruct the development of a garden when no restoration or renovation has taken place. It is so much more difficult when these have occured, but are not identified as such. Though I do like the puzzles they offer, too…

1. Great pictures of the castle when intact, a depiction of the fire, and photos of the castle after the fire can be found following the links. [back]
2. A canon ball used in the war between France and the Prussians set fire to the castle on October 13, 1870 -the Prussians had sieged the castle just three weeks earlier. [back]