LANDSCAPE DESIGN + MORE

DESIGNING IN THE PRARIE SPIRIT

2013-04-24T15:19:00.000-04:00

The Library of Landscape History film on one of my heroes, Darrel Morrison. Mr. Morrison, FASLA, is one of the first advocates of the use of native vegetation, processes in landscape design and ecological restoration work.

ETYMOLOGY IN THE GARDEN

2013-03-29T18:43:00.000-04:00

a google search for "lot" yielded this..

a google search for "yard" yielded this..

a google search for "garden" returned this..

As an American overseas, if I’ve heard this once, I’ve heard this ten times in the U.K… why do Americans refer to their outdoor planted spaces as yards? Aren’t yards where cars are put up on blocks? Where railcars are stored?

Paul Groth writes in “The Meaning of Gardens”, “What does it mean that Americans chose to call their arrangements of cars parked outdoors as lots? Why not carparks as in Canada and the U.K. Why have we overtly fashioned no parking gardens, or at least parking yards? Three of these terms – lot, yard and garden –denote a simple but important hierarchy in the way Americans organize their space.”

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, here are the first seven definitions for the word "YARD":

1: a small, usually walled and often paved area open to the sky and adjacent to a building : a court

2: the grounds of a building or group of buildings

3: the grounds immediately surrounding a house that are usually covered with grass

4 : an enclosure for livestock (as poultry)

5: an area with its buildings and facilities set aside for a particular business or activity

6: an assembly or storage area (as for dry-docked boats)

7: a system of tracks for storage and maintenance of cars and making up trains

8: a locality in a forest where deer herd in winter

On Wiktionary… a yard is a small, usually uncultivated area adjoining or (now especially) within the precincts of a house or other building, An enclosed area designated for a specific purpose, e.g. on farms, railways etc. In Jamaica, it is vernacular for “one’s house or home.

Lot stands as one of the oldest words for a division of land. Yard denotes more enclosure, or an area for special work, business or storage. Or, lack of attention as in “open lot” and “vacant lot”. Groth associates the notion of “yard” with barns, prisons, ships, etc. In fact, the word harkens back to the 12^th century middle English as a word for enclosure.

In terms of organizing open space design, there is a hierarchy of meaning within “lot,” “yard,” and “garden.” Lot is commonly used in real estate terms, historically it equates to a division of land. This is an enclosure.“We define lots or yards by their edges and their neighboring spaces; lots and yards hold something else. The garden is defined by what is in it. Its immediate meaning derives largely from itself and its contents.”

There is also a hierarchy of care, cultivation and pleasure among these three words. “The word ‘yard’ implies more value than something called a ‘lot’; in turn, the word ‘garden’ suggests something treasured.”

Gardens provide delight and amusement. Its contents are aesthetically pleasing and it is not defined by it’s edges, but rather by it’s contents. The term “pleasure garden” never referred to a yard or lot. Henceforth, lets turn yards into gardens.

The Meaning of Gardens: Francis and Hester
MIT Press, 1990

Photos: lot/NYTimes, yard/sgvtribune.com, garden/lowcrapdiet.com

QI

2012-10-24T16:43:00.000-04:00

It is traditional to think of focal points in a landscape as statues, sculpture, topiary, buildings, follies, water features or plant specimens. But what about topographic foci?

"Joys of the Fisherman", Wang Fu 1410

For centuries in Chinese landscape art, mountains (and water) were the emphasis in the landscape. Rocks and boulders were and still are representative of these features. They provide the same or similar vertical emphasis that a statue, building or folly would, but with a more naturalistic “unbuilt” form. They are not only foci, but also destination points along a journey. A strong contrast to the level or lower-lying ground plane. Similarly a “bowl” which is an inversion or depression in the groundplane is at direct contrast with a mounded vertical feature. In a depression, people are naturally and psychologically attracted to discover the mystery within and then ultimately ascend back up to higher ground.

"Palace of Nine Perfections", Yuan Jiang circa 1200 (scroll painting)

The Chinese word for landscape is “shanshui”, which literally means mountains and water.” In gardens, fantastic rocks represent the the rugged grandeur of the Chinese landscape and the great unyielding, solid, hard mountain ranges, the “yin” that contrast with the “yang’ –rivers and streams (soft, wet and cool, restorative qualities).

A wonderful exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of New York highlights these natural forms. Mountains and their symbolic equivalents which are boulders and rocks,.. serve as a primary source of inspiration in these antiquated Chinese gardens.

"Summer Mountains" Qu Ding mid 11th century

"Elegant Gathering in the Apricot Garden", Xie Huan circa 1400

Ji Cheng's great work on garden design, the Yuan Ye or The Craft of Gardens, was originally published around 1631 and is the oldest surviving and perhaps earliest manual of landscape gardening in the Chinese tradition. Ji Cheng’s text immediately wins the modern Western gardener’s admiration for its insistence on the need to adapt a garden’s designs and contents to its natural location. His western counterpart of thought, Alexander Pope, employed designers to consult the genius of the place. That is,.. landscape designs should always be adapted to the context in which they are located. It pays close attention to the selection of rocks and boulders as philosophical roots within the garden, therefore an inseparable part of the landscape.

“Rocks are not like plants or trees, once altered, they gain a new lease on life.”

“Pile up the rocks to emphasize the height, excavate the earth to increase the depth.”

Sydney Chinese Garden of Friendship

alextravelblog.com

Ji Cheng was a practicing garden designer in the first half of the 17th century. He designed gardens for several well-known individuals in the late Ming dynasty. It is believed that Ji Cheng’s clients supported the original publication of this book.

The Yuan ye offers no precise prescription for garden design, mostly practical advice and poetic visualization. Ji Cheng states that “There is no definite way of making scenery, you know it is right when it stirs your emotions.” It is “qi” –-the pulsating breath of life that must be the result of the designer’s efforts.1 (Most Chinese philosophical schools followed the same fundamental principle that everything in existence is composed of the same fundamental “qi” or breath.) Ji Cheng speaks of taking advantage of "borrowed scenery", similarly screening out what is offensive. He continues with suggestion of segregating space (garden rooms or compartmentalization), wall outlines, stone selection and much more.

In her preface to the translation of the Yuan Ye, Alison Hardie reiterates that Ji “emphasized the importance of basing the design on the existing landscape, and uses poetic descriptions to build up an atmosphere which will inspire the would be designer to create a garden which can express the emotions he/she is experiencing.”

1. Landscape Design, A Cultural and Architectural History: Elizabeth Barlow Rogers.

GOLDEN RATIO

2012-09-27T08:53:00.001-04:00

A superb blog in the NYTimes Opinionator column by Steven Strogatz on the Golden Ratio, phi and its reverence in the world of design.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/24/proportion-control/?ref=opinion

If unfamiliar with the golden ratio, "google it" and one of the 6 million results should present an elementary understanding.

*Image of Parthenon from http://zlatnirez.springnote.com/pages/5692507.xhtml

SIGHTING THE HOUSE

2012-09-06T16:53:00.001-04:00

In reading an old text “Practical Landscape Gardening, Robert Cridland (De La Mare Publishing Company, N.Y. 1916), I came across a distinct perspective in addressing sighting a house on a small lot.

The author begins by noting that the location of a majority of homes are governed by the street in an urban or suburban setting, such that highways and roads usually run north and south, or east and west and so the houses within developments are placed accordingly, invariably facing the street. “This is a practice that should be discontinued if we are to get all the enjoyment out of our homes.” He suggests turning the house entirely around if necessary in order to get the best exposure/light, because in his estimation “the course of the sun in relation to the principled rooms of the house should be of the first importance.”

Here the house is classically placed adjacent to the street, in the center of lot facing the rear, and overlooking a formal garden.

Best exposure for the house in relation to the sun.

Similarly, the author further recommends that “by careful planning of the house and grounds, the kitchen wing may face the street with more pleasure and comfort to the occupants and without objection to the passerby.”

Another rule...“The house should always be on an eminence, but not necessarily the highest point on the property. He advises selecting or creating a site with rising ground in the rear.

Best exposure for the house in relation to the sun.

Eastern philosophy (feng-shui) suggests a master bedroom facing the east will receive the motivating and bright rays of a rising sun. “Sleeping to the east” many people believe is fundamental and in tune with our natural biological rhythms and cycles, not to mention an obvious and immediate way of calculating the days weather ( and, it's faster than an iphone app).

***all Illustrations from Practical Landscape Gardening

PROMENADE

2012-07-26T18:35:00.000-04:00

“Promenade” is defined by Webster’s dictionary as a leisurely place to walk or ride, especially in a public space for pleasure or display.” It’s french in derivation, mid 16th century, recalling the actions of people of the court leisurely strolling as if on display, to be seen by all – commoners as well as other gentry/society. A processional walkway.

From se promener 'to walk', See also a “flaneur.”

"La Promenade (Mother & Daughters)", August Renoir, 1875-6

Frick Collection

"La Promenade", Franz Gaillard, 1861, © Christies London

Promenades are essentially vegetated paths. The presence of vegetation is reason enough to stroll, to saunter,… breathing in the perfumed air of plants and flowers, touching the leaves and rustling the grasses, the transitional experience of moving from dappled shade to sunlight. These are highly sensorial experiences. Not to be forgotten is the sauntering among other people, many of which are equally engaged in people watching. “A place to be seen.”

Promenades tend to mediate between large and human scales, play environmental roles in narrow urban spaces, in essence they are avenues. When elevated they provide the pedestrian with a new perspective and experience, above the typical groundplane that one views its surroundings.

An esplanade is sometimes used interchangeably with promenade. Esplanades became popular in Victorian times in England when it was fashionable to visit seaside resorts

Promenade in Brighton, England

Promenade in Budapest

The au currant, trendy promenade to visit in the United States is The High Line in New York City. Equal to its acclaim and popularity; activities and programming abound throughout this landscape, from taking a pilates class to stargazing to simply strolling.

But, the precedent for the High Line is the Promenade Plantee. It is a nineteenth century railway viaduct transformed into an elevated greenway through the 12th Arrondissement. The arcades beneath became arts and crafts workshops. The design was by Jacques Vergely (landscape architect) and Philippe Mathieux (architect). Pedestrians have a garden environment for their high-level walk and cyclists have a route at ground level. Then, 3 miles from the start, the routes come together at ground level and proceed to the Bois de Vincennes. The high-level route has some enclosed sections, as when it passes between modern buildings, and some open sections with exhilaratingly expansive views.

The elevated Promenade Plantee

Some nice photos on this blog:

Paris Flâneuse: Promenade Plantée in rose season

COLOR IN THE GARDEN

2012-06-26T15:35:00.000-04:00

"Color directly influences the soul. Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another purposively, to cause vibrations in the soul." -- Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art

Kandinsky, "Autumn in Bavaria" 1908;

Oil on cardboard, 33x45cm; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

Kandinsky, "Composition IX" 1936

Oil on canvas, 113.5 x 195 cm; Musee National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

In describing “pictorial composition” in Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Kandinsky advocates for disharmonious combinations of colors and forms in a new harmony for painting. He explains that the effect of any particular color is influenced by the colors and forms with which it is juxtaposed and asserts that “the incompatibility of certain forms and certain colors should be regarded not as something ‘disharmonious,’ but conversely, as offering new possibilities – a new form of harmony.

“Kandinsky uses color as a tool to add depth, dimension, and complexity to a two-dimensional composition.” (Reds and oranges to bring things in closer or blues and purples to add distance.) ”This is a prime example of just how color can tease the eye. He proposed that color, like sound, evokes emotions. Along with other formal elements, such as line, shape, and form, color (like music) is a language that communicates to all. The main focus of his exploration of color was how it could be employed as an expression of the spiritual, he imagined it to act as a kind of intermediary between the viewer and the spiritual world.”1

The most common theory of color harmony is based on the mixture of pigments. This is of assistance to the landscape designer, but it does not take into consideration the visual aspects of color. Another theory based on the spectrum and the length of light waves is less applicable to the garden, where color must be considered in relation to environment. The "psychological theory" of Faber Birren is related to gardening. It is based on the effect or sensation of color on the eye.

“Faber Birren (1900-1988) was a leading authority on the effects of color on humans. Birren believed that color's influence extended beyond simply being a source of mere pleasing perception to having a fundamental influence on artwork, human psychology and the workplace experience. He believed that color was a primary tool of expression, communication and self-identification. In his introduction to "The Elements of Color," Birren wrote that "Expression should come from within," albeit from a conscious, informed perspective.

Birren links the human perception of color to the emotional response it evokes in the viewer. He explains, in his 1961 publication, "Creative Color: An Approach for Artists and Designers," that people associate color with other senses. He writes, "Good smelling colors are pink, lilac, orchid, cool green, aqua blue," and goes on to describe the associations of other colors with corresponding senses. The association of one sense with another is known as synaesthesia. In "Color Psychology and Color Therapy," Birren observes that introverts tend to be unresponsive to color, and that emotionally responsive people react more readily to color.”

Faber Birren's Color Wheel

For a more detailed discussion of this see Birren's Color Dimensions, Color Equation, and the comprehensive color charts in The American Colorist.

If the effect of color is largely psychological, and since it is influenced, as it appears in the garden, by light, shadow, climate, and humidity, it is nearly impossible to lay down rules for its use.

Christopher Lloyd was considered to be an inspiration to gardeners. He was famous for his bold gardening with strong use of shapes and colors that gave interest all year. To him, colors work with and against each other, and must be viewed as relationships. Colors strike powerful emotional chords and Lloyd knew how to wring the most out them. “Christo” as he was affectionately called, stated, “plants grown close to one another, need to help one another.”

A visit to his gardens is an emotional experience, an overload of the senses, a magical drug-induced trip of color that sends one wondering if they have been transported to Oz. Blogger Margaret Roach writes ….. "No garden in the world ever WOWED me like Great Dixter."

He debunks color wheel and other theories. “Limitations imposed by rules are a safe haven.” So to the adventurous designer, colorist and gardener, he advocates breaking them!

1. -Kandinsky's dissonance and a Schoenbergian view of Composition VI

Shannon M. Annis

University of South Florida, -2008

2. –Cynthia Reeser, ehow.com

THE JOURNEY

2012-05-29T12:57:00.001-04:00

While working toward my graduate degree, a professor of mine (Darrel Morrison) would always emphasize the need to create an experiential and sensory journey within a landscape. Returning from the Chelsea Flower Show this year I was most empowered by the Daily Telegraph Garden designed by young Sarah Price. There is much complexity in her elegant design, which is noticed when the visitor moves through the different landscapes (meadow – water – woodland) she has created within her allocated space. This space is an evocation of the beauty and romance of the wild British countryside, inspired by the designer’s own experiences with her family.

“I want to distill some of the atmosphere of those wild and mysterious places, and try to capture the magic of those sudden encounters you get with wild flowers, which might be a cowslip in a field or daisies on a London street.” -Sarah Price interviewed in London Telegraph.

The planting progresses through meadow, water and woodland habitats. Perennials, rushes, grasses and meadow flowers grow around an intricate pattern of pools in Chilmark limestone. The copper details draw inspiration from the mineral-rich upland streams and rills of North Wales and Dartmoor.

A stepping-stone walkway leads across an expanse of water to a simple seating area on a group of boulders. At the rear of the garden a glade of tall, graceful, multi-stemmed Betula pendula (silver birch trees) framing natural spaces.

The kinetic experience of movement through a landscape requires design strategies and considerations – what is sensed while static or while moving - the changes, views, sounds, scents, warmth, coolness, brightness and shade,.... are all layered into the experience of a journey through a landscape.

**all photos/video ©ToddHaiman2012

AXIS MUNDI

2012-03-14T18:41:00.000-04:00

The axis mundi takes many forms in all cultures throughout recorded time. It is essentially an imaginary vertical axis or linkage as a center pole, running from the sky through the ground, uniting heaven, earth and underworld. Some see it as a symbol of the “center of the world”, a microcosm of our universe, and a turning point of the world -- through the earth's center around which the universe revolves. The image expresses a point of connection between sky and earth where the four compass directions meet or (in ancient civilizations) where the four rivers flow. At this point, travel and correspondence is made between higher and lower realms of planes of reality and human beings.

"Yggdrasil", Norse tree of life

Different cultures represent the axis mundi by varied symbols such as a natural object (a mountain, a tree, a vine, a stalk, a column of smoke or fire) or of a product of human manufacture (a staff, a tower, a ladder, a staircase, a maypole, a cross, a steeple, a rope, a totem pole, a pillar, a spire). Its proximity to heaven may carry implications that are chiefly religious (a pagoda, temple mount, church) or secular (obelisk, minaret, lighthouse, rocket, skyscraper).1

Additionally, the axis mundi may be feminine (an umbilical providing nourishment), masculine (a phallus providing insemination into a uterus), or neither (e.g. the omphalos (navel). 2

celtic tree of life by omnitelik

earth on axis

This notion is represented all the way from the most primitive sacred pole to the sacred city of Jerusalem. In the most primitive cases, as with the pole, the tribe may be aware of other tribes’ axis mundis — but for that tribe, the world (the land they occupy) is indeed anchored at the center by the sacred pole around which they live, and the rest is merely an unknown non-sacred periphery. Their pillar is indeed the center of the world: it is at their core, and they live around it, as the focal point of their inhabited land; and the rest of the world is an outside.

A ziggurat as an early man-made axis-mundi.

The axis mundi allowed the fundamental belief that the home of the god was the sacred realm and that was where the pious wanted to be. The axis mundi is the most sacred land as it is closest to the divine; it is a place that is neither heaven nor earth, but a refuge from the non-sacred where the two realms intersect and the divine is present.

"Spiral Jetty", photo by mediabistro

©robert smithson

To many, Robert Smithson’s “Spiral Jetty” 1970, land art creation begins to suggest the notion of an axis mundi, reminiscent of medicine wheels created by indigenous cultures on the Great Plains.

In the mid 1990’s the DAST art team created an earthwork entitled “Desert Breath” in the Egyptian desert, six hours south of Cairo near the Red Sea.

On many levels, this proposes itself as a modernist axis mundi.

Working with architects, engineers, mathematicians and geologists, the finished project covers and area of 320,000 sq. ft, a diameter of approximately 1,500 ft.

One spiral is made from positive cones, those reaching to the heavens, rising above the desert grade. The other “negative” spiral, formed from cones below the desert grade. The positive cones were made from sand displaced to make the negative ones. At the center is a 30-meter-wide conical vessel that is sunk into the ground and filled to the brim with water; in fact, it is an incised cone, within which is a protruding cone whose cut-off tip rests at water level, suggesting a small island, a place of birth and rebirth, generation and regeneration.

photos of Desert Breath by Dana Stratou

1. Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrandt, The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols (London: Penguin Books, 1996)

2. J. C. Cooper, An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Traditional Symbols (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1978)

MAIN STREET

2012-02-28T18:59:00.000-05:00

Main Street is a place that exists in the physical and theoretical world.

“Why do Main Streets Matter? We all know where our Main Streets are, but do we know what they are and why they matter? Whether they are named First Avenue or Water Street or Martin Luther King Boulevard, what they represent is universal. Main Street is the economic engine, the big stage, and the core of the community. Our Main Streets tell us who we are and who we were, and how the past has shaped us. We do not go to bland suburbs or enclosed shopping malls to learn about our past, explore our culture, or discover our identity.”1

Our Main Streets are the places of shared memory where people still come together to live, work, and play. In Sinclair Lewis’ novel “Main Street” it is traditional American morals and values in the midst of a changing and somewhat frightening modern world. It is a place of challenge and conflict, the individual vs. the community, change of society through thought, spoken word and action.

What is Main Street? “The phrase has been used to describe everything from our nostalgic past to our current economic woes, but when we talk about Main Street, we are thinking of real places doing real work to revitalize economies and preserve the character of the city and town.” 2

Main St, Flushing, Queens ©Art Print Images

Main Street, Auburn 1909

©pauldorpat.com,

Main Streets tell us who we are and who we were, and how the past has shaped us. We do not go to bland suburbs or enclosed shopping malls to learn about our past, explore our culture, or discover our identity. Our Main Streets are the places of shared memory where people still come together to live, work, and play.

Main Street, Red Lodge, Montana ©Wikipedia

Main Street, USA in Disneyland is a sanitized composite of a typical American town during the turn of the century. Fashioned loosely after Walt Disney's hometown of Marceline, Missouri, Main Street USA features themed dining, entertainment and shopping experiences. Traveling up Main Street USA, you arrive at the Hub, or Central Plaza of Disneyland, which leads to the other various lands of Disneyland.

Main Street Town Sq. Disneyland

old postcard

At the center of town is a public square. Typically this “node” is a swollen activity center. Be it the core, the public room, the central activity node which in some way links the town, it is the heart of the town/city. As history tells us, many times a church, body of government is nearby and with it, this functional node is an area that can accommodate crowds, festivities, carnivals, dancing, speeches, shouting and mourning – “the life of a town”.3

It could be argued that in fact Main Street is really a mosaic of a diverse country and varied points of view.

Mapping Main Street is a collaborative documentary media project that creates a new map of the United States through stories, photos and videos recorded on actual Main Streets. The goal is to document all of the more than 10,000 streets named Main Street in the United States.

HEDGES

2012-02-07T18:03:00.002-05:00

The word "hedge" appears to stem from the Old English word "HEGG" which is believed to be derived from the Anglo-Saxon words ;

HAEG - hurdle

HECG - territorial boundary dead or planted

HEGA - living border boundary 1

Hedges are a bordering and design tool. They enclose and subdivide fields, orchards, yards, parks and gardens. They form vegetative edges, topographic spaces, garden rooms, gateways, screens, enclosures, foci and forms within the landscape.

The term Hedgerow used to refer to 2 hedges running side by side separated by a track or pathway. These hedgerows served 2 traditional purposes , that of being a barrier to livestock and as a means of marking out territory or property boundaries. The term however tends to be used these days to describe a hedge of shrubs and occasional trees that create a border between fields and gardens or to create a privacy wall for a homeowner.

An extreme privacy hedge

www.dicts.info/img/ud/hedge.jpg

It is believed that the Romans may have first planted hedges in Britain but most of the few ancient hedges date from Saxon times, making some of them 1000 years old. The Saxons organized ‘strip farming’ in which each community of people would have a field which was divided into strips separated by grass verges. Each strip was one furrow long (one furlong or 201 metres). People were given a number of strips to farm by the lord of the manor. This system changed in the late Middle Ages when landlords wanted to put boundaries around their property, so they enclosed their land with walls or hedges. Enclosure Acts in the 18th and 19th centuries allowed farmers to put more hedges round their fields and most of Britain’s 300, 000 miles or so of hedges date from this time.

“During the 16^th and 17^th centuries, dense hedgerow patterns provided shelter for persecuted Protestants in France and Holland to organize their clandestine religious meetings. During the WW II the dense bocage in Normandy caused the invading Allied forces much trouble in advancing to conquer the Nazi regime.”2

In the past hawthorne (Crataegus monogyna) was the most popular choice for hedgerows in the ancient woodland for marking territory or as barriers to contain livestock. Nowadays hedges are commonly constructed of various plant and non-plant material for more ornamental purposes yet still as a privacy tool. Boxwood, Privet, Beech, Cherry Laurel, Hedge Maple, Hornbeam, Holly and Yew are but a few of the more desirous plants used currently for hedges.

Designer Luciano Giubbilei's masterful use of hedges at a Chelsea Flower Show garden in 2009

1. Hedgerows, Hedges and Verges of Britain and Ireland

2. Natural History Museum of Britain. www.nhm.ac.uk/index.html

*all photos copyright Todd Haiman unless otherwise noted

LOST LANDSCAPE

2012-01-30T12:43:00.000-05:00

The Catskill Mountains and Hudson River Valley in New York State were the inspiration for a group of painters in the early to mid 1800’s - The Hudson River School. It is through their eyes that we have a sense of that original landscape. As development and global warning continue to change our landscape it is their depiction that we consider an accurate indication of that virginal world.

Sketching outdoors, these artists paid careful attention to the correct rendering of the minute details of the landscape, although they were not afraid to literally move mountains in order to create an effect that would fit their sense of the “Picturesque.”

While the great European landscape painters traditionally inspired them, the Hudson River artists, were in search of an art form that would allow them to express and celebrate that which set America apart from Europe. And they found it in the paintings that captured the grandeur of the American Landscape.

“Kindred Spirits” is perhaps one of the best known of these paintings. The painting by Asher Durant, depicts the his friend, the deceased painter Thomas Cole and the poet William Cullen Bryant standing on a rocky ledge overlooking the Catskills It is titled after a phrase in a Keats sonnet and has long been considered one of the finest examples of Hudson River School painting. It was commissioned by Jonathan Sturges, one of Durand's most important patrons, as a gift for Bryant, and it remained in the Bryant family until his daughter, Julia, donated it to the New York Public Library early in the 20th century. The painting’s idealized composition brings together several sites, including the Clove of the Catskills, Kaaterskill Falls and Fawn’s Leap, in a way that is not geographically possible.

The author Bill Bryson describes his affection for the painting....“It shows two men standing on a rock ledge in the Catskills in one of those sublime lost world settings that look as if they would take an expedition to reach, though the two figures in the painting are dressed, incongruously, as if for the office, in long coats and plump cravats. Below them, in a shadowy chasm, a stream dashes through a jumble of boulders. Beyond, glimpsed through a canopy of leaves, is a long view of gorgeously forbidding Blue Mountains. To right and left, jostling into frame, are disorderly ranks of trees, which immediately vanish into consuming darkness.

I can’t tell you how much I would like to step into that view. The scene is so manifestly untamed, so full of an impenetrable beyond, as to present a clearly foolhardy temptation. You would die out there for sure -- shredded by a cougar or thudded with a tomahawk or just left to wander to a stumbling, confounding death. You can see that at a glance. But never mind. Already you are studying the foreground for a way down the stream over the steep rocks and wondering if that notch ahead will get you through to the neighboring valley. Farewell, my friends. Destiny calls. Don’t wait supper.”1

Bill Bryson continues to jest about the scene. He questions how much artistic license these painters took with replicating the scenery -- “Who, after all, is going to struggle with an easel and campstool and box of paints to some difficult overlook, on a hot July afternoon, in a wilderness filled with danger, and NOT paint something exquisite and grand?”

This painting hung in New York Public Library for decades until several years ago, when desperately needing funding, the Library sold it at auction to Walmart heiress, Alice Walton for 35 million dollars to display at her new museum. New York art lovers reacted with outrage seeing it as a civic landmark. “60 Minutes” TV program Correspondent Morley Safer commented that the “grand inherent irony is that all that Wal-Mart money was gleaned from the systematic destruction of the very American landscape Ms. Walton so expensively celebrates.”

Thomas Cole "Sunrise in the Catskill Mountains"

Frederick Church "Morning Looking East"

1. A Walk in the Woods: Bill Bryson, Broadway Books 1998

INSPIRED LANDSCAPE

2012-01-05T11:35:00.002-05:00

The Marquis Rene-Louis de Girardin (1735–1808) was a French writer and designer of landscapes, who had inherited a significant fortune from his grandfather, the chief tax collector for Louis XIV. He saw several English landscape gardens during his travels in the early 1760s, and in 1766 settled at Ermonville in Oise, France, where he laid out his influential landscape garden. He was strongly aware of the importance of associations in gardens, used to trigger memories, stimulate ideas, and create a narrative.

Girardin's textbook on gardening, De la composition des paysages (On the Composition of Landscapes) was published in 1777 and republished in 1805, under the name René Louis Gerardin. "Of the power of landscapes over our senses, and as a result upon our soul" was his pre-eminent view on the purpose of gardens.

"The composition of landscapes," he wrote, "can open the way to the renewal of the moral principles of the nation." He wrote in the last chapter, "...If you want to achieve true happiness, you must always seek the simplest means and the arrangements closest to those of nature, because only those are true and will have a long-lasting effect."

Girardin's garden at Ermonville stands as the most prominent example of a Rousseau-inspired garden. In his novel "La Nouvelle Helois" Rousseau imagined a perfect landscape, where people could be true to themselves. This imaginary garden became a model for French landscape gardens. Girardin made the park at Ermenonville a living illustration of Rousseau's ideas; making carefully constructed landscapes, like paintings, designed to invite the visitor to take long walks and to feel pure with simple emotions. The paths were designed to follow the hillside paths, climbing up and down, to give various views and perspectives, from the shadows of groves of trees which then extend into sunlight, meandering to let the viewer delight in the scene from different angles and light. Girardin said that gardens should be composed of a series of scenes, like paintings. Each designed to be seen from a different point of view and at different times of day to achieve an emotional effect. Some scenes should evoke solitude, others the pleasures of bucolic life, others the ideals of harmony and innocence. These scenes would be discovered by following a winding path through the garden, with a series of different views coming as surprises.

It is commonly known that his friend, Jean-Jacque Rousseau died on his estate in 1778, and was buried on the Île des Peupliers in the Élysée that Girardin had created. Surrounding Rousseau's cenotaph is a circle of poplar trees set upon a tiny island. According to landscape historian Elizabeth Rogers, "Imitations of Rousseau’ s gravesite became one of the great garden design flourishes of the late eighteenth century."

Isle of the Poplars/an homage to philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau

As an aside to these Rousseau-inspired landscapes, Christophe Girot* recounts an essay by French historian Michel Conan on the "static foundations of landscape scenography". He argues that the "art of the picturesque forwarded a static understanding of landscape where movement was absent, or not acknowledged. The picturesque landscape was experienced rather as a succession of immobile scenes as in the example of the romantic promenade of Ermonville.... the voyage through the landscape could only be understood as a succession of immobile scenes lending themselves to the memory and aesthetic interpretation." Girot then asks us to review these spaces in-between the scenes of landscape beauty... "the black holes" and reconsider their value to us.

*"Vision in Motion: Representing Landscape in Time", The Landscape Urbanism Reader, 2006

**Map of Ermonville: Ermenonville : le parc Jean-Jacques Rousseau

TABULA RASA

2011-12-12T15:12:00.001-05:00

The philosopher John Locke in his “Essay Concerning Human Understanding” stated that the human mind at birth is a complete, but receptive, blank slate ( “a scraped tablet” or “tabula rasa” as it is literally defined ) upon which experience imprints knowledge. Anotherwords, our entire resource of knowledge is gradually built up from experience or sensory perceptions of the outside world.

There is also the architectural or landscape “tabula rasa” modernist theory that everything must be original, arising from a clean slate. This was advocated by Le Corbusier. Knock down the old, and in with the new.

In her excellent text on “Form and Fabric in Landscape Architecture”, Catherine Dee states four reasons for the inappropriateness of the tabula rasa approach. With the tabula rasa approach there is an ignorance of sustainability, an absence of context, precedent and history to the site. There is a lack of sensitivity to the ecological value of established vegetation and lastly, it ignores the uses and meaning of the site for the local people.

The question arises philosophically...Can you really begin anew without some evidence of the past? All things are created in context with the past. All creations come with a precedent, a history, which in some way influences the next recreation, generation or iteration.

In Ian Mcharg’s seminal text “Design with Nature”, he argued against the arrogant and destructive heritage of urban-industrial modernity, a style which he described as "Dominate and Destroy." He sought to interweave the worlds of the human and the natural, and sought to more fully and intelligently design human environments in concert with the conditions of setting, climate and environment.

At Jacob Javits Plaza in Lower Manhattan is a public space that has evolved through four, now five iterations in the last thirty years. Originally an open plaza, Richard Serra's "Tilted Arc" was installed and became a lightning rod in commissioning site-specific art. After court-ordered removal, traditional benches and planters were installed until Martha Schwartz redesigned the space. While many praised it's design, others were radically opposed to it. Now it is in the process of being demolished and Van Valkenburgh Associates design is currently under construction. While all designs were site specific, could we consider the treatment of this landscape as “tabula rasa?"

http://www.archidose.org/writings/javits.html

2012 design by MVV Associates, © MVVA

THE FATHER OF LANDSCAPE DESIGN IN THE UNITED STATES

2011-09-12T12:40:00.003-04:00

A. J. Downing (1815-1852) popularized landscape gardening among America’s growing middle and upper middle classes through his aesthetic sensibilities. He wrote the first American treatise on landscape gardening -- A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, Adapted to North America (1841), which established him as a national authority on that subject and went through numerous editions (the last was printed in 1921). Following British models, he categorized landscape design styles as “The Beautiful” (calm and serene) and “The Picturesque” (dramatic), with the style to be determined by the existing landscape context. He was the first great American exponent of the English or natural school of landscape gardening as opposed to the Italian, Dutch and French artificial schools.

He was an advocate for the creation of public parks in America and the health value of interaction with the natural world. He stood for the simple, natural, and permanent as opposed to the complex, artificial and ephemeral.

As editor of the Horticulturist and the country's leading practitioner and author, he promoted a national style of landscape gardening that broke away from European precedents and standards. Like other writers and artists, Downing responded to the intensifying demand in the nineteenth century for a recognizably American cultural expression.

Lindley's Horticulture by A.J. Downing. Originally published 1852. (Author's copy)

Believing that architecture, too, needed to conform to site character, he brought architect Calvert Vaux from England in 1850 to assist him in his practice, including the design of Matthew Vassar’s estate, “Springside”, at Poughkeepsie, NY. (Six years later, Vaux named his second child Downing Vaux in tribute to his mentor.) Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., a friend and colleague, was one of the many visitors whom Downing entertained at his villa on the Hudson River at Newburgh, NY. Downing’s influence is strongly reflected in the Olmsted and Vaux design for Central Park,

Downing spent his life in the spectacular natural setting of the Hudson River valley. Through his professional practice, travels, reading, and extensive correspondence, he gradually became aware of the individual and collective needs that he served. Landscape gardening, Downing came to feel, had to respect not only a client's desires and means, but also the nation's republican values of moderation, simplicity, and civic responsibility.

While influenced by European, especially British, writers Archibald Alison, Uvedale Price, Humphrey Repton and John Claudius Loudon) he recognized that America should not emulate European gardening styles. First, Americans should make use of American material, hence his interest in all native American species. Second, America, was not aristocratic and should celebrate it republicanism, hence his designs for middle class and a few lower class cottages and gardens in his architectural work. He also understood that his country was young and still rapidly expanding and that horticulture could serve as a way to attach the white settlers to their new home. Finally, he recognized two important developments in horticulture: the rise of scientific inquiries and the development of a class of professional landscape designers/gardeners who were artisans, not artists.

Recognized as the foremost U.S. landscape designer of his day, he was commissioned in 1851 to lay out the grounds for the Capitol, the White House, and the Smithsonian Institution. His death at 36 in a steamboat accident prevented him from seeing his plans to completion.

An urn at the Smithsonian Institution commemorates his work. Images ©Smithsonian Institute

Downing is imminently responsible for Central Park. He called for and politicked for the creation of a great park in New York City worthy of the city. If it were not for his untimely death he presumably would have been chosen to design Central Park. Instead, his suddenly uncoupled partner Calvert Vaux would then join with Frederick Law Olmsted in the creation of countless notable landscapes.

RONDEL

2011-08-01T13:20:00.000-04:00

The formal layout of the beloved Sissinghurst rose garden includes a central yew hedge planted in a circle with four tall yew-lined paths leading away from it. This is known by it’s creator Vita Sackville-West as “the Rondel”.

Sissinghurst photos: ©toddhaiman2011

Outside the Rondel, there are low, neatly clipped box hedges separating huge beds filled with roses. The rondel assists in masking an a geometric garden layout whereby the two garden paths and axes do not cross at perfect right angles. Some say a brilliant move by the designer correcting the obtuse positioning of the buildings they connect with, others claim that this was an error by a young worker on the estate who miscalculated while laying out the path. No matter, the end result all agree is breathtaking.

Vita Sackville-West pays homage to the surrounding countryside, which is dotted with oast houses by referring to this garden structure as a rondel. Rondel is an old Kentish word employed for the shape of the hop-drying floor in the oast-houses, where hops lay in mounds.

Oast houses are buildings designed for drying or “kilning” hops as part of the beer making or brewing process. They are true examples of vernacular architecture -- many of which have over time have been converted to homes. (Vernacular architecture is a term used to categorize methods of construction, which use locally available resources and traditions to address local needs and circumstances. Additional examples would be igloos and log cabins. Vernacular architecture tends to evolve over time to reflect the environmental, cultural and historical context in which it exists.)

Oast house photos, wikipedia

In “Sissinghurst, Portrait of a Garden”, the author Jane Brown believed that this hedged circle in yew is “of Italian Inspiration.”

Rondels are also considered in architecture a circular window opening or the beadmolding of a capital. But, upon further research the word “rondel” is either from the old French or old English word “roont”, meaning round or small circle. Present inspiration for the rondel can be found in the London Underground as its logo. Past history also finds it as the logo for the RAF.

London Underground logo, wikipedia

Castlerigg stone circle/ wikipedia

Excuse the pun, but “coming full circle”, a roundel enclosure is a type of pre-Christian and prehistoric enclosure found in Europe. Stone circles. Timber circles, prehistoric earthworks enclosures are all examples of this. Stonehenge, a megalithic structure of stones is recently believed by some to have had multiple rondel hedges surrounding it thousands of years ago.

GREAT GARDENS

2011-07-18T14:59:00.001-04:00

A garden is…

"Oh I have wordy definitions of a garden, al right. Lots of them. I even like one– particularly the one about a garden’s being sculpture. Not ordinary sculpture, of course, Not the kind of sculpture that someone makes in a studio and then you walk around it and admire it from all the different angles, and mostly you have to think away everything else, to see what the sculpture had in mind. I don’t mean that kind of sculpture. A garden is much bigger. Bigger in size, at least. You can walk thru it. You are inside something. You have to feel you are inside something, even though you are out of doors, instead of being outside of something trying to think everything else away. A garden is sculpture from any place you are in it, even while you are in motion, and there’s nothing outside that has to be thought away because that’s part of it too –just as you are." -James Rose, Gardens Make Me Smile 1953

To paraphrase Rose -- the trouble is that even the best definition of a garden through a photograph, video or illustration is not the thing itself – it is not the experience.

James Rose w. design maquette,

jamesrosecenter.org

Isamu Noguchi w. playground maquette,

Isamu Noguchi Foundation

Isamu Noguchi has stated that “many landscapes are intentionally designed to communicate via a range of senses, which are absent when presented only two dimensionally. Does a two dimensional photo, illustration or painting capture the essence of a rose garden in June. You can visualize it, but can you smell it?” 1.

Philosopher David Hume writes that the sense of experience, the perception of space through our “visceral interaction with the world forms our ideas about it. Like other art forms landscapes don’t always carry literal messages, but can trigger sensations.” Experiences based upon two-dimensional representations do not tell us much about first hand experiences with three dimensional landscapes and the specific attributes of these experiences. Many preference studies are based upon peoples experiences with two-dimensional pictures rather than experiences with actual landscapes, so they omit powerful dimensions of landscape experience, such as thermal comfort, smell sound, and tactile sensation.

Children experiencing Charles Jenck's Garden of Cosmic Speculation

Picassa.com

Back to James Rose..

“A great garden is more like silence that like speech. It’s the luxury of not saying something. It’s the “something” between the lines.”

1. Isamu Noguchi, A Study of Space, Ana Marie Torres
Monacelli Press, 2000

FOUNDING FATHERS

2011-07-05T10:40:00.003-04:00

In the summer of 1776 the thirteen colonies declared independence.

30,000 British troops were approaching on warships, about to invade New York Harbor in the “Battle of New York” - George Washington sits down, takes his time and writes a letter to his estate gardener requesting him to plant a garden of native species only. Shunning the past and as Andrea Wulfh calls it “horticultural independence.” Washington decided that Mount Vernon was to be an American garden where no English trees would burgeon in american soil. By creating a landscape exclusively designed with plants and trees native to America, Washington was making a bold statement—a botanical declaration of independence from England.

(George Washington) "The Farmer", 1853 lithograph, The Granger Collection, NY

In Andrea Wulf’s, “Founding Gardeners” she argues that the economic importance of agricultural crops, self-sufficiency and self-dependence and a passion for nature, plants and agriculture was interwoven in the growth of the United States in its formative years – an ideological level of America as an agrarian republic. A national identity of nature was being invested with patriotic meaning. The “Founding Fathers” of the United States (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and James Madison) made everlasting political statements within the garden.

In 1786 Jefferson was American minister in France stationed in Paris, John Adams was minister to Britain stationed in London. The time is just after the Revolutionary War, when the United States was severely in debt after the war and looking to create trade alliances. The British were not receptive to trade agreements with the burgeoning country that had just gained its independence, and could only hope for an economic collapse and Britain could perhaps reclaim them.

Adams asks Jefferson for assistance in negotiating with the Brits, cause the Brits truly despise the Americans at this point. This proves unsuccessful. Looking for a respite, they adventure on a garden tour… traveling many miles a day visiting multiple gardens a day, taking notes, speaking with owners, their estate managers, gardeners. Among the many highlights of the trip was Stowe, originally created by Lord Cobham. Jefferson and Adams appreciated the unstylized look of these new landscapes with unclipped trees, sinuous paths, irregular groupings of plant material, “naturally shaped” ponds and lakes. What struck them (and resonated with them) was the “liberation” of rigid landscape design, geometrical patterns formerly associated in with Louis XIV’s absolute and despotic rule, symbolic within the French landscape. Hereupon “the irregularity of nature had become a symbol of liberty.”

Monticello 2011, still a working farm

image: Monticello.com

Most significant was the consideration of an ornamental farm, a “femme ornee” -- witnessed at Woburn and elsewhere. A style of garden that combined the beauty of a pleasure ground with the agricultural elements of a working farm. This played right into Jefferson’s belief of a self-sustaining nation through agriculture. A way to unite the fertile fields with the grandeur of the American continent. Eventually he created the embodiment of this abstraction at Monticello.

painting of John Adam's farm, "Peacefield" by E. Malcolm 1798

nps. gov

GARDEN ROOMS

2011-06-14T22:43:00.001-04:00

Sissinghurst is perhaps one of the most beloved gardens in all the world. For many it is the definitive English garden, evoking the poetic sensibilities of its creators, their deep feeling for history and rural tradition and the influence of their aristocratic upbringing and travels.

A labor of love created by Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962) and Harold Nicholson (1886-1968) over thirty years beginning in 1932. It is a garden set among a manor house built in the Middle Ages, ancient farm buildings, a moat and a tall Elizabethan tower. Along with Hidcote, it has a formal design, yet informal “cottage-style” planting.

Garden historian, author and designer Penelope Hobhouse sees Sissinghurst as the “epitome of English garden traditions – a translation of Edwardian splendor into a personal odyssey.” Much like Hidcote, there was “an integrated architectural framework” of garden rooms, a sequence of spaces, created with hardscaped (pink brick) walls or tall clipped hedges enclosing one area with another adjoining it. The compartmentalization of these color themed “garden rooms” contain axial views, focal points through doorways into gardens beyond. Within each very rigid, geometric enclosure is the contrasting softness of relaxed cottage-style gardening, an influence of Gertrude Jekyll and William Robinson. It is known that Vita treasured Robinson’s “The English Flower Garden” and “The Wild Garden” and visited him in his later years (presumably) seeking his advice.

Much of the fascination behind this garden stems from the family history of Vita as well as her ability to generate public interest in the garden. Sackville-West was a very successful writer on the fringes of the Bloomsbury Group. Along with her novels, short stories and poetry, she was also a garden correspondent for The Observer, where she regularly wrote about her experiences creating the garden. Additionally she gave garden tours, thus building up the public’s intrigue and fascination. Many might suspect that her inspiration for so many outdoor rooms was a subconscious recreation of a childhood spent at Knole,* the largest private home in England. Knole is known as a calendar house… 365 rooms!

The Roman peristyle garden is considered the first outdoor room and an extension of indoor space. However, Sissinghurst has perhaps more than any other garden influenced future designers to divide a landscape into “rooms”.

*Vita was heiress to the Knole estate, however the primogeniture laws in England prevented woman from inheriting property and thus it was (unfairly to her) passed on to a male cousin and eventually the National Trust.

CONCEPTUAL GARDENS

2011-06-04T23:39:00.001-04:00

Having returned from the Chelsea Flower Show, I must admit it just gets better every year. Cleve West’s sunken Roman garden won best in show, Diarmuid Gavin theatrics stopped traffic, and my personal favorite garden was Luciano Guibbilei’s for his serene and elegant Laurent Perrier garden. (All to be detailed in further posts) For sheer uniqueness there was the artisanal Hae-Woo-Soo garden, which I led on about last month.

Cleve West's garden sponsored by The Daily Telegraph

Lucian Giubbilei's "Nature and Human Intervention" sponsored by Laurent-Perrier

Diarmuid Gavin's "Irish Sky Garden"

Show gardens (at Chelsea) are proposed to the Royal Horticultural Society almost a year before the actual show and are either accepted or denied. The Hae Woo So garden was one that stretched the boundaries of the “British proper.” One person on the acceptance committee mentioned to me “we knew it would either be extraordinary or be an embarrassment.” Thankfully, the garden was exemplary and honored with a gold medal.

According to Jihae Hwang, who designed the garden, this conceptual landscape refers to a place where you “empty your mind.” According to ancient Korean tradition visiting the lavatory (the trip to it) is traditionally regarded as a cathartic experience, a way to spiritually cleanse one’s mind and reconnect with nature through a “natural cycle” -- the physical act that accompanies it. The focal point of the garden is an elegant wooden dunny (an outhouse). The lintel is low, forcing one to bow as you enter, humbling oneself. Typically the wooden building (the latrine) serves a dual purpose in that the human waste is left to ferment, creating fertilizer.

Stipa tenuissima, Paeonia lactiflora and Lonicera japonica embrace a stone wall

A washbasin filled with rainwater to cleanse one's hands

Candlelight to illuminate the path at night

In romantic disorder, plants are arranged along the path to “the throne.” Small, highly scented lilacs, Syringa wolfii and Syringa dilatata and Lonicera japonica (Honeysuckle) aid in perfuming the air surrounding the latrine.

PSYCHOLOGY IN THE LANDSCAPE

2011-05-18T19:12:00.000-04:00

In 1977 J.J. Gibson wrote of "the Theory of Affordances." Essentially what this means as it relates to landscape design is that humans see “affordances” in the landscape – what a scene or object offers. We react to a scene based upon what these objects or scenes offer as far as the individual is concerned. Perception is viewed as not merely dealing with information about the environment, but it’s possibilities as far as human interaction and purposes are concerned.

Later on, Rachel Kaplan and Stephen Kaplan (Professors at University of Michigan) theorized on people interaction with their environments. “Humans react to the visual environment in essential two interrelated ways: the two dimensional pattern, as if the environment in front of them were a flat picture and the three dimensional pattern of space that unfolds before them.1"

They like the visual array to a photograph, the pattern of information with it, the shades of grey, simplicity of scene/detail and how it “makes sense” to the viewer. The pattern of information on the surface of a photograph can be easier or harder to organize.

Complexity reflects how much is going on in a scene, how much is there to look at, how rich and diverse the aesthetics/elements are.

George Seurat, Afternoon on the Isle of La Grande Jatte 1884

Coherence reflects the simplicity, organizational components of a scene, that which makes it easier to comprehend, it should all “fit together.” In other words, “something that draws one’s attention within the scene should turn out to be an important object, a boundary between regions or some other significant property.2”

Hieronymus Bosch, Garden of Earthly Delights 1503-4

Research evidence also begins to suggest that the capacity of working memory for most people to hold approximately is five chunks/groupings of information in their working memory at any one time. Kaplan therefore propose that dividing a scene into five major areas or groupings makes it easier or more appealing, comfortable in terms of coherence for the viewer of the scene.

Because landscapes are essentially three dimensional when viewed, but four dimensional with the addition of “time”, people interpret a landscape whether viewed or experienced as three-dimensional. In Jay Appleton’s “Prospect-Refuge theory" there are “implications both in terms of informational opportunities and informational dangers.” Gathering these opportunities, having some comfort level with them is what leads to another component called Mystery. Mystery in this context is all about surprise and the promise/attraction assumed within the scene of new information. What encourages us to discover more. A scene that is partially obscured by foliage, a path that is tempting to follow but you’re not sure where it leads. “A scene high in mystery is one in which one could learn more if one were to proceed further into the scene.” “Mystery evokes curiosity. What it evokes is not a blank state of mind but what might be coming next.”3

W. Eugene Smith, The Walk to Paradise 1946

Appleton stresses safety in Prospect-Refuge theory. Kaplan takes it one step further in his last component to one that “makes sense” or is legible. “Legibility entails a promise or a prediction.4” It allows the viewer to assume a way to navigate through the space and out of it, an organization of the ground plane. With a sense of depth and well-defined space, smooth textures and elements well distributed, the viewer is comfortable moving within the space.

Concepts to ponder when designing space.

Preference Matrix by Kaplan above.

1. The Experience of Nature: A Psychological Perspective: Rachel & Stephen Kaplan, University of Cambridge 1989

2. Ibid

3. Ibid

4. Ibid

WHIMSY IN THE GARDEN

2011-05-15T00:48:00.003-04:00

Every year at the Chelsea Flower Show there’s always one designer who separates themselves from "the pack" in the design of their garden, perhaps with a bit of whimsy, tongue in cheek or simply just choosing not to take themselves too seriously.

In 2009 there was a magical garden created out of plasticine, designed and organized by James May, which elicited childhood memories of "Play-Doh" and plastic fruit “still-lifes” on dining room tables from the crowd. It was essentially a sculpted art installation framed in the guise of a mystical secret garden. Dozens of people contributed to this garden, across all strata of British society, from children who never handled the material to war veterans that remember when it was the latest invention to professional model makers.

In 2010, “Welcome to Yorkshire’s Rhubarb Crumble & Custard Garden” (a mouthful in more ways than one), a bowl of Yorkshire rhubarb takes center stage. Yellow Sedum acre ‘Golden Queen’ symbolizes a generous serving of overflowing custard, and the crumble is represented by a stonewall. A Yorkshire handcrafted oak spoon doubles as a seat on the stone patio. Rhubarb forcing pots create focal points. According to the designer, bronze fennel is meant to suggest the brown sugar sprinkled on a crumble. The idea for this garden was envisioned while the designers were having lunch!

This year I’m looking forward to the Hae-woo-so garden. This garden is inspired by the Korean belief in the cathartic and spiritual experience of using the toilet. Looking forward to the audience’s and critic's comments.

INSPIRATION IN THE GARDEN

2011-04-25T11:18:00.004-04:00

Andy Sturgeon, a highly regarded garden designer had won several medals in past years from the Chelsea Flowers Show. Almost a year prior to designing a Chelsea 2010 show, Andy’s life forever changed.

His partner, Sarah Didinal, the mother of his three young boys - Luke, ten, Cameron, seven, and Tom, five - had enjoyed Chelsea Flower Show with him.

A week later Andy found her dead in bed. She was only 37, apparently fit and healthy. She died from an irregular heartbeat. Her last post on Twitter read, 'Going to bed happy.'

Andy reflects on the Daily Telegraph, …..'The way I dealt with Sarah's death was by having goals - positive things to work towards, that are more about the future than the past, or even the present,' he says. 'This garden has been one of the tools I've used to help me along.”

“I had the germ of the idea when I was on holiday with the children (after Sarah’s death) in Italy last summer, every day looking out at a dry landscape of evergreen oaks and lavender.”

'I never normally design anything so quickly. But I had this idea of screens so I made a scale model and a few walls, which I slid around, and got down to check the views. This design is all about the views. It's a metaphor for life. You have choices in the garden - two different ways to go. Depending upon which path you take - the direct path or the winding path - you has different experiences along the way. As you journey through life, the screens open up and allow glimpses of what you might have experienced if you'd taken another path, but you end up at the same destination."

As a visitor walks around the edge of the garden they also discover ever-changing views. Three runs of Cor-ten steel subdivide and frame the garden. Three edifices of Purbeck stone walling add to the suggestion of an enclosed courtyard, while maintaining a sense of openness and space. The contemporary gravel garden has open clearings of sparsely planted gravel, which provide places to pause on a journey that culminates in a courtyard at the rear. A stately Cork Oak (that he searched extensively to find) and the sound of running water combine to create a contemplative retreat. Let Andy take you on a tour of his garden.

Find plant information here:
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01645/telegraph-garden-g_1645484a.

CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW

2011-04-16T12:44:00.000-04:00

Queen Mary (in white) viewing the Chelsea show

As written in past years, I have an annual pilgrimage during the third week of May "across the Pond" to the Chelsea Flower Show in London. Within this post I feature of few of the show gardens as a sort of "countdown" to the big show. With the show but five weeks away, thought it would be helpful to provide a bit of context and history about what is referred to as "the Great Spring show.

England had been compared to a garden since at least the time of Shakespeare. This metaphor took on particular significance in the Victorian Era as it infiltrated visual, literary, and everyday culture in England. The garden came to represent two things for the English in the Victorian era: home in the face of a massive Empire, and stability in the face of industrialization and a perceived disintegration of society. English citizens were spread across the globe, (see past post on Rudyard Kipling) and began to seek a symbol that would unify those at home, and that would serve as a memory of home for those in their colonies. This image was particularly significant during the Victorian Era as England expanded her empire and influence across the globe.

The English landscape garden is considered by some cultural historians England's most compelling contribution to the visual arts. During the eighteenth century, as England struggled to develop a national identity, the landscape garden was a continual source of pride to landowners, artists, poets and gardeners alike. Botanical Gardens were established in most major towns and many royal estates were opened to the public.

London Bobby (policeman) admiring floral displays

Women in 1940's reading the show's catalog

It is in the next generation, between the wars, that the English become routinely described--by themselves and by other Europeans--as "a nation of gardeners." This extended to middle- and lower-middle-class suburbanites, whose terraced and semi-detached houses and gardens offered certain elements in common with the grander country houses of the elitist classes.

The show, which ultimately grew out of this “religious zeal” was organized by the Royal Horticultural Society and has been a staple of the British social and cultural scene for nearly 150 years. This annual spring festival is held for five days each May and features designed gardens, a large variety of exotic plants and all the accoutrements, trappings and revelry of a great fair. The event is held on the grounds of London's Royal Hospital, and it is perhaps the most celebrated show of it’s kind.

Crowds in 1950 swarming the show

“In 1862, London's Royal Horticultural Society held its first Great Spring Show. The show was held in Kensington and featured an array of exotic plant species from around the world. Each year until 1888, the RHS continued with this annual event, gradually building up a loyal audience. In 1913 they decided to use the grounds of the Royal Hospital in Chelsea, which had hosted several successful rose exhibitions. The show at the Royal Hospital became known as the Chelsea Flower Show, though it is still officially named the Great Spring Show. From 1913 through 1916, the fair enjoyed unprecedented success. By 1917, World War I had devastated much of the region, and the fair was canceled for two years. In the 1920s, London's royal family began to visit the fair each year, starting a new tradition that continues to this day. Also during this time, the Chelsea tea parties began. These parties take place during the show and are a major draw for Britain's social and political leaders. The show was canceled again for several years during World War II. In 1947, though crops and supplies were limited, the Chelsea Flower Show was held as scheduled, and it became a symbol of the country's strength and determination to rebuild. By 1979, the show was so popular that crowds began to overwhelm the limited space. Throughout the next few years, ticket limits were set and attendance was restricted to help prevent injuries to attendees. Despite ticket limits, crowds continued to overwhelm the show until 1993, when parts of the show were relocated to other venues. Today, more than 150,000 visitors attend the show each year. All attendees must purchase tickets in advance, and the show holds an annual preview day specifically for the royal family and other honored guests. The BBC shows much of the event on television each year, to allow those who can't get tickets to take part in the experience. The Chelsea Flower Show is considered a place to spot the latest trends in floral and horticultural design, and it is eagerly attended by industry professionals and garden enthusiasts from around the world.” 1

previous five images of celebrities from bigpictures.com

1 -reprinted from RHS Show catalog

LANDSCAPE EDGES

2011-03-29T15:17:00.001-04:00

Edges in landscape are everywhere,.. overly common, yet at times incidental. Each landscape space offers different programming, functions or physical characteristics. At the boundary of each space is an edge...these are the transitional spaces from one landscape or space to the next (i.e.: the entrance into a city park, the bridge to a connecting highway, the riparian zone linking biota).

Landscape edges are transitional linear places where one space or landscape becomes part of another. Often neglected in design, edges are considered primary structural components of landscapes because of their integration and social functions.1 They offer not only physical change, but emotional and psychological transitions as well.

Edges can be where the picturesque meets the pastoral, built meets unbuilt, city meets country. Woodlands edges, wetlands, beach fronts are considered strong edges, and can also be referred to as "ecotones" - physical transition zones between two ecological systems. These edges and corridors strongly influence landscape biodiversity, and in many situations when designing them -- the suggestion is that the "lightest hand" is the hand that designs best.

Delphi Theatre/ toursofathens.com

Some edges are purely physical (a building meeting terra firma) while others are visual and symbolic (earth or sea meeting sky). Some edges are abrupt while others are smoothly drawn out and richly complex (i.e.: a woodland edge, a waterfront).

New Jersey Meadowlands/flicker.com

As an urban dweller, I am most cognizant of the juxtaposition between two systems that are forced to co-exist within a city- the built form and the natural form. John Motloch, speaks of the "dynamic nature of natural systems versus the static nature of architecture." Natural systems are point-in-time expressions of ongoing environmental processes: site and living organisms continually experience change. Conversely, architecture consists of relatively static elements. Architecture changes little over time. Buildings do change expression - from transparent, to reflective, to opaque - from day to night. Plant materials, on the other hand are living organisms and mature over time. Even senility in the landscape can be one of the most sensual aspects of landscape design."2

Within these edges are "thresholds"*, uniquely centered entities within the linear form of an edge. The Collins English Dictionary defines threshold as “the starting point of an experience, event or venture; a psychological point at which something would happen or would cease to happen, or stimuli would take effect.”

These thresholds provide tremendous opportunities for designers to create gateways within them and experiential transitions within that journey. "A gateway denotes a threshold, a place of passage, a garden gate that opens and closes, a bridge point of entry into a city, a harbor of access to some hinterland. A gateway can have many forms, a literal gate, an avenue of trees, an entrance into a building... yet they all have the same function --to mark the point where a path crosses a boundary and help maintain the boundary. All of them are 'things' - not merely holes or gaps, but solid entities. In every case, the crucial feeling this solid thing must create is the feeling of transition." 3

Central Park, lookout point as a threshold

Saarinen's Gateway Arch.

St. Louis on the edge of the Mississippi River is known as the "Gateway to the West"

wikipedia.com

Edges are also topographic. Perhaps simple and smooth with gradients and rhythmic sequences or textural and rugged, spurred, ditched and jagged, natural or built with sub-spaces or steps. Of particular note on a grand scale is the Isthmus of Panama - a narrow strip of land where geological tectonic plates meet, the landscape changes often and dramatically. It became a major inspiration for Frederick Law Olmsted in developing an aesthetic for public parks as he crossed it in 1863.

1. Form and Fabric in Landscape Architecture; Catherine Dee.
2. Introduction to Landscape Design; John Motloch
3. A Pattern Language: Alexander/Ishikawa/Silverstein.