LANDSCAPE DESIGN + MORE

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.

**All photos ©Todd Haiman 2011

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.

**all photos ©Todd Haiman 2011

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.

OBLITERATED LANDSCAPE

2011-03-17T14:18:00.005-04:00

In sorrowful images and video the world watches a landscape obliterated, the health and well being of Japan and its citizens in peril.

The images above were acquired by the German Optical RapidEye and radar TerraSAR-X satellites. They show Torinoumi on the eastern coast of Japan before the disaster on 5 September 2010 and after the tsunami on 12 March 2011. The German Aerospace Center, DLR, is responding to the disaster through its Center for Satellite Based Crisis Information, ZKI, to provide information for the International Charter. Credits: RapidEye AG, DLR, Google Earth. Map produced by ZKI

The map above shows a comparison of RapidEye pre-disaster data acquired on 5 September 2010 and post-disaster data acquired on 12 March 2011. The images focus on the city of Soma and the surrounding region, which was badly affected by the tsunami. Credits: RapidEye AG, DLR, Google Earth. Map produced by ZKI

One thought that resonated for me as I am bombarded with this imagery of an altered landscape are films I watched years ago as a teenager.

The atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States in 1945. As Japan rebuilt itself afterwards as a nation it carried the scars of the past war. Japanese filmmaker Ishiro Honda and Toho embodied the nation’s psyche and culture within the Godzilla (monster/sci-fi) genre of films. The original Gojira, (Godzilla) was a very serious, dark film created in 1952. (The re-edited Americanized version in 1954 still held a cautionary tale, but others that followed seemed to lose the original message.) This film spoke to the potential casualties of playing with nuclear fission, the havoc that could be wrought, an allegory for the anxiety held by a country and a foreboding message to future generations. The film ends with a thoughtful massage and prayer. So, again.

GHETTO

2011-03-06T22:42:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I wrote of a “hortus conclusus” -- the enclosed or walled garden of the ruling class, which emerged in the Middle Ages. Perhaps the antithesis of this confined verdure within an urban environment would be the “ghetto”. The juxtaposition here is that it is not inhabited by the ruling class, but in effect an “abandoned” landscape by the ruling class. The Urban Dictionary1 defines ghettos as “a section of a city to which an entire ethnic or economically depressed group is restricted; as by poverty or social pressure or political power. An impoverished, neglected, or otherwise disadvantaged residential area of a city.”

The “architecture” of the ghetto within society was introduced hundreds of years ago in Europe. William Shakespeare uses the ghetto as a setting in The Merchant of Venice. Jews had been expelled from most of England during his time, but literary scholars believe he was aware of the Venetian Jews through the reading of the Jew of Malta by Christopher Marlowe written in 1589. At that time Jews lived in a constricted segregated enclave. In the 1500’s Venetian Jews were forced to live on an island, within a walled area. As it was counter to their beliefs, Christians at this time were not able to lend money and charge interest (usury). Jews were prohibited from most careers, limiting competition within the general economy, however they were able to lend money.

AlPacino, "Hath not a Jew eyes?" soliloquoy from Merchant of Venice

Only two gates allowed Jews to leave after sunrise and return before dark. From sunset to morning the doors were locked. These areas were never expanded, so that the natural increase in the Jewish population created a filthy slum with large numbers of people living in tight quarters. There was disinvestment from the Venetian government, lack of clean water and no sanitation services. Jewish housing had to built upward into buildings several stories high (six), as they could not develop outward.2

Ghetto Nuovo, Venice / traveltribe.com

Ghetto Nuovo, Venice / museumplanet.com

The etymology of the word “ghetto” comes from the Latin word “ghet” or the verb “gettare” -- to pour or cast. The reference pertains to the early Venetian ghetto, which was erected next to an iron foundry.

The ghetto system in Italian cities remained enforced until the era of the French Revolution. It had a clear purpose: to enable Jews to take part in economic life, while setting strict limits on their participation in social life.

1. Urbandictionary.com

2. Shylock: A Legend and It’s Legacy; John Gross

OLMSTED LEGACY

2011-02-28T13:55:00.000-05:00

Born in Hartford, Connecticut and raised by his father, unable to attend Yale College because his eyesight had weakened due to sumac poisoning, Frederick Law Olmsted sailed off to China where he returned a year later with scurvy. After recovering, he set out his hand at farming on Staten Island, failing miserably to profit from his land holdings. Next he embarked for England and Wales with his brother whereupon they encountered magnificent estates, parks and rural scenery. Such was the indication of things to come. Most influential in his journeys were Joseph Paxton’s design for Birkenhead. Paxton sought to bring the grandeur of the aristocratic garden to the working people of Birkenhead. The park was a declaration of civic pride to nearby Liverpool and an attempt to tempt wealthy taxpayers to either build or purchase homes in Birkenhead. It is widely believed to be the first civic park in Britain, but more importantly within this context it provide the inspiration and template for Olmsted (and Calvert Vaux's) work. Olmsted wrote ""five minutes of admiration, and a few more spent studying the manner in which art had been employed to obtain from nature so much beauty, and I was ready to admit that in democratic America there was nothing to be thought of as comparable with this People’s Garden"."

Illustration and photograph of Birkenhead Park

(youyesterday.com/flicker.com)

“Olmsted was much impressed with the meandering footpaths and open meadows spangled with rocks and scattered trees. He wondered how cleverly "art had been employed to obtain from nature so much beauty." And wonder of wonders, this was not just a sanctum for some noble lord but a park open to the public, a park for people of all stations in life. In all the cities of democratic America, he had to admit, there was nothing quite like it. Not yet, anyway.” National Geographic Magazine, March 2005.

Illustration of Central Park/Bethesda Terrace and fountain

youandyesterday.com

Much has been written on Olmsted’s intriguing life, including the most recent bestseller “A Clearing in the Distance” by Witold Rybczynski. Thanks to the efforts of the Olmsted Legacy a film that was initially screened last year at select locations will now be coming to public television. The Olmsted Legacy, with its name slightly tweaked to "Olmsted and America's Urban Parks" will be aired appropriately on PBS for Earth Day, April 20^th at 10 p.m.

Can't wait!

WILLIAM GILPIN AND THE PICTURESQUE

2011-02-24T11:20:00.001-05:00

An aesthetic revolution that occurred in Britain in the eighteenth century revolved around several main theories, but the most important theory that applied to landscape was that of “the Picturesque”, most often associated with the writings of William Gilpin. Originally an ordained minister in the Church of England, he began writing these popular treatises as a means to raise funds for his school.

The picturesque emphasized roughness over smoothness, boldness over elegance, and variety over uniformity. These concepts were initially influential in painting and then to landscape design. Gilpin’s defining ideas influenced friends such as Horace Walpole and the royal family, including King George. While the wealthy could afford to indulge themselves with the Grand Tour (the traditional travel of Europe undertaken by upper-class European society), appreciating and purchasing great paintings and ultimately contracting landscape designers such as Lancelot “Capability” Brown and Humphrey Repton, Gilpin was instrumental in influencing the rising upper-middle, the minor gentry and tradesmen. By leading tours through the countryside and publishing aquatint landscape prints he created an aristocratic taste level among the rest of the public.

anonymous engraving, Ackerman's Repository of Arts, The Strand 1809

Edward Austen (Jane's brother) on the Grand Tour

unknown creator, the Jane Austen trust

His concept of "the Picturesque," which first appeared in the Essay on Prints as an additional concept to "sublime" and "beautiful," was intended to formulate an appreciation for landscape in the paintings of Nicolas Poussin or Claude Lorrain. Essay II: On Picturesque Travel is a manual for appreciating travel and sketching the landscape as a way to preserve the beauty in one’s mind.

Lorrain: The Marriage of Isaac and Rebekah, 1660

Meanwhile, Jane Austin’s novels (Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey and Emma) used the picturesque as a backdrop. While a fan of her writings illuminated his concepts to a larger audience, although at time it has been suggested that she satirized him.

Throughout each of these novels the landscape holds a defining and center-stage role. Her heroines are brought up in well-established homes and were receptive to the matters and opinions of current taste. Her novels reflect the social and landscape history of England.

Her novels assimilate and promote the ideals of Gilpin, yet also satirize them. In one of Gilpin’s publications he provided instructions for the groupings of cows in a pasture – “to unite three and remove the fourth.” Many landscape painters followed suit. But, in Pride and Prejudice, one character refuses to join in a stroll with the teasing observation, "You are charmingly group'd, and...The picturesque would be spoilt by admitting a fourth."

William Gilpin illustrations of how to group cows

Bodelian Library

In Sense and Sensibility, one character is dismayed that another is apparently ignorant on picturesque theory and promptly instructs him… “ I shall call the hills steep, which ought to be bold; surfaces strange and uncouth, which ought to be irregular and rugged: and distant objects out of sight, which ought only to be indistinct through the sift medium of a hazy atmosphere. It unites beauty and utility – and I dare say it is a picturesque one too.” When Elinor Dashwood teases her sister about her passion for “dead leaves” she responds by reminding Elinor that it is her appreciation of the picturesque.

Humphrey Repton, General View of Longleat, Stapelton Collection

While Gilpin had his detractors, his picturesque ideal can be found to have far reaching influence. From travelers who sketch the landscapes they encounter to the Hudson River School of painters that depicted the romantic landscapes of the United States.

Thomas Cole (Hudson River School), The Garden of Eden 1828

wikimedia commons

HORTUS CONCLUSUS

2011-02-10T10:03:00.000-05:00

Hortus conclusus is the archetype of an enclosed garden. A walled garden, one with a fenced enclosure, became synonymous with the term “garden” in medieval times. Its nomenclature, “hortus conclusus,” is believed to originate from King Solomon’s “Song of Songs” 4:12 "Hortus conclusus soror mea, sponsa, hortus conclusus, fons signatus" ("A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed up.")

Hortus conclusus protected the private precinct from public intrusion, creating a protective barrier, in essence bringing nature within its walls. It was created out of practicality when man feared the wildness of the landscape, (animals and intruders) and chose to erect a protective barrier.

Restored peristyle from Pomeii/ 1890 photograph

www.bible-architecture.info

Roman peristyle

kmkz.com

Some scholars propose that hortus conclusus may have begun as enclosed hunting parks evolving to smaller contained areas with wattle fences for keeping livestock. Another direct influence could be attributed to the inward focused Roman peristyle or cortile. Either way, it manifested itself as walled gardens for the aristocratic class to delight in. Within, they would have servants tend plants or create an idyllic retreat for sitting, dancing and playing instruments. Others would stroll and contemplate their faith. The only continuously existing medieval gardens today are monastic cloister gardens.

Cloisters Museum garden, Metropolitan Museum of Art

gardenvisit.com

The enclosed garden was a common setting for images of the Virgin Mary in medieval artwork. According to Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, Landscape Design: a cultural and architectural history – “the notion of the garden as an enclosed space, set apart, and infused with metaphorical meaning – a representation of nature perfected through human art in the service of an ideal – is fundamental to our understanding of the history of landscape design.”

Virgin and child with saints and donor family, c1430, Cologne

The Garden of Eden c.1410 Frankfurt

wga.hu/index.html

This genre became symbolic of impenetrability, inviolability (purity) and seclusion, a metaphor of the heavenly paradise and the Garden of Eden. As the space created is literally focused inward, it becomes a figurative expression of spirituality.

Within medieval paintings and tapestries the Virgin is typically shown in a meadow with walls or a fence encircling her, embraced by angels and saints, plant material abounds which may include the following within this setting: a rose, a lily, violets and an iris. The symbolism behind the plant material -- violets for her modesty, the white lily for her purity and the iris is representative of David or Christ. The thornless rose itself was a medieval symbol of the Holy Virgin, the primrose was a virginal guide to paradise, primroses were known as “the key to heaven”… salvation was to be found through nature... in this case a garden. (Interestingly, the word “paradise” is derived from the Persian word “ pairideaza”, which when literally translated means “surrounded by walls.”

Tretyakov Gallery

In the middle of a hortus conclusus, may also be found a fountain, pool, pond, or well, referencing the water of life and Mary's role in bringing life to the infant Jesus. The division of the garden into quadrants by four distinct paths – is perhaps an influence from the charhar bagh. Occasionally a unicorn may be found within this setting, emblematic of chaste love or as an allegory representing Christ’s relationship with the Virgin Mary.

In secular terms the garden became a symbol of earthly love, typified by Guillaume de Llorris 13^th century poem the Roman de la Rose, an allegory of man and an enclosed garden. In this walled garden, the interior represents romance, while the exterior is emblematic of everyday life, the lover endeavors to reach the rose which symbolizes his lady’s love. Relationship with the heavens is emphasized in a walled garden as it eliminates the outside world converging the garden below with the heavens above. There is a stark contrast between the containing walls and the vertical endlessness of the sky – truly a vertical landscape.

Artificial nature is the basis for the hortus conclusus - shutting the space off from the outside world, creating an image of an inner paradise. One could begin to suggest that this archetype has been translated into present day public pocket parks in urban centers. The vest pocket park in American cities is a contained space with walls created by adjacent buildings and “protected or defended” by security guards or vendors. Paley Park in Manhattan at 53^rd and Fifth Avenue is an excellent example of this. The fact that the park is “guarded” by the food service vendor is key to its success.

A more private example would be the jewel box size gardens behind brownstone buildings - is an oasis, a refuge of peace and tranquility among the chaos within the urban infrastructure.

The enclosed garden can be considered a paradox. To close off the outside world and bring a controlled nature within, creating an outdoor room that functions as a metaphor for nature.

Paley Park

nybeyondsight.org

EVOLUTION OF THE LAWN

2011-01-29T13:02:00.002-05:00

A lush, verdant, unblemished green carpet of turfgrass in front of a suburban home is accepted as an iconic American image on par with apple pie. When in fact, it is a venerable notion of beauty adapted from another continent and era.

"A Neat Lawn", David Hockney 1967

christies.com

The Industrial Revolution along with trade catapulted many in England into a privileged aristocracy during the 16th and 17th centuries where upon they accumulated hundreds of acres of land, subsequently transforming their estates into an ideal romantic landscape. In a Brownian or Reptonian landscape (landscape designers Lancelot “Capability” Brown and Humphrey Repton), the lawn would virtually extend from the house out to a distant meadow. Mind you, grazing livestock (ie: sheep, rabbits) or a slew of workers with scythes would be working non-stop to trim its growth. When originally attempted back in the states, Americans were unsuccessful to replicate this. Two hundred years ago, native grasses seemed unsuitable for this function. Moreover, sufficient water and extremes of temperature worked counter to early efforts -- the climate in England being considerably different than in virtually all of the United States even though the rainfall and temperatures in the Northwest have some similarities.

Image from one of Repton's "red books".

present day pasture on English estate,

flicker.com

Lawns began as a status symbol. The ability for an English or European landowner to have endless acres of fields as a playground rather than for production of food would truly be flaunting their excesses. Along with other “continental" tastes, perhaps this may be one of the reasons for the national aspiration to create these carpets. Even today, “grass has become for many a luxury item basic to being a satisfied and responsible homeowner.” (Bormann, Balmori, Geballe; Redesigning the American Lawn 2001)

From an evolutionary perspective, one could also suggest that our culture adheres to the prospect refuge theory of preferring clean open spaces, and we’ve been predisposed and conditioned to appreciate the open swath of green lawn.

As people of upper classes traveled off of the American continent, read books, viewed paintings and photos, the desire grew to emulate European aristocracy in their garden design. What truly made this a possibility for landowners was the invention of the push mower in 1830 by Edwin Budding. Still, for the most part, the manicured lawn remained the possession of the upper classes in the United States and other industrialized countries. Subsequently, the lawn was heavily promoted after the turn of the century by magazines, garden clubs, golf enthusiasts and the US Dept of Agriculture. Conforming to what your neighbor had (keeping up with the Jones’) and therefore acquiring status and acceptance, was the culture of the 1950’s and 60’s (and remains so today). During the post-war housing boom, track houses and developments (offering 3 1/2 %, 30 yr. fixed mortgages) were procured by servicemen returning home and identical homes sprung up everywhere. The notion of a postage size, perfectly manicured 2” high, “dandelion absent” lawn was ever-present. With the advent of affordable sprinkler systems, the lawn became very manageable for homeowners.

Father + son w. push mower, circa 1960

gettyimages.com

In “Second Nature”, the author Michael Pollan, relates his father’s ambivalent spirit toward maintaining their suburban lawn in 1960, what he refers to as “ the most characteristic institution of the American suburb.” It is part of the “collective landscape: while not exactly public land, it isn’t entirely private either”. “To maintain your portion of this democratic landscape was part of your civic duty. You voted each November, joined the PTA, and mowed the lawn every Saturday.”

As Pollen recollects, his father decided one summer to forego mowing his lawn, create a mini-meadow out of that half-size postage stamp front lawn. Cars and passerby’s would stop and stare in at this anomaly. Neighbors wondered if there was a death or the family was moving. As the weeks passed, a representative neighbor for the community was selected to deliver the message – CUT YOUR LAWN! Pollan's father's response was to mow his initials into the untamed lawn. S-M-P. That was the last time his father used the mower before moving the family to another town!

lawncareoftulsa.com

As the face of a neighborhood, during these years communities began to enact weed laws aimed at protecting the public from neglectful landowners whose littered yards they believed could attract rats, mosquitoes or present a fire hazard. But also to promote what Pollen refers to as “the collective face of suburbia,” reflecting a shared sense of acquired values. As our understanding of a healthy ecosystem has matured, these laws are still wrongfully enforced against natural landscapes. According to the E.P.A. “Natural landscapes are not a threat to safety or public health. More distressing, enforcement of local weed laws fosters an unnatural aesthetic conformity, by promoting and protecting monoculture laws, that furthers the malignant notion that humankind and Nature are independent.”

In the 1970s, the natural landscape movement emerged from infancy as it gained professional recognition and a modest measure of formal organization. In 1972, landscape architect Darrel Morrison, then a professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, WI, designed Walden Park in Madison as a predominately native landscape. Morrison continues to create noteworthy public (and private) native landscapes throughout the United States, emphasizing plant communities and the important clarification that selection of native plant material is only native if it is indigenous to that specific local area. Most recently, the New York Botanical Gardens installed one of his lyrical landscapes this past year.

2010 internet advertising

Lowes.com

"It is estimated that the total amount of monocultured lawn in the United States exceeds the size of the state of Pennsylvania." (National Gardening Association) Suffice to say, lawn covers a considerable amount of the United States. Currently the aesthetic and environmental pendulum has begun to swing in the opposite direction. Most horticulturalists, environmentalists and educated professionals in the landscape category who do not have economic ties to the lawn industry are well versed in the non –sustainable reasons behind minimizing or even elimination of this deficient ecosystem.

One irony of this evolution is that in 16th century England, wealthy landowners had lawns that were natural meadows with thousands of wildflowers. In those days, “grasses were hated weeds, and garden boys would creep along the flower lawns picking out the grass.” (Hatfield, A.W., How to Enjoy Your Weeds, 1971) . In the 20th and 21st centuries, this perception of the ideal lawn has been turned on its head. Dandelions and other flowers are despised. Turf grass became the vegetation of choice. Weed laws protected and promoted this "ideal".

A second irony is that to sustain these lawns homeowners burn millions of gallons of fuel powering inefficient mower engines, pouring chemicals into our lawns, creating an interpretation of a centuries old romantic dream of existing with nature ….as we assault it.

FOUNTAINS

2011-01-17T01:41:00.004-05:00

Once upon a time it became the fancy for many of the ruling class in Europe to include concealed fountains, controllable at a distance in their ornamental gardens. Seats became flooded, grottoes became showers, trees sprouted a shower of water, water jets would spring up under ladies dresses and statues would spray passing visitors from their body parts… including (the statues’) private parts. These amusing “joke fountains” were used to provide entertainment for the visitors and guests at significant estates and castles.

Water had originally been used in Rome within sculpture as a way to animate these allegorical figures. This evolved as fountains created in medieval times (overflows from spring-heads) were in the shape of an animal heads spouting water. (Windsor Castle had a stone fountain on its grounds in the mid 1200’s). A popular feature of the Italian Renaissance garden (including Villa d’Este) was these hidden fountains, which could be turned on to drench unsuspecting visitors.

Among the fountains of Peterhoff Palace, one of Russia’s most famous tourist attractions a joke fountain was constructed -- one which sprays passers-by who step on a particular paving stone. The Palace is sometimes referred to as the Russian Versailles, built and primarily designed by Peter the Great, beginning in 1714. Peter had visited the Garden of Versailles and had been so impressed by the fountains there that he was inspired to make the fountains in the same cascading style. Subsequent Russian rulers and regimes had augmented it up until the Second World War when the German Army essentially destroyed it. Thankfully, restoration work began immediately after the war, and continues today where it has become a UNESCO World heritage site.

The Bench Fountain - walking on the cobblestones initiates the spray of water

images: flicker.com

The water for the Peterhoff fountains is drawn from springs and aqueducts at a higher elevation, thereby creating the technological achievement of eliminating the need for pumps by the use of a gravity fed system! All the fountains run simultaneously. As a contrast… there were so many fountains at Versailles that it was impossible to have them all running at once; when Louis XIV made his promenades, his fountain-tenders turned on the fountains ahead of him and turned off those behind him. “Louis built an enormous pumping station, the Machine de Marly, with fourteen water wheels and 253 pumps to raise the water three hundred feet from the River Seine, and even attempted to divert the River Éire to provide water for his fountains, but the water supply was never enough.”1

Young Princess Victoria, who was to become Queen of England, was particularly fond of the artificial willow tree at Chatsworth Gardens, originally created by William Cavendish in 1693. Cavendish hired Grillet, a pupil of Andre LeNotre to design it. It was composed of 8,000 pieces of copper and brass and had 800 jets of water hidden in the branches and leaves. Supposedly, it would spurt into life squirting water from every branch and leaf over the unsuspecting passer-by. To be soaked to the skin in the early 1700s was generally no laughing matter, as fine clothes were very expensive and not usually washable.

Spouting Willow

image:www.linklux.com/rosemaryvereyfavourites.htm

Was that anyway to treat your guests?

1.Robert W. Berger, The Chateau of Louis XIV, University Park, PA. 1985, and Gerald van der Kemp, Versailles, New York, 1978

HERBERT BAYER

2011-01-03T15:37:00.064-05:00

''I believe that the artist must achieve creative control over the whole of his environment.''- New York Times, October 21, 1984

Herbert Bayer was intimately involved in the celebrated Bauhaus school in Germany in the 1920s and 30s: first as a student, and then as one of its directors. He emigrated to the United States in 1938. As an advocate of Bauhaus principles he produced works which expressed the needs of an industrial age, the positive collaboration between business and art, mirroring the advanced tendencies of the avant-garde.

typography by Herbert Bayer, entrance to Bauhaus image: Wikipedia

The Bauhaus was based on the principles of the 19th-century English designer William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement that spoke of art meeting the needs of society and that no distinction should be made between fine arts and practical crafts. It was also dependent on the more forward-looking principles that modern art and architecture must be responsive to the needs and influences of the modern industrial world and that good designs must pass the test of both aesthetic standards and sound engineering. This Bauhaus style, could also be described as the absence of ornament and ostentatious facades and by a harmony between function and the artistic and technical means employed.

For over 60 years Bayer created pioneering works in painting, sculpture, environmental works, industrial design, typography, architecture, photography, and applied design. He was truly what can be referred to as “a renaissance man,” one of the few "total artists" of the twentieth century.

"Metamophosis"1936 photographic montage

image: metmuseum.org

Marble Garden, 1955

Aspen Meadows Hotel

In this experimental garden, Bayer introduced modernist imagery into the environment for perhaps the first time. Slabs and blocks of white marble were sourced from a nearby abandoned quarry for this thirty-eight foot square experimental garden that begins to suggests the notion that all gardens are nothing more than three dimensional sculpture.

The "Grass Mound" (1955), came to inspire a whole generation of earthworks artists and initiated the ground for ecological design and restoration projects of today.

Sketches for earthworks by Bayer...

Installed in 1982, the "Earthworks" was hyped for its fusion of art and infrastructure, making the installation a powerful precedent for landscape designers, architects, engineers and artists. A series of sculpted spaces that feel both ancient and modern, the Earthworks’ pure forms of geometry -- cones, circles, lines and berms—are built into the alluvial delta at the mouth of Mill Creek Canyon. Grass and concrete, a wood bridge and steps: these are the materials at work, joined by the natural forces of Mill Creek itself. According to Landscape Architecture magazine, "the city of Kent, Washington, through its Arts Commission and Parks and Recreation Department, commissioned this project as a solution to urban stormwater runoff and its resultant soil erosion problems. The environmental artwork was a means of enlivening the plans for a proposed stormwater detention basin and creating an unusual entrance to an existing public park. The city's goals were to control flooding, to restore fish runs, and to create an aesthetically pleasing facility that would contribute to enhancing the park."

Mill Creek Canyon Earthworks 1982

image: landscapemodeling.org

previous images: flicker.com

Photo by John Hoge and Nancy Leahy

"Layered Landscape" 1944 gouache on paper
image: aspen journal

In his commercial graphic design work, he was an advocate of social responsibility in design -- products or services that promote positive ideas and behaviors while promoting the company. In 1941 the Container Corporation which produced 90 percent to 95 percent of its cardboard from wastepaper hired Bayer to oversee a series of posters promoting the companies ability to recycle products on a grand scale, linking corporate responsibility with the environment.

Subsequently, Bayer also oversaw another series of posters linking entitled "Great Ideas of Western Man".

"The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first, and love of soft living and the get-rich-quick theory of life."--Theodore Roosevelt.
From the series Great Ideas of Western Man. 1959 Herbert Bayer

“In a response to the Earth Day of 1970, the Container Corporation announced a design competition for a trademark for recycling in the spirit of Bayer. The competition was won by a student at the University of Southern California presenting the symbol at the Design Conference in Aspen (Figure 7).87 Now universally known, its history goes back to the Bauhaus ideal for living in harmony with the natural world.”
-Environmental History, Peter Anker April 2007

original design for recycling
image" wikipedia

LIGHTS IN THE LANDSCAPE

2010-12-25T18:51:00.002-05:00

As you watch the lighting of the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center, see Clark Griswold in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation fail to illuminate his house with 250 strands of lights or drive thru a suburban street which is aglow in outdoor decorations, ever wonder where this all started?

Notre Dame and Tree aglow

freshdentalpalatine.com

U.S. Senate w. tree on lawn

Thomas Alva Edison is well known as the inventor of the light bulb. Three years later, in 1882 his associate and co-owner of the Edison Electric Company, Edward Johnson strung together a series of adapted light fixtures, wound them around a tree and electrically lit a tree for (what most consider) the first time. Has there ever been an iconic image more defining of a season?

On 22 December 1882, just three years after Edison's first successful experiments with carbon filament light bulbs, Edward Hibberd Johnson invited some friends (and a few newspapers) to his New York Home. A reporter from the Detroit Post noted: "Last evening I called at the residence of Edward H Johnson, vice-president of Edison's electric company. There, at the rear of the beautiful parlors, was a large Christmas tree presenting a most picturesque and uncanny aspect. It was brilliantly lighted with many colored globes about as large as an English walnut and was turning some six times a minute on a little pine box. There were 80 lights in all encased in these dainty glass eggs, and about equally divided between white, red and blue. As the tree turned, the colors alternated, all the lamps going out and being re-lit at every revolution. The result was a continuous twinkling of dancing colors, red, white, blue, white, red, and blue all evening. I need not tell you that the scintillating evergreen was a pretty sight -one can hardly imagine anything prettier. The ceiling was crossed obliquely with two wires on which hung 28 more of the tiny lights; and all the lights and the fantastic tree itself with its starry fruit were kept going by the slight electric current brought from the main office on a filmy wire. The tree was kept revolving by a little hidden crank below the floor which was turned electricity".

image: oldchristmastreelights.com/history.htm

In 1895, President Cleveland proudly sponsored the first electrically lit Christmas tree in the White House. It was a huge specimen, featuring more than a hundred multicolored lights. Finally, the general public was taking notice, and it was not long afterward that members of "high society" were hosting Christmas Tree parties. They were grand events indeed, as a typical lighted tree of the early 1900s cost upwards of $300 (more than $2000 today), including the generator and wireman’s services. Still out of range for the average American family, smaller and less expensive battery-operated lighting strings were decorating the trees of those adventurous enough to do the wiring.

Electric tree lighting was not to be truly practical until the General Electric Company came to the rescue in 1901, commercially producing Christmas tree lamps, a pre-assembled lighting fixture, was manufactured in strings of nine sockets by the Edison General Electric Co. of Harrison, New Jersey and advertised in the December 1901 issue of the Ladies' Home Journal. Still quite expensive at $12.00 (the total weekly wage for an average worker and the equivalent of about $80.00 today), many department stores in the larger, electrified cities would rent outfits for the season for $1.50. Called a "festoon", the outfit consisted of eight green pre-wired porcelain sockets, eight Edison miniature base-colored glass lamps, and a handy screw-in plug for easy attachment to a nearby wall or ceiling light socket.

Outdoor-Decorations were not introduced to the public until 1927-1928, almost 45 years after the first electric tree lights were demonstrated. There were sets offered for sale as safe to use for outside decorations before 1927, but they were small, dangerous and extremely impractical for the average family.

Interestingly, neither Edward Hibberd Johnson nor the Edison Electric Company filed a patent for this invention!

fyi...Lights sync to music blaring from house

WEEDS

2010-12-19T21:40:00.003-05:00

"What is a weed?
A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"A weed is more than a flower in disguise."
-James Russell Lowell