Landscape design : a cultural and architectural history 9780810942530, 0810942534

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LANDSCAPE DESIGN A Cultural and Architectural History

EUZABCTH BARLOW ROGBR^^

Digitized by the Internet Archive in

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LANDSCAPE DESIGN A Cultural and Architectuflal History

Editors: Juua

Moort, Elaine Stainton,

Ana Rogers

Designer:

Photo Editor and Photo Pi

Ki search: John K. Crowley;

Kesearci

io io

Kicharl:) A. Gali in

i:

LOiana

-

Gongora

Endpapers: Embroidered parterre. Chateau de Vaux-le-Vicomte. France p. 1:

Water garden, Broadlands, England

pp. 2-3: Isola Bella, Lake Maggiore, northern Italy pp. 4-5:

Canopus

pp. 6-7: pp. 8-9: p. 77.

at Hadrian's villa,

Gardens

Mossy garden

near

Tlvoli, Italy

Stourhead, England

at

at Saiho-ji, Kyoto,

Conservancy Garden, Central Park,

Japan

New York City

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rogers, Elizabeth Barlow, 1936-

Landscape design a history of ;

cities,

and gardens

parks,

/

Elizabeth Barlow Rogers.

cm.

p.

Includes bibliographical references

(p.

).

ISBN 0-8109-4253-4 1.

Landscape architecture

— History.

2.

Landscape design

— History.

I.

SB470.5 .R64 2001 712'.09-dc21

Copyright

© 2001

00-048480

Elizabeth Barlow Rogers

Published in 2001 by Harry N. Abrams, Incorporated, All rights reserved.

No part of the

contents of this

New York

book may be

reproduced without the written permission of the publisher.

Printed and

109

AI3imS

8

bound

in Japan

765 43

2

Harry N. Abrams, 100 Fifth Avenue

New York,

Inc.

N.Y. 10011

www.abramsbooks.com

Title.

This

book is dedicated to Ted Rogers

AND THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO BUILT AND REBUILT CENTRAL PaRK.

TABLE OF CONTENTS fokewokd The Shaping of Space; the Meaning of Place

MAGIC, MYTH,

AND NATURE: Landscapes of Pflehistokic,

Early Ancient, anl^ Contemporaky Peoples L Caves

and

Circles: Sustaining Life and Discerning Cosmic Order

Architectural Mountains and the Earth's First

n.

Cities: Landscape as

Urban Power in Early Ancient Civilizations III.

Ritual and Landscape in Prehistoric Greece:

Earth Goddess and the

Mighty Lords

IV Cosmology in the Landscapes of the Americas:

Spirits

of Earth and Sky

NATURE, ART, AND REASON: Landscape Design I.

Gods and E^umans: PoLis

II.

in

the Classical

World

The New Contract with Nature

AND Acropolis:

City

and Temple

III.

Empire: Hellenism and Roman Urhanism

IV

Garden and Villa:

in the Greek

Landscape

The Art of Landscape in Ancient Rome

VISIONS OF PARADISE: Landscape Design as Symbol and Metaphor I.

Paradise as a Literary Topos: Gardens of God and Gardens of Love Paradise

II.

III.

on Earth:

The Islamic Garden

Paradise Contained: Walled Cities and Walled Gardens of the European Middle Ages

CLASSICISM REBORN: Landscape Ideals OF THE Renaissance in Italy and France I.

Petrarch, Alberti, and Colonna: Humanism and the Landscape

II.

Bramante and the Rediscovery of Axial Planning:

Gardens of

Sixteenth-Century Italy III.

Axial Planning

on an Urban Scale:

IV Currents of Fashion: The

The Development of Renaissance Rome

Transformation of the Italian Garden in France

V The Evolution of French Urbanization and Garden Style: Paris in the Time of Henry FV

CHAPTER

FIVE

POWER AND GLORY: The Genius oe Le Notre AND T\ IE GkANDELH^ OE Tl IE BaKOQUE E

The Makjng of Vaux-le-Vicomte and Versailles: Andre Le Notre The Garden as Theater:

IE

Italian

Baroque and Rococo Gardens

CHAPTER SIX

EXPANDING HORIZONS: Court anh City in n ie European E

French and Italian Exports:

Design Principles

The Heroic

IE

The Application of

Manner

Classical

and Baroque

Gardens in the Netherlands, England, Germany, and Beyond

City: Expressions of

Nature's Paradise: America in

III.

232

to

Granl:*

Classical

and Baroque Urhanism

the Colonial

and Federal Periods

CHAPTER SEVEN

SENSE AND SENSIBILITY: Landscapes oe the Age oe Reason, Romanticism, and Revoeution I.

The Genius of the Place: Leaping the Fence: The

Pastoral Idyll with Political

IV Nature's Canvas:

Transformation of the English Landscape into a

Meaning

Remaking England:

III.

New Landscape Style Through Literature,

and Theory

Art, II.

Forging a

Capability Brown, Professional Improver

English Philosophers

and

Practitioners of the Picturesque

V Landscapes of Moral Virtue and Exotic Fantasy: VI.

VIE

281

The French Picturesque

Designing Nature's Garden: The Landscapes of Thomas Jefferson

The Landscape of Mind and Soul:

Goethe and Wordsworth

CHAPTER EIGHT

NATURE AS MUSE: The Gardens oe China and Japan I.

IE

Mountains, Lakes, and Islands: Tea, Moss,

and Stones:

Intimations of Immortality in the Chinese Garden

Temple and Palace Gardens ofJapan

31

CHAPTER NINE

EXPANDING

CITIES

AND NEW SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS: The

Demockatization of Landscape Design L

Botanical Science, the Gardenesque Style, and People's Parks:

Landscape Design

in Victorian

England

Redefining Rural America: The Influence of AndrewJackson Downing

II.

Honoring History and Repose for the Dead:

III.

Commemorative Landscapes

and Rural Cemeteries

IV

The New Metropolis:

Frederick

Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux as Park Builders

and City Planners

357

CHAPTER TEN

INDLISTFIIAL AGE CIVILIZATION: BIFITH of the Beaux- Arts America, and National Parks I.

Haussmann's

America the Beautiful:

III.

375

Paris: Birth of the Modern City

The City Beautiful: Monumental

II.

Modern City,

Urbanism

in Beaux-Arts

America

The National Park System

CHAPTER ELEVEN

LANDSCAPE AS AESTHETIC EXPEKIENCE: The Arts and Crafts Movement and the Revival of the Formal Garden I.

Modernity Challenged:

and

Italy's

Ruskin's Influence, the Past Revalued,

Long Shadow

The Edwardian and Post-Edwardl\n English Garden: Aristocracy's Golden

II.

Afternoon and Twilight III.

402

Design Synthesis: The End of the American Country Place Era

CHAPTER TWELVE

SOCIAL UTOPIAS: Modernism and Regional Planning I.

II.

.

Urban Expansion: Town Planningfor the Machine Age in Britain and Continental Europe Greenbelt Towns or Suburbs?:

Creating the American Metropolis

NEW LANDSCAPE AESTHETIC: The Modeknist Garden

A

Transitional Experimentation:

E

Design Idioms of the Early Twentieth Century

Abstract Art and the Functional Landscape:

IE

Gardens for Modern Living

HOME, COMMERCE, AND ENTEFITAINMENT Landscapes oe Consumekism E

A E^OME FOR THE Family:

The Landscape of Suburbia

Commerce and Entertainment:

IE

Shopping Malb and Theme Parks

HOLDING ON AND LETTING GROW: Landscape as Pkeservation, Conservation, Art, Sport, I.

Preserving the Past:

and

New

Urbanist

III.

Place as Heritage, Identity, Tourist Landscape,

Community

Conserving Nature:

IE

and Theory

Landscape Design as Environmental Science and Art

Earthworpcs, Golf Courses, Philosophical Models, and Poetic

Metaphors:

Landscape as Art Form, Sport, Deconstructivism, and Phenomenology

THE WEAVING OF PLACE AND THE GEOGRAPHY OF FLOWS: Landscape as Bodiey Experience and Vernacular Expression I.

IE

Body and

Space: The Weaving of Place

Cultural Geographt.

The Loom of Landscape

FOFLEWORD

Xhe building of Central Park according to the vision of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux is one of American people. That the democratic experiment of

the great political and cultural achievements of the

public park

had succeeded so well and

rebuilding in 1979

seemed

for so long

when Mayor Edward

I.

mandate

to constitute a

Koch appointed me

to

be the

first

for

its

preservation and

Central Park administrator and

Commissioner Gordon J. Davis helped me

to found the Central Park Conservancy.

servancy staff and consultants on the park s

management and restoration plan went forward in the early

I

wanted

to understand better the landscape tradition of

which Central Park is

the history of landscape design that preceded and followed

a

As the

a part

studies of the

Con-

1980s,

and to learn more about

it.

During this period, I read books and articles that were beginning to appear in the area of garden history, thanks in part to the ies at

work of Elizabeth Blair MacDougall, former director of the program of landscape stud-

Dumbarton Oaks

in

Washington, D.C., and her successor, John Dixon Hunt,

chairman of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning sylvania.

As editor of the international quarterly

merly the Journal of Garden History, Professor

design both through his

own work and in

Studies in the History of Gardens

Hunt

who now

serves as the

at the University

of Penn-

and Designed Landscapes, for-

has actively promoted the historiography of landscape

the scholarship that he has encouraged with the symposia he has

organized, the papers he has published, and the books he has encouraged and authored. Because of the

work

of MacDougall, Hunt, and several other contemporary landscape historians, including David Coffin,

who

pioneered the study of landscape design as a branch of art history

at

Princeton University,

facile

assumptions

have been overturned and understanding deepened in a heretofore barely considered field of serious study Further, archaeologists

and

brought to

historians have

much new

light

information that deserves to be synthe-

sized in a comprehensive survey that will allow a comparative analysis of styles

and periods and provide an

understanding of the cultural values that have informed landscape design in different times and places.

As serious scholarship was emerging in the area of landscape smdies, new works on urbanism were being published. The the design of I

Kostof

late Spiro

cities as large-scale,

began to see

a reciprocity

to being part of a

in particular stands

out as a writer

also

who stimulated understanding of

long-term landscape projects. Reading his works and those of other authors,

of influence between

continuum of design

cities,

parks,

and gardens and to understand that in addition

three categories of landscape

sensibility, all

were almost always sub-

ject to a prevailing Zeitgeist.

Everywhere and always humanity's desire to to order the physical circumstances of

landscapes

I

wished to describe I have read

amre. Readings in these areas, presence in nature has convictions, a certain

Iffe is

its

I

strong.

To understand better

believe, reinforce the

origins in the

cosmological understanding, to perfect namre, and

history, philosophy, science,

mind and

economic motives, or passing fancies,

group of people

reflect

its

art

the culmral ethos reflected in the

and certain important works of Hter-

we

assumption that everything

cultural constructs. is

Whether

see reflecting

reflecting

human

deep religious

always imbedded in the prevaOing cultural values of

at a particular period in history.

Thus, ideological forces guide the minds and hands

of those who shape space and, through design, give meaning to place. This representation of ideas in the btult

environment occurs sometimes with intent but often unconsciously. Thus, have as

much

cultural significance as artfully contrived ones for those

who

so-called vernacular landscapes

care to observe

and

reflect

upon

the scenery of everyday Hfe. In

making

who have heard,

this intellecmal

read,

journey

I

have had the encouragement of family

and constructively criticized

my thoughts and ideas. First and foremost,

my husband, Ted, who has deferred alternative vacation itineraries in favor of of

this

book and who has

addition,

I

listened to

members and

many groping ideas and glimmers

I

the friends

wish to thank

travel excursions in the service

of understanding along the way. In

owe special thanks to four distinguished historians whose friendship and belief in my project's value

me greatiy. They

have assisted

who

Daniel Horowitz. In particular, Frances Kennedy, advice and introductions to others

ing that the

Roger G. Kennedy, Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, and

are Frances H. Kennedy,

is

also a

when the

book neared completion, she read the manuscript and made and narrative

structure

flow.

I

also

me

invaluable

who were helpful. Helen Horowitz provided firm encouragement, insist-

continue working toward publication at the point

I

noted conservationist, gave

thank my fHend

effort

seemed most daunting. Then,

several helpful suggestions that

as

improved its

Ned O'Gorman for reading several chapters with

a poet's

ear for language and a gardener's eye for landscape.

Another books on ously

friend, Carol

Krinsky professor of art history

at

New

York University and author of several

architecture, gave a close reading of the entire penultimate draft of

my plea to be treated as a student,

comments and

queries that forced

me

my manuscript.

By taking seri-

Carol served as an additional editor, penciling numerous marginal

and points of view throughout. Reuben

to substantively rethink facts

Rainey, professor of landscape architecture at the University of Virginia School of Architecmre, also read the

manuscript in

its

on their behalf: They

The same

me several key suggestions for its improvement. am particularly grateful I

and generosity of these two important

for the kindness

disclaimer

and gave

entirety

is

are entirely innocent of

true for the several other scholars

first

readers and hasten to

any errors that

who

make

the usual author's

may remain in my text.

have read individual chapters in the areas of their

Chapter One benefited from the eyes and mind of the Egyptologist Patrick Cardon. For another read-

expertise.

ing of that chapter

American

I

am

indebted to David Hurst Thomas, curator of North American Archaeology

Museum of Natural History, and to his associate and wife, Lorann Pendleton,

Nelson North American Archaeology Laboratory,

for their invaluable

at the

director of the Nels

knowledge of and advice on other

my friend Dave Warren, who is a member of the Santa Clara Pueblo, for also reading Chapter One and expanding my perception resources

for,

understanding the Native American landscape.

I

am

further grateful to

of the sensory dimensions and cosmological underpinnings of prehistoric, early ancient, and contemporary Native American place

making and

to Khristaan VUlela, director of the

tant professor at the College of Santa Fe, for his thoughtful tectural historian, critiqued this chapter

and made

Thaw

Art History Center and

comments. Rina SwentzeU, the Puebloan

T.

archi-

me understand more fully the sense she shares with many

other Native Americans of the sacredness of all nature, not merely certain important

thank Bradley

assis-

sites.

Further,

I

wish to

Lepper, curator of archaeology at the Ohio Historical Center in Columbus, for introducing

me to the Mound Builders of southern Ohio. Duane Anderson, director of the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture of the Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe, gave my material on prehistoric and Hving Native American cultures a

final,

constructive reading, and Laura Hold, the librarian of the Laboratory of Anthropology

at the

Museum of New Mexico, guided me to relevant materials on the archaeology of the Americas. Writer,

artist,

and preservationist Nikos Stavroulakis was

a

most helpful host

as

I

studied

Minoan

sites

on

his native

island, Crete. I

thank Peter J. Holliday professor of history of

Long Beach,

for the careful

history

and

and

classical

archaeology, California State University,

and constructive reading he gave of Chapter Two.

oHs and Agora in the company of cultural

art

classical scholar

Avi Sharon,

who

provided

assistance of

architecture ies at

by

two

and landscape

Chatham

first

saw the Athenian Acrop-

many

useful insights into the

meaning of these important spaces. Chapter Three benefited from the

Murray, professor of art history and noted medieval architectural historian

from the

I

at

scrutiny of Steven

Columbia University,

Islamists, D. FairchQd Ruggles, visiting assistant professor in the

architecture, Cornell University,

as well as

departments of

and Behula Shah, the director of landscape

College. All of these specialists were generous with their time and advice, and

I

stud-

was educated

their patient coaching.

Guy

Walton, professor of fine

arts.

New York University,

and author and authority on French Renais-

sance and seventeenth-century gardens, read Chapters Four and Five, and his suggestions regarding their

improvement were

invaluable. Tracy EhrUch, assistant professor of Art History at Colgate University, has par-

ticular expertise in the area

helpful.

Chapter

of the

Italian villa

garden, and her reading of these same

two chapters was equally

Magnus Olausson, National Museum, Sweden, read the section on Drottningholm Palace gardens in Six

and kindly met with me, enlarging my perspective on the relationship of Swedish garden design

to that of the rest of Europe.

I

also

thank Lena Lofgren Uppsall and Marie

Landscape architect Joseph Disponzio,

and is

a

my teaching assistant in the course now

were a great

former colleague

style,

on

Palace gardens.

New York City Department of Parks

in the

taught in landscape design history at Columbia University in 1991,

Harvard Graduate School of Design. His knowl-

at

the subject of his dissertation, and his fritical reading of Chapter Seven

help. Peter Fergusson, professor

constructive suggestions

of

art history, Wellesley

CoDege, also gave

me some

eminently

this chapter.

wish to thank Kendall H. Brown,

versity at

a

an assistant professor of landscape architecture

edge of the French Picturesque

I

I

Edman Franzen for sharing their

me on our tour of Drottningholm

knowledge of Swedish landscape design with

assistant professor in the

Department of

Long Beach, and a former editor for the Macmillan Dictionary of Art,

Art, California State Uni-

for reading

Chapter Eight from

the perspective of a East Asian specialist. John Major, East Asian scholar, author, anthologist, and coauthor of a guide to world literature also read Chapter Eight, and his knowledge of the Chinese and Japanese languages

and cultures was els

me an important asset.

for

have illuminated

ronmental Planning at Osaka

University, provided

Kenji

Wako,

associate professor in the

department of Envi-

some pertinent corrections to my manuscript as did Yoshiko

who also did the excellent picture research responsible for many of the illustrations in Chapter Eight.

Finally,

I

thank Stephanie Wada, associate curator with the Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation and

specialist in the art

of Japan, for a

final

history,

American

University,

Law Olmsted Papers and a professor in the department

Washington, D.C., read Chapter Nine. This proved most helpful, as

mate knowledge of the accomplishments of Olmsted and and appreciative

familiarity

a

reading of this material.

Charles Beveridge, series editor of the Frederick

of

poems and nov-

my understanding of some relationships between literature and landscape design while

me many hours of pleasurable reading.

also giving

Nihei,

In addition, his suggestions regarding particular

his partner Calvert

Vaux surpasses

with their work. David Schuyler, professor of American Studies

his inti-

my own long

at Franklin

and

Marshall College and also an editor of the Frederick Law Olmsted Papers, has special knowledge of the nineteenth-century American metropolitan landscape and ick

an authority on Andrew Jackson Downing, Freder-

Law Olmsted, and Calvert Vaux. His reading of Chapter Nine and subsequent chapters also provided me

with fresh insights on subjects with which

David

Streatfield, professor

also offer thanks to

Donald Brumder

in

Palm Beach,

community's landscape

was

familiar but lacked his

for hosting

at the University

of Washington and an authority

my tour of the gardens of Pasadena and arranging access

Garden designer Willem Wirtz guided

Florida,

history, past

nuanced understanding.

valuable insights into this region's role in the history of landscape design.

to several private estates in Santa Barbara.

and public gardens

I

of landscape architecture

on the gardens of California, gave me I

is

and

I

am grateful for his impressive

me

around several private

store of

knowledge of

that

and present.

Lance Neckar, professor and associate dean of the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at the University

of Minnesota, read Chapter Thirteen and provided constructive commentary on

ment of modernist gardens

in general. Elizabeth

Columbus, to the to

Indiana.

George Waters, editor of

DoneU Garden in Sonoma,

Gordon and Carole Hyatt

shires.

California,

for their

G Miller read part of this chapter as well,

my tour of the

was a generous and thoughtful host on

J.

Burle Marx, which

I

magazine was a

similarly instructive guide

and other nearby landscapes of the modern to

Because of the gracious assistance of Ronaldo Maia,

ian horticulturist Cynthia

and Will Miller

Irwin Miller garden and related points of interest in

Pacific Horticulture

many kindnesses

my treat-

me when was I

I

visiting

era.

I

am indebted

Naumkeag in

the Berk-

was accompanied by the knowledgeable

Brazil-

Zanotto Salvador on a tour of several of the modernist landscapes created by Roberto

also discuss in

Chapter Thirteen. Chapter Fourteen benefited from an explanatory tour

through the newly completed Animal Kingdom park

in

Walt Disney World

in

Orlando, Florida,with Paul

Comstock, the head of landscape design within the Disney Company's Imagineering division.

When was writing Chapter Fifteen, the I

artist

a great deal about the process, both conceptual

and

Nancy Holt granted me an interview in which learned I

technical, of

producing

art

on

a landscape scale.

From

her I also gained greater understanding of the role of her late husband, Robert Smithson, in the origins of the

Earthworks movement. Charles Jencks was similarly kind

in

welcoming

me

to Portrack

Garden

in

Dum-

and I thank Alistair Clark, the head gardener there,

frieshire, Scotland,

in progress.

am also grateful to

I

for his discussion

me

Ian Hamilton Findlay for allowing

to spend a

of this landscape work

morning

at Little Sparta,

his poetical landscape creation in Lanarkshire, Scotland.

Henry J.

commissioner of the

Stern,

New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, has instilled

agency over which he has presided during two mayoral administrations

in the

Jonathan Kuhn, the agency's director of

and

art

antiquities,

a strong sense

of

archives.

its

I

am grateful

as well to Jane

Weissmann, former director of Operation Green Thumb, and to Andrew Stone, director of the

Land Project

for the Trust for Public Land,

who

community gardens movement discussed in

to the

A book such as this one would be

furnished

me

and practice

have

made

a fresh survey

New York

with materials and information relating

Chapter Sixteen.

impossible without the patient research and insightful discoveries of

my bibliography.

these scholars, professional designers, and administrators as well as others listed in research, publications,

history.

provided helpful answers to several questions

regarding the department's past as well as access to the material in

City

its

in the related fields

Their

of landscape design history and landscape restoration

both necessary and possible. The lectures of

my Yale professors, Vincent ScuUy and

my abiding enthusiasm for architecture, landscape, and urban design, an enthusiasm that was nourished by my friendship with the cultural geographer J. Christopher Tunnard, were,

I

am

sure, partly responsible for

B.Jackson. Charles McLaughlin's loan of his thesis manuscript of The Selected Letters of Frederick

when was doing research I

for Frederick

Law

Olmsted 's

New

York in the days before

Law Olmsted

photocopying machines,

computers, or the subsequent publication of the multivolume Olmsted papers (an enterprise that he

still

supervises with fellow historian Charles Beveridge) stands out as an act of scholarly generosity and personal friendship for

which

Other special pher,

always be grateful.

friends include Sara

Miller, the Central

Park Conservancy historian and photogra-

who assisted in its fmal production. Without Sara's skills

from which the book germinated, and Lane's

project

on course. am particularly grateful I

Program of the J. M. Kaplan fund);

V

Cedar

who gave me invaluable help when this book was still in its infancy, and Lane Addonizio, my Cityscape

Institute colleague,

tures

will

I

and Clare

E.

Thaw

the

I

could not have built the

fine organizational ability kept

to the LuEster

both our

Mertz Trust and to Furthermore

office

slide lec-

and

this

(the Publication

Samuel H. Kress Foundation; the Henry Luce Foundation; the Eugene

Charitable Trust; the Charles Evans

Hughes Memorial Foundation; and

Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, for direcdy assisting the production of

this

the

Graham

book with foun-

dation grants. In Central Park

learned the value of collaboration and teamwork. That lesson has been reinforced by

I

the people at Harry N. Abrams, Inc. Publisher and editor-in-chief Paul Gottlieb as

I

proposed, and he allowed the

sions in terms of picture

the

book to grow beyond the specifications of our contract to its natural dimen-

and word count. John Crowley, director of photographs and permissions, has been

most resourceful of picture

editors, seeking out,

with the help of Diana Gongora, images I was unable to

provide and reading the manuscript carefully to assure the proper

brought

his skills as

an

saw the need for a survey such

artist to

fit

our project and, basing his work upon

of pictures to

earlier

Paulo Suzuki has

text.

documents, has created a num-

ber of freshly drawn plans and perspectives to aid the reader's visualization of certain landscapes discussed in the text. Elaine Banks Stainton, senior editor, has overseen the difficult process of readying the duction.

book for pro-

Ana Rogers is the book's designer, and her fine work speaks for itself Our team leader has been Julia

Moore, executive editor and director of textbook publishing, the most astute and considerate of editors. She has assured the integrity of our project at every turn, always advocating what book's intent and content rather than what I

would

undertake cially for

like to

add a

this broad-scale

sharing with

final additional

survey in the

first

is

merely expedient or

word of gratimde

to Ted,

as

of the

least costly.

we

and gardens described in the following chapters and talked about the

we

in the best interest

my husband,

for

encouraging

place and to persist in bringing it to publication.

me a wonderful educational adventure

responsible for the impressions

is

have walked together

I

me

to

thank him espe-

in the cities, parks,

civilizations, including

our own, that are

have gathered and the knowledge of place-making we have gained together.

INTRODUCTION

THE SHAPING OF SPACE; THE MEANING OF PLACE

A V history of landscape design

1

est sense in relation to values

to demonstrate case,

an

of the

art that

necessarily a history of

human culture.

It

should be located in the broad-

of time and space, but also more specifically as an

art-historical pursuit,

how philosophical concepts, and not only ideals of beauty, are expressed through art modifies and shapes nature.

seeking

—

in this

A history of landscape design is one way of writing the history

human mind. Therefore, while this book seeks to provide a description of the designs of specific locales,

the approach nature, and ciplines

is

contextual.

It

attempts to portray landscapes as products of attitudes toward the cosmos,

humanity and to show how they share elements of form and meaning with

with which they are most intimately, and often

and the decorative rative

is

arts

—

as well as

of a relationship between

inextricably, allied

their

world and of

dis-

— painting, sculpmre, architecture,

with literamre and other means of ideological expression.

human beings and

from the

artifacts

It is

thus a nar-

their attempts to invest nature

with

purposeful order and meaning and specific places with expressive form and heightened significance.

The mores

stem from people's attitudes

that

in

each age and geographical region are manifested

myths, rimals, social structures, and economic pursuits. These things design of forms within

it,

affect the organization

elites,

between the

and everyday use occur within

articulation

social contexts in

which there

is

often a historical lag

of philosophical ideas and the creation of forms that manifest those

ideas. Contrar-

and cultural expression is apparent. But whether it anticipates or confirms them, design does

normative cultural values, including those articulated by philosophers

intellectual lenses

through which to perceive the cosmos and the place of

Many of the landscapes discussed in this book have now vanished. reconstructed only from the clues offered by archaeologists.

Certain landscapes, on the other hand, the

decisions of governing

philosophy yet to be expressed may be anticipated by a physical manifestation. In both cases, a gap between

ideas tain

The

In speak-

planners, architects, and landscape designers as well as those of the builders of vernacular strucmres

for practical purposes

ily a

of space and the

which in mrn rationalize and instimtionalize patterns of cultural behavior

ing of a prevailing cultural consensus, however, one must offer qualifications.

theme

park, the shopping mall

—

Some

are

when

reflect cer-

they offer their particular

human beings within

it.

Others can be mentally or physically

mere

relics

show an amazing persistence over time.

Still

of their original designs. others

— the world's

fair,

are products of the present era. All can be interpreted as expressions of

be

cultural values. Moreover, because landscapes have a temporal dimension, altering with time, they can

read as palimpsests, documents in which nature's

human beings over the years inscribe Since culture

is

own powerful dynamic and the

signifying in large

always both a cause and effect of particular

its political

measure

its

changing intentions of

a historical record.

cumstances as well as of cosmological and philosophical

as

in

attitudes,

political,

economic, and technological

each age and country leaves

its

type of governance, degree of wealth, and level of construction

cir-

own legacy,

skills,

as well

character and religious beliefs. All of these things are given form through the tastes and talents

of patrons and designers. Indeed, the tastes of patrons and the talents of designers could not be exercised in the

same manner, nor would the

style

and iconographic content of

particular combinations of governance, wealth,

way of example, one may

say that

work of

and technology

as

their

work be

as

it is,

in the absence

of

informed by philosophical thought. By

the great seventeenth-cenmry French landscape designer

Andre

Le Notre expresses the authoritarianism of Louis XFV's regime, the prosperity of the French economy under the

management of the finance minister Jean-Baptiste

Colbert, the development of new

means of constructing

earthworks by the military engineer Sebastien Le Prestre de Vauban, and the application of the mathematical

philosophy of Rene Descartes to the art of landscape design. To say this does not diminish our estimation

of Le Notre 's genius; It

it

merely furnishes the conditions and parameters of

its

should be stressed that to understand designed landscapes, as well as

flowering.

human attitudes toward natural

must venture beyond the important areas of political, economic, and technological history

ones, one

The physical world,

realms of cosmology, religion, science, and metaphysics. mirrors the

and

sation

human mind as a theater of myth, ceremony and personal

shaped by thought and action,

as

So, too, the mind's capacity for sen-

and furnishing of landscape

reflection finds expression in the shaping

desire for public

and reason.

ritual, allegory,

pleasure. This

into the

space, as does the

book traces the flow of these mental

human

energies across

time and space, examining the cultural matrices of various periods and places and the influence of these upon landscape design.

Landscape and religion bore

when people

antiquity,

a particularly close relationship to

their lives

and

weU

human

monies took place were theaters

figs. 1.2, 1.3).

pyramids

and the

soil

life

game, adequate

The cosmological

in Egypt,

In such ruins,

procity

between the human and the natural

— mountains, and springs — temple — these were ceremonial lakes,

sites,

how

that

as

Puebloan plazas

still

circles (see

sun,

in a selection

and Earth Mother to

mound, and

that of a pan-

of sacred landscapes. Ancient

how Greek logic and mathematics began ritual

humankind slowly assumed

at least

equal importance with dependence

the province of propitiatory

This

is

evident

on

rites,

was manipulated

the Athenian Acropolis,

being devastated by the Persians, was rebuilt in the tecture based

to transform

dancing, and oracular

these practices,

fififi

acteristic

forms of

Colonial

cities

spatial

were

weU as in basilicas,

later as a series

ways

in

the forces of

that suggest a

Greek philoso-

site

fate.

new

composition, as well as with a

like a

proud crown

and

in

first as

town

Landscape,

of the earlier

city,

after

Roman

(see fig. 2.1).

Roman landscapes with

more cosmopolitan and

secular approach to design.

a centrifugal force of axes radiating

itself the

char-

ones aqueduct-fed baths and fountains as

of amorphous zones of expanded settlement, the ancient

gathering of energies into enclosed spaces: the

of

sense of confi-

and theaters expressed imperial might and largesse. Unlike the modern

the surrounding countryside,

affairs

century b.c.e. as a religious precinct in which an archi-

the pride of Caesars invested Hellenistic and

rationally laid out in grid plans,

arenas,

itself into

upon

where the defensible

upon exquisite mathematical proportions is worn

The power of empire and

projected

clas-

means of invoking the cooperation of unseen forces in a precarious world did not disappear

dawn of the Greek Classical age in the fifth century b.c.e. But alongside

in reason.

a reci-

divinity in both. Sacred

phers proffered another means of shaping destiny. Reliance upon the powers of intellect in the

dence

is

are.

human bond with nature from one belief system to another. Blood sacrifice,

still

cere-

the lesson of Pale-

called out to these early peoples. F>yramid, ziggurat, kiva,

temples and their siting in the landscape reveal

although

of

a similar conclusion (see

honors the notion of an inherent

theon of deities presided over by Zeus and Apollo can be read

with the

is

which these

they invoked the aid of cosmic powers. There

The transformation of religion from the worship of animal spirit,

consultation as a

in

Stonehenge and other megalithic

at

rituals

one sees how human beings expressed in landscape terms their

within the earth and

with

the

developed

to

and the warmth of the sun

rainfall,

and the Americas implies

India, Crete, Greece,

alliance

sites

which they per-

orientation found in the archaeological remains of temples, platforms, and

Mesopotamia,

spirit forces

societies

through successful reproduction. The spaces

and the astronomical alignments of the stones

times and early

Aware of the degree

harvest.

for religious expression within a larger landscape. This

figs. 1.8, 1.9, 1.10, 1.24, 1.27, 1.28).

sical

spirit forces,

were subject to the forces of nature, prehistoric and ancient

as the continuation of

olithic cave art

of the

later the fertility

propitiation to ensure seasonal benefits, such as bountiful as

in prehistoric

perceived nature and the cosmos to be pregnant with

sonified as gods governing the hunt

which

one another

city,

which

outward, and

Roman dty represented a centripetal

forum, and the inward-focused peristyle gar-

The ubiquitous reiteration of prototypical elements of Roman urbanism

den

(see fig. 2.29).

icas,

baths, theaters, arenas, libraries, roads, triumphal arches, aqueducts

—

in cities linked

— forums,

basil-

by a vast road system

throughout the Mediterranean world impressively demonstrated imperial might.

The elements of myth and

ritual

were elaborated

sanctuary in namre was symbolized in the

artificial

as

aUegory

grotto where

it

in

Roman

times. For instance, the cave

served as a psychological echo chamber,

a place

where the human psyche found a physical link to the prehistoric world of the Earth Goddess and nature

spirits.

Grottoes with sculptural representations of

many villa gardens, one

nymphs and other subterranean

spirits

were

installed in

of the most spectacular of which was that built by the emperor Hadrian. Through-

out its vast,

now mostly vanished, decorative program of sculpture, wall painting, and mosaic, Hadrian's Villa

also provides

gory plays a

an early example of the associative garden, or the thematic treatment of landscape

which

alle-

role.

Christians

eramre and

in

art.

and Muslims appropriated allegory

The gardens of both culmres

in the recurring

metaphor of paradise

represented the four paradisaical rivers mentioned in the

murmurous

lit-

exploited the symbolic relationship of landscape and heavenly

reward. Four watercourses in Islamic gardens and four paths leading from a

sparkling, reflective,

garden in

as a

Quran and

c^entral

the Bible (see

fountain in Christian ones figs. 3.10, 3.25).

The

cool,

of water in these gardens were particularly conducive to other-

qualities

worldly contemplation and well suited to the image of paradise as a place of tranquil refreshment and beauty. Allegory also plays a strong role in Renaissance and Mannerist gardens, where the myths of antiquity

were revived and reinterpreted by humanist icence of the owner. Cardinal d'Este,

much

scholars.

At the

Villa d'Este, for

example, to manifest the benef-

of the garden's sculptural iconography was associated with the

virtuous hero Hercules. Here and at the Villa Lante, the hunting park and country estate of Cardinal

Gam-

bara, are found symbols celebrating each cardinal's ability to ftnctify the land through a combination of art

and namre

(see figs. 4.18, 4.23).

The use of

allegory to glorify popes and princes can also be recognized in

many seventeenth- and eighteenth-century gardens, the sun god, refer to Louis

Along with

this last, late

ern world view and, with increased reliance

as at Versailles,

where the abundant symbols of Apollo,

XIV

it,

use of allegory another development was occurring that has affected the

the approach to landscape making: the birth of systematic science and the greatly

upon reason

as a

governing principle in the

affairs

of Ufe. The

from

shift

belief in an earth-

human mind

centered, self contained, closed universe to a boundless one, and the consequent opening of the to

mod-

new metaphysical possibilities, had a profound effect on philosophy.

This unharnessing of the intellect from

ancient constructs found parallel physical expression in the treatment of space in landscape design.

The

den remained enclosed and by definition

and wild

a place set apart

from

its

cultivated rural surroundings

gar-

nature (the garden being characterized since the Renaissance as "third nature," as distinguished from the agrarian landscape

— "second nature" — and wilderness —

enclosed space, and

its

"first

nature

axes were given apparent elongation, as

of the Sun King's gardens

at Versailles

is

thus as

heliocentric interpretation of the universe,

much an

'),

but

no longer represented

it

to join the actual horizon.

if

half of the reign of Louis

ernizing

cities,

monument,

the international

model

new it is

(see fig. 5.9).

form of urban-

for

new and mod-

involved the construction of wide straight thoroughfares, often radiating from a prominent

prestigious structure, or central public space to the far reaches of the urbanized

into the countryside (see figs.

mass and even

6.44, 6.54). During the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries,

governments sponsored grand a

town and gardens of Versailles,

to a

galaxy, as

XIV

Axial extension within the garden, in turn, provided a paradigm for city planning. This ization following the layout of the

mind

which was then considered coterminous with our first

an

Le Notre's plan

expression of the opening of the

of the confidence, optimism, and pride of France during the

itseff as

with broad avenues and magnificent architecture and sculpture

axial plans

means of expressing their power and

and

authority, providing better police protection,

control of rebellious mobs. In addition, the grand thoroughfares of the

monumental

city

as

facilitating military

served the

elite for

whom the invention of the lightweight, spring-hung carriage had made vehicular promenading an important social pastime.

Also toward these ends, ancient and medieval town walls were torn

boulevards. This occurred

enclosed fortified

first in

birth of the

modern

nation-state rendered obsolete the

city.

As Isaac Newton was

human

where the

France,

down and converted into

solidifying the basis of the

thought, John Locke asserted that

all

Enlightenment and confirming the role of reason

knowledge of the world must

rest

in

on sensory awareness. This

concept of the mind as an instrument for inductive reasoning and a theater for personal experience, rather than as a receptacle for revealed Truth and immutable law, helped change the character of landscape design in the eighteenth

ciation caused

cenmry. Respect for the potential of landscape to produce mental sensations through asso-

garden designers to gather into their repertoire of

nature, especially at motifs.

first

effects

images of

a poetic

and painterly

those that evoked the antique past through classical forms and pastoral Arcadian

The garden became no longer

a stage for the display of power,

an arena of

social interaction,

but a

place for solitary or companionable reflection and contemplation. Locke's philosophy thus provides a key for

who would ponder the meaning of miniature

those

eighteenth-century English landscape park (see

Though much fiiendship.

As

in

sham

temples,

and grazing deer

ruins, grottoes,

in

an

figs. 7.5, 7.6, 7.7, 7.9, 7.13).

Asian garden was equally a place of poetic association and

earlier in its origins, the East

England, in China and Japan the associative potential of garden scenery was an important

same

design consideration. In China, the talents of poet, painter, and garden designer were fused, often in the

persons. These artists enjoyed an especially close relationship with nature, and their compositions evoke the precipitous peaks of certain

garden design ter, less

is

also

mountainous parts of

their country (see

Derived from China, Japanese

premised upon a great deal of naturalistic rockwork, although the carefully arranged,

more

contorted stones in Japanese gardens understandably reflect

the topography of

fig. 8.3).

its

mainland neighbor. The rocks

symbolical associations (see

fig. 8.24).

in

symbolic function, and appreciation of selected

In the late eighteenth century, pathos

and

and bamboo

trees,

that country's island scenery than

both Chinese and Japanese gardens are replete with

Plants, too, enjoy a

spedes, such as peonies, chrysanthemums, plum

flat-

memory came

focused and intense.

is

to play

an important role

in

Western garden

design as Romanticism replaced classical order as the dominant cultural impulse of Western civilization. Jean-

Jacques Rousseau's belief in the importance of commonly accessible personal experience in nature and in the virtues of a democratically organized dtizenry

the focus of Lockean sensation the Western garden

had important consequences for landscape

was transferred from the literary and political

to the patriotic

idiom

for the nineteenth-century rural

cemetery

(see

fig. 9.27).

philosophy, which gained strength through the several revolutionary larger

and personal, and

became an arena in which to honor heroes of state and a place for the repose of the dead.

This accounts for the affective and often elegiac character of the Picturesque style and priate design

design. Gradually,

The

movements

why it made an appro-

popularity of Rousseau's that enfranchised a

much

segment of the general populace during this turbulent era, helps explain the origins of the public parks

movement. Concurrent with the bfrth of Romanticism and the revolutionary forces growing out of it and leading to the development of nationalistic capitalist democracies

provided the cultural dynamic that

contemporary

tinue to propel

happiness,

"

life.

and communist

the Industrial Revolution

made possible

the accelerating advances in machine technology that con-

Over the

two hundred

past

including the enjoyment of private property, has

ciple in the field

states,

of landscape design, as in other areas of

life.

years,

democracy's "right to

promoted personal pleasure

life,

as a

liberty

and

powerful prin-

The advances of egalitarianism have caused the

continued transformation of the pleasure garden, once the exclusive domain of the aristocracy, into a recreational preserve for the masses.

The Industrial Revolution profoundly altered the nature of urban life, espedally as transportation advances induced a ical

new mobility within and between dties, and time and distance assumed new meaning.

reorganization in the second half of the nineteenth

fig. 10.7).

Paris 's rad-

cenmry reflects this Machine Age transformation (see

The parks movement and the development of

the residential suburb in America in the second half

of the nineteenth century express a nostalgia for the agrarian past that was concomitant with industrialism

and the growth of dties

modern era. During this period and continuing to the present day,

in the

forces of a globalizing culture have

promoted the

absence of a general culmral consensus since increasingly

eclectic character

at least the

styles (see fig.

1 1

in the

West. In the

beginning of the nineteenth century, design has been

viewed as a commodity, a mere matter of consumer

of various past

of landscape design

the market

taste, as

expressed in the casual intermingling

.4).

Twentieth-century modernism attempted a radical reinvention of architectural design, with landscape architecture, ality

somewhat hesitantly

and function

at first, joining forces in forging a

(see figs. 12.19, 13.23).

and the

historical assodations,

in stylistic multiplicity

and

result

vocabulary that aimed to express ration-

But rational planning and functionalism were inadequate to suppress

of the obsession with history that continues to the present time

eclectic design. In this context.

Modernism,

too,

became

a style,

is

refleaed

merely another

design option.

Catering to popular taste, the creators of world's fairgrounds, theme parks, and shopping malls applied narratives of history

and fantasy to lands cape with the

aid of

media technology and mass-marketing

tech-

niques (see in

fig. 14.9).

The modern self-theming of cities to

which historic preservation,

in traversing the distance

attract tourists

is

between reverence

times takes a pratfall into the realm of parody. Nevertheless,

a manifestation

and

for the past

of

this trend,

profitability,

one

some-

some efforts to establish serious historical mean-

ing within the contemporary designed landscape and to preserve nature and create psychologically resonant

metaphorical representations of it

still

manage

to heighten the spiritual

bond between humanity and the built

and natural environments.

-

y

A comprehensive survey such as this is necessarily a dialogue across the centuries and across the globe. ing patterns of influence,

apparent that form follows culture, but, once developed, form often follows

it is

Roman art and architecture

form. By example, the revival of the forms of Greek and

and

later periods

of Western history exemplifies the ways

have found

in the

aspirations.

Transmission

trade, as

when

In trac-

forms forged

may

in antiquity

also

in

during the Renaissance

which people of other eras and

an expressive design vocabulary for their

occur more

directly,

moving along

the formal innovations of one country are exported

to,

own

in other places

particular societal

the paths of military adventure and

or imported

another through con-

by,

quest and assimilation.

Such was the case from the fourth through the second centuries Hellenistic sia.

Alexander the Great's far-flung

empire carried Greek forms to the farthest reaches of the Mediterranean basin and beyond to Per-

Similarly, in early sixteenth-century France, the

upon

b.c.e. as

direct imitation

of

development of the French Renaissance garden was based

Renaissance garden principles and the immigration to France of

Italian

den designers following the Neapolitan campaign of the French king, Charles assimilated Chinese garden concepts along with

out of

this

own

beginning their

Buddhism beginning in the

VIII.

But just as the Japanese

sixth century

and then developed

indigenous approach to garden making, so too did those

French Renaissance garden designers evolve from their forms ones that were

which were subsequently adopted, adapted, and Traditionalism, or historicization, for

its

altered

own

Italian gar-

who

followed the

French culture,

distinctive to

by others elsewhere.

sake, as stylistic imitation of past

forms simply

for the

period qualities they convey and aesthetic characteristics they display, can be explained as part of a widespread reactionary attimde toward the Industrial tury.

The

reverse of

with what

is

modernism,

this

venerable and vanishing

Age on the part of some since

the beginning of the nineteenth cen-

attempt to cherish and derive emotional satisfaction fi^om association is

and the Faustian

a strategy for denying accelerating change

transfor-

mation of the world through technology. Following the currents of classicism and Neoclassicism, the growth of Romanticism and the dissemination of the Picturesque to the

style, the

contemporary edge

development of various urban planning models fi-om the

— these are some of the tasks of

city

of these landscape design developments will enable us to see, cratic style

of

city

planning favored by European monarchs

ing out Washington, D.C., the capital of a

of the English Picturesque

became

style,

new

Hellenistic grid

a broad-based landscape history.

among other things, how the

in the

democratic nation

inherently auto-

seventeenth century could be used in in the eighteenth,

developed by and for aristocratic estate owners

or

in the

how

Landscape design

the adaptation

eighteenth century,

is

fundamentally a relationship between people and place, a partnership between art

increasingly,

between

art,

nature, and technology. Art and technology have the

modify nature, but landscape design operates within the laws of growth and decay that govern

The mystery of nature

makes the experience and ing. Its

historiography

contemporary cultural

human beings who In so doing,

is

as

an independent force

made

lens.

especially difficult

we must

and of those

a

all

to

animate

scientifically challeng-

by the natural tendency to view past cultures through a

who

are mentally

and

the consciousness both of

spiritually

very different from

us.

stress that the separation of myth, religion, philosophy, and science into inde-

inquiry,

and belief is

knowledge and the promotion of

and constructing

and

Our attempt here is to penetrate, however imperfectly,

are like ourselves

power

—^bounteous and generous, overpowering and destructive

practice of landscape design both spiritually rewarding

pendent modes of perception, tion of

lay-

the paradigm for the nineteenth-century public park.

and nature, and,

bfe.

The pursuit

world view

a

product of the modern mind. The compartmentaliza-

scientific rationalism as the

m the West have devalued intimate

primary

mode

of investigating reality

experience and empirical knowledge.

Although psychology, scious

and the

role

especially the

of myth and archetypes

hearted belief that integrates

way

as

it

did for

psychology of Carl Jung, has given us insight into the collective uncon-

some

all

purpose

social

prehistoric

as bearers

and ancient

—

of meaning, insight

religious, political,

is

not the same thing as the whole-

economic, architectural

societies, as well as for later

—

in a holistic

ones that subscribed to the ideals

of Christianity, humanism, rationalism, or other widely shared systems of thought.

Today we

We thrill to the boons of technology and the adventure of

and disquieted.

are both exhilarated

Age in which we

are taking part,

and yet we experience anomie and the psychological dis-loca-

tion

of an increasingly migratory

way of Hfe. The

ease of replication within industrial capitalist economies fos-

ters

mimesis of time and space whether

the Information

resorts,

form of

theme

"historic" villages,

paries, malls, restaurants,

or museum reconstructions. These environmental simulations of the long ago and the

as the purely fantastic, aided by

audiences. net.

in the

A kaleidoscope

photography and cinema,

now universally marketed and displayed to mass

of juxtaposed, heterogeneous images of place

The ease with which images of period and place

original prototypes, turning

The term

are

them, where they

still

are

is

also

made

accessible

famous

exist, into

cliches

and

Inter-

tourist icons.

we

have invented a

of city, amorphous and without the mythic, religious, or even political foundations that enjoyed. Business chains and franchise operations proliferate along commercial

ance, but the increasingly predictable,

by the

now distributed has the effect of commercializing the

urban sprawl has gained currency and disapprobation because

particular into the repetitiously familiar. This

far away, as well

strips,

cities

new kind

have historically

transforming the locally

may give the brand-name consumer and mobile

traveler assur-

homogeneous, loosely urbanized environment equally induces bore-

dom and — in a very prosaic and literal way — deja vu. As accelerating mobility and speed of communications continue place

becomes

increasingly provisional

ing community. This act their individual

is

so because

and temporary. Increasingly

humans

are in a fundamental

and collective dreams (see

figs.

1

6.3, 16.5).

to shrink distance

rootless,

we

and collapse time,

articulate concepts valoriz-

way place-making animals,

The landscapes that we create

revealing in this

are combinations

of artifice and namre, and in designing them people of every period have revealed a great deal about their cultural values while

demonstrating the perennial exigencies of Hfe and our universal need for water, food, and

Perhaps as

we reanimate our spiritual selves, develop new culturally sustaining myths, and reunite sci-

shelter.

ence with religion and philosophy,

we wiU be

able to create places that are life-sustaining in a truer sense than

now. For, as the twentieth-century French philosopher Gaston Bachelard posited,

we fmd

terms of psychology and phenomenology recesses of our

memories personal

histories

that

of spaces

we

"placeness" in our genes and in our sensory apparatus as the matrix of our existence It is

we

long to

feel at

we

are

still

when we examine space

in

place-bound creatures, carrying in the

have inhabited and imagined. Further,

we

carry

human animals, and because biological namre is stiU

one with the natural world.

not surprising that the origins of the Romantic

movement and

the romanticization of

namre and

of prehistoric and aboriginal peoples as "noble savages" were concurrent with the Industrial Revolution.

Machine technology has introduced into the world an enormously potent, affect

us in ways that are

at the

same time obvious and incomprehensible. "The machine

borrow the metaphor of Leo Marx nent residence nessing the art

in

self-referential set

for the

uneasy

alliance

of systems that

in the garden," to

of technology and nature, has taken up perma-

human consciousness, and perhaps without realizing that this is occurring, we may be wit-

moment in Western history when

industrial

technology becomes affirmatively integrated with

and nature.

The

alternative, unfortunately,

is

greater environmental degradation and planetary destruction, a possi-

bility

we have only recently taken seriously. Now, as the world becomes more populous and human life increas-

ingly

dependent upon the machine-built environment,

relation to wilderness having

forces of energy that to

been

inverted,

it is

power our machines and

now

the

we develop campaigns to protect wilderness. Our old at the

new

mercy of human

reality

we

politics.

are creating,

Inseparable fi"om the

most of us desperately want

harmonize our fast-paced fumre with our past, enjoying the benefits of new sources of energy and the

of technology while honoring our into our beings.

own human nature and the

longing for place and namre that

Our success in this endeavor will depend on many

rich psychological

things, including

is

fruits

encoded

an understanding of the

and mythopoeic relationship of human beings to landscape throughout

history.

CHAPTER ONE

MAGIC, MYTH, AND NATURE: LANDSCAPES OF PREHISTOKIC, EARLY ANCIENT AND CONTEMPOKAKY PEOPLES

T

hroughout the ages landscapes have reflected cosmological

Over time, the development of geometry, surveying, and

notions underlying one of humanity's great imponderables:

strucmral mechanics gave birth to the art of architecture. But here,

Where

are

How was the world created, and what is the place

we?

and fate of human beings within the contexts of space and time? In this preliminary chapter

our task

not to study, as

is

of

will later, the landscapes that express the creation stories

we

scrip-

ture-based religions such as Islam or Christianity, nor those that

we must be

too,

careful not to assign the technical specialization

and the epistemological segmentation of modern Western ture to societies of the distant past

who lived long before many of

the practices and values of Western industrial society were established or to those that live today outside

its

precepts. Further, in con-

serve as paradigms of cosmological reason such as the gardens of

sidering our topic, the history of landscape design,

seventeenth-century France, nor ones that reflect a contempo-

important to understand that the perception of volumetric,

rary cosmology based coveries

upon the science of physics and recent dis-

subsumed under the term chaos

examine something more

basic, the

theory.

Here we must

rootedness in the

human psy-

restrial

cal

and

in space in

ways

movement,

yearning for connection with the

Myth,

desire to locate ourselves

that are charged with societal meaning,

religion, philosophy,

infinite

and

and science

and our

all

rooted in cos-

mogony, the attempt to explain the creation of cosmos out of chaos

— the transformation of primal disorder and confusion into

a universe that

is

systematically arranged, harmonious, whole.

By these means, human beings

in all

times and

all

places have

sought to confer meaning and perceive structure within the natural world.

Only through the human mind's dynamic

mation over the previous several centuries restless revisionism

more

of other world cultures science

characteristic of

—

a

transfor-

phenomenon of

Western society than

— have myth, religion, philosophy, and

been teased apart and made separate spheres of belief and

we must

especially ter-

— the foundation of our enterprise both a — hugely altering with the practi-

in

a theoretical sense

variable,

is

To be more specific,

since the Renaissance, the

Western mind

has presumed a spatial concept based upon perspective and a central

vanishing point where

all

the lines of an imaginary horizontal

planar grid converge. Particularly after the French mathematician

eternal.

are

space

it is

cosmological and teleological understanding of each age.

che of certain fundamental spatial constructs that relate to our upright posture, directional

cul-

and philosopher Rene Descartes (1596-1650) expounded ory of spatial extension this

res

externa

—

in the seventeenth

his the-

cenmry,

notion of value-neutral space as a universal proscenium the-

ater in

which objects

are arrayed in accordance with the laws of

perspective has governed landscape design theory and practice.

Beginning

in the

second half of the eighteenth cenmry, designed

landscape space in the West became explicitly pictorial.

It

was con-

sciously invested with the scenic values of landscape painting,

which, though

less

obviously perspectival than the axiaUy geometric

gardens of the seventeenth cenmry, nevertheless remained

faith-

the advent of twentieth-century modernism, to the

same

ful, until

how non-Western

underlying principle of pictorial representation. However, the art

peoples in widely separated parts of the earth and in periods of

of such societies as the Chinese, the Byzantine, or Inuit shows that

time both vastly removed and continuing to the present have

participants in these cultures

knowledge. Here

try to

understand

cre-

ated landscape forms of astonishing universality in cultures

both prehistoric and extant of mythic,

rt

'

jiious,

— where cosmology

reflects a fusion

philosophic, and scientific thought.

tive,

were uninterested in spatial perspec-

not through ignorance, but because of an entirely

difi^erent

attimde toward the interpretation and construction of representational space.

^

MAGIC. MYTH. AND NATURE

The

belief in spatial hierophany

some

the larger sanctity of nature

— the notion that within and

residual in

some

parts of the world today, militates against the assumption of a spatial

continuum ordered purely by mathematics and Western

ories of spatial perspective. Prehistoric

architecture

and sacred forms

without naming

it,

the-

and ancient peoples joined

in nature

and

doing invented,

in so

the art of landscape design. In terms of three-

dimensional planning employing axes and the measurement of

form and

spatial distance, the landscapes they created

merely link or give scale to

terrestrial

cos-

mological alignment and significance. To understand place-making as a

we

best

human

activity

it is

important for us to investigate

can from contemporary Western society's vastly of view

ent, secularized, historicized point

of the

ued

first

—

as

differ-

— the cultural values

shapers of space along with those

who

were responsible

have contin-

to create landscapes that reflect a similar cosmology.

for

human and

animal

fertility

and the growth

of crops. In a highly uncertain world, these creative people

watched the

skies,

studying the rotations of

celestial bodies, har-

bingers of the predictable annual cycle of rain and solar

and auguries of victory first

in battle. In the process,

centers,

and evolved the world's

The

they created the

tures

earliest cities.

environments shaped by these early

built

human

and many of those that succeeded them reflected

gious preoccupation with the cosmos. Wliat these very earliest societies

and

warmth

complex human societies, constructed important ceremonial

do not

monuments but have

— those of the beasts whose flesh sustained them

and of the gods and goddesses who controlled the cosmos and

places are especially sacred

practically universal in prehistoric cultures

ers of spirits

scientific observation.

is

is

their fusion of

most

their

striking

culreli-

about

myth-based religion

Limited but certain

in their

perception

of the planet and the cosmos, they rooted themselves firmly and

meaning to place. When we understand how embedded cosmology once was in religious mythos, we can comprehend cosmological landscape design the shaping of the earth and the erection of monuments to reflect a cosmic paradigm. The universality of the axis, the pyramid, and the grotto assigned religious

deeply

—

Early societies sought survival through rituals intended to propithe forces of nature. In their attempts to understand the cos-

tiate

mos and

interpret the all-important seasonal

these people

became

Earth's

they were scientists in the

astronomy was

first

rhythms of nature,

astronomers. But to imply that

modern

word

sense of the

wrong;

is

indivisibly linked to religion. In contrast to the

highly individual and personal nature of contemporary religious

and the resolutely secular nature of modern

faith

science, the

rit-

ual and augural ceremonies of prehistoric and early ancient peoples

were

holistic societal practices,

which took place

Although quite probably they considered

mated by

spiritual forces, as

all

societies they

experienced a psychological need to shape space in nature itually significant

Near

in spir-

ways. Almost universally, this meant establish-

and time

as those

of the ancient

Europe, India, and the pre-Columbian

East, prehistoric

Americas makes sense when

we

realize that these

forms express

cosmic concepts that owe their similarity to their origins

human psyche.

in the

This, rather than certain theories of cultural trans-

mission, seems to account for the similarity of landscape constructions as widely separated in site and date as the Egyptian

and

Mayan pyramids. The

in nature.

of nature to be ani-

members of human

in cultures as distant in space

cave, especially, as sancmary, the

of cultic mystery and

human imagination.

place in the

the Egyptian

bowels of

a

womb of Earth, a place

ritual revitalization,

tomb carved into

Its

the

occupies a privileged

many manifestations include

cliff

face or nestled within the

pyramid, the subterranean sanctuaries of the Snake

ing a relationship of form and alignment between built and

Goddess

natural features as well as an orientation to certain celestial

the Sun at Teotihuacan, the Shiva cave-temples at Elephanta,

erence points

— the predictable and

tions of sun,

moon,

stars.

calendrically

ref-

determined posi-

These cosmologically

referential

landscape constructions and ceremonies were considered

vital to

the continuance of the communities they served. In addition, in their search for

humans

harmony with the universe, prehistoric and ancient

assigned a presiding spiritual force to certain mountains,

springs, caves, trees, ing.

and animals, ascribing to them sacred mean-

Those who subscribe

to similar belief systems today invest

nature with sanctity and certain a

concept quite alien to others

itarian terms, as a

sites

with religious significance,

who view land in secular and util-

commodity serving economic

rather than spir-

itual ends.

Meso-

potamian ziggurats, Egyptian pyramids and obelisks, Hindu temCretan nature sanctuaries, Mycenaean

citadels,

and the

pyramids, mounds, and effigy earthworks of pre-Spanish-conquest Americans

— these were

all

expressions of a partnership

between human beings and unseen of these forms,

who

spiritual forces.

The

creators

also invested their landscape settings with

symbolical meaning and design intent, invoked the magical pow-

and

Salsette in India,

and the

beneath the Pyramid of

kivas

of Puebloan cultures in

American Southwest. Associated with the cave

an earth goddess, which

is

is

the rule of

rooted in universal myths that recognize

the earth as a generative and procreative force, the fertile source

of

human and

animal

vitality.

The

cave, with

passages, suggests the intimacy of the mother's

from which

life

was observed

to

its

labyrinthine

womb,

at caves

the place

emerge. In addition, caves and

crevices in the earth's surface are sources for springs,

and shrines

or near springs are especially prevalent in dry lands. Under-

standably, a psychological attraction

toward moist mysterious

down through the milancient Roman villa gardens,

openings within the earth has persisted lennia.

Paleolithic cave paintings. Neolithic stone circles,

ples,

Ellora,

the

in prehistoric Greece, the cave

The

architectural grotto in

which Renaissance garden-builders revived and passed on sequent eras and diverse cultures,

is

to sub-

a sophisticated version

of the

cave sanctuaries in which prehistoric ancestors worshipped.

The work of Mircea early myths, beliefs,

and

bers of prehistoric and the conviction that the

Eliade, scholar of

world religions and

practices, confirms that

among mem-

some contemporary cultures there exists natural world is imbued with divinity. Eli-

ade points out that the most eleipcntal sacred places constitute a

27

AND NATURE

MAGIC, MYTH.

The underworld is

microcosm, "a landscape of stones, water,

and trees." ^

In this

way humans evoke the

durable potency of stone, the ciated with water,

from loci,

this

spirit

deities

is

and

celestial

broad

of place.

beings occupying the its

circular horizon.

myths and the pictorial con-

The apparent east-west rotational movement of the sun across the heavens

and landscape constructs that

and the observation of its equinoctial posi-

universality of

them

theories

human

intermediate terrestrial realm with

One way to explain the similarity and

reflect

celestial

communication between these

gods and

derived the concept of genius

of place, and the idea of guardian

figurations

and

who control cosmic order and thereby the welfare of human beings. They are sites of

The

culturally pervasive,

is

air

with sky-dwelling gods

light, are identified

notion of an immanent sanctity within earth and sky

domain of ser-

in several cultures.

Mountains, the realm of

fertility asso-

and the fecundity of

nature as embodied in the living tree.

also the

pent deities prevalent

to study the psychological

is

of

tion in relation to the horizon gave

According to Jung, archetypes

— formal

— cannot be

meanings

tified

and subjected

with

by the

1.1.

Diagram

of axis

own

bisection of this axis

north-south one divided sky and

and

teaching

is

based upon

ele-

mental framework for celestial observation

mundi

conscious mind. Therefore, they find expression in myths. Just as Jung's

a

Earth into quadrants, providing an

directly iden-

to control

The

izontal plane.

images that symbolically express quintessential

human

beings their primary orientation on a hor-

(1875-1961).'

Carl Jung

cosmic coordinates

terrestrial navigation.

With these

east, west, north, south, zenith,

six

and nadir

four-bodiedness, or four states of perceiving (thinking, feeling,

embedded in consciousness, human societies formed settlements

inmition, sensation), the archetype of quaternity as expressed in

within the expansive earthly sphere through acts of centering.

The

the four-part circle and the four cardinal points can be found in

the landscape constructions of

many

cultures. In addition, the

siting

of places of habitation

land.

of Jungian archetypes, and the symbol of the snake, the sphinx,

ulated and there

and various helpful animals are calls

also

symptoms of states within The metaphorical

the collective unconscious.

governed by such prac-

considerations as the presence of water and the arability of

tical

Great Mother, the Tree of the World, and Paradise are examples

what Jung

is

But given these limitations,

was

groups also sought to

when Earth was relatively unpop-

available a settle

wide range of options, culmral

themselves in places perceived to have

a relationship to divine power,

which generally meant

in align-

means of shaping space and expressing basic mythic concepts

ment with cosmic coordinates and landforms associated with mythic forces. Many were attracted to karstic formations lime-

through architecture and decoration can thus be analyzed in Jun-

stone strata

gian terms as archetypal manifestations of primordial ideas that

arable valleys near mountains. Often, cultural groups expended

nature of landscape design and the prevalence of certain formal

continue to resonate within the

human

enormous human resources constructing a mountain-mimicking

imagination.

Creation myths deal with the evolution of cosmos out of chaos. Implicit in this

is

the act of giving form and place to objects

pyramid, ziggurat, or temple in order to establish an axis mundi that

damental constructs within

societies within the

world are fun-

many early cosmologies. Cosmic cen-

would firmly

No

and space. The positioning of Earth in the center of the universe

and the centering of human

— riddled with caves and seeping with springs — and to

relate

it

to a cosmic deity.

one cared that there were

axes mundi;

what mattered was

mic landscape, and

and

Thus centered symbolically

a terrestrial middle plane.

It

also involves cardinal direction-

— the location of four principal axes along a 360° horizon

Une

in

and

planets. In

accordance with the

mos can be

movement of the sun and various stars

diagrammatic terms,

illustrated as in figure

1

.

this basic

image of the

it

world, but also in

28

with

;

:•;

more than one

city

as the navel of the earth. In a similar

the repetition of

cosmogonic

rituals,

Christianity. Its vertical

acts like a center pole uniting

below the surface of the

of underworld entrance and

kr:ia.le

procreation and

could

manner, through

temporality was displaced

Looking at archaeological sites of former cosmological land-

we lack the rimal dimension that once gave them reli-

gious significance. Only in a few cultures where people

region:- located just

tified

mountain

in space,

cosmicaUy connected, temple-crowned, human-made

many

being appropriated through religious

an axis mundi, which

cosmic

through worship.

scapes today,

eras,

heaven, Earth, and the underworld. Lakes are watery nether

they are plac

its

sanctification of the site

appears not only in widely different parts of the

ing to Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, and is

imagine

human con-

syncretism by people of different culmres, including those adher-

dimension

a representation of the

by timelessness.

1

So firmly fiixed is this cosmological model in the sciousness that

cos-

multiple

archetype, consecration rites surrounding the creation of a cos-

tering involves awareness of three vertical strata: above, below,

ality

many groups and

land, and, like caves, exit.

These are iden-

spirits that reside in

darkness.

cosmic alignment within namre do link

humans with

the cosmos,

we

as for

stiU

seek

find ritual practices that

example when dancers

re-

commemorate mythical moments through choreographed movement. We may surmise, however, enact archetypal gesmres and

that

all

sacred landscapes were once alive with dancing and other

rituals in

which music and chanting dramatized the myth-based

cosmologies that sustained a sense of sacred order

in the world.

Caves and Circles: Sustaining Liee and Discerning Cosmic 1.

During the eons of

when

Paleolithic habitation of Earth,

a shield of ice

covered parts of the globe

still

that are temperate today, the

cunning of a tool-mak-

ing and weapon- wielding being

was

Order Some images

of the paintings' didactic function.

indicate animals in a posture of bellowing or emitting their distinctive sounds, a

reminder both of the

pitted against

importance of such auditory signals for prehistoric

the speed and bulk of large roaming beasts. In this

hunters and the degree to which they were respon-

Old Stone Age, the

sively

nas,

virtually trackless steppes, savan-

home to small bands of hunterwho have left only slight evidence of their

and forests were

gatherers

presence. Because there time,

is

no written record of

what we know of their customs,

relationship to the land

is

practices,

this

and

based on the scattered and

limited finds of archaeologists and paleontologists.

attuned to the aural dimensions of space.' Fin-

ger tracings and hand

stencils,

Chauvet, as well as

such widely separated

the

caves at Lascaux in the

last Ice

Age

Dordogne region of France,

ranean near Marseilles, discovered

Chauvet Cave

in the

in 1991,

and

Ardeche region of the Rhone

Valley, discovered in 1994, contain

hundreds of

images of large animals depicted in charcoal and veg-

The

etable colors

on

the paintings

may derive from their association with

their walls

(fig. 1.2).

vitality

a propitiatory ritual to ensure the continued ity

of these beasts.

One

of

fertil-

recent archaeological

power by

ing from them, instructional

we

fully

them

comprehend

the

who created these who derived mean-

artists

can surmise that whatever

purpose these images may have served,

they were also allied with practice.

asser-

a later group.

mentality of the Paleolithic

The

some kind of

religious

fact that they are within caves places

naturally in the rich realm of the

unconscious, with

its

human

well-established repertoire of

archetypes. Like the later ancient

Greek and Roman

practitioners of the Eleusinian mysteries in

pragmatically, as

initiates

from one genera-

ground passages

might

an obvious indication of

paintings nor that of the hunters

them

tion to the next. In this way, hunter-initiates

is

Though we can never

instructional guides transmitted

theory, however, explains

The marking

over of these nonartistic symbols at a subsequent

as the

discovered in 1940, Cosquer Cave on the Mediter-

sites as

Arizona and a cave in the

Laura area of Australia, symbolize the taking pos-

tion of

Such celebrated echoes from the

in

session of such spaces by humans.^

period by others

Old Wokld Caves

in

Canyon de Chelly

found in Cosquer and

were guided through as part

a series

which

of under-

of a chthonic, or under-

world, ritual based upon the legend of

Demeter and

who made

have been trained to track individual bison and other

Persephone, the prehistoric people

large beasts individually in times

when animal popwaned and mass kills of entire herds were impossible."* The portrayal of hoofprints and other

cave art appear to have been sensitive to the spatial

ulations

aspects of the caves and to have taken into consid-

eration the routes leading into them. Passage and

informational clues of particular importance to the

chamber are

hunter, such as large antler size, support the thesis

obvious concentration of art

integral parts of their planning, in

the

and an

an inner sanctum

MAGIC. MYTH, AND NATURE

monuments

(fig. 1.3)."^

huge markers found

cultural

called,

accidental. Settlement within agri-

communities brought

were propitiated and the

a

new range of fears. that animal spir-

of the beasts per-

lives

The cooperation of the cosmos

petuated.

necessary

if

and

pointed a stony finger

Now it was not enough to ensure its

as the

chiefly in Britain, freland,

northern France, are

skyward was not

That these menhirs,

crops were not to

itself

was

and the now-

fail

cohesive and increasingly specialized social unit

were

Humans were keenly aware

to thrive.

dependence upon the sun and and

upon

also

of their

moon

the

Diligent skywatchers, they associated the

stars.

positions of various celestial bodies with recurring

seasonal patterns.

The

awe-inspiring megalithic forms of Stone-

henge were erected upon the gently 1.3.

Menhirs, Carnac,

France. 3rd millennium

b.c.e.

land of the Salisbury Plain in southern England in a

experience and concentration of ritual

succession of construction campaigns between 2750

The

cave

would

there.''

surely have served as a

we may suppose

chamber, and properties

sound

its

resonant

would have been exploited

in ritual

that

chants and perhaps also the beating of drums.* Further,

it

may

cave art

is

artists saw.

line, a

be

wrong

to

assume

that prehistoric

an objective representation of what the Rather,

we might think of it as animated

graphic expression of the

The way in which

life

force inherent

and 1500

b.c.e.

celebrations relating to ical

impressive

work. The

huge

first

stones.

in

may

space where

function as an astronom(figs.

hills,

1.5).

1.4,

This

sited at the conflu-

originated as an earth-

builders of Stonehenge described a

white chalky earth, which they

circle in the

They flanked

congruent with the notion of

its

festival

work of architecture,

ence of several lines of

then piled up

is

a rimal center that

observatory were held

the figures are disposed

of walls of the cave

They outline

have functioned as a religious

to take advantage of certain plastic characteristics

in nature.

two banks broken only in one

this

spot.

opening with two small upright

Beyond these,

slightly oflf-axis

with the break,

haptic, or tactile, rather than straightforward, opti-

they erected a 35-ton, roughly cylindrical, tapering

on the

megalith of sarsen, a gray sandstone from the

cal

perception, and the conception of space

part of those

was surely

who

created these dynamic images

different

from our sense of space

as

something defined, measurable, and emplaced.^ Finally, the universality all

societies,

and

historic ones,

of religious practice

especially, as

makes

it

among

we must imagine, pre-

possible to suppose that the

protein diet that the painted animals in the caves represented was obtained with

monial enactment sanctifying

by the

some form of cerethe spirit embodied

nearby Marlborough Friar's

Saxon word Stone, this

Old Wokld Menhiks and CiKCLES OF Stone and Wood The evolutionary development of

helan,

"to conceal"),

marker was ascertained by eighteenth-century

scientists to

be aligned with an imaginary

between the circle

rising

axis

drawn

sun and the center point of the

on the day of the summer solstice. At least one

modern

archaeologist has pointed out that in the

rising solstice

Stone

Heel

many photographs

depicting this

the photographer has stood a few circle

because the

sun is not concealed by the megalith but

appears a foot and a half to the

left:.^*

This does not,

however, negate an interpretation based upon

greater stability and confi-

archaeoastronomy, relating earthworks with the

Human beings formed more or less perma-

positions of heavenly bodies at certain important

Age, brought with dence.

New

meaning

paces away from the center of the

agriculture and

animal husbandry in the Neolithic, or

Called variously the

Sun Stone, Index Stone, and Petrie's Stone 96,

case of the

living creatures.

Hills.

Heel, Hele Stone (perhaps from the Anglo-

phenomenon,

it

nent settlements and imprinted the land by their occupancy. Boundary as a concept arrived

when

points in the calendrical cycle.

The megalith does lie

along an axis from the center of the

circle to the hori-

people began to circumscribe villages and subdivide

zon midway between the major northern moonrise

land into

and the minor northern moonrise, and

fields.

Megaliths, giant stones expelled

from the maws of the retreating glaciers of the

30

rolling grass-

gives the impression of a corresponding intensity of

last Ice

at the

end

Age, were upended, the world's

first

it

may have

once aided observers of these lunar events.

Stonehenge served

as a ritual center over

CAVES AND CIRCLES

1.4.

Stonehenge near

Salisbury, Wiltshire,

England,

for undertaking additional building programs.

One

0

meter-) wide avenue, defined by chalk embankments like the original circle. It

it

b.c.e.

cohesion and sufficiently advanced technology

generation of laborers constructed a 35-foot- (10.7-

axis

2750-1500

and there was evidently enough

several centuries, social

c.

of the megalithic

approached the

ran in a straight line along the

bending somewhat

outlier,

river

as

Avon. The Stonehenge

builders next erected monoliths of bluestone weigh-

ing

up

to 5 tons each in a double ring,

point of the

axis.

Although

these were quarried tains in

open

at the

has long been held that

it

from the

distant Preseli

Moun-

Wales and then transported some 300 miles

(483 kOometers)

by land,

sea,

and

river to the site,

an

alternanve, less heroic supposition holds that boul-

ders plucked

by the

once moved pon-

ice sheet that

derously across this part of the world carried enough Preseli bluestones as glacial erratics to furnish

builders with the material they ble ring of megaliths within In

needed for their dou-

much

closer range.

any case, a subsequent generation of builders

put these bluestones aside in favor of

much

larger

megaliths of Marlborough sarsen quarried nearby,

which they arranged "columns" with

a

as trilithons

bridging

lintel

—

—

two upright

in a

horseshoe

the cardinal points circular chalk

the time

was

carefully laid out within the

embankments.

marked by

Its

four corners were at

megaliths.

pattern with the open side facing the established axis

sophistication, another building

of entry. Sometime prior to

in the familiar ring

this

construction cam-

Around

the horse-

shoe, in a prodigious demonstration of structural

campaign resulted

which was probably executed by Breton immi-

by lintels subtly curved and interlocked so

grants

—inasmuch

an integral circular architrave about 20 feet

megaliths are found rarely in Britain

—

horseshoe arrangements of

commonly in Brittany but only

a rectangle

with

its

sides aligned to

meters) above the ground.

ment of

Plan of Stonehenge

O Heel Stone O Ditch 0 Embankment O Bluestone Ring @ Circle of Trilithons

of slightly tapering sarsens topped

paign,

as

1.5.

as to

form (6.1

A subsequent rearrange-

the bluestones to emphasize the sarsen

31

horseshoe and

surrounding sarsen

its

work on

pleted the

this

World-famous

circle

com-

as

an enigmatic

relic

of the

Stone Age and unique for Britain in several respects, including

its

builders' use of lintels,

Stonehenge

is

by

no means an isolated example of Neolithic landscape architecture.

There are many other stone

and Ireland that

Britain

circles in

also provide evidence of

Neolithic astronomy, ritual need, and social congregation.

NrW WOKLD Cirjcles AND Earthworks

mighty monument.

Not surprisingly, over the cenmries their mys-

Suggesting perhaps Jung's psychology of the collective

unconscious

dence built St.

—there

—rather than astonishing

an American timber post

exists

around 1050

coinci-

c.e. at

circle

Cahokia near present-day

Louis by the mound-building people archaeolo-

gists call Mississippian (see fig. 1.29).^^ drically

based religious

of the powerful

elite

rites

Here

calen-

reinforced the authority

over the

commoners who tilled

mounds. To the west of the

terious presence in the countryside has engendered

the fields and built the

many legends regarding Druidical rites, fairy dances,

most prominent earthwork, Monks Mound, archae-

and witches' sabbaths. The

ologists in the 1960s discovered four series of post-

phallic

shape of certain

stones has encouraged their status as objects of tility

worship, and

some

fer-

New Age spirimalists today

believe the stone circles to be cosmic

power centers.

They found fragments some of the holes. The complex, dubbed the American

holes forming rings

(fig. 1.6).

of red-stained cedar posts in first circle

of

this

A

Woodhenge,

consists of twenty-four postholes.

postholes indicating the arrangement of timbers as

second

contained thirty-six posts, and a

wooden rings have been found, and these, too, prob-

dated around 1000

ably functioned, like the stones of Stonehenge, as

which was never completed, had holes

astronomical markers and the architectural defini-

twelve or thirteen of a planned seventy-two-post

tion of ceremonial centers, often with funerary asso-

ring.

In addition to the megaliths arranged in circles,

ciations.

Such

rings,

found

is

a ring, or rather a series of concentric a short distance to the northeast

of

Stonehenge, and archaeological evidence shows that it

almost certainly served as both a place for astro-

nomical observation and

ritual burial.

circle

The second

c.e., sixty.

circle

The fourth

third,

circle,

for only

of posts has been recon-

structed to resemble the original forty-eight regularly

spaced uprights marking various positions of

the Sun including, most spectacularly

over fall

Monks Mound on

equinoxes.

its rise

directly

the days of the spring and

CAVES AND CIRCLES

Earthen

one encompass-

circles similar to the

monument at Stonehenge are also

ing the megalithic inscribed

on the Ohio landscape. The Hopewell peo-

who

occupied the Ohio Valley in the period

ple,

between 100

b.c.e.

and 400

c.e.,

mounded long

ridges of earth to outline large circles, squares, pen-

tagons, and octagons.

The most monumental com-

mounds

plex of these geometrical

Newark, Ohio, where more than

7

is

found

miUion cubic

at

feet

(198,100 cubic meters) of earth were carried in baskets to create

two

large circles, an octagon,

almost square enclosure,

and an

connected by broad

all

"avenues" extending over an area of 4 square miles (10.36 square kilometers)

defined by

two parallel

(fig. 1.7).

The avenues

are

walls of earth similar to the

linear earthen ridges that define the mysterious

"roads" emanating from

Chaco Canyon

in the

American Southwest. In recent years, the

philosopher Robert

east coast of the

Mediterranean around the Syrian

Desert north of the Arabian Peninsula to the Tigris

and Euphrates

was

river plain in

Mesopotamia. There

corresponding development

as well a

in the

Indus Valley. The accretion of power within the

hands of ity as a

a ruling elite,

who

used religious author-

means of organizing administrative systems,

made possible

the division of labor. This led to

efficient agricultural

specific

more

production, the crafting of use-

items and wares, the beginning of trade, the

building of

monuments, and

the birth of

cities.

Important technological improvements and the administrative capacity to undertake lic

enormous pub-

works provided an unprecedented degree of con-

trol

over nature, leading to the agricultural surpluses

that

made possible large urban settlements.

Yet these

prosperous societies adhered to religious cosmolo-

made them obedient to priestly rulers who understood the movements of celestial bodies and

gies that

astronomer Ray Hively and

Horn have

discovered a con-

vincing rationale for the alignment of the roads and the large geometric forms at

Newark and

the

High

Bank works near Chillicothe by proving that the

ori-

who performed propitiatory rites to ensure fertility r

,

,

^,

n

the

ways these two mighty

upon

civilizations

Newark Earthworks, ^^^^^^ q^^^ ^ 1.7.

J

of crops and people. These practices are reflected

in

designed

and 400

c.e.

the land.

entation of the earthworks in these places marks the

maximum and minimum degrees north and south of true east of the

zon during an how,

moon's rising and setting on the hori-

18.6-year cycle.

They also have shown

in addition to giving physical expression to this

impressive astronomical calculation, the buUders of

Hopewell earthworks

the to

ematical sophistication. ric

them in relationship

sited

one another in ways that demonstrate It is

their

likely that the

enclosures defined by the

geomet-

mounds were

serve as spaces in which dancing, market

math-

built to

fairs,

and

other ritual and social activities took place. In addition to this

which projected sky,

kind of focused

a relationship

spatiality,

between earth and

there developed throughout the Neolithic

a chthonic architecture of enclosure centered fertility,

Tombs

Age

upon

death, and the spirits of the underworld.

—architectural versions of the cave, such

as

dolmens, simple chambers formed by two or more upright megaliths with a capstone, and other kinds

of more elaborate stone-roofed structures built as sites for the care

—were

of the dead as reverence for

ancestors increased. Rudimentary temples were also built as enclosures rifice,

and spaces

with shrines,

altars for

animal

sac-

for public assembly.

Neolithic Ukbanism The

evolution of Neolithic urban societies occurred

during the millennium prior to the construction of

Stonehenge. They flourished

Egypt and in the area known a semicircle

in the Nile Valley in

as the Fertile Crescent,

of arable land extending fi'om the south-

33

Architectural Mountains and Earth's First Cities: Landscape as Urban Power in Early Ancient Civil izations II.

In

Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and the

Sumerian

the

2340-2180

3500-2030

(c.

Akkadian

b.c.e.),

Euphrates Rivers, urbanism of a lasting kind began

(c.

between 3500 and 3000

intermittently to 528 b.c.e.) cultures. This cosmol-

b.c.e. Shortly thereafter,

which was

another urban culture evolved within the Nile Val-

ogy,

ley of Egypt. Administrative structures capable of

later expressed in the

planning and controlling crops to sustain large pop-

Enuma

were

ulations in these

two

essential to the

areas. In

with a priestly

elite.

cities

both lands, rulers shared power

In addition to furnishing the

ual structure that sanctified

practice

development of

and protection

rit-

and brought religious

life

to the city's inhabitants,

Elish,

Hammurabi

and Babylonian

B.C.E.),

(c.

1750 and

developed by the Sumerians,

first

is

Babylonian creation poem, the

written sometime before the reign of (ruled

1792-1750

c.

mogonic account, the primal

b.c.e.). In this cos-

state

of the universe

consists of

Tiamat and Apsu, two kinds of water,

and

Their commingling provides the matrix

fresh.

out of which the

salt

places emerge, thus causing

first

priests administered a highly

organized governing

the primary scission that separates heaven from

Government

controlled grain stor-

earth. This separation

system.

officials

age and distribution, the division of lands, the construction of dikes, dams,

and

canals, the collection

of taxes, and the fielding of armies and other means

is

enforced

when Marduk, the

Babylonian national god, does battle with Tiamat, utterly

dominating and destroying

struggle

Marduk emerges

of organizing labor. They also defended the com-

and master builder of the universe.

munity and kept peace within an increasingly com-

line

plicated

economic and

From

her.

their

as formgiver, architect,

He

creates the

of horizon and asserts dominion over the

fertile

but formless primal matter represented by Tiamat.

social sphere.

This methodical governance would have been

From Tiamat's dismembered but

endlessly procre-

impossible without the invention of writing and the

ative body,

development of

by Anu, lord of heaven and the father of gods.

enabled

a literate class. Literacy

he fashions the arc of the

sky,

personified

He

communication and recordkeeping. Mathematical

also sets the firm subterranean foundation that

computation and measurement.

upholds the earth, embodied as Ea, god of waters

literacy enabled

The many portraits of scribes in Egyptian and Mesopotamian art attest to the important role of

and the netherworld.

In the

these he stations Enlil,

god of air and heaven, who

this official in society.

also identified

As the

carrier

of ideas and concepts, literacy

had another important and far-reaching

The

Marduk bestows

this axis

is

mundi

directionality, driving

through Tiamat's ribs openings to the east and west

and

symbol

duk, as architect-sculptor, then models the earth's

fundamental to the mental concep-

topography, creating mountains and streams and

practical ones.

word, whether pictographic or hieratic, is

with the wind. With

written

beyond these necessary

and, as such,

result

set in place,

middle zone between

tion of other symbolical constructs, so

is

a

it is

safe to

Mar-

setting the zenith at the apex of her belly.

making the great

Tigris

and Euphrates flow from

say that, for both practical and ideological reasons,

Tiamat's eyes. By rearing a stepped platform into the

the ziggurat, the pyramid, the temple, and the

sky,

obelisk could not have existed in a preliterate world.

deity of the heavens,

And

it is,

of course, through writing as well as

through painting, that we today are vouchsafed

a

Mesopotamian priests could bring the presiding

spirit

sheltered within

as

and nature and of their esteem, and often reverence,

the supernatural

with Ea (Enki

ing with

This notion

is

in the

quest for cosmological meaning.

embodied

its

Enlil),

cos-

the

sacred form, as well

pre-Babylonian mythology),

power in charge of the underworld

life,

in the

fecund marshes.

Mesopotamian

association of mountaintops with divinity

reflects a universal

Sumerian

and the subterranean waters that sprang forth, teem-

and animals.

Ziggukats The

in the

mos), into contact with Bel (Sumerian earth

glimpse of the relationship between ancient people

for certain plants

Anu (An

in the artificial ziggurat

"mountain," the symbolical juncture of earth and

mism, the

religion

was grounded

belief that such elements as

water had conscious

life

and that

within trees as well as in birds,

mammals.

Plants

in ani-

wind and

spirit forces

dwelt

fish, reptiles,

and

and beasts were therefore believed

For peoples of the ancient Near East the

to have an existence independent of their physical

ziggurat served as an earthly counterpart to the pole

representations. That the ziggurat expressed the

an axis around which the heavens were believed

human desire to forge a connection between the var-

sky

deities.

star,

to revolve.

It

also manifested a

vailed throughout the

cosmology

that pre-

Mesopotamian region under

ious spheres of a magic-charged universe

is

evident

from the names of some: Heaven and Storm, House

ARCHITECTURAL MOUNTAINS AND EARTH S FIRST CITIES

1.8.

Nanna

Ziggurat, Ur

(modern Muqaiyir, c.

of the Mountain, Mountain of the Storm,

Bond

between Heaven and Earth.

The

building of ziggurats and their attendant

often fragile

depended the Even

state.

Sumer as a means of preserving the harmony with nature upon which continued life of the community and

as they

were

was often foreseen ring to a time

buUt, however, their

demise

they would

fall

into ruin.

structed with a central core of trodden clay and brick,

which was then clad with baked

the perspective of the early Egyptian. Each spring, as the flood waters rose

the

mound

and then began to subside,

of Elephantine

—the island below the — appeared to come

Cataract of the Nile

First

miraculously alive with vegetation, birds, tiles,

Con-

the river received a rich mantle of

silt

mud

suddenly into fecund the

mound

itself

life.

seemed

To

to be the

autonomous it became

ated of brick courses interspersed at staged intervals

revered as the elemental

damp courses of reeds and bitumen. In spite of these damp courses and the presence of weepholes,

the

with

ziggurats remained permeable to water. In time, this

forcing the exterior walls

and broke

The

expand,

outward until they cracked

image of the collapsed Tower of

Babel was probably based upon real examples of ruined ziggurats observed by captive

Israelites.

a

compelling metaphor for allegorical storytellers and

through the ages. Such mounds can

seen today

and

neces-

sary to continue the earth's renewal and bring

about growth. Thus, the creation tified

mound was iden-

both with the phoenix, the mythological bird

of light that dispelled the darkness over the waters,

urge, Plato's

still

be

name

for the force that fashions the

material world.

The sun was

This

image of cosmopolitan decadence has offered

artists

force. Irrigation

warming rays of the sun together were

and the god Atum, the Egyptian form of the Demi-

apart. biblical

life

and sprang

the early Egyptian,

progenitor of this miracle, and thus

mud brick to

fish, rep-

and insects. This primal scene was enacted

inward-sloping walls and stepped terraces were cre-

caused the interior core of

from

mounds within

brick, their

Iraq),

B.c.E.

underlying theology, one must attempt to

elsewhere as other rocky and sandy

in dedication inscriptions refer-

when

its

see the annual inundation of the Nile plain

temple structures was reverently undertaken by the early kings of

stand

2100-2050

believed to have

the water to manifest itself

first

emerged

as the light

of the

sacred ben-ben, a pyramidal stone symbolizing both the

life

force inherent in the

mound and

the petri-

faction of the sun's rays. In this manner, the

(fig. 1.8).

fi-om

imagery

of Atum was conflated with that of Re, the sun god,

Pyramids

and the ben-ben was expanded to monumental

The Egyptian pyramid had different

from

a

purpose altogether

that of the ziggurat, for the

pyramid

as the

pyramid, the funerary

home

scale

of Re's earthly

representative, the all-powerful divine king, later

was both the tomb of the king and the means of his posthumous daily ascension and unification

symbols of royal authority and power.

with Re, the Sun God.''* The cult of Re furnished

covered with their gleaming casings of Tura lime-

the pyramid with

stone, their gold-capped tops sending forth rays like

its

essential

meaning. To under-

called pharaoh.

Thus did pyramids serve

as

supreme

When

still

35

MAGIC, MYTH.

1.9.

Pyramids

AND NATURE

at Giza, Egypt.

Fourth dynasty,

c.

2601-2515

b.c.e.

the sun

itself,

they broadcast to ancient Egyptians a

at

Giza were

well as annual renewal and earthly well-being

ertheless,

through the

remained popular as funerary

rituals

as

is

of divine kingship. this scale

was

evident from the diminishing size of the Old

Kingdom pyramids of the Menkaure

at

Giza

kings Khufu, Khaft^e, and

(fig. 1.9).

pyramids

built

the Christian era, and,

form was revived

in

at

a

Abusir

to Re.

Nev-

miniature scale

monuments well into as wiU become apparent, the

Europe and America

in eigh-

teenth-century gardens and nineteenth-century

Although monumental

cemeteries, especially after archaeology brought

once and some

neo-Egyptian features into vogue and nonsectari-

pyramids did not disappear

all

at

later kings for their buri-

anism altered and augmented traditional grave sym-

none ever attained anything approaching the

bolism with memorials associated with a vision of

were als,

difficult to sustain,

laid to rest at

modest rock-hewn tombs dedicated

in

Grandeur on

still

commissioned by

dimensions of the Giza group. The successors of the

36

pharaohs buried

magnificent promise of rebirth beyond the grave as

the afterlife even older than that of Christianity.

ARCHriECTURAL MOUNTAINS AND EARTH'S FIRST CITIES

Temples as Sacked Caves

AND Mountains In India

and other lands where Hinduism

ticed,

one can

sites

and structures

places

from

prac-

encounter cosmologically sacred

still

where gods

— physical

mology associates

embodiments of

are believed to dwell. Evolved

pre-Hindu

a very old,

is

tradition,

Hindu

cos-

caves and mountains as opposite

poles of an axis mundi of sacred potency. In

mythology Mount Meru

is

Hindu

regarded as the navel of

the universe, the cosmological center of a concentric

arrangement of the continents, oceans, and

celestial bodies.

Temple

ingly cosmological

both

architecture in plan

and

is

correspond-

elevation. Out-

wardly, the temple takes the shape of a mythological

mountain, and temple worship

grimage to

a

is

equated vdth a

mountain sanctuary

vation, the temple

conforms

mundi running from the cave

(fig. 1.11).

to the

pil-

In ele-

cosmic axis

in the center

of the

earth to the celestial space above the mountain apex (fig. 1.10).

The temple's dark interior sanctuary

is

a

significant sacred

geometric diagram that portrays

the structure of the universe

(fig. 1.12).

The man-

Above

left: 1.10.

Diagram

cosmological elevation

of the

of a

Hindu temple. Adapted from

chthonic focal point, a simulation of the cavelike

dala plan of the temple

womb,

dinal points of the compass, generally along an

source of

life. It is

there that the worshiper

comes

into the presence of the godhead.

center,

energy

cosmic

axis

is

believed to radiate

through tiered

From

this

upward along a

vertical space

east-west

strictly

oriented to the car-

George Michel

I,

The Hindu

Temple

and astronomy and astrology play an

important role

in

its

siting

and construction.

composed

of numerous concentric stories to a crowning

cir-

Above:

cular finial that symbolizes the state of total enlight-

enment

axis,

is

Hindu temple, Galaganatha temple, Pattadakal,

Karnataka, India. 8th century

c.e.

associated with spiritual perfection and the

body's release fi-om periodic reincarnation. This axis

Right: 1.12.

Diagram

of

one

of the

mandala forms that serve as the

plans of Hindu temples. Mandalas, geometric designs symbolizing

also symbolizes the pillar of heaven, identified as

the universe, are used as aids to meditation

Meru, and the trunk of an immortal

dhism. Hindu mandalas consist of squares arranged concentrically

tree

whose

wide-spreading branches support the universe. In plan, a

temple outlines a mandala, the cosmically

in

Hinduism and Bud-

around a central square representing Brahman, the absolute being

and sacred power pervading the universe. The surrounding squares are occupied by a hierarchy of lesser divinities.

37

MAGIC, MYTH, AND NATURE

Cities,

Pakks,

and Gardens

At the beginning of the the Sumerian

third

millennium

that b.c.e. in

kingdom of lower Mesopotamia, and

later,

sometime

B.C.E.

,

in the early

second millennium

to the north in Babylonia, the antagonism

which they

fortified

dwell in

with stout double

on the other hand,

it is

walls.

uncertain to what

cities existed for

any

signifi-

cant period of time. Each king would undertake vast building projects as a kingship,

means of manifesting his divine

and there were workers' and

artisans' set-

members of

the nobility

Memphis,

The Egyptian temple complexes

Heliopolis,

and Thebes served

val centers for important rituals. Yet

whether the peasants

it is still

who tilled the

not clear

gar-

out according to an orthogonal

two

gates,

one

sycamore

ponds

trees.

filled

was surrounded by date palms and

A large vineyard, orchards, and four

with lotus blossoms and ducks and

formed part of the

fringed with clumps of papyrus

Two

of the ponds have kiosks, or garden

them. These are

set within a series

of walled enclosures that divide the space into several

garden "rooms" and segregate plantations of

various tree species. Floriculture

was the source of

com-

a lively

merce. Flowers were fashioned into bouquets, garlands,

and collars. At

religious festivals

and funerals,

vided food for the general populace and wealth for

those attending brought floral arrangements as well

the temple administrations lived in cities or in

as

vil-

Upper-class residential districts had the amenities, including gardens, as today.

Because funerary

do

same

affluent suburbs

art represents

garden

pleasant accouterments of

bundles and heaps of loose flowers. The dead

were buried wearing intricately woven

lage settlements in the fields.

1400B.C.E.

The

and the other through a porter's lodge. Once

inside, the visitor

as festi-

crops that pro-

within

sits

(fig. 1.13).

cut into the wall facing a tree-lined path beside a canal,

pavilions, beside

at

C.

laid

is

administrative centers with palace precincts and res-

the government.

Thebes, Egypt.

(ruled 1390-1352 b.c.e.), a house

design.

who with scribes and other functionaries managed

in

III

garden surrounded by a wall

tlements adjacent to these. In addition, there were

idential quarters for the

from a tomb

a

den, which

extent large residential

of a

hotep

grid plan, could be entered through

latter to

The-

In a painting fi-om a

grain-growing peoples forced the

In Egypt,

Wall painting

and horticultural practices.

ban tomb consecrated during the reign of Amen-

between populations of nomadic animal herders and

cities,

1.13.

one gains evidence of Egyptian garden design

life, it is

many of the

from the wall

paintings and excavated artifacts of despoiled

tombs

floral collars

and shrouds decorated with garlands. Ramesses helped make Thebes a garden

and papyrus founded

plants. In

by planting trees

an urban center, which he

in the Nile delta to the north,

have created vineyards, trees,

city

III

he

is

said to

out walks shaded by

laid

fruit

and planted flowers from many countries. Ancient Near Eastern

cities

were

for the

most

part hierarchical arrangements of space expressing class distinctions.

Order, as reflected in geometric reg-

ularity,

where

itarian

power of the

it

existed,

was evidence of the author-

ruler

and the priesthood. This

theocratic kingship defined ceremonial axes and controlled the distribution of lands,

and there was

regation of specialized functions into defined

seg-

districts.

Cosmological considerations governed the organization of axes and the creation of temple precincts.

Sumerian

cities

hive of residential religious

and

and palace

Akkad, the

city

took the shape of an organic artisan activity

precinct.

surrounding a

At Sumer and also

at

founded by Sargon I (ruled 2332-2279

B.C.E.) after the Semitic

Akkadians conquered Meso-

potamia around 2340

b.c.e.,

stood near the center of the

temples and palaces

city.

In these cities

Ur, sited at the juncture of a large canal

Euphrates, the principal temple was raised the

ground atop

at

and the far

above

a massive ziggurat, the pre-eminent

image and cosmological symbol of the 1.8).

and

city (see fig.

The entire town rose above the surrounding plain

on a base of debris from collapsed mud buildings that

had accumulated over many generations. Massive gates punctuated the thick enclosing walls.

38

ARCHITECTURAL MOUNTAINS AND EARTH S FIRST CITIES

The Assyrian

cities that

subsequently rose in

the area to the north of the Tigris-Euphrates plain

were

also impressive in their monumentality.

map

cuneiform Euphrates

A

of the city of Nippur on the

in the center

of Babylonia, dated about

1500 B.C.E., shows a city intersected by a canal, with

moat- and river-bordered walls pierced by seven gates

(fig. 1.14).

No streets are shown, but its princi-

pal temples are depicted, together with a large park

located in an acute angle formed by the walls at the

southern end of the ian

city.

Sumer-

Parks, the pride of

and Babylonian kings, were the prototypes of

The

the Persian paindaeza, the walled hunting park. Epic of Gilgamesh has a description of

been

what may have

a hunting park in the southern Babylonian city

of Erech (called Uruk during Akkadian times). Like

Near Eastern

their Persian successors, the ancient

monarchs brought

to their parks exotic trees,

which

they acquired from other lands by trade or conquest. Especially prized tites

were the myrrh

from the region that

is

trees of the Hit-

Syria today.

It

was the

idealized landscape of that hilly country that King

Sargon

II

(a culture

(ruled 721-705 b.c.e.) of ancient Assyria

dominant

in the region

from about 1000

The

regularly planted trees in this garden include the

was

date palm, which

also

grown along canal banks.

Dates were cultivated in orchards as well, along with various fruit trees figs,

—

apples, plums, peaches, cherries,

1.14.

Cuneiform

map

of

1500

B.C.E.

Below:

1.15.

Assurbanipal

and His Queen Feasting a Garden, Relief from

and pomegranates.

Nippur

(Iraq), c.

in

tfie

Assyrian royal palace at

to 612 B.C.E.)

and other rulers wished to

the simile "like the

recall

with

Amanus Mountains," which

is

Later generations praised the fabled

Gardens of Babylon

as

one of the wonders of the

frequently found in their boastful inscriptions pro-

ancient world, and the search for

claiming their park-building schemes.

sioned

In the exceedingly hot climate, the garden of

shade trees was bas-reliefs

a

much-appreciated luxury. From

and archaeological remains,

that the Babylonians planted trees in intricate irrigation

it is

evident

rows and

built

channels to water them. They cre-

ated rush-bordered ponds to shelter wildlife and built

pleasure houses

on hiUs or terraces overlooking this

panorama of garden B.C.E. Assyrian relief

scenery.

A

seventh-century

from Nineveh depicts

garden in which Assurbanipal and

his

a royal

queen

are

much guesswork and

them has

several archaeologists. According to

one of

Nebuchadnezzar

II

ows of her native Media. Other descriptions speak of a series of descending terraces galleries.

trees

buHt on top of vaulted

The suggestion has been discounted

and other vegetation growing

tree pits

upon

in soil

branch

(fig. 1.15).

that

beds or

the terraces of the ziggurat at Baby-

lon could be what were referred to as the Hanging

of bringing

a tree

five

(ruled 604-562 b.c.e.) for his

brating his victory over the Elamite king whose sev-

hanging from

by

who was homesick for the mountain mead-

Gardens because of the insurmountable

is

occa-

accounts by ancient writers, they were built by King

queen,

suff"icient

water

from the Euphrates River to

in irrigation this

Nineveh (modern Kuyunjik, Iraq).

The

patient excavation

enjoying a feast beneath an arbor of grapes, cele-

ered head

Hanging

difficulty

channels

monument. Some

668-627

B.C.E.

Alabaster.

British IVIuseum,

London

MAGIC, MYTH,

1.16.

Temples

AND NATURE

of

Mentuhotep

(ruled 2009-1997 B.c.E.)and

Queen Hatshepsut 1478-1458

BX.E.),

Bahri, Egypt

I

now surmise that raised gardens may

archaeologists

have occupied superimposed terraces on what they

large

temple-tomb

(fig. 1.16).

This funerary group-

ing had a large forecourt planted with tamarisks and

(ruled

Deirel-

the

call

Western Outwork structure between Neb-

uchadnezzar's palace and the Euphrates. Although their claim

ence in

is

not

definitive,

it is

this location ot the

supported by the pres-

kind of deep drains that

would have been necessary for extensive

irrigation.

sycamore

fig trees.

form supported of a

vestigial

lodged

a

A high,

square colonnaded

plat-

mortuary temple built in the form

pyramid. Behind the mortuary temple,

in the cliff itself,

court and hypostyle

hall.

stood another narrower This complex furnished a

vocabulary of forms for the adjacent temple built

Prdcessional Axes The processional in conjunction

axis,

five

or ceremonial way, developed

with religious

rituals in

which

priest

of the

New

later

by

a

remarkable monarch

Kingdom, Queen Hatshepsut. who

reigned from about 1478 to 1458 b.c.e.

in precincts before ziggu-

At this point in her long history, Egypt was expe-

A program of ritualisapproach and movement through a series of

riencing a period of wealth and could, without any

hieratic spaces necessitated axial arrangements, offer-

works of architecture and landscape design by using

and populace assembled rats, tic

pyramids, and temples.

ing opportunities for kinetic drama. the Giza pyramids of the B.c.E.) set in the desert

find

verge and linked to riverside

and the mortuary temple

at its

— the pyramid

base being the archi-

tectural climax of an axial route that ley

Thus we

Old Kingdom (2686-2181

temples by long, sloping causeways

began

at a val-

At the beginning of the Middle Kingdom

complex axis

with

at it,

B.C.E.),

across the Nile

from

a

temple

Karnak (near modern-day Luxor) and on

Mentuhotep

built into the

II

(ruled 2009-1997 b.c.e.)

monumental rock

sacrifice

its

of agricultural labor, build monumental

peacetime army. Like Mentuhotep

had her sepulcher carved within the el-Bahri.

began site

It

formed the terminus of

at the

II,

Hatshepsut

cliff

face at Deir

a

grand

axis that

temple complex of Karnak on the oppo-

bank of the

Nile, continuing from a riverside

tem-

ple on the west bank along an avenue of sphinxes,

whence it ascended, first one, and then a second mas-

temple near the banks of the Nile.

(2055-1650

40

hundred years

face of the

clifi^

a

sive

ramp, each flanked by long colonnades. This axis

culminated

at last in the great hall

of Hatshepsut's

temple. In the superb wedding of natural and architectural forms, the

columns of the colonnade echo-

ing the geological verticals behind them, Hatshepsut's

ARCHITECTURAL MOUNTAINS AND EARTH'S FIRST CITIES

architect

Senenmut

On

left his

mark for posterity.

the walls of the colonnade of the second

of two large terraces, temple sculptors

left a

record

of international trade as well as a fascinating foot-

note to the history of horticulture. Here

reliefs

depict an expedition to Punt, present-day Somalia,

myrrh

to procure the precious

trees

Queen Hat-

shepsut wished to plant beside her temple.

of

this tree

sun god quest

was dedicated

Amon. Scenes of

The resin

measured heaps to the

this early botanical

con-

show how roots were balled and held in place suspended by ropes

in baskets

by groups of four or size

in

of the tree

six

tied to poles carried

men, depending upon the

(fig. 1.18).

Like the Egyptians, the Babylonians honored their deity

and manifested their power and prosper-

ity in axial

arrangements of landscape space. Neb-

uchadnezzar

II,

who is remembered as the ruler who

captured and destroyed Jerusalem and led the Jews

vated upon a tapering base,

into captivity, aggrandized Babylon through a lavish

obelisk. Obelisks

rebuilding program. His to the

and

works included,

in addition

Hanging Gardens, the magnificent Ishtar Gate

a great processional

way leading to the Temple

it

became

the top of an

— more massive and squat than the

New Kingdom "Cleopatra Needles" with which we are familiar

— were

placed upon high podiums

within the open courts of the sun temples

at

Abusir

1.17.

Obelisk, Abusir, Egypt.

This early version of the building-form obelisk

high, set

upon a truncated

(1550-1069

blessed

mound, a

life-giving, sun-

the sacred ben-ben, which the pyra-

mid had symbolized on form of

B.C.E.),

New Kingdom

monumental temples multiplied

Below:

a

grand

scale,

assumed the

pyramidion, or pyramid in miniature. Ele-

within the Nile Valley.

Some were

replacements or

1.18.

Expedition to

Punt. Relief from the of

During the Middle Kingdom, the

from the ground.

(fig. 1.17).

Throughout the period of the

Obelisks

a lime-

pyramid that rises 65.5 feet (20 meters)

of Marduk, which he had plated with gold.

is

stone shaft 118 feet (36 meters)

Temple

Queen Hatshepsut. Deir

el-Bahri, Egypt

additions to earlier temples. Successive pharaohs

extended axes, replicating the massive pylons guarding courts and adding

new

obelisks,

which by

this

41

Borrowing fi-om

example, other countries

this

transported Egyptian obelisks distant cities

at

great expense to

where they became prestigious orna-

ments within the urban landscape, bit

of history makes

clear.

To

as the following

celebrate

jubilees of his prosperous reign,

one of the

Tuthmose

III

(ruled

1479-1425 B.C.E.) sent a crew of stonecutters to the quarries of Aswan for the purpose of extracting twin

obelisks

from the granite

there.

Workers chiseled

and excavated the stone, carving the obelisks on the site.

Other workers then dragged the obelisks by

them

sledge to the river and floated

at

flood time by

barge to Heliopolis where they were placed in

fi-ont

of the Temple of the Sun. Nine hundred years

later,

in

525

B.C.E., the Persians

burned and toppled the

obelisks during their conquest of Egypt. After

another

five

hundred

when Egypt had province of the Roman

years,

declined to the status of a

Empire, Augustus Caesar installed them

in fi"ont

of

the Caesarium at Alexandria. In the nineteenth cen-

tury C.E., a millennium and a half after fallen,

the obelisks

as souvenirs

made

of international diplomacy to the

Thames embankment City's Central

Rome had

their respective journeys

Park

in

London and New York

(fig. 1.20).

These recycled obelisks ilization manifests its

illustrate

how one civ-

wealth and power by borrow-

ing the forms (and in this case, actual objects) of

another For Assurbanipal

I,

the

Theban obelisks sym-

bolized the subjugation of a rival state. For Augustus

Caesar, the obelisks of 1.19.

Obelisks erected by

Harnesses

temple

B.c.E.) at III

(ruled 1279-1212

II

of

made emblems of imperial glory. For nineteenth-cen-

matized by monuments and architecture, these axes

tury Parisians, the obelisk of Ramesses

B.C.E.),

organized spatial sequences of awe-inspiring

same purpose the

progression. For example, at the

Right: 1.20. Obelisk of Tuth-

built

mose

Ramesses

(ruled 1479-1425

Central Park,

New York sive

City.

tion

Erected

west

Museum

of

in

present loca-

The Metropolitan

of Art in 1880, this

modest obelisk

is

by Amenhotep II

ritual

Luxor

at

(ruled 1390-1352 b.c.e.),

pylon before which he placed two colossal

these to

III

Temple

(ruled 1279-1212 b.c.e.) erected a mas-

ures of himself and

known as

Cleopatra's Needle.

was

two

obelisks

(fig. 1.19).

fig-

One of

carried to Paris in the nineteenth century

become

the focal point of the Place de

corde after these war trophies had

la

Con-

become urban

status symbols.

The quarrying, portation,

erection, subsequent trans-

and re-erection of obelisks in distant parts

of the world provides a remarkable footnote history of world first

in the

monuments and city planning. The

obelisks to be transported firom Egypt

were

a

pair appropriated in 671 b.c.e. as trophies of war by

Assurbanipal

I,

Subsequently,

the Assyrian conqueror of Thebes.

Roman emperors

garnered them in

their Egyptian campaigns. Fifteen later,

n

were ready-

II

served the

Amenhotep

(ruled 1390-1352

B.C.E.),

III

time had assumed their elongated form. Thus dra-

Luxor, Egypt

III

Tuthmose

hundred years

the papal planners of Baroque

tioned

them

rebuilt

city.

Rome

as focal points in the piazze

reposi-

of their

several obelisks

brought to ancient

RITUAL AND LANDSCAPE IN PREHISTORIC GREECE

Rome had

for

Pope Sixtus

V

and

his successors,

9.27, 9.28).

We should not, however, lose sight of the

ennobling the urban landscape and fixing space

fact that the obelisk in its original location

within an axial plan. For nineteenth-century Lon-

of a complex, cosmologically focused landscape

doners, the second recycling of one of Tuthmose

design.

obelisks was, as

it

had been

for

Ill's

Augustus Caesar, a

symbol of imperial might. For New Yorkers,

its

twin

the

It is

important to remember

was

whether in

that,

Old World or the New, the natural and

landscapes that gave sacred meaning to

part

cultural

human

life

was a means of ornamenting a picturesque landscape

reflected the desire for predictable, life-sustaining

while proclaiming cosmopolitan civic status. Thus

order in the universe. This meant agricultural pros-

was a religious symbol of the

perity,

civic

sun, sacred to the Egyp-

turned into exotic treasure and appropriated as

tians,

embellishment, while

at the

same time becom-

ing a popular form for funerary

monuments and

architecture as discussed in Chapter Nine (see

figs.

dominance of

elites

over their subjects, and

victory over enemies in war.

The proper alignment

with cosmic forces was therefore considered

vital,

and both practical and religious objectives furnished motives for the design of landscape space.

KiTUAL anl:) Landscape in Pkehistokic Greece: The Earth Goddess and the Mighty Lords III.

Unlike the topography of Egypt, which in ancient

at the desert

verge in

monumental pyramids and

times consisted of a single ribbon supportive of

clifi^-hewn temples. In

Greece, the topographically

human

diverse

habitation in the cliff-walled, desert-bor-

dered Nile Valley, that of Greece

many

made up of

is

broad, cradling, spring-fed valleys separated

by mountains of impressive though not awesome size.

The geologic forces that created the mountains

are expressed in their southeastward orientation

and

their continuation as the Cyclades, Rhodes,

and

other islands

— the higher elevations of a drowned

mountain system. This orientation and the

exis-

tence of such an array of island stepping-stones

along the coast of Asia Minor gave the peoples

who

and dramatically beautiful landscape

itself

became invested with religious meaning. For ancient inhabitants

it

was the home of powerful goddesses

and gods. Foremost among these

deities in the

remote centuries of prehistory was the Great Goddess, called Potnia in the

Minoan

culture of Crete.

Ckfti The importance of spirit is

the earth goddess and animal

apparent in sculpture and painting fi"om the

Minoan

civilization that existed

on the

island of

populated the Greek mainland, the Peloponnese,

Crete fi-om about 3000 b.c.e. until 1000 b.c.e.'^ This

and Crete opportunities

civilization

for interchange with the

highly developed cultures to the east and south of the

Aegean

preserved

archipelago. At the a

same

time, the sea

strong degree of isolation, which

allowed them to develop indigenous patterns of

cul-

ture and religion.

As we

large-scale

Egypt and the

Although there

Hittite is

that of

Empire of Asia Minor.

evidence of contact with these

well-developed cultures, in

its

nonmilitaristic social

values and goddess-worshipping religion, as well as in the sophisticated yet youthful ebullience

have seen, Egypt's

raphy, because of

was contemporaneous with

its

linear, riverine

geog-

cormectedness and the need for

management of

irrigation,

fested in

The

mani-

demonstrates an independent

development and autonomous nature.

encouraged

the development of unified theocratic kingship.

its art, it

After a millennium of evolution, lization

reached

its

Minoan

civi-

zenith around 2000 b.c.e. and

fragmentation of the Greek landscape and the

maintained

dependence of Greek settlements upon water ft-om

massive destruction from earthquakes and

underground springs militated against autocracy and

about 1700

massive bureaucratic administration. Rather,

rendous episode of geophysical disturbance charted

it

fos-

this cultural

high-water mark, in spite of

B.C.E. Subsequently, another,

more

fires

hor-

course toward collapse and extinction.

tered the creation of several small tribal civUizations

this culture's

among whom hegemony was based upon successful

This was the eruption of the Thera volcano about

warfare and maritime trade.

measured wealth Greeks

in

A pastoral people who

terms of livestock, the early

lived in scattered settlements

and did not

need the mass organization of society necessary

for

the large-scale cultivation of grain.

fertility

and

life.

ablaze, bringing in

and

a

its

wake

cities

and set them

tidal-wave inundation

ruinous blanket of white ash over the island

made the soil impossible to cultivate. The dismay have been compounded by subsequent Mycenaean invasions fi^om the mainland. The prin-

that

aster

In Egypt, the Nile landscape

mighty engine of

1470 B.C.E., an event that toppled

was

a single

Divinity resided

cipal architectural ruins

and

artifacts that define

43

MAGIC. MYTH. AND NATURE

Votive gold double-axes and figurines of bronze have

been found animal

in sacred caves

and offerings of grain and other pro-

sacrifice

duce. There

is

along with evidence of

evidence, too, of ritual dancing and

feasting outside the caves. Funeral pyres

burned

at

cave entrances before the performance of the

chthonic

rites within.

In addition to the

peak and cave sanctuaries,

walled enclosures guarded a sacred tree or perhaps

marked the

site

of an epiphany.

Some archaeologists

surmise that worshipers tore branches or boughs

from enshrined sacred trees and venerated them on altars or

planted

them

horns. Scenes depicted

in sockets

on

offer evidence of ecstatic

seals

between

and other

sacral

artifacts

dancing by priestesses in

these locations.

Symbols of the Great Goddess, Potnia, were the double-axe, the stone 1

.21

Cave sacred

.

myth ous

in

to

to

which Gaia

Zeus on the eastern face of (Earth)

and Uranos (Sky) gave

Ida, Crete.

birth to

The cave plays

a part

Kronos and Rhea, the parents

m the of

Greek

Zeus. Jeal-

haps

it is

she

pillar,

who is depicted as

breasted, snake-wielding figure

and the snake.

Per-

a bell-skirted, bare(fig. 1.22);

in scenes

preserve his authority, Kronos devoured his offspring. Rhea's successful plot to hide the infant

Zeus within the Idaian cave him

Mount

to survive,

— there

to

be nursed by nymphs and fed goat's milk and honey

depose Kronos, and become the supreme male god and subsequent

pantheon. That there

was

a shrine at this site in

there, including shields, spears, gold

and

Minoan

times,

is

attested by the

ruler of the

many

and clay

ivory votive objects, figurines,

— allowed

artifacts

Greek found

on seals and wall paintings she

bolized by a pillar guarded by rampant lions, a form that clearly relates to that of the

state

between around 2000

now

is

b.c.e.

from the period

and 1470

ritual visits to hill-

the pre-Columbian Americans.

matically simated, bare, and

a religious

Public festivals

windswept peaks, where

they found stone-paved terraces with altars placed before a temenos, or holy precinct, outlined by walls

and balustrades crowned with sacral horns. Local pastoraiists

frequented these places, seeking protection

for their cattle

tory

rites.

through votive offerings and propitia-

The shrines themselves were well furnished

with variously shaped tables, ladles,

altars, cult

images,

sacrificial

lamps, and libation vessels. Male and

female clay figurines were

left

behind

as surrogates

for the worshipers, symbolizing their continuing

devotional presence in the holy spot.

The hilly Cretan limestone terrain, type

known

a landscape

to geologists as a karst formation

the source of the

and

underground springs that sustained

Minoan and later Greek communities,

is

riddled with

Right

dess, Potnia, had a son and

some two thousand caves.

consort, Velchanos, or Kouros.

thirty-five or so,

A small number, perhaps

had sacred status, probably because

a precursor of Zeus. His ritual

ture.

chaste mistress of the hunt and protector of animals,

was worshiped

in

the

mountain

sanctuaries.

childbirth; her special sanctuary

weather gods on high,

of their association with burial;

among these an esti-

mated sixteen were used for cult practices

fig. 1.25).

other goddesses and

revering the earth goddess, they probably sought to

brought congregations of worshipers to these dra-

rebir?!:

in addition,

Eleuthia, the Cave Goddess, protected

impulse not unlike that of the Mesopotamians and

death and

There were,

top sanctuaries and sacred caves. In addition to

propitiate the

death symbolized Colonna: Humanism and the Landscape I.

Humanism ano

Rebirth

OF THE Villa

morally bound to also be a man of action. The humanism of Petrarch was disseminated by men of

Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca, 1304-1374) fathered the

letters

intellectual

1

1

ie

movement known as humanism. Human-

lines

who saw themselves as statesmen along the men whose political programs were

of Cicero,

ism to Petrarch meant the rediscovery of the writings

informed by

of classical antiquity and the objective, inquiring atti-

with rhetoric. Cosimo de' Medici (1389-1464) cap-

tude toward the natural world that informed those

tured political control of Florence in 1434, ruling as

Roman thought texts. He were the cornerstones upon which a new future would be built. He further believed in a new moral-

an enlightened humanist. In 1439, he brought the

believed that Greek and

ity in

law, it

which human will, though subservient to divine

could exerdse a greater degree of autonomy than

had during the Middle Ages, when an expansive

curiosity

was viewed as an affi-ont

to theological doc-

The recovery and study of the

trine.

classical past,

coupled with the intellectual and moral energy released by the

new

spirit

of

scientific inquiry

and

intellectual discourse

General Council of the Greek Orthodox and Catholic churches to his

Gemistos Plethon

(c.

streets

that

became

translated in French

aissance in the nineteenth century

and EngUsh

term

as ren-

when it gained cur-

among those examining the art of the sixteenth

rency

century. Everything that lay

between the

fall

of

Rome

1355-1450/55), the most

The presence

in the

many distinguished guests provided the city with a new sense of cosmopoliSome of these ecclesiastics came from

of so

tanism.

Constantinople, then the wealthiest and most sophis-

the

an intellectual

called in Italian rindscita, a

among them

people of the

minds of the

historical protagonists

Roman

hospitably subsidizing

included

respected authority on Plato.

ticated city in the world.

which they

city,

who

the gathered prelates

respect for individual achievement, constituted in the

rebirth,

and promulgated

new Rome

in

330

Founded by Constantine

c.e.,

as

Constantinople was both

the principal seat of Christianity in the Byzantine

Empire and the main repository of after the fall

c.e.

of the Western

Some Greek Orthodox

classical culture

Roman Empire

in

476

monasteries had man-

aged to preserve, along with Early Christian manu-

and the dawn of the exciting new age was to them an

scripts,

intermediate time, or Middle Age. Thus, these

Because the Byzantine Empire endured until the

humanists bestowed the the interval of history

name by which we still know

between the

sixth

and the mid-

Ottoman Turks overthrew Constantinople the

Greek Orthodox Church

day as a link

foiirteenth centuries.

Kept aUve by priests and monks, Latin continued to serve as the international

peans throughout

copies of certain ancient classical texts.

tongue of educated Euro-

this period.

Now, however,

the

in a

still

served in

in 1453,

Cosimo 's

long chain of scholarship reaching

back through vanished

Roman libraries to the ancient

Greeks. Humanist scholar Marsilio Fidno (1433-1499)

thought that Florence could perhaps replace

this lost

humanists wanted more than the continuation of

center for ancient Greek scholarship and perpetuate

medieval Latin as the language of the educated

the intellectual conversations

class.

They actually wanted to write not in the Latin they had inherited

from medieval scholastics but in the language

and syntax of the

Roman

orator and statesman Mar-

cus TuUius Cicero (106-43 b.c.e.) and the

(70-19

Virgil

b.c.e.).

Roman poet

Moreover, humanist scholars

wanted not only to write in the tones and style of these eminent ancients, but they the world in the

also

same ways

wanted to think about

as they had,

morality from the perspective of Plato B.C.E.)

of medieval Latin, which

fell

between the

life

at the

drew no

of the mind and the

life

Platonic

Academy under

around 1462

at the

near Florence.

success

expense

the auspices of

Medici patriarch's

but

Cosimo

Villa

To this place Cosimo came

tivate the fields,

Careggi

"not to cul-

my soul."^

The creation of this society of humanists, which alism in Western history.

became

moment of confident idetenets of humanism

The

the province of a small but influential group

of intellectuals, including officers of the Church.

These prelates were increasingly disposed toward philosophy as well as

its

theories of beauty,

nourished with their literary and

into gradual disuse.

Petrarch and his followers

many learned

Greek scholars. Ficino is believed to have founded the

427- c. 347

language had the

of promoting vernacular tongues

lowing the 1439 gathering there of so

examining

c.E.). Ironically,

in reviving ancient Latin as a literary

in his city fol-

lasted until 1494, signaled a

or investigating the natural world in the man-

ner of Pliny the Elder (23-79

effect

(c.

begun

artistic

its

which they patronage.

distinctions

The garden assumed special

of the

templation and learning, as well as an architectural

to serve his countrymen, the contemplative

city;

man was

status as a place

space and opportunity for fresh

artistic

of con-

expression.

127

Ficino's

Neo-Platonism drew on the works of

Plotinus, the third century c.e. Alexandrian philoso-

pher who posited a Godhead from which

all

creation

emanates and with which the soul can be mystically

on the writings of Augustine and

united, as well as

the twelfth-century Neoplatonists. His philosophy

hundred years the form and function of Alexander Pope's famous grotto at Twickenham, which

examine

Chapter Seven, Petrarch

in

said that he

believed his grotto "resembles that small

Cicero sometimes went to study, to

which go I

The

gave special status to the soul as the agent of the tran-

at

recite;

it is

we will

room where

an invitation to

noon."

several villas built

by Cosimo and

his

scendent, cognitive, creative intellect standing at the

Medici successors a century after Petrarch proved to

midpoint between the earthly and the divine, medi-

be prudent investments

between the higher and lower worlds. For

ating

Fidno, mystical love as inspired by Plato's theory of love in the

ness"

—

beauty,

is

Symposium and Phaedrus

the source of poetic genius.

which is divisible

celestial

— "divine mad-

and natural,

two oppositional

into

as personified

Venuses often portrayed

goal

Its

in

is

realms:

by the two

Renaissance art

— one

economy and

in the rural

refuges in times of plague or political

strife.

also centers for intellectual recreation

They were

and conversa-

For a time, in the buoyant atmosphere of the

tion.

Renaissance, the Italian

had been

became once more,

villa

where the

ebrated the pleasures of rustic

it

Younger, a philo-

in antiquity for Pliny the

sophical and literary retreat

as

aristocracy cel-

life.

symbolizing sacred love, the other profane. Ficino's philosophy gave

new

status to the artist,

—

whose

task

Tf

IF

Theories of Alberi

i

— into

Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449-1492), the grandson

physical reality, a project assisted by mathematical

of Cosimo, did not enjoy the same degree of wealth

it

was

to translate pure

form

ideal

beauty

and power

concepts of proportion and harmony.

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

Ficino's disciple,

(1463-1494), articulated the then-radical concept of individual free will,

which granted the

artist

enor-

was

less fully

gather

nature with meanings derived not from doctrinal

tonic

gion but from the

human

reli-

the

intellect. Increasingly,

natural sciences informed this enterprise. As the tenets of a static medieval scholasticism based

on the

statecraft

Leon

were gradually overturned by this invigorating license

was

cliisus

became

the giardino segreto, or secret garden, a

mate contact with nature within the sance garden. As

if in

inti-

larger Renais-

self-conscious recognition of

the philosophical nature of this transaction, a principal

theme often expressed

Renaissance garden

is

in the

iconography of the

the syncretism of Art and

activities

of his family,

He

liked to

members of

the Pla-

and the pursuit of the musicians, and

Academy around him

into

arts.

at his villas at Fiesole,

Battista Alberti died

soon

after

Lorenzo came

he was influential within this humanist cir-

and his treatise on architecture, De re aedificatoria, a constant reference

the hortus con-

secluded and enclosed garden room, a place of

with the banking

artists,

to power, cle,

more open-ended mode of inquiry,

had, conspicuous though he

of Florence. Occupying his time

Cafaggiolo, Careggi, and Poggio a Caiano. Although

concept of a closed, rather than an open, universe,

to a

Cosimo

Lorenzo threw himself even more energetically

mous creative potential and mimetic power to juxtanew representations of

pose and combine forms in

as

as a benefactor

Alberti

was

work for Lorenzo.

a versatile polymath,

among other

things a poet, a scholar of classical literature losophy,

other aspects of painting as well as

on villa design buildings,

specifically

he avoided

on sculpmre and

Although he

direct

later

involvement

struction process, setting himself apart tects

and phi-

and an author of treatises on perspective and

of humbler origins

who

designed

in the con-

from

archi-

usually served as both

Nature. Moreover, the giardino segreto anticipated the

designers and supervisors of construction. Alberti

botanical garden in which exotic and native plants

advised Pope Nicholas

were collected and displayed

in a systematic fashion.

Petrarch, a devout Christian, sought spiritual truth in nature as well as practical knowledge.

these ends, he created

Toward

two gardens near his home

at

V on various urban projects.

His theories on architecmre merged under one nition of beauty: "that reasoned

harmony of

parts within a body, so that nothing may be

defi-

all

the

added or

taken away, or altered, but for the worse," a state he

He saw

geometry namre's

Fontaine-de-Vaucluse, collected rare plants, and con-

called cocinnitas.

ducted experiments in growing several plant varieties

advocating symmetry and the arrangement of

under varying geographic, seasonal, meteorological,

various building parts according to symbolically

and

astrological conditions.

a slope,

The

he referred to

sible

"by a

situated

on

as his "transalpine Parnassus."

other, closer to his

island in the

One garden,

house and situated on an

bridge leading from a vaulted grotto

where the sun never penetrates." Prefiguring by four

order,

sig-

nificant ratios of proportion, thus translating

Neo-

harmonic form

into

platonic ideals of natural architecmral

middle of a fast-flowing river, was acces-

little

in

^

reality.

Alberti derived several of his architectural concepts in

from the principles of order and harmony found

nature and saw nature in

its

own

right as a source

PETRARCH. ALBERTI, AND COLONNA

4.2.

Plan of the Villa Medici,

Fiesole.

Designed by Miche-

lozzo di

Bartolommeo. Prior

to 1455

O Giardino Segreto O Loggias 0 Terrace Q Lemon Garden G Pergola O Lower Garden 4.3.

Lemon garden.

Villa

Medici. 20th-century restoration

of pleasure. According to Alberti,

on gentle

elevations with a

villas

should be sited

view of the surrounding

countryside. Gardens should have porticoes that

would

afford

both sun and shade and also serve as an

making garden space continuous

architectonic link in

with that of the house. For large gatherings he prescribed a festive

open space and for quiet pleasure the

He advised planting box-

presence of springs of water.

wood hedges in sheltered locations and was not averse to arranging these in the form of the owner's monogram after the fashion of the ancient Romans. Nor comic statues

did he disapprove of

in the garden,

"provided they are not obscene.'"*

The Villa Medici Sometime prior to elozzo Villa

di

function

Cosimo commissioned Mich-

Bartolommeo (1396-1472)

Medici

4.3). Built

1455,

Resole

ai

at Fiesole for his

between 1458 and

was not

for intellectual

and

a

(figs. 4.2.

1461, the villa's primar\

working farm, but

as a

life

to design the

son Giovanni

as a setting

demonstration of aesthetic

and ideological values. As architectural historian James S.

Ackerman points out, "Michelozzo's simple arcaded

cube was the

first

modern

villa

designed without

thought or possibility of material gain. "^Judging from a

contemporary fresco painted by Domenico

Ghirlandaio (1449-1494), stucco. it

it

was covered

Although devoid of Albertian

del

in oS'-white

classical details,

followed the prescription for siting set forth in De

aedificatoria.

Conspicuous from

raced

embankment

siting

of his first-century-c.E.

in

afar, it

rose

from

re

a ter-

conscious imitation of Pliny's villas at

Laurentinum

and Tusci, where scenic perspective was an important consideration.

The Medici

villa at

in this

way and was

uated on

Ital-

loggia before

sit-

whenever possible.

east front of the villa

was an

entfrely

one of the bays was walled

in.

open

On the

west front the loggia remains entirely open, and one can fully appreciate

its

spatial fusion

dino segreto, or secret garden. This

way

com-

of the

since

and garden

thus a prototype for the

and design of future

which for this and other reasons were

hillsides

The

its

ancient times to consciously exploit the potential of its site

ian gardens,

first

Fiesole with

manding view of nearby Florence was the

PHnian view that would become a significant element in the location, orientation,

Italian designers,

is

who

with a lovely ^r-

an early example

conceived of

as integral architectural

components,

villa

cre-

ated indoor and outdoor spaces that interpenetrated

one another. Originally ^giVjniini

segreti

were small

129

enclosed garden rooms, but here, where the scenic potential of the site

was

exploited, garden

and loggia

Angelo Poliziano (1454-1494) wrote

his "Rusticus," a

celebration of the pastoral poetry of such ancient

overlook a panoramic view of the Arno Valley and

writers as Horace, Hesiod, Columella,

the city of Florence, with Filippo BnineUeschi's cathe-

poem is also a paean to the view of Florence with the

dome dominating the

dral

A gate

leads

from

skyHne.

silvery

garden to a terrace run-

this

ning along the south side of the house. Beyond

garden with

its

clipped, cone-shaped

this

lower terrace

terrace, a long pergola overlooks the

of box. Restored and planted in

its

current form at

the beginning of the twentieth century by Cecil Pinsent for this

Lady Sybil Cutting,

as

noted in Chapter Ten,

garden and the grassy terrace above are decorated

distance and to Lorenzo

age and generosity of

patron-

s

In this way, rural values

spirit.

and urban power were harmoniously aligned within

humanism.

the cultural matrix of

The humanist

magnolia trees

(Magnolia grandijlora) surrounded by lawn and hedges

Arno in the

and Virgil. The

attitude

toward nature

of the Villa Medici

in the siting

implicit

at Fiesole

is

also

reflected in Florentine quattrocento painting.

The

artist's

receptivity to natural beauty could not have

occurred had not the

late

medieval philosophy as well as

new humanism caused

profound

a

shift in soci-

with lemon trees in terra-cotta pots. The grade

ety's overall

change between the pergola and the lower terrace

not abandoned, but individual excellence and

garden

achievement were increasingly valued.

is

not exploited as an opportunity for orna-

mental stairs, ian gardens.

as similar slopes

were

The lower garden

the hillside and

is

sufficiently

is,

to

be

in later Ital-

however, cut into

lower than the upper

culmral perspective. Christian faith was

human

Scientific

observation and humanistic aesthetics fostered an interest in nature

scape. Classical

and delight

in the beauties

of land-

mythology was incorporated into the

garden so as not to intrude upon the panoramic view

education of the well-to-do, and allegory using

from the upper

sical

terrace.

Even though the Villa Medici at Fiesole was built simply as a country retreat rather than as working agricultural scenery abruptly abuts

villa,

This unself-

from garden formality to

conscious

shift

and

which had

fields,

it.

olive trees

also characterized the ancient

vUla landscape as described

by

Pliny,

can be seen

in

many other Tuscan gardens. Much as modern urbanites

enjoy the apple orchards and potato

their

fields

around

country houses without themselves engaging in

art

clas-

themes and images was extensively employed in

and

literature.

Sandro

Botticelli's Primavera, a

1482, expresses both aspects of Renaissance

such as

this, as

painting of about

the naturalistic

humanism (fig.

and arcane

4.4).

Paintings

well as gardens of the period, were

intended as both

literal

and metaphorical

paradises.

At the same time, they were presented as visual to be decoded, as bearers of

messages to be

texts

deci-

phered, as stationary dramas for the discerning. While

agricultural pursuits, Lorenzo's circle delighted in the

the key to

bucolic landscape of Fiesole. There the scholar-poet

scholars,

its

it is

meaning has been much debated by

clear that in the Primavera

we have

not

— PETRARCH. ALBERT !, AND COLONNA

only an image comparable to the medieval paintings

of the Virgin

Mary

flowery mead, but, more

in a

important, a Renaissance interpretation of the paradise or Venus gardens of ancient

den over which

Venus presides

Botticelli's

the garden of love.

On the

right

The

literature.

we

is

compensation

as

clearly

see Zephyr, the

harbinger of Spring and ravisher of Chloris. ter,

gar-

The

lat-

having been thus taken,

for

is

turned into the adjacent Flora, hi the orange trees that

form

bower for Venus, Cupid points his arrow

a

toward one of the three Graces. Completing the scene

Mercury, a god associated with the

is

May. The

painting

commemorate

is

month of

thought by some authorities to

May

the wedding, in

1482, of a

mem-

apparent from

this

and other quattrocento

more than a thousand years

paintings that allegory for

returned to

themes

classical

origins

now

and that

entirely

the next three

artists for

humanists read

ancient myths.

belief Christian

and mythological heroes,

classical deities

as Christian

One

new meanings

explanation for this

into

lies in

the

extraordinary influence exerted by the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili

his passion

fully

indulged along with

devotion to his beloved. Poliphilus

company of

Queen

Eleuterilyda and,

Polia, to the island

of Cytherea,

where he describes the "groves, meadows, gardens, streams and springs" in elaborate dle of the island

is

detail. In

cious columns,"^ the scene of the climax of in

which the naked Goddess of Love

delectable detail

the mid-

"Venus's fountain with seven pre-

and Poliphilus

is

is

Book One

described in

pierced by Cupid's

on garden

ited

by

est in

Poliphilus,

Colonna displays his intense

inter-

ornamental architecture and ingenious devices.

with their fanciful topiary and knot garden designs

authorities

Gardens were populated almost

years.

by

is

journeys to the gardens of in the

which

in

and gardens of great intricacy and

decorative sumptuousness his extravagant

the narrator

classical sub-

faith,

served in a syncretic man-

ner as primary subjects for

hundred

of a many-layered erotic dream for architecture

is

The woodcut illustrations from Colonna's book,

no longer prohibited by religious

upon stamping out "pagan"

intent

and

its classical

protagonist, Poliphilus,

has

pressed into the service of the Christian

jects are

The

arrow. Here and in the other imaginary locales vis-

ber of the Medici family. It is

of Love in a Dream.

whose name means "Lover of Polia,"

and images of grove, grotto, clad arcade,

classical pergola, vine-

and pseudo-Egyptian esoteric

including an elephant with an obelisk back,

became

devices,

mounted in its

a source of inspiration for several gen-

erations of garden designers.

The book was

also

an

important means of disseminating Renaissance gar-

den style,

especially in the

second half of the sixteenth

century following the publication of the immensely

popular French edition

As

design.

(fig. 4.5).

in the Renaissance garden,

water plays an

especially important role in Poliphilus's pilgrimage as

HyPNEROTOMACHIA

POI.IPI

he progresses from a singing brook past gushing foun-

IILI

Venetian publisher Aldus Manutius

In 1499, the

brought forth an enigmatic and fascinating book with descriptions

and woodcut

have a great influence

illustrations that

upon garden

were to

design. Called

tains,

including one in the form of the streaming

breasts of a sleeping

harpies

nymph and another resembling

surmounted by Graces,

also

with water com-

ing from their breasts in silver threads

(fig. 4.6).

work of a

According to the cultural historian Simon Schama,

Dominican monk and nobleman, Francesco Colonna

"the fountains of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili con-

Hypnerotomachia

Poliphili,

it is

reputedly the

(1433-1527). At Palestrina, Colonna

was engaged

with his father, Stefano, in restoring the Temple of Fortuna Primigenia, a Greco-Roman goddess associated with Egyptian veneration of the Nile (see

4.5.

Topiary and knot forms,

Hypnerotomachia

Poliphili

fig.

(The Strife of Love in a Dream)

Colonna shared the

2.24).

interest

of Pico and other

Neoplatonists in mystery religions and their initiatory

These involved the decoding of cabalistic mes-

rituals.

sages,

which were sometimes

glyphs.

in the

form of

by Francesco Colonna.

Wood-

cut probably from the 1561

French edition.

Recommended

by Alberti, topiary

— shrubbery

hiero-

pruned

into fanciful

Such hieroglyphs were believed to represent

was an

antique garden prac-

shapes

tice enthusiastically revived in

the immaterial essence as well as the functional nature

the Renaissance.

of the things they symbolized, the Idea, in Platonic terms, as well as

its

material form.

Translated by Jean Martin in tomachia Poliphili

du songe de

was published

Poliphile

with a

new

in set

1

546, the Hypnero-

France as Discours

of woodcut

illus-

trations in the mannerist style associated with the

School of Fontainebleau.

appeared

in

1

592,

its title

When

the English edition

was rendered

as

"The

Strife

131

CLASSICISM REBORN

Lyceum, was revived of the

bosco, a

TTie bosco

ers

Golden Age

Ovid and

Virgil,

when people

time

namre and

the realm of

is

tion of the

Renaissance in the form

in the

planting usually of evergreen

ilex trees.'

the representa-

by the ancient

extolled

an earthly paradise evoking the

environment

lived in a hospitable

surrounded by hamre's bounty of berries and ishing acorns.

duced an

Its

writ-

ncjur-

namral forms and deep shade pro-

of wildness and myster); serving as

air

a foil

to the otherwise geometrical garden. Pleasant refuges

from the hot summer sun,

boschi

were

integral to the

iconographic programs of certain garden landscapes.

They provided appropriate itor

settings in

which the

vis-

could encounter, with a degree of surprise, the

symbolical feamres that had been strategically placed

along a prescribed path.

The

had ancient

grotto, like the sacred grove,

associations with mysterious

spring of streams,

it

nymphs. Grottoes such Colonna became

life

forces.

was the home of

The

river

well-

gods and

one described by

as the

practically obligator)' elements in

sixteenth-century gardens, and their popularity con4.6.

tinued far into the nineteenth century,

Graces with water stream-

ing from their breasts,

Hyp-

many

served as Romantic feamres in

when

they

parks and gar-

nerotomachia Poliphili (The Strife of Love in

and

dens. In the period

a Dream}. Text

two

illustrations probably by

Francesco Colonna. Woodcut

we are examining here, there were

kinds: those with artificial stalactites

tations of colored stones

and

and encrus-

and those of

shells

a

from the 1561 French edition

more trived

an

effect that

was somehow both

philosophical, animal and ethereal.

combination that

irresistible

scape architects of the the

mid and

And

cast a spell

erotic

and

was

this

it

on the

Roman and Tuscan

although not by is

of

its

specific text, in

difficult to follow,

which

s

book,

a clear nar-

gardens became firmly

as a

mirror of the Renaissance imagination stems

from

fusion of the highly

interwoven

semous

sets

artificial

embodying complex and

m\T;hic narratives, allegorical stories with sev-

meaning. Their paths became prescribed routes

garden's concepmal horizons,

read into

and

new vocabulan,' of garden design forms

were

tant to recall not only the intellectual excitement a

mythology but

renewed appreciation of also the interest

classical

among certain

edu-

now

cally perfect

hand. .Albertian

harmony of

clearly defined axes

cocinnitas,

parts, as

or economi-

manifested in the

with compositional symmetr)' of

was now fused with Colonna

parts,

from Egyptian forms, Neoplatonism, and alchemy.

garden

The Dixnne

a at

integration of the elements of the garden plan along

cated people in the arcanely symbolic imager)^ derived

Poliphilus, like Dante's protagonist in

possible to

sense of the garden's expressive possi-

bilities

generated by

making it

design multiple texts and individual

its

A new

stand their meaning in the Renaissance,

impor-

combination of

expressions of imagination.

answers of a symbolic namre. In attempting to underit is

it

its

profoundly expanded the

through a

or architectural embellishments, often in association

and the namral

of symbols that often convey poly-

intended meanings. With

eral

with water, posed intellectual riddles and provided

as

an

allegorical

could follow an

itinerary

s

environment

notion of the in

which one

of initiation and revelation."

Comedy, begins his journey in a dense grove of trees.

Mathematics and mythology geometry and

This dark wood symbolizes the lack of certainty that

were

confronts any pilgrim setting out grove, which in antiquity

was

upon

a quest.

The

associated with sacred

places as well as with Plato's Academy

132

its

eroticism and idealism,

of theatrical stops where sculpmral

and Aristode's

with

The importance of the Hypierotomachm Poliphili

associated with allegory as places of allusion and

series

nvmphaeums

niched arcades for stamar\:

into a "third nature"^"

late sixteenth century."*

Influenced by the nature of Colonna

rative line

land-

villas

architectural character,

now

firmly joined.

— a design — would take genius. Formnately, genius was

potential in a style

To

allegory,

exploit this expressive

hand

grammar of landscape

art

at

in the

person of the architect Bramante.

BRAMANTE AND THE REDISCOVERY OF AXIAL PLANNING

Bkamante and the Rediscovery or Axial Planning: Gardens of Sixteenth-Century Italy 11.

gathering and theatrical entertainment. This plan

Establishing the Italian

lic

Renaissance Garden Paradigm: Belvedere Court and

was abandoned

Madama

Villa

Encouraged by

his reading

of Pliny the Younger,

Petrarch's first

somewhat

tentative

embrace of

panoramic perspective on Mont Ventoux heralded

would later become

the scenic appreciation that

mark of Renaissance thought. The belvedere,

one

meaning

in the history

"beautiful view,"

is

Italian

a belvedere

may be

A belvedere

lookout whose purpose

is

its

tower or

the enjoyment of scenery.

means of enjoying the view of gardens and

surrounding landscape. The papal

the

known

villa

as

Belvedere, built by Innocent VIII (papacy 1484-1492)

on

a

hill

within the Vatican

is

important for our

cussion here, however, not only because of nal siting with

commanding views of

its

dis-

origi-

Roman

the

Immediately upon

PopeJuHus

his election to the papacy,

(papacy 1503-1513) began implement-

II

ing a plan for a Vatican garden that was part of a polit-

power in Europe, with the Vatican serving as the

During the Renaissance, belvederes became an important

in earnest.

agenda to increase the importance of the papacy

quite simply, a

is,

begun

as a

an important

either an independent

century later was a garden program for

the Vatican

ical

depending upon time and place,

itself.

until a half

word

association with a particular type of garden structure.

part of the villa

death in 1455, and not

a hall-

of landscape design because of

Built in various styles,

at Nicholas's

new Roman empire. The revival of the Roman villa tradition within the walls of the

seat of a

ancient

Vatican thus served as a symbolical link to imperial times.

To perform

this

work, the pope chose as

his

Donato Bramante (1444-1514), who had

architect

recently completed the sophisticated tempietto adja-

cent to San Pietro in Montorio on the Janiculum

and

whom he

would soon commission

new basilica for St.

Bramante's

Peter's.

sion from the pope

was

Hill,

to design a

commis-

first

to provide a physical link

between the Belvedere of Innocent VIII on its hill and

commu-

the Vatican Palace below, creating sheltered nication

between the two buildings. At the same time,

he was to provide a setting for the pontiff's fine

col-

countryside but also because the subsequent treat-

lection of antique sculpture

ment of the ground that lay between it and

to serve as a suitable space for papal pageantry. In addi-

the Vati-

can influenced the course of garden history Bisected in the late sixteenth century tural addition to the Vatican Palace, half

by

tion, Julius

a struc-

of the Court

of the Belvedere today serves as a parking lot for Vatican employees, while the remaining half sculpture garden

Few today,

where visitors can stroll

therefore,

development

pivotal

Perhaps because so

comprehend its

in the history

cle

significance as a

of landscape design.

In developing his design,

an

axial

humanist pope, Nicholas

tecture,

and he employed Alberti

on such projects Peter's

and the integration of

Vatican Palace.

The plan its

Though

immediate predecessor,

for

St.

with the

considerably

ambitious program

harked back to Hadrian's

series

this basilica

Old

that Alberti conceived

included a palace garden. smaller in scale, in

as his consultant

as the reconstruction of

Villa rather it

this

garden

than to any

was not conceived as a

of outdoor rooms where intimate conversa-

tion could take place, as

were some of the new

villa

gardens near Florence, but rather as a space for pub-

He

since antiquity.

Roman two

On

ary garden seems only inevitable, not radical, to us.

first

retreat,

a cir-

rediscov-

Bramante employed

symmetry and proportion even

ing a problem that was generally

tion of

The

garden

set

left

about resolvunresolved

landscape planning, the harmoniza-

the uneven terrain

allel loggias,

between the Vatican

which were three

level adjacent to the palace,

was transformed

ing slope

and

finally

joined the

in

colliding axes.

Palace and the Belvedere, Bramante placed

race,

in

organization of forms and space that had not

been seen

ancient

the quattrocento.

a private

who shared his interest in the

Alberti's principles of

was derived from Bramante's

V (papacy 1447-1455) was deeply interested in archi-

wanted to have

of friends

terraced composition here, this once -revolution-

The seed for a garden on this spot was sown in

II

where he could meet and converse with

ery of the classical world.

a pleasant

(figs. 4.8, 4.9).

much later Italian, and indeed Euro-

pean, landscape design axial

is

a place

and an outdoor theater

stories

two

par-

on the lowest

then two stories as the

ris-

into an intermediate ter-

one story where an upper terrace

villa (fig. 4.9).

The

steps necessitated

these grade changes in the terraced hillside

important design elements in their

own

by

became

right, their

double staircases celebrations of ascent. Perpendicular to the

museum

broad terraces between the loggias today's (

galleries)

nating next to the

was

villa in

so called because of

windows of

a strong central axis termi-

its

a raised niche

— or exedra,

semicircular form.

From

the

the papal apartments the garden

133

CLASSICISM REBORN

4.7.

Great Niche, north end

of the

Belvedere Court (Court

of the Pine Cone, Vatican

Museums). Foreground sculpture,

Arnaldo Pomodoro,

Sphere within a Sphere. 1988-90

Below,

left: 4.8.

The southern

section of the Belvedere Court

today

Below,

right: 4.9.

The

Belvedere Court, designed

in

successive stages by Donate

Bramante, Michelangelo Buonarroti, and Pirro Ligorio.

1503-1561. Engraving by

Hendrick van Schoel. 1579

appeared as a stage

set or painting

demonstrating the

principles of single-point perspective,

nical discoveries

one of the

tech-

of the Renaissance that theater

after

most desirable

Bramante showed

sites for

at the

garden designers

Belvedere Court

how

designers could successfully exploit steep terrain.

designers and artists often virtuosically demonstrated

The

work. Following Bramante, designers planned

not occur

in their

construction of the Belvedere Court did all

at once,

but proceeded sporadically over

Bramante 's

gardens with elevated terraces or balconies over-

half a century. In addition to replacing

looking them in order that the viewer could readily

unusual convex-concave

grasp from

Michelangelo enclosed the arcade that formed

this

vantage point the axes that enabled

and made manifest a perspectival treatment of space.

The

elevated niche and

screened the

its

flanking wings

awkward juncture of two

the Belvedere Court and that of the believed to have

modeled

villa.

axes, that

Bramante

this architectural

of is

composi-

stairs in front

of the exedra, its

curving rear and raised the northern wall next to

an additional 1559-1565) (c.

story.

In

summoned

the architect Pirro Ligorio

1510-1583) to finish the project. Ligorio vaulted

the niche to create the Nicchione, or Great Niche, and

surmounting semicircular loggia

built

its

Around

4.9).

At the opposite end of the Court, he added

1550,

at Palestrina (see fig. 2.24).

under Pope Julius

III

(papacy 1550-1555),

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) replaced Bra-

mantes semicircular Praeneste-like steps with the double flight of stairs

we see today Paired staircases by then

had become ubiquitous

in Italian

garden design

as a

means of reinforcing axial symmetry and dramatizing the transition from terrace to terrace. Hillsides were

it

1561, Pius IV (papacy

tion along the Unes of the terraced Sanctuary of For-

tuna Primigenia

134

therefore the

(figs. 4.7,

a

BRAMANTE AND THE REDISCOVERY OF AXIAL PLANNING

semicircle of riered stone seats resembling those of a

Roman theater to facilitate viewing the tournaments and other spectacles that took place there

(fig. 4.9).

Pope

hi 1516, Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, later

Clement

commissioned Raphael

VII,

Sanzio, 1483-1520) to design the Villa

Monte Mario. Raphael's

Romano

Giulio

friend

was the

1508-1511

villa

(1481-1536)

on

for

to

first villa

Rome. Like

the outskirts of

real-

and Antonio da Sangallo, the

Younger (1485-1546), was probably It

Madama on

and collaborator

(1492/9-1546) helped with the

ization of the design,

the project.

(Rafifaello

also involved in

be constructed on

the Farnesina, the

designed by Baldassare Peruzzi

the banks of the Tiber,

it

was intended

supper parties attended by popes and cardinals as

by philosophical noblemen and witty courte-

well as sans.

These entertainments were an important

ture of

fea-

Roman life during the papacy of Julius II and

his successor,

Leo X (papacy 1513-1521). Like the

nesina, the VUla

Madama

Far-

has a beautifully frescoed

loggia that serves as the nexus of interpenetrating

indoor and outdoor spaces.

Designed in a halcyon era erings and

summer

when humanist gath-

entertainments were

order of the day, the structures of the servient to the gardens,

lengthy axes.

From

villa

still

the

were sub-

which stretched out along

the entrance

passes into an entry court and

on the south, one

beyond through an

entry loggia into the large central court. This axis

is

projected through another loggia in which recessed niches

seem

to pull the

outdoor space into the

archi-

tecture of the building, while simultaneously push-

Monte Mario

ing across the flank of

These two spaces are separated by

a

tall

to the north. vine-clad wall

pierced with a pedimented gate guarded by a pair of colossal level

were

is

male figures.

Parallel to this

a rectangular fish

pond

garden

(fig. 4.1 1).

at a

Fish

lower

tural character

of

this

one introduces us

inary and rudimentary

way

to

frescoes of garlands embellish the ceiling of the Far-

element. Water was employed with great imagina-

worked at the Villa Madama, painting the

tion in subsequent sixteenth-century Italian gardens,

frescoes that decorate the bays of this loggia in the

appearing in fountains, pools, water staircases, water

in,

House

which is now glassed

opened direcdy onto the garden. Lofty loggias with

parterres,

and giocc/ii d'acqm, or droll water games that

drenchings from concealed jets suddenly activated.

was

means of providing

V/ater in these gardens

cessors of the Villa Medici at Fiesole, help to dissolve

mesmerizing reflectivity, movement, and excitement.

the visual separation between building and nature and

It

among the hallmarks of Italian villa design. that of the Villa d'Este at Tivoli, does

not exploit the scenic potential of

Monte Mario but runs

its

lofty site

was meant

ity,

Curiously, the axial orientation of the Villa

Madama, unlike

a

to connote evanescence, insubstantial-

and temporality, while implying the agrarian

bounty achieved when humans harness this vital force of nature.

on

laterally across the hillside

The Manipulation of Gaflden

perpendicular axis that would have accomplished this

Form and Space in teie MidSixteenth Centliky: Villa Gililia

purpose, but his design for this extension of the gar-

The mature Renaissance style of straightforward axial

den was never executed. The garden's principal view

movement and

instead of along

its

gradient. Raphael planned another

calm, self-contained monumentality

from the loggia along the villa's

seen in the works of Bramante and Raphael at the

continues outdoors through a garden

beginning of the sixteenth century yielded to the mid-

of boxwood compartments and a long terrace stretch-

century manipulation of that style into an idiom of

therefore remains that

main

axis as

it

I

involved the spectator physically by providing surprise

the adjacent garden in axial relation to them, the suc-

are

pond. Villa

in a prelim-

one of the chief means of Italian Renaissance garden

Originally the loggia,

4.11. Fish

Madama

what would become

expression: the use of water as an important design

(fig. 4.10).

/.eft.

Madama

ponds

Giovanni da Udine (1487-1561/4), whose beautiful

antique style of those found in Nero's Golden

Giovanni da Udine,

Loggia fresco, Villa

common in medieval gardens, but the architec-

ing the fabric of the building into the adjacent garden.

nesina, also

4.10.

135

CUSSICISM REBORN

J-..;:,:;:,.;,;.L

VV;.

4

r

1

4.12.

by foreign

Plan of Villa Giulia, Rome.

Designed by Michelangelo

dignitaries

Madama,

the ViUa

Buonarroti, Giorgio Vasari.

to the garden

Bartolomeo Ammannati, and

approaching the Vatican. As

the house

at

was simply an accessory

and intended not

as a residence

but as a

place for papal entertainment.

Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola. After 1550

One enters the vestibule and passes immediately

O Portico O Garden Court @ Loggia © Nymphaeum Q Rear Loggia O Rear Garden

into a beautiful semicircular portico

embracing

a

horseshoe-shaped court. While the wall frescoes imitate the

andent Roman painting that antiquarians were

discovering at the time, the ceiling frescoes of this curv-

ing portico are painted as trompe-l 'oeil flower- and vineRight: 4.13. Ceiling of portico.

covered

trellises (fig. 4. 13).

These perhaps echo the

real

Villa Giulia

arbor that sheltered papal dignitaries and other distin-

sinuous elegance, spatial eccentricity, and compositional

ambiguity and tension, as found

of

in the art

the painter, architect, and designer Giulio

Romano

through the once-extensive gardens. polished, blood-purple

A massive, highly

porphyry fountain basin, recov-

(1492?- 1546) and the painter Parmigianino (Girolamo

ered from the Baths of Tims, formerly stood in the

Francesco Mazzola, 1503-1540). The same change

center of the garden court, catching the water that

can be charted

in

tive are distorted,

garden design. Scale and perspec-

The VUla

from the mouth of a swan beside

Beyond the garden court

and composition is purposely unbal-

tance of the entire design: the

anced, rather than centered. Giulia, built for

after his ascent to the

Pope Julius

papacy in 1550,

is

shordy

III

a Renaissance

masterpiece. Michelangelo himself participated in

its

Ammannati ing

behind

it

a figure

lies

fell

of Venus.

the piece de

resis-

nymphaeum, which

artfully screened from direct view, plac-

a loggia (figs. 4.14

and

4.15).

From

back of the loggia a pair of curving staircases

the

sweeps

plan as did the architects Giorgio Vasari (151 1-1574),

down

Bartolommeo Ammannati (151 1-1592), and Giacomo

landscape paintings reminiscent of the sacro-idyUic

Barozzi da Vignola (1507-1573).

much of its

Though

stripped of

original rich sculptural decor, the villa

is

nonetheless a remarkable sight, demonstrating

a

sophisticated interlocking of interior

and

axial

ley to the

gamesmanship west of

(fig. 4.12).

and exterior space Located in a

Rome just outside

originally designed as a papal retreat as a stopover

136

guished guests as they walked to and from the Tiber

and staging area

for

its

walls,

and

later

it

val-

was

served

formal processions

to Vignola's cool subterranean grotto. Topia,

landscapes that decorated ancient

were placed along the

sides of the court in front of

the nvmpJiaeiim, a grotto inhabited resentations of topia are

Roman viUa walls by sculpmral

nymphs, here serving as caryatids. The

now gone, and gone,

too,

mystery of the moss-padded grotto the

rep-

is

as

the romantic it

appeared to

American author Edith Wharton, who wrote

about

Italian viUas

and their gardens

at the

beginning

8RAMANTE AND THE REDISCOVERY OF AXIAL PLANNING

of the twentieth century

when

into antique picturesqueness. cide, restorers

patina

they were declining

Using a modern algae-

have recently removed the greenish

from the marble caryatids of the nymphaeum,

returning

them

treatment compels the

the eye along a

more tortuous route

than does a High Renaissance garden with axial

organization and

more

static spatial

entirely

no immediately

imaginary

its

clearer

composi-

at this point,

visible route leading

ceed,

itself, its

for here

where

one sees the subterranean grotto with

caryatids supporting the terrace of the loggia above

but finds no

visible access to

it.

Like PoHphilus in Hyp-

nerotomachia or Alice in Wonderland, one must, as in

ful

stand on their water-girt platform.

a

kinetic experience,

movement through

space, as an

underlying principle. Here the garden has become an itinerary, a

path.

route that teases as

Along the

it

pulls

central axis stretching

one along

a

between the

entry vestibule and the garden behind the nymphaeum,

space

is

events.

first

To pro-

yet another puzzle presents

within the garden designer's means, one that assumes

in

from the

is

one must descend one of the curving staircases

— the unfolding of elements not seen advance — has become device or anticipated tion. Surprise

and there

loggia to the second and out into that garden.

to the lower court

to their original whiteness.

Villa Giulia's spatial

movement of

become

a dream, search for the

door that opens to the

underground grotto where the buxom

this secret

caryatids

Ammannari placed

entrance in the midlevel grotto located

beneath the cases.

delight-

first

loggia between the

two curving stair-

A pair of staircases leading up

den hides within

a

to the rear gar-

second midlevel grotto beneath

the rear loggia.

subtly organized into a series of unexpected

One passes from the narrow vestibule into the

embrace of the horseshoe-shaped court and is drawn irresistibly

toward the loggia

at the rear

Because the

bays on each side of the central portal of this loggia have been opened up, this axial tug is partially relaxed,

but one

is

nevertheless propelled forward. 4.14.

Inside the

open loggia one

is

surprised to find

the precipitous drop to the lower level court. curvilinear staircases

wrapping around the

The

sides of

Nymphaeum,V\\\a

as seen

in

Giulia,

an engraving by

Giovanni Francesco Venturini, plate 7 from Le Fontane ne'

Palazzi e ne' Giardini di Roma,

this semicfrcular

court echo the curving embrace of

the entry court portico. But here for while

the

one can see through

nymphaeum

is

a visual puzzle,

a rear loggia

behind

into a garden, the strong axis has

con

li

loro prospetti et orna-

ment!. Parte Terza. n.d.

Below: today

4.15.

The same view

CLASSICISM REBORN

at this time,

and to accommodate them the garden

began to assume the

outdoor museum.

role of

In

addition to the Belvedere Court at the Vatican, Bra-

mante

built a giardino segreto, the so-called Statue

Court, located between the upper court and the Belvedere, for Pope Julius sculpture.

In.

bought the lier

collection of antique

II's

Fernando

1584, Cardinal

amassed some

collection

by Cardinal Andrea

della VaUe,

de' Medici

sixty years ear-

sending the

free-

standing pieces to Florence to embellish the Boboli

Gardens and keeping the of

his viUa

reliefs

on the Pincian

Inspired

by the

ology, patrons

to decorate the facade

Hill in

Rome.

discoveries of classical archae-

commissioned new sculpture. The

notion became firmly established that the garden was a setting in

which white marble figures should be seen

against dark green foliage or

framed by architecmral

niches within building facades and garden walls.

humanists' interest in

Humanism and the Role oe SCULPTUK^ NaTUKE, AND Symbols oe Prestige in Garden Iconography 4.16.

Oval court, Villa Pia, Vati-

can Gardens, Rome. Designed

In G. B. Falda's engraving of the Vatican

artists

classical

The

mythology furnished

with thematic material, which they wove into

narrative itineraries. Familiar literary

themes

that

found expression in the garden included those of the

Golden Age, Elysium,

Gardens we

see the Villa Pia, also called the Casino Pio, built

by

Venus presid-

rustic goodness,

ing over the Garden of Love, Apollo, the Muses,

Mount

Parnassus, and the virtuous hero assigned

by Pirro Ligorio. 1560

Pirro Ligorio for Giulia

it

1560. Like the Villa

has a spatially ambiguous plan that visually

puUs one sage at

Pope Pius IV in

in

near-impossible tasks or waylaid by treacherous

enchantments.

An

and through while making physical pas-

first

appear occluded. At the same time,

it

important element of Renaissance garden

iconography was namre

itself

One sees, for instance,

above the Belvedere Court and the ViUa

provides an example of another important Renais-

in the bosco

sance Italian contribution to the tradition of garden

Pia in the Vatican Gardens, the desire for a wildwood,

design: the casino, or

summerhouse,

built as a retreat

an evocation of the sacred grove

in antiquity. Simi-

reported that Pope Julius

from the bustle and ceremony of court Hfe. Here the

larly, it is

pope held soirees at which invited scholars sat around

for simple country food, peasant dances,

an oval court discussing philosophy, poetry, and reli-

tivals,

had become an important

gion. Discussion groups part of the intellecmal ters,

life

of Renaissance

men of let-

and Ligorio's oval, which is embraced by exedras

of carved stone

seats,

is

an architectural expression

vigna (literally vineyard, the

used for a suburban viUa

his taste

and wine feshis

term contemporaries

retreat).

These were abun-

dant with wildlife, melodious with birdsong, and

adorned with works of

art.

cessors. Renaissance viUa

(fig. 4.16).

to be

the art and architecture of

with

enjoyed strolling in the untamed parts of

of the humanists' pleasure in scholarly conversation

The recovery of

III,

Like their ancient prede-

owners wanted their groves

haunted by the sculptural representatives of

river gods,

nymphs,

satyrs. Pan,

Diana, and Venus.

antiquity provided villa designers with immediate

Added to this Uterary agenda was another, more

sources of inspiration. As an archaeologist, Ligorio

obvious, motive for the development of Renaissance

himself had thoroughly explored Hadrian's Villa on

garden iconography: the aggrandizement of the gar-

behalf of the Este family, and the mosaics that embel-

den owners' reputations through symbols, with the

lish

the loggia of the Villa Pia and the arched portals

entering the court reveal a renewed appreciation of ancient

Roman

decorative

found on ancient

were echoed

Roman

art.

Low

reliefs in

baths, palaces,

at the Villa Pia

and

stucco

and

villas

elsewhere.'"'

implication that the patrons'

power was being put to

beneficent use for humankind. Increasingly, after the

middle of the sixteenth century,

became manifestations of

Italian

gardens

princely power. This

true in Florence as well as in

was

Rome, although such

Along with the wall frescoes and mosaics uncovered by sixteenth-century archaeologists,

Tuscan gardens

andent marble sculptures were being excavated from

the dazzling villa creations of the popes and cardinals

the

Roman soil.

Several great collections

were formed

remained

in

as the

Medici

villa at Castello

much more conservative in design than did

and around Rome.

— BRAMANTE AND THE REDISCOVERY OF AXIAL PLANNING

Apotheoses of the Renaissance Vieia Gare^en: ViEEA d'EsEE ANn ViLl.A LaNTE

who was responsible for several excavations including

Although Castello and the Boboli Gardens contained

Being a wealthy humanist

water features symbolically associated with Duke

fact,

Cosimo's reputation the

as a builder

that of nearby Hadrian's Villa

of aqueducts,

it is

to

Roman Campagna that we must turn to find gar-

dens that apotheosize water and use

it

and

for the rediscovery

of many antique marbles, mosaics, and other artifacts.

with the inven-

collector, Ippolito had, in

put Ligorio on his payroll as his personal archae-

ologist in 1550, the year in

which he had been

appointed to the Tivoli post and had begun to dream

of a great

hillside

garden below the palace.

One

part

choreographer directing the movements

of Ligorio's job was undoubtedly to garner antique

of the dance or the creativity of a sculptor exploring

marbles to combine with contemporary sculpmre in

the plasticity of clay These effects

allegorical

tiveness of a

were accomplished

compositions throughout the garden.

Although Ligorio was himself

through the ingenuity of sixteenth-century jbntonim,

a sufficiently

virtuosic hydraulic engineers with an understanding

accomplished

of metaphysics as well as physics and a reputation

graphic themes that would portray the humanistic

akin to that of magicians because of the ingenuity of

ideals

their creations.^'* In the

gardens of Villa d'Este water

reaches a height of expressiveness that

is

analogous

not only with dance and sculpture, but with music as well. For

the drip

it is

roar, the splash

and gurgle, the murmur and

and tinkle,

as well as the cooling spray,

of water everywhere that has gettable to visitors

made

this

garden unfor-

through the cenmries.

classicist to

develop the various icono-

of the cardinal, he was probably assisted by the

cardinal's resident poet, 1585).'' After 1560,

Marc-Antoine Muret (1526-

Giovanni Alberti Galvani served

as superintending architect in charge of overseeing

the construction of

masonry

stairs,

fountains, fish

ponds, and other features. Professional^tanieri were hired to develop the water devices that operated the spectacular fountains.

Like other superb gardens. Villa d'Este

is

The construction of

the

the gardens of the Villa

product of a passionate obsession on the part of an

d'Este continued over a twenty-two-year period until

owner willing to spend extraordinary sums of money

the cardinal's death in 1572,

and with the

abruptly.

taste to hire the best design talent avail-

able. In 1550, the cardinal

was appointed governor of

(1509-1572),

Pope Julius

III.

site

Tivoli

by

Roman summer

of Hadrian's Villa, but of many other sec-

ond cenmry as later

an ancient

Tivoli,

twenty miles west of Rome, was not

resort about

only the

of Ferrara, Ippolito D'Este

c.e. patrician villas. Its desirability

was due

to the waters of the

Aniene

then

River,

which came cascading dramatically down steep precipices; to

its

salubrious mineral springs; and to

the excellent drinking water that

was channeled from major

several sources along the riverbank to four

aqueducts serving the

Roman

metropolis.

An

aque-

Montaigne

essayist

Ippolito 's will

The governor s palace, nal's

were finally resolved, Cardinal Alessan-

ments. While vegetative growth, alterations, and

some of

periodic lack of maintenance have blurred

the formality seen in a contemporary engraving,

can

still

we

discern Ligorio's design and, with the help of

modem scholarship, decode the humanist themes that are

woven into its fabric:

erosity

Nature's abundance and gen-

and the relationship between Art and Nature

(figs.

central preoccupations of the Renaissance

4.17-4.20). In parsing the

humanist meaning of

the garden, which besides expressing the Art-Nature duality has

in earnest.

when

engendered by Cardinal

dro d'Este undertook some restoration and improve-

one of the

in 1561 after

533-1 592), lamented their unfin-

inheritance problems

of which was borne by both the cardinal and the town of Tivoli, which also benefited, was built

(1

ished state, although in the seventeenth century,

duct carrying water from the Rivellese Spring, the cost

work on the garden had begun

when work stopped

Contemporary visitors, including the French

many

references to the virmous

mytho-

a perquisite of the cardi-

logical

hero Hercules, here identified with Cardinal

appointment, was part of an old Franciscan

d'Este,

one should remember that the

monastery beside the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore at the top of a wall. Pirro Ligorio

hill

adjacent to the western

was commissioned

renovation of the palace into a

town

to oversee the

summer residence suitDuke Alfonso

able for Cardinal Ippolito, the son of

I

entry to the garden

from a gate

in the

was not from

outer wall set in the

Standing on the balcony of the visitor looks

original public

the viUa, but rather hillside

beyond the verdant mamre

of the gardens to the distant

Walk and

hills.

below.

villa today,

tree

Below

is

the

canopy

the Car-

of Ferrara and Lucrezia Borgia. But the palace was to

dinal's

be a

entire project; as

enteenth-century Fountain of the Great Beaker,

had already demonstrated at a villa he had

which mingles visually with the watery plume of the

relatively

the cardinal

minor element of the

rented on the Quirinal in sion. In Ligorio

Rome, gardens were his pas-

he had not only a capable designer but

also the foremost archaeologist of his day, the

person

the rainbow spray of Bernini's sev-

Fountain of the Dragons beneath

symboHze perides,

the ones guarding the

which were

slain

it.

The dragons

Garden of the Hes-

by Hercules. Descending

139

I

"

the garden's Iconography. Nature

Ihe traditional plan of most Italian

Renaissance gardens

— a plan

which

in

matically manifested

in

is

dra-

known as the Water Organ,

there are compartmentalized beds near

Nature, also

the villa and, as one approaches the

culminating the water axis on the north-

outer limits of the property, a surrounding screen of trees

— has been reversed

here because of the nature of the

site.

A

wooded slope with diagonal paths to accommodate the steep grade lies directly

beneath the retaining wall sup-

porting the villa terrace. ley

Where the

val

has been remodeled by an extensive

process of cutting and

an apron

filling to

of level terrain

create

and a geometri

east

(fig. 4.18).

as the dramatic sheer

The human

the Fountain of

Following a "concert,

constitutes Art,

was manipulated to trap and

Alley

a fontaniere would flush the

itself is

the steep slope. This effect

The

permanent tain of the fall

in

spill down was made

the twentieth-century Foun-

Cascade, an enormous water-

pouring into the pond below.

An

cascade was created here by the

art of

channeling their waters into

aqueducts life

was an

Along the upper

emblematic

fell in

successive

stages like a natural waterfall rather than

rim,

water

between carved obelisks, and

it

in

the

of the recently reborn metropolis.

and fountain designer, Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1680);

important factor

fleurs

de

lys (the last

is

channeled

boats, eagles,

two forms being

of the Este family).

At the northeast end of the Alley of the Hundred Fountains, within an

now known, the Oval A colossal statue of

Tlvoli, or

as

Fountain

(fig. 4.19).

it

is

Albunea, the Tlburtine Sibyl, presides over the cascade, which

of three conduits

facade, and a deluge would

seventeenth-century architect, sculptor,

140

composed

The

symbolizing the three tributaries of the

compartments.

Nature constitutes the principal theme of

(fig. 4.20).

Tiber

cross-axes divide the garden into square

and

ends

— the Albuneo, the Aniene, and the Erculaneo — which flow toward Rome.

vaulted chambers behind the elaborate

earlier

Art

fruitful

celebrated along

is

enclosed piazza, stands the principal fountain of the garden, the Fountain of

the second major cross-axis, the Alley of

cally pitched northeast side slope,

The relationship between

which

the Hundred Fountains

in its pipes,

employ the

resources of nature toward

which occurred when water pressure release air

we see today

spill

ability to

is

furnished by

water from the River Aniene, which flows a

into

ball; its

fleur

de

an oval basin surmounted by

spurting jets delineate the Este

lys.

The sources

of the

Aniene

and the Erculaneo are represented as reclining river

gods set

in naturalistic

grottoes built into the surrounding slope.

Crowning

this artificial rock

work

is

a

statue of Pegasus, the magical horse

whose

hoofprints supposedly struck

water out

of

Mount Parnassos, thereby

creating the fountain of the

proclaiming the power of

Muses and

Art.

4.18.

Fountain of Nature, engraving by Giovanni Francesco Venturini, plate 13 from Le

Fontane del Giardino Estense

Fiume Aniene. Parle Quarta.

in Tivoli,

con

li

4.20. Alley of

the Hundred Fountains

loro prospeti, e Vedute delta Cascata del

n.d.

141

one of the diagonal ramps, one comes to the Alley of the

device with great appeal to the humanist imagination.

Hundred Fountains composed of three conduits

symbolizing the three tributaries of the Tiber, which

flow from the

water

is

eagles,

hills

of Tivoli toward Rome. Here

Cardinal

Gambara was given

the bishopric of

Viterbo in 1566, and two years later received confir-

mation of one of the perquisites of

his office, prop-

channeled between carved obelisks, boats,

erty rights in the old hunting park at Bagnaia. His

two forms being

predecessors had enclosed the park, which consisted

and fleur de

(the last

lys

wooded slope of Monte

emblematic of the Este family) and pours from one

of the

basin into another through grotesque animal heads.

built the

After visiting the Fountain of Tivoli and the

Fountain of the Rometta, a water feature that was

Sant'Angelo, and had

aqueduct that brought water to the town as

well as to the park.

A small hunting lodge

fashioned of stucco-covered brick to represent ancient

ceived the notion of building a great

Rome

there. In place

in miniature, one returns to descend one

of the sweeping oval staircase and gaze back up

through the spray of the

villa

arm

at the

Dragon Fountain. Tak-

ing the central staircase, which has channels of clear

water running down

its

flanking walls, one arrives at

the next level, that of the fish ponds. Here, looking

back toward the

villa,

one

realizes that Ligorio has

repeated Bramante's design for the Belvedere Court as a series

But there

is

an important difference:

Bramante's Renaissance garden could be grasped in its

entirety

from a single vantage point within the Vat-

ican Palace, but the Villa d'Este cannot be taken in altogether.

would be

Not only is it more

the Bramante prototype, but

also a

as part

barcc,

garden

villa

or park for hunting, there

a twenty-acre bosco with the kinds of mes-

the literature of antiquity

would have sought. Con-

tinuing this iconographic narrative, there

would be

a

formal garden in which Art gained the upper hand over Nature, in celebration of the cardinal's magnifi-

cence and benefactions to the people of Viterbo.

The designer of Villa Lante is almost universally believed to have been the architect nola,

whose

Giacomo da

Vig-

Gambara begged of his

services Cardinal

friend Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, as Vignola

was

then engaged upon another important garden commission at the Villa Farnese nearby at Caprarola. Con-

programmatic

struction proceeded over the next decade, and in

meant to

garden, one in which the separate parts are

be experienced sequentially

of the

than

spatially intricate

it is

the

sages of allusion that a humanist scholar steeped in

of descending terraces organized around

a central axis.

was

only structure on the property when the cardinal con-

of a humanist itin-

August 1579,

a lavish

Pope Gregory

XIII

banquet was given there

for

(papacy 1572-1585), after which

erary that celebrates the importance of Cardinal

the pontiff promptly canceled Gambara's pension.

and the noble family of which he was the most

Knowing that Gambara had been appointed by Pope

d'Este

conspicuous representative. Today,

it is

shorn of much

of the sculptural decoration because the cardinal's fine collection

of antique statuary was sold in the

eighteenth century. While this loss deprives the

villa

of iconographic specificity and thematic continuity, the garden tour that nal's guests

was once enjoyed by the

and subsequent

cardi-

travelers nevertheless

Gregory's predecessor, the reform-minded Pius (papacy 1566-1572), and that he was a prominent

art

and

Giovanni Francesco Gambara's garden three miles east of the

name of

today by the ers,

town of Viterbo. its

at

virtuosic expression of

axial

the Villa d'Este, the Villa Lante

allusive

it

offers a

planning

ilanty in being a in

all

at

garden that

with an

is

It

bears further sim-

meant not

to

be taken

once, but rather as sequential stops along a

had

as

much to do

with

While the garden

politics as is

with

renowned part of Villa

the

first in

visitors,

one

order to follow the

itin-

erary planned by Cardinal Gambara. the

Golden Age myth,

piety.

investing

it

The bosco evokes

with another, that

of a punishing flood familiar to readers of the Old Tes-

tament. In the classical version, because of wickedness, Jupiter, Hke Jehovah in the tures,

human

Hebrew scrip-

became angry and decided to destroy the earth

with a flood so mighty that dolphins could be found

swimming in were

left

the forest.

to repopulate,

Only two virmous humans and

their descendants

compelled to labor in order to make the earth

were

fruitful.

Here, however, the garden itinerary has a pro-

The garden spells out the virtues of Cardinal Gambara, who made the surrounding land more

meant to pass first through the kind of

bountiful and, in the tradition of classical civilization,

prescribed route that axis.

is filled

iconography wedding humanist learning to

personal glory and family pride.

the mentality

should tour the bosco

known

combined with a highly imaginative use of water. Also like

was

Bagnaia,

seventeenth-century own-

Bramantian

That, however,

Lante and the park is often neglected by

It is

the Lante family. Like the Villa d'Este,

literature.

Cardinal

is

from pagan

opulently, in a style derived

of a proud and wealthy aristocrat whose appointment

remains a memorable experience for modem visitors.

Contemporary with the Vdla d'Este

we may find it strange that he

cer of the Inquisition,

would build

V

offi-

logue as one

"dark

is

wood"

move

the visitor off the central

traversed by certain literary figures as

they started out on their journeys of initiation, a

was

a

reach

patron of the arts enabling the its

human spirit to

highest potential. This, in brief,

is

the mes-

bKAMANIt ANU

DEscmvrio accvr^tj^^^^.

IHt HtUI^UUVtHY Uf AAIAL KLAWWIWb

KTl-AMA'NlSS'C^l VVLGO DJCirVRRARCO Dl BA GNA IA '

^Hii

inferius ii/um ffl Cojleltum Bai/nat'«>.

sage of the park and

through design,

theme of

its

adjacent garden.

It

develops

as at the Villa d'Este, the age-old

relationship

among humans,

of one

enriching

Age

(figs.

and

encoded

man in bringing the three into such an

harmony

as to constitute a

its

design

program

most part; one walks alongside

perhaps more powerfully for

this

it,

very

gives, as

does that of

reason. And, instead of the architectural

cHmax of the

into nature as

it

ends

in the

of Cardinal Gambara's friend Count Pier Francesco

Gambara, with gambero, the word

his family

name,

for "crayfish" in

Ital-

Orsini (1513?-1584), to see the arcane climax of

geometry and pro-

epic

poem Orlando Furioso, completed in

Ludovico Ariosto (1473-1533),

1532 by

as well as Virgil's

portion as well as by the iconographic program

Aeneid, Dante's Inferno,

derived from antique themes, the Villa Lante can be

Petrarch, provided inspiration for this enigmatic land-

seen in plan as a counterpoint of It is

finally this

circles

and squares.

harmony of design, and new Golden Age under Pius V

balance and

not the messages of a

or Cardinal Gambara's prestige in the guise of humanism, that account for the deep pleasure that so visitors

have experienced in viewing

hillside

garden

built

eral terraces linked

upon

it.

many

In creating a

a clear, strong axis,

its

sev-

by stairs, Vignola displayed a debt

to Bramante. But he altered

design means. His axis

is

Vignola.

1568-1579

humanism as a programmatic factor in garden design. The

ian) suggests his achievement.

Inspired by a sense of ancient

c.

Extravagant Epitomh of Humanist Alttgoky:

and the presence through-

pun matching

Villa Lante, Viterbo.

Fountain of the Deluge.

out the garden of the cardinal's device in the form of a crayfish (a visual

The

Designed probably by

Belvedere exedra, here the central axis simply melts

Thl Sacko Bosc o ai Bomakzo We must turn to Bomarzo near Viterbo, the garden

the contemporary Villa d'Este, a literary dimension to the garden experience,

4.21.

second Golden

4.21-4.27).^^ Thus, the humanistic text

in

it

Giacomo Barozzi da art,

nature, while symbolically portraying the heroic efforts

eled visually for the

perceiving

scape in which

Count

and probably the writings of

Orsini manipulated scale and

perspective to create an itinerary of unusual scenes

studded with bizarre sculpmre and architectural mon-

uments forming a a riddle to be It

series

of tableaux, each serving as

decoded by

his guests.

was only gradually that Bomarzo assumed its

character as an enchanted forest, or sacro bosco, as the

count developed one part

after

another into an

itin-

and expanded Bramante's

erary of personal history and symbolical discovery.

aquatic and can only be trav-

For instance, the gruesome tableau of a stone giant

143

Above

left: 4.25.

Above:

Water Chain

River

4.26.

Gods representing the

Tiber and the Arno

Left: 4.27.

Boxwood compartments and

Water Parterre

Upon entering the Villa Lante, one first encounters the Fountain of Pegasus sur-

rounded by Muses

O, perhaps derived

from the Pegasus on the rock above the Oval Fountain at Villa d'Este.

winged

In both,

the

horse's hoof striking the earth

the destruction of mankind by flood.

linked curves both create and echo the

upward from small lamps when

Flanking the Fountain of the Deluge, twin

movement

tain is turned on;

dining pavilions,

known as the Loggias name and crayfish

gambero

in Italian,

his name.) Reinforcing the

artistic creativity

is

his

therefore a visual pun referring to

crest

symbol

source of

and

symbolism

of

the Deluge, small pipes installed beneath

(fig. 4.23).

Along one

of the diagonal paths

through the park

was the

Fountain of the

over the shallow shell-like basins

spills

set within

device of Cardinal Gambara. (The word for crayfish is

generates the Spring of Hippocrene, of the

of

the Muses, bear the

it.

Thus, out of the

Deluge, Cardinal to

The water

spilling through the

into the basin flanked by the

river

gods

denote the

fertility

the land, a

fertility that is

were, according

in

diet of

Arcadian man. Another vanished

fountain, that of Bacchus,

evokes

descriptions of the Golden

wine was believed

Virgil's

Age when

times treated to an unexpected drench-

humor

ing in keeping with the

trellis-

of the day.

Symmetrical colonnaded aviaries, mod-

Varro's ancient garden,

that

in

were designed

in

terrace above. race,

which

is

In

the middle of this ter-

flanked by rows of plane

trees, stands the Fountain of the Table.

as wings to the Loggias of the Muses,

The stone table with

and within them berry-producing plants

channel and bubbling

were grown

dinal

and helped establish the

identity of the

Around the octagonal Fountain

park as the earthly paradise. High up the

wooded

slope there

is

a gate through

which one can enter the garden top.

There one

tain of the

is

confronted by the Foun-

Deluge

O, a fern-encrusted

grotto with six openings from

water drips and pours

which

into a basin

two dolphins are swimming,

now almost obliterated (fig. 4.24|.

at its

their

where forms

by vegetation

This refers to Ovid's account of

to attract songbirds. of

O, below some stairs, a ramp leads down to the next ter-

Pomona standing

the base of the steps leading from the

and dragons symbolized the

of virtue

to

emphasized by

niches within the retaining wall near

surrounded fountains depicting unicorns life

water brings

the statues of Flora and

eled probably on descriptions of those

to run freely in

streams from the ground. Other

were some-

two great

Their cornucopias

(fig. 4.26).

from above. These also served a

visitors

falls

Gambara and

its

central water

jets

provided Car-

his guests with an

experience similar to that

of

ancient

the

Foun-

series of garden compartments outlined in

it

in

of the

one gazes down upon a

tain of Lights,

boxwood and

a central water parterre.

island, recalling

Fountain of the Deluge allowed water to

which garden

one below. From the terrace

becomes the

sportive function, permitting water tricks

to Ovid, a staple in the

sides of each step into a channel

Within the water parterre

Tiber and the Arno as

the foun-

water pours from the

beneficent crayfish's claws symbolically

the eaves of the pavilions that frame the

rain

of the

human wel-

for

now vanished, which linked the boscowWh the Golden Age, since acorns

Acorns,

wreck

Gambara can be seen

be harnessing water

fare.

water that

of the swirling

Theater at Hadrian's Villa fig. 2.44).

G

a circular

is

perhaps the Marine

The loggias

(fig. 4.27;

of the

see

twin palazz-

ine open onto the garden, and in

them

one finds frescoes depicting the

Villa

Farnese at Caprarola, the Villa d'Este Tivoli,

and the

part of the garden, wild nature has

thoroughly tamed by

Gambara

is

at

Villa Lante itself. In this

art,

been

and Cardinal

seen as the patron

of this

transformation. Cardinal Gambara's original centerpiece of the island terrace, a

water-oozing spire {meta sudans), replaced

in

was

the seventeenth century by

four bronze youths holding aloft Cardinal

the Dolphins

Romans whose banqueting arrange-

Alessandro Peretti Montalto's device of

stepped

ments sometimes included pools upon

three mountains and a star The sur-

race.

A greatly elongated

head and

front

crawfish,

its

claws emanating from the

which servants floated food (see

middle of the stairs at the top of the ramp

and

its

rear

claws hanging over top

figs.

The Fountain

of Lights

Q links the

Cardinal's dining terrace with the

of

water

the Fountain of the River Gods that stands

theater below, a concentric construction

on the terrace below, forms a catena

of

d'acqua, or water chain

(fig. 4.25;

@).

Its

upper concave and lower convex

steps.

rounding water parterre

was meant to

evoke an ancient naumachia, a flooded

2.42,2.46).

One hundred

sixty small jets shoot

theater

where mock naval

held. In

each

of its four

battles

ponds

is

were

a small

stone boat holding stone arquebusiers.

These were engineered to

fire jets of

water toward the central fountain.

145

CLASSICISM REBORN

Hypnerotomachia

— indeed, the same kind of

Poliphili

Renaissance appetite for marvels as

found

is

in

Shake-

speare's Tempest.

Much of the garden's intended meaning is obviously lost upon the modern visitor who is directed to the garden of the Villa Orsini by signs pointing to the

"Parco dei Mostri" (Park of Monsters), an invitation for tourists to stop tastic

and gawk

some of which

forms,

at a collection

of fan-

are carved out of the

liv-

ing rock, a soft tufa. Lacking familiarity with the

symbolism

literary

ing a

young man

apart,

Sacro

this Bosco, Bomarzo. After 1542.

ensemble represents a

common

was the

currency

may at first wonder:

Is

an exhibition showing the hallucinations of

deranged brain?

Carved from the native rock, this

that

of humanist intellectuals, one

Sculpture of a giant tear-

4.28.

Coney

Island with

some of

a

of

a sLxteenth-century version

Is it

the twentieth-century

scene from Orlando Furioso and

is

amusement park's topsy-turvy atmosphere and pen-

believed to express

chant for the freakish, the magical, and the macabre.

Orsini's passionate despair

over the rejection of his suit by a young

woman with whom

had fallen

in

love

now exploited commercially as a local

Although

he

wonder, the garden

some years

after his wife's death.

fascinating sance.

window on

Count Orsini,

friend of several

property

at

at

a

Bomarzo,

the landscape of the Renais-

renowned militar\^ captain and

eminent

Bomarzo

in fact, provides a

men of letters, inherited the

in 1542. Shortly thereafter

whom he was

married Giulia Farnese to

he

apparently

deeply devoted, as evidenced by the small temple

commemorating her, which is the culmination of the visitor's itinerar\^

through the garden. Interrupted bv

the count's military' campaigns, the building of the sacro bosco nevertheless

became

occupied his imagination until

Bomarzo's lack of

a tautly

explained by the fact that diff'erent architects

who

it

his obsession

his

and

death in 1585.

geometric plan

was

built

is

by several

attempted to express the

owner's literary and personal passions over a long

The

period of time.

result

is

a closer

in spirit to the multivalent, initiatory; 429. Hell Mask, Sacro Bosco,

Bomarzo. The legend above the Hell Mask,

Dante, reads "Cast

who of

away

young man

Orlando Furioso and

apart

may

is

derived from a scene in

refer to Orsini's grief after

in translation:

enter here.

"

But instead

embarking upon

allegorical

character of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili than per-

haps any other Renaissance garden.

Its

disorganized

being rejected by a young

woman; whereas

elephant carrying a dead soldier with

its

the

war

trunk and

appearance and the discrepancies in scale

monuments

are further explained

other fantastical figures grouped around a gaping Hell

these fantastic forms

Mouth bearing an

ral

were

car\^ed

among its

by the

fact that

from various natu-

a terrifying

journey into the underworld,

were

actually

inscription derived

resemble the monsters

at the

from Dante

entrance to the under-

being invited into a banquet pavilion.

and

drawn from

every thought, you

Orsini's guests

tearing a

approximation

world

The huge stone

tongue within the Hell Mask served as a table and

its

eyes

in the Aeneid (figs. 4.28, 4.29). Like the Villa

d'Este and Villa Lante, the sacro bosco of Bomarzo a

domain of

allusions. Its architecmre

is

and sculpmre

boulders strewn about the

site.

There

is

even

uncertaint)' as to the point of entry, although logic

points to the northeast corner

where two sphinxes

bear legends enjoining the visitor to discern with awe

and amazement the marvelous character of the

as windows.

represent various literary themes, not least of which is

the

theme of the sacred wood itself,

precinct,

an Arcadia, or locus amomus

those found

lie

beyond.

Bomarzo is a unique

a deity -haunted like

that

and

its

inherent

expression of landscape

theatricalit}-

points the

art,

way to the dra-

this

curious

matic character of seventeenth-century Baroque

place therefore with a disposition to look for

human-

design, a

in

Ovid or

Virgil.

istic literary

One may approach

themes, autobiographical and philo-

sophical allusions, a great deal of epigrammatic didacticism,

and a fascination with the antique and

the exotic such as propels Colonna's narrative in the

146

works

st\'listic

chapter Here diff'erent

development we

will trace in the next

we will mrn our attention to villas of a

character in which abstract mathematical

composition and architectural

much more

spatial configuration

important than hunianist iconography.

is

BRAMANTE AND THE REDISCOVERY OF AXIAL PLANNING

PALLAL3IAN ViL.LAS

OF THE VeNEIO

Andrea Palladio (1508-1580) ential figures in the history

his

is

fully their position in relationship to the landscape. In

one of the most influ-

of architecture because of

famous treatise / quattro libri dell 'architettura, or The

Four Books of Architecture (1570), and the Olympian

A stonemason by

invisible

and having no view

a distance

tectural historian Caroline Constant explains, PaUa-

humanist

who had formed

an

dio

was interested in scenographic space, or space that

received a classical education. Vicenza

ground plane

is

located in

the Veneto, the mainland region in the alluvial plains

of the Alps that Venetians refer to as

at the foothills

the terraferma

where the

dty-state

of Venice had estab-

lished control beginning in the fourteenth century.

Although

a thriving

still

a land base as a

maritime republic, Venice

means of defense and to con-

food supply, a prudent investment and sound

economy,

or the

that

perceptual and therefore unlike

is

which

perspectival space,

contained and defined by

is

waUs. She asserts that "for Palladio the ground plane was, conceptually, a surface of

human

manufacture

rather than part of the natural world, and hence, a tabula rasa.

for

Cubism

It

served

—

— much

as a base

picmre plane did

as the

on which

to conduct various

experiments into the nature of three-dimensional

patri-

form. By elevating the central block of the

were attracted to the charms of

rural

ladio stressed the idealized nature of the

who

plane, creating a

villeggiatura, as they, like

sojourned outside

Rome and

other

Italians

Florence, called their

periodic residence at their country estates. as Daniele Barbaro,

Men such

another important patron of

found precedent

Pal-

for involving themselves in

Roman

on the

physically discontinuous, an assemblage

an inflationary age. In addition,

too, in

cian Venetians

ladio 's,

from

themselves, lack dignity and majesty."''' As the archi-

training,

is

life,

siting

between

hiUs because buildings in hidden valleys, apart fi-om

being

academy in his villa near Viccnza where young nobles

trol its

he offered these

he

work.

his

Trissino, a Venetian

needed

libri,

instructions: "Don't build in valleys enclosed

the protege around 1537 of Giangiorgio

beauty of

became

Book Two of / quattro

new ground from which Without the

the surrounding domain.

would not

see the landscape in the

ground

to survey

we

building,

same terms; the

architecmre gathers the landscape into

redimensions

villa, Pal-

its

domain and

it."'*

authors

For the papal prelate Daniele Barbaro and his

Cato, Varro, and Columella. Trissino was instru-

brother. Marc' Antonio Barbaro, an important Venet-

mental

ian statesman, Palladio built the Villa Barbaro at

agricultural affairs in the ancient

in

helping Palladio

initiate his career as

an

commissions from the nobility of

architect with

Vicenza for palaces and

Dolomite

villas.

In publishing his Quattro

libri

Palladio

had

as

precedent the books of Sebastiano Serlio (1475-1554),

on the

(Treviso) in the Veneto

4.30).

the

foothills

below the

during the decade of the

BuUt on the foundation of

villa's

plain

projecting

a

Maser

1

550s

medieval

(fig.

castello,

main building block has

a stuc-

between 1537 and

1551. Collected

coed Roman-templelike facade and is flanked by serv-

and published posthumously in 1584

as L'Architettura,

ice

issued in six parts

these treatises codified the five classical orders

—

Doric, Tuscan, Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite. Serlio's illustrations

and

were

a design resource for Palladio,

like Serlio, Palladio

took advantage of Venice 's

when he published own well-illustrated, similarly formatted work. In

wings that end

in dovecotes.

barchesse,

or utilitarian farm building, and the dove-

cote were typical constructions in the north Italian rural countryside.

Unique among the works of

nymphaeum here

leadership in the field of printing

ladio, the

his

tural niches. Palladio

addition, PaUadio

was introduced by

Trissino to the

architectural treatise of Vitruvius, Ten Books of Architecture,

and Barbaro asked him to provide the

trations for his

commentary on

this

illus-

work, which

appeared in 1556. Palladio was, of course, familiar

with Alberti's

treatise,

De

re aedificatoria.

Alvise

Cornaro, a humanist with an interest in architecture,

These are elegant

renditions of local vernacular architecture, as the

is

a hemicycle with sculp-

may have been influenced in its design by such Roman models as the Villa Giulia and Pirro Ligorio's plans for Villa d'Este, both of

were roughly contemporary with the (fig. 4.31).

However, the

relationship to

its

villa

Villa

Roman or Tuscan villas where waUs, rather than the ground

plane, articulate

and contain space. Placed

near the juncmre of the arable plain and the hfllside,

Palladio

wedded

and

who cultivated the land. s

understanding of

classical

ples, the villas

he built

in the

like

the Vflla Barbaro at

wooded

Maser presides over

landscape, a beautiful object

in

its

space, with space

having priority over object, which nonetheless aggran-

form was

to a profoundly architectural imagination.

Adorned with pedimented facades

Barbaro

landscape surroundings than do

nourished in him a practical approach to design and

the farmers

which

has an entirely different

whom Palladio met when he lived for a time in Padua, a respect for santa agricoltura, blessed agriculture,

Pal-

Roman tem-

Veneto dominate the

landscape in a regal manner. Palladio considered care-

dizes

and confers meaning upon its spatial surround-

ings.

Complementing the PaUadian architecmral and

landscape treatment of the Villa Barbaro are the magnificent

frescoes

by Veronese (Paolo

Caliari,

1528-1588), which illusionisticaUy amplify interior

147

CLASSICISM REBORN

Maser

4.30. Villa

Barbaro,

(Treviso).

Designed by Andrea

Palladio. 1549-58

Below: Villa

4.31.

Nymphaeum,

Barbaro

Bottom:

4.32. Villa

Rotonda,

Vicenza. Designed by Andrea Palladio. 1565-69

something from and

enhanced by the

is

other,

is

more apparent at the VUla Almerico-Valmarana,

even

called

"La Rotonda" or ViUa Rotonda, in the rural environs of Vicenza

(fig. 4.32).

Built

between 1565/6 and 1569

for the recendy returned papal prelate Paolo

on property he owned outside been conceived

the

other nearby

like

city, it

Almerico

may not have

villas as a

working

farm, but merely as a country retreat, although this is

of scholarly debate. Villa Rotonda

a subject

unusual also

in

having four pedimented facades,

becaiase as Palladio explained in

beautiful views

lation

quattro

/

libri, "it

enjoys

on every side."^^ He described the

and the

as a theater,

is

and lack of

villa

on

its

slight hUl

ancillary strucmres

is

in

site

its iso-

Hke a solo per-

former within the ring of surrounding hiUs, the

focal

point of a larger landscape composition.

Because of his

ability to

scenographicaUy unite

serenely aloof, abstract classical forms and rustic surroundings, Palladio his

s \illas

have ser\'ed as models from

time to the present for country viUas where land-

scape statements harmonizing the inherent tension

between human reason and nature have been honored within the imagination of a culture or an vidual. Palladian influence

was

indi-

especially strong in

eighteenth-century England where aristocrats such as

Lord Burlington and Charles Howard, the

of Carlisle, genius.^*'

owned tect

among

third earl

others, revered his architectural

The American president Thomas Jefferson

four copies of

I

quattro

libri,

and

as

an

archi-

himself he appreciated and emulated Palladio

when he built his own hilltop residence,

MonticeUo.^^

Palladio as well as his predecessors Colonna, .Alberti,

as a

and SerHo grasped the importance of printing

means of transmitting

visual information.

As we

quent chapters, both

politics

carried the currents of

space with poetically classical landscapes and figures.

The

reciprocal relationship

architecttire in

148

between Palladian

and landscape found at the

Villa Barbaro,

which neither gains the upper hand but each gains

theory from

Italy into

architectural ideas

shall see in this

and the printing press

humanism and ideas first

afield.

propounded

garden settings soon influenced what city planning,

architectural

France and then farther

At the same time, design

and

and subse-

landscapes on an urban

we

today

scale.

in

call

AXIAL PLANNING ON

AN URBAN SCALE

on an

LIkiun Sc ale: The Development oe Ki naissance Kome III.

Axial Planninc

.

The same popes who were adding verdant charm

to

the edges of the ancient city with the construction of

gardens such as those of the

and the Villa

Villa Giulia

maestri di strada, equivalent to

were brought into the administrative appa-

missioners,

ratus of the Church. At the

Madama were simultaneously applying the principles Rome itself

acqufred the

of landscape design to the rebuilding of

ity to

From

Rome,

its

capital,

ancient imperial pre-eminence as a world

Rome had shrunk during the

a population of 17,000

housed

Middle Ages to

in a tangle

of small

dwellings huddled in the elbow of the Tiber that

opposite Castel Sant'Angelo and the Vatican 4.33).

The

much

larger area.

third-century Aurelian walls outlined a

Palatine, the

umphal

These contained the ruins of the

Colosseum, the great imperial baths,

arches,

commemorative columns, and

moldering remains of the Forum where

from

lies

(fig.

late antiquity to the

this spectral setting

cattle

grazed

eighteenth century. Within

and monasteries had been buUt during the Middle

them to one another

and following the

bull

from

exile in

Avignon

in 1377,

of 1439, which granted hierar-

chical authority to the bishop of

gradually gathered into

tlieir

Rome,

the

abil-

on property owners.

taxes

no

already landmark-studded but with

regular

street plan, offered a challenging opportunity for the

application of the

newly redeveloped principles of axial

composition. Given the wealth of the Church and desire to

its

augment its international position during the

Counter-Reformation,

it is

not surprising that a series

of popes eagerly embraced

this opportunity.

Ti

IE

Via

ANi:> Tf Julius

II

Piazza Sant'Anc ti

Gililia,

IF

OAMPjlXX

.I

o,

.IO

(papacy 1 503-1 513) wished to extend the papal

administrative, judicial,

and financial flmctions into the

Banchi, the business district opposite the Ponte Sant'

Angelo.

He

therefore

commissioned Bramante (who

was already employed on the construction of the

and the urban core beside the Tiber. After their return

Church

time, the

power of eminent domain and

improvement

levy

same

tri-

the

of imperial glory several churches

Ages. Only footpaths connected

modern planning com-

the popes

hands the reins of munici-

pal power, wresting control over urban affairs

Belvedere Court) to design a straight street with uni-

form building heights running to the Ponte Via Giulia,

up

The

medieval quarter.

Leo X (papacy 1513-1521), the Medici pope, and

from the

commune and the warring factions of the nobility. The

commemorating

this labyrinthine

Sisto.

Pope Julius, thus opened

Paul

III

(papacy 1534-1549) further regularized the

4.33.

Engraving by N. Beatrizet

showing medieval Rome, Aurelian walls, and ancient ruins. 1557

>:5s \ I

0 ff^

If*'

^

M ^Ml•lUl»'^l)lnw'.I•Il''^ piR .%rvti

i.ic

iMfi \ I.IIL

I

lint

r\ n

A\

f

ct.

tLWn

njoiii

"

i'A\

!.

\\ ru% f

II

i.

\ ll

149

CLASSICISM REBORN

more

area with the construction of three

straight

streets that radiated from the Piazza Sant'Angelo,

thereby creating the a place

first

Roman example of a trivio,

to the inhabited

Montalto

in

beginning trivio

trivio

with

in

longer

Michelangelo's commission was to create a dignified despite the austere flank of Santa

Maria

on

in Aracoeli

modern

of the

city

The

muddy

hills

of

great equestrian statue of the

emperor Marcus

Roman

Aurelius, once thought to be a rep-

resentation of Constantine, the

Christian

first

in the

forlorn

emperor, and therefore saved from being melted

open space.

When the Holy Roman Emperor Charles

down along with many monumental pagan bronzes,

time of Paul

(ruled 1516-1 556) planned to

III

it

a

visit

the papal city in

his victory over the

Tunisia in 1536, Michelangelo was

Turks

was transported to

in

Palace,

summoned to turn and Roman pride.

in front

into a place of dramatic greeting

the Campidoglio

home throughout

its

from the Lateran

the Middle Ages. Set

upon Michelangelo's modest yet authoritative pedestal of the Palace of the Senator,

it

served as the

The genius with which he carried out his assignment,

calm center and

which was not completed

tension and tremendous spatial energy of his design.

until

long

after his death,

as a spring activating the

dramatic

provides us with an incomparable example of the the-

Michelangelo's solution to the incoherent space

most sober and profound,

defined by the perimeter structures of the Campi-

atrical

imagination

for the spatial

at its

drama and urban scenography of

his

doglio

was one of camouflage through the design

of

On the south, that of

Campidoglio remain unrivaled in the history of urban

a pair

planning

the Palazzo dei Conservatori gave the old medieval

(fig. 4.34).

Considered by ancients

Romans to be the caput

mimdi, the center of the world, the Capitoline

Hill,

of opposing twin facades.

guild haU the appearance of a Renaissance structure,

and,

on

the north, that of the Palazzo

Nuovo

— not

built until the

papacy of Innocent X (1644-1655) and

now known

as the Palazzo del

Museum)

(Capitoline

Museo

Capitolino

— successfully screened the

original

bronze equestrian statue of

was the

awkward wedge of land

design has been moved to

Museum.

beside Santa Maria in Ara-

Although only two

coeli.

focus of Michelangelo's

the Capitoline

the north and the old unpre-

possessing medieval guild hall to the south of the

point of juncture between the city of the

triumph following

that

and the Vatican.

Peter's

St.

at

Rome, was

V

Marcus Aurefius

the

new hilltop piazza,

popes, the Capitoline HUl, one of the seven

The

the Ponte Sant'Angelo to

Way and through

then across the river

city,

Palace of the Senator.

glorious imperial past and the

Buonarroti. 1536.

old Appian

Popolo. Subse-

or goose foot.

The

nom-

the

France where a

at the Piazza del

was employed

much

stiU

government, was desig-

major point along the imperial route

a

Forum

Villa

three-pronged set of radial avenues was called a patte

Designed by Michelangelo

city

Rome and the Villa

out the

quently the

Campidoglio, Rome.

Roman

down the

responsible for a second

4.34.

nated as

of

leading

Aldobrandini in Frascati. These same two popes were

d'oie,

home

inal

where three ways meet, a form later employed

in laying

streets

of the Palace of the Senator^^ and

site

stories in height,

both

given monumentality by Michelangelo's

fac^ades are

inventive giant order of pilasters running

porticoed ground floor to the cornice the existing guild hall

was

set at

from the

line.

Because

an 80° angle to the

Palace of the Senator, he skewed both of his facades

from the

10°

piazza.

The

90°

norm, thereby creating a trapezoidal though contained,

space,

dynamic and

destabilized,

slide past the sides

The

down to

spatial

is

made

allowed to

of the Palace of the Senator into

where the Campi-

the great field of ruins beyond, doglio slopes

thereby

is

and the eye

the Forum.

dynamism

is

further increased

by

the paving pattern, a twentieth-century replica of the original

one

laid

according to Michelangelo's design.

The heroic sculpture and

in the

sits

within a slightly sunken oval

middle of a twelve-ray

which form the coordinates of

When

the points of

read from above, this design gives a spherical

appearance to the sculpture

its

oval, as if

it

were

a

dome and

the

crowning ornament.

But the greatest element of

150

star,

a radiating design.

this

scenographic

AXIAL PLANNING ON

drama

is

not the piazza, but the ascent to

Cordonata, a broad are as gently

Maria

stair

cadenced

ramp with wide

it

1

1

1

1

1

e

ii

8

ij

\

AN URBAN SCALE

via the

treads that

as the adjacent steps of Santa

in Aracoeli are penitentially steep (fig. 4.35).

Over-lifesize ancient

Roman

statues of the horse

tamers, the mythological twins Castor and Pollux,

excavated in 1560 near the Capitoline, stand at the top,

Olympian honor guards with the serene

disin-

terested gaze of immortals, framing the perspective

Michelangelo created. In 1561, Pius

IV (papacy 1559-1565) promoted

the axial reordering of medieval

ing of the Via Pia

papal palace

Rome with the build-

(now Via XX Settembre) from

the

on the Quirinal to the Porta Nomentana,

the city's northeastern gate. Michelangelo

of urban improvements that was orchestrated during the short Sistine papal term.

was again

summoned to produce an urban design. Here he gave

Born of Dalmatian peasant Peretti, rose

monumental

become

pair of sculpmres of Castor

and Pollux,

turning their half-tamed horses to face the street near its

entrance. At the opposite end, he screened the

ancient fortifications of the Porta

Nomentana with a

purely scenic gate scaled to harmonize with the vista

enclosed by the walls of the side

villa

gardens on either

talto

Six

i

lis

V

Although unsurpassed

urban scenography, the

as

vistas,

Pia,

with their artfully

represent a piecemeal approach to

Uniting the

city's streets into a well-

articulated circulation system

and composing

Gregory

the base of the EsquUine

hub of

a

XIII's

site

architect

Domenico Fontana (1543-1607)

as

and engineer

soon

as

he was

it

if

s

master plan of Rome, but a drainaccurate, bird's-eye rendering

in fresco decorates

can Library

(fig. 4.37).

one of the walls of the

The web

Vati-

of long arrow-straight

leader presented himself in late-sixteenth-century

context of the Counter-Reformation: linking the

Rome in the person of Sixtus V (papacy

Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Forum and other

of

all

previous efforts to improve the cityscape

Rome were but overmres to the great symphony

Rome.

C.1588

became

thoroughfares had important significance within the

Indeed,

Papi, Lateran Palace,

of the pres-

A visionary 1585-1590).

by Cesare Nebbia, Salone dei

Rome to the boundaries of its ancient walls and even, possible, beyond. No contemporary drawing

of

realization.

Porta

Pia, fresco painting

where

of views worthy of Rome's growing reputation as a

its

La Via

elevated to the papacy, carried the urbanization of

Fontana

for

Via Pia (modern

papacy. Located in

HiU on the

commissioned from the

somewhat

and forceful leadership

Pia;

4.36.

XX Settembre) with

bold urban design. This plan, which

matic,

comprehensive vision

Above: Via

the developing eastern suburb of the settled city at

exists for

tourist destination, required a

Cordonata leading to

There he nurmred his plans during the

thirteen years of

already extraordinary existing landmarks into a series

its

Mon-

with the revenues that went with his elevation

Felice

Campidoglio and the Via

city planning.

Cardinal Montalto, building the Villa

to high office.

the

framed

through the ranks of the Church to

ent railway station, the Villa Montalto later

(fig. 4.36).

Plan of

stock, the great

future pope of the Counter Reformation, Felice

a dignified focus to the palace approach with another

Left: 4.35.

the Campidoglio

prominent monuments of ancient importantly,

its

Rome

and,

more

seven major churches, with one

151

another, ihe)

mscnbed on

the face of the ancient

a highly visible itinerary of tourism

enhance its prestige

that served to

cit)

and pilgrimage

as the original

and

Roman

since the days of the

chariots

had

equally smooth, wide, and regular urban arteries been

were for

the

movement of the newly invented spring-

suspension carriage. As

yet, there

were no sidewalks,

and pedestrians and vehicles occupied the same space.

The word

street

corso, signifying a principal thor-

oughfare, assumed

new meaning in Rome as carriage

driving became a fashionable recreation for the upper

echelon of

The Via

society.

Pia, the

longest straight

road buUt to that date, bore daily witness to Rome's

pre-eminence as the world's date these

new

first city

to

Rome

vehicles in large numbers.

"first": traffic

immense

congestion.

The

cardinals

and

ecclesiastical retinues, the dignitaries

embassies from other countries

their

of the

now posted to Rome, who

successtul opening in

1586 and three

Utilitarian at

first,

many of these

transformed into the ornamental fountains

Rome has remained famous.

The Acqua

Felice also

made

possible the con-

struction of a public laundry beside the Baths of Dio-

And where

cletian.

tain

of Trevi, Sixms

Acqua

the already reactivated

Vergine brought water to the

site

of the present Foun-

V installed a basin for the wash-

ing of wool.^^ With the water problem solved and the nexus of the

new street s\^stem located in the area

where he owned property, he was in a position to gain financially

accommo-

indeed was experiencing another modern urban

later

which

buUt. Moreover, they were to be paved in order to facilitate

Its

years later to twenty-seven public fountains located

throughout Rome.

continuing center of the Catholic Church.

Not

miles ut underground lunncls.

brought water to the VUla Montalto

As

from

his

program of public works.

a landscape designer

working

at a city-

planning scale with a visionary patron, Fontana proved his talent phy. Together

ol

in

engineering and urban scenogra-

pope and architect created the skeleton

modern Rome,

a circulation ner\\'ork

of

inter-

connecting streets and focal points, the whole com-

the courtesans, the tens of thousands of pilgrims

prising a series of vista corridors punctuated with

came every year,

landmarks old and new. As with the Acqua

the tourist contingent newly awak-

ened to the wonders of the artists

and

artisans

—

all

gesting its narrow medieval

new lis

thoroughfares.

was once again

classical past, the foreign

these thronged the city con-

bways and crowding its

The long-slumbering metropo-

lively as horses, carriages, cattle,

and pedestrians jostled one another

in the

burgeon-

ing cosmopolitan setting.

But more than roads were needed to

facilitate

transportation and stimulate the regrowth of

Rome.

It

was necessary

if

the untenanted, ruin-smdded stretches of the dry

to reconstruct the ancient aqueducts

were to be repopulated. Other popes had begun process, but

this

none had solved the problem of carrying

water to the heights of Rome's famed hills. That was the assignment Sixtus

V set for himself,

and within

only eighteen months, the plan he had nurmred for the

Acqua

name,

Felice (so

Felice)

named because of the pope's first

came to fruition with the completion of

a conduit spanning 7 miles of overhead arches

and 7

tus

V bestowed his name

Felice, Six-

on the longest and most

important of these unifying thoroughfares, the Strada Felice.

This avenue connected Santa Maria Maggiore

with Santa Trinita dei Monti on the brow of the Pincio Hill.

A

final stretch

downhill to the Piazza del

Popolo was never constructed, and the Spanish Steps linking Santa Trinita with the Corso

below were not

built until the eighteenth century.

But the Strada

Felice's

extension on the other side of Santa Maria

Maggiore

was

all

the

way to Santa Croce in Gerusalemme

carried out, thereby creating a straight span of

about 2 miles across the breadth of Rome.

Intersect-

ing the Strada Felice at almost a right angle Michelangelo's Via Pia, the

two

was

creating a symbolical

cross, referred to as the "bellissima croce."

In the fresco of the

Rome

the impulse to untangle the

medieval

of Sixms

V one sees

tormous labyrinth of

Rome with the Strada FeHce and other roads

slashing across the built

and as-yet-unbuilt landscape.

AXIAL PLANNING ON

One

also sees the celebration of

ble history through the

Rome's incompara-

new prominence given to its

landmarks. In addition to the pilgrimage churches,

Colosseum and the Columns

the

and Trajan are

focal points

Marcus Aurelius

of

of the plan. To

off,

regularized the building lines of those remaining to

form squares. Elsewhere he created new squares. Fontana and

his

patron

hit

upon

the

happy idea of

resurrecting several of the old Egyptian obelisks, exotic souvenirs of ancient campaigns,

which had

long ago toppled here and there about the

them

using ily

as

shows

connected were the principles of land-

closely

scape design within and without the garden

(fig. 4.39).

This means of stabilizing architectural forms relationship to a particular setting ritorial

in

and suggesting ter-

possession through spatial extension, devel-

oped here

became

as part

of Fontana's plan for the

planning occurred. Fontana's role as

He

thus pivotal.

villa,

monumental

a widely used device wherever

city

planner

is

conceived the design of the Villa

Montalto

s trivio

cityscape.

By linking it and other radial compositions

and punctuate

its

journey along

a

within the comprehensive frame of

of axes, such as those emanating from the

trivio at

the

Piazza del Popolo, to form a transurban network, he

marking Nero's

82-foot-tall obelisk St.

how

it,

and

city,

vista corridor.

track near

gested the breadth of the gardens behind

markers to center space or temporar-

arrest the eye

The

both ennobled the entrance to the casino and sug-

set these

Sixtus V removed the structures around them and

Peter's had, remarkably,

race-

remained stand-

ing throughout the Middle Ages next to the south side

created a plan for an entire

not occurred

something that had

city,

in the "West since ancient

and then only

for colonial cities

Roman

and not the

times

capital.

4.38. in

Egyptian obelisk, erected

the Circus

Roman

of the church. Fontana directed the feat of moving this

of

320-ton

monument to its present position in front

St. Peter's,

thus defining the center of the ovoid

As the unification of garden space through layout

became

axial

increasingly the objective of garden

which Bernini

later

embraced with

his great

curving fourfold colonnades. Fontana had the obelisk lying in the Circus

Maximus

erected in the center of

focus to

its

one

the Piazza del Popolo, giving

converging trident of new streets

Two more Felice,

became

obelisks

at its

were

set

(fig. 4.38).

up along the Strada

midpoint in front of Santa Maria Mag-

giore, the other at

its

southeastern terminus in front

of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. To incorporate them into the religious

symbolism of the Counter-Refor-

in

employers saw the symbolic value of reordering old cities

and building new ones according to the same

principles.

It is

not surprising that these principles,

which served

effectively as a spatial

princely grandeur and dominion,

metaphor

for

4.39. Villa

were eagerly

in France.

However, before the lessons

Fontana. Engraving by Gio-

vanni Battista Falda, plate

in the early

Henry IV

(ruled 1589-1610), a gradual process of

new

ensued. This

became

urban open space,

a felicitous

borrowing that would

Piante Alzale e Vedute in Prospettiva. n.d.

seventeenth century during the reign of

sance style imported from Italy had necessarily

entrances,

14,

loro

plan were applied in an urban setting in that country

of the four Sistine obelisks surmounted with a globe

tomb

Roma con le

of Sixtus V's

bearing a cross. Thus, an ancient Egyptian form, devel-

an isolated freestanding object centering

Montalto,

Rome. Designed by Domenico

absorbed by ambitious monarchs elsewhere, notably

replacing French medievalism with the

to stand in sentinel pairs at

the Piazza del

designers in the seventeenth century, their royal

mation's triumphant Catholicism, the pope had each

oped

during

Popolo, Rome. 1585-90

Li giardini di

the space that

Maximus

imperial times and

resurrected

Below:

piazza,

AN URBAN SCALE

stylistic

evolution,

begun

Valley, reflected the political relations

Renais-

in the Loire

between the two

countries over the course of the sixteenth century as Italian influence in

France alternated with the devel-

be copied in other times in other lands, often without

opment of an independent French Renaissance

the Church's triumphant cross.

style.^-*

Sixteenth-century Italian landscape design not

only manifested the humanists' interest in reviving ancient forms and themes, but

it

also served as a

means of asserting prestige and displaying wealth and

power The same humanist iconographies into which were encoded messages of family and personal pride within a garden setting could be applied on an urban scale to

ruler

proclaim the power of the Church or of a

The garden,

in effect, served as a design studio

wherein problems of

axial layout

and scenography

were solved in ways that were simultaneously applied to city planning. For example, Fontana 's

development

of the triangular piazza in front of Pope Sixtus V's Villa

Montalto

radiating

as a

garden

trivio

with three avenues

outward from an open space near the

Church of Santa Maria Maggiore,

in a

manner

that

153

CLASSICISM REBORN

IV.

CUKKENTS OF

FaSHION!

The Transeoflmation of tfie Italian

humanism laid the groundwork for the

opment of French garden tury. Alberti's treatise

a

devel-

style in the sixteenth cen-

and the publication

in

1

546 of

French translation of Colonna's influential Hyp-

nerotomachia

Poliphili,

Gakdfn

Italian

carried certain currents of

the Loire Valley,

(c.

which were published

almost

VIII (ruled 1470-1498) in

throne. Charles's occupation lasted only five months,

but Alfonso

state-of-the-art

II's

Reale, overlooking the

of Mount Vesuvius,

and on the nobles

gardens

at

Poggio

Bay of Naples and with

made

a lasting impression

a

view

on him

in several editions

plus excellents Bastiments de France,

erence

an attempt to reassert an old dynastic claim to the

was recorded between 1576 and

1520-c. 1584) in a monumental series of engrav-

ings,

Renaissance thought northward. Equally important

by the French king Charles

France

1579 by the architect Jacques Androuet du Cerceau

was the invasion of the kingdom of Naples

in 1494

in

work all

for

of Les

an invaluable

garden historians inasmuch

sixteenth-century French gardens have

appeared.

ref-

The work

is

as

dis-

important, moreover, as a

record of the French transformation of Italian

Renaissance gardening principles into design idiom.

unique

a

The chateaux engraved by du Cerceau

were those that had been

built

during the several

preceding decades of the sixteenth century

when

French designers were appropriating the lessons of

in his retinue.

Following the capture of Castel del Uovo,

Italy

and refashioning them into expressions of their

Charles took up residence there and had ample oppor-

own

aristocratic culture.

tunity to marvel

on

castie

at the straight allees

all sides,

rounding

it,

its

approaching the

the orange and other fruit trees surlarge walled garden, ingenious

hydrauHc system, fountains, ornamental canals, aviaries, it

its

was square with corner towers and had

sunken court that could be flooded

When

Amboise artists

design cannot be

we know that this pleasure

accurately reconstructed,

cles.

ponds,

and game-fiUed hunting park. Though

has long since disappeared and

palace

fish

in

for

Charles returned to his

a

water specta-

own

palace at

October, he brought with him Italian

and craftsmen, including, the Neapolitan priest-

gardener PaceUo de Mercogliano.

The appearance of Amboise,

as well as that

the palace and garden at

of other great chateaux of

Sixteenth-century Chateaux: Bi.ois, Fontainebleau, Ancy-leFflanc, Anet,

Chenoncealix

Charles VIII died suddenly in 1498, but his

and successor Louis

XII (ruled 1498-1 515)

enthusiastic about the

making.

He

Amboise and ited.

At

walls,

size

Blois,

nephew

was equally

new princely pastime of garden-

continued to make improvements

at

the other royal chateaux he had inher-

he placed the garden outside the

and this permitted

castle

a considerable expansion in

over the one at Amboise

(fig. 4.40). Its

design,

made no attempt to unite the chateau and garden visually by aligning them along a common however,

axis as

was being done

in Italy.

Engraving by

4.40. Blois.

Jacques Androuet du Cerceau, Le Second Volume des plus excellents Bastiments de France. 1579. The main gate

leading to the principal axis of the

garden

is

approached

through a dogleg passage connecting with a covered bridge that leads from the palace.

The expert craftsmanship the joiner

octagonal with

is

evident

in

of

the

wooden pavilion domed lantern

its tall

covering a marble fountain

and

in

the galleries formed

wooden trellises. These galleries were high and wide enough to accommodate by

riders on horseback.

154

Elevatton dv bastiavent et iabdins DVCOSTE Dt LENTREE ELEVATIO ytDlFICII ET HORTORVM

IN&RESSVM

SPEt«t^^tT^»»»^^tJ»^»•r^l•

!

,..).«, ,ftT«

America had profound con-

arrival in

Fel^lkal Pekiods manned

the presidio and served as the

secular

initial

sequences for landscape design. Sixteenth- and sev-

intermediary with native peoples, protecting the mis-

enteenth-century explorers and colonists, whose

sion and setdement from hostile invasion while estab-

motives were primarily economic, sought wealth in

lishing contacts

the

form of

and other natural

ore, minerals, timber,

resources. In appropriating a

new continent, they had

scant regard for the customs, ritual centers, and

whose presence within the landscape were

traces of

effaced. Spanish,

lish traders

and

and farm the mals, or

settlers

Dutch, French, and Eng-

came, some to build towns

land, others to convert souls, trap ani-

mine gold and

European cultures

silver.

left their

Although

of these

all

mark, the two principal

ones to imprint the American landscape

in design

with friendly

The colonist came

tribes.

wake, building the

pueblo, establishing civil

and developing the regional economy.

law,

The Spanish government issued explicit instruc-

atti-

tudes toward nature of the native occupants, the

by and large

in their

tions for the layout of these

case-by-case basis.

on

a

planning prescriptions in a royal ordinance

or the Laws of the

Indies,

Pragmatic in

create a simple

which

los

Reynos de las

Philip

Indias,

promulgated

and designed to

objectives

its

II

paradigm that could be

by architecmrally inexperienced men

terms were the Spanish and the English.

at first

found it necessary to cod-

called the Recopilacion de Leyes de

in 1573.

towns,

As settlements multiplied, how-

ever, colonial administrators ify their

new

followed

easily

in

remote

lands,

the Laws of the Indies ignored the innovative urban

Colonial Setllemlnts

Spanish The

first

European power to

the Americas, Spain began

schemes of contemporary late Renaissance planners,

establish settlements in

its

colonizing activities

immediately following Christopher Columbus's

momentous

discovery. At

when

first,

it

was

still

believed that Columbus's landfall had occurred in the Indies,

government-sponsored expeditions were moti-

vated purely by the desire for trade and the appro-

itary

encampments and new towns as

in his this

selves.

1550, Spanish explorers had ventured from

By

Cuba north

to the peninsula they

named La

Florida,

continuing west as far as present-day Arkansas and

north along the eastern seaboard of what

United

States.

is

now the

At the same time, advenmrers depart-

ing from Mexico City traveled overland into the arid lands that

became

and by sea up the region that mythical

is

now

cities

of Youth and

California

it

and Oregon. Tales of

and magical places

was

first

clear that

if

like

the Fountain discredited

decade of the sixteenth

wealth was to be gained,

Spain would have to subjugate build an empire based not rather

and Arizona

more verdant

Diamond Mountain were

one by one, and by the century,

New Mexico,

Texas,

Pacific coast to the

this vast territory

on fabulous

finds,

fifteenth-cenmry treatise De

became

After the colonists had selected an appropriately

healthful site

and performed the required

mass

tangular area for the

town and

presiiiio.

ply

rituals

— they marked off a

usually the saying of

rec-

built the protective

Their next task was to construct a water sup-

and irrigation system and to lay out and allot fields

outside the town. TTien they began filling in

tangular proportions,

its

recommended

according to the Laws, being times

its

its

out-

reserving a central space for a plaza of rec-

lines, first

width inasmuch

for festivals in

at least

length,

one and

as "this proportion

a half

the best

is

which horses are used." Whereas,

as dis-

cussed in Chapter One, the plazas of the Native American pueblos to religious

were cosmologically aligned according

custom with each

side facing

one of the

had each

cardinal directions, Spanish colonial plazas

but

corner pointing in a cardinal direction because the

Laws proclaimed that

this

prevented undue exposure

continent, Spain began

fares ran

colonization efforts.

strategy of conquest

forum of

the plaza-centered

and

on the hard work of farming, ranching, and

The Spanish

Vit-

grid settlement of Spanish America.''

"to the four principal winds."

upon

by

Alberti

re aedificatoria. In

way, the orthogonal streets and central

the ancient colonial city

mining. Laying claim to the entire North American its

set forth

summarized by

ruvius around 30 b.c.e. and

priation of riches. But the dimensions and natural

resources of a vast continent gradually revealed them-

Roman formula for mil-

opting instead for the ancient

was based

three distinct types of settlement: the mission;

Four main thorough-

from the middle of each

side

of the plaza

across the length and breadth of the town,

and the

borders of the plaza were defined by secondary

streets.

the military presidio, or fort; and the civilian pueblo or

The Laws

directed that other streets be laid out "con-

depending upon

secutively

around the plaza."

villa,

as

towns were variously

called

TTiis injunction

almost

and importance. The missionary spear-

invariably resulted in a checkerboard or grid pattern.

headed the campaign to convert native peoples to

This grid layout was useful for parceling real estate

their size

Catholicism and Spanish cultural mores.

The

soldier

among the

settlers

of the

pueblo.

At the same time,

it

—

crown over

asserted symbolically the authority of the

Building lots around the plaza were reserved for administrative and other public purposes as well as for shops

and dweUings

lots in this location

for merchants.

The remaining

were to be distributed by

and the crown held those not distributed allocation.

nished with

lottery,

for future

was recommended that the main church

It

be freestanding, its

sited in

an elevated location, and

fur-

own adjacent plaza. The Laws further

enjoined those responsible for laying out the town to reserve outside the palisade a

fortified villages

within palisaded enclosures. Because

of the extreme hardships their

both the settlers and the native population.

common large enough

into significant towns,

governors

colonial

laid

quent settlements acquired land-planning experience

communities to succeed

that enabled theif

better.

This planning occurred on a regional scale inasmuch as lands

granted by crown charter were distributed

form of nucleated farming com-

to colonists in the

munities resembling European villages where farm-

and

to tend their fields.

without encroaching upon

pri-

for cattle to pasture

"there

The

in

ficient space for its inhabitants to find recreation

town grew

cities.

— or the proprietors the case of the New England — who out subse-

ers lived

the

much less

townships of

suf-

if

in

inhospitable locations, these villages did not develop

would always be

so that

endured

settlers

and went into the surrounding countryside

However,

in a land-rich

country occupied by

independent-minded people already of a migratory

vate property."

The Laws

town planners

instructed

plaza and the four

main

to give the

from

streets diverging

it

arcades "for these are a great convenience for those

New Mex-

were immediately

disposition, decentralizing forces at

work. Plantation owners who grew tobacco in Vir-

ginia

and Maryland succeeded

in shipping

it

from

ico,

and in other Spanish colonial setdements one may

own wharves in spite of the protests of governors who wanted to consolidate colonial trade in port

still

find sidewalks

around the plaza sheltered by por-

towns; the cTown proclamations designating locations

more

for these

who resort thither for trade."

tales,

or porticoes,

ertheless derived

In Santa Fe,

rustic in character

but nev-

from those found along the principal

Roman and

thoroughfares of ancient

Renaissance

sometimes exten-

their

would-be towns were more than once

repealed under pressure. In Massachusetts, following the pacification of the native inhabitants

and the

perform the work of

fail-

cities (see fig. 6.40).

These

ded along the four

principal streets as well as along

culmre and animal husbandry in common, Governor

the eight streets running from the corners of the

William Bradford (1590-1657), the English Puritan

plaza. If the

portales

town planners followed

the injunction

ure of the

who

first efforts

settled

to

and guided the Plymouth Colony found that

thirty years,

corner streets would not obstruct the street crossing,

of

being arranged so that "the sidewalks of the street

their "great lots," the

can evenly join those of the plaza.

He lamented their desertion

native uprisings

made

were dfrected to

fortify the

In practice, there

for

town planning

their intentions Spain's

Particularly after

their overseers wary, settlers

houses around the plaza.

were deviations from the rules

set forth in

Laws of

the Indies,

nization.

The Spanish

temporary

"old towns

colo-

of several con-

"

cities reflect this heritage, later

in

were taking up residence upon

oudying fields allocated to them. of "the town, in which

they lived compactly until now,

population dispersal land, at least of the

'will

'

and feared

that this

be the ruine of New-Eng-

Churches of

God

"^^

ther.

but

were honored widely throughout

two hundred years of North American

cattle the colonists

emphasized

Nlw Englanl3 Townships In spite of Bradford's fears, the settiement

parts of

were

of the older

New England by groups of proprietors who

tied to

one another by

common religious belief,

by the neo-Spanish-Colonial architecture of many

kinship,

buildings in southern California and throughout the

centered occupancy of the land unlike that of the

American Southwest. Thus we find

tered farmsteads that later

of the eighteenth cenmry,

at the

beginning

when new forms

ning inspired by French practice and

Italian

of plan-

precedents

were changing the appearance of European that such pueblos as

San Antonio, Texas; Santa

cities,

Fe,

for

order to tend thefr stocks

set forth in the colonial ordinance, the portales at the

"

agri-

New

and economic

pattern as the

interest did result in a villagescat-

became the" dominant American frontier moved west. For

these reasons as well as for security and adherence to tradition,

most early

tinctively defined

New England serders lived in dis-

communities, even as some were

Mexico; and Los Angeles, California, were being laid

dispersing because their agricultural domains and

out as grid

greater opportunities lay at a distance.

cities

with a central plaza.

Today many of these

British England's

Colonial Settl^emlni s two

first

Jamestown, Virginia chusetts (1620)

American

(1607),

— were

settlements

and Plymouth, Massa-

\Tllages

grew from them constitute

and the towtis that

a cherished part of the

American landscape. They vary

in

roughly into three basic types: "linear"

form but

fall

towns such

as '

laid

out

in a regular fashion as

Salem, Massachusetts; compact "square and gridded

NATURE S PARADISE

communities such

as

Cambridge, Massachusetts, and

New Haven, Connecticut; and "organic" settlements New Hampshire; Woodstock, Ver-

such as Exeter,

mont; and Boston, Massachusetts. Historic Salem, or

its

Indian place name,

Nehum-kek, by which it was known Bay Colony

settlers, consists

to Massachusetts

of a single irregular street

running along high ground between the North and

South of

Branching off

Rivers.

at intervals

this spine, short streets lead to

river.

Along its north

side lies the

handsome

lined with

—

that

a square

is,

measuring 825

either side

town common, now

brick houses.

New Haven was settled in grid

on

one or the other

1638 as a nine-square

composed of nine blocks, each

feet (251.5

meters) square

—

fitted

between two streams entering a harbor on the north

Long

shore of

Island

Sound

The

(fig. 6.46).

square, reserved as a green to be held in

central

common,

thus constitutes one-ninth of the town, an unusual

amount of public space

for that period, even in

commons were

England where

New

an important feature

of town planning. The meetinghouse, the central institution

of the religiously ruled

New England com-

munity, was always given pride of place in any plan-

needs of the automobile. The ordered serenity of

ning scheme, being located atop

prominent

these towns, which are often nestled in the folds of

New Haven

the glaciated

topographical elevation

or, in

a

the case of

and many other towns, adjacent to, or within, the central

common. Outside

fields,

strips

or

which were

the

town boundaries

typically laid out as

lay the

long narrow

of land and parceled to proprietors by lottery

some other equitable means.

were additional

its

picturesque ponds and

nostalgic. Save for a

there

is little

houses of the

few well-tended

first settiers.

Instead, especially in

while the other half remained as

half,

eight

its

tovmsmen surrendered for houses the

areas

broad pediments, while nearby the turreted

nine-square grid to the waterfront and to the

fields,

ther architectural

more

try

inception

New Haven had

attracted

from Massachusetts than the

originally

made

college campuses,

was moved from Saybrook to one of the blocks

Civil "War

possible the fur-

that,

Dutch elm

the twentieth-cenmry blight of

increased when, in 1717, the newly founded Yale Col-

before

disease,

graceful canopies over village greens,

and roadways.

This generally satisfying townscape

is

the result

of a consensual attitude on the part of the inhabi-

adjacent to the green. foresight

solidity

adornment of this part of the coun-

lifted their

in New Haven's New England towns does

demonstrated

planning and that of other

Union after the

wealth

But sadly missing are most of the elms

planned number of 250. The town's importance

The

towns

of neo-Romanesque rusticated stone betokens the

when manufacturing

lege

historic sites,

evidence of the rude and cramped

prosperity of the victorious

settlers

modern

ence, one finds a harmony of later architectural styles. The Neoclassicism favored by the builders of the young republic is seen in columned porticoes and

space. In addition, each of

tants regarding those elements that collectively portray

community. Perhaps more than elsewhere

not entirely account for their scenic character. The

United

combination of site and architecture, the

of the

latter a

prod-

States,

one apprehends

in the

in the

physiognomy

New England town American republican politNot

uct of several generations of thoughtfully erected

ical values.

buildings using a limited range of visually pleasing

French student of democracy Alexis de Tocqueville,

materials,

Haven. 1748

natu-

green was bisected, with three churches

As

New

capable of stirring emotions both patriotic and

is still

thoroughfares leading from the boundaries of the

its

provides

Plan of

vacationers with a glimpse of an earlier America that

reserved for garden plots. Houses also lined the radial

for at

hills,

its

where historic preservation is fueled by sufficient afflu-

lands.

remaining blocks was subdivided into four smaller blocks as

England landscape with

New Haven's population

occupying one

open public

suburban zone

common lands reserved as cattle pas-

mres and timber expanded,

In this

rally

New

6.46.

produced the townscape that

is

admired

today wherever it has not been sacrificed to meet the

in tracing the

surprisingly, the

modern

nineteenth-cenmry

origins of this experiment in

human governance, emphasized the formative influ-

223

EXPANDING HORIZONS

New

ence of the colonial underlying structure

this

was

England township. But

expression of a democratic social

one that had envisioned

a basic Puritan

a controlled hierarchical ordering of the town.^'' If

not prescribed in the manner of the Spanish Laws of the Indies, this

ification in

ment

paradigm did have an ex post facto cod-

an anonymous and

less detailed

docu-

"The Ordering of Towns."

entitled

presupposed townships 6 square miles

It

(9.7 square

kilometers) in area, which were to be arranged in

six

William Penn's

"Gkeln Colin iry Town"

commons in the manner

as

enterprise

set the

tone of the settlement undertaken

Philadelphia remains a testament to his abilities and influence as an urban and regional planner.

As governor and proprietor of Pennsylvania under

a charter

granted by King Charles

"

most

"the con-

fifth

ring of settlement having

distribution

program

II

in 1681,

task of colonization as an

He developed a land

that granted city lots

on

a basis

proportionate to the size of a purchaser's overall land

desirable parcels consisting of

holdings.

He sent three commissioners with the first

30 to 40 acres of arable land, woodlot, and meadow.

group of

settlers,

In spite

of the lament of Governor Bradford and

sermons by divines such

as

Cotton Mather

ing land-hungry "outlivers," those

castigat-

who settled more

than half a mile distant from the meetinghouse, strongly nucleated ideal as the first settlers

for sale to

lands

was destined to be modified

began to produce surplus livestock

newcomers and

the need for additional

became owner-occupied

as the

duced engendered

trade,

and convenience and secu-

rity dictated that

entrepreneurial settlers take up

on

commodities

their properties. Thus,

it

and navigable

pro-

from the begin-

the

city,

Delaware and Schuylkill

The in

Rivers.

which uniform

streets

were to

Great Fire of 1666

still

fresh in his

"Let every house be placed, the middle of

there

its plat,

New

England town was there-

fore the result of the modification of sectarian

atti-

tudes and the adaptation of the agrarian mores

brought from Old England to Plan of Philadelphia,

a

new physical,

social,

from the

orchards, or fields, that

memory, he wrote,

the person pleases, in

breadth of

it,

that so

each side for gardens or

it

may be

a

green country

town, which will never be burnt, and always be whole-

that

configuration of the

if

as to the

may be ground on

some."^** In this fashion did

spatial

stretch

country bounds to the water's edge. With London's

moted compact community

The

to select a healthy

which they had located

plan Penn envisioned for his city was one

ning, commercial forces vied with those that prosettlement.

them

enjoining

site for

by the summer of 1682 on land midway between the

this

grew apace. More and more outlying land

residence

Holme

—

by the Quaker colonizer William Perm (1644-1718).

administrator and businessman.

mankind,

the largest and

Engraved by Thomas

and avowed commercial

religious tolerance

The allotment was to be in accordance with nomic status, with the

1683.

—

Penn approached the

or according to social and eco-

increasingly

tlement of New England, a somewhat different set of values

of English villages before the enclosure movement.

dition of

6.47.

combined with an

trade-oriented population characterized the early set-

concentric zones around a central meetinghouse,

with outlying lands held

fervor

If sectarian

Penn enunciate the

ideal

homeowning Americans have embraced over the

course of three hundred years

surrounded by

its

— a freestanding house

own plot of land. To assist in the new city, he appointed Captain

task of laying out the

Thomas Holme

and economic environment.

as surveyor general.

With Penn's for the city

east

Schuylkill,

two

October 1682, the plan

to take shape

He had Holme draw

direction.

on the

began

arrival in

under

his personal

a gridiron

bounded

by the Delaware and on the west by the with a central square

principal axes.

6.47). Familiar

at the crossing

Broad Street and High

of

Street

its

(fig.

with Lincoln's Inn Fields and Moor-

— open spaces accessible to the general public recently developed private London — the

fields

in

res-

city's

idential squares,

and probably at least one of the

eral post-Great Fire plans calling for

space, he directed

Holme

each quadrant of the

be open to

all

new London

city.

sev-

urban green

to place a square within

Penn was

explicit that

they

members of the community, unlike squares,

which were reserved

the

for the

exclusive use of neighboring property owners.

The

public square, along with the freestanding

home with its adjacent garden, was Penn's important contribution to the fumre American cityscape, for the

224

NATURE S PARADISE

gridiron

punctuated with one or more of these

p"»lan,

green spaces, became the model that

settlers applied

new communities as they moved westward. Sometimes occupied by courtalmost ubiquitously to

houses or other public buildings, such squares every-

where denote

As

in

New

focus.

Haven, Penn's generously scaled

became subdivided

blocks

and community

civic intention

as

row houses were

built

along narrow streets inserted where gardens had been

happened

intended. This

land increased.

Where

urban

in

land speculators platted grids

maximum

designed to realize a

popu-

also in other cities as

growth accelerated and speculation

lation

profit

from

lot sales,

the squares of Penn's "green country town" were often eliminated or reduced to a single token public space.

There

existed,

however, another important

example of American colonial planning in which cious and livable city

a gra-

— Savannah, Georgia — was

built

and maintained over a long period of time according

blocks ranged beside a central green, next to two

to the intentions of

sides of

its

founder.

which two

large lots

were reserved

for

6.48.

View

of

Engraved by

churches and other public and semipublic buildings

Jamfs OcLi

11

loiiPi

Savannai

's

such as

i

In 1732, James Oglethorpe (1696-1785), an English

stores.

Savannah therefore was not to be

out, like Philadelphia or

Savannah,

Georgia, by Peter Gordon. P.

Fourdrinler,

1734

laid

New Haven, as an urban grid

6.49.

View

of

Savannah,

Georgia. Lithograph after a

philanthropist and

member

of Parliament

who was

with one or more spaces exempted from develop-

from

ment; rather the grid was to be formed additively by

interested in prison reform, secured a charter

King George gia.

II

for the

from

a

life

a subscription of frmds raised

group of humane

incarcerated debtors in

founding of the colony of Geor-

Here he hoped, with

aristocrats, to transport

who wished to seek a fresh start

as well as persons experiencing religious perse-

cution and others eager for economic opportunity.

ward

units,

each with a green square

This meant that, as the city grew,

become

a solid

urban mass because

new ward

(figs. 6.48, 6.49).

Oglethorpe's original vision fortunately

re-

alongside the 114 original colonists, supervising the

nah's development until the middle of the nineteenth

clearing of a large rectangular area of the

century.

est

where

for-

town was to be laid out along a crescent

his

bend in the Savannah River 10 miles (16.1 kilometers) inland from the sea.

the

A palisade was soon erected and

houses built even as the terms of property

first

1855

would always

have an open green square within each

mained in

pine

Hill,

could never

The following year found him working indefatigably

tall

W.

in the center.

it it

painting by J.

effect,

determining the character of Savan-

A comparison of the town

in

1

was undergoing construction, and

in

its

bellum

state

734,

when

it

1855 ante-

when the shows how the

of mature development,

twenty-four squares had been

built,

determined impulse to carve out of the colonial

deeds were being defined. These deeds demonstrate the regional scope of Oglethorpe's plan, which

granted each feet (18.3

by

settler a

house

lot

measuring 60 by 90

27.4 meters), a 5-acre garden plot,

44-acre farm, with the stipulation that he struct a

and

a

must con-

house within an eighteen-month period and

cultivate at least 10 acres of his outlying farmland.

Like Penn, Oglethorpe

was

familiar with the

pattern of residential development in

London

whereby groups of houses were being built

specula-

tively

around green squares,

perity of

a process that the pros-

Georgian England had accelerated.

He was

probably also familiar with the plans for Philadelphia

and

New Haven.

But the original and ingenious

ture of his plan for

ward

as a

fea-

Savannah was the concept of the

group of

forty

house

"tithings," or blocks of ten

lots laid

out as four

houses each, with the

225

EXPANDING HORIZONS

Nicholson,

duce within the confines of a purely formulaic plan a

laid

city that

was unrivaled in its gracious greenness.

America. His plan for that cles

American Colonial Gardens Because

life

for the first

American

made were interest in

New

as they

purely utilitarian, providing food and

WMe F'uritans may have had

medicinal herbs.

ornamental horticulture, the

over by the Dutch West India

little

settlers sent

Company remembered

from their homeland such small

intricate late Renais-

sance gardens with parterre beds,

topiary, arbors,

Capitol at the eastern end of its principal axis

of Gloucester Street lege of William

den with simple

(see

Company in New Ams-

of the Dutch West India

to his residence

on the Battery

parterres

axis.

and

in

fruit trees

s\\'ath

Most of the Dutch

Governor's Palace.

When Spotswood came to occupy this mansion

the

he continued the

mark of

axis

of the palace green in

An

Manhattan

helped place several buildings

colonists

he oversaw,

and encouraged

orchards and gardens here and at the college 6.50).

a gar-

it

nately,

Spotswood

intelligent site planner,

relationship to

as

genteel civilization the planting of

in the

open spaces and view

(fig.

also

new town

in

Hnes. Unfortu-

he abused an informal understanding he had

with another prominent colonist, John Custis (1678-

views of the island show several bouweries,

1749),

tracts

extolled the natural

aimed

as a

land,

making

second Eden. In

and the CaroHnas, where climate and

especially hospitable for gardening

were

soil

and novel

Vir-

speci-

mens abundant, settlers combined in their gardens the plants grown in their native England with botanical

discoveries

from

their

new homeland.

colonists elsewhere, their interest

plants that could nourish

Like

was primarily

them or cure

their

in

ills.

up

a "visto,

also

his successor

Alexander

Spotswood (1676-1740) planned with a degree of ele-

....

g^"^^ beginning ter for the

in 1699,

,

became an important

development of gardening

in

cen-

America.

on '

cut

down

more

several

trees than

the latter's property in order to

open

He House of Burgesses when

probably that along the palace green.

aroused the

ire

of the

he transformed the ravine behind the Governor's Palace into a series of elaborate terraces and buQt a rectangular canal connected to a fish park.

The

legislators

pond and a large

balked at the earth-moving and

excavation costs incurred in building "the Fish-Pond

and

Falling gardens,

"

putting to an end Spotwood's

landscaping efforts at Williamsburg, but not before

he had

Williamsburg, the colonial capital Governor Francis

Nicholson (1655-1738) and

when he

anticipated

at recruiting colonists

bounty of the

America sometimes appear ginia

as they

farms with orchards.

Promotional

and Gardens. Williamsburg.

Duke of Gloucester Street, a broad grassy known as the palace green led to the site of the

for example, next

arranged around a

western. At a right

however, practiced a utilitarian hortiailture, and early

called their small

Virginia

at the

the gardens he laid out behind

and Jan van der Groen

— Duke

angle to

and

and 6.3). Peter Stuyvesant, the Director Gen-

terdam between 1646 to 1664, had,

Now he

— and the newly founded Col-

and Mary

Hans Vredeman de

eral

cir-

burg, achieving a dignified urban design with the

in 1710,

Vries

two large

and radial steets intersecting grid blocks.

fountains as are seen in the garden pattern books of

figs. 6.2

Governor's Palace

city featured

brought his planning experience to bear on Williams-

colonists in

England was extremely harsh, such gardens

6.50.

when he was governor of Maryland, had out Annapolis in a novel manner for colonial

wilderness geometrically ordered space could pro-

set the

tone for

In the affluent

its

future development.

western half of the town,

colonists laid out utilitarian gardens that were, nevertheless,

modeled on those of the Governor's

their straight gravel paths flanked

by topiarv^

fashion established a few years earlier in the

Palace,

after the

ro)'al gar-

dens of William and Mary and those of the country estates designed during their English reign (see figs.

6.10-6.12). In his garden Custis displayed

some of the

botanical specimens that were then arousing scientific

curiosity as a lively transatlantic seed

exchange

began to occur. Nearby plantation owners, notably William Byrd and his son, William Byrd

II,

both

mem-

bers of London's Royal Society, were active in recruit-

ing such naturalists as William Banister (1654-1692) to

come

and

to Virginia to study the flora of the region,

their activities also

plants in

promoted the use of

town gardens. The

native

Byrds' Westover planta-

tion served as a laboratory for botanical experiments in

which

Banister,

who

also

had

his

own botanical

garden, assisted until his untimely death ing expedition with the elder Byrd.

on

a collect-

NATURE S PARADISE

By the middle of the eighteenth century Williamsburg, Hke Charleston, had become an important center for the transmission of botanical knowl-

among plantation owners, town gardeners, and interested parties back home in England. Many of edge

Williamsburg's gardens were reconstructed by the Rockefeller Foundation beginning in 1926 (see Chapter Fifteen).

The landscape

of William and Mary prevailing

style

Arthur

architect in charge,

researched the Dutch-English landscape

Shurcliff,

at the

time of

the town's foundation, studying existing Virginia site

plans and archaeological remains.

He

subsequently

created geometric parterres and topiary as well as a holly

maze

yew

Hampton Court. The most splendid gardens of

in the

same configuration

as the

one of

at

the colonial

period were those belonging to wealthy southern

owners who enjoyed the benefits of a mild

plantation

climate and were able to slaves in

employ

a large

6.51.

Plan of Middleton Place,

near Charleston, South Car-

workforce of

olina. Plan

garden construction. In the eighteenth cen-

drawn by

A.

T. S.

Stoney. 1938

and the Carolinas became the locus

tury, as Virginia

of

much

Below:

botanical activity, these southern gardens

displayed

many plants new

to horticulture.

Along the James River in

Virginia, tobacco gen-

terraces, the curves

of which are echoed

in the pair

erated the wealth that enabled great estate holders to

of lakes that form the shape of a butterfly where the

landscape their properties with graceful terraces lead-

garden meets the plantation's low-lying rice

ing to river landings, the usual a plantation

on

trees

begun

means of approach

to

by planting long allees of

either side. Carter's Grove, the plantation

in 1751

landscaped in Carolina,

by Carter Burwell, was ambitiously this fashion.

where

rice

Near Charleston, South

and indigo were the

basis of a

fields

and

the causeway leading to the river landing.

Extending over 40

mansion, although they also dignified

their inland entrance drives

acres, the

gardens

at

Middle-

ton Place were laid out under the supervision of

George Newman,

a

landscape gardener

Middleton brought from England.

Henry

One hundred plan-

tation slaves

working for ten years

mral season

built the impressive

in the nonagricul-

green

falls

and the

prosperous colonial economy, the terraced slopes of

geometric gardens to the north of the entry lawn, as

Cooper Rivers were

well as the drives, alUes, ponds, and long rectangular

the gardens above the Ashley and called

falls.

Many of the once-great gardens that lined

the banks of these ican Revolution ral disasters

Civil

War as well

as to natu-

and the misfortunes of time. There

remain„s, however, ple,

two rivers succumbed to the Amer-

and the

one excellent representative exam-

Middleton Place, which

is

open

to the public.

Descendants of the original owner, Henry Middleton, have restored the gardens their ancestor laid out in 1741 beside the

Although

Ashley River

it is

(figs. 6.51, 6.52).

an eighteenth-century garden,

Middleton Place does not stand within the tradition of contemporary English landscape design, but rather harks back to the earlier style of William and exemplified at Williamsburg.

Road on the inland side

From

a long drive

Mary

the Charleston

becomes a sweep-

ing oval mrnaround, carrying the visitor past the bles to the point

sta-

where the main house once stood.

This principal axis continues opposite the house

becoming the

spine of the gardens'

mre, the

a series of five gracefully

falls,

6.52. Aerial

view

of

Middleton Place gardens

site,

most original fea-

bowed grassy

canal.

Newman

fitted the

gardens into a triangular

EXPANDING HORIZONS

6.53.

Plan of Mount Vernon by

Samuel Vaughan. 1787

space defined by the edge of the entry lawn, the canal,

and the

they originally contained box-bordered

river;

a bowling green, and

parterres,

a

mount

for

viewing

ornamented landscape and surround-

the elegantly

ing marshland and rice paddies.

A sophisticated means

of controlling the alternating water

levels required

maintained the surface height of

for rice culture also

Middleton's Butterfly Ponds and tidal mill pond.

Another cenrur}' was to pass before the descendants of the slaves

who had built

would be emancipated.

It is

also a plantation

remember

sobering to

that the nation's founding father

was

Middleton Place

and

first

president

owner whose garden was

cre-

ated with slave labor

Mount Veflnon George Washington (1732-1799) was

a Virginia

landowner whose prosperity depended upon

rev-

enues derived from agriculture and livestock. His

home

at

Mount Vernon, high above

the Potomac,

was one of five farms he worked on the banks of the river

As a son of the Enlightenment, he followed with

keen

interest

ical

not only those developments in botan-

science that

were of benefit to agronomy but also

the exciting discoveries that were enriching the palette

of ornamental horticulture. Although he lacked

Thomas Jefferson's

firsthand

knowledge of contem-

porary English and French landscape design, he

owned engravings by Claude

Lorrain and responded

aesthetically to the Picturesque

he found

at

hand

in the

and sublime, which

unspoiled beauties of the

American scene. With no more professional advice than that found in his garden books, including a copy

New PhyKipks of Gardming, he fashgrounds around his Mount Vernon resi-

of Batty Langleys

ioned the

dence and took considerable pleasure fixiit

trees, planting

in

growing his

evergreen and flowering shrubs,

and propagating plants

in his

(1787) of

Washington's plan for laying out the grounds

Mount Vernon shows veranda facing the

the house with

river (fig. 6.53).

To

other for vegetables.

its

at

broad

the rear of the

pair of serpentine, symmetrical drives define a large

bowling green before converg-

ing in the drive leading to the highway. nesses" at trees,

its

many

elm,

hoUy

Two

"wilder-

western end and a surrounding belt of

of them native species

poplar, locust, pine, maple,

— crab apple,

dogwood, black gum,

mulberr)', hemlock,

magnoHa,

ends

order to mediate the visual transition between

their lines

and those of the serpentine walks. In addi-

between the

gar-

den walls and the bowling green, he constructed two earthen

mounds

next to the entrance drive, setting

weeping willows beside them whfle leaving open

a

view of the distant woods.

Two east,

groves of trees flanked the house on the

and here he mrned the sloping grounds into a

deer park and planted low-growing shrubs so as not to interrupt the vista

framed by

his classical portico

of rising hflls ranging into the blue distance.

A ha-ha.

or continuous ditch, served as an invisible fence, thus

ash,

In keeping with contemporar}' practice for rural bur-

— gave

A conservatory housed his collection of rare botani-

228

in

laurel, wil-

further definition and enclosure to the bowling green.

specimens.

On

out as geometric

preventing deer fi"om grazing adjacent to the house.

low, sassafras. Linden, arbor vitae, aspen, pine

cal

laid these

composed adjacent grounds with walls, curving their

house, a circular drive outlines a round lawn, and a

pear- or beU-shaped

He

beds and screened them from the more informaUy

tion to planting thicklv the space in

greenhouse.

The drawing by Samuel Vaughan

ington placed two gardens, one for flowers and the

opposite sides of the bowling green Wash-

ial

places.

Washington set the family tomb on

this ele-

vated ground overlooking the river

The elegance and

originalit)'

of Washington's

landscape design as well as the situation of the house

with regard to the scenic beauty of

Mount

Vernon's

NATURE'S PARADISE

from more than

eastern view

drew rhapsodic

one

The ornamental garden and

visitor.

praise

its

sur-

rounding panoramic scenery were undoubtedly

a

source of contentment to both Martha and George

Washington. At the same time, practical and horticulture continued to be for

He

him

scientific

a lively passion.

corresponded with nurserymen and botanists

America and abroad and placed orders shrubs, and seeds.

He

visited the

in

for trees,

gardens of the

Philadelphia plantsman John Bartram and the newly

Long Island.

established Prince nursery in Flushing,

Washington may perhaps be credited

as

being

retained Pierre Charles L'Enfant (1754-1825) to pre-

pare a plan for

and architect

major

stayed a

French

artist

who had come to America as a volunteer

cause of the Revolution, had risen to the rank

in the

of

6.54). L'Enfant, a

it (fig.

in the

on

time

Corps of Engineers. After the war, he

to find

when

work in the new United States.

It

was

other young French professionals,

deprived of their former ancien regime patrons by the

revolution in France, were emigrating to the bur-

geoning eastern seaboard

cities in this

hearing of the decision to establish a

Upon

country.

new capital, L'En-

who was designing and remodeling mansions in

fant,

the father of that important national institution, the

New York City, wrote to Washington offering to draw

American lawn. Another contemporary

up a plan

Niemcewicz,

a Polish aristocrat, called

non's grass "a green carpet of the vet."

visitor, Julian

Mount Ver-

most beautiful

trees (Liriodendron tidipfera),

magnolias (Magnolia

giniana), "the splendid catalpa not yet in flower"

"the

New

and

trees

and shrubs, covered with flow-

of different hues, planted so as to produce the best

of color-effects. 1

vir-

798,

'

He ended his encomium, written in

by declaring that "the whole plantation, the

den, and the rest prove well that a ural taste

seen

its

may

guess a

gar-

man born with nat-

beauty without having ever

new city.

importing

effect,

expressive of autocratic a

of the

political

new

planning vision

new kind of national grandeur based upon the prin-

ciples

of revolution and the Enlightenment. L'Enfant had, in

years at Versailles

fact,

where

spent eight of his

boyhood

his father, Pierre L'Enfant,

was employed in decorating the building of the Minof War.

istry

Royal

He had

subsequently enrolled

Academy of Painting and Sculpture

was therefore aware of royal

and

all

in the

in Paris

and

the developments, both

private, to embellish that capital. His first

and

in

accordance with

as a national

proposed did not imply the arbitrary imposition of a preconceived scheme upon nature, but rather used

federation, the founders

nation decided for reasons both practical to create an entirely

new

sparsely setded countryside bordering Virginia. Shortly after

site,

colonial cities of the thirteen

formed the original

and symbolical

irony

the theory of DezaUier d'Argenville, the plan that he

grounds to choose

one among the

states that

a

this

monarchy as the paradigm for

graphic qualities of the

Wasf iing ton, QC. capital

French archi-

assignment from Washington was to assess the topo-

model.

Unable on

In accepting the

Washington, whether he realized

or not, was, in

Scotland spruce of beautiful dark green,

and many other ers

vel-

Niemcewicz also remarked on the beautiful tulip

for the

tect's offer,

city in the

Maryland and

Congress enacted the

that created a federal district in 1790,

legislation

Washington

existing landforms as the basis of design. In particular,

Jenkins

Hill,

the area's highest eminence,

was sin-

gled out as the "pedestal waiting for a superstructure," the suggested

site for

the United States Capitol in the

memorandum that L'Enfant submitted with his final version of the plan in August

1791.'^'*

6.54.

Plan of Washington, D.C.

(detail).

Designed by Pierre

Charles L'Enfant. 1791

Lat.

Con

cpooo

WiaofaDBioapnr

L ft'"--

229

L'Enfant's plan disposed buildings a

and streets in

manner that brought the various elements of the

union

well the — executive and conceived iconographic — subdy as

legislature as

into a

eral states

up

a plan

colonial states that

fed-

that their citizens

Thomas Jefferson, who had also drawn for the new capital in 1791, L'Enfant pro-

a street grid.

grid, L'Enfant's

But instead of Jefferson's uniform

was

overlaid with another diagram

consisting of squares and circles connected by diagonal avenues. fant's

The plan was comparable to that of L'En-

boyhood town of Versailles,

a grid

punctuated

with squares and set within a framework of super-

imposed diagonal

monarch

scale fostered

by an ambi-

was expansive,

at Versailles

Washington, D.C., was more set at the

would appropriate, through private

subscription, funds for their

improvement.

In brief, given the equivalent

upon which

thirteen

formed the union) with the hope

of a blank

slate

to work, L'Enfant transcended the con-

joined garden-town model of his native VersaiUes, creating in Washington, D.C., a city with

dens within

it.

many

gar-

This combination of green openness

and urban monumentaHty constitutes the American capital's

uniqueness.

axes.

Although the urban tious

to be assigned to the then-existing states TKen-

mcky and Tennessee had recently joined the

sev-

eration.^^ Like

posed

were

so.

that of

The new capital city

edge of a vast continent was proportioned

to reflect the the opportunity of

abundant untenanted

from the foregoing that

clear

oping

manner

in a

and

waUs

in

scientific inquirv:

walkways. These walk-

devel-

their

way

torn down, a physical metaphor perhaps for the

The

80 feet (24 meters) reserved for the roadbed and 30

were

physically

were expanding and becoming ungirdled,

with

feet (9 meters) for flanking

cities

made them

They

founders.

its

that

conceptually different from their predecessors.

feet (49 meters) wide,

land as well as the ambitions of

major avenues were 160

It is

which philosophers were embracing open-ended Furthermore,

tury, their cultural

institutions

in the eighteenth cen-

new

contents were enlarged as

were incorporated into the urban

fabric.

ways were defined by double rows of trees, and there

Formerly the province of princes or private universi-

was an

ties,

additional 10-foot strip separating the trees

from the adjacent building lots on These great

ums,

either side.

tree-lined avenues

the then-existing states and

botanical and zoological gardens, libraries, muse-

were named

for

grouped roughly accord-

theaters,

damental

was the creation of

tions

entitlement.

and the southern

states in the

ridor linking the Capitol

ident's

on Jenkin's Hill and the

House, which was

sited

Pres-

on an aUuvial

domain.

a

One

cities.

From

city,

ments; in building Central Park a

that state as host to the signing of the Declaration of

tury later

Independence and the Constitutional Convention.

for the creation of public parks

New York Avenue with

the square in which the President's

House was located

commemorated New York Cit)''s former status as the capital

of the Continental Congress and the

Washington took the

site

Washington, D.C.. contained

Pall Mall)

many parkHke ele-

little

over a halt cen-

throughout the nation,

rus en urbe,

an

artful fusion

and public health In

summary, the urban

loosely

sions.

benefit.

As

fabric

was becoming

woven and of more generous dimen-

cities

grew, tore

down

their wafls,

described by L'Enfant as a "grand Avenue, 400 feet in

blurred the line betw^een urban and rural, the

breadth, and about a mile in length, bordered with

attitude

gardens, ending in a slope from the houses on each

The

side."^^

give

This Mall, which in L'Enfant's words would

Washington

most other

cities,

"a superiority of

was

to be the

assembly halls, academies"

agreements" over

home

of "theaters,

— purpose-built structures

catering to the entertainment, social, and intellectual

needs of a democratic

society. L'Enfant's

included Judiciary Square, the

Supreme Court, and

site

plan also

chosen for the

fifteen other squares.

These

of

country and city was promoted as an essential moral

more was

one American

New York City spearheaded a movement

which the notion of

where

presidential oath of office.

The Mall (abbreviated from

in

pub-

became

in the altered social

inception,

its

escarpment sloping up from the Potomac, was given

of

insti-

essential part of the

institution, the public park,

an especially important element structure of

fun-

sense of popular

the nineteenth centur}', cultural

were considered an

tutions lic

By

pride of place, thereby honoring the importance of

Similarly, the intersection

A

of the American and French Revolu-

result

the northern part of the district, the mid-Atlantic

southeastern section. Pennsylvania Avenue, the cor-

now considered

the rightful legacy of the urban bourgeoisie.

ing to their geography with the northeastern states in

states in the center

and opera houses were

toward nature was

and

human

significantly transformed.

spreading city gradually enguffed the rural coun-

tr\'side,

and nature became an increasingly important

component within

the urban framework.

The

cre-

ation of naturalistic parks, however, did not occur

without a cultural apparent

norms

shift.

That change was becoming

m the relaxation ot

at the

French landscape design

end of the seventeenth

grasp the character of

this

centur\'.

change more

turn to eighteenth-century England.

fully,

But to

we must

No

I

Li

I

OK Ci lAi'

Six

design of

illustrations of plans for the

1. Its

LK

1

palaces, bridges, and ornamental temples

would, however, be

wedded

landscape

to

when

tures

in

styles.

the Egyptian, Chinese, and Islamic

Published

in

German and French and

translated into English

in

1730,

was

it

influ-

ential in bringing

about the taste

these Palladian elements were incorpo-

cism prevalent

rococo architecture. See

rated into an Arcadian vision of perfected

Dora Wiebenson, The Picturesque Garden

design

eighteenth-century England

in

nature following the publication of the

immensely

Books of Architecture, 2.

John

1716.

in

and deeply

and gardens, pub-

horticulture

in

work

lished an earlier translation of this 1643:

The CompleatGard'ner,

in

and Veg-

Fruit

these precepts Dezallier

echoed

is

sector of the

the History of Gardens

9.

The

Scully, Architecture:

of

tin's

Press, 1991), Chapter

tive

discussion of this subject. See also

like a

modest fair.

spy'd.

Where half the skill is decently to hide. He gains all points, who pleasingly confounds.

Little,

Brown and Company,

Le Notre, having been assigned 30,000 sol-

ing

in

1684 for the purpose of construct-

embankment and an

massive

a

almost to be advocating

associate with that country siting of a

garden

divert a

(5

kilometers) long to

stream from the Eure River to

fur-

nish the fountains at Versailles, which, even after the construction of the

Marly

who

did not

have

sufficient

Machine

water

of

for their

number may

have been 25,000

although

see John W. Reps, The

A

America:

United States {Pnnceton,

"Roman Models

woods,

and mead-

rivers, hills

manova

in Italy,

the classic prototype of a

Columbian Consequences, Volume 3, The

spective, ed. David Hurst ington

chap.

Smithsonian

:

2,

pp. 21-35.

William Bradford, History of Plymouth

Plantation, as quoted

text of this

essay can be found

John Dixon Hunt and Peter

Willis,

in

The

Genius of the Place: The English Land-

scape Garden 1620-1820 (New Harper 5.

& Row,

1975), pp.

York:

51-56

Planning

New

the United States (Princeton,

in

Jersey: Princeton University Press,

1965), p. 119.

17.

See

John Dixon Hunt gives scholarly and con-

the English landscape

Garden and Grove:

Renaissance Garden

The

Italian

lish

Imagination:

New

in

in

the Eng-

/600-/750 (Princeton,

Jersey: Princeton University Press,

1986). This ilation of

study demonstrates the assim-

both Italian forms and Italian

into English

garden

spirit

to

University Press, 1982),

.

.

Colony

," .

.

Settling

Samuel Hazard,

.

Hazard and Mitchell,

and

1850), pp. 527-30.

Ursyn Niemcewicz, Under Their

Mac

Vine

wold, Washington's Gardens at Mount Ver-

11.

Reconstructed several times,

was transformed

tury

into

in

this foun-

the eighteenth cen-

extravagantly

the

baroque

12.

Christopher Hibbert, Cities and

tion

(New

York:

Civiliza-

Weidenfeld and Nicolson,

1986), p. 139 13. Livorno is

squares

Pans. The Piazza d'Arme and Covent of a

— Duomo Church — while the Place

and

Royale and the Place Dauphine have no

St.

Paul's

Livorno's

such monumental architectural focus. 14.

non: Landscape of the Inner

Houghton 20.

St Petersburg

Mifflin

See John

W

Company,

Reps,

is

often called "a city built

of

Man {Bosion:

Monumental Wash-

p. 16,

Princeton

for this

and

memorandum.

other details of LEnfant's

much

Gris-

1999), p. 32.

New Jersey:

University Press, 1967),

21. For

thought to have also been the

inspiration for Henri IV's planned

m

Fig Tree, as quoted in

ington (Prmceion,

Fountain of Trevi.

135.

first

.

interior blocks.

Fischer von Eriach's Entwurf einer histhe

the

defense and avoiding awkwardly shaped

p.

was

of

of the

Given by me, William Penn

my Commissioners for the

phia:

7.

torischen Arc h itektu r {]12])

.to ...

19. Julian

of ordering circulation for rapid

major public building

architectural treatise to depict exotic struc-

for the

ff.

England settlement pattern.

means

See John Dixon Hunt, Garden and Grove,

6.

43

p.

development and transformation

..

of

1845{New Haven: Yale

ery of the Delaware, ;605-/6S2(Philadel-

like

Garden, however, form the context

style.

Common Landscape

Stilgoe,

America, 1580

century gardens, supplied a more effective

tain

vincing explication of Italian influence upon

John Reps, The

in

Making of Urban Amenca: A History of City

Annals of Pennsylvania, from the Discov-

alleesto be found

The

Thomas (Wash-

Institution Press,1991),

the radial

polygonal fortress town,

make a beautiful landscape." See John James edition (1728), p. 13.

in

Crouch,

P.

Spanish Colonization"

French seventeenth-

ows, with a thousand other varieties that

4.

of Pal-

my text derive from

in

Spanish Borderlands in Pan-American Per-

18. "Instructions

such as those

for

pp. 26-32.

2,

see also Dora

this source;

ferred a conventional grid layout inside his citadels, radial streets

Urban

Princeton

N.J.:

University Press, 1982), chap.

in

of

f\/laking

History of City Planning in the

from the end of a walk, or

of villages,

of the Laws of Roman antecedents,

good explanation

the Indies and their

New

number

in

be

to

100,000.

simultaneous operation. While Vauban pre-

off a terrace, for

to 30,000,

day the figure was said

Peter's

so as to obtain "the pleasure of seeing,

four or five leagues round, a vast

conscripted work-

ill-clad, ill-fed

died of cold, dysentery, malaria,

scurvy, and other causes; the

16.

aqueduct over 3 miles

bounds. the English translation of Dezallier 's work,

1991),

3.

Vauban was probably acquainted with

10.

diers

Surprises, varies, and conceals the

when he commends the

provoca-

10, for a

and Meanings Through History

terns

Chapter

in fact,

Mar-

St.

Spiro Kostof, The City Shaped: Urban Pat-

Nature never be forgot.

we

and Designed Land-

Lord Burlington, the creator

in lines

ers

The quoted passages

See Vincent

(Boston:

the style

European

of the

Chang Chun Yuan," Studies in

scapes, 19:3/4 (July-December 1999), pp.

each beauty ev'rywhere be

he seems,

"China and Europe

Siu,

new view

intertwined: a

Nor overdress, not leave her wholly bare; Let not

M.

Victoria

Natural and Manmade (Newyork.

But treat the Goddess

In

See

number of

15. For a

of

who

Stowe, entreated: In all, let

Prince-

50-56

by Alexander Pope his Epistle to

New Jersey:

France (Pmce\on,

376-393.

etable Gardens. 3. In all

in

for exoti-

ton University Press, 1978), pp. 95-96. 8.

Evelyn, traveling abroad

interested

The Four

influential translation.

in

on bones." Estimates vary as to the exact

what follows am indebted I

to the scholarship of nell University,

Pamela Scott

whose essay

of Cor-

"'This Vast

Empire': The Iconography of the Mall,

1791-1848"

Papers XIV Study

in

is

one

of the

of

the

Symposium

Center for Advanced

the Visual Arts published

in

The

Mall in Washington 1791-1991, ed. Richard Longstreth. 22.

As quoted

in

Reps, op.

cit., p.

21.

CHAPTER SEVEN

SENSE AND SENSIBILITY:

LANDSCAPES OF THE AGE OE REASON, ROMANTICISM, AND REVOLUTION

Xhe

concept of landscape as varied and diverse scenery to be

rather than as a receptacle for revealed Truth and immutable law,

contemplated and appreciated rather than nature demanding to be

had an important effect on garden design in the eighteenth century

tamed and ordered, was century.

one

genre stimulated and influenced

rural scenery

and landscape designs that

eighteenth

a

growing

reflected the mind's sen-

was light"

—

memorable epitaph

that serves as his

"Nature and nature's lawsTayTiId all

cific

were contrived to furnish the sensate mind with spe-

mental associations and impressions.

As a physical marufestation of the

taste for

and moods.

and

as landscapes

out in Locke's Essay Concerning

Human

philosophy laid

intellectual

Understanding (1690), and

the consequent authority granted to individual sensibility, the gar-

With the couplet

be,'

dawn of the

at the

Both poetry and the development of landscape painting

as a specific

sations

a novel

in night, /God said,

poet, essayist,

'let

—

Newton

and garden enthusiast Alexan-

der Pope (1688-1744) epitomized the place in history of the great

Newton (1642-1727).

English physicist and mathematician Sir Isaac

With the discovery of the

optical properties of light, definition of

den assumed

a

new

character and function.

role as a place of

Its

authoritarian power, display, and social entertainment

ished as

it

became

a place of meditation, reflection,

was dimin-

and friendship.

Locke provides the key to understanding the emphasis upon the associative potential

of garden scenes in the eighteenth century. As

waned and land-

the intellectual tradition of Neoplatonic classicism

upon

the norion of an underlying normative

the laws of motion, development of an infinitesimal calculus, and

scape design based

Newton effectively modern science. What followed was an unprecedented confidence in human reason. Newton fathered the

order of harmonic proportion ceased to be influential, the desire

Enlightenment and was a correspondent and

sensibility,

formulation of the law of universal gravitation, laid the

foundations of

Royal Society, which promoted open-ended

an era

later president

of the

scientific discovery in

when the universities stiU taught according to an Aristotelian

pedagogy

that presupposed the systematization of scholarship

within an all-encompassing, self-contained fi-amework.

medicine helped lay the groundwork for a as well as for a

new

politics,

rest

education, and

new human psychology

empirical approach to science. Taking issue

that, to the contrary, all

knowledge of the world must

on sensory experience. This concept of the mind

as

ment for inductive reasoning and a theater for personal

232

tions fostered a

new kind of garden making.

Its

orientation toward

rather than abstract beauty, caused patrons and design-

ers to value ancient architectural styles, ruins,

monuments, and

commemorative

a richly varied natural scenery.

These provoked

admiration and reflection, induced moral instruction, and created

an

The

a

with Descartes's belief in the mind as a repository of innate ideas,

he declared

produce stimuli for a wide range of mental experiences and emo-

pleasurable surprise.

Newton's contemporary John Locke (1632-1704) was philosopher whose vision of epistemology

to

instru-

experience.

intellecmal

freedom engendered by Locke's fresh exam-

ination of the workings of the

human mind fostered and supported

the contemporary climate of political change. Locke

the household of Baron Ashley (later the as a physician.

He

first earl

was taken into

of Shaftesbury)

proved to be an influential confidant of that

statesman as well, working toward the goals of increased erty,

civil lib-

constitutional monarchy, parliamentary rule, religious tolera-

tion, Protestant succession,

and mercantile

trade. Thus, although

—

a

SENSE AND SENSIBILITY

the actual gardens of his

own

day were the French-inspired ones

of the Restoration and the Anglo-Dutch gardens of William and Mary, Locke's belief in nal ideas

freedom, together with his semi-

political

on sensory awareness, provided the

the gardens of Georgian England.

The

result

images to stimulate ideas of

was

a

more

natura-

a historical, ethical, partisan, or senti-

mental nature, thus promoting the proud ideal of the country as a

itself

kind of libertarian garden.

on the importance of reverie and the power of

the imagination, extended Locke's influence.

aware organ, capable of

produce visions of

a

feats

more

gardens

The mind

as a self-

of intuition as well as reason, could

perfect

human society. Inspired by Rome as well as of his

when

of emblematically significant Eng-

a series

—including most notably Stowe and Castle Howard

were being created.

As the

associative potential of gardens to thematically por-

became less compelling and the enclomovement gathered force, English landscape design tradition evolved into the abstractly expressive style of "Capability" Brown tray a particular ideology

sure

and, subsequently, into the Picturesque style with tion,

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), in his philosophical and political discourses

lish

intellectual soil for

with architectural and ornamental elements used as

listic style,

the time

tial at

which proved

especially popular in France,

variant of the jViniin anglais

Picturesque theorists

engendered

who

a great deal

had become

Rococo inflecstyle's

was termed the jardin anglo-chinois. The themselves

set

in

opposition to

Brown

of spirited debate because the eighteenth-

cenmry garden remained an arena of aesthetic it

its

where the

less didactically explicit.

The

idealism even after

relationship

between

images of ancient Sparta and republican

landscape and political and intellecmal philosophy was important

native city of Geneva, he set forth in The Social Contract (1762) a

not only in Europe but also in the newly formed United States of

doctrine of

human

equality

and

political

America where Thomas Jefferson imaginatively took up the task

democracy.

man" and in the inspirational character of nature, Rousseau became a prophet not only for the political revolutionaries who read in him their own Believing in the innate goodness of "namral

social visions,

gained force

our

own

but also of Romanticism. This movement, which

at the

day,

end of the eighteenth century and extends into

posed

counterbalance to the scientific

a spiritual

rationalism of the Enlightenment. as a

mode

ot

Emotion and visionary inmition

human perception became

as

important as thought

and rational calculation. Rousseau's philosophy, which enlarged the

freedom Locke had granted the

senses,

was instrumental

vesting classicism with poetic visions ot a lost

in rein-

Golden Age.

understandable, therefore, that the eighteenth-cenmry garden

imaginative participation in an

—owed

lization

world beyond "corrupt"

a debt to his theories. Appropriately,

it

was

at the

end

of his

Anthony Ashley Cooper,

like

man and

civi-

life.

also

Rousseau, believed in the innate

of nature. Shaftesbury saw land-

scapes as having personality; he cried out to the "Genius of the Place,"' the spirit that interacts with the

human mind, eliciting memory and

emotions, fostering perceptions, stimulating both curiosity.

Shaftesbury advocated grottoes, cascades, and other dra-

matically charged landscape forms as a tal

means of stimulating men-

associations with nature's mysteries. His thoughts influenced

Addison and Pope, writers whose garden theories were

coming age's commitment

anticipate the

italism

and democracy were those of the German polymath and

influen-

to industrial cap-

poet Goethe and the seminal English poet Wordsworth. Although

both had practical experience

more broadly

culmral.

in

garden design, their influence was

Goethe saw nature

as a source

ential ecstasy that could, if carried to excess as

be debflitating as well

also anticipated the dark

third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713),

an Enlightenment writer who,

goodness of natural

Rousseau's to further the trend toward Romanticism in the West

and to

his time,

in the

Rousseau was the intellecmal heir not only to Locke, but to

Perhaps the most important eighteenth-century minds besides

It is

romantically conceived garden of the Marquis de Girardin at

Ermenonville that Rousseau sought refuge

of continental dimensions.

—

place particularly congenial to reverie, recollection, reflection, and ideal

of garden design while also shaping a vision for an agrarian nation

of experi-

was the tendency of

as exhilarating. In Faust Part

H he

Romanticism implicit in Nietzsche's notion

of a Superman. By portraying his famous protagonist in the guise of industrial developer

—

Faust's ultimate quest for experience

ascendance over nature and the

saw the exponential ist

power

that

momenmm. intimate

release of

would occur

rest

of humankind

— Goethe

new sources of energy and capital-

as the Industrial

Wordsworth's poems

communion with and

also

Revolution gained

encouraged intense and

reflection

upon

nature. For

Wordsworth, love of namre was inevitably conjoined with ence for the

human mind,

ception, without

rever-

the noble instrument of Lockean per-

which nature's marvelous beaut)' would be

naught. In addition, Wordsworth fostered empathy

humanity, finding simple, honest beauty ence of ordinary

lives.

in the

for

as

common

quotidian experi-

Thus, Goethe and Wordsworth are pivotal,

carrying forward into the nineteenth

cenmry the

strikingly

impor-

tant eighteenth-cenmry concept that "the genius of the place"

human genius,

and

fore-

and

a gift to aU mortals, are inextricably aUied.

233

The Genius oe the Place: Forging a New Landscape Style THROUGH LlTEKATUKE, ArT, AND THEORY I.

Many

advocates of the naturalistic garden read into

John Milton's description of Eden

new style

vision of a

and curious Knots ous view

."^ .

.

.

most responsible

innocent of "nice Art

... I

.

Beds

garden design

for turning English

By

his writing

actively publicized the style

favored by the

In

/

A happy rural seat of vari-

and example.

of landscape design

Whig aristocracy and gentry as well as and

their literary

artistic

These Whig

friends.

landowners, often with Pope's advice, initiated proj-

wed English taste

The

Plant and Bush."^

den from

artifice

liberation of the English gar-

and constraint in the eighteenth cen-

tury mirrored, in Addison's mind, the country's

freedom from autocratic

rule.

Addison recommended to

But Alexander Pope was the poet

in a different direction.

Pope

in Paradise Lost a

his readers the gar-

dens of China, which "conceal the Art by which they direct themselves.'"*

Chinese porcelains were begin-

ning to appear in England with the burgeoning of the export trade, and Matteo Ripa's engraved landscape views, reputedly the

first illustrations

dens to reach the West, were

in the

of Chinese gar-

hands of Lord

in the

Burlington after 1724. Addison's recommendation of

Andrea Palladio with English

the apparent artlessness of Chinese gardens as a stim-

scenery, creating landscapes that attempted to evoke

ulant to the "Imagination" prodded landowners to

"the genius of the place."

new possibilities.

ects that

architectural style of

for

country houses

Their creation of a new landscape

was less

style

radical,

and more evolutionary than subsequent chau-

vinistic

generations

would

Like the "fantastical

phenomenon"

discussed by Locke in Some Thoughts on the Conduct of the Understanding in the Search of Truth (1690), they

Le Notre 's

provided images and, thereby, a variety of sensory

follower Antoine-Joseph Dezallier d'Argenville

impressions that induced in the mind a state of

(1680-1765) published in 1712 an English edition of

reverie.

his

1

like to believe.

709 influential treatise La Theorie

jardinage in

nature.

which he proposed that

The

et la

pratique du

art give

way

to

Thus, the need arose for a shifting panorama

of visual associations to feed the voracious imagination.^

The

variety and irregularity he advocated

ingredients for sensory entertainment of

within his otherwise geometrical plans showed the

the imagination lay

gradual relaxation of Louis XIV's authoritarian style

and

around the time of the king's death when

the ancient

eral culture

began to be refleaed in all the

more lib-

a

arts.

While

envisioning a different end from that which Pope had in

mind when

advising Lord Burlington to "Consult

the Genius of the Place in

Englishman,

all," it

was

Dezallier,

who first suggested the ha-ha,

not an

a contin-

uous ditch that acted as a sunken fence permitting the visual unification of the

garden and

its

surrounding

countryside. But the naturalistic style soon

became

almost exclusively identified with England. This was

due

substantially to the pains

Whig aristocrats took

to express belief felt in their country's civil liberties.

human

gil,

libraries

no

farther

away than the

of the great country

Greek and Roman

estates. In

fields

reading

poets, especially Vir-

a rusticating aristocrat could find support for

delighting in simple rural scenes, for as Addison

remarked, "Virgil has drawn together, into his Aeneid, all

the pleasing Scenes [that] his Subject

is

capable of

admitting, and in his Georgics has given us a Collection of the

most

delightful Landskips that can be

made out of Fields and Woods, Herds of Cattle, and Swarms of Bees. The Whig landowner to whom Addison and Pope appealed Uked

to see himself as a

Horace or

a

Pliny the Younger, a practitioner of an eighteenth-

century version of otium, the use of rural leisure as

Liteflary

OE A

Proponents

an intellectual stimulus,

New Style

estate after a

Joseph Addison (1672-1719)

and The Spectator argued

improvement

that

was

in his essays in

for a

The

Tatler

kind of landscape

anti-authoritarian

and

practi-

term

classical subjects

when he

in Parliament.

returned to his

His sympathy with

and appreciation of the relaxed rela-

tionship that existed

between

art

and nature

in

Roman times had been nourished by a receptive read-

cal.

He thought that "a Man might make a pretty Landskip of his own Possessions" merely by planting

ing of the ancient poets and statesmen.

oaks on his hilltops, recognizing the beauty of his wU-

places of private retirement and social entertainment,

low-filled

these

marshes and fields of grain and improving

and his wOdflower meadows by maintaining the

paths between them. ing the fact that

Pyramids

.

.

.

He scorned Dutch taste, deplor-

"Our Trees rise in Cones, Globes, and

[with] the

Marks of the

Scissars

on every

The

agricvil-

tural self sufficiency of Pliny's villas, their function as

their attention

to

human comfort and

scenic

prospect

—

emphasis

in eighteenth-century English gardens. This,

all

these things inspired an agrarian

in turn, influenced the

den ornament

as

emblematic character of gar-

numerous

statues of Ceres, Flora,

THE GENIUS OF THE PLACE

and Bacchus took up residence side

in English fields along-

of those traditional garden deities, Pan and Venus.

So compelling was the hold exerted by

Rome on the

eighteenth-century English imagination that Richard Boyle, third earl of Burlington (1695-1753) financed

Robert

Castell's publication in

1

728 of

of the

Villas

Ancients, a reconstruction in plan (somewhat mistak-

enly along symmetrical Palladian lines) of Pliny the

Younger's two

villas,

Because of early

Roman

this

Tusci and Laurentinum.

sympathy

Empire, the

first

for the poets of the

two decades of

the

eighteenth century in England are sometimes called

an Augustan Age. In keeping with latter-day

Augustan

his self-image as a

moment

at the

when

in history

England was on the verge of garnering an empire, the

Whig lord's great house was frequently designed

in the Palladian style.

The simple

of classical architecture and

evoked more

dignity of this

relatively

its

effectively the virtues

form

modest scale

of the antique

world than did the more flamboyant and grandiose architecture of the

contemporary Baroque

with old mythologies and their imagery was disap-

emblemadc

pearing and the

style.

character of landscape

7.1.

Plan and vignettes of

Chiswick, London. Gardens

developed by Richard Boyle,

An amateur architect and the center of an influential artistic

ated his

and literary coterie. Lord Burlington cre-

villa at

Chiswick

as a small-scale version

of

was being replaced by design,

a less didactic

approach to

one that the garden historian John Dixon

Hunt calls

"expressive." This type of

garden

3rd Earl of Burlington. 1718-35. Further developed with

William Kent

after 1735.

relied less Engraving by John Rocque,

Palladio's Villa

Rotonda (fig.

7. 1).

The landscape he cre-

ated there over a twenty-year period beginning in

1

725

on such keys

to understanding as Cesare Ripa's

Iconologia: or Moral

1736

Emblems and more completely on

pioneered the marriage of a symmetrical Palladian

nature unadorned, but carefully arranged, for

house with an artfuOy irregular landscape that never-

expressive

its

effect.''

theless preserved elements of Continental classical

and Poetry as Inspikation

order Within the garden were winding paths and long

Pain T INC.

perspectival corridors of greenery framing obelisks

FOR Landscape Design

and

Although we have used the term landscape design

several small Palladian temples

Other Whig lords were original sense arts

and

travelers ture,

also

and pavilions.

amateurs

in the

of the word: lovers of literature and the

They were students of the

sciences.

classics,

abroad and connoisseurs of painting, sculp-

and architecture.

on behalf of

liberal

In addition, they

were

active

reform and jealous guardians of

ity

this

book to defme the professional activ-

associated with the creation of gardens, parks,

urban

plans, the

word

gained currency only

son led others

in

landscape as applied this

in the eighteenth century.

using

it

to imply the

and

way

Addi-

arrangement

of landscape forms so that they resembled painting.

fi"ee-

The educated Whig aristocrats who spearheaded the

to disagree overtly with their government).

evolution of a naturalistic idiom of gardening in the

recently granted political fi^eedoms (including the

dom

throughout

Owners of large

tracts

of newly enclosed rural land,

they solicited and implemented the advice of their erary mentors. Their patronage of a

lit-

new generation

first

decades of the eighteenth century did so in con-

scious imitation of the landscape paintings they collected.

The French seventeenth-century

painters

of designers transformed garden design fi"om an art

Claude Lorrain (1600-1682) and Nicolas Poussin

based on architectural geometry to one based to a

(1594-1665) were especially esteemed; Claude in par-

large degree

on techniques of painterly composition.

Their gardens were no longer created with "rule and line,"

ject

but rather as a painter would compose a sub-

on

a canvas. In

them, poetry and history were

ticular

embodied

for these lords the spirit of Virgil

and a vanished Golden Age, the aura of which they

had experienced as travelers in the

Roman Campagna

(fig. 7.2).

employed as resources for various thematic itineraries.

Like Poussin, Claude had lived and painted in

As we walk today through some of these now-

Rome. He painted figures in a half- wild bucolic land-

remember

scape within which rose simple cubic peasant struc-

historic English gardens,

it is

difficult to

how filled with associative meaning they were to their first visitors.

Indeed, even by the middle of the eigh-

teenth century, as

we

shall see,

general acquaintance

tures

and imaginary temples based on ancient

ruins.

Mythological in subject matter, they exude the atmos-

phere of Arcadia and are reminiscent of the poetry

235

SENSE AND SENSIBILITY

Calls in the country, catches

opening glades,

Joins willing woods, and varies shades

from

shades,

Now breaks, or now directs, the intending lines; you

Paints as

plant,

and

as

you work,

designs.

follow sense, of every art the soul.

Still

Parts answering parts shall slide into a whole,

Spontaneous beauties ev'n from

Start,

Nature

all

around advance,

difficulty, strike

shall join

Time

you;

from chance;

make

shall

grow

it

A work to wonder at — perhaps a Stowe.** The

English anecdotist Joseph Spence (1699-

1768), in his Observations, Anecdotes,

and Characters of

Books and Men, quotes Pope as saying, is

'All

gardening

landscape-painting. Just like a landscape

hung up."

Pope maintained

Homer's

well; his translation of

picmresque 7.2.

Claude Lorrain, Landscape

Near Rome with a View of the

of Virgil. Narrative association, as

between

tionship

much as a new rela-

and nature, would

art

inspire the

approach to poetry

this visual

sensibility as

shows

keen

a

mem-

he organizes several

manner of

orable scenes in the

Iliad

as

tableaux vivants.

Although a Catholic Tory, Pope was a friend

to

Ponte Molle. 1645. City

Museum and

Art Gallery,

Birmingham, England

design of Stowe and Stourhead, Painshill and Esher Place.

These gardens were arranged

as theaters

of

the progressive

Whigs whose interests he shared.

members of Lord

other

meditation, a series of staged scenes where the

admired PaUadian architecmre and was deeply com-

human

mitted to the

was both spectator and

visitor

unlike the theater,

actor.

But

where pastoral dramas were

enacted before the stationary spectator, here the

moved from

viewer

scene to scene, and the scenes

classical traditions

metry because variety,

most esteemed His

Indeed, the

human mind itself was the protago-

green theaters.

new concept it in his own

Alexander Pope both promoted the

to

for

its

remarkable three-chambered grotto,

and mirrors to

In

Lockean psychology,

Virgilian

to plant, whatever

you

intend.

rear the column, or the arch to bend. swell the terrace, or to sink the grot; all,

let

Namre

modest

treat the

Not

over-dress, not leave her

visitors.

dream chamber, the mind. classical

While

goddess

like a

a place this

that he

had

And, from

fair,

wholly bare;

He gains all points, who pleasingly

confounds.

and conceals the bounds.

the waters or to

rise,

artifice.

"strictly

its artificial stalactites,

Pope was proud

followed

eschewed the elaborately

Namre"

artificial

obvi-

to boast

in creating

he was correct.

sance grottoes in favor of a

which he had arranged

above

decently to hide.

Consult the genius of the place

eighteenth-cenmry version of a

his perspective,

as to simulate a

Surprises, varies,

both to soothe and stimulate

imbedded minerals, and dripping water, was

Let not each beauty every where be spied. skill is

This grotto was conceived as a

nymphaeum, with

Where half the

tells

lit-

it.

He had

hydraulics and

arcane mythological decorative programs of Renais-

never be forgot.

But

That

in reverie,

stream of

ously the height of

To

and multiply the

where Pope could engage

erary pursuit, or conversation with his constant

perhaps the most succinct and forceful pre-

To build,

reflect

speci-

An Epistle

and Claudian painting into landscape design:

To

Twickenham was famed

which were smdded with mineral

shells,

view, a place

at

Twicken-

scription for translating

poetry,

Pope's theory of design.

at

Thames-side viUa

Lord Burlington his philosophy of garden composi-

tion, stiU

all

trait in

into pithy couplets in

his

ham. He compressed

mens,

produced monotony and lack of

own garden

the walls of

of gardening in print and demonstrated

garden adjacent to

above

it

well-ordered variety being perhaps the single

dramatic action existed solely in the mind of each visitor.

of ancient Rome.

Like Addison, he scorned topiary and faulted sym-

themselves were only allusive settings in which the

nist in these

in

all,

or

fall,

Or helps the ambitious hill the heavens to scale. Or scoops in circling theatres the vale;

236

Like

Burlington's coterie, he

all,

more

namralistic cave in

his geological

quarry or mine. Pope's grotto was,

a highly personal expression, containing

associations with the

many

friends

entertained there and reminding

numerous geologic specimens of

who had sent them to

whom he

had

him through

its

the correspondents

him.

Another popular and

Thomson

specimens so

influential poet,

James

(1700-1748), saw the English garden as a

metaphor for British freedoms. He his

poem and

long

British

life

work The

is

remembered for

Seasons, a

paean to

landscape that anticipates Romanticism in

religious attitude for nature's

its

toward nature. His reverential awe

bounty and beauty was coupled with the

growing pride the English felt in the loveliness of their

wave of landscape

countryside, particularly as the

improvement swept the

Thomson

nation. For

the

realm of imagination and the realm of landscape

were intertwined. The mind itself was scape: "the varied scene of

was

reflection.

meaning

now fully under way. The enclosed lands, a combination of rectangular fields

Where foxhunting was a sport, there were occasional copses between the fields. The increased control over water supplies by wealthy owners,

and the views to be enjoyed from

The

vast

as a stim-

new way. Ordinary monuments that

evoked sensations, heightening interest and stimulat-

farm could therefore be both

and poetic. The notion of the ^rme

was

first

estate

effectively

tremendous beautification

proposed

in

practi-

ornee,

or

England by

the

nurseiyman and garden designer Stephen Switzer

(c. 1

682-1 745).

His influential volume The Nobleman,

of

a great deal

able to

its

windows.

improvement attendant transformed the English

we know came

effort

human suffering.

today. This

at the price

of

Enclosure took pas-

turage rights away and forced the majority of rural

people to

farmland could be ornamented with

farm-as-landscape,

amount of

countryside into the landscape

some landed Englishmen to

think about their properties in a

cal

who were

seat

upon enclosure

and therefore landscape experience

A

were called parks.

consideration of the presentation of the residential

The philosophy that saw the mind as a theater of sen-

ing emotion.

hedged with white hawthorn

interspersed with ash and efrn trees,

to

1

ulus to reflection caused

for fuel,

and other forms of construction was

houses than heretofore. This permitted a thorough

Landscapi Th[ grists PkAC lONKKS

sation

shipbuilding,

It

sensation.^

1

wood

order to increase the production of

in

possible a far greater independence in the siting of

"the mind's creative eye" that gave

1

a tree-planting

"weeping grot-

"

"

AND

had promoted

Sylva

impound it in ponds and pump it through pipes, made

and "prophetic glooms provoked

"

book

quick-compounded

thought," in which "visionary vales, toes,

a kind of land-

influential

program, and the reforestation of the countryside

become

This tically

is

tenant farmers.

the context in

which Switzer enthusias-

claimed the ferme ornee to be derived from

"some of the best Genius's of France,"

as well as

from

Rome where had been proved "the truest and best Way of Gardening in the World, and such as the it

politest

and best Genius of all Antiquity delighted in."

These were encouraging words

for Hterary

and

who wanted to

aes-

Gentleman, and Gardener's Recreation of 1715 was

thetically inclined

expanded

porate poetic and painterly sensation into their

Riistiai. It

in 1718 into the

three-volume Iconographia

was again augmented in a 1 742

progressive ideas derived from

scape design development.

ground of

the enclosure

edition with

two decades of

It is

land-

against the back-

movement

that Switzer's

popularity and that of later garden theorists and practitioners

waning of the Middle Ages,

as Britain's

was, after

a

dominant agrarian activity, andent forestland

and inhospitable heath had been converted to hedged

and

fields

pastures, notably in the southern counties.

Around certain andent villages, where there were tional grassy fields,

tilled

downs

for grazing,

some of

the

addi-

open

which had formerly been held as commons and

by allotment, were enclosed by contract agree-

ment. This process of endosure accelerated in the eighteenth century arable land

when more than

were enclosed by

private treaty as the

all,

a professional

man dependent upon the

As many of these

favor of his clients.

kind of gardens that had been

laid

he advanced

classical tradition,

ftiends, the

population swelled and sheep and cattle grazing

became

3 million acres

of

incor-

recently enclosed utilitarian landscapes. But Switzer

still

owned the

out in the French

his ideas

tiously than did the literary advocates

can be best understood.

Since the

landowners

more

cau-

and

their

Whig landowners.

Batty Langley

( 1

696-1 751) represents to an even

greater degree than Switzer the lingering influence

of French variety

classical tradition in

and respect

his 1728

England. Arguing for

for natural landscape features in

New Principles

of Gardening, Langley never-

theless gives formulaic prescriptions,

and his

illustra-

tions consist of ornate labyrinthine paths that twirl

and squiggle

like

elegant

Rococo

exercises within

highly regular garden plots. Geometric basins in the

French manner form the centerpieces of these

curi-

acts of Parliament

and

ous mazes, and elsewhere

economic value of improved

turf

namral" gardens he advocates broad, straight avenues

for grazing transformed British agriculture

from a com-

and geometricaDy shaped lawns. Like

munity-based system of open-field cultivation and

a

common pasturage to one of private ownership.

cated than the

Simultaneously, in response to England's tim-

ber famine in the seventeenth century, John Evelyn's

in his "grand, beautiful

how-to book.

Burlington ical

and

Switzer's, his

is

In appealing to a clientele less edu-

artists, architects,

circle,

he

is

concerned

and writers of the less

with the poet-

values and literary associations of classical sculp-

wavy and

ture than with the appropriateness (or lack thereof) of

held that

certain mythological figures in relationship to partic-

pleasing to the eye

—

ular kinds of scenery

ment of Pomona body of

water.

in the grove, Flora in the flower

contrast to Langley's simplistic approach

by

Thomas Whately

(d.

rule rather than

by

inspiration,

government

1772), a

writing as a landscape

official

connoisseur in 1765, after landscape had been fully "released

.

.

from the

.

restraints

of regularity," pro-

shift

from

emblematic to expressive means on the part of con-

temporary landscape designers. This was reinforced

by a growing belief

garden, and Bacchus in the vineyard.

By

Whately's writing reflected the

for instance, the correct place-

in the fruit garden, Ulysses near a

Pan

serpentine lines were inherently

power of

in the

ruins to inspire a

mood of elegiac melancholy, of dark-toned vegetation to mrn the thoughts into paths of somber reflection, of bright green

meadows to soothe

of sunny

reminiscent of harvest revels to raise

fields

the agitated soul,

the spirits to the level of gaiety, of

and

still

brooks and

vides both a valuable record of the appearance of

placid lakes to speak of peace

some of the important gardens designed in the

tumbling waterfalls to induce a thrilling fear. Water,

half of the eighteenth century

first

and an understanding

of the transformation of landscape gardening thetics as the

aes-

century continued. While gardening for

the British Augustans

was an

which the

art in

emblems of classical literature, friendship,

and

family,

particular,

element

of nature's

qualities

water, and rocks

"

steal

away

own materials

— became the

posing landscapes.

as the expressive

—"ground, wood,

means of com-

sole

Though shorn of temples and

of loud in

was for Whately a practically indispensable

in the garden. Indeed, according to

him, "So

various are the characters which water can assume, that there cur,

is

scarcely an idea in

or an impression which

it

which

it

may not con-

cannot enforce.

Whately's contemporary, Horace Walpole

nation were important, in Whately 's day, the deities

and heroes could quietly

serenity,

(1717-1797), like Pope, enjoyed the charms of a

Thames-side

villa.

Like Whately, he used his pen to

advance the fame of the English garden; between 1771 and 1780 he wrote the

first

history of the devel-

other symbolic structures, a well -designed landscape

opment of the new style. ^ Less theoretical and philo-

could, nonetheless, evoke a range of moods.

sophical than Whately, Walpole chose to assign the

Whately's Observations on Modern Gardening

chief credit for the landscape innovations he both

( 1

770)

helped promote landscape design as one of the eral arts.

found

The

namralistic approach

it

a receptive audience in France,

lib-

recommended where

this style

was known as tinejardin anglais. The book was so popular that a second edition as the

practiced and witnessed

genius of certain individuals, notably Charles Bridge-

man (c.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797) had in A Philosophical Enquiry into the

lines

while banishing topiary, turning parterres into

and opening views into the surrounding coun-

based on the theories

lawns,

expounded

tryside.

in

1757

Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Burke,

as a follower

of Locke, strove to define the corre-

spondences between certain

human emotions and

particular categories of sensory impression. Sublim-

size,

those scenes that, because of their

awesome

sharp colors, loud sound, association with the

unknown, and often abrupt

irregularity,

caused sen-

sations best described as a kind of admiring terror or fearftil

1680-1738) and William Kent (1685-1748).

Bridgeman gave practical expression to the ideas of Pope and Addison, retaining some geometrical

first.

ity lay in

around him not to any

general aesthetic evolution but to the imaginative

was published the same year

The kind of gardening Whately advocated was

Origin of

all

wonder. Beauty, on the other hand excited "the

passion of love, or

some correspondent affection" and

He also gave tangible form to the writings of

Stephen Switzer, combining poetical allusions with practical landscapes in the "rural

and farm-like way

of gardening." Walpole credits Bridgeman with inventing the ha-ha and loosening up the garden's formality. Kent, however,

lasting

renown

is

due

characterization of

the

in

him

is

stiff

his hero. Indeed, Kent's

no small part as "painter

to

Walpole 's

enough

to taste

charms of landscape, bold and opinionative

enough to dare and to dictate, and born with to strike out a great

a genius

system from the twilight of

in

He leaped the fence and saw that all namre was a garden." Some garden authorities now

delicacy, soft

interpret Walpole's assertions as British chauvinism,

hues, melodious music, gently undulating surfaces,

an attempt to discredit French seventeenth-century

could be found not, as Descartes and Le Notre had

found

it,

in

mathematical proportion, but rather

such qualities as smaUness, smoothness,

imperfect essays.

which had,

was

landscape

style,

of the greatest importance, accounting for the almost

the fence"

when Le Notre

complete abandonment of straight

tant horizon.*'*

and curving lines. For gardeners,

the continuous S-curve

beauty

after

treatise

on

known

this last quality

lines in favor

of

as Hogarth's line of

In

in fact, already "leaped

flung axes toward the

dis-

addition to substituting techniques of

William Hogarth (1697-1764), whose

painterly composition for those of architecture, the

The Analysis of Beauty (1753),

Whig patriots who championed the new garden style

aesthetics.

LEAPING THE FENCE

went beyond mere reverence ancient past,

for the classicism of

Rome to seek inspiration in their own native

which they conceived

as a conflation

and Gothic legend and history. Just praised for

were given

a

new grammar. While

Palladio, in effect,

as architects gave his

style a native inflection, the Society

formed

in 1718,

gave

new

English," so

and the Renaissance

classical antiquity

was becoming an Englishman

of Saxon

Pope had been

making Homer "speak good

works of

the

as

of Antiquaries,

credibility to local anti-

way such legendary native acquired new dignity as "wor-

quarian research. In this

heroes as King Alfred

Whig political pantheon. Kent's work during the 1730s

thies" in the

significantly

revised the designs of Charles Bridgeman,

been considered progressive simplified sical

in the

1

which had

720s

when

and naturalized versions of the French

his

clas-

garden were created to complement the boldly

theatrical

and

allusive architecture

of

Sir John

Van-

brugh (1664-1726). Vanbrugh's own importance

in

the evolving art of landscape design should not be

brugh

underestimated. His background as a dramatist and

neoclassical bridge,

built the palace

and the exceptionally grand

and Bridgeman determined the

7.3.

Claremont,

ater,

turf

amphithe-

designed by Charles

Bridgeman. 1720s

grasp of a

his

site's

scenic potential as a setting for

works of architecture, together with his considerable talent as sive ities

an architect, account for his legacy of impres-

works. Vanbrugh realized the "romantick" qual-

of Claremont, buying the property for his

country retreat and then,

in 1711, selling

it

own

to Sir

axial lines

Blenheim, as

removed the

probably

belvedere as well as a garden, which he surrounded

twined

and surrounding

order to unite the garden

fields visually,

Kent

later

removed

Claremont, Vanbrugh surrounded

section

around the parterre beds. Bridge-

man's greatest commission came when he was

dens

(In

at

the garden with bastiorJike walls, but Bridgeman later

Thomas PeUiam HoUes, later earl of Clare, who subsequently employed him to design a striking with high bastion walls.

and principal feamres of the landscape. At

at

called,

Vanbrugh's suggestion, to design the gar-

Stowe.

at

Bridgeman's and Kent's careers were often interas they

Bridgeman, ticultural

worked together or

who possessed a technical

in

sequence.

skill

and hor-

knowledge Kent lacked, supplied the

lay-

curving ha-ha.)

out,

and the more progressive Kent then revised it so

Bridgeman's most striking contribution to Claremont

that

it

and replaced these with was the construction of concave and convex

a gently

a large

mrf amphitheater of

than would have been the case

had been the

tiers (fig. 7.3).

At Blenheim, Vanbrugh and Bridgeman

became even more dramatic and more

ralistic

collab-

orated in the creation of the original landscape. Van-

sole designer. Their

if

combined

butions to the art of landscape design can at

natu-

Bridgeman

still

contri-

be seen

Claremont, Stowe, and Rousham.

Leaping the Fence: The Tkanseormation of the Engeish Landscape into a Pastokal Idyel with Poeiticae Meaning II.

The sober grandeur of

Palladianism, the elevated

and fabricated

ruins, the

allegorical heroism:

that

it

was by

with the

evoke the paintings by Claude and Poussin that hung

new Rome. These

acts

specifically,

means

these symbolic

many eighteenth-century upper-class Englishmen

through

more

thematic itineraries of

invested their country estates with the ideal of their

nation as a

or,

when the Roman republic was turning toward imperial greatness. Their owners intended them to

moral tone of classical ornament, the fascination with real

an ancient Golden Age

landscapes became

of imagination and arrangement

emblematic of the Arcadian scenery associated with

period

in the galleries

of their great houses. Thus was national

ambition wedded to the serenely smiling, architecturally

ornamented

native landscape in a vision of

nature as blessed, beautiful, and peculiarly English yet also

Roman, an idyll with

a political subtext.

239

—

^

Stowe Stowe, the seat of Richard Temple (1675-1749), viscount of

Cobham, was an

from

active political

Stowe to begin

its

Kent was

life.

to

consisted of creating the Elysian Fields in the valley

through which had formerly run the road that

ideal.

Because

who mirrored his libertarian values in their

transformation of Stowe 's grounds from a plan of geometricized regularity to one of naturalistic flowing

lines,

it

Stowe was

free-

occupies a place of influence in gar-

den history almost comparable

to that of Versailles.

mecca, as

also a cultural

visits

by the poets

approached the house from the

and the

greve (1670-1729)

attest.

As its pioneering position

new

the development of the

quickly realized, Stowe

in

landscape style was

became

a favorite stop for

ism and

and

With the passage of control of Parliament 713,

1

government

Lord

to

Cobham was dismissed from

office. Already, like

Whigs, he had started to channel

center of

Whig It

house of

in

England

his

as well as the

party politics. Bridgeman's

and

a masterly

tation of axes, boundaries, to the irregularities of the

found employment

is

Stowe. Brown,

work adap-

flexible

and architecmral feamres

site.

The sinuous

Valley.

complement

its

of the valley's tree border

lines

gently undulating greensward, giv-

simplicity of this design

positions.

It is

in this impression of serenity

breadth that Brown's work Kent's, a tact that

new

styles.

As has

On Modern

Gar-

Horace Walpole exaggerated in claiming that

Rousham a painter

ity

and theater

as a traveling

origins

and

a painter

a likable protege for

Thomas Coke,

companion

to

earl

them

of Leicester

not architecturally. Attention to the tonal-

of vegetation and the effects of perspective

achieved through contrasting light and dark foliage;

that

Frascati,

surprise by withholding choice prospects

British) structures to enliven the distant scene; juxta-

Kent received vis-

such famous ruins as the Temple of Vesta, Hadrian's as well as the Villa d'Este, Villa

Aldobrandini, and other late-sixteenth- and early-sev-

position of the

The viUas of Rome itself,

working landscape with the

Rousham,

in Oxfordshire,

Rousham, which

as

such he recognized and appreciated

the theatrical aspects of Italian gardens and their function as places of luxury

and sensory

delight.

expression

is

stiU

owned by

the

Dormer

was the eighteenth-cenmry

Robert

Dormer and his younger brother James,

tenant-general.

Pope was

a Iriend

of both brothers and a frequent

who was brought

Kent,

and

full

family,

Dormer foUowing his

impressionable senses. Kent was also a stage set

Kent gave

to these painterly concepts of landscape design.

and large hunting parks, provided more stimuli

for his

idyllic

these were Kent's techniques as a designer. At

with their works of soolpmre, paintings, objects of art,

designer,

and

from

immediate view; and the use of classical (and antique

He was familiar as well with Tivoli, Rome where he saw

enteenth-century wonders.

as screens

stretches of lawn; creation of both expectation

and Palestrina outside

and Praeneste,

and other trees

means of modulating otherwise vapid

was

Genoa, and the Palladian viUas of the

Veneto in 1 709-19.

as a

Lord

It

education in architecture and landscape as he

ited Florence,

of

Kent had an engaging and witty per-

Kent thought

set designer,

and

and this made him

we examine

into a small compass.

expressive use of evergreens

Burlington and

as

Rousham, Kent 's finest work and an expression of his

Kent "leaped the fence," thereby creating in one bold

sonality

distinguished from

becomes apparent

stroke the naturalistic garden style.

humble

is

and

genius for compressing a great deal of poetic power

scenically,

already been suggested, in his essay

artisan of

effect.

in fact, the

ing that characterize Brown's later landscape com-

between older and newer gardening

talent,

is,

of the same extensive excavation and regrad-

result

As

An

who soon

thought to have contributed

Kent, however, proved

to be the bolder collaborator in developing the

modest

Brown

his early -blooming talent to the last land-

direction in landscape design, successfuUy mediating

dening,

at

became head gardener,

"Capability"

ing this part of Stowe a particularly Arcadian

most admired and progressively

shows

young Lancelot

In 1740,

The seeming

revis-

there, in association with Kent, continued until his

death in 1738.

(figs. 7.4, 7.5, 7.6, 7.7, 7.8).

energy into

ing the old-fashioned terraced garden adjacent to the

modern landscape garden

patriotism

other rusticated

his

original seventeenth-century red-brick

ancestors into the

thematic manifestation of political opinion

a

idealistic

some of

new natural-

both a demonstration of the

as

scape completed in Cobham's lifetime: the Grecian

eighteenth-century tourists.

the Tories in

With the road

east.

around Stowe Church

village clustered

removed, the valley could be incorporated into the garden

Pope and Thomson and the dramatist William Con-

VrUa,

summoned

most innovative design phase. This

Cobham was an influ-

designers

his

permanently

retired

and vocal Whig politician and hired landscape

example of this ential

first

and preeminent

early

Cobham

Lord

In 1733,

commissioned

to

visited

of Colonel a lieu-

and correspondent

visitor to

Rousham.

Rousham by General

brother's death in 1737,

was

to develop a garden within the frame-

work of Bridgeman's plan of the Kent

estate

1

720s.

It is

likely that

Rousham while he was working at may have collaborated with Bridge-

Stowe, and he

LEAPING THE FENCE

man, sketching some of the ideas with

Bridgeman,

that

subsequently incor-

his superior technical ability,

porated in the finished plan. Because of its cramped and highly irregular site,

everything depended upon enlarging the garden's

apparent extent

by, in

Pope's words, "calling in the

country" beyond the ha-ha.

The river CherweU, which

traverses the property, serves in effect as part of the

encompassing ha-ha system, and the bucolic views of the fields lying

on

its

opposite bank were, even in

Bridgeman's early plan, essential components of

Rousham's landscape. To these Kent added

which rose

and was known simply

from the

river

Near the

rechristened the to

top of a ridge about a mile

at the

catcher."

manner

sham

resemble a single gabled wall with

ruin, built to arches,

a

as "the Eye-

he restyled an old

river,

Temple of the

Gothic

Although these sculptures evoke the antique world,

interest to the

they do not furnish the garden with as explicit an

Mill, in the

add further picturesque

mill, 7.4.

Vale of Venus, Rousham.

Oxfordshire, designed by

William Kent. Drawing by

scene.

Bridgeman had already replaced the old

ter-

raced garden in front of the house with a large rectangular bowling green.

by ranks of

Its

raised borders are

trees channeling the

rolling fields

defmed

view to the gently

beyond the Cherwell. Kent

iconography as that found

at

Stowe. This

a classical education,

By contrast, there were several

who wanted to

cognoscenti

improvements with

slope leading to the

painterly perspectives. Virgil, Ovid,

narrowest part of the garden facing the

river's

elbow-bend. Because of the angle cut by the

garden is severely pinched

at this point,

erly

turned a defect into an

the

site

sharp

river,

but Kent

making this "hinge"

asset,

named because

of his Praeneste Terrace, so

of his familiarity with the ruined arcades built in

on the

hillside at Palestrina (ancient

which his design, abbreviated to its

The

inspiration.

visitor

is

the

clev-

tiers

Praeneste) from

a single arcade, took

invited to tarry here

on

porary, nia."

Thomson, who wrote

It is

of these

British

Bridgeman had remodeled

a series

of

of ornamental

Kent reconfigured these when he formed the

basins.

idyUic Vale of

Venus (fig.

in a thickly planted

ous

a chain

rill.

7.4).

grove of

Beyond the Venus Vale, trees,

he placed a sinu-

This narrow channel forms an elegant

line leading the eye

and Milton were

set

about

this task,

ificatoria

was

found

mentor on

a

the ode "Rule, Britan-

whose De re aed-

published in English in

first

amenities of country ied the letters of

In Alberti,

1

726, they

classical architecture life.

and the

Likewise, they eagerly stud-

PHny the Younger, who had divided

time between

affairs

of state and the pleasures of

country

estates.

Whether work-

ing as their ovm designers or with professionals to create gardens

of heroic

alltision

— which were,

statements of pride in England's

upon

the course of empire

took their place

in the

in effect,

own embarkation

—these garden owners

long tradition of Renaissance

humanism.

wavy

from the Octagonal Pond beneath

the arched cascade, over

as well as

Augustans patriotic evocations of a

new imperial Golden Age.

fruitful leisure at his

descending fishponds into

themes

not surprising therefore to see in the gardens

niches of the arcade.

a gentle valley.

aristocratic

nor were the sentiments expressed by their contem-

his

Terrace, the slope cradles

which Venus with her atten-

CASTLi Ho\varl:> The most grandly

heroic landscape conceived by an

dant swans and cupids presides, to the Cold Bath, a

Augustan amateur was that of Castle Howard, the

much

work of Charles Howard,

smaller octagonal pool reflecting the dappled

Ught of the small glade in which

the third earl of Carlisle.

most

In contrast to Stowe, the

garden with which

there are uphill views of the

frequently compared,

it

did not develop from a gar-

Vale of Venus, where Pan emerges from the trees to

den and expand into

a pictorial

From a lower path, spy on Venus.

it is

set.

One can also see the Praeneste Terrace

and, beyond the sharp

bend

in the river,

1738

infuse their landscape

literary

never far from their minds as they

an elegant stone settee sheltered within one of the

West of the Praeneste

c.

hewed to a decorative and sceno-

the end of the bowling green in front of the open

the bowling green leads to the

William Kent

graphic approach to landscape design.

sited Lion

river.

so

because Kent, by temperament and because he lacked

Attacking a Horse, a copy of an antique sculpture, at

The path from

may be

Bacchus,

Mercury, and Ceres assembled in a semicircular glade.

Carlisle's intention

was the

it is

landscape; rather,

creation of a landscape of

serene and noble grandeur,

whose

principal motive

was, like that of epic poetry, the celebration of

241

STOWE

7.5.

Stowe, Buckinghamshire, designed

by Charles Bridgeman, William Kent, and Capability Brown. 1st half 18th century. Plan, engraving from tion of the

Stowe: A Descrip-

House and Gardens, 1788

edition

I

he metaphorical program of the Elysian

Fields resonates both with the satirical style of

Alexander Pope and the passion-

mound upon which

it

a

sham

ruin

one could

rested,

see nearby the Temple

of

Modern

Virtue,

(now destroyed) bearing a

adorns the central pyramid, symbolizes the messenger of the gods

Cobham across the

sculpted headless torso, which suppos-

Lord

Eider (1708-1778), a relative of Lord Cob-

edly represented Robert Walpole. (Under-

take their places

ham's and a prominent figure among the

standably, Horace Walpole, his son, later

among the

deplored the use of satire as an icono-

Temple

band

who formed Stowe's

of ardent dissidents.

Here the

was given an experience to

visitor

end

of the great

stream named sited the

Cross

Walk, which symbolized the route

in

garden architecture.)

On the opposite bank

inspire the

noblest patriotic thoughts. As a terminus at the eastern

graphic device

Temple

of British

Kent

Worthies

the imaginary Elysium, Kent erected the

taining busts of English heroes (see

Temple

7.7).

of

after the

Ancient Virtue

Temple

of

O, modeled

Vesta at Tivoli (see

Q,

which featured pedimented niches con-

into

fig.

fig.

Significantly, the still-living Alexan-

der Pope

was

afforded a place on the

landscape Kent and his patron aligned

The

grotto.

Kent configured

serpentine pools by

into the

and Lycurgus by the Belgian sculptor

without humor, another niche on the

Lower

Peter Scheemakers (1691-1770), representing

a

i;am the southern

had invented in the

pro\inces.

Zhu

own garden,

Mian's

Green W ater. had a remarkable

the Garden of

collection of both.

Song Huizong fulfilled his o%"erweening passion for garden building at the expense of the protection

of the empire at

large.

His extra\"agance and that of

rest

t^'pe,

of the world

stimtilated the

-^hich the Chinese

ele\Tenth century,

encouraged a

book publishing industry- and stimtilated Hterao: The arts flourished,

gardens.

and many wealthy landowners

The tourist ^^siting West Lake today can see

"fairy-tale"

scenery picturesquely accented by \smer-

side pa\ilions,

which are part of famous xiews with

Zhu Mian weakened the creasun" and left the borders

names Kke those of poems or paintings:

%'uinerable to inv asion by tlie Jurchen Tartars. In

to Orioles Singing in the \Va\ing Willows.

his beautiful

125.

1

garden was destrowd in the sack of the

city as warriors fix)m the

north cut

down trees,

tore

Moon over the Cakn Lake, in

btult

"

"Lotus

"Listening '

"lAutumn

Flow^rars

Swaying

Qtn-uan Garden and 'Three Pools Mirroring the "

out bamboos, trampled flo^^^ers. and demolished vock-

Moon. Today "s ^"e^sions of these pa%"ilions and their

work except for the formidable peak of W anshou Shan. Zhu Mian was beheaded and his propert\^ con-

surrounding scener\' preserA^e onK" faint echoes of the

fiscated,

but because of family

skill

and reputation,

"

intricateh' constructed poetic landscapes built there

in

Song times (fig.

Many pri\"ate residences in Hangzhou had fine

engage in garden building.

his sons continued to

8.4).

gardens, and Suzhou. a center of die silk industry" and

Southern ^ong G\fldens \Mth the

invasion that vmseated

eign rule

was

pro\inces.

Its lords,

their capital In

it

1

the Jin dynasty chose Beijing for

In addition to

numerous smaU.

site

of

beauti-

fuDv crafted urban gardens, aristocratic garden estates

were

built in the hills

on the

outskirts of the

cit%-.

during \siiich

Suzhou's fame as a garden mecca was further

enhanced bv its location near Lake Tai. source of the

of temporary capitals,

Hangzhou

an important cultural center, was the

many more.

many ethnic Chinese attached

138, after tweh"e ^lears

li\^d in a series

cated to

for-

established o\"er China's northern

the Song court and the

to

also

Song Huizong,

in the south.

die\" relo-

There a brilliant

water-modeled garden stones that are as highh' prized in

Chinese gardens as important works of sculpture

ejxxh of artistic and literan- accomplishment ensued.

mi^t be in Western ones. The West Dongring Hill

The beautiful lakes and hills arovmd Hangzhou became an inspiration to painters and pro%'ided a more picturesque setting for p>alaces and gardens than

furnished an espedalK" fine multicolored stone

and a half that constitutes the

Southern Song pveriod 1127-1279 1

Song court's vations, a

full

of

and caAities. and the Ling\-an Hill \ielded yel-

lowish rocks, the hand, veined surfaces of \vhich are streaked with \shite. red and purple.

ns of Kaifeng. in the centuTA"

creases

transfer to

.

the time of the

Hangzhou, technical inno-

monev economv. and the expansion in agrirMt\' brou^t the country to a le\"el

The Song official who had literar\- and artistic build a o^rden that reminded him and

gifts liked to

his \isitors

of the wild scenery sou^t by mountain

recluses. Like the

monochromatic landscape

paint-

ings that inspired his design, this garden prized line.

MOUNTAINS, LAKES. AND ISLANDS

form, and composition over color.

elements were

Its

symbolical "mountains" of carefully selected and artistically

positioned stones and arrangements of

— "the three friends of win-

pine,

bamboo, and plum

ter."

The names of some of

Suzhou

the scholar-gardens of

Cheng's manual,

highly prized Lake Tai stones with their hollows and holes.

He recommends

that these

place like fine sculpture in front of big haUs, within

Yuan (Garden

from the Yuan ye that stone selection was

a highly

to Linger In),

— evoke the

of a leisure

idylls

developed

who

uals

class.

skill

limited to a small

Garden Manual:

beds.

find

Sometimes to be found

The Yuan Ye

of Chinese

By the end of the Song period, the conventions of

shade directing the eye as

Chinese garden design were well established. As Chi-

folds

Ming dynasty,

nese merchants prospered during the

precipice,

vibrancy

the mandarin class of scholar-officials.

To help

and calligraphy

garden

that codified

style

and served

as

treatises

manuals

for

Foremost among these was the Yuan ye, or The

by Ji Cheng

Craft of Gardens,

the province of Jiangsu.^

comprehensive three-volume

ory and practice Ji

(b.

1

582) of

Wujiang

in

A noted garden builder him-

poet and painter, he completed his

as well as a

Ji

is

Cheng

classic

on landscape

the-

in river

it

and lake

museum collections

travels in

with light and

and out of their

do appear to possess

qi;

in the

their

same galleries.

also writes about wall design.

walls in Chinese gardens provide an important

The

means

of segregating space, screening from sight the mun-

dane workaday

landscape builders.

in

akin to that found in works of painting

cultural

uneducated, garden designers began to write

them

and hoUows and up the flanks of an imagined

mountain

these arrivistes avoid the aesthetic blunders of the

number of individ-

art today, these prize stones,

emperor himself, emulated the

they, like the

clear

could successfully quarry fine specimens

from the mountains or

self,

be given pride of

It is

Cheng's

elite,

chapter "The Selec-

in reverent detail the

large pavilions, or beneath a stately pine tree.

Zhuo Zheng Yuan (Garden of the Unsuccessful Politi-

Ji

in the

he discusses

—Wang Shi Yuan (Garden of the Master of

the Fishing Nets), Liu

cian)

In Ji

tion of Stones,"

reality

of city streets while making

the garden invisible to passersby, except for glimpses

gained through latticed openings composed of thin

The

walls of Chinese gardens often

tiles

or cast bricks.

rise

and fall according to the elevation of the ground.

Curved roof

tiles,

sometimes following

a

wavy

line,

produce a sense of animated movement, while bas-

in 1634.

Cheng's book is unusual, and perhaps unique,

among garden manuals in its blend of practical advice

relief friezes frequently

add ornamental

interest.

Walls outline various courts and corridors

visualiza-

within the garden, subdividing it into discrete though

specific in dis-

linked scenic units. These are often pierced by win-

cussing the appearance of various kinds of stones and

dows with tracery, for which Ji Cheng provided many

and pattern-book instruction with poetic tion

and

mood painting. Although

offering

abundant diagrams

lattices,

together with

window and

railing

patterns

(figs. 8.5, 8.6).

numerous door shapes and

circular

"moon

for

paving designs, the Yuan ye offers no tion for garden planning.

"there

know

is

no

ing that

definite

right

it is

it is qi,

when

static prescrip-

The author firmly states that

way of making it

stirs

scenery;

your emotions,"

the pulsating breath of

be the result of the designer's

life

you

stress-

that

Carefully placed

windows and

gates" and vase- or gourd-shaped

doors frame views of adjacent garden spaces

The whitewashed

(fig. 8.7).

surfaces of these walls are often

brush-rubbed with ground yellow

river

sand mixed

with a smafl amount of chalk to give them a lustrous

must 8.5.

efforts.

Bamboo Hat Pavilion seen window with blue

through

Good siting is a primary ingredient of Ji Cheng's prescription for garden making.

A

must screen out what is ugly and

offensive

garden designer

and make

glass

in Thirty-six

Ducks

(Garden of the Unsuccessful Politician),

use of 'borrowed scenery" tant

view of

mist)f

(jiejing),

whether

a dis-

mountains, the rooflines of a

nearby monastery, or the flowers of a neighbor's gar-

A

small piece of

ground beside

a dwelling

Suzhou. This 10-

acre garden originated

in

the

Ming Dynasty and was extensively repaired in

den.

Mandarin

Zhuo Zheng Yuan

Hall,

and expanded

the 1950s.

can

be turned into a garden by digging a pond, collecting stones with which to build up a "mountain," and

making a welcoming gate

for guests. Willows, a stand

of bamboos, and some luxuriant trees and flowers are all

that are

needed to complete the picture and set the

mood for poetry-writing parties and company of water for

sitting in the

one's favorite concubine melting

snow

tea.

287

NATURE AS MUSE

pound, which includes a scholar-garden called the

Grand View Garden.^ Almost an

entire chapter

is

devoted to a detailed description of the annexation of

expand it into a new gar-

additional family propert}- to

den wherein the family can receive daughter

who

visits

from

a

has just been elevated to the position

of Imperial Concubine.

We are told that "the digging

of pools, the raising of hiUs, the siting and erection of lodges and pavilions, the planting of flowers

—

in a

word,

bamboos and

matters pertaining to the land-

all

scaping and layout of the gardens, were planned and

supervised by Horticultural Hu.

'

an eminent land-

scape gardener.

We den

as

are then invited

it is

on

a tour

new gar-

of the

nearing completion. The reader-visitor

enters through "a five-frame gate-building with a

hump-backed roof of half-cylinder

tiles,"

admiring

the beautifuUy patterned latticework of the

wooden

doors, simple whitewashed walls, and fine, unosten-

tatious craftsmanship. Directly the tourist of this

imaginan^ landscape encounters a miniature mountain

formed of

'large white rocks in

kinds of

all

grotesque and monstrous shapes, rising course upon

course up one of wa.v\' polish. is

The function of

a

Chinese garden wall

not. however, ornamental; rather,

Hke the neutral

serve.

silk

it is

meant

to

or paper of a painting, as a

background, capturing shadows in calligraphic patterns and acting as a front of

foil

for the rocks

and plants

den, built in the

Southern Chinese scholar-gar-

manner

codified

by

Ji

Cheng,

arranges the functional parts of the mansion and adjacent series of courts around the edges of the

its

site.

which occu-

principal hall faces a central pond,

pies approximately three-tenths of the site (see fig. 8.9).

8.6.

Lattice

of Liu In),

window

Yuan (Garden

in

gallery

to Linger

Suzhou. The garden origi-

nated

in

the

are

coves,

made

to disappear

from

sight, in

(East Gardeni and XI

Yuan

(West Garden) The East

peaks during the QIng Dynasty

was

rebuilt during

the reign of Emperor Gunagxu, at

bv creepers, and with

which time

8.7.

narrow zig-zag path onlv

barely discernible to the eye winding

them."

A tunnel

ravine. Below,

through

a shoulder

up between of

this

rock

through the

trees, a clear

rushing

stream broadens into a wide pool edged by a marble baluster and spanned by a beautiful triple-arched

marble bridge. Bnghtiy painted, fandfially decorated, luxuriously furnished pa\ilions ascend the slopes of the ra\ine. .Another pavilion

is

poised over the center

of the bridge.

On the far side of the pool, a path threads its way beuveen rocks and flowers and

trees before

suddenly

harmonious whole, the intent of which is to frame

compositions of scenen.' and furnish various vantage

stands a small scholarly retreat. At the rear, this struc-

points from which to enjoy a sequence of views.

ture opens onto "a garden of broad-leaved plantains

These views are intended to remind one of the kind

dominated by a

and plants are parts of

a

it

acquired

its

Wall with

large flowering pear tree."

A stream

of journey in nature that one experiences when look-

gushes throu^ an opening in the back wall into a nar-

ing at a Chinese landscape painting, mentally climb-

row channel, wiiich runs around one side of the house

ing up tortuous mountain paths or following the

and then meanders through the bamboos before

indented shoreline of a

appearing through another opening in the wall.

lake.

present name.

Top:

a

coming upon whitewashed walls enclosing a dense thicket of bamboo. In the middle of this bamboo grow

Buildings, rocks, water, paths,

After being deserted for a it

and spotted with moss and lichen or half-concealed

rebuilt with Talhu

stones arranged as twelve

period,

some recumbent, some

upright or leaning at angles, their surfaces streaked

winding

behind bridges, or bevond covered walkways.

Ming Dynasty

from two gardens: Dong Yuan

Garden was

Like the arms of a lake in nature, the ends of the

pond

sides,

deposits the supposed wanderer in a lush artificial

it.

In plan, a typical

The

in

its

dis-

A climb around the base of a steeply sloping hiU Moon

Gate,

Yi-Yuan (Garden of Ease),

L^NDSCAPES OF Liter.\tlifle: Tl IE StOFCi of THE bTONE

brings into \iew a

Much

orchard and a duster of rustic cottages with thatched

a fold

mud-walled compound mcked into

halfway up the

hillside. It

contains an apricot

Suzhou, founded by a high

government end

of the

official

near the

ding Dynasty

of the story in the great eighteenth-centun.-

novel by

Cao Xueqin

Stone, also

known

as

(c.

1724-1764), Jlie Story of

The Dream

of the

takes place within the Jia family's aristocratic

288

tJie

Red Chamber,

com-

roofe.

An irregularlv shaped hedge formed by loosely

interweaving the voung shoots of mulberr\-. elm. hibiscus,

and silkworm thorn

trees stands outside the

— MOUNTAINS, LAKES. AND ISLANDS

orchard wall, and below

a rustic well

it

overlooks

miniature fields of vegetables and flowers, the equivalent of a

through tinction

Western kitchen garden. The engenders

it

between

reader's tour

on the

a lively discussion

landscapes such as

utilitarian

disthis,

were to be painted on rectangular paper lanterns, pending approval by Yuan-chun, the

had been promoted for

little

appearance of

rustic vil-

we can hear

author takes us to a spot where

the musical sound of water issuing from a vinefiringed cave in the rock.

raphy of the garden

The "mountainous" topog-

we scramble and then back down

again evident as

is

Bedchamber and

of her occasional Tlie

visits

to her family.

aa of naming and the fusion of literary tra-

dition with scenic appreciation are a venerable Chi-

nese practice that goes beyond garden inscriptions to

artifice.

To manifest the difference, beyond the lage, the

to the Imperial

whom the garden was being readied in anticipation

which have obviously been planted by the human hand, and ones that presume to imitate namre with

young woman who

over this grotto, up a steep path,

include acmal scenes in namre. In China, where the distinction

between travel literamre and the Hteramre

of landscape hardly along the

the descriptions of scenes

exists,

traveler's route, like the scenes

a landscape scroU, are

depicted on

more important than

the per-

sonal advenmres of the protagonist or the final goal

banks of the winding stream fringed with wil-

of his journey. Travel writing as a genre has ancient

lows interspersed with "peach and apricot trees whose

roots in China, and poetical inscriptions recording the

made little worlds of stillness and

sensations and impressions of earlier visitors were

to the

interlacing branches

serenity beneath them.

Blossoms

float

on

the surface

of the water."

The

carved into rocks as defacing

scarlet balustrade of a

wooden

bridge

literary

cross,

whereupon we

discover

were not seen

commentary.

Many famous views

glimpsed through the screen of pendant willow branches beckons us to

Inscriptions

(fig. 8.8).

namre, but rather as enhancing it through

have accretions of rock-

carved inscriptions around them.

found

A very early exam-

The Chronicle of Mu, probably written

diverging paths leading to other parts of the garden.

ple

Ahead, an elegant pavilion stands

sometime during the

fifth to

which Emperor Mu,

who reigned six hundred years

in a

taining a remarkable rock, with light

ing over

its

and shade

delicate surface of fissures

This miniature mountain is

courtyard con-

—

play-

and hollows.

a collector's

specimen

surrounded by smaller rocks, but the courtyard

otherwise bare except for

some

plants of exquisite fragrance.

Beyond

this

which "gold-glinting

cat-faces,

summerfrom

hall,

earlier, is

rainbow-hued

ser-

down from

cor-

in

Mountains with

having planted a tree and of the

fourth

cenmry b.c.e., in

described as having recorded his journey

into the Xi is

vines and flowering

house stands the magnificent residence

is

a

rock inscription, after

named the

Queen Mother of the

Matching name and

spot Mountain

West.*

reality

was, according to

Confucian ideology, a fundamental means of estab8.8.

pents' snouts peered out or snarled

nice

and

Forest

Rock

Stone, Suzhou

inscription.

Yunnan

Province

finial."

In the eighteenth cenmry, aristocratic families

preserved the landscape design traditions formulated centuries before in the

described by

Song period. The new garden

Cao Xueqin

is

an exceptionally large

one, covering one-quarter square mile (.65 square

kilometers) of the Jia family estate. Typically, the scholar-garden in an urban locale compressed a great deal of scenery of a similarly associative

namre

into

a much smaller frame, as we shall see below when we examine an actual garden, contemporary with that of the novel. In The Story of the Stone, the characters are

exam-

ining the newly built garden for the purpose of

ing

its

different parts,

inasmuch

as

nam-

Chinese garden

makers considered a garden without calligraphy denoting the

names of various rock and plant groupings,

water scenery, viewing pavilions, and scholarly

retreats

to

be incomplete. Inscriptions are an important part of

a

Chinese garden, and the carving of names and

descriptive verse

onto rocks and stone plaques is a time-

honored custom.

In this case, provisional inscriptions

289

NATURE AS MUSE

moral

lishing

The naming of famous scenes

order.

and places was

a function of the ruling class, a

way of

asserting cultural identity over the breadth of the

empire. Inscribing nature was rooted as well in Daoist

was

philosophy, as scenic appreciation

By

means of universe.

end of the Song period, when landscape con-

the

noisseurship

was "well established, there was an exten-

canon of Chinese

sive

a

harmony with the

achieving transcendental

travel literature,

and the major

of Hterary pilgrimage had received inscriptions

sites

and been marked on maps.

W \

\\r

\

,

>i

Yuan (Garden of the

II

LK oi THE Fishing Nets)

1

The Wang Shi Yuan, or the Garden of the Master of the Fishing Nets,

is

one of several remaining scholar-

gardens in Suzhou that give some impression of the

by the educated and bureaucratic

lives led

imperial China.

Much literar}- meaning is packed into

this one-and-a-half-acre

garden of idyUicaUy arranged

and the spaces within

scenery,

elite in

it

bear the kinds of

poetical

names that Jia Zheng's son Bao-\ai was sum-

moned

to provide in The Story of the Stone. First laid

out in

140, in early

court

1

official, it

was restored

Song Zongyuan.

cial.

Though tion

Southern Song times by a high in

770 by another

1

offi-

as his retirement retreat.

altered both before

and

after

by the municipal government in

its

1958.

and principal feamres remain the same

appropriaits

outlines

as in the

Qing

period (1644-1911;. Like other scholar-gardens,

it is

highly compartmentalized, with courn ards and roofed structures interlocking Hke pieces of a puzzle ^fig. 8.9).

In former times, visitors arriving

would have entered

the

by palanquin

Wang Shi Yuan through the

mam entrance on the south where the residential quarters are.

8.9.

Plan of

(Garden

Wang

of the

Shi

Yuan

Master

of the

Fishing Nets), Suzhou. Qing

to

Accompany

Spring

® Pavillion

a side alley into the northern

Breezes

—

more

end of the com-

directly into the garden. In

— the

dominated by a

central garden space,

a circuitous one.

is

Its

chief focal point, as seen

from the Duck Shooting Corridor adjacent to the fam-

Wind, for

Washing

the Pavilion of the Arriving

Moon and

O Main Entrance Right iAO. Pavilion of the

Moon and Wind,

Shi Yuan, Suzhou

with soaring

a delicate. sLx-sided structure

roollines collected in a high finial its

Small Mountains

and Osmanthus Spring

Wang

leads

either case, the route into the Place for Gathering

the Tassels of One s Hat

Arriving

narrow passageway

a

which

ilv halls, is

© Waterside Hall of

through

of the Arriving

Moon and Wind

@ Hall

is

from

lake

Entrance

Visitors'

access

plex,

Dynasty

O O Cottage

Today

i

fig.

8.10

1.

Poised on

appropriately scaled rocken,' above the surface of

the lake, ilv at

it is

a resting place

where one can gaze dream-

the reflections in the water.

increases the sparkling play of Hght

The

visitor

to this spot but pavilions

and

A

mirror inside

on its

stirfaces.

does not arrive by an obvious path

is

diverted along the

way by

their adjacent courtyards.

The

Small Mountains and Osmanthus Spring pletely screened

290

from the

lake

by

a

tall

other

Hall of is

com-

mountain of

MOUNTAINS, LAKES, AND SLANDS I

From inside, one views this com-

earth and rockwork. position through

windows framed with hey fretwork.

On the south side of this strucmre lies a small courtyard containing

many

fine

specimens of Lake Tai

rocks placed in an undulating composition.

The bright

white wall of this courtyard constitutes the pictorial

ground upon which the shadows of the fragrant osmanthus

trees are cast,

forming a tracery pattern

that

complements the fretwork of the smaD openings

in

as well as that

it

of the windows of the pavilion.

The Waterside One's Hat

Hall for Washing the Tassels of

the water's edge

sits at

on

the south side of

dredged

spoil

upon which he

erected a "mountain"

smdded with rocks of lapis lazuU. To Marco Polo, this Green

Hill

presented a wondrous

him, the trees planted upon

it

sight.

According to

were transported there

by elephants.^

The

first

emperor of the Ming dynasty

(1368-1644) located the capital

remained

until the third

at

Nanjing where

it

emperor, Yongle (ruled

1403-1424), reestablished the court at Beijing. For fourteen years Yongle 's builders labored to erect a city

modeled on the previous Ming emperor's

capital at

Nanjing. Guided by geomancy, Confucian symbol-

8.11.

Plan of the Forbidden

Beijing,

the lake opposite the Veranda for Viewing Pines and

Looking

The

at Paintings.

latter pavilion

has a lake

ism, and cosmology, they gave physical representation to the emperor's rule

under the "mandate of

view seen through old pines and cypresses, which are

heaven." This was expressed as a hierarchical ordering

summerhouses,

of space in which were nested three rectangular

set in a rockery. Besides these lakeside

there are other garden pavilions, several of which serve

walled enclosures containing the Inner

City, the

Impe-

City,

Suzhou

O North Gate O Palaces 0 Hall Supreme Harniony O Wu Men (Meridian Gate) Q Tuan Men Q Tian an Men (Gate of

of

Heavenly Peace)

the needs of the scholar. instance, in

is

The

Five Peaks Study, for

a library. Since interior stairs are not favored

ornamental Chinese architecture, access to

ond story was gained via to

and the Forbidden

City,

all

of which were

centered on a great north-south axis punctuated by

ceremonial gates

@ Qian QIng Men (Gate of August

Purity)

(fig. 8.1 1).

steps set into a rockery next

east wall. Adjacent to

its

sec-

its

rial City,

it is

the

House of Con-

centrated Smdy. Another study, the Cottage to Accom-

pany Spring, had

own

its

private pebble-paved

courtyard garden to the south as well as another tiny

courtyard on the north.

from

inside

The

latter,

which

is

framed

by beautifully carved window surrounds,

contains a delicate composition of bamboo, rocks, and

flowering plants.

Imperial Beijing By

grandson of Genghis

1279, Khubilai Khan, the

Khan, had toppled the Jin dynasty in the northern part of China, capmred Hangzhou, and gained control of the entire country at an estimated cost of 30 million

moved

the capital of his

Mongol

empfre to Beijing and assimilated the more

sophisti-

lives.

Khubilai

cated culmre of the people he had conquered.

Yuan

dynasty, as the

Mongol

rulership

was

The

styled,

lasted until 1368. Like other disaffected Chinese civil

servants before them, a

number of the mandarin elite

went into permanent retirement rather than serve the

some finding careers as artists whose works were in demand by the growing merforeign conqueror,

chant

class.

Others went north to carry on their

tra-

ditional duties, including artistic ones, at court.

The Jin emperors, whose occupancy of Beijing preceded that of the Mongols, had excavated a canal

and a marshy lake, the nucleus of the three contemporary lakes around which "sea palaces" and pleasure parks were this lake,

setting lishing

At

its

built.

Khubilai

Khan further excavated

which is known as Bei Hai, or Northern Sea,

up hunting preserves around

its

shores with

it

and embel-

many trees and costly buildings.

southern end he formed an island from the

291

Inner

by

a

Called the Outer City,

City.

Altar of

(replaced

Worker's Stadium in the 1950s).

Because of rial

encompassed the

it

Heaven and the Altar of Agriculture

fires

and other mishaps, the impe-

buildings that one sees today are almost

structions

all

recon-

of the Qing dynasty, but Chinese

conservatism has nonetheless ensured continuity of

form, making

it

possible at least to imagine the

appearance of the ancient Ming capital of the teenth cenmry. In spite of the degradation of

of

its

rule, Beijing

still

offers

an unrivaled

emonial progression along a central

northward through In 1420, Yongle's vast

complex of walled enclo-

and palatial buildings was ready

and Beijing Altar of

officially

Heaven was

to the south of

became

the

for occupancy,

Ming

capital.

also built in the reign

Qian Qing

Purity), the great Front

Men

The

of Yongle

(Gate of August

Gate of the Inner

City.

It

was

flanked by two circular temples, the Temple of

Heaven and the Hall of Prayer

for

Good

Harvests.

During the reign of Jiajing (ruled 1522-1566)

in the

a hierarchical series of magnifi-

tic halls,

passing first through the Outer City and then

into the precincts of the Forbidden City 8.13).

Continuing through the Shen

Gate of the Martial

Spirit built to

den City from northern invaders moat, the also

axis

known

was con-

structed, enclosing the district to the south of the

— and crossing

a

Constructed in the fifteenth cenmry with ero-

from the moat

the Forbidden City, Coal HiU

time, about 1550, another walled rectangle

guard the Forbid-

Mei Shan, Coal HiU.

Inner City additional magnificent altars were raised Agriculture. At that

(figs. 8.12,

Wu Men — the

continues to Jing Shan, or Prospect HiU,

as

sion material dredged

Moon, and

cer-

axis that thrusts

cent gates, symmetrically arranged courts, and majes-

next century at the cardinal points just outside the

to the Earth, Sun,

much

elegant imperial architectural heritage under

Communist

sures

fif-

the highest point in Beijing.

den City

in its lea,

where

is

now a public park and

The it

that encircles

siting

of the Forbid-

was sheltered from

northerly winds and unfriendly

spirits, is in

accor-

MOUNTAINS. LAKES, AND ISLANDS

dance with the Chinese geomantic practice of feng imperial times this eminence

shui. In

and served

fruit trees

court.

long reign, the Qianlong emperor (ruled

his

1736-1795) built upon each of

its

open-framed pavilion housing

a

With

deity.

and place of

emperor and members of the

retreat for the

During

was planted with

as a bird sanctuary

shaped

their variously

five

low peaks an

bronze statue of a roofs, these acted

"borrowed" scenery for the gardens within the

as

Forbidden

City.

Yuan Minc. Yuan while vowing

simplicity

and professing the modest

of a scholar-poet, the Qianlong emperor

ideals

on Coal HiU proved

built the pavilions

who

to be a lavish

creator of landscapes. His vast project, the

Yuan Ming

Yuan, or the Garden of Perfect Brightness, gave Euro-

peans

— thanks to the publication of

letters

of the

Jesuit missionary Father Attiret (1702-1738) in the

middle of the eighteenth century

— their

first real

knowledge of the Chinese garden.

One of five imperial parks created in the northwestern bills outside the

during the Qing dynasty,

city

forced the Chinese to grant additional trade privileges

Western countries.

to

On October 18, a British corps

8.14.

Perspective view of Yuan

Ming Yuan (Garden

of Perfect

Brightness), painting by Tang

Yuan Ming Yuan was given

the

its

basic

form by the

Yongzheng emperor, who reigned between 1 723 and 1735. His son, the

Qianlong emperor, made

a pledge

to practice restraint in regard to imperial works, but

he soon broke to

it,

setting a force of a

work on the Yuan Ming Yuan (fig.

thousand

dug, hillocks thrown up, fantastical rocks positioned in eye-catching

planted,

arrangements, trees and flowers

and many pavilions, zigzag bridges, and other

architectural features erected.

on

to embellish the

lasting Spring),

Ever-

which had been his grandfather's old

same

retreat, in the

The emperor then went

Chang Chun (Garden of

He

fashion.

also developed the

Garden of Joyous Spring (Ji Chun Yuan), fusing it and the

Chang Chun with

the

Yuan Ming Yuan

as a

com-

plex of three separate but linked gardens.

By

this

set fire to the entire

its

buildings,

complex. The flames

eral

other adjacent pleasure palaces and their parks.

Yi Ht Yuan Among the parks burned by the British and French in 1860 was the Yi He Yuan, the Garden of Ease and

Harmony, one of the

Yuan Ming Yuan, Hills.

built

northern imperial garden was conceived some-

five

major parks, including the

once adorned the Western

that

This park, also the creation of Qianlong, it

rebuilt

in

honor of his mother's

sixtieth birthday,

by the Dowager Empress

who was

Cixi in celebration

of her sixtieth birthday in 1 894. Once more put to the torch by Europeans in the Boxer Rebellion of 1900,

was restored again by the empress

time the Chinese scholar-gardens of

In the center of the Yi

of

light-reflecting,

ming Lake.

It

in 1902.

He Yuan there is a sheet

lotus-blooming water called Kun-

has a circumference of 4 miles (6.4 kilo-

what as an eclectic "coOection of many famous south-

meters) and occupies approximately 500 of the park's

ern garden scenes. For the pleasure of court ladies

725 acres. Originally no

whose

lives

was dredged and enlarged by the Qianlong emperor,

garden

walls, the

"

were narrowly circumscribed by palace

street created.

emperor had a

true-to-life

shopping

On the northeast boundary of the Yuan

Ming Yuan he commissioned Father Jesuit missionary Father

Giuseppe Castiglione to

pseudo-Baroque

pean and Chinese elements In 1860,

style that

(see

mingled Euro-

war

in

which Great

Britain

more than

a

marshy pond,

an aqueduct system to feed

it

last

venge-

and France

it

and other

imperial lakes. Stretching for almost half a mile

along the north side of able

kilometers)

(.8

Kunming Lake

is

the remark-

Long Gallery (Chang Lang), giving architectural

definition to the gentle curves of the shoreline

providing, through ornamental frames of

fig. 6.35).

Yuan Ming Yuan was completely

destroyed by the British and French as the ful act in a

who buflt

Attiret's fellow

design and construct a collection of structures bmlt in a curious

Dai and Shen Yuan. Biblio-

theque Nationale, Paris

consumed not only the Yuan Ming Yuan, but also sev-

it

southern China had a long and prestigious history and this

and then

men

Lakes were

8. 14).

invaded the garden grounds, ransacked

and

wooden

latticework panels, picturesque views of the lake

and

its

surrounding scenery

GaUery's architecture and

its

(fig. 8.15).

The Long

function as a viewing

293

NATURE AS MUSE

Pi

ANT Material

Throughout its long history, the plants of the Chinese garden design remained those traditional ones

cele-

brated in poetry and painting, which were derived

from conventional symbolical

association. Certain

favorite flowers, such as peonies,

masses, and

their. springtime

were cultivated

in

bloom in the garden was

the occasion for entertaining friends. Chrysanthe-

mums, which survivors,

like pines

were revered

were the focus of

designed for

fall

as long-lived

special vantage points

viewing.

Indeed, consideration of the Chinese garden's

movement through as

much

ing in spatial terms. ing of

the cycle of the seasons counted

for garden designers as

snow

architecture

It

its

careful sequenc-

was thought

that a light dust-

winter best revealed

in the

and the

lines

stituted a well-designed in that

its

essential

of force and mass that con-

"mountain." Most apparent

season are the "three friends of winter"

bamboo, and plum, with

associations of longevity, hardiness, character; pliable

—

pine,

their respective symbolical

and strength of

and supple nature capable of

last-

ing friendship; and delicate beauty even in old age. In

summer the mirrorlike surface

of the pond traded its

cloud reflections and reverse shoreline imagery for an efflorescence of lotuses. Lifting their stalks out of the

mud, they formed a verdant mat of waxy leaves dotted with pale flowers, a symbol of the purity and vic-

tory of the

spirit

over the senses. Thus, change

and the anticipation of change, with tions of

life,

all

itself

the associa-

death, and renewal implied by seasonal

transformation, are a conscious dimension of Chi-

nese garden design.

Today the perpetuation of this

making

is

more

a

style

of garden-

matter of replication of historic

models than one of authentic landscape creation inspired Top: 8.15. Long Gallery (Chang

Lang) and view of Kunming Lake, Yi

He Yuan (Garden

it

at particularly scenic points.

rooms, these

rebuilt by

Dowager Empress

Cixi, 1894;

restored again by the empress,

Boxer

main covered walkway. This

a gallery for the

more than

decorate the cross beams birds, animals, flowers,

8.16.

SAu sW-style

These depict

The views looking west from the

eastern shore

of the lake are enriched by a series of bridges, each

unique Right: 8.17.

Yu Dai Qiao (Jade

Belt Bridge), Yi of

in

The causeway

design.

its

lake, dividing

it

into

one

large lake

that traverses the

and two smaller

He Yuan

Ease and Harmony),

Summer Palace

ones, incorporates six bridges. these

is

The most

notable of

the Jade Belt Bridge (Yu Dai Qiao), also called

the Camel's

Hump

grace over an

294

(fig. 8.16).

landscape scenes, and other

He

Yuan

(Garden

14,000 painted panels that

graceful motifs.

painted panels from the Long Gallery (Chang Lang), Yi

as small

having doors

remarkable waterfront promenade also functions as

Rebellion

Above:

Designed

offer privacy if desired,

that can shut off the

Qing Dynasty by

Emperor Qianlong;

1902, following the

ate

by poetry and

painting.

Its

influence can be

traced in other lands in gardens that also aspired to

capmre the

spirit-force

of nature through landscape

of

Ease and Harmony). Garden built in

platform are enhanced by the pavilions that punctu-

Bridge,

which leaps with

inlet at the lake's

western edge

balletic

(fig. 8.17).

art.

Among these

are the Chinese garden's direct

descendants, which are found within the precincts of the temples and palaces of Japan.

11.

Tea, Moss, anl3 Siones: Temple

and

Paeace Gardens oe Japan

— found garden-making to be

Chinese garden concepts arrived in Japan along with

emperor

Buddhism

escape from court politics and

ilar

in the sixth century.

Although sharing a sim-

aesthetic approach, the gardens built in the small,

well- watered island nation of Japan difter

from those of China,

would ultimately

a country of vastly greater

emony, developed

civil strife.

a satisfying

The

tea cer-

in the late fifteenth century,

not a religious exercise, but a disciplined experience

it

was

nevertheless provided

of concentration and aes-

refreshment for which passage

dimensions, a land of contrasting wide plains and

thetic

mountainous

along a garden path of moss and stones offered a pre-

precipices. After appropriating

Chinese

garden concepts, instead of continuing to create ollections"

of famous scenes in nature

in the

"rec-

and

spiritual

scribed prelude and conclusion.

The Japanese combined their penchant for cul-

Chinese

manner, Japanese garden designers increasingly sought

tural appropriation

a generic ideal of nature in conformity with the scale

Japan

and topography of their own natural landscape.

during

geography and a semi-isolationist policy

much of its

history fostered the assimilation

as the

and transformation of those ideas and forms that were adopted from the outside into a vigorous native

suna (1028-1084),

garden

known

island

presumably written by Tachibana no Toshit-

The eleventh-century Sakuteiki,

s

rules.'" In

is Japan's

treatise

earliest

known manual of

one finds prescriptions

it

for the

handling of stones set within moving water in the socalled "large river style."

The

Sakuteiki counsels that,

make a proper garden, one should travel widely and become acquainted with beautiful scenes in order to

in nature, indicating that by this

singled out various

time the Japanese had

famous views

as prized

compo-

expression.

The

arrival

Perry's American

to

all

was

West

on

started Japan

ing to the principles of geomancy. Logically, streams

and

to cleanse the evil air off"

from

east to

west in order

emanating from the northeast

demons. In addition to following these

cultural isolation

and the

its

form, the slow but creative evo-

art

idiom came

artistic

gies directed

prescribed that these flow

path of profound change.

focused aestheticism that matured the Japanese gar-

deners to orient their buildings to the south accord-

He

a

Without some degree of

other garden features, the author encourages gar-

side.

1853-54

in

Increasing transactions with the

lution that counts as

most open,

Tokyo Bay

but Dutch and Chinese traders, whose access

strictly limited.

giving precise instructions for building waterfalls and

this, their

Commodore Matthew

ended the country's previous two centuries of closure

den into a great

should be placed on

of

ships in

nents of their country's natural landscape. Besides

and ward

with a talent for reinvention.

development within

toward building

political life

a traditional

to a standstill. Its assimilative enera

powerful economy

reshaped since 1945 as a

capitalist

democracy, Japan has become today a conservator of its

cultural heritage.

government and

As

in other countries

where the

cultural institutions protect a

"golden age" of previous

artistic

accomplishment,

in

and the religious establishments of

prescriptions of the Sakuteiki, Japanese garden design-

Japan the

ers often incorporated a distant vista in their designs

Kyoto maintain the incomparable imperial and Bud-

in order to enlarge the visual sphere of the usually

dhist

quite small garden and to reinforce

its

connection

with the natural world. They referred to

as

The

of the Blest furnished the lake-

garden

art rather

pluralistic internationalism

Japanese garden design

many

harmonies,

—

its

style.

The

vocabulary of

abstract compositional

elegant rusticity

its

"borrowed" views,

Zen Buddhist universe known as kare san-

its

asymmetrical configuration of design elements,

or dry landscapes. Beginning in the thirteenth cen-

its

attention to

visions of a sui,

its

of

than to the continued development

of a specifically indigenous

and-islands motif that underlies the composition of

Japanese gardens, even those compressed

much-appreciated heritage

talents of Japanese landscape designers

today contribute to the

Buddhist creation mythology and Daoist belief in the paradisaical Isles

temple gardens

icons and tourist attractions.

this tech-

nique of borrowing scenery as shakkei.

state

tury,

members of

the newly imported

Zen

sect

designed these spare, almost austere, gardens as aids to meditation.

These are minimalist compositions of

carefully positioned stones,

which

are

meant

to

be

read as islands in a dry "river" of careftiUy raked gravel

ground plane patterns and

the arrangement of inspiration to tries.

To

textures in

—has furnished

moss and stones

modem garden designers in other coun-

appreciate

more

plicity in this carefully

fully the richness

of sim-

matured language of landscape,

we must now review the history of Japanese gardens.

or sand or as mountains in a landscape of mosses. role

Shinto Sanctuaries

among members of the ruling classes; certain emper-

The Japanese word for garden,

Such Zen-inspired gardens played an important

ors and even tators

some shoguns

— powerful military

dic-

who ruled under the nominal authority of the

denote a sanctified space worship of Shinto gods.

niwa,

was frrst used to

in nature set apart for the

A sacred rock (iwakura), rock

NATURE AS MUSE

the Isuzu River, and through the forest to the clear-

ing

(fig. 8.20).

The Inner Shrine the

main

hall

precinct contains the honden,

of the Inner Shrine, and two treasure

houses. All are enclosed within three concentric fences

and

accessible only

through gates on the short ends of

the rectangular plot of white gravel

common

adjacent and sharing

on which they

sit;

fencing within the

clearing is an identical rectangular plot of gravel that 8.18.

Iwakura (sacred

Aichi Shrine, ture.

The

purified area

consists of a

Prefec-

around

twenty years

be inhabited by kami, or

spirits, is

8.19.

Sacred rocks

300 B.c.E.-c. 300

in 1993

— the honden,

derived from Yayoi-period

is

c.E.) raised rice granaries,

and rededicatcd. Only

at

is

a small structure in the

(c.

rebuilt

middle

of the otherwise empty plain of gravel protects the

Ise

shin no mihashira, or heart post, a structural

Right: 8.20. Ise Shrine, Ise City,

Mie

— most recently

whose simple form

marked by straw

ropes (shime-nawa).

Below:

active shrine

group of simple unpainted wooden

structures roofed with the bark of Cyprus trees. Every

these sacred stones, beheved to

The

serves as the alternate building site.

rock).

Okayama

Prefecture,

of the previous shrine, which

Japan

member

standing.

is left

Historians believe that white gravel aprons such as this are predecessors

of the yuniwa, the entry court

of palaces and other monumental structures, a purified space that

symbolic

trees.

is

empty or contains

The more worldly

at

most

a pair of

culture of a later

period turned the yuniwa of noble residences into a secular,

landscaped space, but those relating to shrines

remained as

religiously austere as the

one

at Ise.

The

majesty of the towering cryptomeria trees constitutes the

grouping, revered for

tree, its

more grand

architectural expression of the Ise

or other natural object might be

indwelling

spirit (fig. 8.18).

Like the

temenos, the sacred precinct of ancient

Greek religion,

the Shinto shrine exists as a clearly

marked space

within a natural setting of assigned spiritual power.

But unlike the temmos, an enclosed space, the Shinto shrine exists merely as a set

marked place,

not by walls, but rather implied by a

its

boundaries

torii

gate fram-

ing a sacred object or space in nature

(fig. 8.19).

Where

sought, an

greater architectural definition

apron of white gravel

may

is

isolate the revered place

or object. Ropes, straw fencing, and sometimes cloth

banners

may also be used as means of demarcation.

The holiest spot in Japan is considered to be Shinto shrine

at Ise in

the

Mie Prefecture. The shrine

enclave includes the Geku, or Outer Shrine, which

is

dedicated to the provider of grain, and the Naiku, or

hmer

Shrine, sacred to the heaven-illuminating sun

goddess Amaterasu, from

whom Japan's imperial clan

once claimed descent. The Inner Shrine a clearing within a cryptomeria forest

by

a

is

and

ceremonial path that passes through

set within is

^

^^^Mr

&S

reached

torii,

over

296

I

TEA.

shrine

site,

but the humble structures of ancient

gin, the fenced

ori-

compound containing them, and the moving statement of

adjacent cleared space create a the desire for

MOSS. AND STONES

human

O

order within the greater order

of the cosmos.

0

The Naka and Heian Coukts Buddhism was introduced 552.

Under

0

firom China into Japan in

Shotoku (573-621),

the regent, Prince

who promoted it and built temples,

it

gained the kind

of institutional stams enjoyed by Christianity in the

West

after the reign

of Constantine the Great. The

acceptance of Buddhism, together with contacts with

Korea and the

first official Japanese

9

embassy to China

in the early seventh century, stimulated the

r 1

i 8.21.

adoption

Plan of Heian-kyo (Kyoto),

Japan

of Chinese

artistic

and architectural forms. Formerly,

had constructed

rulers

ular style of the structures at the Ise Shrine. over,

1

their dwellings in the vernac-

More-

IS'BC

because of the premium put upon spatial

O Imperial Court and

9

1:z>

Residence 3PD80

J'.OSO

Right Capital

O Imperial Garden 0 Markets O Diplomatic Reception

dT„ 9c

Capital

Left

SuZAKu Ave.

purification and ritual rebuilding, the capital

moved

at the

new

beginning of each

however, the court was established it

remained

at

was

Q Temples

reign. In 710,

Nara, and there

for the next seventy-five years

through

Chang' an formed the model for

The plan of the

city,

with

its

hierarchical order-

ing of space within a grid layout, was, at a lesser scale, a conscious imitation of that of

nese Tang dynasty

capital.

Chang' an, the Chi-

The temples constructed

house large images of Buddha were unlike any

previous Japanese architectural forms.

new

city

roughly

half Nara's size, or 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometers) north to

The spatial lay-

8.21)." Also, as at Nara, the imperial enclosure, as the Daidairi, at the city's

was placed

northern end. The surrounding

mately 400

of

this residential grid

became

islands.

From

was

the location of choice

western half was never

developed in accordance with

and rock arrangements forming

city

The eastern half

feet (122 meters) to a side.

Chinese models.

Korean craftsmen were brought to Nara to help

known

subdivided into 76 large squares, measuring approxi-

out of their surrounding compounds also followed

develop imperial gardens in the Chinese manner, with

(fig.

at the end of a broad axis

for the nobility; however, the

lakes

a

south by 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) east to west

several reigns.

to

Courts

Rashomon

its

original outlines. In

an attempt to avoid the political tensions that had existed at Nara, the

ples

be

emperor mandated that new tem-

sited outside the

city,

and these were therefore

archaeological excavations, as well as from paintings

built

on the lower slopes of the surrounding hiUs,

and poetry of this period, we surmise that these were

were

estates of the

similar to the

Tang models they sought

being yarimizu, or

river-style gardens.

to imitate,

Their mean-

dering streams furnished the oppormnity to organize

poetry competitions

like the

ones popular

in

ascending the throne in 781, Emperor

Kammu decided to move the capital once more, probably in order to separate the influence of priests at Nara,

amassed considerable of building this new finished city

political

capital,

lished,

in favor

had

of another

site

Capital of Peace and

name of Kyoto. Once

Kyoto became the imperial

more than

to his distress,

power. After ten years

meaning the

Tranquility, the original

fi-om the

Nagaoka-kyo, the not-yet-

was abandoned

nearby, Heian-kyo,

government

who,

capital

estab-

of Japan for

a thousand years until the Meiji Restora-

tion in 1868,

Kyoto,

all

when Tokyo was made the

capital.

In Kyoto, as at Nara, the gridiron plan of

powerful

nobility.

Heian period (781-1 185),

the

arts,

a

golden age for

including landscape design, were

held in high esteem. Gardens in this period were

ampler than generous

contemporary Chinese gardens.

Upon

In the

as

later ones,

in size.

and the lakes

Formnately for

in

them were

posterity,

Murasaki

Shikibu (970?-1026?), a lady of the court, chronicled the aesthetic pursuits of the in

The Tale of

1000.^^ In ful

it

elite

during the Heian era

Genji, a novel written

we

around the year

read of Prince Genji in

many beauti-

garden settings as he enjoys such pastimes as row-

ing in Chinese-style boats around the islands in the lake or going (fig. 8.22).

on an outing

Inspired

to admire the

fall

foliage

by Chinese models, these

islands

consisted of arrangements of rocks, to suggest the

some intended

form of a symbolically meaningful

toise or crane. Pavilions in the style

tor-

known as shinden-

zukuri stood at the edge of the water These structures,

derived from Chinese architecmral norms, were ele-

297

NATURE AS MUSE

822.

Kocho

7776 Tale of

''Butterflies"! from

Genji Mary and

gant in their lines but rustic in character, \sith reticu-

femih: Their chief Fujiwara no Michinaga '^966-1027'.

sum-

held the tide of kampahi. a high governmental posi-

lated rw o-part shutters that could

be raised

in

Jackson Burke Collection The elite life

pleasures

are evident

depicting in

a

of

s

scene

boating party held

Lady Murasaki

Genji

Heian court

in this

s

mer Their floors were polished wood, as tatami mats

tion in which he mediated bet^^"een the

and other spedficalh- Japanese corR'entions had not

court

vet become established These \iewing platforms were

erless figureheads,

of state. As respected but pow-

emperors D.-picalh" spent their li\-es

section of

estate with musicians

and costumed dancers enter-

actualh- projecting

home

for a

visit This six-fold screen

is

attributed to Tosa Mitsuyoshi

wings of a large central

or shimiau that faced the lake.

taining the imperial consort

wtio has returned

officials in affairs

emperor and

at the lake's

pa\ilion.

A swath of white sand

edge sen'ed as a stage for mime and dance

engaged in cultural pursuits. Making a \irtue of their relath-ely

chosen

reduced circumstances, they refined

st}ie,

widch was derived from

their

rustic \-emac-

performances, \siiich could be enjoined fixjm a shitidai-

ular architecture, into a vocabulary^ of elegandv

zukuri pavilion. Raised co^e^ed passages linked die sep-

crafted details

and beautifulh- proportioned parts. Bv

I1539-1613'

arate pa^"ilions with each other Below 823 Phoenix

Hall of

and with the shinden.

Within Japans feudal social structure, the pow-

contrast the Fujiwara. like the shoguns wiio followed

them, Kked to display their power in works of mag-

the Byodo-in Uji Japan

erful Fujiwara

dan had gained supremac)" by 850, and

in their role as regents for

emperors in their rninoiit\".

nificence.

The splendor of the Heian period is found

in the Byodo-in, bvult as a ^^lla

by the kampaku

members of this famih.- gradual!}- appropriated much

wara Yorimichi 992-1074' on

of the imperial power and married into the imperial

Kyoto and converted into a temple in 1052

his estate

Fuji-

south of fig. 8.23).

— TEA,

MOSS. AND STONES

The pond garden (now severely compromised in size) and serene shinden-style Phoenix Hall (Hoo-do) of 1053 at Byodo-in

— so named because

wings evoke those of the mythical bird

as

soaring

its it

alights

were meant to depict Amida Buddha's Paradise.

It is

the sole remaining structure of the twenty-six halls

and seven pagodas that were once grouped around the

pond

at the Byodo-in.

As they became increasingly interested

in cul-

tural rather than military pursuits, the Fujiwara

regents were challenged by other powerful clans, the

Minamoto, and the emperor now more

Taira and

than ever governed in

name

only.

the Taira, but their authority

Power

first fell

to

was upset by the

Minamoto clan and their samurai army. The Minamoto established headquarters at the town of Kamakura, which gave its name to the period of their ascendancy. Shoguns, in

whom hereditary military

824. Garden of Tenryu-ji

command rested, continued to exert authority more

Temple, Kyoto, rock arrange-

or less continuously from the late twelfth century

ment suggesting Penglai

nounced Moral until the Meiji Restoration

of 1868.

one

in

(pro-

Japanese),

of the Islands of the

Immortals, according to Chi-

nese legend. Kamakura Period

Kamaklifia Gardens The Kamakura period

(1

185-1333)

notable for the

is

northwestern Kyoto,

widespread adoption of the Chinese sect of Chan

around 1256 and

Buddhism, known

exhibits the

duced

Zen Buddhism.

in Japan as

as early as the seventh

Intro-

century by the priest

Dosho (629-700) following his return from China, Zen Buddhism was long overshadowed in Japan by the powerful Tendai

the

and Shingon

and simplicity of Zen

terity

monk

China

in

1

sects.

But the aus-

religion as professed

Eisai (1141-1215)

upon

his return

by

from

192, appealed to the warrior class. As it pros-

pered under their sponsorship,

its

reductive aesthetic

guided the design of certain temple gardens.

time were the currents of aesthetic thought ema-

nating from the Southern in China.

The

vertical positioning

selected rocks, typical of in

Song dynasty

(1 127-1279)

of carefully

Song gardens, can be found

Japanese gardens of

this era.

whereas

stonework emphasized a horizontaHty that is

later

less dra-

matic and more in keeping with the inherent qui-

etude of Japan's natural landscape forms. More important than

this,

however, was the poetic

ization of landscape

ideal-

and the relationship between

landscape design and painting found in Song garden art, qualities

that exerted a strong influence

on the

machi period effected a

from the great Heian nobility to the

Muro-

transition in landscape design

residential lake

Zen minimalism

gardens of the

represented by the

monastic garden of Ryoan-ji, built between 1500 and 1700. In the beautiful river district of

converted into a monastery,

Song influence

bridge

made of

view of

Arashiyama

in

in

its

boldly conceived dry

From

three natural stone slabs, there

is

a

a

harmoniously balanced composition of

a

seven rocks set in the water so as to suggest one of the Mystic (fig. 8.24).

of the Immortals in Chinese legend

Isles

Muso

was converted into a Zen Muso Soseki (also known as

In 1339, the estate

Buddhist foundation by

Kokushi, 1275-1351), one of Japan's most

Some garden

and a gifted garden

paradisaical garden,

which today

is

sig-

designer.

historians believe that this serene

and

operated by the

Zen Buddhism, was reworked by

Rinzai sect of

Muso Soseki and is an example of his artistry. Though less

than an acre in

size

and containing a pond

only 100 by 200 feet (30.5 by 61 meters),

it

that

is

has some-

thing of the atmosphere of the old Heian shinden lake

garden.

Its

surrounding views are

vegetation, but

pass

the

it

now

originaDy drew into

distant

obscured by

its

small

com-

crowns of Arashiyama and

Kameyama mountains, providing what is possibly the example we have of the technique

earliest Japanese

of borrowed

scenen,'.

Nearby, at

era and the subsequent

an estate garden built

cascade and vertical rock arrangements.

development of the Japanese garden.

The Kamakura

later

nificant religious figures

Equally important for designed landscapes at this

TenryCi-ji,

zai

Saiho-ji,

Zen Buddhist

sect.

another temple of the Rin-

Muso

Soseki began in 1339 to

reconstruct an existing garden after tically

it

had been prac-

destroyed during the dvil wars that had recently

wracked the country. Comprising an upper and lower garden totaling 4.5

acres,

it,

a

too, has a lake, this

one considerably larger than that of Tenryu-ji. In the

299

NATURE AS MUSE

from Muso Soseki's rockwork and in part from

in part

the

patma of

many

age. For the last

varieties

hundred years or

so,

of moss have been encouraged to

grow into a thick velverv' tapestiy that now co\'ers the 8.25.

Garden

of Saiho-ji

Temple, Kyoto, lake and

lower garden surrounding the

lake, the

atmosphere

of the Heian pleasure garden has given

way com-

entire

ground plane. Meticulously groomed,

blanket of gleaming green

this soft

moss accounts for the gar-

mossy embankments.

pletely to a deeply spiritual

Kamakura Period

environment derived from

Jodo (Pure Land) Buddhism and intended Right 826. Garden

of Saiho-ji

metaphor

Temple, dry cascade with flat-topped rocks

for

Amida's Paradise. The

as a

light-reflecting

water, verdant moss, and the deep shade cast by lichen-covered trees induce a meditati\-e

an essential part of Zen practice

The upper garden on

Zen

mood that is

the hillside extends the

example of a kare sansui com-

first

position in a Japanese garden.

Its

absence of water

Its

economy, and tradition-fed

originalin-

remained

characteristic of Japanese gar-

dens even as they continued to incorporate Chinese

forms into a

new idiom

ot elegant austerity.

Mlirow^chi Gardens Kamakura rule was superseded by that ot aga shogunate in what

machi

period

>

is

referred to as the

named

1333-1573),

in nature, are

palace. Called

Hana no Gosho.

or Flowerv Palace,

had

had brought renewed enthusiasm

of a preference for horizontal

stone compositions

lines.

These rocks are

aUied with the native landscape

than upthrust ones, which were originally intended

mountain

continued to develop still

scenery. .As rock artistry

in Japan, vertical stones

used as accents, but handsome

increasingly prized tant

flat

were

by garden designers

as

an impor-

other words, in Japanese garden design, as in

painting, the influence of Chinese

models remained

present as a continuing source of inspiration, but local traditions

and local imager}^ modified received forms

into an indigenous cultural expression.

moronic notion of

a dry cascade

is

like a

The oxyZen koan,

puzzling and without apparent logic, a means of trating rational thought

toward a deeper, more

a beautiful lake garden. Acn\'e trade

arts to Japan. .Antique

and Ming works

frus-

and pushing the acolyte

intuitive understanding.

The transcendent quality of this garden derives

with China

for Chinese

Song paintings and

in the

Song

sr\'le

it

Song

porcelains

were eagerly

sought, and in spite of famine, plague, and a series of

earthquakes, connoisseurship flourished ruling

stones became

means of creating effects of tranquil beauty (fig.

8.26). In

the

after

shogun. Ashikaga Yoshimitsu ('1358-1408). built his

mark the beginning in Japanese

to evoke Chinese

Muro-

flat-topped rocks, perfectly

is

unlike the vertically positioned rocks at Termxi-ji and

more sympathetically

the .Ashik-

northeastern section of Kyoto, where the third

arranged so as to suggest a waterfall

300

name. Kokedera, or Moss Temple. Vig-

restraint, rich

emblematic

suggests mu, or "no-thing-ness," which

of Zen teaching.

orous

(fig. 8.25).

experience. Here one finds a dry cascade,

thought to be the

den's alternate

among the

elite.

Yoshimitsu. a inally in the

Zen

follower, left his office

hands of his nine-year-old son. and

to a private estate outside the

cit)-

where

nom-

retired

a fine old

garden from the early thfrteenth century afready existed. Villa.

He renamed the place Kitayama (North HiU)

Here, around 1397, he set about building

Kinkaku, or Golden Pavilion, as his priv^ate chapel 8.27). In the

i

Golden Pavilion and its successor, the

ver Pavilion,

we

see the effects of patronage

fig. Sil-

by

wealthv shoguns: garden designs derived from fusion of Chinese

Song and Japanese Zen

a

aesthetics.

The villa was converted to a Zen temple and renamed Rokuon-ji in 1408 upon Yoshimitsu's death. Popularly

TEA.

known as Kinkaku-ji (Temple of the Golden Pavilion) by

later generations, this

remarkable three-storied

and the

thetics are evident in the careful selection

placement of rocks into studied arrangements within

Some of these

meant

structure (actually a mid-twentieth-century replica of

the lake.

the only remaining part of Yoshimitsu's original shin-

mountains and eight seas in the Buddhist myth of cre-

den-svyle lake.^''

mansion)

The lower

is

perched over the water of the

floor,

Amida Hall, was used as a Kannon Hall, as a place

reception room; the second, for conversation story,

with

its

and connoisseurship; while the

third

bell-shaped windows, probably func-

Zen meditation room. The gold-leafed ceiling of this room as well as its gold-lacquered exterior furnished the pavilion with its name. The Golden tioned as a

Pavilion

is

pines and

pond beside

snow and

are dusted with it

the

following Yoshimitsu's death, Kinkaku-ji

was first and

foremost a princely pleasure ground,

its

inspire a state

of spiritual

reverie,

but

may

was also used

it

another longevity symbol,

of the pavilion.

in front

arranged rocks were have

tops, a

flat

In tory,

in 1474, following his

some of

increasingly

admired

his-

new

one. For instance,

retirement from the shogunate,

Palace and

Muromachi Hall, both of which had been

he

dvO warfare, removed to his villa retreat

base of Higashiyama (the Eastern

lived

from 1483

until his death,

Hills).

There

when the villa was

converted to a Zen temple, Jisho-Ji, or Ginkaku-ji (the

garden's completion in 1408. Kinkaku-ji's garden of only four-and-one-half

Temple of the

was composed (it is thought by Yoshimitsu him-

Rockwork became a professional occupation for a cer-

self) in

two parts

—

a lower lake garden

and and upper

"mountain" garden with tea houses artistry that

it

augments

which covers

itself

through

a third of the

— with such illusion.

The

garden surface,

is

divided by a peninsula and related central island into a heart-character Silk

was

the stones and pine trees of the Flowery

at the

house party upon the

Yoshimitsu; often they

Yoshimasa (1436-1490), grandson of Yoshimitsu, had

devastated by

lake,

that

of these beautifully

subsequent periods of Japanese garden

and the proudest event of Yoshim-

acres

form

the motif for an island

is

Many

gifts to

crane,

fme stones were frequently carted from a ruined

when he entertained the emperor at a

The

amongjapanese garden rock collectors.

occurred

and members of the court

formed rocks

positions take the shape of tortoises.

for boating parties, itsu's life

to evoke the nine

were placed as elements of islands. Several rock com-

or impoverished garden to a

are similarly whitened.

Although converted into a temple foundation

lake

are

ation. In addition, other interestingly

a delicately poetic structure, especially

when its soaring eaves

Hat

Hill

shape

(kokoro). Its

waters

(Kinugasa-yama) that

encircling pines.

MOSS, AND STONES

lies

reflect the

beyond

Song influence and Japanese

its

aes-

Silver Pavilion), as

it is

better

known.

men who engaged in various kinds of necessary "dirty work." Some of these, such as Zen'ami (d. 1482), who worked at sevtain outcast

eral

segment of society,

of the great Muromachi

garden craftsmen and

The

culture of

estates,

were talented

much in demand.

Zen is perhaps more completely

expressed in those gardens that were designed by and for the use

of monks, practitioners of zazen, or seated 8.27.

Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavil-

ion),

Rokuon-ji Temple, Kyoto.

Kamakura

Period, Pavilion

rebuilt in the

middle

of the 20th

century after the original of the

1390s

NATURE AS MUSE

stone "bridge" and then fan out into a beautiful raked gravel "river"

where

a stone "boat"

seen floating.

is

The remarkable boat-shaped rock once belonged

to

the shogun-aesthete Yoshimasa, builder of the Silver Pavilion.

A

curious divider, a narrow roofed bridge,

bisects the garden.

struction based

a twentieth-century recon-

It is

upon

dence of a bridge that was

From

period (1603-1868).

and graphic

architectural

evi-

during the Edo

in place

where the raked

the side

gravel river flows around rock islands toward an

implied ocean beyond the garden wall, a beU-shaped

window frames

a

view of the miniature mountains

and waterfall where the Just as tieth

Western

kare

sansui garden with bridge

meditation, than in such opulent, shogunate-financed retreats as Kinkaku-ji

and and Ginkaku-ji. Carefully

Garden

built

by Kogaku, the

with the help of the

Soami.

Below: ji

c.

artist

Garden

of

Ryoan-

at the

beginning of the sixteenth century. This transition to a

more

reductive expression

is

evidenced bv the

cre-

Zen garden at Ryoan-ji Subdued Dragon

controlled compositions in small defined spaces, these

ation of the

gardens were meant to serve as an aid in altering con-

Temple), which consists of nothing more than fifteen

i

sciousness so as to encourage a state of enlightenment.

moss-fringed stones placed in a bed of white quartz

They

gravel evenly scored with the long continuous

1513

8.29.

source.

change occurred in Japan

with bell-shaped Zen window.

founder of the temple, perhaps

its

beginning of the twen-

century transcended representation to achieve

abstraction, a similar 8.28. Daisen-in, Kyoto,

"river" has

art at the

are therefore different in character

from the

shogunal estate gardens Kke Kinkaku-ji and Ginkaku-

of a rake

marks

(fig. 8.29).

Temple, Kyoto, a kare sansui

garden.

Muromachi Period

ji

whose

primar}' end

Daisen-in

is

Zen

dens in the great

was

aesthetic enjoyment.

Ryoan-ji's minimalist kare sansui

one of the subsidiary temple

gar-

monaster)' of Daitoku-ji built

around 1513 by Kogaku

(or Soko, 1464-1548), the

founder of the temple, perhaps with the help of the artist

Soami (1485-1525), whose landscape paintings

adorn the

interior walls. This small garden, only 12

feet (3.7 meters) is

wide and 47 feet

(14.3 meters) long,

an exquisite rendition of the kind of mountain

scener)'

found

in

Song painting (fig.

8.28).

the kare sansui, or dry garden style, fected in the

Muromachi

fi-om left to right,

it

period.

offers the

white gravel that comes

It is

built in

which was

Read

as

per-

intended

historians since the 1930s

when, conditioned by mod-

ernism, they began to understand

Some

ples.

been extensively analyzed both set

allegorically

it

in

it

has

and as a

of mathematical relationships in which five group-

ings of stones are held within their gravel

bed

in

an

arrangement of perfectiy balanced tension. Viewed

from

left

arrangement reads

to right, this

five stones,

as follows:

then two, next three, again two, and finally

and pooling betv\'een

viewer v^ill always find one stone

smaU

formal princi-

have sought to understand

three stones. Sitting at any point

spilling

its

metaphysical terms as well. For these reasons

viewer a "waterfall" of

a series of vertically placed rocks, to flow under a

garden has held

great fascination for Western architects and garden

on is

the veranda, the

hidden from

Like that of a painting by the Dutch

artist Piet

sight.

Mon-

drian (1872-1944), the compositional balance of this

garden can only be grasped logically.

would rob

thereby tive, as

not analyzed

Neither mathematical explanation nor

meaning can be attached

gorical

either

intuitively,

make

it

it

of

its

it

it.

alle-

To achieve

enigmatic quality and

less satisfying

the inexplicability

to

from

offers

is

a

Zen perspec-

fundamental to

Zen experience and an intrinsic factor in its design. true it

power can only be

felt if

one

is

Its

able to experience

over an extended period of quiet meditation and

without the distraction of tourists. To appreciate fully its

power as a work of art, one must suspend thought

and enjoy not only the dynamic

and the rhythmic

lines

gravel, but also the

suming earthen wall with

302

of the rocks

running through the white

warm buff

rowed scenerv bevond

stasis

it.

tones of the unas-

its tile

roof and the bor-

TEA,

Opulence and HlDEYOSl Japanese

art,

AND

II

Rfstflaint: SeN NO FllKYU

including garden

demonstrates the

art,

and the power of understate-

richness of restraint

ment. But Japanese cultural history

not one unbro-

is

ken chain of aesthetic refinement modernist dictum of ally manifest.

from the

MOSS, AND STONES

"less

is

more"

in

which the

made

is

continu-

At the opposite end of the spectrum

austerity of Ryoan-ji are the gardens such as

the one at Sambo-in, created during the rule of Toy-

otomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598), the second of three generals

who united Japan

in the late sixteenth cen-

mry after a prolonged period of civil quickly

From

maneuvered himself into the

war. Hideyoshi

tide

that position as intermediary

emperor and court them

to

officials,

of kampaku.

between the

he brazenly reduced

impotence and dependency and made him-

self dictator.

His alliances with, and dominance over,

pale-colored one called the Fujito Stone, which had

acquired a certain fame before Hideyoshi bought

8.30.

Garden

much

Of plebian

of

for five

thousand bushels of

birth

By this time, rock craftsmen, were employed in the selection and positioning of garden stones.

and it is thus not sur-

Yoshiro,

known

prising that he often used this wealth to indulge his

worked

for

desire for opulence.

nearly eight

early training in

Zen

aesthetics,

Architectural gilding

was the order of the day

huge buildings Hideyoshi

in the

erected.

On

the

site

of the old Imperial Palace, he put up the Jurakutei, his

a

moat-surrounded Kyoto

huge

specimen rocks,

collection of

subject lords. But by 1588 he

mantled and some of

its

buildings

The

ern Kyoto suburb

from

it

comes

resi-

palace he had

was located in the south-

synchronous with the hege-

ceding and following him. After Hideyoshi's death,

Fushimi Castle and its exotic gardens containing sago also dismantied.

lavish Tiger Glen, or

The stones from his

Kokei Garden, were transferred

to the temple of Nishi Hongan-ji,

restless,

is

a

neverthe-

boldly dynamic expression of the energy

Momoyama period.

Hideyoshi's taste, though opulent, was also

of the Japanese tea ceremony, cha no yu, by Sen no

of Hideyoshi and the rulers immediately pre-

palm trees were

somewhat

Sambo-in into

broad, and he was interested in the development

known as the Momoyama district; name of the Momoyama period is

that, if

at

his

the

(1573-1603), which

mony

latter

hundred rocks found

dis-

from

moved to his

new

dence, Osaka Castle, and to the built at Fushimi.

gifts

had the Jurakutei

years, until 1618, arranging the

invested in garden design in the

There he amassed

castle.

as Kentei, or Excellent Gardener,

twenty

composition less a

Rikyu (1521-1591),

who made

this secular, aesthetic

pursuit into a spirimal experience as well. Originated in

Song China and developed in Japan at the Silver Pavil-

ion by the

Zen monk Muratajuko (1423-1502) during

the

Muromachi era,

the

most important and

the tea

ceremony became one of

lasting

developments of the

Momoyama period, deepening the ingrained aestheticism of Japanese culture and giving a

new dimension

to the refined rusticity of the Japanese garden in sabi

which

— the mellow agedness produced by weathered mosses, and — highly valued. lichens

stone,

The

and the impressive

ritual

is

of the tea ceremony as formulated

ceremonial architecmre of Fushimi was disassembled

by Sen no Rikyvi requires

and redistributed to

of precise movements, a particular kind of setting,

this

and other temples

in

and

around Kyoto. not far from the

in a small, thatch-roofed

Fushimi Castle, Hideyoshi decided to refurbish the

walls, the rustic simplidty

site

garden of Sambo-in, a subtemple of Daigo-ji,

in

preparation for a massive spring outing to view cherry

a

mood of wabi,

the tearoom. Guests tea house, the

abbot Gien of Daigo-ji

supervised the completion of this richly conceived (fig. 8.30).

Many

of the choice rocks from

enactment a pattern

utensils. It

is

conducted

hut with wattle-and-daub of which

is

meant to induce

refmed austerity. Only a small upper

den could be

finished, the

its

window covered with bamboo lattice admits light to

blossoms. Although Hideyoshi died before the gar-

garden

for

and certain elegantly simple of

In the Eastern Hills,

Period

rice.

rather than part of the samurai aristocracy, he lacked

the country's wealth in his hands.

Sambo-in,

it

Momoyama Japan's other feudal warlords concentrated

of

Daigo-ji Temple, Kyoto.

from is

must stoop

garden view

is

sight, leaving the focus

of the tearoom, which

commonly four-and-a-half

Hideyoshi's garden at the Jurakutei were transferred

upon the tokonoma,

to Sambo-in, including a highly prized rectangular

larly fine scroll

to enter. Inside the

intentionally blocked

tatami mats in size,^^

a small alcove

wherein a particu-

and elegantly simple flower arrange-

303

ment may be

displayed.

The

host enters and begins

to prepare tea, as the three or four guests attune their

senses to the gentle hissing of the steam kettle.

The

host places the tea in a ceramic tea bowl and, with a

bamboo

whisk,

motions into

stirs it

a Hght

with precise and practiced

green foam, then hands the bowl

most important guest. The

to the

tea

bowl

itself like

every other carefully positioned object in the room, is

a focus of aesthetic admiration. After the tea has

been drunk, the beauty of the bowl's form and glaze is

silendy admired.

wipes

it

then returned to the host,

It is

who

clean and prepares tea for the next guest.

The secluded intimacy of the tea ceremony did not require the same kind of well-composed garden

What was

space as that of a temple.

sought was

a

means of separation from the busy surrounding a way of declaring entry into another

world and

realm. This

was accomplished by the cha

garden path, sometimes called path." Typically, this

is

niwa, or tea

meaning "dewy

roji,

narrow corridor leading from

a

the street, through a gate

made of open- weave bam-

boo, into a small area where a natural stone basin invites the guest to

bend down and wash

his

hands

soon being copied and then designed by in a

manner that was difierent from

A fence

this

of

bamboo

twigs encloses

small garden. Understandably, azaleas or other

showy plants are not grown in such a place; den's

most notable aspect

Here

flat

differ

is

a tea gar-

ground plane

the

itself

stepping-stones are set within moss. These

from the stones

carefully selected for color,

shape, surface modeling, and patina, in other types

of Japanese gardens.

which

are

that of their tem-

ple prototypes.

Today the separate schools

before stooping again to pass through the small door

of the tea house.

tea masters

for tea instruction

— Ura Senke, Omote Senke, and Mushanokoji Senke —

begun by Sen no

Rikyu's three great-grandsons

still

exist

with their

many

own tea gardens in

Kyoto. Although

old tea gardens have vanished, the popularity

of the tea ceremony

is

such that

many new ones can

be found both in Japan and abroad.

found

Strictly utilitarian,

The Edo Pfriod: Katsuka

FIikyli

stones for the cha niwa are usually rounded river-

Following Hideyoshi's death, his five-year-old son

washed

Hideyori inherited his authority. The samurai leader

stones,

which speak the language of nature

and enhance the atmosphere of

rusticity

and

mood

Tokugawa

leyasu (1542-1616),

of quiet expectation one experiences upon approach-

appointed as one of the boy 's

ing the tea house.

maneuvered himself

The stepping-stone path of the small tea garden actually plays an important role in the

of the Japanese garden the paths of the

overall,

much

development

being the precursor of

larger stroU garden, such as

those in the imperial garden of Katsura Rikyii.

The

laying of these and other kinds of stones in the

ground, with attention paid to line, is

an

art

form

size, texture,

form, and

This accounts for

in itself

much

of the pleasure one experiences in viewing the ground

Another important feature contributed by the tea garden to other kinds of Japanese gardens (fig. 8.32).

the

Originally found in Buddhist

temples,

where they were

lanterns

were appropriated by the

lit

for votive ofl^erings, these

to illuminate at night the path

washing

is

laver near the tea

became admired objects in

tea garden in order

and the stone hand-

house

their

(fig. 8.31).

They

own right and were

soon

into a position of supremacy.

This provoked other barons into a power struggle against him, leading to

civil conflict,

a simation always

imminent in Japan's feudal society. leyasu triumphed over his opponents in role of afl-powerful

Edo,

now

1

600,

assuming for himself the

shogun

Tokyo, and from

in 1603.

He moved

his castle there,

he

to

sys-

tematically circumscribed the actions of the country 's

other strong families.

The Edo period

(1603-1867), as the two-and-

one-half-cenmry era of Tokugawa rule

plane of Japanese gardens.

stone lantern

who had been

five guardians,

is

caUed,

was

characterized by rigid control of every aspect of Japanese culated

Ufe.

Whatever power remained to the emas-

emperor and court was further

curtailed

by

official rules that limited their role exclusively to schol-

arship and the arts. As such, they

were seen

as

respected custodians of Japanese aesthetics, nothing

more. Furthermore,

in the the

Tokugawa shoguns'

zeal for absolutist control over aU aspects of Japanese

TEA,

they expelled

life,

most

Christian missionaries and

all

Hne. In addition, he gave

foreign traders.

understandable

It is

that,

new

aristocracy to

under such circum-

would

stances, escapist impulses

drive the alienated

aesthetic enterprise. Kobori

EnshCi (1579-1647), although himself a daimyo, or feudal lord,

tea

was

a student

of Sen no Rikyu's leading

the tea master Furuta Oribe (1544-1615).

ciple,

master himself, Kobori Enshu took a natural sponsoring the

est in ceramics,

dis-

As

a

inter-

work of various kilns

and as a student of poetry, a noted cal-

in his province,

was a leading fig-

ligrapher and a garden designer, he

ure in this chapter of Japan's cultural

the

is

ture the aesthetic ideal

"beautiful" in that

name

it

harks back to the graceful

grandeur of the Heian period and expresses an understandable longing

on the part of the court

era for the days of

Heian

had been robbed of

his

in the

emperor

glory, before the

power.

It is

Edo

"rustic" in that

it

a collateral imperial

a sizable

few years

later.

modest country 1616,

retreat there,

and

"little

tea

Patch." Prince Toshihito enjoyed

house

secure, he his

was

Katsura

able to estate,

poets, artists,

expand

his building

site

contemporary,

it is

kirei sabi is at

the oppo-

extreme from the energetic grandeur of their

related styles. In his garden designs, Kobori EnshCi

and garden

a cultural

found

in Italian vUla

prises" as

a zigzag

one

gardens and

movement,

at Versailles.

This

creating scenic "sur-

along a prescribed garden route.

travels

The technique of

hide-and-reveal

essence of the

garden, a concept that substitutes

stroll

movement through

a

is,

in fact, the

sequence of garden spaces for

the stationary viewing

mandated by the designs of

Thus

program

mecca

in

for

lovers.

Although the country house

at

Katsura was

allowed to deteriorate immediately following Prince Toshihito's death, his son,

fortunes were soon revived by

its

young Prince Toshitada (1619-1662).

the thirteen-year-old boy iting lemitsu, the third

the

Tokugawa

line,

In 1632,

was part of a delegation

vis-

and most powerful shogun of

from which he came away with

of a thousand pieces of silver and thirty

man

continued to

enjoy the shogun's largesse, and he was able during his lifetime to bring the estate to its full glory as

an

important cultural center and shining example of the shoin,

or shoin zukuri,

sabi aesthetic in

style

garden

of architecture and the

kirei

art (fig. 8.33).

Almost from the beginning. Prince Toshitada

substituted a diagonal approach for the axial thrust

promotes

Melon

and by the time of his death

had become

kimonos. Apparently the young

the air of understatement in

in the

good relations with

nature advocated by Sen no Rikyu.

and French gardens with which

summer of

the shogun as well as a generous income.

a farewell gift

as aristocratic in origin as the Italian

in the

he invited a group of nobles, poets, and dancers

to a festive outing in his

on

A

Prince Toshihito began building a

expresses the pastoral simplicity and closeness to

Although

grant of land,

Katsura River to the west of the city around 1605.

that attempts to cap-

promoted by Kobori Enshu.

him

which was exchanged for another on the banks of the

1629, the place

life.

Kird sabi (elegant beauty infused with a weath-

ered rustic quality)

It is

head of

lished Toshihito as the

MOSS, AND STONES

conceived of the garden as a setting for a series of tea

The first, the Geppa-ro, or Moon Wave Tower, was built close to the main house. Not far houses.

from

this tea

house, one of the

villa's

several rustic

earth-covered bridges carries the visitor to the Inner

Gate.

The

gate's quiet

beauty resides

in its

harmo-

nious proportions and the carefully crafted details of

g 33 ^^^^3,

^-^^

Villa, Kyoto. Early

,^3,3^^3

Edo Period

most shinden-style gardens and Zen temple gardens. Within the

stroll

the tea garden

is

garden, the stepping-stone path of therefore

employed

for a

new

pur-

pose: the kinetic experience of landscape.

Because the Kobori Enshu's

spirit

style

of Katsura Villa epitomizes

of

kirei sabi

so perfectly, he has

been frequendy credited as its designer, although there is

no record of

his actual participation.

regarded as a paragon

among

Widely

gardens, Katsura

demonstrates the flowering of aesthetic refinement that occurred

when, deprived of

of state, a

affairs

all

involvement

in

member of the imperial family, hand-

somely supported by gifts from the shogun, devoted his

life

to building a private never-never land.

Katsura's origins as a garden derive

from

a prob-

lem presented by Imperial Prince Toshihito (1571-1629), ter's

own

finally

whom Hideyoshi adopted before the latWhen Hideyoshi

son and heir was born.

produced a biological heir

in 1590,

he estab-

305

NATURE AS MUSE

Right: 8.34. Paving patterns,

Inner Gate and courtyard,

Katsura

Far right:

8.35.

Two

earthen

bridges, Katsura, Kyoto

Below:

8.36. Shoka-tei, Kat-

sura, Kyoto, with ascending

stepping stones

Bottom:

8.37.

Katsura Villa

Garden, from a room of the Old Shoin, looking across

moon-viewing platform its

simple bamboo-and-thatch root.

The design of the

paths and the varied patterns of the stone paving

around

this

Edo

to

request further financial aid from the shogun and dur-

ing his travels studied the architecture of several notable tea houses.

Soon he was hosting

as well as nocturnal

moon-viev^g and boating par-

tea parties

documents record

there were, in addition to the Geppa-ro, four tea houses.

that

more

Three of these can still be seen today: the

way (fig.

8.35).

hide-and-reveal tactics,

which

pleas-

employed within the house

itself

approaches a house obliquely and, once approaches the main

be withheld

until

room axially, (fig. 8.37).

always

inside,

never

so that a view

one comes upon

within a frame of shoji

One

it,

may

perceiving

it

Elevated on a high

foundation, the house loses connection with the

ground

plane; the sense of spatial inter penetration

between

interior

and exterior

is

absent; and the

Shokin-tei, or Pine Lute Pavilion; the Shoka-tei, or

framed garden views seem

Flower Appreciation Pavilion; and the Shoi-ken, or

nature, rather than the reality of nature apprehended

Laughing Thoughts

at

architecture derives

Pavilion. Katsura's tea

from

that of rustic

farm

house build-

elegance and simplicity with which this ver-

to

be courtly paintings of

dose range. While the dreamworld of Katsura can be appre-

ciated for its intrinsic qualities

and without association,

nacular style has been adapted to a refined purpose

much

this

Hes at the heart of the

probably based upon literary models, such as Lady

ings; the

Stroll

gardens

kirei sabi aesthetic.

like that

of Katsura suggest pre-

scribed routes. Stepping-stone paths direct the tor's footsteps

from one to another of these

visi-

tea

houses, each exquisitely sited as a feature within the larger landscape.

The experience

is

delightfully dis-

orienting as one repeatedly changes direction and appreciates each

new and

skillfully

arranged view.

Like the tea houses, the paths have poetic as

names such

Maple Riding Lane and Plum Riding Lane. Some

of the

villa 's

landscapes evoke such famous Japanese

scenes as the Bridge of Heaven, here abstracted and depicted at a reduced scale. to produce "moxantains,"

The topography is graded

and the stepping stones, Kke

those approaching the Shoka-tei, are set into these hillsides so skillfully that

one has the sensation of real

ascent although the gentle topography rises only slighdy

306

The same

earthen bridges

antly surprise with views that are unexpected, are

(fig. 8.34).

In 1645, Prince Toshitada journeyed to

Katsura, and by 1649,

wood and

or stone slab bridges ease the

gate and in the courtyard create a subtly

textured ground plane

ties at

in the Valley of Fireflies,

(fig. 8.36).

'Whiere the grade

is

depressed, as

of the scenery of

famous garden

is

TEA,

Thus furnished with

Murasaki's descriptions of Heian gardens in The Tale

We may assume

of Genji.

that,

while Kobori Enshu

may have advised Prince Toshitada from time to time, this great

stroll

garden, with its echoes of Heian beauty

interwoven with rustic quietude, was the work of the scholarly prince himself, affairs

of

state,

found

who, disenfranchised from

in the creation

of Katsura

a

deeply engrossing pastime. In the 1930s, Katsura was belatedly recognized treasure. Preserved

a

by the Japanese

and maintained,

it

as a national

stands today as

monument to the prince and the triumph, in the long

term, of art over the politics of power.

generous stipend, Go-

a

Mizunoo

selected a site of seventy-three acres in the

beautiful

Mount Hiei foothills, approximately 450 feet

(137 meters) above sea

and

there,

by the

level,

near Shugakuin Temple,

early 1650s,

he was

ing a landscape garden. Kobori this time,

work

creat-

Enshu was dead by

— the English garden — Go-Mizunoo was

that

Shugakuin

his

at

but Uke Henry Hoare, the owner-creator of

Stourhead to

M OSS, AND STONES

is

most

similar

a sufficient artist in

own right to apply the lessons of Enshii in a wholly

original

manner. Relying on the

site's

superior inher-

ent scenic potential, he created a design that

more

is

relaxed and natural than that of Katsura.

The Edo Period:

Rikyu

Shlic.akliin

Kyoto boasts one other perfectly preserved imperial

garden

Shugakuin Rikyu. Here, hills,

of Kobori Enshii:

in the kirei sabi style

an idyllic

stroll

in the scenic northeastern

garden with scattered tea houses

incorporates to an even greater degree than Katsura does, the design technique of shakkei, or scenery. This landscape with

its

borrowed

carefully

wrought

now

Shugakuin

comprises three separate viUa

gardens. Placed at different elevations rice fields, these

tree-bordered gravel paths

surrounding the Lower

and three carved stone

we find today. The garden

Villa contains a small

lanterns.

when

residence

founded a temple nearby.

Its

same time

pond, as well as a lawn and

a

as

Katsura by Prince Toshitada's uncle, the

Angeied by the shogun's heavy-handed supervision of imperial affairs,

Go-Mizunoo abruptly

to Sento

responsibility,

he

ftrst

turned his attentions

became

a

nun

in

1680 and

garden also contains a

wide-spreading umbrella

Go-Mizunoo's genius is not

apparent until one passes through cultivated

rice fields

and ascends the slope to the Upper Villa.

The passage upward from the point of entry to this

Gosho, meaning "Retired Emperor's VUla,"

row

and garden he planned with Kobori

side.

the palace

she

pine. But the full range of

resigned in favor of his daughter in 1629. Freed from

ceremonial

pond

The Middle Villa was

used by one of Go-Mizunoo's daughters as an abbess's

under similar circumstances and at approximately the

emperor Go-Mizunoo (1596-1680).

trails,

replaced at the end of the nineteenth century by the

views beyond the limits of the garden was created

retired

among terraced

were connected by simple

set

of

It is

the Imperial Gate,

part of Shugakuin,

stairs constricted

by

tall

is

a nar-

hedges on either

only after emerging into the sunlight at the

Enshu. After this projea was completed, Go-Mizunoo

top of the slope that one sees the panorama of the

was ready

lake, called Yokuryu-chi, or

to search for a site for a country retreat.

Bathing Dragon Pond,

This was undertaken with the encouragement of

and the borrowed scenery of the gently undulating

Tokugawa

mountains

lemitsu,

who,

in

an

effort to ingratiate

to the

himself with the imperial court in Kyoto and appease

supported by

Go-Mizunoo's smoldering frustrations, had increased

bank, which

his

income more than

threefold.

a is

northwest

(fig. 8.38).

massive terraced

concealed by

The

dam on

lake

its

is

west

a long, flat-topped,

stepped hedge composed of approximately forty 8.38.

of

Upper Garden, view

borrowed scenery from

Ryii'untei

Tea House

to

Yokoryii-ctii Pond, Stiugakuin,

Kyoto. Late

Edo Period

Momoyama / Early

NATURE AS MUSE

kinds of shrubs, with an occasional tree growing in it.

The vantage point

for this sight

a delicate tea

is

house, the Rin'un-tei, or Pavilion in the Clouds.

Even

where the technique of borrowed

here,

scenery reaches

its

consummate

expression, the

designer paid great attention to the texture of the

ground plane. For instance, at the Senshi-dai,

or

in front

of the tea house

Poem- Washing Platform,

to offer the magnificent view, there

a

is

built

paved apron

embedded with stones set singly and in groups of two 8.39.

or

Stone paving, Senshi-dai,

Poem-Washing

Platform, in

front of the Rin'un-tei

House, Shugakuin, Upper Villa

Below:

8.40. Aerial

Shugakuin with

its

Villa

view

of

rounding agricultural land-

Rock arrangement

(called Kamejima, or Tortoise

Garden

and clipped shrubbery. of Konchi-in

It

illustrates, like so

Temple,

we

have

come

many

other design

to expect in Japanese gardens

where almost nothing is

left

to

chance

(fig. 8.39).

A path descends from the hiU of the

and sur-

scape

Island)

three.

artistry

Garden's lake

circuit path

Right: 8.41.

and

details, the casual-seeming, but carefully considered,

Tea

to

make

Rin'un-tei

around the

a counterclockwise circuit

lake.

ing of a temple, often called the Abbot's Quarters)

The lake was used for pleasure boating, and its islands,

increased during the seventeenth century. This

one of which has

in part to the priest

The

could be

a small pavilion,

bridges that connect

them

to

visited.

one another and

the shore are scenic elements in a series of continu-

views

ally shifting

Kyoto. Early Edo Period (fig. 8.40).

as

one continues around the lake

On the north shore, on the site of the pres-

ent boathouse, stood the Shishi-sai, a

where guests might be carried upon

summerhouse

arrival to refresh

themselves before proceeding clockwise around the lake

and up

a circuitous path to the Rin'un-tei.

arrived, they could enjoy, as a

sudden

Once

surprise, the

Ishin-Suden (1564-1632),

served as an intermediary between the

support for the these

were

latter's

construction projects. Often

kare sansui, or dry gardens, although they

might contain rock arrangements, frequently ones suggesting the legendary crane or tortoise. designs of these less austere

Edo period gardens were

The

therefore

and ethereal than those of earlier Zen gar-

dens such as Ryoan-ji.

Kobori EnshCi himself designed the gardens

at

Konchi-in, a subtemple of Nanzen-ji where Ishin-

confines of the garden.

Suden had his headquarters,

Othek Edo and Modern Gardens garden design became

who

Tokugawa

shogunate and the temple administrators, securing

view of the scenic panorama that unfolds beyond the

Increasingly,

due

is

less the

realm of

after

one of the fine build-

from Hideyoshi's Fushimi Castle

ings

moved

in

Kyoto was

there in 1611. His vigorous kare sansui design

Zen priests and gifted aristocratic amateurs and more the province of professional gardeners, whose guid-

employs rock arrangements that include crane and

ing influence remained Kobori Enshu. Hcjo gardens

and bed of raked white

(gardens designed in conjunction with the

main build-

its

rock compositions

gravel, the

garden of Konchi-

tortoise imager)'. In addition to

in contains a

backdrop of carefully pruned shrubs

CUpped shrubbery,

8.41).

(fig.

the massive stepped hedge

of Shugakuin, and the extraordinary continuously curxing one at Daichi-ji

— an undulating, pulsating

mal-Uke mass, which

is

den

ani-

the entire focus of the gar-

— are additional hallmarks of Enshu's boldly

original style

(fig. 8.42).

The use of meticulously

clipped shrubs, rather than rocks, as the principal ele-

ments

in

garden design

is

also

found

at

Shisendo (Hall

of the Immortal Poets), the garden retreat built by

Ishikawa Jozan (1583-1672), a Tokugawa dissident

who 8.43).

retired here to a

life

of scholarship in 1636

This garden contrasts with the

lofi^-

(fig.

remoteness

of the framed views seen from the interior of the shoin

and garden space

at Katsura; at Konchi-in, interior

interpenetrate in delightful intimacy by

intermediate space of the

wooden

way

of the

veranda.

Other characteristic feamres of Edo period gardens are the sand

mounds with

surfaces raked

by

Japanese priests into abstract designs that anticipate

308

.

MOSS. AND STONES

TEA,

8.42.

Garden

of Daichi-ji

Temple, Shiga Prefecture.

These undulating, rounded, closely clipped shrubs repre-

sent the Seven Lucky Gods.

Below:

Gardener pruning

8.43.

azalea, Shisendo (Hall of

Immortal Poets), Kyoto, garden built

by Ishikawa Jozan. Early

Edo Period

Bottom:

8.44.

View from

Ginkaku Pavilion (white sand

in

a

of

Ginshadan

waved

design) and Kogetsudai

(mountain shape)

main

hall,

in front of

Ginkaku-ji Temple,

Kyoto. Pavilion,

Muromachi

Period; sand garden, Edo

Period

by nearly four centuries the patterned landscape

one observes

ification

in the earth art

One enters H6nen-in,

time.

a

of our

for

which

viewing

Ginkaku-ji, there

the

Edo

era.

is

plat-

villa-turned-temple garden of

mounds dating from

a pair of sand

One of

these takes the

cated cone, thought to recall tral

ese culture during the last half of the nineteenth cen-

Mount

—

with

Sand" because

is

known

reflective

its

Rapid Westernization transformed the Japanese garden. In Tokyo, an English-style installed at the

financiers built similarly hybrid land-

more profound design

as the "Sea

other, a

of Silver

white surface provided an (fig.

century, the tradition of

Japanese garden art was becoming devitalized. built,

two such opposite a later

The

day

traditions

integration of

would necessarily await

when the modernist movement made the

West ready

to receive inspiration

from the spare and

elegant compositional devices found in Japanese gar-

— a sympathetic

alliance

with nature, borrowed

scenery, hide-and-reveal compositional technique,

rock

artistry,

and focus upon ground-plane patterns

and texmres

for the deeply felt spiritual

aesthetic impulses that

merchant

Many

but their designers substituted a

tion in earlier times.

lawn was

Shinjuku Imperial Garden, and busi-

scapes. But a

dens

more formulaic approach

many complex rules of social stratification, and

brought about other changes.

nessmen and

8.44).

gardens were

government, did away

a trun-

added attraction during moon-viewing parties

By the eighteenth

instituted constitutional

Fuji or the cen-

form of

mountain of Buddhist myth, and the

horizontal rectangle,

and

tury

are raked with subtle delicacy. Nearby, at the

Muromachi period

— the remolding of Japan-

own

of mounds, the surfaces of

a pair

Meiji Restoration

tal."

temple of the Jodo sect

of Buddhism, from a roofed gate that provides a

form

The

scar-

had nourished the

rise

tradi-

of Japan's prosperous

number of property the demand for interior

class created a large

owners, and

this

stimulated

courtyard gardens. Nurseries and stone yards were established

where plants,

rocks,

and lanterns could be

purchased.

The appearance of the American naval commander Commodore Perry in Tokyo Bay in 1853 brought about a decisive change

ment and

in Japanese govern-

culture. Powerless in the face of this chal-

lenge to Japan's long-standing isolationist policy, the

Tokugawa shogunate, whose

iron grip depended

upon military might, was unable

to maintain

its

trol.

Thus ended two-and-a-half cenmries of

sion

from the

was restored

rest

to

con-

seclu-

of the world. In 1868, the emperor

power and took up residence

in Edo,

which was renamed Tokyo, meaning "Eastern Capi-

309

NoTK FOR Chapter Eight 1.

Although the Chinese garden had

mon with the Western a

it

com-

For the best contemporary English trans-

7.

lation of this literary

masterpiece, see Cao

naturalistic

Xueqin, The Story of the Stone (Har-

was much more compressed and

mondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin

penchant

effects,

in

Picturesque garden

for irregularity

and

acting as a

Books, vols. 1-3, trans. David Hawkes,

symbolic representation of the entire natu-

1973-80; vols. 4-5, trans. John Minford,

tightly coiled

ral

as a work of

wodd. This aesthetic

in

art,

turn provided the

impetus

for the creation of the

garden,

in

Japanese

which the nexus between

and nature was bolstered by the of Shinto religion

opment

of

art

ing of

its

tradition

chap.

17.

and by the further devel-

Buddhist philosophy after

its

The following quotations describ-

1982-86).

garden and the nam-

ing the building of the

various parts are found

See Richard

8.

in vol. 1,

Strassberg, trans.,

E.

Inscribed Landscapes: Travel Writing from

importation from China. That Buddhism

Imperial China (Berkeley: University of

coexisted with, rather than destroyed,

California Press, 1994),

Shinto religion only strengthened the

9.

Japanese bond with

nature. This develop-

The many pleasure

p. 15.

pavilions built by Khu-

Khan and subsequent emperors

bilai

ment, which began toward the end of the

around these lakes have

sixth century c.e., displays a consistent

over the centuries. Fortunately for poster-

Japanese

ity,

ability

consciously to assimilate

foreign influences into

its

cultural core,

in

fallen into ruin

the Chinese garden scholar Osvald

Siren

was

given permission

in

the 1920s to

the process re-forming them into an

wander

authentically indigenous expression.

of the tea

Z Kami, discernible only through faith, exert

accessible to the general public, and his

a

mysterious creative and harmonizing

influence {musubi) on

human

Tutelary

life.

kami, which are associated with individual clans, are revered at shrines.

worshipers the

to

truthful

They reveal

way

or will

{makoto). 3.

Kunlun Mountains 4.

See Claudia Brown, "Chinese Scholars'

Rocks and the Land

of Immortals:

photographs preserve

for us at

least an evocation of their haunting poetry.

See Osvald

Siren,

Gardens of China (New

The Ronald Tree Press Company,

York: 1949),

pi.

145-76.

For an

summary

excellent

of the

Sakuteiki or Treatise on Garden Making,

see Loraine Kuck, The World of the Japan-

the distant west.

in

palaces before they had become

beautiful

10.

Xian were also believed to inhabit the

pleasure within the precincts

at his

Some

ese Garden: From Chinese Origins ern Landscape

to

Mod-

4rr(New York: Weatherhill,

Insights from Painting," Worlds Within

1968), pp. 91-93. Kuck's history of the

Worlds: The Richard Rosenblum Collection

Japanese garden

of Chinese Scholars' Rocks, ed. Robert D.

ence work.

Mowry

11.

(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni-

versity Art 5.

Museums,

1997), pp. 57-83.

For a description of Shanglin Park and

in this

chapter

I

am

indebted especially to Maggie Keswick,

The Chinese Garden: tecture 6.

{Hew \o±

History, Art

& Archi-

The following encapsulated discussion

Yuan

Ye,

trans. Alison Hardie,

(8.5

west and

kilometers) north to south. Kyoto,

hemmed

in

by

hills,

could only expand to

the south. 12.

See Murasaki

trans.

Edward

G.

Shikibu,

The Tale ofGenji,

Seidensticker

(New

York:

Ji

Cheng,

The Craft of

13. is

The Golden

Pavilion that

one sees today

copy

of the original,

a generally faithful

which was destroyed

in

1950 by an arson-

Gardens (New Haven: Yale University

ist

Press, 1988).

mercialization of the Buddhist Church. 14.

protesting the post-World

War

II

com-

Atatami mat measures approximately 3

by 6 feet

310

(9.7

5.25 miles

Alfred A. Knopf, 1985).

Rizzoli, 1978).

and quotations are derived from

Chang'an was approximately 6 miles

kilometers) from east to

several other Chinese landscapes subse-

quently discussed

an invaluable refer-

is

(.9

by

1.8

meters).

— CHAPTER NINE j

EXPANDING CITIES AND NEW SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS: THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF LANDSCAPE DESIGN

X he designs of many of the landscapes suadied thus far derive sometimes beliefs.

The

overtly,

sometimes

implicitly

desire to perceive order

pervasive throughout

— from cosmological

and meaning in the universe

is

of our most deep-seated psychological and religious attitudes. In

through the eighteenth century and ited

momentum

political revolutions discred-

entrenched power structures, the impulse to

reflect in land-

scape terms a cosmological paradigm proclaiming divine order and elite

fervor as the study of celestial bodies

when

human history and continues to govern some

the West, however, as the Scientific Revolution gained

and botany began to be pursued with the same

biology, geology,

authority diminished. As the theories of Newton were proved

and extended by later scientific endeavor and became incorporated

astrology

was believed

for religion

and philosophy, especially

ago made

it

but

it

verse,

clear that Earth

now became

science that

on empirical explanations of the material world.

human action resulted in the

Faith in

substitution of

personal judgment for blind obedience to authorit}; with

signifi-

that of the

by

their mistakes

duced

humankind

ment. For some people, in supernatural

faith in scientific progress displaced faith

powers and divine intervention

For them, and for those

in earthly affairs.

who reconciled science with faith, the bet-

terment of the conditions of life on Earth, not preparation for the hereafter,

became

the business of

humankind.

results that

in the

their notions of

also held the

promise of

own behalf was often

its

destiny sometimes pro-

long term. Darwin's theories necessarily took

forces of crustal uplift

and

a

dynamics of Earth

and erosion shaped the

being recarved by wind,

rain,

and

land,

ice.

geography and climate created ecological niches in the

ani-

same

were not necessarily beneficial to Earth or even

into account geological time

tinually

the

and misbegotten ideologies. In addition,

humanity's growing power to control

powers severely curtailed

of republican forms of govern-

cosmos

of the

rest

some quarters,

But the power of people acting on their limited

cant political consequences as monarchies were toppled or their in favor

in

had caused human beings to modify

own namre and

uni-

humans were products of

an evolutionary biology that linked them with the

their

reason and individual

was no longer the center of the

apparent that

mal kingdom. TTiough bitterly resisted

untold material benefits.

instead

Darwin

after Charles

(1809-1882) published The Origin of Species in 1 859. Galileo had long

abandoned the quest

meaning, concentrating

human fate.

to govern

This pursuit of natural science had profound consequences

into the general cultural consciousness, intellectuals increasingly

for teleological

had been in former centuries

nineteenth century,

it

became apparent

in

which

which was con-

Circumstances of for species.^

to a

Now,

few that the

all-

human species was capable of destroying other species and limiting its own future welfare as it continued to modify the environ-

encompassing, culture-defining thought systems to being spirimal

ment by felling trees and clearing land for agriculmre. This removal

The unprecedented knowledge and

of native vegetation destroyed namral drainage systems, acceler-

Science assumed the authority previously enjoyed by religion

and philosophy, which were demoted from and

intellectual disciplines.

their position as

technological results achieved by the Western pursuit of science,

voyages of global exploration, and colonial expansion

made Euro-

peans, though arrogant in their presumption of world hegemony, at least

more cognizant of other

cultural perspectives. Travel also

furthered the growing interest in namral science, and with the philosophical shift

from teleology

to scientific materialism, chemistry.

ated erosion, and altered climate.

George Perkins Marsh (1801-1882), American diplomat and early environmentalist,

warning against namre. Just

as

this

wrote

Man and

Darwin's theories

understanding of the

Nature (1864) as a stern

calamitous course of unchecked abuse of

made some people

Biblical creation story

revise their

and regard

it

as

myth

311

EXPANDING

CITIES

AND NEW SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS

and metaphor instead of gospel, so Marsh's views made unworkable the notion of the Creator exploitation. For in ecological

making Earth

Western Christian

solely for humanity's

societies, to

and conservationist terms

as

look

at

landscape

Marsh did was

to ques-

wisdom of the scriptural injunction in Genesis 1 :28 to "fill earth and subdue it. Dominion without enlightened hus-

thus pervaded Western ideology, and Utopian schemes flourished. This, abetted by widespread religious skepticism

create a cultural climate that

more

the

"

difficulty that practicing Christians

graduaUy became receptive

and

to,

and

social pluralism.

for landscape within the secular, highly

framework of nineteenth-

energetic, increasingly cosmopolitan

century Western culture were enormous. In terms of landscape

bandry according to Marsh, spelled destruction.

The

tolerant of, religious

The consequences

tion the

and atheism, helped

and Jews in the nine-

movement is

history, the public parks

a signal contribution of the

modern tirbanism. As more purely aesthetic

teenth century had reconciling their beliefs with the challenging

nineteenth cenmry to

new

God's partner and

values supplanted ideological ones in landscape design, the

steward of Earth rather than His mere ward should not be mini-

eighteenth-century Picturesque idiom remained viable for the cre-

theories of science

and humanity's

mized. Intellectually and morally, the

role as

late

eighteenth century had

in the nations of the West consolidated the Scientific Revolution

that

had begun in the

sixteenth,

to the Industrial Revolution.

unsettling vision

whOe

Now,

at the

same time giving birth

in the nineteenth century, the

Goethe had limned in Faust Part 11 of nature

over-

ation of nineteenth-century parks

century Europe, an

oper was becoming a palpable

fervor

Rousseau and Wordsworth, found

in

the sublime, a source of spirimal solace

same

to those

At

social

and

convention and reli-

The English writer and pioneer

art critic

of nature, which he equated with Truth. By preaching

Ruskin furthered the mod-

rather than simply as a manifestation of

manization he perceived to be

it.

was appalled by the dehu-

a result

of industrial capitalism's

advance, and he sought to revive the artisanship associated with the medieval period, a time

when craft guilds flourished and Gothic

stone carvers' close observation of vital style

namre

resulted in a vigorously

of ornamentation. The American writers Ralph Waldo

Emerson (1803-1882) and Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) met science's challenge to religion

with transcendentalism, the literary

and philosophical movement that advocated intuition

as a

mode of

reacting against or incorporating the implications of

modem science and Darwinism, few in the nineteenth century reckoned that further blows

to humanity's self-esteem

and relationship

with past tradition had yet to be assimilated. But the insights of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) established the intellectual tury, a radical

modernity

traditions for inspiration instead, they

basis for

312

cUmate of much of the twentieth cen-

which people no longer looked

and

a sense

to past

of continuity with history;

looked to the present and future as the only

own best

in

its

own

right

and an

intellectual

firamework for

commitment to a sin-

gle style reflecting a consensual ideology. Geometrical design

was

allowed back into English gardens, and the display of exotic plant material

weening

attitude that

reliable

outlook increasingly considered themselves

earthly guides. Humanitarian social consciousness

produced unforeseen consequences. The

hypocrisies and inequalities of this extraordinary age are glaring.

Although the

economies

too

Industrial Revolution fostered capitalist

West, which produced a broad middle

in the

afl

class

brought a cornucopia of goods and comforts to many,

it

and

was

wrenching for others, causing large-scale migrations that tore people

away from

their

homes and homelands. Those

dispossessed

from an immediate connection with landscapes of important

sen-

timental and psychological value often endured, in addition, squalid

Hving conditions in rapidly growing

immune

proved no more those based nialism,

upon

cities.

to corruption

aristocratic privilege

which reached

its

Republican governments

and class

and

distinctions than

social hierarchy. Colo-

zenith in the nineteenth century, was

in its disregard

of native cultural values, attempt-

ing to establish Western mores as universal while relegating non-

European races to

inferior status.

Even

after

it

became

a sovereign

nation, the United States accomplished the settlement of

its

conti-

nental territory under a similar cultural imperative.

At the same time,

and Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

knowledge and human advancement. Even those who

remained religious their

in

culmral value in

increasingly broad license. History as a

preserving and imitating past styles replaced

generaUy caUous

perception transcending empiricism.

Whether

was given

Utopian human fulfillment seems overconfident, a heady and over-

ern notion that the appreciation and practice of art could serve as

Like others of his generation, Ruskin

had characterized the design disputes of

invective that

smdy

phy of Beauty with the same fervor as ministers of the Evangelical

life

and the doctrinal

a philoso-

John Ruskin

(1819-1900) promoted an aesthetics that was rooted in the

of spiritual

aesthetics,

became a mark of the Victorian style called Gardenesque. From our own historical vantage point, the nineteenth cenmry 's faith in scientific progress and planning as a means toward

gious belief a personal need and cultural habit for many in the West.

a source

and

approach to landscape

individual taste

churchgoing remained a strongly rooted

raised,

catholic

no longer available

tion offered the faithful in earlier Christian centuries continued,

which he had been

of their

the eighteenth century were replaced by an eclecticism in which

time, the longing for the promise of redemptive salva-

tradition in

social progressiveness

wild nature the scenery of

who had begun to question the premises of inherited religion. the

emblem of the

owners. At the same time, theorists and practitioners adopted a

more

Romantics, following

aristocrats

jardin anglais continued to be popular throughout nineteenth-

mastered by humanity in the form of the engineer and the develreality.

and gardens. Many

destroyed the geometrical gardens of their ancestral seats as the

this

period in Western history demon-

strated the benefits of science as the foundations for icine

were

laid,

modern med-

public sanitation victories achieved, better living

conditions established, and faster

means of transportation and com-

munication developed.

technology fostered an abundance

of

new

trial

Scientific

inventions, constantly improving the processes of indus-

production and accelerating its pace, making goods cheap and

readily available.

The potential danger to all human life consequent

— upon the

splitting

tion of the

of the atom and widespread industrial degrada-

environment

still

lay in the future. In the nineteenth

the unprecedented problems that attended the birth of mass

on such global

soci-

issues as these. Cholera, caused

contaminated drinking water, and other

illnesses

by

were associated

with overcrowding. The use of industrial technology to build aqueducts, sewers,

structure

and other important elements of a new urban

was essential if populations were

to survive in cities

infra-

grown

and transportation lines con-

to a metropolitan scale. Further, parks

necting the commercial center with outlying residential suburbs

needed to be buOt

in

order to maintain contact with nature other-

wise lost to large-scale urban growth. ing into

The new immigrants pour-

search of better lives posed special problems in

cities in

terms of housing, education, and medical

services.

their suffering illuminated religion's revised role for ical,

Responses to

many as an eth-

rather than a metaphysical, system. Industrial capitalism

hand. Jeremy

and humane

measure of economic and social

value, directing

all

action toward the goal of achieving the greatest happiness for the

number of people. Imbued with democratic principles and

utilitarian

concepts of social justice,

civic

and political leaders under-

commercial nurseries

catering to the needs of the head gardeners

on

large estates

were

also able to bring horticulture within reach of other social strata.

With

growth

the

home

in

nificant cultural value.

ownership, domesticity became a sigThe ornamental garden assumed new

importance as an adjunct to the house, and even the humble

came

tage garden

simply a

cot-

to be regarded as an aesthetic object, rather than

utilitarian one.

cottages and sometimes

On great estates, owners ceased to remove whole villages, previously thought

to blight

the view of namraUsticaUy arranged scenery. Increasingly toward the end of his career, Repton had found

tecmre in

his designs,

and Loudon

room for vernacular archi-

now

displayed the conscience

of the times by illustrating his text on agrarian structures with

warmth and comfort for charm for those who viewed

sketches of cottages that provided both

who

dwelt within and scenic

them from without. The nineteenth cenmry signaled the separation of living space

Mill (1773-1836)

enunciated the doctrine of utilitarianism, the ethical theory that

greatest

Increasingly, as living standards rose,

those

went hand-in-

practicality

Bentham (1748-1832) and James

sees utility as a

the quality that gave gentility visible form.

were focused on

century, the energies of humanitarian reformers

ety rather than

cerning sense of what was excellent, harmonious, and beautiful

from the workplace industrial

as cottage

production in large

manufacturing was replaced by

factories.

The

middle-class interest in

the private realm of house and garden could not have occurred

without new, invention of

efficient

means of

public transportation after the

macadam paving and the railroad steam engine. These

took prison and burial reform, established public education, and

made

created culmral institutions and large municipal parks for the sodal

planners exploited this opportunity with considerable ingenuity. As

improvement and recreation of the population

The

nineteenth-century phenomena. in

the nineteenth-century metropolis

at large.

and rural cemeteries were linked

creation of public parks

The

rise in

the

numbers of dead

growing municipalities forced speedy disinterment of bodies in

order to burial

make room for new burials.

ipality, it

sanitary reformers

who saw

urban church-

Encouraged by

as

in Paris, established in 1804,

became an

international

public cemeteries, Boston's

Wood, served the

Mount Auburn and Brooklyn's Green-

function of public pleasure grounds in advance

of the establishment of public parks, and their popularity did much to

Within a repertoire of inherited design idioms feamring geo-

in

and gridiron layouts, which they often employed

combination, nineteenth-century designers strove to incorporate

the

newly discovered plants made

available

Ruskin found the

through expeditions of

the publication of books and journals and as designers,

such horticultural and landscape writers, editors, and practitioners as the Scot John

Claudius

Loudon (1782-1843) and

the

American

Andrew Jackson Downing (181 5-1 852) democratized culture. They accomplished

this

wealthy middle

by showing the

class

aristocracy.

and the

final

removal of

Bentham, and the generally

enterpris-

about the

Gardens cal

utility.

Although conservatives such

new industrial building materials hideous, oth-

siting

at

of the new-style conservatory at the Royal Botanic

Kew

ingenuity of

within the principal line of view, the technologi-

its

architecmre was in fact a source of pride, and

immediate popularity justified its conspicuoias location (see

its

fig. 9.4).

People soon atmned their eyes to the novel form and materials of

widths, and they

members of

became

in the construction

architectural icons of the age,

of railroad stations and in the Crystal Palace of

the Great Exposition held in in

employed

London in

1851, followed

by one built

New York City two years later. In other ways, technology played an important role in land-

scape design.

The lawn mower was patented by Edwin Budding in

1830. This efficient that put a

machine made

possible a landscape aesthetic

premium upon the smooth,

mowing was abandoned (see fig.

9.6).

evenly sheared lawn as scythe

The coming of railroads not

the newly

only created the planned suburb, but brought quickly and cheaply

how to attain the trappings of gentility, includ-

nonlocal building materials and horticulmral plants to urban cen-

aspiring

ing homes and gardens similar, although

of the

munic-

equated the useful with the beautiful. While there was debate

botanical discovery and the establishment of commercial nurseries.

Through

a regional-scale

such great glass structures, engineered to span unprecedented

promote the municipal parks movement.

metric, Picturesque,

Mill,

tury were disposed to admire

ers

for municipal cemeteries elsewhere. In America, the first

became

former rural environs, thereby accom-

ing and practical temper of the times, people in the nineteenth cen-

spread of cholera and other infectious diseases. Pere-Lachaise

model

its

and landscape

old fortification waUs.

yards as a source of groundwater contamination, fostering the

Cemetery

encompassed

plishing the ultimate ungirdling of cities

Sectarian minorities without

grounds advocated nondenominational public cemeteries.

They were joined by

possible the creation of residential suburbs,

on a smaller scale,

to those

The operative word in their works was taste,

a dis-

ters.

of

Innovations multiplied as inventors took out patents on a host

new

materials: portland cement, asphalt paving, the

wrought-

313

EXPANDING

CITIES

AND NEW SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS

iron sash bar for conservatory panes, sheet glass. Cast-iron construction, the revival

of terra-cotta casting, and the manufacture of

encaustic tiles increased the range of opportunity for

ornamental

and eventually gas heating systems

expression. Steam, hot-water,

provided comfort and convenience to people and protected tender

of technology to the built environment had

plants. Applications

important effects on landscape design and the appearance of

tural science.

Not only were exotic species displayed as choice

imens of garden

art,

produced plants in new forms, shapes, and colors. Competitive bitions such as the Chiswick merits.

spec-

but also grafting, training, and hybridization

Show were

Commercial nurseries

exhi-

organized to judge their

thrived as botanical interest became

widespread.

Garden encyclopedias replaced treatises on aesthetics. Numer-

up

to serve an audience eager for advice

on

the practical aspects of landscape design and information about the in botany

developments

eties,

botanical gardens, and certain wealthy persons continued to

send plant explorers to remote parts of the globe in search of uncat-

alogued spedes. Botanical

illustration

many beautiful

form, and

fiercely

artists as Pierre -Joseph

reached

its

apogee

as

an

art

colored engravings by such talented

Redoute (1759-1841), Francis Bauer

text

The

street grid

names

— The Botanic Garden,

veying real estate in new

who

son Downing,

began to pose an

new meaning by

alternative.

Florists' Register

of Useful Information ConFlorists'

Magazine

—

suggest the nineteenth century's fascination with flowers newly available to gardeners

and intrepid

through the

efforts

of ingenious hybridizers

explorers.

erary piracy and plagiarism were editorial invective.

The

common generated considerable

passions that ran high in their pages were

Downing gave

the term rural

—

a built landscape that

was neither wholly

agrarian nor wholly urban.

Frederick

Law Olmsted (1822-1903), in parmership with the

English-born architect Calvert Vaux (1824-1895), directed the Pic-

mresque idiom toward democratic ends public parks.

The parks

that

in creating America's first

Olmsted and Vaux designed,

first in

New York and then in other cities, were mostly namralistic essays in

which they

replicated rural

mood

that

and wilderness scenery

would

lift

in order to

the spirits of careworn city

Olmsted and Vaux also became the country's first urban

planners on a metropolitan scale, conceiving of parkways as a linking parks together into a citywide system and profirst

suburbs.

The

curvilinear

layout of the suburbs they designed posed a Picmresque alternative to

the grid, heretofore the standard plan for

new

streets. Still

other forces at the end of the nineteenth century set the country on a different course, as the designers for a Gilded historic architecture

The competition among these periodicals in a time when lit-

class in the

creating a middle landscape of suburban "villa"

and cottage architecture

means of

The Floricidtural Cabinet,

growing middle

management and Picmresque landscape

principles of horticulmral

viding carriage drives to America's

and

same

but preceptors such as Andrew Jack-

cities,

instructed the

of Botany, Paxton's Magazine of Botany and Register of Flowering Plants,

nected with Floriculture,

at the

was being pushed westward. The

fi-ontier

Botanical Magazine or Flower-Garden Displayed, Gardeners' Magazine

Horticultural Journal

again joined within the con-

proved the most practical means for parceling and con-

create a poetic

their

Namre once

Thus was the

England for landscape design models

time as the American

dwellers.

Some of

naturalistic approach.

rapidly industrializing cities of the northeastern United

States looked to

(1758-1840) and Ferdinand Bauer (1760-1826), and James Sowerby

fig. 9.1).

Ital-

of landscape design.

(1757-1822) were reproduced in the proliferating horticultural magazines (see

for seasonal

Reginald Blomfield championed

opposing Robinson's

debate between Art and

and horticulture. Horticultural soci-

latest

Sir

ianate geometrical style in The Formal Garden in England (1892),

design,

ous periodicals sprang

At the same time,

display.

cities.

garden became the laboratory of horticul-

Increasingly, the

arrangement of plants according to precise patterns

and planning forms of Renaissance and

enteenth-cenmry France and Indefatigable

and

with the names of

Age imitated

sev-

Italy.

industrious are adjectives often

many

the

connected

nineteenth-cenmr}' figures. Herculean

symptomatic of an intense and broadening interest in horticulture

were the labors of those who created the botanical gardens and

and landscape design. In Gardener's Magazine, and

other scientific and culmral instimtions, meticulously recorded the

and Domestic Improvement, the cation,

earliest

Register of Rural

general horticulmral publi-

Loudon forthrightly delivered his candid opinions between

observations of their

diff^icult

parks and park systems that

we

voyages to distant parts, built the still

enjoy,

and conceived and buUt

1826 and 1844. As we shall see in Chapter Eleven, by the end of the

the transportation and sanitary engineering infrastrucmre to sup-

cenmry

port large

after the Victorian

riches of the age,

garden had incorporated the botanical

new design wars erupted in England, pitting ad\'o-

cates of informal impressionistic ders,

such

arrangement of herbaceous bor-

as the horticultural writer

and editor William Robinson

and the Arts and Crafts gardener, photographer, and author Gertrude JekyU, against those

314

who

practiced "bedding out," the

cities

—

all

the while corresponding voluminously and

publishing profusely without the convenience of present-day com-

munications technology. a discussion

sonify the

Our chronicle of the

period begins with

of the careers of several important figures

who

per-

human energ}' that flourished spectacularly at this time.

BOTANICAL SCIENCE, THE GARDENESQUE STYLE, AND PEOPLE S PARKS

Botanical Science, u Gakl:>lnesqul Style, anl3 People's Parks: Landscape Design in Victor.ian England 1.

i

i

Eighteenth-century Enlightenment science opened

environment.

the door to the passionate pursuit of natural history

titled

in the

nineteenth century.

The

of

real "discovery"

America had been the discovery by Europeans of

unbounded economic opportunity, which was based

at first

on a single

a

good

deal of

plant, tobacco.

A

happy bonus had been the introduction to botanical science of a wealth of hitherto

spedes.

The plant exchanges that occurred first in the

colonial era

the

unknown ornamental

and then

way for the

in the federal

period prepared

explosion of horticultural activity in

The taxonomic classification

the nineteenth century.

system developed by Linnaeus,

which Latin pro-

in

On

He published his discovery in a treatise

Growth of Plants

the

Glazed Cases

miniature — — soon became part of the standard

and the Wardian case

(1842),

greenhouse

in Closely

equipment of

in effect a

plant hunters. Meanwhile, collec-

all

whose passage and pay were funded

tors in the field,

by the Horticulmral Society of London

— founded

in

1804 to advance botanical science and garner foreign plant material for English gardens devised

—ingeniously

new methods and materials for packing their

precious cargoes, albeit with

statistically

enough

ing results. Nevertheless,

England's ambitions as a colonial

disappoint-

plants survived,

and

power assured con-

vided a universal language of binomial references for

tinuing opportunities for botanists to attach them-

made it possible for members of a growing international scientific community to develop a common knowledge base and communi-

selves to vessels

individual plant spedes,

Royal Gardens

much

of

Kew as a

at

repository for dried spec-

data, a center for the global trans-

growing number of

Gardens ai Kew At the center of

To Banks

of plant material, and the imperial nexus of

fer

The Royal Botanic

for exotic locales.

belongs credit for establishing the eminence of the

imens and botanical

one another.

cate intelligibly with

bound

a

colonial botanical gardens.

William Townsend Aiton (1766-1849), the this botanical activity

and

superintendent of

Kew

after 1793

and one of the

forming the bridge between the eighteenth and nine-

founders of the Horticultural Society of London

teenth centuries stood Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820),

(later the

the president of the Royal Society

from 1778

death and, as botanical advisor to George director of the Royal ically

Gardens

at

IH,

in ensuring that

de facto

various sources were sent to Kew. Banks's visionary

polit-

well-connected, and with three years of experi-

ence collecting plants on the Endeavour voyage as

to attract royal

and

aristocratic

attached to ships

ralists

bound

specimens of plants collected from

until his

Kew. Wealthy,

credentials for projects of this nature.

Royal Horticultural Sodety), assisted Banks

Banks was able

patronage for natufor distant lands.

He

leadership,

combined with his ardent imperialism,

the agenda.

He requested diplomats, army and navy

officers, captains

sionaries,

set

of merchant vessels, foreign mis-

and colonial correspondents to foster Kew's

botanical collections.

As

a result, in 1789,

Aiton pub-

lished Hortus Kewensis, a three-volume catalogue of

9.1.

Phaius tankervilleae, a

tropical orchid introduced into

assessed the professional

young men

and industriousness of

the plants at Kew, prepared with the help of Daniel

Kew, and from their ranks

Solander, a former pupil of Linnaeus, and Jonas

Cunningham and

Dryander, another professional botanist from Swe-

skills

in training at

selected candidates such as Allan

England after a

in 1778.

Engraving

watercolor by James

Sowerby. Plate

12,

Volume

3,

of the 1789 edition of Hortus

James Bowie in the wilds

for the

arduous work of plant hunting

of South Africa, Australia, the Americas,

and China. Banks enjoined these and other explorers to keep journals recording the climatic conditions soil

quality of native plant habitats.

ficulty

The

greatest

dif-

cold, mildew, sea spray,

vermin, and natural disaster took a significant It

was not

until 1838 that Nathaniel

By the eclipsed by

more

Kew's preeminence was being

progressive and active botanical

organizations, notably the Horticultural Society of

London, which

in that

decade was sponsoring plant-

of South America, and the Pacific coast of the United

soil

placed in the bottom of a covered glass jar, he soon

began to germi-

Kewensis, published by William Townsend Aiton

9.1).

1820s,

Ward

upon an invention that proved of great utility to

soil

work (fig.

handsome and monumen-

collecting expeditions to China, Africa, Mexico, parts

fumre plant collectors. After burying a chrysalis in

discovered that the seeds in the

tal

this

toll.

(1791-1868) of London, a doctor and namralist, stum-

bled

(1757-1822) illustrate

and

occurred in transporting seeds and specimens

on long ocean voyages where

den. Engravings from watercolors by James Sowerby

States. ties

As botanical gardens proliferated

and

in the

at universi-

newly wealthy manufacmring

cities,

Kew stagnated. Visitors noticed its decline, and John Claudius Loudon's Gardener's Magazine

commented

with asperity on the situation. However, in 1841, the

nate because condensation produced by plant respi-

British

ration within the jar created a moist, self-sustaining

it

Treasury assumed support of Kew, renaming

the Royal Botanic Gardens. William Jackson

315

EXPANDING

CITIES

AND NEW SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS

ners proposed this type of controlled urbanism.

Loudon, the

London

arrived in

eldest son of a Scottish farmer, in

1

803 at the age of twenty well

educated and with practical experience in hothouse

embankment

design and

mation.

A

letter

construction for land recla-

of introduction from

him

fessor introduced

a

former pro-

who

to Sir Joseph Banks,

generously befriended him. acquainted with the botanical

He

artist

also

became

James Sowerby

and with Jeremy Bentham, whose theory of utilitarianism and whose ideological range and systematic intellectual

approach had a lasting influence upon him.

Loudon's

first literary effort in

London was

a

proposal to apply Picmresque principles to the planting of hardy trees and flowering shrubs within the city's

tions 9.2.

"East Front of

Tew

Lodge,"

from Loudon-s Designs for Laying Out Farms, 1812

Hooker (1785-1865) was appointed director. By then,

squares.

followed this essay with Observa-

on Landscape Gardening ( 1 804), which helped him

attract clients seeking his professional advice.

Between

Tew Lodge Farm,

Loudon had traveled extensively, ^

1808 and 1811, he resided at

dens in

Oxfordshire, where, in addition to proving to the

visited botanical gar° England and abroad, and was well established

as the country's leading

spokesperson on horticulture.

landowner and

General George Frederick

his client.

new system

His remarkable career as a scientific farmer, landscape

Stratton, the profitability of a

gardener, inventor, writer, and editor epitomizes the

hold arrangements, Loudon directed numerous

creative energy, scientific appetite, technological apti-

improvements paid

for

of lease-

by the general, aspiring here

science that fiaeled the cultural developments of the

premier^me ornee. He removed some hedgerows in order to plant new ones as shel-

nineteenth century in general and the field of land-

ters against the prevailing winds,

tude, encyclopedic knowledge,

and humanitarian con-

to create England's

house

John Claudius Loudon

in

ticality,

John Claudius Loudon (1783-1843),^ in his

had rough

fields

regraded and installed with drains, and built a farm-

scape design in particular.

typified his age

sympathy for the mass of humanity, his idealism,

an innovative design that emphasized prac-

comfort, and technology over ornament and

style; yet

he made these elements of economy and

convenience compatible with elegance and refine-

his ability to give physical expression to the conceptual,

ment (fig.

and his propensity for thinking in long-range and large-

of the land in a Picturesque manner, and around his

scale terms.

He was

in effect a

several decades before

metropolitan planner

London and other British cities

were organized governmentaDy to accept vision.

An

admirer of

self-government he

this

kind of

Thomas Jefferson whose term

borrowed upon occasion, he looked

forward to the day

when public improvements were

undertaken by general consensus and

in a

compre-

hensive and rational manner, not piecemeal at the behest of the wealthy and powerful. nels, bridges,

He

felt

that

mn-

and other works of utilitarian engineer-

ing were nobler

monuments to a society's genius than

the grandest examples of purely heroic architecmre

9.2).

new house he

His farm roads foDowed the contours

planted shrubs and trees in irregular

masses, once again according to the system of Jussieu.

Although he did not coin the term Gardenesque twenty years ciples

later,

until

here he put into practice the prin-

of his later definition by incorporating exotic

species into his landscape design and displaying plants,

whether foreign or

native, in

such a

way

all

that

each could reveal itself to advantage. Botanical display was a central focus for Loudon, and his intention at

Tew Lodge Farm and

elsewhere was to acknowl-

edge landscape as nature,

From

art,

and science.

the beginning of his career,

Loudon saw

Tew Lodge Farm

and sculpmre. Sanitary engineering and the conquest

education as one of his missions. At

of distance by rail transport excited his imagination as

he established an agricultural college to teach the sons

he dreamed of

of the landed gentry and prospective estate agents his

would enable

livable cities

the

worker

and the measures that

to be

more conveniently

united with a job and the middle-class

with a plot of suburban greenery.

homeowner

He had

the idea of

shaping metropolitan growth and relieving congestion

with

a series

of concentric greenbelts long before

Ebenezer Howard (1850-1928) and subsequent plan-

316

He

new methods of scientific farming.

Moreover, he was

progressive in his concern for farm laborers, paying particular attention to the quality of their housing

food. But being not yet thirty,

and

Loudon was more inter-

ested in demonstrating a successful experiment than in settling

permanendy at Tew Lodge Farm. However

BOTANICAL SCI ENCE. THE GARDENESQUE STYL E. AND PEOPLE S PARKS

9.3.

"The Polyprosopic Hot-

house," one of the sketches by

John Claudius Loudon ous methods

of vari-

designing

of

glasshouses, from

A

Treatise

on the Theory and Practice of

Landscape Gardening. According

to

Loudon, "The

Polyprosopic Hot-house

resembles a curvilinear house, but differs

challenging the

life

of a

might have been,

tor

scientific

his

farmer and educa-

phenomenal energies and

intellectual curiosity required a larger sphere ity.

After

of activ-

two and a half years, when General Stratton

offered to

buy back his

lease,

Loudon

With the Napoleonic wars to a close,

he

now

in

chains and pulleys in the to gain a

or to 9.3).

more

desirable angle in relation to the sun

let in fresh air

and summer rain showers

As curved-glass conservatories

became common on

accepted.

Europe drawing

seized the opportunity to travel

manner of Venetian blinds

British tax

on

(fig.

for tender plants

in

having the sur-

face thrown into a number of faces, the chief advantages of

which

are, that by hinging all

the different faces at their

upper angles, and by having rods connecting the lower out-

estates after the lifting of the

glass in 1845, their juxtaposition with

the eclectic neotraditional architecture of the Victo-

side corners of the faces ter-

minating

in

chains,

over pulleys

in

which go

the top or

above the back wall, the

abroad, journeying across northern Europe during a

nineteen-month period

in 1813

and

1814. Letters of

introduction from Sir Joseph Banks gained him access

rian

mansion was sometimes

Loudon

(see fig. 9.2), these

were given pride of place

ridiculed,

but following

popular status symbols

in Victorian landscaping

whole

roof, including the

may be opened

or raised

pathetically, like Venetian blinds, either so as

and professional

to aristocratic estates his

societies

knowledge of French, German, and

him

Italian

where

schemes.

made

or face

Joseph Paxton's ridge-and-furrow-style conser-

House

Kew

head

gar-

vatory at Chatsworth, the great Palm

deners, architects, and others. In Russia, he

was

designed by architect Decimus Burton (1800-1881),

impressed with the pineapples, cherries, peaches,

with ironmaster Richard Turner, as a series of sheer,

plums, apples, pears, and grapes that were being

taut-skinned agglomerated hemispheres, and Paxton's

grown under glass on noblemen's estates.

iconic Crystal Palace built for the Great Exposition of

it

possible for

to speak fluently with

a technical eye that

It

was with

he studied the construction of

greenhouses or remarked on the heat-retention capabihties of the Russian stove.

served

These observations

him well when, upon returning to London, he

turned his thoughts toward an examination of

how

at

—

Now

Loudon's

fertile

genius, excited

schemes

cultural Society of

member

of the Horti-

London, published

a

paper

in

which he suggested that a purely functional hothouse in

which the greatest amount of light could be admit-

ted through the least expanse of glass, one that in addition could be efficiently heated, ticultural

pendicular, to admit a

shower

of rain."

Below:

9.4.

Palm House, Kew,

Richmond, designed by

Decimus Burton and Richard 1844-48

for industrial workers'

housing and a solar

clopaedia of Gardening.

The Encyclopaedia, which ran to several editions

(1759-1838), the younger brother of

Richard Payne Knight and a

rays at the time, or to the per-

by technology,

comprehensive, detailed, and well-organized Ency-

Thomas

the

projected other innovations as well, including

through technology. he was not alone. In 1812,

in

Hyde Park all owe a debt to Loudon's pioneering work in glasshouse construction (fig. 9.4). 1851 in

heating system, which he published in 1822 in his

In this effort

each sash

may be placed

plane of the angle of the sun's

Turner.

the construction of greenhouses could be improved

Andrew Knight

ends,

sym-

and revisions over the course of

fifty years,

and the

widely read Gardener's Magazine gave Loudon a forum for his progressive,

reform-minded

the age of forty-two, he lost his right ity to

ideas. In 1825 at

arm and the

write and draw, but this did not deter

abil-

him from

would offer hor-

and economic advantages over hothouses

designed in the conventional manner. Conservatories at this

time were

still

being designed

in the tradition

represented by Chambers's Orangery at Kew, with large arched

vdndows set into masonry walls. Exper-

imenting with different shapes and structural techniques in his Bayswater garden, in 1816

Loudon

invented a curvilinear sash bar of wrought iron. His

experiments also led him to propose a "ridge and

fur-

row," or double-meridian, glazing system in which the glass panes of the conservatory were angled so as

best to catch

morning and afternoon

light

while pre-

venting the scorching of leaves by the direct rays of the

noonday sun. He

also conceived a "polyprosopic"

design of hinged surfaces that could be adjusted by

317

EXPANDING

9.5.

CITIES

AND NEW SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS

Plan, Derby Arboretum,

1839, by

John Claudius Loudon

focusing his career primarilv upon these and other

important subsequent literary endeavors. With the help of contributors, draftsmen,

relatives,

and his v.ife.

who served as his amanuensis and editorial assistant, he produced The Green-House Companion Encyclopaedia of Agriculture (1825),

(1824),

An

An Encyclopaedia of

Plants (1829), Loudon's Hortus Britannicus (1830), Encyclopaedia of Cottage,

Farm and

ViUa Architecture and Fur-

niture (1833), Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum; or the Trees

and Shrubs of Britain, Native and Foreign (1838),

and Self-instructionfor Young Gardeners,

Foresters, Bailiffs,

In

all

these works he

tions

in

combined an ardent

improved working condi-

and educational opportunities

with matters of

scientific

critical

and technological

descriptions of gardens,

on his

travels

were an important means of demon-

and practices he advocated

in

books and magazines. He was therefore delighted

summoned to

to be

the industrial

town of Derby

in

the spring of 1839 to lay out an 11-acre arboretum,

town from

the gift to the Strutt.

Here, in the

former mayor, Joseph

its

smoky Midlands, thanks to Strutt's

Loudon had an opportunirv" to demon-

philanthropy.

strate his belief that a landscape containing the beautiftil

most

specimens of nature could edify the general

produce among the mingled mutual respect and

interest,

which he

and

visited reg-

through England and Europe. His

classes sentiments

of

civic pride.

Although Loudon had integrated the awkwardly shaped parcel with an tem, concealed

and made a series

less

its

apparent

of linear

efficient circulation sys-

boundaries with dense planting, its

cramped dimensions with

mounds

that focused the

view on

audience consisted of Oxford and Cambridge dons,

the immediate surroundings and screened people and

country

objects elsewhere

vicars, doctors, directors

of botanical gar-

on the grounds,

as a design, the

dens, architects, engineers, landscape designers, and

Derby Arboretum drew mixed reviews

head gardeners on the

as a social experiment,

and

ladies read his

target audience:

estates of the nobility.

Lords

works, too, as did, he hoped, his

young gardeners who, not being able

to afford the rwo-shilling cost of a copy of The Gardener's Magazine,

Although

had

as a

to

borrow

young man eager to

establish his

with some

of the design principles of the doyen of landscape gardeners,

Humphry Repton, in 1840 he served as the new edition of Repton's collected works.

editor of a

Loudon realized,

Three days of public

it

(fig. 9.5).

was an unqualified

revels attended

its

But

success.

opening, and

according to contemporary reports not a single plant

was harmed,

ft

remained a popular attraction, draw-

ing on Sundavs throngs of working-class people,

it.

own reputation, Loudon had taken issue

318

his

for gardeners

practical horticultural advice, aesthetic theories,

ularly

a public interest,

strating the principles

populace, relieve the misen,' of the working poor, and

Land-Stewards, and Farmers (1845).

humanitarian interest

wealthy. But commissions, especially those that ser\'ed

some of whom traveled in the

from as far away as Sheffield, Birmingham, and

riages

Leeds.

When they arrived,

selves at the entry lodge, ities

third-class railway car-

and hot water for

they could refresh them-

where there were tea.

toilet facil-

Then they were

free to

was

stroll

along serpentine paths, admiring the shrubs and

a surer route to far-reaching professional influence

trees

arranged according to the Jussieu system,^ which

than commissions to landscape the properties of the

were

as

had Repton,

that publication

identffied

by

labels giving botanical

and com-

BOTANICAL SCIENCE, THE GARD ENESQUE STYLE. AND PEOPLE S PARKS

mon

names, country of origin, mature height, and

the date of introduction into Britain.

Loudon also had

Derby Arboretum numbered,

the specimens of the

growing secularism and rapid technological

ety's

who

cared

about such things looked nostalgically to the

archi-

change fostered

People

this historicism.

and these numbers were keyed to information

in a

tectural vocabularies of other times

pamphlet he produced containing much

and

embodiments of various truer meanings than what

anecdotal information, which visitors could purchase

they believed existed in nineteenth-century England.

at the lodge.

scientific

Those who preferred simple

to botanical edification could

relaxation

walk on one of the two

and places

as

Followers of John Ruskin, for instance, developed the Victorian Gothic style with

its

evocation of medieval

broad, straight gravel paths that constituted the

Christian values. Other Victorians, ambitious for

Arboretum's cross

Britain's

Pavilions at the ends of the

axis.

growing imperial power, favored Neoclassi-

crosswalks provided shade or shelter from a shower.

cal

Benches, with footboards as an accommodation to

as appropriate

the aged and infirm, offered seating along the paths.

tus.

Derby Arboretum was an impressive

Altogether, the

and progressive accomplishment

in 1840, a

forerunner

of the work of Joseph Paxton, Frederick

Law Olm-

design idioms based on French and Italian models

means of

advertising wealth

and

sta-

Imitations of the parterre beds found in seven-

teenth-century chateaux gardens proved admirably suited to their lavish, patterned floral displays.

Even such

a

prominent practitioner of the

Pic-

sted,

and other later park builders.

turesque as Repton modified his style

Loudon's marriage

age of forty-seven to

his career to reflect a greater tolerance for period ele-

Jane

Webb

(1807-1858) was rewarding for both part-

ments, such as terraces with balustrades. With prac-

ners.

Her kind

to the

utmost

spirit

and

as she set

publish his lifework, the

and taxing Arboretum as a

et

at the

were tested

literary abilities

considerations in mind, he abandoned the

tical

about helping him write and

iUusionary technique of the ha-ha with which he had,

handsomely

following Brown, fostered an impression of unbro-

illustrated, vast,

Fruticetum Britannicum. Later,

widow, she undertook to pay off the remaining

immense and

debt that this

costly

endeavor had

imposed on them. Her reward was pride

in his place

and lasting renown in her own right. who advocated the pursuit of horticulture by

ken

rural scenery extending

nesque flower beds 7.25).

in

its

from

He

the walls of the mansion.

distant pastures to

even designed Garde-

immediate environs

edition edited

by Loudon, were now

Loudon,

ence for those

who came

women, had encouraged her

activities as a practical

gardener as well as a writer, and she was instrumental

to this healthflil

women's time and physical

energies

employment. Her Gardeningfor Ladies

ran to several editions and was edited for American publication by last

book.

Andrew Jackson Downing. With her

My Own Garden; or The Young Gardener's Year

Book (1855), she introduced children to the pleasures that she

and Loudon had shared with

Agnes or observed on

their

The Victorian Garden Under the

influence of the Loudons, the Victorian

also displaying the results of botanical science.

Com-

bined with expression of the Romantic

of the

spirit

age was a bent toward practicality and desire to

tional landscape aesthetic

a ready refer-

to feel that the eighteenth-

zealous in

its

eradication of traditional forms.

Price regretted having

removed the

Even

terraces of his

country house, Foxley, in his youth. People that terraces offered foreground interest

now saw

and

a pleas-

ing transitional element between the necessary

geom-

etry of the house and the carefully contrived naturalistic character

of

its

Efficiency, a virtue

grounds.

of the

new

industrial age,

was

a

with

new attention being given to maintenance. The mower made hand-cut grass

demonstrable value

in the

landscape as weU,

invention of the lawn

garden perpetuated the Picturesque tradition while

employ industrial materials

fig.

century approach to the Picturesque had been overly

daughter

their travels as a family.

(see

Repton's collected works, thanks to the 1840

in history

in turning other

end of

at the

and the bucolic lawn cropped by past

(fig. 9.6).

cattle things

of the

Scythes were laid aside, and large swards

9.6.

Lawn-mowing machine

as illustrated

in

Loudon's

Gardener 's Magazine. 8 (1832)

that anticipated the func-

of twentieth-century mod-

ernism (see Chapter Thirteen). But unlike modernist designers status

who sought to elevate functionalism to the

of aesthetic principle, Victorian landscape gar-

deners were unreservedly eclectic. They cloaked their functionalism in period costume

— "the

Le Corbusier

modernist would

famously

as a polemical

rail against.

The

Styles" that

search for cultural coher-

ence where none could be found

in the face

of

soci-

319

EXPANDING

CITIES

AND NEW SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS

portation to deliver materials from

afar,

including

huge boulders for the rock gardens that became

fash-

ionable at this time, dukes and earls vied in the cre-

ation of gardens

where spectacular

horticultural virmosity

effects

and

were important ends.

William Barron (1801-1891), the head gardener to the earls of Harrington at Elvaston Castle in Der-

renown

byshire, achieved

expertise

and

for creating a

already shaped

tall

famous topiary garden.

mature specimen trees and

In assembling the unusual

scape,

for his tree-transplanting

topiary shrubs for Elvaston's land-

he introduced the technique of moving plants

with a large ball of earth

was

Grafting, too,

attached to their roots.

still

a specialty at Elvaston

and other

gardens where composite trees assumed forms and vegetal characteristics never before seen in nature.

Landscape restoration often went well beyond 9.7.

mowed green turf became highly desirable. Macadam paving now smoothed formerly rutted

of closely

Terrace knot garden,

Hatfield House, Hertfordshire, original restoration design by

the second

Marquess

of Salis-

bury. 1840s. Restored again by

the Marchioness of Salisbury in

roads,

which no longer meandered

turesquely to their destination. lect that

had overtaken

needlessly, if pic-

The general air of neg-

estates during the turmoil

of

the early 1980s

the Napoleonic wars Below:9.B. Levens Hall,

was erased as owners instituted

modern maintenance

practices

and employed

tech-

Westmorland, Topiary Garden, created

c.

1700; restored

and

nology to improve

Alexander Forbes, active

their land.

tress in the

dis-

nineteenth century, on the whole English

1810-62

prosperity

was such

that, at the prevailing

low wages,

small armies of gardeners could be put to

the great estates.

manded

The head

gardeners,

these workers while attending and inform-

became important purveyors of the several Victorian

laries

as the

one

at Hatfield

House,

where the second marquess of Salisbury had knot gardens and a maze constructed in

(fig. 9.7).

At Levens Hall

Westmorland, Alexander Forbes, the head gar-

dener, set about restoring the topiary garden of

struction

may have

Loudon of

observer as rather than

persuaded even such an astute

its

Italianate

being the original one

(fig. 9.8).

gardens swept back into vogue as

broad terraces and shaped finials

its

re-creation

staircases

with balusters and urn-

spilled graceflilly

down to EngHsh lawns

dotted with floral beds. Besides this use of stepped terraces as transitional elements in the intermediate

zone between the house and the extensive landscape

brought several older design vocabu-

beyond, there was with the work of William Andrews

—-Jacobean English, Renaissance Italian, and

seventeenth-century French and Dutch

vogue. With

of

toward imaginative

styles as the trend

historicizing

Jacobean manner, such

work on

who com-

ing the landscaping tastes of their lordly masters,

garden

in cases

around 1700, and the apparent antiquity of this recon-

Although there were periods of economic

maintained by head gardener

what archaeology might have dictated

period reconstructions in the Elizabethan and

this

— back into

labor force and with railroad trans-

Nesfield (1793-1881) a revival of the French parterre de broderie. Nesfield often based his designs

on those

provided in the pattern book of Dezallier d'Argenville, but

he was versatile and enjoyed experi-

menting with Tudor knot gardens as well. at

Kew between

He worked

1844 and 1848 in association with

Decimus Burton. For

this

important commission,

Nesfield adopted a style reminiscent of the period of

WiUiam and Mary as he form

for the

ing from

it

created a p^irterre terrace plat-

Palm House, into a

laid

out a patte d'oie radiat-

new Pinetum,

or arboretum of

coniferous evergreens, reconfigured the pond, and

redesigned the Broad

Walk (fig.

9.9).

Display fountains had long ago ceased to play in

EngHsh gardens. To bring the

delight of animated

water back into the landscape. Capability Brown had created the

woodland cascade, one of the few Brown-

ian elements not attacked

Picturesque.

there

320

by the proponents of the

Now, with industrial technology at hand,

was renewed interest in fountain construction.

— BOTANICAL SCIENCE, THE GARDENESQUE STYLE, AND PEOPLE S PARKS

A. Old Arboretum. B. Cloak-room. C. Temple of the Sua.

D.

Plllrii

9.9.

Stove.

E. Cbimney -Shalt and Water-tower. F- Templu ol Mlndca. G. Engme Yard. 11. 'l>iO|>le ol 1.

K.

Plan of

Kew

Gardens from

the 1850s, showing Nesfield's alterations

£olus.

iMusumn. British Garden.

Below:

9.10.

Carpet bed,

Kew

Gardens. 1870

and some remarkable waterworks were created, such as Joseph Paxton's

Emperor Fountain

at

Chatsworth

The green landscape took on myriad hues brightly colored flowers

made

to

produce

a

balanced

effect.

Design harmony could also be achieved

(see fig. 9.11).

ico

arranged garden features and vegetation in various

ways

from countries such

their spectacular

gardens. Color theory

appearance in Victorian

became one of the head

dener's job requirements.

as

Mex-

as

gar-

Not only did carpet beds

— have

through congruity. Congruity meant respecting the character of the existing landscape as abilities

much

as the

of the gardener, choosing local stones for

boulders in rock gardens, placing water bodies in lowlying areas

where they would namrally be found, ban-

to be

ning sculpture and architecture of a purely associative

designed for similarity of flower height and simul-

nature, avoiding discordant juxtapositions in the

mosaiclike seasonal display beds

bloom, but they

taneity of

according to sition

also

had to be

artistic principles dictating

of solid

floral

laid

out

the juxtapo-

masses of contrasting and com-

The challenge was how

ing, useful,

mens,

facing

to assemble

nineteenth-century all

and charming objects

of these

interest-

— botanical

historical ruins, glasshouses

speci-

and summer-

houses, lock gardens and kitchen gardens, flowers

and fountains

—within

a

coherent framework.

Loudon's designs owed their coherence to what he called the axis of

symmetry. As he explained

]n the simplest kind of symmetry, the are equal ily

and alike, and the

axis

discovered; but in cultivated

is,

and developing zones

garden, as for instance the area between a a

smooth

rock garden.

Except in cases where the intent was a

histori-

cizing one, Victorian designers usually avoided straight lines.

They were

Rococo lines of Batty

inspired

Langley.

by the curvaceous

The circle was a much

favored form and one advocated by both Repton and

Loudon. Planting beds were frequently mounded order to eliminate

difficulties in

a ground-level perspective

it:

two

plants,

of transition between distinctly different parts of the

lawn and

plementary rather than similar tones.

designers

arrangement of exotic

and

in

viewing them from

to display their intri-

sides

of course,

eas-

and refined sym-

metry, the sides are unequal, and so

combined

and varied with the centre, that it requires the eye of a philosophical

artist

to detect the

axis."*

Thus, Loudon sought a sense of balance, not a mirror imaging of parts, and his axes were not necessarily visible,

axis

but sometimes merely implied. With the

of symmetry as an organizing principle, he

321

EXPANDING

CITIES

AND NEW SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS

cate carp>etlike designs to better ad\ antage

(

fig. 9.10).

But rules are made to be broken, and contrast, rather than

congruit)'.

was the aim in some

the hands of Joseph Paxton,

some

cases. In

startlingly imagi-

native effects were achieved through unexpected jux-

tapositions of the seeminglv natural

and the highlv

inal as

it

appeared

in the late

seventeenth century,

designing instead a woodland glen and rockworks as

environment for

a naturalistic

logical feature. Paxton's

this surprising

mature landscape

tinued to be characterized by the

from

aesthetic theor}'

and

hydro-

con-

style

same independence

eas\' SN'nthesis

of artifidal

Though not a landscape theorist and sodal like Loudon and with a practical man's distrust of intellectuals, Paxton more than any other

and natural.

immediate successor developed Loudon's

duke of Devonshire on tours of \"ersailles and other

artificial.

His on-site education in landscape design

philosopher

^"ision in

wedding technolog}" to horticulture by designing one of England's

earliest

municipally funded public parks.

Liverpool's Birkenhead Park.

his-

tory occurred in the 1830s as he accompanied the

gardens near ian

places,

Paris, the

gardens of England, and

Ital-

gardens. Studying the waterworks in these

\'illa

he perfected his hydrological skills, becoming

the foremost English fountain engineer of the dav

Joseph P wton

after the creation of the

The life of Joseph Paxton 1^1801-1865) illustrates how

Chatsworth

technological aptitude, design creati\ity and energetic

Paxton's fountain designs, technolog}' and art were

industriousness offered

upward

mobility- in the

increasing' prestigious field of horticulture.

The son

of a farmer, Paxton worked as a gardening hand in his

youth before going to London

twent}".

Employed

age of

in the Horticultural Societ}"

demonstration garden erty'

at the

at

s

ChiswicL located on prop-

leased fi-om the sixth duke of Devonshire, he

impressed the duke, a frequent ligence

\isitor.

with

his intel-

and abilities. In 1826. the duke offered him the

position of head gardener at Chatsworth. his Derbvshire estate. genius,

The subsequent flowering ot

Paxton's

combined with the duke's largess, soon made

ity'

Brown landscape with

centur\" features

—

to a

— a Capabil-

sur^^^^ng seventeenth-

more naturalistic appearance,

young Paxton set about repairing and impro\"ing the

Chatsworth Derbyshire designed by Joseph Paxton. 1843

met

i

fig.

9.11

•.

at

In

indude sculpture; the rainbow

effect

of light-struck

spray and the choreographic pattern of multiple danc-

ing jets created interest enough for Paxton and his patrons. His reputation ultimateh' rested

on an even

more spectacular demonstration of technology' s uses in the garden, for his

Great Stove

at

Chatsworth, an

enormous greenhouse, won him

international

renown. This huge conser\^atory was

built

between

1836 and 1840 following Loudon's ridge-and-furrow design prindple but using

wood instead of wrought

iron for the framing of

glass panes.

its

Paxton's growing reputation put

him

in the

front rank of landscape designers receiving commissions

from

opers

who saw the

tw'o sources.

The

first

relationship

was pri\'ate

devel-

between communal

pleasure grounds and the surrounding real estate in

the

economic terms; the second was sanitary offidals and

challenge of reactivating the "Weeping Willow.'" an

humanitarians wiio saw the benefits of parks from

and joke fountain that spraved the

public health and recreational perspectf\*es. Xash's

garden's original waterworks.

911 Emperor Fountain

He

tallest

one. Unlike earlier foimtains. these did not usually

Chatsworth a seat of horticultural renown. Ignoring Loudon's ad\ice to restore the grounds

Emperor Fountain

— then the world's

artificial tree

quickly

'

^

London had

unwar>- from eight hundred miniature jets of water.

design for Regent's Park in

He did not. however, re-create the setting of the orig-

dent for the former type of park development, and in 1842 a

member of the

Yates family

set a prece-

which had

landholdings in Liverpool, asked Paxton to

large

come

there to design F*rince's Park, a speculatrv e amenity that Yates

hoped would make the adjacent house lots

attracti\'e to

middle-dass residents. Here Paxton cre-

ated rows of terrace housing facing a curvilinear belt dri\^

endrding a meadow with scattered dumps of

trees

and a serpentine lake Prince

until 1908

s

dt\'.

fig. 9.12).

Park remained in private ownership

and therefore was of little consequence

the growing parks after

.

movement

as

reformers in city

particularly in England's industrial Midlands.

ad\"ocated 'green lungs

'

within the swelling urban

mass.' Paxton s next park, in Birkenhead site side

in

on the oppo-

of the Mersey Rh-ei from LiN-erpool. was also

undertaken with the hope of attracting members of

322

BOTANICAL SCIENCE, THE GARDENESQUE STYLE. AND PEOPLE S PARKS

9.12.

Plan for Prince s Park,

Liverpool, designed by

Paxton.

the merchant

of

creation,

its

and

class, its

but because of the circumstances

accessibility to the general

the publicity that

more

influential

it

model

received,

it

pubUc,

provided

a far

make

it

authority to acquire land, but citizen action to create

was nevertheless under way.

impossible to see the boundaries of

islands in the lakes. TTieir

restricted the

mate

dredging spoil was used to

berms that varied the topography and

view lines, thereby creating a more

inti-

lakeside environment. Further, Paxton designed

an independent path system for strolling through

this

group of businessmen constituting Birkenhead's

landscape separate from that of the macadamized

cir-

Improvement Commission lobbied

cuit drive,

public parks

tary

bill

that

would allow them

In 1842, a

for a parliamen-

the event, they purchased

more than 200

acres,

Although not,

speaking, the

strictly

first

of

in scenic surroundings.

sites.

first

were popular ven-

ues for sports as well as places for leisurely strolling

public park,

Birkenhead, which opened in 1847, was the

for carriages.

thefr inception, parks

In

which approximately 124 were designated parkland, with the remainder reserved for building

which was intended

From

to purchase 70 acres

of land "for the Recreation of the inhabitants.

to

This caused difficulty for land-

scape designers Hke Paxton, the scenic potential of the istrators

to

whose bias was to site,

and park managers,

as well as for

who were

modify original designs to accept

and

who had to

exploit

admin-

often forced

a variety

of play

write regulations and deal

use public funds for parkland acquisition and devel-

facilities

opment and

with the consequences of sports use on the landscape.

from the

to pay

sale

back

this cost

with the proceeds

of the adjacent building

tion, the municipality

assumed

lots. In addi-

responsibility for

its

maintenance, establishing the precedent of using for this

purpose earned income derived from grazing

rights

at Prince's

Park

in

Sponsors sometimes even gave the active recreational

motive primacy. In the case of two parks planned and built simultaneously in Philips

nearby Liverpool,

at

were instructed

Further, they

around the sinuous loop of a

public nature of the

meadow, the

circuit drive

outlines of

in the

1

840s,

in the

grounds for archery, and alleys for skittles and quoits.

Birkenhead Paxton arranged blocks of terraces

a large

Manchester

Park and Queen's Park, the entrants

design competition had to include gymnasiums,

and the auctioning of hay.

As

embracing

which were defined

accommodate

to

remember

the

commission and the need

large gatherings of

to

promenaders.

meadow was

Refreshment rooms, numerous park benches, drink-

a principal artery, Ashfield Road. Paxton

ing fountains, and lodges for caretakers were also part

placed an irregularly shaped lake in each half and in

of the design program. Ball-playing and shutdecock

by scattered groups of bisected

by

trees.

Joseph

1842

the entire shoreline in a single view, he introduced

construct rocky

for future parks.

had not yet been granted broad

Municipalities

order to

c.

Here the

323

EXPANDING

CITIES

AND NEW SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS

styles, in

addition to the

Greek Revival "Norman" ones

set into the entrance gate (fig. 9. 13;.

the influence of William

Here

as elsewhere,

Chambers lingered, and both

Birkenhead and Victoria Parks had pagodas. Even as the popularity of pagodas faded, nineteenth-century

building technology produced a cast-iron version, one

example of which was shown

at the Paris

and

Philadel-

phia Exhibitions of 1876 before being permanently installed at

Chapel Field Gardens in Norwich.

The Turkish

kiosk,

combined with elements

derived from the Chinese pagoda, furnished a distinc-

idiom for the bandstand made of wood or cast iron and set on a tall masonry base. This tive architectural

type of raised, open, ornamental pavilion

feamre of sical

many parks.

became

Musicians played mostly

music, which was enthusiastically promoted by

reformers as a dvflizing influence and means of 9.13.

Main entrance, Birken-

head Park, Liverpool, designed

a

clas-

ele-

grounds and playgrounds with rope swings were

vating mass culture, although Sabbatarians tried to

included in the final designs. By contrast, James Pen-

proscribe concerts and other forms of recreation by

nethorne, the original designer, and John Gibson, a

having parks closed on Sundays. Temperance societies

former Paxton employee

sponsored drinking fotintains. and elaborate ones such

by Lewis Hornblower and

John Robertson. gate

is

Roman

1847. This

a Victorian version of a

triumphal arch with

massively scaled Ionic

at

Chats\vorth and super-

intendent after 1849, developed London's Victoria

columns commemorating not

Park along scenic principles, using a rich palette of

military victory but civic pride

horticultural materials. But

in

it.

too,

had to incorporate

as the Victoria

Fountain in Victoria Park bore bibUcal

and moral inscriptions implying the water over stronger drink

superiority"

the park's construction.

As part of the reformers' agenda

seesaws, cUmbingbars, and other play equipment and Below:

9.14.

The

Victoria

Drinking Fountain, Victoria

to permit, or at least tolerate, the use of

bathing, skating, boating,

its

lakes for

and dog washing.

working

class

of

(fig. 9.14).

away from gin

parlors,

to

wean

the

gaming, and

other unedifying forms of recreation, sponsors

Park. London. 1862

As

at

Stowe, Stourhead, and other eighteenth-

centurv models, the architects at Birkenhead incor-

porated historic English features and Palladian influences into the park's design vocabulary. Their versatility

was apparent

in their eclecticism,

producing

lodges in the castellated Gothic. Tudor, and Italian

deemed parks appropriate places for libraries and museums of art and namral histon,', and these were often combined with refreshment rooms. As more parks were created, commemorative monuments celebrating local benefactors, national leaders, and \ictory at ery,

I

war fotind a natural home amid their green-

often serving as centerpieces of floral beds. Nota-

bles, royalt);

and mQitar)' heroes usurped the pedestals

once graced by

classical sculptures

land where the parks

where a

as

it

rapidly spread (see

fig. 7.48).

much-debated amenity, were

parks,

and once

not only in Eng-

movement originated, but else-

this practice

Public

toilets,

installed in several

was

established,

manu-

facmrers began to produce cast-iron urinals. Winter gardens, or palm houses,

and Paxton's

modeled on the one

Cr\"stal Palace,

for the palms, bromeliads.

that

at

Kew

provided microclimates

and other

tropical plants

drew swarms of nineteenth-century park

patrons. These also ser\'ed. to the dismay of superintendents, as

warm places where the homeless sought

shelter in cold weather.

The mid-nineteenth

centur\' ushered in an era

of international expositions, at which the increasingly

mobile and educated middle scientific rail

324

class

enjoyed displays of

technology and industrial

transportation

made

arts.

Steam and

these events accessible for

large

numbers of people and therefore financially fea-

sible.

Leading the parade was London's Great Exhi-

REDEFINING RURAL AMERICA

bition of 1851, for

which Paxton

most modern exhibition

Hyde

Park.

don with set

As

hall,

built the world's

the Crystal Palace, in

New York attempted to emulate Lon-

a Crystal Palace of

its

own in

1853, Paxton

about transferring his hugely popular building, for

which he received

don

at

new site in Lon-

a knighthood, to a

Sydenham. Conceived

of

as a refined version

the pleasure ground, with operating costs paid from

admission

fees. Crystal

Palace Park

showed

a differ-

ent side of Paxton the park designer from the one

demonstrated

at

Birkenhead. Here, instead of

treat-

ing the landscape in a naturalistic manner, he chose a plan of

neo-Rococo geometric formality with

turesque fringe around the edges

a Pic-

movement

with the growing parks trializing countries.

(fig. 9.15).

With

in rapidly indus-

republican government

its

9.15. Crystal

Palace Park,

Sydenham. London, designed by Joseph Paxton. 1856.

Paxton's place in landscape design history

is

an

important one, linking the inventiveness, horticultural interest,

and humanitarian

social vision

of Loudon

founded on the principle of

was the

ideal testing

America

social equality,

ground for municipal parks and

Watercolor by James Duffield Harding

other kinds of democratic institutions.

Redefining Rural Amekica: The Influence of Andkew Jackson II.

Much

of the American landscape design vocabulary

Downing

botanist trained by William Jackson

Hooker

at the

applied to parks and private estates in the early

University of Glasgow, visited Nuttall at Harvard and

decades of the nineteenth century was derived from

WUliam Bartram

England. There were, however, important differences

ship of the Horticultural Society of London.

in

both the natural and the

social climates

of the two

countries as well as the vastly disparate geographic

lowing

in Philadephia

under the sponsor-

The fol-

under the aegis of the Hudson's Bay

year,

Company, he

sailed to the

West Coast, and

at Fort

of the island and the continental nation, one

Vancouver established

a base

with a cenmries-old habit of land husbandry and the

exploration of parts of

Oregon and

other with a vast expanse of sparsely occupied prairie

bia.

and woodland. These factors help account

forest that blanketed this region, discovering the

scales

for the

He

glas

landscape on the part of nineteenth-century Anglo-

erous and deciduous

Americans.

perennials.

The Botanical Discovery OF America North America remained a

fertile

based botanical exploration during the nineteenth century. printer

first

and plant

col-

American wilderness, he traversed the

results

A return trip between

him back and

forth

where he met

his

between

conif-

1830 and 1834 took

and Hawaii,

California

untimely death

in the field.

as well as those in Britain

of the seeds and cuttings that came from these sources

northern region of the Missouri River between 1810

and 1812. He published the

and many other

flowering shrubs, and

half of the

Following the routes of fur traders and other

explorers of the

trees,

Dou-

and other European countries were eager

to Philadelphia

interested in botany

Colum-

for British-

Nuttall (1786-1859), a

from Liverpool, immigrated

where he became lecting.

Thomas

(Pseudotsuga menziesii)

American botanists

ground

British

spent the next three years in the evergreen

gradual evolution of an independent approach to

fir

of operations for his

of his botanical

as well as

recipients

from the plant hunters foraging

in other

parts of the globe. Bartram's Nurseries in Philadel-

phia continued to offer for sale species collected by an earlier

generation of plant hunters represented by

John Bartram and his son William varieties explorers

In 1801, a

as well as the

were introducing to

New York physician,

new

horticulture.

David Hosack,

Garden on the

estab-

labors in this region in Genera of North American Plants

lished the Elgin Botanic

in 1818 before turning

ent-day Rockefeller Center, then the property of

south to collect plants in

Arkansas. In 1822, he accepted an appointment as curator of the botanical garden at

Harvard and remained

in this post until 1834, finding

it

1833 to join an expedition to the In 1823,

Columbia

University.

botany and

Rocky Mountains.

closely allied.

a Scottish

of pres-

The garden was intended

as a

teaching resource for Columbia medical students since

possible, however, in

David Douglas (1798-1834),

site

its

exotic plants,

sister course, nuiteria medica,

It

were

still

also contained a glasshouse for tender

and many ornamental shrubs were prop-

325

EXPANDING

CITIES

AND NEW SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS

agated there as well.

Thomas Jefferson

the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, and plant hunters such

Andre Michaux (1770-1855) frequented

as Francois

Downing had

often sent

Hosack some of the seeds he regularly received from

the Elgin Botanic Garden. Unable to support

its

upkeep, Hosack closed the garden in 1 8 1 1 but he con,

Hyde Park, New York, Hudson River, where he

His job, as he saw

it,

it

rolled off the presses in 1840.

was to counter the

with visions of home as a cherished domain and place

He wished

of charm.

to educate their taste,

tinued to collect plants at his

would then make manifest republican nation's landscape.

tier

(1780-1830),

whose brothers were

distinguished

professional gardeners in Belgium.

Parmentier had emigrated to America in 1824 to

become

looking

a

nurseryman in Brooklyn.

New York Harbor, he

mental garden with called the for his

rustic seats

seen, Jefferson

vision of domestic comfort

showcase

we

have

and Washington were both familiar

mentier gained wide recognition

as the originator

America when he published an

describing naturalistic gardening in the

of

new

men in a

democratic society might be attained. His

idealistic

prescriptions

available to

were overrun during the post-Civil War

transformation of American capitalist culture into

ification evident in the nations

as a

virtue in the

that through a

and refinement the "mod-

amount of happiness"

something that more

collection, .although, as

which

all

erate

and arbors, which he

with Picmresque principles of landscape design, Par-

this style in

He hoped

established an orna-

Linnaean Botanic Garden,

own plant

On a site over-

restless insta-

of his fellow citizens that Tocqueville had noted

bility

estate overlooking the

employed the landscaping talents of Andre Parmen-

closely resembled the class strat-

of Europe. But during

he securely occupied the middle ground

his Ufetime,

between Jefferson's

Federalist generation

— whose

democratic principles were compromised by

display that gave the "villas"

alistic

patri-

— and the generation of opulent materi-

cian values

new

and "cottages" he

and meaning. Downing was,

article

promoted

a

New Englami who

in short, a

champion of the middle

scale

class,

and he held

Farmer magazine. Andrew Jackson Downing,

a strong faith in the abUit)' of education to raise peo-

amply earned

ple, if

taste,"'' said

his biographer's epithet, "apostle of

that

he considered "Parmentier's labors

and examples as having effected, direcdy

far

more for

other individual whatever."* Downing, in turn,

through far

his

books and magazine

more change

in landscape

indirectlv effected

gardening

in .America

not to economic

mental equality

equality', at least to a senti-

in their appreciation

and enjoyment

of beauty.

Downing occupied

landscape gardening in America, than those of any

eral sense.

mentality^

the middle

ground

were

a

product of a frontier

of the noisy commercial and industrial

than any other individual.

implied in his use of the

Andrew Jackson Downing:

its

Tastemakek for A Young Nation

class

The generation

Downing directed owners and

to

which Andrew Jackson Downing

lit-

utili-

and the cramped insalubnous atmosphere

during the middle decades of the nineteenth centur}-

(1815-1852) belonged was astutely observed by his

in a

Deploring both the rude, ax-scarred

tarian landscapes that

suburb.

cities,

he

word rural the concept of the

To the freestanding middle-class dwelling and

adjacent grounds, and even the

dwelling with

its

humble working-

surrounding small plot of land. landlords to pay the

same prideful attention as that lavished by the wealthy

He saw these homes, outside new means of

contemporary Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859),

on

who covered 7,000 miles of the settled and wilderness

but accessible to urban centers by

their

country

seats.

portions of the United States and Canada by steamer

transportation, as part of a larger, inherently Pic-

and stagecoach and on horseback during

turesque .American landscape, and he believed that if

a nine-

month period beginning in May 1831. TocqueviUe s Democracy in America is much more than a traveler's

his architectural

description of the physical characteristics of the coun-

be making

try with cities,

its

settled colonial villages,

is,

as

burgeoning

new

and frontier outposts. Although there are

trenchant observations of its title

all

these things, his

suggests, a political treatise.

was not designed merely

to

Umn

work

As such,

it

the national char-

were followed,

overall

and landscaping recommendations

residents of this middle

privacy might

become

retreat

con-

sequences of the profound sodal transformation then in progress as the nations

tocratic to

of Europe passed from

democratic governance.

aris-

from community.

A

product of the American rural town, as a professional

beautification

foretell the

personal

His congenial mind did not reckon that rural

manners, mores, and economic circumstances would

purpose was to

own

comfort and enjoyment.

horticultunst and citizen.

its

groimd would

a patriotic contribution to the nation's

beauty while increasing their

acter of the .Americans as a simple narrative of their

have done. Instead,

326

read the second volume of

Democracy in America as

by

did not ignore the

Downing promoted village

tree planting. cit\'.

More

important, he

His reformer's cry more ardent

than any other's, championed the public park as the

fundamental

democracy

civilizing institution

in the 1840s.

of American

REDEFINING RURAL AMERICA

Downing illustrated an aspect of American life shrewdly observed by TocqueviUe: citizen

initiative.

There was no higher authority than the people

democracy so there were no libraries, colleges,

lyceums,

in a

royal academies. Public

museums of art and nat-

ural history, botanical gardens, horticultural societies,

rural cemeteries,

and

tional

and public parks

cultural institutions

and the

will

all

these educa-

were founded by the

vision of individuals, the action of izers,

—

of legislators

community organ-

who were

elected by

the people. Downing's role as citizen advocate and

spokesman within

this

context was an especially

promoted throughout his career in even his humblest samples of domestic architecture.

Downing could enjoy the commercial advantages of bustling Newburgh and the lively social intercourse made possible by the arrival Thus

at the

situated.

town landing of fHends traveling by door

river sloop

and

and steamboat or

at his

He was within an

easy three-hour train ride to

York

City,

via train

where he met with

carriage.

New

his publisher or con-

duaed other business. At the same

time, he could pre-

serve the illusion of living in nature, never having to see

town or road, only foliage-framed views of Hud-

son River scenery. In attempting to come to terms

important one.

New York, was a self-taught botanist and

phenomenon of rapid metropolitan growth. Downing was perhaps unwill-

student of the Picturesque. After his marriage at age

ing to admit the degree to which the agricultural

DeWint of Fishkill Landing, he designed and built a home on the family property in Newburgh (fig. 9.16). This house and its

economy of

Downing, the youngest son of a nurseryman

Newburgh,

in

twenty-three to Caroline

grounds epitomized the

wished

for

all

life

of rural refinement he

Americans of moderate

affluence.

represented as well his belief that as America

of age, sink

its

down

rootless, restlessly

style

came

moving people should

roots, beautify their properties,

and build

communities that were more than commercial roads.

It

cross-

Although similar to buildings in the "pointed"

recommended by Loudon, Downing's home

— the veranda, or — which Downing

with the nineteenth-century

the

young

was being

superseded by an industrial one. For

used the word

rural to

this

rapidly

reason he

denote his vision of the sub-

urban landscape that constituted the middle ground

between

city

dweUing, with

its

noise, congestion,

and

extremes of wealth and poverty, and the equally unappealing alternative of hardscrabble farm

Downing's vision

for a

life.

new American

scenery

to overlay the rough, agrarian landscape of frontier

farms hacked from the wilderness was

honored pastoral mode in which

had a particularly American feature

held in perfect balance.

piazza, as contemporaries called

Arcadia,

it

republic

for, like

art

in the time-

and nature were

He dreamed of an American

Thomas Jefferson, he saw the oppor-

9.16.

Residence

Andrew

of

Jackson Downing burgh,

New York,

appeared shortly built in

in

as

Newit

after

it

was

1838-39

327

^

EXPANDING

CITIES

AND NEW SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS

ism focused

its

energies on enterprises that

much

eventually destroy

would

of the picturesque charac-

of aspiring rural towns, elm-canopied village

ter

greens, well-tended fields, and rich pastures fringed

with woods. Nevertheless,

and

idealist,

as a reformer, a republican

a progressive Anglophile,

he necessarily

accepted both the democratic, technological fumre

and the tradition-rooted, agrarian

he may have harbored, he did not

fears

Whatever

past.

reveal

them

but optimistically projected a vision of universal bet-

terment through the agency of good design. In

1

841 while

still

,

running his nursery business,

Downing published his ftrst major work, A Treatise on the

Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening.

Its

clear

him wide-

prose and conversational tone soon gained

spread public recognition and reputation as a horti-

and tastemaker. The

cultural authorit}'

first

sections

of the book demonstrate the breadth of his reading, particularly of

works by Loudon and Repton. His

knowledge of such landscape theoreticians

and GUpin

Price,

is

as

between the beautiful and the Picturesque.

ond edition of the

Whately

apparent in the contrast he draws

Treatise (1844),

In the sec-

he had his engraver

depict the beautiful, or "graceful" as he alternatively calls

tly

as a female-inhabited

it,

environment with gen-

curving paths, softly rounded tree forms, and gra-

cious Neoclassical architectural details, while directing

him to portray the Picturesque with spirelike steeply pitched eaves, ularity,

conifers,

and other signs of spirited irreg-

ruggedness, and angularit}' that presumably

accord with the masculinity of the huntsman and his

dog who complete

The was

the scene

(figs. 9.17, 9.18).

architecture compatible with the beautiful

"Italian,

Tuscan, or Venetian,

"

whereas builders

Picturesque style had as appropriate models

in the

"the Gothic mansion, the old English or the Swiss cot-

tage

"

and were

free to incorporate in their

three underlying principles of good design 9.17

and

Gardening

"

in

Landscape

and "Example

the Picturesque

In

of

Landscape

Gardening," as portrayed

in

Andrew Jackson Downing's Treatise

on the Theory and

Practice of landscape

Gardening, Adapted to North

America, 1841

HARMONY, AND VARIETY"— unity being a congrand or leading features to which the others should

natural beaut\; turning the countr\"side into a coUage

be merely subordinate,"^

of Picturesque scenery. But opposing forces were

spectator interest through intricacy and ornamental

at

trolling idea based

on the nature of the

variety the

site

and "some

development of

work, and the discordant aspects of the American

details,

dream — the industrial smokestacks of the and the tracks running beside the — had to be river

composition. Further, he tempered picturesqueness

screened from view,

the pastoral imagery of the

with practicaHty, declaring that "[fjirm gravel walks

ciVs

train

if

garden were to appear

intact. In

nineteenth-century

America, as in England, ambivalence about the Industrial

Age was expressed by

nology and a highly

placing utilitarian tech-

eclectic architectural vocabular}'

and harmony the principle that ordered variety

and made

it

subservient to the overall unit)' of the

near the house, and a general

all

of nearness in that

modes. "^^ Concurring with Loudon, he maintained

that "the recognition of art"

Landscape Gardening

Downing may have

have erred,

shared with others of his gener-

air

quarter, are indispensable to the fimess of the scene in

of period styles within the same cultural embrace.

ation a sense of anxiety as the machinery of capital-

328

— "UNITY,

immense and immensely fruitful natural landscape. Husbandry combined with taste could capitalize upon .Ajnerica's mnities inherent in the country's

"Example of

9.18.

the Beautiful

schemes

Downing reiterated Repton s

various rustic features.

.

.

.

was

"a first principle of

and those of

its

professors

who supposed that the object of this art is

merely to produce a

fac-sirrule

of nature."^

REDEFINING RURAL AMERICA

A

large section of the Treatise comprises a

descriptive catalogue of deciduous and evergreen

ornamental

Here Downing does more than dis-

trees.

of popular refinement," raising "the working-man to the

same

upon

acteristics

aesthetic, rather than scientific, char-

such as "the

and embosomed

lights

and shadows

ing richness and intricacy in

branch and limb"

works he had studied

its

"pleas-

huge ramification of

manner of

in the

reflected

and the

in [the oak's] foliage"

whose

Gilpin,

well.

The summer before. Downing had gone to Enghad preceded him

land, delighted that his reputation

and

was welcome

that he

at

Chatsworth and many

other great estates. His purpose in traveling there was

not merely to tour the English countryside and the Royal Botanic Gardens at ist

In 1846, when Luther Tucker of Albany invited

man of leisure

and accomplishment."^^

play his impressive store of botanical knowledge, dwelling

of enjoyment with the

level

Kew

In

and in the books that followed his

The

Treatise

—

Cottage

Residences (1842), Fruits and Fruit Trees of America (1845),

—

Dovming to become editor of The Horticulturist, this new journal of "Rural Art and Rural Taste, " Down-

and The Architecture of Country Houses (1850)

ing gained a platform for his expanding ideas. Here,

sold his nursery business as his focus centered

in

an

he wrote each month, he propounded

editorial

from

his travels;

tectural illustrations played

and more upon the

shared observations gleaned

him

gave advice on rural architecture,

now

his landscape theories;

transplanting trees, growing hedges, enriching

soil,

literary efforts that

ducing wine; mingled poetry and instruction

son Davis (1803-1892)

the building of greenhouses

—

in a

provided detailed instruction on

and

ice houses;

argued

archi-

He had more

were turning

The people who

sought him out wanted plans as well as advice,

and with these prospective failed to interest the

roses;

an important role.

into a tastemaker to the nation.

manuring orchards, improving vegetables, and prorhapsody on

visit

Horticultur-

clients in

mind and having

American architect Alexander Jackin entering into a professional

parmership with him, he wished to find a young Engwith whom he could open a design firm.

lish architect

— for women to

In

London, he observed the drawings of Calvert Vaux

garden; and sermonized on the mistakes of city folk

at

an exhibition of the Architectural Association and

the case

new

exercise, fresh

to country

and anecdotal ers.

The

life

—

all

style that

Horticulturist

air,

health

in a conversational voice

endeared him to

reached a large audience. In

he promoted the planting of shade trees towns, and in

cities;

his readit

in villages,

asked to meet him.

men was

and drew the attentions of

his

such that a

week later Vaux had wound up

his affairs in

England, said good-bye to friends, and

boarded ship

for

New York with Dovming.

The new firm immediately began

lobbied for an agricultural coUege

New York State;

The immediate impression of both

to receive

commissions, including one from the brewer

fellow citizens to such public parks as Munich's

Matthew Vassar

Englischer Garten.

acre farm, Springside, near Poughkeepsie,

column of August

In his

warmed

to the subject of a

160-acre park in "until lately,

of space

1851,

Downing

mayoral proposal for a

New York, arguing that the city had

contented itself with the

little

door-yards

— mere grass-plats of verdure" and con-

cluding that a park of even 160 acres was too small, that at least 500 acres

were needed to serve the

city's

was

York. There sion

to improve the

a

ects. In the

Vaux buUt

his 40-

New

subsequent important commis-

from Daniel Parish

Newport, Rhode

grounds of

to build a "marine villa" in

Island,

Newburgh

and other domestic

office,

which Downing and

as an addition to the

Downing residence,

Vaux translated the Gothic Revival learned in England into a

proj-

more

style

distinctly

he had

American

fast-growing population, which then stood at half a

idiom, often using board-and-batten construction

new park was equally bold

and wooden verge boards and designing deeply

million. His vision for the in

its

outlines.

bridle

trails,

Not only would it have

carriage drives,

secluded walks, and "a real feeling of the

breadth and beauty of green

fields,"

but

it

would also

be a place for commemorative stames, a winter gar-

hooded windows, covered entrance porches, and broad verandas. From Downing he must have

the

American landscape.

den Uke the Crystal Palace "where the whole people could luxuriate in groves of the palms and spice trees

of the tropics, at the same parties glided swiftly

and

moment

that sleighing

noiselessly over the

snow-

also

learned to appreciate the Picturesque possibilities of

In the

fall

following the return of the

two men

from England, Downing was invited by President Millard Fillmore to prepare a plan for the

improvement

of the public grounds around the Capitol in Wash-

L Enfant

where

covered surface of the country-like avenues of the

ington,

wintry park without." Zoological gardens would also

had never materialized. Downing eagerly seized

this

commission

first

find a

home

there, as

expositions of the

would spacious

arts.

Above

the social implications of the

would be

buildings for

Downing extolled proposal. The park

all.

a republican institution, "a

broad ground

"real

as

's

intentions for a

grand avenue

an opportunity to demonstrate the

park in the United

States."'"*

Although vexed by

congressional infighting, the project received

funding.

On

the L-shaped

site

initial

encompassing the

329

EXPANDING

CITIES

AND NEW SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS

— for fourteen years a center of hospitable

present-day Mall and grounds of the White House.

built

Downing developed an extensive pleasure ground and

friendship, his office,

botanical showcase, a series of six Picturesque

and Gar-

and

a manifestation of the Pic-

turesque and Gardenesque taste he advocated

— had

denesque episodes linked by curvilinear carriage drives

been mortgaged and was soon sold. His books, how-

and paths. Directly behind the White House, the plan

ever,

through a mar-

called for a President's Park, entered

ble triumphal arch. Also called the Parade, this

where various public and

militarv' functions

take place. Surrounding the Washington

was

would

Downing envisioned a meadow-

still

in construction,

park of American specimen trees and grass. The

Tiber Canal flowed between these two parks.

The plan

proposes to connect them by means of a suspension bridge.

also calls for

It

case for such laurels, listic

an Evergreen Garden, a show-

nondedduous spedes as rhododendrons,

and magnoHas. Smithsonian Park is

a natura-

campuslike space, with evergreens comple-

menting James Renwick s neomedieval building. To the east,

and

is

Fountain Park containing both

a fountain

and the

century,

Essays,

editorials

were collected

ticulturist

Monument,

like

continued to be published into the twentieth

which

he had written for The Horin a

also enjoyed

Downing's position

volume

entitled Rural

wide readership.

in landscape history

is

a piv-

He was both an imitator of the styles devel-

otal one.

oped by Repton and Loudon and an innovator, translating their Picturesque vocabulary, particularly

new American

in architecture, into a

was more

influence

an "apostle of

as

idiom. But his taste"

than as a

designer, rhetorically setting the course that others

would follow.

Tlie

term

landscape architect

had not yet

been adopted by Calvert Vaux and Vaux's future partner, Frederick

Law Olmsted

Neither of these

men

as a professional

title.

ever forgot his debt to Do\vti-

ing as together they forged a landscape style in which

a small artifidal lake.

Downing was commuting to Washa monthly basis when his life was suddenly cut short as the Hmry Clay, a Hudson River

broad passages of pastoral and woodland scenery

steamboat on which he was

transitional style with

In 1852.

on

ington. D.C.,

traveling,

caught

fire,

gave the beautiful and the picturesque a

more

thor-

oughly American dimension than had Downing's its

Loudon-derived emphasis

causing the passengers to jump overboard and many,

on horticulmre and

induding him, to drown. Without his periodic

designed for New York was essentially different from

on-site

supervision and advocacy of the plan's construction,

exacerbated by the impending

part)' politics,

crisis

of

Extensively eulogized.

encumbered with

image Downing had painted for his readers

Downing nevertheless The house he had

debt.

in his

essay in The Horticulturist, but his prescience in pro-

moting

the Civil War, mired the project.

died

the

architecture. Tlie park that they

it

as a vital

that they fully

new

democratic institution was one

embraced

as they in turn

vision for the nineteenth-century

developed a

city.

HoNOKiNG History and Repose eok teie Dead: COMMEMOFLATIVE LANDSCAPES AND KlIK \L CeMETEKIES III.

The

taste that

itarian

Downing had promoted and the human-

consdousness he had displayed in championing

the public park were, as

of the culmral in his

shift that

we

have seen, manifestations

Tocqueville obser\-ed not only

own country' and the United States where there

had been revolutions abolishing rule by monarchy, but also

throughout Europe where coun-dominated

tocratic culture

based, egalitarian forms of governance.

SodaUy con-

had been

set in

doms, and language,

the

their respective principalities, duke-

and

The growth

growth

in

private estates that court,

were

were

its

the dVf and the

rural outposts, not the

determined culmre, and the bourgeoisie

who

now primary cultural consumers welcomed the

reformers' ad\ace that refined

above those

less fortunate.

them and elevated them

well as

by

military

in nationalistic spirit paralleled

size

of urban centers.

With the diminution of the power of kingship, of the

racy, the

earlier,

tra\'el as

importance and

important precisely because the dty itself was becom-

already demonstrated a centur\'

were reinforced through

city-states

art, trade,

prestige of the Church,

London had

to

motion, and bonds of culmral com-

monalty among

alliance.

and Germany were slow

Italy

unified states, the trend toward nationalism

sdous tastemakers such as Loudon and Downing were

ing a far-flung middle-dass institution. As

330

aris-

was being superseded by more broadly

Although

become

monuments

and of the

that

\\'ealth ot aristoc-

had once broadcast the

supremacy of these instimtions lost meaning. As sodeties rebuilt

themselves along

sectarian lines, they

felt

more democratic and

compelled to create images

of constitutional monarchs, revolutionary heroes, and the

honored dead as icons of national

pride, replacing older

gious figures.

monuments of

status

and dvic

kings and

reli-

,

HONORING HISTORY AND REPOSE FOR THE DEAD

The Commfmorauve Lanl3Sc:ape Commemorating national heroes assumed impor-

tomb designed for him by Hubert Robert on the Isle of Poplars at Ermenonville (see fig. 7.36). The

tance as nineteenth-century nations sought to

Enlightenment had bred

tutionalize recently

insti-

formed governments or cloak

their military adventures rial

the

glory by celebrating

abroad

them

in a

mande of impe-

in a public

and perma-

authority of the Catholic Church,

the day in

of monuments within them. For this reason,

itual substitute for

the English raised a

1

85-foot high

column by William

Railton in London's Trafalgar Square to ral

honor Admi-

Horatio Nelson, the hero of the 1805 Battle of

Trafalgar. In a similar fashion, the French

commem-

orated Napoleon's campaigns of 1805-07 with a bas-

rehef column modeled after

column

in

Rome.

It

was erected

Vendome, formerly

toppled by a revolutionary

Germany,

as

we

XIV had long

mob (fig.

where the since

been

entombed on the

have seen, the Volksgarten sculptures

tocrat,

We

Ermenonville into a shrine and even replicated

tomb in numerous other Picturesque garAmericans patriotically sought remembrance

Rousseau's dens,

of George Washington. his rural in

tomb

at

Many made

Mount Vernon

pilgrimages to

(fig. 9.20).

Citizens

both Baltimore and Washington, D.C., commis-

sioned Robert Mills (1781-1855) to design impressive

monuments in Washington's memory (fig. had eschewed their cost

Federalist generation in

large-scale public

9.21).

America

authoritar-

ian

pomp, which they

felt

to be inappropriate in a

decades of the nineteenth cenmry sought to employ

Church

of

Saint

when

it

became

Many

a hall of

fame

objected to the

man's bones to the Pantheon

Paris, preferring instead the

in

notion of pilgrimage to

Napoleonic Victory

Column, Place Vendome, Paris, constructed by

Denon,

Gonduin, and Lepere. 1806-10

Below left:

9.20.

George

Washington's grave as

aris-

to the

9.19.

works because of

and association with European

of an anden regime liberal

French national heroes.

transfer of the great

site at

first

Genevieve, which was deconsecrated and rechris-

for

Europeans who turned the grave

spirit

Rousseau's remains, at

were removed

tened the Pantheon

same

In the

republic, the generation that prospered in the first

how

estate

Church dogma.

Although the

were intended to foster patriotic sentiment.

have noted as well

which many found in deified Nature a spir-

as that of the

9.19).

was an expression of culmral pride, and the there

Trajan's

in Paris in the Place

the Place Royale,

equestrian statue of Louis

In

Emperor

rural,

given the Romantic sentimentalism of

renaming of important urban places and the erection 841

making

rather than churchyard, burial an appealing alternative, especially

1

new secular spirit, and the

French Revolution had seriously undermined the

nent manner. This patriotic agenda called for the

in

a

its

redesigned

in

the Gothic

revival style by William

Yeaton

in

1835. Engraving by

W. Woodruff,

c.

1839

wealth for public ends, ennobling their country's

monuments to

the Revolu-

Below right: 9.21 Washington Monument in Baltimore,

tion that

had turned former colonies into

a nation. In

designed by Robert Mills,

Boston,

Henry Dearborn,

brief history with public

citizen

and the

.

a notably public-spirited

Monument first

president of the Massachusetts

Horticultural Society,

formed the Bunker

Hill

Mon-

who

also designed the Washington in

Washington, D.C.

1829. Engraving Bartlett,

1835

byW.

H.

EXPANDING

AND NEW SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS

CITIES

were

periodically

ones.

The

exhumed

make room

to

for

new

resulting stench of putrefying flesh caused

passersby to hold their noses as physicians argued inconclusively over whether "miasmas"

from decay-

ing animal matter bred disease.

The notion of a permanent resting place where the dead could be visited by the living and

remem-

bered individually did not accord with either Catholic or Calvinist belief Both held that mortal life,

was corrupt and an encumbrance

flesh,

even in

to the

spirit,

which, freed of mortalit); could join God. Viewed in this light, the collective sight

of the dead served as a

reminder ot the transitory nature of earthly life and a

warning against vanit\' and pride. The equation of the afterlife

with an Edenic gardenlike paradise did not fig-

ure in pre-nineteenth-cenmry Western theolog)', and tree planting in cemeteries 9.22. Bird

s-eye view of Boston

by John Bachman, 1850, with

Bunker the

left

a subscription

paign to purchase the Revolutionan'

cam-

War battlefield

agement of

was considered an encourtoward pantheism,

latent tendencies

which priests and ministers wanted to stamp

out.

Not

Monument near

Hill

edge

of the lithograph.

The domed building

to the left

of center is Charles Buifinch's

State

House on Beacon

1795.

The process

the

ument Association, which led to

site

and underwrite

"a simple, majestic, lofty,

manent monument,

and per-

an obelisk of Quincy granite,

which was erected between 1825 and 1843

(fig.

the living tree but the death IHiritan

tombstones

in

mask was

depicted on

New England graveyards: this

memento mori was meant to discourage worldly ambi-

Hill of

of filling in

Back Bay has begun, and

9.22).^* rivalry

No

small

amount of municipal and

was tnvoh'ed

as

Boston competed with

and individualism. Only with the decline of Fhari-

state

tion

Balti-

tanism did the s\-mbolism of vegetati\'e endurance and

the city's aspirations to ele-

gance are apparent

in

more, the southern

the

the race for

planting of trees lining the

cit\^

had assumed the lead in

that

monumental magnificence by adding to

jection of an ornamental land-

Wash— already adorned with ington Monument — Maximilien Godefroy's 1835

scape on the ground reserved

Battle

paths and perimeter of the

Common and

in

for the Public

was

the

artist's

its

pro-

Garden, which

landscape

Mills's

Monument,

a

column

resting

on

manifest

itself in

the substitution of the

sweetly melancholy willow-tree-and-urn motif, also

found

some

in

mourning pictures,

slab gravestones

The

a pyramidal

for the death

mask on

(fig. 9.24).

creation of the extramural "rural" ceme-

demanded a significant change in societal values

Egyptian Revival base and topped with a statue ot a

tery

female figure symbolizing the city

involving the secularization of death and the grant-

not built until 1857. (fig. 9.23).

Right: 9.23. Baltimore Battle

monument, by

ing of dignity to the individual

IVIaximilien

to associative sentiment

Godefroy. 1835. Engraving by

W.

c\rlical rebirth

friends. In the

H. Bartlett

1666, Below:

9.24.

John Williams,

aged 36

April

1,

1825).

families

and

aftermath of London's Great Fire of

both John Evelyn and Christopher Wren had

urged the discontinuance of churchyard the eighteenth-century

Pen

and watercolor drawing by an

anonymous

as well as the right

IWourning picture

for Captain Id.

life

on the part of

Whig garden,

emblems of commemoration,

burial,

and

replete with

offered an important

artist

prototype for the cemetery amid shady groves. Wordsw-orth's Romantic poetn,- evoked a elegiac

remembrance

in

Rukal Cemetery

The waning of ecclesiastical authorit}^ and the growth

among a rapidly broadening middle class brought new attitudes toward death and the desire to commemorate upstanding community members and loved ones as well as heroes. Added to of Romantic sentiment

this cultural

imperative

about which there was

was the public health motive,

much

debate, for the crowd-

ing that accompanied population increases in nine-

teenth-century festering

cities

urban slums, but

cemeteries that were

332

was noticeable not only

filled to

also in the

in the

churchyard

capacity so that corpses

of

images of country grave-

yards, while in a prose essay

Birth of the

mood

he instructed that "when

HONORING HISTORY AND REPOSE FOR THE DEAD

death

in

is

our thoughts, nothing can make amends

want of the soothing influences of nature, and

for die

for the absence decay,

which the

of those types of renovation and fields

and woods

offer to the notice

of the serious and contemplative mind."''^ It

was not

in

England but

in France,

however,

cemetery came into

that the first metropolitan rural

being. There, the post-Revolutionary invention of

new the

institutions to replace discredited old

growing fashion

(initiated

ones and

by Rousseau's tomb

Ermenonville) for memorials set

in

at

nature provided

the impetus for a change in burial customs. In addition,

new

of photosynthesis sup-

scientific theories

ported the practice of tree planting as conducive to

urban health, and people began to desire the sight of

Egyptian pyramid, which was never built because

925 and 926. Pere-Lachaise

cemeteries with grass lawns rather than bare earth.

work was halted by the Napoleonic wars. To

Cemetery

Historic preservation also played a role in those mr-

bulent times recently

when many royal monuments had been

removed from churches and public

Preservationists such as

places.

Antoine-Chrysostome Qua-

tremere de Quincy argued for incorporating the

sal-

vage into cemeteries as proud relics of French cultural

of

this

grave

and Arts

called for papers

burying the dead. In

classical scholar

on new customs and

his

prizewinning

Amaury Duval evoked

of antiquity as precedent for extramural

sites

essay, the

the

custom

burial, for in

former times.

On

bury

their

the Appian Way.

wished

tum

after

on

others.

private property of

the authorities were encouraged to set

grounds outside the

city

would no longer be placed anony-

common graves.

passed authorizing the

In 1801, legislation

communes

was

of France to pur-

chase land outside their boundaries for public cemeteries,

and two years

Seine created the

first

later the

Department of the

one on a high escarpment near

the eastern edge of Paris.

Known as the Cemetery of

the East but called Pere-Lachaise after the Jesuit priest

Pere Francois de La Chaise, Louix XIV's confessor,

who had once owned the land, it was laid out according to a plan developed by the architect Alexandre-

Theodore Brongniart (1739-1813)

combined

axial

in a

manner

geometry and monumental

and namralistic plantings.

that

focal

points with the picturesqueness of a serpentine cuit path

of the

momen-

monuments purporting to be the tombs of

Abelard and Heloise, Moliere, and La Fontaine were

and then joined by the actual ones of such celebrities as Frederic

Chopin. Civic

heroes, and by the 1820s, as they laid departed

family

members

to rest,

many

denizens of the fash-

ionable world sought the services of the funerary

There

who owned land, and for those

aside dignified public burial

in

gathering

ical

for the burial

departed, which

first,

tombs along

where family tombs would receive the remains of the

mously

in the leasehold area, the sale

laid to rest in

a grave in nature like Rousseau's.

who did not,

ownership in perpetu-

pride rose with the burial of other cultural and polit-

declared that for himself, he

those, such as farmers,

of

the dead of

The argument was echoed by were proposals

pits

institution-

Rome

in ancient

He

was

who wished to purchase plots. common folk immediately began to

dead

contemporary

prominent families were

common burial

the higher terrain

perpetual plots was slow at

installed

Dipylon Gate, and

as

Although

Kerameikos, the pottery-making

outside the

were the plots reserved

alized the concept of freehold ity for families

ancient Athens burial of notables took place in the district

axis

left

the masses, where five-year and ten-

sites for

year leaseholds replaced the

heritage. In 1796, the National Institute of Sciences

for

greensward

the

cir-

A central tapis vert

led the visitor to the site of a chapel, designed as an

architects, stonecutters, iron-fence

makers, and florists

who had set up shop nearby. Mausoleums occupying entire plots

soon gave Pere-Lachaise the appearance

of a miniature

city

of handsome stone dwellings,

rather than that of a pastoral landscape of as

it

was intended to be.

famous names on many of the tombs and its

memory,

Nevertheless, because of the in spite

of

overbuilt appearance, Pere-Lachaise continues to

be both a mecca for tourists and a tranquil refuge for

contemporary

Parisians

(figs. 9.25, 9.26).

EXPANDING

CITIES

AND NEW SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS

Americans, developing

French

like the

were

at this time,

accorded with their

civic institutions that

republican ideals. They, too, wanted to create cemeteries that

honored

fied the dead,

of achieving

their brief national history, digni-

and consoled the

this

Their means

living.

end was not by government decree

losophy of transcendentalism and preached as well

communion with namre. The American

as practiced

poet William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), along with

Wordsworth, touched Dearborn,

manly emotion of remembrance with

the

through voluntary associations of citizen-reformers,

ble melancholy,

formed

and sold burial

a corporation,

pleasura-

most famous poem, "Thanatop-

gave voice to Bigelow's medically and

sis" (1817),

of the dead outside town boundaries, inasmuch as

horticulturally

maurading wolves were a stiU-recent menace and bur-

solution of the uncofFined body laid to rest in nature

ial

within insecure extramural precincts would

itate

the

work of

"resurrection

facil-

men" who harvested

immediately north of

New

Haven's original nine-

and these would

America

for

and under Hillhouse s direction, poplars

that purpose,

were planted and freehold plots sold

in perpetuity.

Unlike the rural cemeteries that followed a generation later, the

New

was remarkable for

design,

its

Burying Ground

for the precedent

which was,

it

in

New Haven

set rather

like the rest

than

of the town, a

inspire others to lives of

goodness

and achievement.

The

square grid. Connecticut passed legislation establishing the first private corporation in

memory of the individual life lived

bosom of family and community would in epitaphs inscribed on monuments,

within the

be honored

Street

dis-

constituted a sweet surrender of individual existence.

1796, James Hillhouse persuaded his fellow citizens

ground on Grove

informed opinion that the rapid

At the same time,

corpses for medical dissection. However, as early as

to subscribe to a burial

1

the

site for

new cemetery was

secured in

830 when another proponent, George Watson Brim-

mer, sold to the Massachusetts Horticultural Society a particularly beautiful piece of property consisting

of 72 acres of heavily wooded, acteristic

New

hilly terrain,

the char-

England landscape of drumlins

ridges deposited

—

by successive epochs of glaciation

— and bogs, and ponds

the

left in

wake of the

retreat-

who

Harvard students,

straightforward grid plan offering convenient

circu-

ing

and visiting families but little

in the

liked to frequent this naturally picturesque spot of

lation for hearses

way of Romantic picturesqueness.

ice. Poetically inclined

bosky dells, grassy knolls, and an abandoned colonial farmstead, called

it

Sweet Auburn

after a

vanished

Mount Aliblikn Cemetery

English hamlet destroyed by the enclosure move-

Such was not the case

ment, which Oliver Goldsmith had lamented

of

in Boston,

where the builders

Mount Auburn Cemetery exploited

of a naturally picturesque

site

the potential

across the Charles River

on the border between Cambridge and Watertown. Here

again, an energetic

spearheaded the citizen

and visionary individual

effort responsible for launch-

poem "The

in his

Deserted Village" (1770). Like Pere

mount from which a panoramic prospect unfolded hence Mount Auburn but unlike the French cemetery where Lachaise,

it

had

a high point or

—

—

there

was no stream or pond,

it

had

a

deep enfolding

ing the cemetery project in 1825. Botanist, physician,

small valley into which water gushed and pooled.

and community leader Dr. Jacob Bigelow interested

tide

the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in sponsor-

justice

ing the project. Earlier, a vocal

on the

proponent of

outskirts of the

Mayor Josiah Quincy had been a public city,

cemetery somewhere

but it took Bigelow

s

advo-

ticipation of

Henry Dearborn,

the president of the

The

of sentiment ran high as Joseph Story, associate of the United States Supreme Court, delivered

his consecration oration to

two to

an estimated audience of

three thousand Bostonians gathered in this nat-

ural amphitheater

cacy of the cause, combined with the enthusiastic par-

on September 24,

1831.

For the next three years, the society's president.

Dearborn, masterminded the project, serving

as the

Massachusetts Horticulmral Society, to bring the con-

cemetery's landscape designer Like others of his gen-

cept to fruition.

eration,

The

cultural climate of

Boston provided strong

impetus to the cemetery movement

There

334

in the

hot maudlin excess, in a period when many fathers mourned the death of young wives and children. Bryant's

plots.

Many people at the time resisted the placement

chord

New Englanders such as Bigelow and for whom the word sentimental denoted

breasts of

as in France but, in a tradition Tocqueville recognized,

who in this case developed a vision, enlisted support,

a responsive

was

in

America.

Dearborn was

capable of practicing

a

man of multiple talents and

them

at a professional level.

To

ready himself for the task at hand, he sent to London

strong, voluntary

and Paris for books and engravings dealing with land-

associations numerous, and religion liberalized

scape theory and design, including an account of the

through the agency of the Unitarian

creation of Pere-Lachaise,

patriotic sentiment

pulpit.

Boston

was, moreover, within the intellectual orbit of Con-

benefit of

cord where Thoreau and Emerson projected the phi-

in the

which he translated for the

his fellow citizens.

works of Repton and

He also steeped himself

Price as

he thought about

HONORING HISTORY AND REPOSE FOR THE DEAD

how

to turn the naturally Picturesque

cemetery

site

commemorative landscape and an exper-

into both a

component was

imental garden. This horticultural integral to his

broad

vision, as

was the notion of cre-

on the premises

ating a studio school

for the instruc-

tion of professional landscape designers.

The author of a two-volume architecture,

treatise

on Greek

Dearborn now sought to develop

siting

would make Auburn an American version of Stowe or Mount

opportunities for the monum.ents that

Stourhead (see Chapter Seven). His plan provided a circulation

raphy

system that looped around the

in parabolic curves,

for hearses to

mented by

all

parts of the

through the delectable scenery

a

rift

topog-

grounds and, supple-

means of

additional paths, a

Although the two

hilly

providing efficient access

strolling

(fig. 9.27).

men never admitted a breach,

between Dearborn's and Bigelow's supporters

was soon apparent. The

horticultural faction sided

with Dearborn's more inclusive vision of

Auburn

as a

Mount

broad-based landscape institution, with

an active program of practical instruction like that of the

London Horticulmral

Society

where Paxton had

apprenticed, while others supported Bigelow's

more

focused one of a cemetery alone. This resulted in an separation in 1834, with the reincorporation

official

of the Cemetery Proprietors of

independent

entity.^"

Mount Auburn as an

As head of the trustees of the

Mount Auburn.

In addition, Bigelow used a pair of

obelisks decoratively to frame the imposing neo-

9.27,

Plan of Mount Auburn

Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts, designed by

ten-member board governing Mount Auburn,

Egyptian

Bigelow exerted a strong influence on the rules and

Auburn, which bore the

regulations governing the cemetery's administration

Dust remrn to the Earth as it was, and the

and visitation policies,

return unto

style gate

he designed

for entrance to

inscription:

"Then

Mount

shall the

Spirit shall

Jacob

Bigelow. 1831. Engraving by

James

and

Smillie, from J.

Smillie,

Mount Auburn

C.

lllus-

ffaferi,1851

at the

same time

exercising his

considerable talents as an architect by designing several

of

its

monuments.

first

proprietors

New England churchyards where the fore-

bears of the

Mount Auburn

trustees

were buried.

(fig. 9.28). Pillars

and

surmounted by urns and sarcophagi resem-

bling Rousseau's

Policy forbade slab tombstones like those found in the old

pedestals

God who gave it" tomb were

also popular

among the

(fig. 9.29).

In James Smillie's 1847 engravings, the white

ancient Egypt for a symbolism that reflected the

the dark foliage in the stiU heavily forested cemetery

tion for

all

lib-

Universalist spirit preaching salva-

and the heavenly reunion of families, which

now prevailed over the predestination

to

J.

Auburn

and

James

Smillie,

C. Smillie,

Mount

Illustrated. 1851

marble monuments that had superseded the Puritans'

and

Engraving by

from

Bigelow and others looked to Classical Greece and

eral Unitarian

Below: 928. Entrance

Mount Auburn Cemetery.

gray

(fig. 9.30).

slate

tombstones gleam brightly against

Within the romantically Picturesque land-

scape, they act as poetic accents.

The atmosphere of

stern philosophy of Calvinist

whereby only

elect

— were deemed

The

obelisk, appropriated

a tiny minority

eligible for

reward

by ancient

— the

after death.

Rome

as a tro-

phy of conquest and converted by Renaissance

city

planners and garden builders into a widely copied landscape feature, connoted both timelessness and the

death-embracing culture of andent Egypt. Somewhat miniaturized, obelisks were frequently

employed

in

eighteenth-cenmry English gardens as memorials to

an obelisk memo-

cultural

and political heroes. Just

rialized

George Washington, now scaled-down

sions in white marble

as

marked the

prominent Boston families

ver-

resting place of

who purchased plots

in

335

EXPANDING

9.29.

View

CITIES

AND NEW SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS

of Harvard Hill,

Mount Auburn Cemetery. Engraving by

from

J.

and

James

Smillie,

C. Smillie,

Mount

Auburn Illustrated, 1851

Right: 9.30. Loring

Monument,

Mount Auburn Cemetery. Engraving by

from

J.

and

James

Smillie,

C. Smillie,

Mount

Auburn

Illustrated, 1851

Below:

9.31. Hillside

chamber

tombs with granite fagades.

Mount Auburn Cemetery a forest

glen

intentional. In the early years of the

is

cemetery's existence, in keeping with the founders' desires to retain as

charms of the

site,

much

as possible the inherent

maintenance was limited to keep-

ing gravel paths accessible; only in the second half of the nineteenth century did the cemetery

parklike aspect. Also evident

is

assume

meditating in

its

the future.

Mount Auburn's

tify

show

parents

as solitary figures

sweetly melancholy gloom.

The

of death seemed less important after the

The notion of

attitude of denial

biographies of the distinguished dead. role in expressing

erty,

pride, the plots

community

ilizations.

By contrast,

— often

in anticipation

were shaping would one

into ruin. Their elegiac

of their deaths

— to

for future generations to read as a testament to the

of the

many plot owners constructed chamSome

men and women commemorated

cities:

In addition,

it

and Cave HiU in Louisville

in active use,

and incising

this

durable material

more

(fig.

9.31).

As the cemetery began

plots,

memorial sculpture, and works of architecture,

to acquire

burial

notably Bigelow's Gothic Revival chapel and his

George Washington Tower,

it

also acquired a greater

degree of horticultural ornamentation.

New trustees

exercised keen fiduciary oversight and

were

to set aside funds

from the proceeds of

landscape maintenance. Gradually

became,

as

it

remains today,

enriched by the mixture of

a

careful

lot sales for

Mount Auburn

memorial garden

many

exotic

and native

plant species.

Bigelow designed and donated the cemetery's last

major embellishment,

a

Sphinx, dedicated in 1871 to the

monumental female Union dead (fig.

9.32).

By this time, mnemonic devices and landscapes evoking the past were less compelling to a

new generation

shrubs,

(1848).

exerted an influence over the old bar-

chamber tombs were

techniques

Laurel Hill in Philadelphia

Green Wood in Brooklyn (1838), Spring Grove

in Cincinnati (1845),

ren burial grounds in

nestled into hillsides and faced

its

Mount Auburn served as the progenitor of rural cemeteries in other

ber tombs similar to those at Pere-Lachaise.

after stonecutters perfected

within

idyUic precincts.

(1836),

Although Bigelow promoted interment directly

for carving

Rome,

the solidarity of families, and the virtue and industry

cast-iron fences.

with granite

day, like

monuments were meant

were private prop-

function as fumre genealogies in stone, but they also

ground,

Mount Auburn

greatness of the republican experiment in America,

fenced their places of perpetual rest with handsome

in the

the founders of

values

and the proprietors not only erected monu-

ments

toward death and an aversion to

held that history was cycHcal, believing that the young republic they

its

to iden-

reminders of human mortality and the decline of civ-

fall

In spite of

lin-

with their nation's peculiar destiny fostered an

cemetery's purpose as a contemplative landscape was

brief, inspiring

Civil

history as continuous

improvement that many Americans came

underlined by the publication of visitors' guides with

and community

336

tication

interested in progress than in the

of republican virtue and the domes-

War than materialistic success and optimistic faith in ear

instruction, for the engravings

with young children in tow as well

Amencans more

a

intended function as a didactic landscape, a place of

moral

of

past. Idealization

cities,

and these,

were given iron fences,

now no longer

grass, trees,

and

becoming the pleasant green urban oases they

are today.

Although there were plenty

who

left

written

records demonstrating that the didacticism of

Mount

THE

Auburn

much

touched them

effectively

years of

its

From

go

ceme-

inception, the

its

was an immensely popular place

much

in the early

existence, people did not necessarily

there for moral uplift. tery

Bigelow

as

and the other founders had hoped, even

for

NEW METROPOUS

an outing, so

so that superintendents issued admittance

passes and enforced rules restricting certain types of recreation.

The same was

true at Green- Wood, the

Brooklyn cemetery where Manhattan residents

on Sundays

flocked

for a holiday in scenic surround-

Their evident enjoyment of

ings.

ation caused

some

the question:

not

form of

recre-

New Yorkers to ask

civic-minded

why

this

park devoid of

a people's

reminders of mortality? 9.3Z Sphinx,

The

IV.

New Metkopoeis: Fredekic k Law

Calvefce

and Green-Wood were

cre-

ated, the country had not yet developed any public

parks,

museums, or other large-scale

tions.

Soon, however, voluntary associations of

cultural instimciti-

zens began to found these, diminishing the cemetery's

moral landscape and repository for monu-

Andrew Jackson Downing

ments. Not surprisingly,

saw the

rural

cemetery

as a transitional institution. In

1849, he editorialized in The Horticulturist:

attraction of these cemeteries

beauty of the

sites,

and

this

teries,

eral

.

lies in

.

in the tasteful

nious embellishment of these

not

.

sites

by

.

.

.

Does

general interest, manifested in these ceme-

cities,

lib-

would

prevented him from advancing the park cause. this time, politicians

had embraced

to the well-reasoned passion with ers,

it

thanks

which he and oth-

such as the poet William Cullen Bryant,

served as editor of the to 1878,

New York Evening Post from

who 1

829

had advocated establishing public parks

for

the people. Calvert

Vaux (1824-1895) stood ready

put his talent and training with Dovming into the ation of America's tral

first large-scale

and

to

cre-

public park. Cen-

Park, and luckily he found in Frederick

Olmsted (1822-1903), erstwhile farmer, editor, a collaborator capable

become

a pleasurable routine for

At the same time, the

Law

journalist,

of helping him

many New Yorkers.

thriving port

city's

mercial enterprises attracted a swelling

and com-

volume of

immigrants, particularly after the potato famine of the 1840s in Ireland and political turbulence in the

Europe

prove that public gardens, established in a

But by

both the commercial and the social spectacle had

the natural

be equally successful?" '^^ His tragic death three years later

department stores had opened their doors on

wake of

and harmo-

i

Broadway, and shopping and promenading to enjoy

"The great

art.

and suitable manner, near our large

halls,

tries

several failed revolutionary

in 1848 stimulated

abroad.

movements

mass exodus from coun-

New York reformers organized societies

to minister to the needy,

and although public health

had been greatly improved

after the

Croton Aque-

duct brought pure drinking water to the

crowding

in

now fostered both

few exceptions.

disease

city in 1842,

and

vice.

With

New York had little to offer in the way

of pubUcly accessible greenery. There was the Battery, the city's historic waterfront

of Manhattan

promenade

at the foot

Island; City Hall Park; Jones's

Wood,

an informal 160-acre picnic grove beside the East River

between

Sixty-sixth

and Seventy-fifth

Streets;

and

Green- Wood, the immensely popular rural cemetery in Brooklyn.

Park,

The

Gramercy

Square

dty's residential squares

Park,

—

St. John's

Union Square, Washington

— were mostly fenced,

-with access restricted

to neighboring property holders. Well-to-do

York businessmen

— the

city's civic

leaders

—

New

travel-

ing abroad noticed the parks in England, France, and

found both the parks movement and the profession

Germany, which had been opened to the general

of landscape architecture

populace

in

America.

It

New York's Campaign for Vaux left Newburgh and moved to at a

time

when

the city

a Park

New York in

was beginning

as a

matter of royal favor or noblesse

oblige.

was obvious to them that to satisfy their recreational

needs and espedaUy those of their wives and children,

856

as well as to establish their city competitively as a

to develop a

pleasant and civilized urban center of international

and music

importance, they should take responsible action to

lively artistic culture. In addition to theaters

1

1871

Olalm L3 anl:» City Peanners

Vaux as Park Buieders anl:)

when Mount Auburn

role as

Mount Auburn Cemetery, designed by Jacob Bigelow and sculpted by Martin Milmore.

337

EXPANDING

CITIES

AND NEW SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS

improve

it

by constructing

were urged forward by

a public park. In this they

women whose work in

ous charitable associations

made them

vari-

conscious of

over Central Park from the ciry and placed state-appointed,

under a

eleven-member commission. Egbert

Viele (1825-1902), the engineer

Wood had appointed

was reappointed by the newly

the importance of this type of environmental and

to survey the park,

humanitarian improvement for the poor and whose

formed Board of Commissioners. Vaux had seen the

burgeoning cosmopolitanism made them long as well

plan Viele had prepared in 1856 for the park, which

for

an American version of Hyde Park or the Champs-

Wood had approved,

Elysees where they could readily socialize in public.

was with

Uptown landowners stood

had recently acted

provement estate, so

a

to gain

from the im-

park would bring to surrounding

real

they were natural proponents in bringing

the plan forward. After

much contentious debate, the state legis-

tion of land

below the

existing

Croton Reservoir

in

the center of the island between Seventy-ninth and Eighty-sixth Streets

and north of

it

where the

large

New Reservoir was being built between Eighty-sixth and Ninety-sixth Streets. Fernando Wood (18121881), New York's Democratic mayor after 1854, saw works project could

that a large public

grant laborers and, incidentally, his account, inasmuch as he side real estate. In

was heavily

assist

invested in park-

what later historians would

his single heroic act,

immi-

own bank cite as

he exerted his leadership in favor

and he realized

how inferior it

respect to the opportunity at hand.

American

Institute

Vaux

member of the and he now organ-

founding

as a

of Architects,

ized a successful lobbying effort for a design competition in

lature passed a bill in 1853, authorizing the acquisi-

order to achieve a plan

that,

according to him,

would not disgrace the dty or the memory of Downing.

On October 13,

1857, the

commission announced

Vaux now

the terms of the public competition, and

became instrumental on

the

first

of two significant

occasions in directing the talents of Frederick

Olmsted

Law

into the service of landscape design.

Olmsted had previously met Vaux once when he called upon Downing

in

Newburgh. But

at that

time he had no idea that he would pursue landscape as a career.

Having

first

father s financial help

established himself with his

on Staten

farmer employing the

Island as a

scientific principles similar to

those pioneered by Loudon, he had

abroad

gentleman

felt

impelled to

of proceeding with the construction of Central Park

travel

between

practices at firsthand, recording his observations in a

Fifth

and Eighth Avenues and 59th and

in 1850 to study English agricultural

book, Walks and Talks of an American Farmer

106th Streets.

land. Its critical success led

The Design and Building OF Centflae Pakk It

was now necessary

in the fall

ments on the

numerous

site

esti-

and improve-

of the future park, meeting

complaints, particularly from

futile

capital

lots

and labor

in

felt

they had invested

improving their holdings

than the price they were being awarded. Even

so, the

$5 million land acquisition cost far exceeded the cost that

had been projected for the

built park.

As the park-

land was exempted ft-om the market, the surround-

ing property automatically went up in value. Regulations to curb certain

activities

considered to be

nuisances such as piggeries and bone-boiling works

were enacted, making the area surrounding the park desirable for the future as a place of fashionable resi-

dence. By October ship

1,

1857, with considerable hard-

on the part of many former residents, including

those clustered in an active Aftican- American com-

munity known

as

the park, the park

Seneca Village on the west side of site

was cleared of

inhabitants.

Anxious to wrest power from Mayor Wood, the legislature in Albany,

which was dominated by the

newly formed Republican

Party,

in Eng-

him to pursue further jour-

endeavors based upon

travel.

Choosing the

pen name "Yeoman," he dispatched a series of letters

to acquire the land. Beginning

landowners within the park who

more

nalistic

of 1853, a commission surveyed and

mated the value of the building

338

it

removed authority

to the

newly formed New

York Daily Times,

from

var-

ious points along the routes he took through the

American South and the Texas. His constant

frontier states as far

theme was the

west as

superiority of free

labor over slave agriculture, but interwoven into his text

were passionately vivid descriptions of the coun-

tryside. Self taught in his uncle's library

where he may

THE

have

first

Cilpin,

encountered the writings of Price and

he was,

like his father

carriage rides as a

who had taken him on

boy in search of the Picturesque,

discriminating connoisseur of natural scenery.

a

Now,

in cities

and the domesticated middle landscape of

freestanding homes set in parklike surroundings

from the crowded urban workplace would civilizing force in society.

away

act as a

But Olmsted's more com-

however, the Panic of 1857 had forced the publishing

prehensive view of landscape was not derived from

house for which he worked to

and

Downing or from Loudon, Downing's preceptor. Downing had recast Loudon's concepts to suit

Olmsted was

the conditions of American society and the country's

grateful to receive the job of superintendent of the

namral landscape, recommending a Picturesque and

clearing operations for Central Park under the super-

sometimes rustic

vision of Viele, the engineer-in-chief

nize with and accent picturesque scenery. But, like

from pursuing

close.

Being prevented

his literary career as a publisher

the editor of Putnam 's Monthly Magazine,

Vaux had learned

a

good

deal about landscape

design as he

worked with Downing on the improve-

ment of the

public grounds in Washington, D.C., as

well as

on the private

estates

where they collaborated,

architectural vocabulary to

harmo-

Loudon, he was a horticulturist who valued plant display for

its

own sake. Olmsted

— "Yeoman" — found

the Gardenesque style a fussy distraction park's real purpose,

from the

which was the creation of

rural

mood lifting one out of

but he realized that Olmsted's daily familiarity with

scenery that evoked a poetic

the park landscape and his stature as an author and

everyday care and ennobling the

person of moral influence would make him an ideal

tions of the divine. This kind of scenic contemplation

partner in the design competition. friendship of the architect

Thus began

the

and literary-man-turned-

administrator as they paced together over the park's terrain

and formed the vision embodied

petition entry they labeled the

in the

com-

Greensward Plan

(fig.

9.33).

By judiciously

there,

by moving earth to rearrange the land into gen-

dy

rolling contours,

swamps into ponds, that

was both

clearing

by laying drains and converting there

pastoral

To understand

would emerge

a landscape

and Picturesque.

was therapy

tional influence

to enter the

as fully as possible, for

however

much intelligence and design ability Vaux contributed,

Downing's

in that

it

was rooted in a belief that parks

a

means of accul-

Olmsted never presented

artistic effect to

those pre-

The

task

of incorporating the recently enriched botanical palette into garden compositions in

for

him

which specimen

of flowers were objects of attention was

irrelevant to the business of park

making.

For the same reason, Olmsted held that architecture

and sculpture should be subservient to land-

scape. Utilitarian

and decorative elements should be

placed within an overall impression of tranquilly beautiful

of the designed landscape. This vision was akin to

and

a

a positive educa-

sented as individual scientific specimens.^^

years,

vision

women,

children,

arranged for their overall

and democratic humanitarianism supplied something

common

with intima-

himself as having botanical expertise, preferring plants

Olmsted's brand of nineteenth-century spirituality

fundamentally philosophic to their

upon

spirit

overworked paterfamilias,

turation for the masses.

men after they became

one must attempt

for the

healthful occupation for

trees or beds

the Greensward Plan and the

subsequent work of the two professional parmers,

mind of Olmsted

away here and planting

NEW METROPOLIS

and ruggedly Picturesque rural scenery. In

when he

later

served as mentor to aspiring young

landscape architects, he did not direct them to the

works of the prominent nineteenth-century authors,

Loudon and Downing, but

rather to those of Price

9.33.

Greensward

Plan. Central

Park design competition entry of Frederick

Law Olmsted and

Calvert Vaux. 1857

EXPANDING

CITIES

AND NEW SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS

a distant

umbrageous horizon

line,

and the mystery

suggested by an intricate fringe of vines screening a

shadowy entrance

to a grotto, he created a design

idiom that was both naturalistic and Romantic. His immersion as a young

man

in the "green,

dripping, glistening, gorgeous!" landscape of rural

—"enchantment indeed, we gazed upon and breathed — never to be — had England

it

forgotten"^'*

it

imprinted his mind with an imagery of pastoral beauty that served him as lasting inspiration, but the English class system that achieved this beauty for the

advantage of a few aristocrats through the enclosure

movement and his sense

that

the hard labor of the poor offended

of social

responsibility.

cratic standpoint

Sheep Meadow, Central

Park,

9.35.

New York

City

he saw landscape not

Sheep Meadow, Central

Park, contemporary view. In

keeping with the pastoral ideal

embodied

in this

tically

arranged for

as a collection

display,

studying the

writers,

of features

to obtain

artis-

as

graphic modeling and umbra-

Olmsted and Vaux wanted

to

own

a

"Five

few more spent

in

manner in which art had been employed

from nature so much beauty, and

People's Garden."

deepest religious expe-

riences were, like those of his father,

and transcendentalist ful

geous border plantings.

and sublime

— rapt responses

in nature.

He

to join

I

was

this

Now, thanks to Vaux's invitation

him in the design competition for Central Park

he had the chance to work on a

Wordsworthian to the beauti-

create a "People's

Garden"

in

far

grander scale to

New York.

Because of Olmsted's daytime duties

also loved the rich, pic-

intendent and the

park's rectangular boundaries

overhanging vines. His keen emotional response to

stream of job seekers, he and Vaux did

and the

lush tropical effects caused

indefinite continuation

success-

late

him

to attempt to simu-

collaboration

the scenery he had seen in the Louisiana bayous

as super-

many interruptions by an incessant much of their

turesque mystery of things half-concealed by

imply the nonexistence of the

on moonlit nights

as they

paced the

future park, appreciating the scenic potential of

its

strategy before the age of

now loom

skyscrapers, which dramatically along

its

providing perhaps a

borders,

new

lime.

and on the Isthmus of Panama

in

bold outcroppings of Manhattan

an American-

inflected version of the eighteenth-cenmry English

sce-

nic category: the urban sub-

Picturesque. as the play

By exploiting such optical characteristics

schist,

proposing

certain topographical alterations in order to '

deepen

swamps into lakes and mound soil into rolling mead-

of light and shade in the shadows cast by

ows. They studied where to place drainage lines and

meadow, the atmospheric haze of

discussed the configuration of carriage drives and the

trees across a sunlit

340

demo-

nothing to be thought of as comparable with

one moved through the coun-

tryside or city park. His

from view by the park's topo-

ful

a

land-

was screened

of pastoral scenery, a

England

ready to admit that in democratic America, there was

but rather as a shifting

panorama, a sequence of views and vistas that opened

up harmoniously

scape, the sight of the sur-

rounding city

and Repton. Like these eighteenth-century

sight in

was Paxton s Birkenhead Park

minutes of admiration, and 9.34.

The

had impressed him most happily from

THE

made

below-grade

level

Ground was

visually united

Meadow

it

inconspicuous, the Ball

with the

1

4-acre

Sheep

NEW METROPOLIS

Archway

Left top: 9.36.

carry-

ing the carriage over a trans-

verse road. Central Park,

immediately north of

it (figs.

9.34, 9.35).

c.

1860

Together these two green areas served to portray as best possible the designers' scenic desideratum in the

Left middle: 9.37. Pedestrians

crossing beneath Carriage

park's south end.

To nourish

toral

a thick

mat of mrf

would enhance the

the grazing flock that

appearance they covered the Sheep

with 2 feet

(.6

for

park's pas-

Meadow

meters) of topsoil. Grading the park's

borders into low berms and planting trees "to insure

Drive, Central Park. Lithograph

by Sarony, Major

line

was another

"

feat

of

landscape legerdemain the designers employed in

Left bottom: 9.38. Pedestrians

means

George Hayward,

Below:

frontage

rise

along the suddenly valuable

of a

rid-

stone bridge.

Central Park. Lithograph by

order to screen from view the future four-story

houses that would

Knapp,

separated from horseback ers by

an umbrageous horizon

&

C.1860

9.39.

Bow

ca. 1860

Bridge,

Central Park

lots.

The most ingenious

aspect of the Greensward

Plan was the engineering of four east- west crossings to carry

workaday

city traffic

through the park along

below-grade transverse roads

(fig. 9.36).

Here, too,

low berms with plantings screened from park visitors'

and

sight the carts

draft animals

roads. In executing the

moving on

Greensward

Plan,

these

Olmsted

and Vaux carried the principle of grade separation of traffic

one step further by segregating pedestrians

from carriage

traffic

and

on horseback. This

riders

gave Vaux, often in association with Jacob

Mould, the oppormnity to design arches for paths and bridle

and horseback as a

riders

trails

a

Wrey

number of stone

carrying pedestrians

beneath carriage drives as well

handful of ornamental cast-iron bridges for paths

spanning bridle

trails (figs. 9.37, 9.38).

Bow Bridge, at

narrow neck between the two lobes of the Lake,

best vantage points for vistas. Friends gathered in the

the

evenings at Vatix's house on Eighteenth Street to

allowed pedestrians to cross from the foot of Cherry

March

assist

of the pen-and-ink drawing.

in the preparation

31, 1858, the

deadhne

for the competition,

Olmsted and Vaux submitted their Greensward

which

On

now hangs in the Arsenal,

the

Department of Parks headquarters

Plan,

Hill to the

Ramble, an

for stroUing.

It

intricately

designed woodland

constimtes Vaux's masterwork in this

mid-nineteenth-century building material

(fig. 9.39).

New York City

in Central Park.

On April 28, the commissioners announced their decision to

award first prize and the announced premium

of $2,000 to the Vaux-Olmsted team.

The element

that

more than any other defines

an Olmsted-Vaux landscape

with gentle

rises

arranged about

beyond

its

It

was

a spacious

meadow

and scattered clumps of

trees

periphery so as to lead the eye

indeterminate boundaries into an

sionistic distance

its

its

is

illu-

of seemingly unending rural scenery.

difficult to

achieve in Central Park because of

broken topography and narrow rectangtxlar shape.

Above Ninety-eighth

Street,

however, there was

piece of tableland that lent itself to

becoming

North and East Meadows, while below the Street Transverse

Road the

the

Sixty-Fifth

designers proposed blast-

ing away bedrock in order to for a Ball

a

fill

and level the surface

Ground. Because the transverse road's

341

EXPANDING

9.40.

CITIES

AND NEW SOCIAL INSnTUTIONS

Bethesda Terrace, Central

Park.

The carved panels

encasing the grand double stairs

descending

to the

Bethesda Fountain and the lakeshore depict a rich profusion of animal and vegetal

forms symbolizing the seasons of the year. like this,

ing nature's

manner

Ornamentation

using images depict-

abundance

in

a

similar to that of

medieval stonecarvers, owes a debt to the writings of John Ruskin, an important influence

on the intellectual and

artistic

culture of Victorian England

and

its

counterpart

in

nine-

teenth-century America.

Today Olmsted and

dzed

as

\

aux are sometimes

Most important, the Greensward Plan was

objectives because they created a park

supple in

its abilit}'

elitist

for scenic \'ie\\'ingbv carriage

to

on

foot

and on horseback

—

as

— and did not cater to a greater degree

more populist pastimes

in\

oh-ing games and sports.

This viewpoint imposes a later value S}'Stem on their objectives

and ignores the

fact that, at the

time thev

designed Central Park, the phvsical recreational mo\'e-

ment

still

lav in the tuture. For their romanticallv

inclined generation, scenic strolling w^as a healthful

pastime

much

enjoyed bv

all classes.

Thev were

cere in their belief that this pleasure, which

Unlike

manv

to absorb

w hich

r^'plcall^'

facilities,

consist of single -purpose recreation

the spaces

Olmsted and Vaux created are

to serv e a varietv" of purposes. In his writings,

divided the park's landscape into

"neighborly" and "greganous." the former being for

came

to the park to picnic

latter

was designed

and enjov scenerv: while the

who congregated in the manner of Parisians on boulewas thus intended as a place

They were cominced scenen,'

that the park's pas-

would serve

as

an unconscious process of scenic enjoyment shared values, w'hich were ian,

of the It is

still

m the

predominanth" agrar-

new democratic sodet}--in-formation.

undeniable that there were certain prospec-

who felt few transcendental stirrings in the presence of scener\' and who saw the park merely as tive users

a social arena, a place to parade their wealth

and mar-

riageable daughters, often e.\ercising iU-disguised class

prejudice. But this did not

mean

that the idealism

expressed in the vision of Olmsted and Vaux

genuine.

popular

They

was not

did not discourage such immediately

activities as ice-skating

nature and one's

and boating on the

in

The park

which to delist in both

common humanitv:

Absent from the Greensward Plan were Dovvn-

an infor-

mal public school, instructing immigrants through

who

to serve the parade of strangers

ety,

and Picturesque

space:

small groups consisting of families and friends

vards to enjov the spectacle of one another

toral

able

Olmsted

two kinds of

soften the lives ot the less tormnate

countries.

years.

He bv the uventieth-centuiv park builder Robert Moses,

sin-

akin to being

new uses over the

of the landscapes presented to the pub-

Olmsted

moved by poetn.; would members of sociwhich included many newcomers from other

deemed to be

342

use and abuse rather than to discnminate against a class ot users.

agents of

well as

ciiti-

being the carriers of patrician values and the

rng's

proposed "noble works of

art.

stames.

monu-

ments and buildings," although in 1880 "Vaux bmlt the first

structure housing the Metropolitan

inside the park near Fifth

ond

Museum

Avenue and East Eightv'-sec-

Street. In addition, a conser\'atory originally

planned near Street

Fifth Av-enue

and East Seventv-fourth

was constructed in 1899

in the

north end of the

park near Fifth Av-enue and East 105th Street on the site

where Olmsted had

set

up

a temporarv' nurserv*

and botanic garden. Throughout the park the rural motif ruled

in the

predominant

interest of "neigh-

borly" recreation, but an important area

was

reserv ed

for "gregarious" purposes: the elm-arcaded Mall, a

concourse extending from

Lake, and the rules Olmsted promulgated as superin-

straight

tendent were designed to protect the park from over-

enty-second Street, which was set on a diagonal axis

Sixtv'-fifth

to Sev-

THE

to detract attention

from the park's rectilinear bound-

aries.

Focused upon Vista Rock in the distance, which

Vaux

later

crowned with the neo-Gothic,

castlelike

Belvedere, this grand promenade, designed for sociable congregation, leads strollers to a

broad stairway

Great

Hill,

which Olmsted and Vaux encircled with

an appendage to the West Drive to afford carriage ers

panoramic prospects from

park.

high point

this

The commissioners soon

topography between 106th and

1

rid-

in the

realized that the

would

10th Streets

was

and through the Arcade beneath the Seventy-second

not readily permit urban development because

Street Cross Drive to the lakeside Terrace, Vaux's

both too elevated by bedrock protrusions and too

architectural masterpiece

swampy where the resistant Manhattan schist gives way to the easily erodible Inwood marble that under-

(fig. 9.40).

Here, with his collaborator Mould, Vaux designed a pair of

monumental staircases carved with

ornamental panels, profuse with motifs of vegetation

and

wildlife representing the four seasons.

grand

stairs

These

provided an alternative means of reach-

ing the Terrace, useful for those alighting from carriages

parked on the Cross Drive rather than passing

on foot from the Mali through the Arcade.

In the cen-

of the circular Terrace, a jet sent a plume of water

ter

into the air until

it

was replaced in the 1 870s by a foun-

surmounted by a sculpture representing the angel

tain

that

bestowed healing power upon the pool of

Bethesda in Jerusalem.^'' This work by

Emma Steb-

bins (1815-1882) celebrated the public health benefits

brought to the

city a

generation earlier by the

Croton Aqueduct, and the figures

at the fountain's

base symbolize the blessings of Temperance, Purity, Health, and Peace.

Two

tall

poles with ornamental

bases and crossbars for long vertical

lies

the

it

Harlem plain. They wisely acquired this addi-

tional land in 1863, increasing the park's size

acres to 843 acres. This allowed

save the sites of several fortifications

olution and the

War of

from 750

Olmsted and Vaux to

1812, to

left

from the Rev-

promote

of native American trees an already

as a forest

wooded area, and

new

to create the

Harlem Meer

east corner, a

much larger water body than the Pond

in the park's

north-

in the southeast (fig. 9.41).

An army of a thousand workers, directed at first by Olmsted, moved nearly

5

mUlion cubic yards, or

approximately 10 million one-horse cartloads of stone, earth,

and topsoil out of or into the park

between 1858 and

1873. In addition,

Olmsted super-

vised chief landscape gardener Ignaz

Anton

planting a rich variety of trees, shrubs,

Pilat in

and

vines.

Moreover, he promulgated park rules and oversaw

banners

the training of a cadre of park keepers responsible for

stand next to the Lake where the designers effected a

maintaining order and educating the public to respect

fishtail

AH

seemingly effordess transition from modest grandeur

the landscape.

to Picturesque simplicity. This achievement

evident

he was subjected to the oversight and penny-pinching

way the designers made the geometric lines

curtailments imposed by the park commission's

also in the

is

of the Mail and Terrace merge gracefully with the curving paths and naturalistic scenery alongside them. fri

the south end of the park, the designers paid

particular attention to the needs of

dren, visitors

women and chil-

who might not wish to wander far from

comptroller,

the while, to his intense irritation,

Andrew Haswell Green.

In 1861, the Civil

War interrupted the partners'

collaboration on the ongoing creation of Central Park. Olmsted, trative abilities

who

prided himself on his adminis-

more than

his

landscape

artistry, 9.41.

its

principal entrance at Fifty-ninth Street

Avenue. Immediately south of the

and

Fifth

Sixty-fifth Street

Transverse Road and serviceable from

it,

Vaux con-

structed the Dairy, a small building of rusticated stone

with an ample

wooden loggia providing shelter from

the sun and inclement weather Here children could play with toys furnished fresh cow's milk.

The

by

a

park attendant or drink

designers christened a large

nearby outcrop of Manhattan

schist the Kinderberg.

Polished by glacial scouring to form a natural

had broad steps carved into ter

crowning its

its

slide, it

base and a rustic shel-

The fenced playgrounds that are

top.

popular attractions

in today's

park were added

after

1934 by Moses, but in the nineteenth century, park

workers

set

up portable swings and seesaws in season.

In the original

border of the park is

tum was

Greensward at

Plan, the northern

106th Street where an arbore-

specified but never buUt

on the

east side,

while on the west side there was nothing beyond the

NEW METROPOLIS

accepted a position as the executive secretary of the U.S. Sanitary

Commission, the forerunner of the

Harlem Meer and the

Charles A. Dana Center, Central Park

EXPANDING

CITIES

AND NEW SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS

American Red Cross. He desired cause,

to serve the

Union

vation

known

as

Mount

Prospect.

and reasoning that moving nurses and supplies

Olmsted, loath to subject himself again to the

moving

kind of "squabbles with the Commission and the

to the front

was

a managerial task similar to

men and materials in the park, he departed for Washington, leaving Vaux in charge of the

work in the park,

which continued throughout the war.

politicians"

he had experienced in Central Park, was

reluctant to accept Vaux's second entreaty to enter

suasively as possible:

Olmsted Until 1863,

in Tr^ansition

when he

sonal ambition

accepted a position as the

resi-

— but

do not see that you

am perhaps

"I I

are

deficient in per-

you

honored by developing

this

feel for

work of course

it

— don't come.

fimess for art

Olmsted helped reorganize the Army's Medical

be the

Bureau, took charge of distributing food and goods

administration combined. Think this over.

collected

from branches of the Sanitary Commission

Union

and oversaw the evacuation of wounded

soldiers

on

hospital transport ships. In Cali-

fornia, while supervising the

Mariposa operations, he

served as the head of a commission to

make recom-

ley as a public preserve. .Although

had discovered

its

tion.

a tourist attrac-

Congress had the previous year withdrawn

California "for public use, resort,

it

it

to the state of

and recreation," the

area in the nation to be set aside for this purpose.

Olmsted's preliminary report on The Yosemite Valley

and

the

Mariposa Big Trees

is

a

landmark enunciating

me

art

of

We are neiit

seems

&

Olmsted was

together, impossible to either alone. still

reluctant to consider himself an artist but thought

that

he could "do anything with proper

combine means

was already

know. To

must

always has seemed a magnificent opening. Possible

Anglo-Americans

from the public domain and deeded

first

men you

ther of us old

money enough

spectacular scenery only sixteen

years before, Yosemite

It

of landscape architecture and the

art

Val-

mendations on the management of the Yosemite

as per-

in others. If

can

dent manager of the Mariposa Mines in California,

in the North,

him

into collaboration. Vaux, however, urged

to ends better than most,

beautiful landscapes

and I love

make

I

a living

of work, he nevertheless decided to return

in this line

New York and join Vaux in

struction of Central Park

the continuing con-

and the design of the park

that Brooklyn's civic leaders

of

or

can

— better than anybody else

know."'^^ StiU uncertain that he could

lation

I

and rural recreations and people

in rural recreations

to

assistants,

— anything any man can do.

wanted to buUd in emu-

it.

the individual's right to enjoy public scenery and the

government's obligation to protect of that

citizens' exercise

Vaux had already convinced James Stranahan, the pres-

right.

At this period in his life, Olmsted still considered 9.42.

Meadow

The Long

illustrates the kind

scenic unfolding of pas-

toral

landscape design merely as a sideline. As the fortunes

of the Mariposa mining venture sank, he considered returning to a career in journalism. At the

same

time,

ized by the state legislature Flatbush Avenue

ern portion of

— was

— 350 acres straddling

less desirable

than the west-

this site plus a large tract

of adjoining

landscape that consti-

tutes the

essence

and Vaux's park

of

Olmsted

ideal.

The

eye threads a passage through clumps of trees, passing over a series of gentle

ident of the park board, that the original site author-

Long Meadow, Prospect

Park, Brooklyn.

of

Creating Pkospect Park

undulations to a hazy hori-

Vaux,

who had been forced by political

resign his Central Park position,

pressure to

wrote Olmsted

say-

ing that they had been offered reappointment as land-

scape architects profession

—

— the

title

in Central

they chose for their

Park and that there was

farmland where there existed the opportunity to ate

an

large lake.

cre-

of infinitely extensive rural space and a

illusion

The

popularity of ice-skating in Central

Park made an even larger Prospect Park lake competitively attractive,

and the park commissioners agreed

zon line that appears to

extend beyond the park's confines.

another important commission awaiting collaboration:

Prospect Park in Brooklyn,

named

for the ele-

to divest themselves

of Flatbush Avenue

site east

the Brooklyn

Garden

of the portion of their original

Museum

— and

— land now occupied by

of Art and Brooklyn Botanic

to purchase the site

recommended by

Vaux, bringing the park's total acreage to 526.

The park did not have prominent, rock outcrops

like

ice-polished

the ones that picturesquely

accented the scener\' in Central Park, but ated

on

a glacial

rich soil erratics

was

situ-

moraine. This provided a naturally

and a gentiy

—

it

rolling terrain as well as glacial

large boulders left after the ice melted.

The

designers artfully employed these as compositional

elements

when

they built the Ravine between the

Long Meadow and ating the 75 -acre

strained

the Lake

(figs. 9.42, 9.43).

In cre-

Long Meadow, they were not con-

by the disposition of the park's boundaries

—

^

THE

9.43.

NEW METROPOLIS

Plan of Prospect Park,

Brooklyn, by Frederick

Law

Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. 1871

Below:

9.44.

The Ravine,

Prospect Park, Brooklyn, c.

as they

had been

in Central

Park where they were

hampered by the firmly rectilinear shape

As in Central Park, the designers created a space

by

for "gregarious" recreation in the elegant concert grove

the 1811 grid plan for Manhattan. Also, in Prospect

with ornamental stonework by Vaux similar to that

Park they were free of the necessity of providing

which distinguished Bethesda Terrace

dictated

nonpark traffic. TTius they were

transverse roads for

able "to connect a series of dissevered

and isolated

patches of comparatively level ground, into one

sweep of grass-land a really

that

is

extensive enough, to

make

permanent impression on the mind."^"

the perimeter of the

Long Meadow

On

— considered by

The concert grove

is

flanked by an upper and a lower

carriage concourse accessible circuit drive,

in Central Park.

from the

park's sinuous

and the whole ensemble constituted an

informal amphitheater oriented to face the small Music Pavilion located

on an

covered over by the

island in Prospect Lake,

Wollman

Rink.

The

now

Ravine's

they

many as the quintessential Olmstedian landscape mounded earth into berms and then created spa-

planted slopes, which has recendy been restored, sim-

cious vaulted tunnels, a design master stroke that

ulated the rugged picturesqueness one might find

orchestrates the passage of visitors in a

manner that

1870

stream with waterfalls spilling over rocks and profusely

an outing in the

Catskill

Mountains

on

(fig. 9.44).

induces surprise and heightens sensory awareness and appreciation of the long vista of gently undulating rural scenery.

The pleasure of the experience is height-

ened by the park's urban context.^

The Exploding Metropolis As walled

cities

became

things of the past after the

formation of nation-states and as industrial technol-

ogy provided means of transportation shrank distance, making

it

that effectively

possible to

commute

between widely separated places of work and home, the spatial envelope of cities became gready enlarged. In spite

of a lingering Jeffersonian bias in favor of a

predominantly agrarian destiny for America, manu-

commerce were breeding increasingly

facturing and large

urban populations, and this fostered an unprece-

dented growth victories

in the size

of

cities.

Public sanitation

through the kind of engineering technology

represented by

New York's Croton Aqueduct system

and other Industrial-Age improvements such

smooth macadam roadbeds paving

made

large cities

But they

still

inhabitants, the

more

presented

as

instead of cobblestone livable

than before.

many difficulties for their

most notable being deprivation of

contact with nature as the countryside

became

345

NEW SOCIAL INSTTTUnONS

EXPANDING CmES AND

increasingly distant

from the

dty.

Olmsted and Vaux

that a single park's role as a civilizing influence,

felt

ameliorating the noise and

hectic pace of the metrop-

was still somewhat limited. They envisioned the

conform

to

topography and scenic opportunitv,

which could be captured by the kind of cur\ing align-

ments

that allowed the landscape to unfold

from

a

series

of ever-changing vantage points.

become parkways, tree-canopied transportation corridors conneaed to other parks, the whole forming

The

FiFL-T

a new framework superimposed over the grid, a green

and Vaux the opportunity to advocate a more com-

olis,

carriage drives within parks being extended to

They

skeleton guiding the city's expansion.

Januan- 24, 1866, they articulated under the heading

a circulation system that segregated pri-

from commercial through traffic.

The

as

cit}'

they were the

countr)''s first

urban planners.

New a practical

of

of the

new republic.

preUminan' report to the commissioners dated

"Suburban Connections" the ure

tfie

expressed dem-

Moreover,

it

was

convenience for developers. Xevertheless.

length of the parkway, dividing

Olmsted wTote scathingly about its fek the

Xew York grid to be

of a pleas-

connecting Prospect Park with the beach on

dri\'e

the Atlantic Ocean. Imaginatively, they

saw how

another drive could run east along the beach, then

with the East Ri\ er until it touched the shore

parallel at

Ravenswood, Queens, where either by ferry or hi^

bridges as yet unbuilt the wide crosstown

trees

be planted along

desfrabiHt}'

pass through undeveloped countr\ side, continuing

implied by the 1811 grid plan for

parirs"

ocratic values

In their

an evolving regional organism

Xew York City was congenial to the

to

resi-

development of a more elegant nature being

grasp of the

York 1868 Six rows

prehensive vision for the metropolitan landscape. In

the pattern and nature of urban growth, with

spawned by

were

Olmsted

their

vate estates

ern Parkway, Brooklyn,

creation of the Brookl\Ti park offered

moreover, that roadway layout necessarily dictated

dential

9.45 Plan of a portion of East-

saw.

The

Parkw.ays

disad\'antages.

He

especially uncongenial

tral

it

would connect with one of

Manhattan streets leading to Cen-

Park. Further, they envisioned this extensive

greenway dedicated

to pleasure dri\ing extending

the 260-foot 179-meter) right-of-

way

into a center drive for car-

riages, with side,

one

of

two lanes on each

which was desig-

to the needs of people because the block sizes dictated by

be dKided

street layout forced propert}' to

its

no wider than 25

into deep lots, usually

feet (7.6

west from Central Park to the Hudson it

Rfv^er,

where

could run for a distance parallel to that river with

\'iews of the Palisades

on

the opposite shore and. in

nated a pedestrian walk,

meters). This resulted in rows of

while the other ser\'ed as a side road for the approach of

vehicles to the adjoining

house

lots.

These were

100 feet 130.4 metersi

in

to

cramped narrow

houses with poor light and ventilation.

width,

dences with private gardens.

to the level of a ss'stem, with greener}' easily accessi-

ble

throughout the metropolitan

had not yet been platted,

would permit

lots for

area.

ated that

could be stabled, goods deliv-

penetration by sunlight, and a green

to

be located lots.

Where

land

homes could be cre-

Service lanes where horses

were

Mountains.

Two

years later after

healthful cross ventilation,

in

back

of

grid with

la\\Ti.

and

straight streets intersecting at

its

Unlike the

ri^t angles

the park\A'ay system

static perspectives,

would

-PROPOSEZJ TO

THE

rtr-

T.

metropolitan-scale planning concept

posed

one of

this

They now pro-

scheme, which went beyond thefr original

a

a recreational

parkway Linking two major

parks with the region's ocean beaches and extensh-e river w-aterfront, to

to that of

ATn OJrT

P±A-AA

dty

99 99 99 09 99 90 99 I 99 99 09 90 99 99 99

had

>0 3

much a

of the

borough of

sprung up outside the walls of

earlier

^99 199 99 99

99 99 99 99

99 9S

cities in

In their report

Paris

and

Europe.

Olmsted and Vaux detailed the

histon" of urban street plans

from medie\'al times to

the present, citing the missed opportunity-

when

Wren's plan was ignored in the rebuilding of London after the

;

river

had not yet become

New York — could function as a bedroom New York outside the walls,"

other walled

99

oh

it

they wTOte, an implied reference to the faubourgs that

9d9

Qi30

99

Manhattan across the

suburb. "Brooklyn is

"30© &®ar 0oet

vationism also embraces a genuine reverence for

apart; the

important

loosed

when

a culmral value in

In pointing out the trend

"theming,"

William Butler Yeats lamented, "Things

upon

old certain-

about the existence of a God-ordauied worid order

relics

of the past that

lies

deeper than the

exploitation of histor}' as thematic entertainment,

commercial

asset,

or political statement. Allied with

the desire to preserve authentic landmarks

is

the

were challenged and Romantic intimations of

awareness that the conservation of natural areas

Nature's inherent di\Tnity waned,

vital

it is

perhaps under-

standable that the seat of moral philosophy as cultural

matrix would be superseded by mere storytelling,

a theatrics of past

and place

in the interest

of identirv'

and present pleasure. Without denying that mass tourism and the theming of historic places has certain social

and educational

benefits,

we

ognize that narrative place-making

468

and the unique

Thus, place

"

should also is

rec-

part of a pro-

is

both to planetan," health and human happiness.

In the face of the ease of

mimesis

in the

new

Infor-

mation Age and the specter of increased wholesale destruction of

"first

nature

'

in the

continuing

Machine Age, we must now attempt to understand

what landscape designers and

artists

have done in

recent years as preservationists, conservationists, and creators of metaphorically meaningfal Earthworks.

—

No

roR Ci

1

Four len

TEK

lAi'

I

homes

meet

a Middle Landscape (Cambridge, Mass.:

will

be recalled (see Chap.

4,

note 10) that

ers modified their

a given

landscape can belong

to

one or more

changing personal circumstances have

MIT

been treated by Barbara Kelly

13.

1.

It

of three realms: first

second nature

nature (wilderness),

and

(cultivated fields),

third

to

their

Expand-

in

American Dream: Building and

ing the

nature (the garden as nature perfected and

Rebuilding Levinown(]223). The sociologist

the representation through art of certain cul-

and

ideas and ideals).

tural

We might provision-

term "fourth nature" a concept that

ally

recognizes the machine not as an alien intruder

in

the garden ("third nature") but

rather as a

commonplace adjunct

nature, an often integral of

deep and

of the material,

this,

a critical

technology's

the form of automata

home

ture has long

been

agriculture

the industrialized countries

the garden,

in

is

almost wholly dependent upon mechanization,

upon

at

and even wilderness

is

(New York:

Sfafes

impinged

every turn by technology. But the

1985) has a section on Levittown as Yard, Street, Park:

famous working-class suburb

mended

fully

the position that the

machine and technology have come occupy within the human psyche, and role in animating 2.

A body

their

landscape design.

of sociological

erature has

to

and

historical

lit-

three Levittowns

in

New York, New Jersey,

and Pennsylvania. The instant popularity

of

the $7,000, 750-square-foot, four-room

Cape Cod houses

— predecessor

"Rancher" and "Country Clubber"

manner

century French arcades, progenitors of the

department

Donald

Waldie, a lifelong resident and

J.

which Abraham

Ho^ /.and (New York: W. W.

the author of

Norton 3.

&

Company,

6.

L.

8.

7,

1999, Section

Michael Sorkin (New York: The Noonday Press, 1992). 15.

As quoted

York: Harry N. 16. Ibid 17.

According to

Girling

and Kenneth

I.

18.

Help-

industry,

and the ways

in

which homeown-

See Richard Longstreth, "The

p.

Diffusion

Community Shopping Center Concept

during the Interwar Decades," Journal of

—

a

still

former

at the Pierpont

Italy,

Morgan

2000-January

7,

in

part

Library,

of the

the Society of Architectural Historians, Sep-

lage's alteration since he

tered

1997, pp. 268-93.

good discussion

of the pedestrian mall

of the evolution

and other American

realms," see Peter G. Rowe,

Making

it

the

September

2001. Ruskin

had comit

1865,

in

because he wanted

no longer reminded

in

Ruskin's England"

missioned this watercolor but sold

probably

for

by Joseph

(1845),

Mallord William Turner (1775-1851),

tember

"retail

Marceline]

outside Disney's

exhibition "Ruskin's

p. 30.

28,

12. For a

[in

garbage dump

Quoted within the caption text

to

be

Swiss Alpine

vil-

had

first

encoun-

as a young man.

William Butler Yeats, "The Second

ing,"

management techniques and techno-

"locals

bedroom window commemorated as Magic Mounone of Disneyland's themed roller-

pit

19.

logical innovations to the construction

Inc., 1996), p. 25.

New York 77mes article of

a

15, 1998,

point out the

11. Ibid., p. 289.

tory

Abrams,

p. 14.

,

October

10. Ibid., p. 278.

Levitt

Beth Dunlop, Building the

in

Dream: The Art of Disney Architecture {Uew

"Lucerne from the Lake"

2, p. 37.

Herbert Gans, The Levittowners{]%T),

of the

Shopping

a

in

on a Theme Park, ed.

coaster rides.

New York Times, Sun-

207. 9.

Mall," Variations

tain,"

Gwendolyn Wright,

Cynthia

phenomenon, see Mar-

that he

Holy Land, pp. 36-37.

day, February 7.

cultural

garet Crawford, "The World

slag

1996).

developing his

in

as an all-pervasive con-

14. For the mall

temporary

and

in

which the author uses as

store,

metaphorical device

sons William and Alfred introduced fac-

the his

to the

lines

been ren-

human memory by

place resonant with

hand, Yard Street, Park,

grown up documenting the

on

than the FHA-recom-

curvilinear layout, has

5. Ibid., p. 59.

more

built

dered as an historical phenomenon and

4. Ibid., p. 40.

nizes

and Ken-

Girling

Helphand. Lakewood, an early and

I.

encompasses

recog-

does

The Design of Suburban

Open Space by Cynthia L

notion posited here of a "fourth nature" a partnership that

Oxford University Press,

a grid plan, rather

irreversible.

of operational infrastrucat

Harvard University Press,

of

Frontier: the Suburbanization of the United

new

less

in

Levit-

Eiland and

1999) for a discussion of the nineteenth-

advent of Internet of creating a

about

in

The

in

Belknap Press

observations on modernity.

which now encompasses even remote parts

Machinery

community

Ways of Life and Politics in a New

Howard

Books, 1969). Kenneth Jackson's Crabgrass

to

neth

and other kinds

life

politics of that

towners;

penetration of the humanized landscape,

of the earth, is

its

and he chronicled the

1982), trans.

Kevin McLaughlin (Cambridge, Mass.: The

and expressive part

means

or neutral position

and

Jersey, for two years at

in 1958,

mann,

a

Whether one takes

physical world.

inception

ject (Das Passagen-Werk, ed. Rolf Tiede-

Suburban CommunitYiNewYork: Pantheon

independent

spatial realm

New

town,

in Levit-

pp. 109-47.

4,

all

fabric and, with the

its

technology, the

planner Herbert Gans lived

city

Press, 1991), chap.

See Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Pro-

Com-

Michael Roberts and the Dancer \n

The Collected Works ofW.B. Yeats: Volume I,

The Poems,

lan Publishing

rev. ed.

(New

Company,

York:

1983),

p.

Macmil187.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

HOLDING ON AND LETTING GROW: LANDSCAPE AS PKESERVATION, CONSERVATION, ART, SPORJ, AND THEORY

X he rapidity of change in the designed landscape

is

an important

the land

and enfolded them into the

by-product of modernity. The accelerating powers of the Late

the rural landscape that the

Machine Age and the new Information Age have gained tremendous

den," as analyzed by Leo

force as the fast-paced

and continually evolving

and technology has assumed

a position

alliance

of science

of extraordinary cultural

dominance in contemporary society This has caused the meaning of space and time to simultaneously expand and contract. Even as

contemplate rary

travel to the

its

framework. Because of these

things, everything

appears to be mutable. Increasingly, place appears to be in Just as

modern

proving that outer space

is

an indeterminate galactic sprawl,

metaphor of "the machine

in the gar-

a literary perspective in his

book of that tide, can now be inverted;

the quintessential rus in urbe,

Central Park, could be called "the garden in the machine" that

New

York

City, the heart

Even where suburbanization has not occurred, farming as an

economic mainstay and means of all

individual family livelihood has

but disappeared as industrial technology has transformed food efficient transportation

systems have enabled

national and global shipments of perishable commodities. Rural land,

much

of

it

reverting to second growth,

valued more as

is

so too have the centrifugal forces that once constellated suburbs

scenery than as cropland or pasmre. Local farming, where

within the orbit of major urban centers been superseded by newer

exists,

technologies that a patterning

make even so-called Edge

of amorphous

human

Cities edgeless, part of

settlement never before seen.

Like a mutating organism, this kind of sprawling urbanism

is

part

new landscape of electric power grids, cities that

ern regional city

conti-

would seem

unbelievable to a visitor from the not-too-distant past.

The mod-

— a loose-knit urban agglomerate containing

ports, expressways, a vast

network of

streets

idential location

centers

—

is still

set in a sea

a recent

air-

of suburban homes and shopping

phenomenon. The passenger

elevator,

water mains, and pipes for the delivery of hot and cold running water, the flush toilet

granted are minor

—

all

these developments that

when compared with

revolutionized agriciilture and gathered

470

the

is

we now take for

way technology

has

up entire populations from

it

stUl

either marginal or a specialized enterprise cater-

agrarian occupation or

A

rural residence

no longer implies an

oudook as increasingly for many people res-

becoming a matter of personal

choice. in the

colonization of regional space. Everywhere the forces of global capitalism are at work. ing,

Powered by mass marketing and

advertis-

they are creating a universal culture, making national and

regional identities less distinctive even as growing tourists travel to

remote places

in search

of

numbers of

local color.

Centripetal as well as centrifugal forces are at work. As cities

and corresponding

pattern of lights and neon signs, and air-conditioned high-rise

commercial buildings

become

Corporate franchises have assisted suburban developers

Industrial technology has created within the span of a single

nent-spanning highways, and skyscraper

has

ing to an upscale market.

of the unending process of landscape transformation.

century an entirely

is

of the Atlantic seaboard megalopolis,

which extends from Boston to Washington, D.C.

production and

flux.

physics has unseated old cosmological veri-

Urbanism has so pervaded

Marx from

outer reaches of our universe, contempo-

cosmology offers only the most contingent explanation of our

place within

ties,

we

city.

in

America and elsewhere begin to reverse

their recent decades

of

decline with renewed capital investment in their core areas and the residential return of retirement couples

and young

professionals,

their attractiveness as places to live as well as their role as tourist

destinations at

and entertainment centers

is

increasing.

Thus we

see

the beginning of the twenty-first century a transformation of

the city not by governmental planning, such as

was sought by

GROW

HOLDING ON AND LETTING

visionaries at the beginning of the previous century, but rather

promoting themselves

cities are

and a more

vibrant

terms of the service economy

in

than can be found in the suburbs.

lifestyle

promenades

are reconfiguring industrial waterfronts as restaurants, sports

commercial

facilities,

real estate

and outdoor festival

Many

lined with

spaces; retrofitting

with maU-style stores and theaters; turning

industrial buildings into loft apartments, shops, artists' studios

and reclaiming abandoned

galleries;

by

No longer centers of manufacturing and trade, some

free enterprise.

jogging and bike

trails.

rail

personal needs

as

Cultural centers, entertainment complexes,

way

the only

and

in

diffuse, this imagistic

cities

grow

form of perception

which we are able to make sense of our

roundings. Urban

become

public space has, like films

is

sur-

and photomontage,

for deconstructivist philosophers such as Jacques Derrida

1930) an impersonal vessel for multiple, simultaneous, and

(b.

sequential personal meanings.

The

and

and canal rights-of way

— become geographies of the mind. As

increasingly vast

is

modern

incomprehensibility of the

city

and

its

suburbs

mitigated by networks of communication and transportation

—

newspapers, radio and television broadcasting, bus and subway

We grasp the city in terms of these lines of movement and

and arenas for spectator sports are high on almost every contempo-

routes.

rary urban agenda. These things, together with electronic-game

channels of information, media for a miscellany of messages as

arcades, health dubs, tennis centers,

making

are

facilities,

cities

and other fimess and recreational

places that are increasingly dedicated to

In addition, with a sense of

tries

entidement to recreational ben-

the democratic values of

and Japan,

Western industrial coun-

leisure continues to give rise to

new land uses and

landscape designs, as evidenced by the construction of golf courses in

many

countries and climates, even desert ones, because of the

phenomenal

an obscure sport that

latter-day popularity of

origi-

nated on the links lands of estuarial Scodand in the fifteenth century.

Thus,

ironically, in

accommodating new forms of pleasure, the

metropolis, which has so urbanized that

its

natural environs have

more parklike

the

means of navigating

all

fic.

at

is itself

becoming

home

news services' roving video crews.^ We swim uli,

visible

former appearance,

and educating the

public. Aerial

photography

for the cultural geographer's reading It

has

made commonplace

assisting preservationists is

an important tool

of the vernacular landscape.

the synoptic vision that Patrick

advocated from his Outlook Tower

—

that

is,

seeing

cities

Geddes

reveals overall structure while eliminating detail

whereby

artists

rary nature

sight close-range

of Earthworks or Conceptual pieces of a tempo-

With the commodification of urban

city.

photography has altered the way

Film has made

relevant fragments

them

from

in

a plethora

of visual stimuli and reassem-

into a coherent personal

imagery and narrative that

both sensory and symbolic. Urbanites are

all

impersonal immensity would be

composite conceptualization.

fldnerie,

life,

film has

difficult

city

is,

as

city,

courtesy of the

of visual stim-

intently

is

not our

street.

and

life

culture,

as ads

its

rivers

on bus

shelters,

of rippling neon

ambiguous nocturnal

the spatially

surreal aspect catering to the alluringly

By both night and

pho-

day,

city

can

dreams and desires

on

the

movie screen

shop windows proclaim

the sexualization of the urban environment as well as the increasingly public face of pornography.

Former

cityscapes of stone

and

brick and steel and glass are being transformed into the scenery of signs as virtuality

The

city as

overwhelms an arena of

reality.

human

endeavor, community, and

pleasure persists in spite of ugliness, suburban sprawl, and the rav-

aging effect of the automobile upon rience of place within

it.

Shopping

its

physical fabric

as a

and the expe-

form of entertainment

is

a

hallmark of the consumer society, and even in the face of electronic

Fifth

catalogue merchandising, people

still

gravitate to

Avenue, WHshire Boulevard, and Michigan Avenue as well as

the mall.

Today the

the city of

city

of smokestack factories has given way to

commingled commerce and

recreation.

And yet there is a sense of malaise and loss. The commodifi-

is

and the ease with which nature and the

built envi-

in

its

ronment can be

this strategy

of

equipment have made the human bond with namre appear tenu-

An important means of distraction become a contemporary form of

mapping of the

and on the

home

without

lights,

photography has projected so

cation of space

the voyeuristic pursuit of the everyday

metropolis. Mental

that

film editors to a

degree; understanding the metropolis and feeling at

from everyday

which we

us comfortable with montage, choosing

same

in eroticizing the public envi-

and movie marquees. With

billboards,

commerce and

document and gain recognition of their work.

In addition,

read the

bling

from

and disorder Further, photography is the indispensable means

at the

surroundings but the mental images evoked by representa-

tography has played a significant role

and their

regional landscapes entire in a single panoramic bird's-eye view that

traf-

tions of another reality elsewhere.

assume a fantastic,

photographs of landscapes and cityscapes provide a valu-

and

in a sea

and increasingly what we focus upon most

stimulates an appreciation of the poetics of place and builds archives

able record of their

own

scene of a crime in another part of our

and moving car

historical

flow of

a large

physically in front of the television set

vious chapter, grows apace. As a genre, landscape photography

and uses of places through time. Today

is

domi-

it

time mentally in Bangladesh where disaster has struck or at the

ronment. Libidinal stimuli proliferate

in character.

Photography's relationship to landscape, discussed in the pre-

that register the appearance

where there

as

We have become comfortable with our dichotomous existence,

surrounding rural landscape

its

but disappeared,

the metropolis. Photography in

form of advertising saturates these networks just

nates prominent public spaces

personal gratification.

efits implicit in

well as the

dramas of the

urban design analyst

altered with

heavy earthmoving and construction

many of the now lie in ruins, so, too, are the architectural wonders of one generation torn down by the

ous and the

tie

with the past seem

fragile. Just as

mighty monuments intended for the ages

next.

The commitment to create public places that express the

val-

Kevin Lynch taught, a means of parsing it through a process of per-

ues of society has waned. Municipal governments in the United

sonal landmarking.' Notable architecture and important public

States are

places

—

as well as the locations

of establishments that cater to our

no longer

tury ago and

able to sustain the parks they built only a cen-

must depend upon varying degrees of private

citizen

471

HOLDING ON AND LEHING

and help maintain them.

initiative to restore

buildings

we

GROW

Clearly, the

notion that

provide through repeated acts of maintenance and preserva-

tion

is

Many people fear that the Faustian forces that have propelled may be careening out of control. Humanity's relationship

modernity

with nature has been thoroughly inverted. Having gained the tech-

power Goethe

humans have

teenth-

ogy

as a

artists

contemporary

on the

nine-

human ends. Gone is the optimism and belief in technol-

modernism such

as

in considerations

sumer, the

a degree of horror

worthy partner of nature

engaged viewers

acted ruthlessly, poisoned

and twentieth-century belief in environmental engineering

solely for

monuments, provided the context for a Conceptual

who

species to decline or become extinct. Because of this,

now look back with

order of society and the discrediting of the symbolical value of ditional

developers

and water, destroyed forests and wetlands, and caused many wild

society can

and chaotic landscape of late-twentieth-century

ating, diffuse,

and behaving no

foretold in Faust, Part II

longer as nature's subjects, air

site.

Reaction to the architecturally bland, commercially ingrati-

America, coupled with a profound questioning of the established

wishful thinking.

nological

only by virtue of occupying an authentically historic

and landscapes have any real permanence other than what

by proponents of

as expressed

Benton MacKaye, Christopher Tunnard, and

of entropy. Urdike theme-park at the

do so

in reaction to the

consumer society and what they perceive

values of the

modffication of

art.

mass con-

create a novel poetics of place with large-

scale transformations of the landscape

in

aimed

create a famiirar product

who

tra-

art that

Implicit in their art

is

as the

com-

an attitude toward time

which "both past and future are placed

into an objective pres-

ent."^

The Earthworks movement pioneered by Robert Smithson

and

group of fellow

a

sition to traditional

Garrett Eckbo (see Chapters Twelve and Thirteen). Instead, the envi-

tional

artists,

who positioned themselves in

modes of

artistic

framework for displaying

art,

oppo-

expression and the institu-

created a

new kind of

anti-

ronmental movement, with its wide-ranging and sometimes intendy

monumental, monumental

focused mission of of planetary damage control, has gathered broad

rather against the ages.'"* Within the context of a

support within industrial nations since the 1970s.

ety surfeited with banal products, Smithson and other Earthworks

Like wilderness, historic landscapes exist are protected by legislation but

on sufferance; some

remain vulnerable to encroachment

and destruction by economic and political forces. Especially in America,

where the

citizenry has profligately exploited land

and a mobile

many oncehandsome towns are both rammed through and rimmed by high-

an

artists, like

art that

earlier generation

— and dehumanized emptiness structures

simply

was "not built for the

of Surrealist

ages, but

consumer

artists,

saw- denatured

"a 'City of the Future'

made of null

and surfaces, [which] performs no natural hanction

exists

soci-

[but]

between mind and matter, detached from both,

—

rep-

road culttire has been a forceful determinant of land use,

resenting neither"'

ways fringed with gas

work they fostered the spirit found in the literature of Latin American Magic Realists such as Jorge Luis Borges. They often

stations, fast-food franchise establishments,

and other commercial operations with signs aggressively sized and

moving motorist.

illuminated to catch the eye of the rapidly

This willful eradication of tieth

much historic

fabric in the

cities to a far

greater degree than

In their

sought

Haussmann

regard for history created a palpable discontinuity with the past. In

forms

of architecture and urbanism are endangered. This helps account for the high regard in

which landmark designation and preserva-

tion are held today.

and sky, forms Hke the mounds and other earthworks found in prehistoric ritual centers.

worthy ward of humanity, preservation of the

ronment, an ilarly

Today,

entirely laudable

and overdue

patronizing position. Formerly,

effort,

we

built envi-

has come to a sim-

created

monuments

as

symbols honoring a moral contract that present and future gener-

we

find an orientation toward the psychological

tual focus

upon exegesis and fact collection. Contemporary West-

is

ern culture, lacking an overarching, society-embracing religious or ideological construct,

rights,

It

is

obsessed with history and historical

places emphasis

and the

upon personal

replicate old folkways

and familiar environments, indigenous

the strange cling to traditional forms as a

means of maintaining

and personal esteem. As culmral geographer David

self-recognition

because the contemporary world

Lowenthal

means of experiencing

many iUs and uncertainties, people

and economic practices

hopes of progress

artifacts the social

experience, individual

groups threatened by the rapid transformation of the familiar into

cumbed to

through architecture and

revi-

Along with diaspora populations attempting to

seff.

ations hold with the values represented by past heroes. This has suc-

a fascination with history as a

and

the empirical in contemporary Western thought and Hfe. Intellec-

sionism.

But just as environmental stewardship inevitably mrns namre into the

desert environments where, using

and often with the same cosmological relationship between earth

did nineteenth-century Paris. Modernism's radical, intentional dis-

reaction, there arose a well-supported beUef that traditional

sites for their projects in

heavy earthmoving equipment, they constructed, on a similar scale twen-

century by transportation engineers and "urban renewal" plan-

ners has brutalized

as a metaphorically appropriate expression.

posits,

is

beset with

"revert to ancestral legacies.

fade, heritage consoles us

As

with tradition."^ Our

and lost craft skills of pretechnological times. While dependent upon

challenge today

automobile transportation and the modern technological service

standing of the ephemeral nature of place to positive account, mak-

infrastructure that

and

its

makes tourism possible, Colonial Williamsburg

counterparts ably serve this purpose. Guides provide inter-

pretive narratives that satisfy people's desire to

comfortable facsimile of life in bygone days. ulate past

environments for the same reasons, and today some

toric small

472

sample vicariously a

Theme parks also sim-

towns and urban centers

are distinguished

his-

from these

ing

is

to safeguard the future

by turning our under-

good new spaces by preserving some good old

daring to trust our capacity to create anew.

upon our

sldll

and luck

rate in their design a

in

places while

Our success will depend

achieving environments that incorpo-

more

perfect understanding of ecological

processes and the rightful role of history and nature in

than

is

now the

case.

human Hfe

PRESERVING THE PAST

I.

KviN(

Pill SI

.

1

1

Pasi: Pi Aci as

II

TouKisi Lanl^scapi:,

and Nlw

I

Idln

liRi iage,

1

1

1

y,

LIkbanist Commlini y i

Landscape preservation is the process of investing cer-

associated with past eras. Purged of political rancor

tain portions of environment, both designed spaces

and ordinary misery, the landscapes that project the

and vernacular

mystique of former ages

thetic value,

things

places,

with historical meaning, aes-

and symbolical

and created artifacts

Because

intent.

alter

built

all

and deteriorate over

time, preservation almost invariably implies restoration. If

what

as cultural heritage in a scale reproduction

forms

in

imagination,

and mythic value to serve

more

universal sense, broad-

and replication of the

other contexts

original his-

commonly occurs.

Preslrvahon as Clili

reservoirs of

simile of

Independence Hall

an evocation of

and

it,

likai. Hi ri iagl

in

a fac-

the replica being altered in scale

program. Along with several other

architectural

state buildings erected at the fair

honoring (one year

the four-hundredth anniversary of Columbus's

late)

landfall in

America and, by association the Founders

of the republic, that

Chicago was

in Philadelphia, or rather

helped further the Colonial Revival

it

had been sparked by the Centennial Exposition

of 1876

in Philadelphia.

The Colonial

Revival style

was subsequently disseminated in tandem with the Neoclassical Beaux- Arts style,

featured in the

iconic

buildings around

Honor (see fig.

9.56).

The

and narrative value of landmark reproductions

much asj local, erful

so

much

stasis,

grounded

in the

myth

it

and

commemorate

the

much more pow-

Lynch was interested in

tran-

the "preserved-in-amber" quaUty of

model of preservation

A more dynamic

that included the evidence

of

—the ebb and flow of events across space — would encode cherished spaces notations time

a particular

into

of change;

it

would commemorate death and demise

as well as birth

ing idea

was

and

creation.

Lynch 's radical-sound-

"to conserve and to destroy the physical

environment so

as to support

and to enrich the sense

of time held by the very people that use

it."*

Dolores Hayden, professor of Architecture, Urbanism, and American Studies

at Yale University,

shares Lynch 's concern to discover strategies for investing ordinary places with

means of connecting the

ple to their

is

theorist,

ordinary places [inas-

historic preservation.

lary of the Colonial Revival

obvious; the relatively

human

for us than the illustrious time of

national monuments."'^

scending

in

intimate time has a

meaning

as a

is

environmental design

of ordinary people

of Independence Hall and the entire design vocabu-

brief history of the United States

the

thoughtful writer on the subject of place has sug-

which was prominently

monumental white

Daniel Burnham's Court of

on

memory. Kevin Lynch (1918-1984), an

influential teacher,

gested that 'we might begin to

State Building at the World's

Columbian Exposition of 1 893

retain their hold

But heritage icons do not tap the more personal

histories

The Pennsylvania

—

becoming totems of both status and ide-

ology

preserved and restored embodies suf

is

ficient significance, beauty,

toric

or colonial America

— whether ancient Greece

commemorative value 15.1.

lives

of ordinary peo-

immediate surroundings. Hayden worked

Independence

Hall,

Magic Kingdom, Walt Disney World, Orlando Florida

attractively

embodies of the simple

refinement of an industrious, fi-eedom-loving people. It is

not surprising therefore to find

Independence

Hall,

many

echoes of

Mount Vernon, and other shrines

of liberty and national foundation in the pseudohistoric architecture

too,

of the present.

It is

abundantly

clear,

why in Disney's Magic Kingdom, where the ener-

getic

wholesomeness of America and its people

paramount message of the

entire

theme

is

the

park, that

there should be a mint-condition reproduction of

Independence Hall

(fig. 15.1).

Historic preservation's role in signaling present

values helps account for the persistence of "the styles" in spite

of Modernism's polemic against them. Like

the view into an endlessly self-reflecting set of mirrors, these imitations

of the past are often imitations

of other earlier imitations of the past, and so on, a chainlike process in

reinvested with

which old forms

new meaning

are continually

as present ideals are

473

HOLDING ON AND LEHING

GROW

his-

Pkesekvation as Cultural Identity

[Los Angeles],

Cultures in transition are pulled in two directions,

over a period of eight years "to situate women's tory and ethnic history in in public places,

projects efforts

by

downtown

through experimental, collaborative

and

historians, designers,

artists."^

The

of Hayden and others have been helped by a

tion,

fectly at times, to respect equally the contributions to

a time

heroes of

stubborn

many

fact

and to honor the heroines and

different ethnic

remains that

ment adheres

backgrounds. The

much preservation

senti-

especially to those outstanding indi-

vidual buildings, cityscapes, and landscapes where

and

stress,

social disloca-

people entertain fantasies of recovering the past,

when

they imagine that

more rewarding,

life

was simpler and

were honest, people were

craftskills

prosperous, and communities lived in harmony.

Although tory, the

this

is

a

thoroughly edited version of

his-

trappings of the past provide useful symbols

for the present.

The

artifacts, architecture,

and land-

money and design tal-

scapes of a bygone era are invested with value and

meaning, becoming the delight of historians and con-

time. In addition, despite a tion

contemporary

toward heroic sentiment and

otic public

disinclina-

noisseurs as well as the icons of embattled gentility.

and patri-

There is a moral dimension and educative element to

religious

monuments, some of the

ideals

and values

this process,

which seeks to make reverence for ances-

forms and older lifeways a rallying point around

of the past that are expressed in historically preserved

tral

landscapes often continue to hold important sym-

which values of nation and community can cohere.

bolical

meaning for people

The New England town, whose

today.

Closely allied with preservation as a

assigning

commemorative value

ronment, conservation

to the built envi-

the protection of natural

we

1780 and 1830, during America's early industrial age.^"

Nesded in hilly and mountainous

terrain,

most

New

England towns were subsequently bypassed by eco-

nomic development, becoming depopulated back-

Both preservation and conservation emerged

waters as railroads sought more accessible routes and

important causes in the second part of the nine-

extended farther west, causing emigration to larger

species.

teenth century. Since the 1960s

— a period of wide-

spread social and political change fostering populism

and democratic empowerment

— recognition of

tremendous population growth and the

dire conse-

quences of rampant development and unchecked industrial pollution have given

movements

impetus to organized

that continue to advance the related

causes of preservation and conservation.

anti-urban bias and are therefore indifferent to issues

regarding the design of tion

and conservation

ethic that values the

cities,

—

both forces

— preserva-

are essential to a landscape

environment

as a

industrial centers

the middle of the nineteenth century, wealthy people

from

wilderness.

To

continuum

urban neighborhoods as well

in

mainstay of most

achusetts,

as elsewhere.

These

form

Improvement

and the Internet

affluent part-time citizens

Societies for the

helped

purpose

oughfares and transforming into grassy, parklike picturesqueness their central

commons, which had been

pastures in Puritan times and remained mostly barren, utilitarian,

ing

workaday spaces

until this landscap-

was undertaken. During his brief but

influential career,

Andrew

Jackson Downing was an early proselytizer for the beautification of

towns and

villages in this way. In

Downing's time, the mid-nineteenth century, houses

modern economies and the means

hope

made

Village

as well

were adorned with brackets and painted in then-fash-

among

that the reportorial

new global information systems and the capabilities

and other towns of the Berkshires

also necessary to

it is

of sustaining decent living standards is

Boston began to establish

new industrial development, the

this integrated perspective

masses. There

as in the

achieve a viable landscape ethic based

accept and help shape

New York and

themselves in summer colonies in Stockbridge, Mass-

which nature is righdy perceived as being everywhere, in the densest

and richer agricultural lands. But by

of planting trees along the towns' principal thor-

Although conservation groups often have an

on

origins

examined in Chapter Six, reached its apogee between

of place and the habitats of other

essential qualities

as

is

means of

from despoliation by human activity that harms

areas

possible

the

power of

management

by computer technology

will assist in

creating this necessary

ethic of responsible total planetary stewardship.

474

economic

times of great techno-

was made by people who were prominent in their

substantial past investment of

ent

past. Especially in

logical change,

changing cultural climate that seeks, however imper-

society of both sexes

toward the future and nostalgically

enthusiastically

toward the

Our

ionable russet

browns and other earth-tone

But following the Centennial of 1876,

began its race toward large-scale early preservationists

mer

tastemakers within

— an

alliance

residents and well-to-do natives

same Anglo-Saxon ethnic

colors.

country

industrialization, the

who were

these venerable communities

as the

origins

of sum-

who shared the

— sought to con-

task here is to advocate that outcome as we examine how preservation and conservation have affeaed land-

nect themselves ideologically and symbolically with

scape as a place-making enterprise.

though elegant, architecture

the nation's beginnings

by adopting style

a

more

chaste,

harking back to the

colonial

and federal periods. In

cut, for instance, residents

houses, which they painted white, although the original

models were mosdy unpainted, with shutters and

trim of handsomely contrasting black or dark green. Outbuildings, barns,

and other unprepossessing rural

paraphernalia that had once surrounded the actual colonial houses

were edited out of the restoration

program. To commemorate the nation's Centennial,

Improvement Society planted

Litchfield's Village

ularly spaced

elm

trees,

reg-

whose overarching branches

soon canopied the main street.

Enthusiasm for colonial heritage extended to

Litchfield, Connecti-

reproduced Colonial-style

In this way, Litchfield,

along with Sharon, Stockbridge, and other early examples of gentrification throughout

New England

other than ifornia,

was gracious, green, white, and steepled.

There was an escapist element historic preservation, a flight

in this

kind of

from the problems of

New Mexico, Texas, and Horida, Anglo-Amer-

which they romanticized

as the Mission Style, while

residents in Louisiana looked appreciatively

1950s,

about ten American

cities,

toward

By the mid-

the residue of a French Colonial past.

including Santa Bar-

New Orleans, had historic districts. This kind

bara and

of preservation, like the yet-to-be-conceived

theme

park, treated landscape as historical narrative, with

emphasis upon those parts of the story that were

most

attractive

slavery, that

and laudable, omitting those, such

Restoration along approved lines in historic tricts

as

caused embarrassment. dis-

has led to wide replication of historic forms. In

some places, in genteel

this

process has also

mythmaking in which

become an exercise restrictive

the swelling industrial cities with their diverse immi-

and

grant populations. There was an element of snob-

fied design, resulting in the wholesale

theme expressed the

In Cal-

icans appropriated a Spanish Colonial design idiom,

projected a composite image of an earlier America, a place that

Anglo-Saxon Protestant forms.

its

a stringent building-approval process

covenants

have codi-

manufacture

assertion

of regional cultural identity by architects and builders

of primacy on the part of the old guard, a means of

through the creation of a romanticized landscape of

securing status and respect within the rapidly chang-

the past. Notable in this regard, Santa Fe,

ing society. Beneath

ico, is a

bery, too; the Colonial

its

veneer of republican virtue

and communal decorum,

inevitable tensions arose

place

New

Mex-

where people of Anglo-Saxon stock

dwell in adobe houses that are

commodious versions

between those mostly well-to-do residents with

of older Hispanic models, which

incomes often derived from

from the architecture and building materials of Native

where and ambiance

local

less

The

industrial enterprises else-

townspeople

who

New

England town assumed

community of

individuals living in a

Its

architectural

forms

common vocabulary employed by devel-

our discussion of Levittown with

we

its

wear the

representatives to be an underclass. But there

a

Cape Cod

financed, highly interpretive historic preservation: Cities

became

a ubiq-

means of fostering consumer trust

particular

is

candy coating, economically speaking, on outsider-

toric

uitous langiaage, a

much-transformed design tradition

shawl while often considering its living

have seen

Greens." Appropriated by hotel chains and corporate franchises, the Colonial Revival style

city's

like a colorful

Colonial houses built around a series of "Village

by linking

Native Americans

of cultural heritage and landscape by non-natives who

opers of early malls and subdivisions, as in

some Hispanics and

understandably resent the hegemonic appropriation

of friendly symbiosis.

served as a

highway, but

many Americans,

neous, nuclear state

American pueblos." Few people seem to mind the

symbol of the prosperous, homoge-

iconic status in the imaginations of

a

turn were derived

faux-adobe gas stations and shopping centers on the

than economic development.

re-created

becoming

valued historical

in

commercial corporations with

such as Santa Fe that have cultivated their

image

in this

way

are tourist magnets.

his-

Having

denied themselves the opportunity to transform their cultural landscape, they

grow prosperous from

the

trade of visitors.

patriotic sentiment.

The same tion

movement

forces that stimulated the preservain

New

England promoted

efforts to save historic landscapes in the

citizen

Old South

and other parts of the country. Often these were

by women, many of

led

whom belonged to genealogi-

In the

same way

cept of the

that Disneyland pioneered the con-

theme

park. Colonial Williamsburg pio-

neered the historically preserved landscape as tourist attraction. Like

Walt Disney, John D. Rockefeller, Jr.,

such as the Colonial

the philanthropic sponsor of the transformation of

of the Texas Republic (pre-

Williamsburg, Virginia, from a sleepy southern town

cally oriented organizations

Dames or the Daughters

Pkeservation as Culiukal, Tourism

servers and custodians of the Alamo). In 1931,

Charleston, South Carolina, passed the

first

perma-

into a bustling sightseers' mecca,

had

a

proved extremely popular. Beginning

dream

that

in 1926,

he

nent design-review ordinance, mandating that private

created Colonial Williamsburg by restoring 82 eigh-

property owners withiii the designated historic area

teenth-century buildings, removing 720 built subse-

submit proposed alteration schemes for approval.

quently,

and reconstructing 341 colonial structures

HOLDING ON AND LFTTING

GROW

The tendency to embellish the physical evidence of the past in the act of preservation and restoration reflects the it

homage we pay to the memories or myths

embodies. The impulse to suffuse with the golden

Ught of a romantically recalled yesteryear the restored

or re-created landscapes of today accounts for the of Disney's theme parks

glossy, picture-perfea quality

and Colonial Wifliamsburg. setlike qualit\'

that

was

a

new town

and marketed by the Disney

symboUc landscape where every day same yesteryear of

yesterday, or rather the

time

cally recalled

tional

also accounts for the

of Celebration, Florida, the

financed, built,

Company,

It

is

nostalgi-

Celebration's neotradi-

(fig. 15.3).

postmodern planners took

their cue fi"om the

predominant period-and-place theme of Disneyland's

Main Street, the imaginary golden-age paradise of the Midwestern small town

as

it

was from the end of the

nineteenth cenmrv through the the twentieth century;

nostalgia 15.3.

Celebration, Florida.

pattern

A

book developed by

according to the best

a\ ailable.

but often sketchy,

dence. Black residents were relocated,

power

evi-

lines

we

Movement,

first

four decades of

As with the impulse toward

have observed in the Arts and Crafts this

reflects a denial

kind of architectural eclecticism

of the powerful prevailing forces of

Robert A. M. Stern and other

Disney architects of Celebration's

is

the source

intended

southern-accented eclecti-

buried, and automobiles

banned from the Historic

Area. Rockefeller's intention

was

to

make

it

possible,

the industrial age and the yearning for an earlier simpler time

when, so

it is

presumed, neighbors were

with the aid of costumed guides, for visitors to

neighborly and people led Hves rich in the

Williamsburg to experience another centurv with the

place pleasures of community.

same educational

trolled

common-

cism.

Below: 152. Garden

of the

interest a curious tourist

might

by

its

Govemmentally con-

parent corporation. Celebration

is

a

Governor s Mansion, Colonial Williamsburg, designed by Arthur Shurcliff.

c.

weU-pubUcized and highly contested example of the

bring to travel in another land.^^

One may remark on

1930

the beaut\- of Williams-

none much Hke when was them existed Virginia still a colony (see fig.

buTg's gardens with the certaint}- that

6.50).

Garden archaeolog}' here was

scarcely rigorous

or scientific, and Arthur A. ShurclLtf (1870-1957 landscape-architect nial

member of Rockefeller's

).

the

Colo-

Williamsburg planning team, developed

his

communities that other

home buvers under the New Urbanism. More than cos-

developers are also offering to

planning rubric of

metic

in intent, these

communities are the most

recent experiments in applying to the

practical principles underlying workable, livable cities

were

by Jane Jacobs and other critics

that

The

of American planning practice in the

wife of Williamsburg's

mayor described his vig-

May 22,

1931.

wolf on the

Mr

this diary entry:

came down Kke

Shurcliflf

fold again today.

He rushed in and

out several times with charts and plans for sorts of alarming "landscapes" in

has

boxwood on

the brain.

.

a

.

.

our yard.

Mr

all

He

Shurcliff

is

hurt and grieved by our lack of appreciation

when we declare that we don't want more boxwood mazes and hedges all over our yard!^"* Nevertheless, she found

all

the transplanting and lay-

ing out of trim brick walks a fascinating spectacle.

With

a substantial

budget for maintenance, Colonial

Williamsburg's re-created gardens have enjoyed a

showcase

level

of seasonal display and year-round

degree of nearness that would have been impossible in the case

of the originals

(fig. 15.2).*'

now vastly dis-

tended amorphous metropolitan realm some of the

restoration designs in a highly interpretive manner.

orous revision of the local scenery in

476

historically flavored Hfest\'le

articulated

early 1960s.

late

1950s and

Presuivaiion ANn Ukbanism II IE Ni while the urge ing

them

to past tradition

is

by

link-

ideas as they seek to apply pedestrian-oriented, mixed-

necessary to our psy-

use planning principles in rectifying the flaws they per-

chological well-being, preservationism

lives

is

more than

architectural appreciation, ancestral piety, or simple

nostalgia.

The polemic

that Jane Jacobs

hurled against urban renewal in her

American

Life of Great

Cities (1961)

who prized

preservationist

classic

(b.

1916)

Death and

was the cry of

traditional

a

urbanism not

because of aesthetics or any particular regard for history perse.

Her preservationism was not the same

as

that of the gentility-seeking social striver or the gentrifying

homeowner in a

reviving

slum neighborhood.

As we observed in Chapter Twelve, Jacobs pro-

moted

Urbanism

adhere to planning principles based largely on Jacobs 's

our present

to validate

New

Today, practitioners of the

w

the street patterns and land use of the old

monotonous, sprawling suburban

ceive in the current

landscape and deteriorated parts of older

cities

where

opportunities exist to recycle real estate and replan

neighborhoods. Andres Duany beth Plater- Zyberk

DPZ, and

tural firm

1950) and Eliza-

(b.

who head the

1950),

(b.

Peter Calthorpe

architec-

1949) of

(b.

Calthorpe Associates are prominent apostles of the

New Urbanism.

Their overriding goal

opportunities for

lost

community by

is

to re-create

disciplining the

automobile and establishing the primacy of the pub-

New

realm. For

lic

Urbanists, streets are both the

communal rooms and

the passages of the

city.

By

sidewalks and

dethroning "King Car" as the ruler of surburbia and

ground-floor businesses where people were in con-

disavowing the conventional approach of trans-

nineteenth-century city with

tinual visual

its

communication. The resulting environ-

portation planners

ment was safer and more sodaEy vibrant than the one

automobile

of single-use zoning, large-scale superblocks, and

street as

superhighways that authoritarian master planners

accomplish

were imposing on the

cities

of America. The segre-

whose primary motive is to move

an important public space for people. To this,

they have revived the

appendage, the sidewalk,

gation of land uses by zoning districts had

become

their streetcar suburbs.

common practice after streetcar- and, later,

automo-

organize building

bUe-served suburbs made

and work 1950s,

it

possible for people to live

in widely separated locations.

By

the late

mass automobile ownership and the federal

highway building program had accelerated suburban

a fixture

street's historic

of older

cities

and

They plan neighborhoods that

sites

and

network of streets. These sible as a

they have revalued the

traffic efficiently,

traffic

on

a hierarchical

made as narrow as pos-

are

means of slowing down automobile

Curbside parking replaces large

off-site

and trees shade cars and make them

less

traffic.

parking

lots,

conspicuous.

commuting had become common-

New Urbanist plans are compact in scale, with

place in metropolitan America. Middle-class, in-city

higher densities per acre than conventional suburbs,

few culturally

so that schools and shops are within comfortable

expansion, and

living virtually disappeared except in a

such as

rich older cities

New York and Boston.

Jacobs's thesis flew in the face of the conventional

wisdom that had created these landscapes. With

a journalist's

keen eye for

detail

and

practical

com-

mon sense, she concluded that a mix of uses created good neighborhoods such

as the

one where she and

her family lived in Greenwich Village. She held that effectively recycled old

housing stock made better

walk" for

development extension

space was green but grim, being generally unsafe.

One could learn lessons from the structure of the historic

tenement

street despite the evils

of unsanitary

crowding in tenement houses. cir-

have taken on an increasingly reso-

nant ring of useful truth. Having fought the battle to

to maintain to

more than one

car,

children

do not have

be chauffeured or bused to school, and elderly peo-

ple

who no

but can

still

longer drive do not have to lead independent

Public space in takes the

lives.

New Urbanist communities also

form of village greens, the

of the

cies

move away

long-lasting lega-

New England town commons.

walks, these

promote

Like side-

face-to-face encounters, thereby

spirit of community Unlike traditional modern suburbs where parks, if they exist at all, are

randomly

sited

for residential

on

residual pieces of land not suitable

development, these greens are central

Lower Manhat-

elements within the plan, nuclei for surrounding

from destruction by Robert Moses's planned

development. They become identifiable town cen-

save Soho, the tan,

any direction from the

stimulating the

Jacobs's words, unappreciated in planning cles at the time,

in

neighborhood center. Families therefore do not have

homes for the poor than high-rise projects where public

— a 'Tive-minute — being the radius DPZ considers appropriate

walking distances, one-quarter-mile

warehouse

district in

Lower Manhattan Expressway, she became genitor of

its

renaissance,

the pro-

which sparked the conver-

sion of semi-abandoned industrial districts in other cities into

galleries,

zones of yeasty enterprise,

boutiques, restaurants, and

filled

loft

with

art

apartments.

ters,

well defined architecturally by their surround-

ing buildings. These the

town

hall,

ments, and

mixed use

is

may

consist of the local school,

the retail center,

offices, usually in

a cardinal rule in

town houses,

apart-

combination since

New Urbanist planning.

HOLDING ON AND LETTING

15.4.

GROW

Plan of Laguna West,

Sacramento County,

California,

designed by Calthorpe Associates. 1990

more demographic

architecture to be posturing, they seek to reproduce

and more mutual interaction among popu-

the highly textured buUding fabric characteristic of

Mixed use means diversity

The pedestrian-oriented town cen-

in a typical suburb.

a lively place because

is

is

groups within a New Urbanist community than

lation

ter

that there

restaurants,

and services

its

ground-floor shops,

attract patrons

from the

community.

entire

Perimeter parks, or at least natural borders, are

New Urbanist developments.

Edges that define and contain itself are as

districts

and the town

important as the town center in over-

coming the perception that has caused critics of conventional

suburbs

echo

to

Gertrude

Calthorpe's thinking especially, a

'there,' there." In

regional planning perspective predominates. to the perspective of

It is

akin

Benton MacKaye, the Regional

Planning Association of America's advocate of directing metropolitan

growth

into a series of greenbelt-

surrounded new towns modeled on the

historic

ones

their

its

contextual, con-

architects.

method "TND,"

Duany for tra-

and Calthorpe

calls

"TOD," or transit-oriented development, because of emphasis on a building density capable of sup-

porting capital investment in transit infrastructure.

Both produce

results that are

informed by ideas

derived from Beaux-Arts Neoclassidsm and the ver-

nacular architecmre of streetcar suburbs.

community design

This

Sacramento County, (transit-oriented

Laguna West,

for

California,

is

based on

development) principles

TOD

(fig. 15.4).

Here, planner Peter Calthorpe has applied the patte d'oie,

or goosefoot, pattern of avenue radials derived

from seventeenth-cenmry French garden design and subsequently appropriated by eighteenth-, nineteenth,

and

early twentieth-century city planners to rein-

—the

of New England (see Chapter Twelve). The Regional

force the centrality of the

Plan Association (RPA), which has sought to guide

center with

New York's metropolitan growth since the

and cultural and recreational facilities. Although light-

subscribes to the

New

1920s,

now

Urbanist notion of nodal

rail transit

its

hub

does not yet

exist at

Calthorpe's plan presupposes

RPA

see the revival of the light-rail transit systems

sufficient

that

were competitively dismanded by the automo-

bile

and highway

tial

to

interests after

World War II

as essen-

overcoming suburban sprawl and preserving

to ensure a public realm, not to revive styles.

But older models inspire

much

of their work, and

they demonstrate a strong interest in design

detail.

Finding the results of Modernist planning bleak and

dehumanizing and

individualistic

works of

its

Laguna West,

arrival

by creating

for

more

It

also caters to the still-existing large

traditional suburban-style

homes

with a broad outer residential band platted according to the pattern of gently curving streets ending in cul-

New Urbanist planners maintain that design is meant

town

urban density to support this kind of trans-

portation s\'Stem.

market

100-acre

cluster of shops, offices, apartments,

urbanism. Calthorpe and the current leadership of

regional nature in any significant way.

478

and Plater-Zyberk label

Stein's

characterization of Oakland, California, as having "no

more

premodern

ditional neighborhood development,

his

important in the

also

older dties, adopting as well the

sensual approach of

high-art

de-sacs,

which has been

sions built since

Although

topical

World War it is

of American subdivi-

II.

only a small resort

community

occupying 80 acres of land on the Gulf Coast of Florida, Seaside, the

town planned by Duany and

Plater-Zyberk and developed by an especially sym-

PRESERVING THE PAST

15.5.

Plan of Seaside, Walton

County, Florida, designed by

Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk. 1981

Below:

15.6.

View

of the

com-

monly accessible beachfront, Seaside, Florida

pathetic client, Robert Davis, in

its

who

media attention

design, has garnered

New Urbanism (fig.

ing example of

observed the beach cottages Florida,

also participated

their appreciation

where they stud-

They sharpened

of traditional and vernacular styles,

noting, for instance,

how Charleston's distinctive his-

house type with is

three

Seagrove Beach,

in

ied residential architecture types.

floors

as a lead-

The

its

long side porches on two

an architecturally pleasing adaptation to

cli-

The regulations further control specific build-

ing materials and practices; they mandate, for instance, metal roofing,

ends, and operable

and other Gulf coastal summer colonies and

traveled to suburbs in Southern dties

toric

15.5).

tenants.

Seaside's

siding,

exposed

rafter

wood-framed windows.

prime

directly fronting

wood

on

real estate, a

high dune bluff

a magnificent stretch of white

sand and the azure water of the Gulf of Mexico, could have been profitably exploited by the developer

had chosen to priced large

nomic

sell

lots.

if

he

the entire strip as individual highInstead, holding the value

as well as social

—eco-

— of the entire project as DPZ made

the beachfront

On

the Gulf side of

mate. The old-fashioned veranda, which had disap-

paramount, Davis and

peared with the advent of air-conditioning and newer

property into a shared amenity.

suburban house types, also drew their admiration.

the highway that runs through Seaside they provided

Influential in their revaluation

building types 1946), the

classical

was the teaching of Leon

Luxembourg-born

the crusade in

of these past plans and

architect

London and elsewhere

Krier

who has

(b.

led

to revive neo-

and vernacular approaches to community

access points,

which they marked with gazebos where

stepped causeways begin their staged descent across the vegetated dune landscape leading to the beach 15.6).

the

These have

seating,

(fig.

another means of fostering

community 's atmosphere of low-key

sociability.

development.

The town

plan, the Seaside

Urban Code, and

the Construction Regulations are simultaneously specific

and

flexible architectural directives that

compatibility

among neighboring building

ensure

types by

giving guidelines for eight categories of construction

and by specifying

how

structures are positioned

on

the lot and with regard to the street. Prescribed build-

ing types range from arcaded, party-wall, three-tofive-story buildings for stores

Downtown Commercial "Classic- Romantic

and apartments

in the

Square to single-family

urban villas on Seaside Avenue to "

southern bungalows and side-yard single houses on the residential streets elsewhere.

The code encour-

ages the construction of "carriage houses" standing garages with living quarters above

—

—

free-

as small

apartments for elderly relatives, house guests, or rental

479

HOLDING ON AND LETTING

GROW

which

is

geared to the buyers of second homes, but

pockets of genteel affluence, however community-ori-

ented in their physical structure, do not create the social diversity Jacobs ist

observed in

some

projects are achieving

older

cities

instance, the are

impressive results in

—

who need it most

for

underfunded community groups

who

waging battles

munity

real

New Urban-

such as Providence, Rhode Island; never-

many of the

theless,

cities.

spirit in

people

to preserve urban fabric

and com-

New York City's South Bronx—are

struggling to find the private capital or

government

support to produce tangible results where they

antithetical to the ideal

community,

live.

money" were

For Jacobs, "projects" and "big

which

in

social

vibrancy and energetic consensus are achieved because niunerous individual investments of time and

15.7.

View

of streetscape,

sandy footpath leading

Running

with

to the

^ unifying

j

beach. Seaside, Florida

ments

like a leitmotit

throughout Seaside

vocabulary of white-painted r

wooden

is

ele-

j

— picket

fences,

porch and balcony

railings, lat-

window and door frames

tices,

gazebos, and

15.7).

The ground plane

is

a well-crafted

(fig.

mix of

tures; there are brick-paved principal streets

tex-

with

crushed-sheU margins for parked cars and sandy mid-

block footpaths leading to the beach. Designed by dif

— some of whom may bend the personal — and by general con-

ferent architects

to express their

rules

visions

who simply follow the code and regulations,

tractors

Seaside's

compactly clustered mass of structures,

often derided as "cute," are above

all

Although neotraditional,

is

a

somewhat more

at Celebration,

flexible

War II suburbs with

addition to stressing the values of

to size

styles (see

One of Seaside's most important results in

sense of containment.

By

community

is its

setting appropriate limits

and by thinking about centers and edges,

Duany and Plater-Zyberkhave made preservation of traditional

community values and preservation of the

natural environment complementary. Their critics

movement in the United States. Earth sidered

beginning, was

stiU

Most of the national organizations and

that

grew out of

government to enact legis-

grassroots efforts to push lation

Day, often con-

nine years away.

set regulations to save threatened wilder-

ness and reform the

air-

of industry did not yet

and water-polluting practices Because of the alarming

exist.

dimensions of the problems that Industrial Age ety

was

soci-

inflicting

namre's enemy. Feeding

this bias

was the

persistent

of anti-urbanism that runs deep within Amer-

strain

ican culture.

Many people

still

built-up older city cherished

believe the densely

by Jacobs and others

to

be an inimical, inhuman environment that exists apart

from nature. But,

as Jacobs

beings are, of course, a part of nature,

The suburban movement

grizzly bears or bees."^'' that

spawned the current urban sprawl

saw

is

based upon

"Human as much so as

pointed out,

a false

that she fore-

premise as well

as a false

of rural and wild nature through the development of

complicated issues of reforming the

It is

real-

and other factors that

encourage suburban sprawl and foster urban

blight.

doubtful that Jane Jacobs envisioned any-

thing resembling Seaside of Great American

a vast, undifferentiated, highway-dominated, ubiqui-

tous suburban landscape of tract housing, cial strips,

future, but as a

in

commer-

malls. In this increasingly

expansive metropolitan landscape, nature

is

residual,

she wrote Deaxk and

saved by political action but not promoted or planned

The

New Urbanism may

through pubUc

Cities.

movement

it is still

tentative. Davis's

on community-oriented planning

handsomely

and shopping

when

be showing middle-class America the way back to the

480

its official

has not yet addressed the fundamental and

estate financing practices

bet

which heralded the environmental

promise: the sentimentalization and domestication

politically

Life

Silent Spring,

New Urbanism is merely a pallia-

maintain that the tive that

Jacobs in 1961 a year before Rachel Carson published

was often with agendas that portrayed humankind as

mix of Neoclassical and vernacular

fig. 15.3).

dogs or the beds of oysters. "^^ Thus wrote Jane

the case

is

vided a pattern book for builders to follow in order

their

prairie

architects have pro-

the result of

approach than

to achieve the look of pre-World

uct of one form of nature, as are the colonies of

upon the planet, when environmental organizations came into being in the 1970s it

their design

where Disney's

congenial.

money define the character of the urban space. "The cities of human beings are as natural, being a prod-

terms of Seaside's

is

paying off

real estate

market.

policy.

By comprehending

that the dinosaur of devel-

opment wiU wantonly roam the land as long as there is

population growth and economic prosperity and

by wanting to guide that growth and prosperity by

planning more livable suburbs, revitalizing old

in-city

neighborhoods, and saving natural areas as greenbelts,

New

the

Urbanists appear to understand that the

human environment and

the natural environment

— an

one

are fundamentally

technology, and nature.

art,

erate but rather incorporate nature for our sake as

own intrinsic, noneconomic worth? And

well as for its

can

we accomplish

this

within the context of better

regional planning, revitalizing historic cities as well as

inextricable alliance of

building better suburban towns? This

The question

lenge for the

remains:

can we in fact build better cities, ones that do not oblit-

choose to

the true chal-

is

New Urbanism or whatever else we may

call

it.

Conserving Natlike: Landsc ape Design as Environmentae Science and Art 11.

The roots of today's environmental consciousness lie

whose

in nineteenth-century earth science. In 1863, the

uses,

British geologist Charles Lyell (1 797-1 875) published

on the

Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of

spoil

and

.

.

he could not convert to

own

his

not protected the birds which prey

.

insects

most

destructive to his

own har-

19

Man. Charles

vests.

Darwin (1809-1882) was aware of Lyell's work, which

promoted and helped confirm

his theory

tionary biology as in Origin of Species (1859). observations recorded by the explorer Alexander von

Fluent in several foreign languages, both andent

of evolu-

The

German naturalist and

Humboldt (1769-1859)

dur-

and modern, he read extensively and, dor

first

to

extensive

German Karl Ritter (1779-1859) and the Swiss-born Arnold Henry Guyot (1807-1884) studied the earth in relation to human activity. But it

phers such as the

was an American, George Perkins Marsh (1801-1882),

who

attempted to show the extent to which

intervention

was

tation patterns,

human

altering climate, topography, vege-

and the

soil,

habitats of species, often

with consequences inimical for future generations. In his

landmark book Man and Nature ( 1 864) Marsh,

claimed no tical

scientific expertise

but a great deal of prac-

experience as a farmer, industrial investor, and

diplomatic traveler, set out to ter

who

show "that whereas Rit-

and Guyot think that the earth made man,

in fact

made

man

A native of Vermont, Marsh saw firsthand how clear-cutting of forested slopes

had promoted erosion

and how these actions had caused the

silting

of

beyond the immediate term, had reduced such

In

Marsh described how man the

has felled forests

whose network of

fibrous

bound the mould to the rocky skeleton of .

.

.

to

encourage

his country-

men to reconsider their heedless scramble for wealth expense of namre and to develop an ethos of

at the

land stewardship.

The

as

warning

signs

entific data to

was

challenge that he put forth

to take his empirical observations in

Man and Nature

and to assemble the necessary

sci-

understand "the action and reaction

between humanity and the material world aroimd it."

mine

at last "the great question,

namre or above

Marsh

able to deter-

whether

man

is

of

her."^"

fully

approved of canals,

dikes, river

embankments, and other means of engineering that channeled the forces of namre toward

tive in the

the earth,

Marsh hoped

condition.

sig-

Roman empire to this

human

ends.

But he believed that such controls could be produc-

destroyer of nature

roots

of the ancient

nificant portions

for-

mer wetlands and decimated many animal species.

and to

Old World, without any thought of husbandry

in the

Only by so doing would humanity be

the earth."'*

biblical cadences.

he was able to ana-

why certain areas that had once supported human settlement were now rocky, treeless, arid wastes, inhospitable to human life. By understanding how the exploitation of the land's resources surmise

advanced the nascent

of ecology. Early geogra-

Italy,

an ambassa-

lyze the Mediterranean basin at close range

ing his voyages to South America, Cuba, and Mexico field

Turkey and then

as

has broken up the mountain reser-

voirs, the percolation

of whose waters through

forces

long term only

an organic system

awareness of the environment

in

which

persisted in his day as they

refreshed his cattle and fertilized his

he

.

.

.

all

the parts were inter-

dependent. Motives of overweening

unseen channels supplied the fountains that fields,

nature's regenerative

were encouraged, not stymied. His book was

influential in begetting

as

if

railed against "the

human greed

do in ours, and in an aside,

decay of commercial morality"

has torn the thin glebe which confined the light

and "unprincipled corporations, which not only defy

earth of extensive plains, and has destroyed the

the legislative power, but have, too often, corrupted

which skirted the

even the administration of justice.""^' Although his

fringe of semi-aquatic plants

coast

and checked the

has warred on

all

drifting

of sea sand,

the tribes of animated

.

.

.

namre

urgent message sowed the seeds of forestry and land

management

practices that eventually

became

part

—

— HOLDING ON AND LETTING

GROW

of government, only in recent years have the dire

Marsh predicted

effects that

— multiplied by pressures

of post- World War

of population growth and forces of industrial mech-

convalescence in both grim and

As

a landscape architect,

McHarg came

anization that he could hardly have imagined

that

prompted

legislative actions

ditions

some

ticing in Philadelphia in the firm

political protest

and

leading to pollution controls and

positive steps

it

was not enough

to feel

to simply ameliorate the con-

found in the Glasgow slums of his youth. Prac-

he founded

in 1963,

toward the responsible regeneration of degraded nat-

he recognized that "providing a decorative background

ural environments.

for

As we have

seen, inherent in

celebratory attitude toward litde regard for their

feats

modernism was

a

of engineering and

environmental consequences.

Although modernist landscape

architects following

human play"^' did not address the larger environ-

mental threat posed by rings of suburbs encroaching

upon

rural

divorce of

and wild landscapes and the increasing

human beings from

wild nature. Further,

whole was being made

the environment as a

toxic

Christopher Tunnard intended and usually inflicted

with pesticides and industrial wastes, and by then

no serious environmental harm,

humans had sown the dire seeds of massi\ e planetan,-

essentially aesthetic as they

fession in line

their objectives

and sculpture.

In

in

terms of plan-

ning, the urban-rural balance that Lewis

preached

were

wished to bring their pro-

with the exdting new developments

architecture, painting,

Mumford

in opposition to metropolitanism,

with

devastation by producing the atomic believes that

went generally unheeded. Only

since the 1970s has a

human

belated awareness of the need to reconcile

landscape design.

was

It

at the Universit)'

of Pennsyl-

Mumford taught for a period in the early

1960s that the ground

was

laid for a

landscape archi-

tecture that conjoined the regionalism of the 1920s

McHarg in

metropolitan areas, in studying native plant ecolo-

and in forging a design idiom that expressed the

simple beauties of regional

Landscape as Envikonmental Science

now-classic book. Design with Nature.^ In the

to unseat the mind-set tian biblical

due the

wake of

to environmental con-

McHarg

with similar fervor a conservation

articulated

strateg}' that

sou^t

condoned by theJudeo-Chris-

injunaion encouraging humanity to sub-

earth.

He enjoined planners, developers,

and

landscape architects to view Earth not as an

teachers of landscape architecture, were instrumental in

bringing emironmental sdence into the student

conditions,

minants in locating development and assigning preservation value.

To

this analytical

approach based on

prindples of ecological determinism,

an

intuitive

McHarg added

methodology incorporating personal

val-

ues that evinced his affinity for Japanese culture and the metaphysics expressed in the

Zen garden

as his respect for the architecture

(1901-1974),

who

as well

of Louis

Kahn

taught architecture at the Univer-

when McHarg led the landscape program there. McHarg appreciated

of Pennsylvania

sity

architecture

Kahn's notion of design as a poetic expression of space and Ught and of the essential, inherent qualities

is

an inseparable part.

life,

A

gifted

of material and

chairman of the Department of Landscape

Architecture and Regional Planning at the Universit)'

a leading

In

site.

an age of

premium on

scientific rationalism that

nonsubjective measures,

puts a

McHarg

felt

McHarg

compelled to further

a science-based

exponent of an enlightened land-

designing with nature.

He made the natural sdences

of Pennsylvania from 1964 until 1986,

became

its soil

the

which humanity teacher, as

terms of

site in

miracle in space, an intricate organism of

exploitable resource but as the ver^^ source of terrestrial

bodi gifted

ground-plane coverage. These then became the deter-

much in the dt\' as in the countryside," wrote Ian L. McHarg (b. 1920) in 1969 in his call

1919),

drainage patterns, and vegetation character and

as

science in Silent Spring (1962),

(b.

White

Stanley

localit}'.

(1891-1979) and Hideo Sasaki

dents study a

Rachel Carson's eloquent

— had preceded

advancing the cause of namre preserves

curriculum. For instance, Sasaki had his Har\'ard stu-

with the emerging environmental consciousness.

"We need nature

seen, other landscape architects

notably Charles EHot and Jens Jensen

gies,

vania where

capitalist sodet}'

As we have

in

the practice of

architects

supremely dangerous course

of science and technology and stem the harmful forces

objectives with the operation of natural ecosystems

upon

alter this

within industrial

become

general and influential

bomb. He

urban planners and landscape

can significantly

greenbelt communities scattered throughout a region,

planning strategy that sought to

make

the constraints

approach to

an essential foundation for his department's curricu-

and opportunities presented by natural ecosystems

lum

an integral part of design and development. Inform-

in plant

ing his philosophy

environmental approach to landscape design,

is

his personal experience

contrast of countryside to industrial

city,

of the

of wartime

landscape devastation to great landscape beaut}-, and

482

II

exhilarating environments.

at the University

of Penns\'lvania, with courses

ecology and geologv: In

McHarg developed

his geophysical

a coordinated

and

mapping system

with overlays to render analyses of ecological,

cli-

CONSERVING NATURE

PHENOMENA

RECOMMENDED LAND USES

Surface wattr and

Ports, harbors, rrwinas,

ripariw \»ndi

water-trealnwnt plants. water -related inen space

aquifers

for irtstitutions. hrxising at

1

house per 26 ac/es

Forestry, recreation,

housing

at

density of

3

acres,

maximum 1

house per

where wooded.

Forestry, recreation,

housing at densities not higher than 1 house per acre.

LAND FEATURES •

SUMMARY MAP OF WATER & LAND FEATURES FOR PART OF THE METROPOLITAN AREA

matic, geological, topographical, hydrological, eco-

the incentives to build similar communities are not

nomic, natural, scenic, and historical features

(fig.

widespread. Government's role in terms of environ-

Assigning categories of social value to these, he

mental improvement remains principally regulatory.

15.8. Partial

plan for the

Philadelphia Metropolitan Area, showing land and water

15.8).

has been able to chart

optimum development

and preservation zones according capacity of the land and

its

Put as simply as possible, a

paths

to the carrying

fitness for specific uses.

McHarg plan, such

as the

To plan on

and

for relocating the

Potomac River Basin,

highway planned through the

manner

mental effectiveness and officials

creativity

and policy makers

Without such environmental planning, and economic demands for equity

—

—

social

for jobs, for public access,

result in higher political value

being

development and categories of land use based upon

of society

elsewhere sustainable com-

at large. Yet

munities are being promoted however imperfectly,

water conservation are paramount considerations.

particularly in northern

Overlay analysis shows invariably that valleys with

the Netherlands, Sweden,

their biologically

and hydrologicaUy important

river

is

a stronger ethic

European countries such

as

and Germany where there

and more ingrained

politics

of

basins and wetlands should be preserved, develop-

responsible land use and urban husbandry than in

ment on slopes should be minimized to allow ground-

America.

water to drain properly and recharge the subsurface

industrial capitalism

aquifer,

and uplands where settlement

aging allowed to

become

the zones of

is

least

most

dam-

intense

1960

backed by elected

assigned to individual and class interests than to those

Flood and hurricane vulnerability and

c.

at all levels.

Staten Island Greenbelt, assigns levels of density and

suitability.

by Ian McHarg.

McHarg and others have suggested requires govern-

ones he prepared for the Philadelphia Metropolitan Area, the Baltimore Region, the

a large regional scale in the

features, designed with nature

this

end in

Directing the policies of contemporary

all

and the consumer society toward

countries

is

one of the most important

challenges of the twenty-first century.

occupation. Between 1970 and 1974, McHarg's firm,

Landscape Design as EnVIKONMEN TAL AkE

McHarg Roberts and Todd, applied this planning methodology to the development of Woodlands, an 18,000-acre new town built by developer

McHarg has been the most eloquent academic expo-

George Mitchell north of Houston, Texas.

nent of ecological landscape design in .America, and

Wallace

Sustainability

is

a

new word

in the lexicon

planners and designers. Woodlands, where the are clustered in a

of

homes

namral woodland setting rather than

on conventionally landscaped

lots,

demonstrates

Lawrence Halprin active.

ronmental planning within

a rational natural-science

framework, Halprin has honored the values of envi-

ronment more

ecology in an economically viable plan that measures

ing

costs

been one of its most

Whereas McHarg has felt the need to put envi-

McHarg's synthesis of human ecology and natural

social

1916) has

(b.

human

in the

creativity

manner of an

artist,

and community

life

celebrat-

within the

and environmental costs together with dollar

context of nature and using environmental motifs

hardly widespread in America. But to date,

metaphorically in his designs, which include several

is

483

'

HOLDING ON AND LETTING

GROW

and within which others can play participatory

rife.

His legaq." includes, besides his landscape designs,

books that elucidate

his design approach, including

Tlie R.S. V.P. Cycles: Creative Processes in the

Human Envi-

ronment (1969).

Between 1962 and ble for

making San

early effort at

1965, Halprin

was responsi-

Francisco's GhiradeUi Square, an

urban

re\italLzation. into a \ibrant

pub-

He space animated by fountains, outdoor Hating, and landscaping,

where people come

for al&iesco eating,

shopping, socializing, and participating in performances,

which

are often

design workshops

impromptu. His Take Part

elicit

citizen collaboration in shap-

ing a project's final program. Even as several other

such as Hideo Sasaki

prominent landscape

architects

and Peter Walker

1932) have adopted the corpo-

(b.

rate-management

st\'le

tural firms. Halprin

of successful large architec-

— Uke Roberto Burle Marx or Thomas Church — has

Halprin's former employer. 15.10

Freeway Park,

Seattle,

Washington, designed by

powerful evocations of nature in places

downtown public

maintained his practice using an

earlier

model, that

of the studio, because he finds the creative

(figs. 15.9, 15.10).

s}Tierg\-

Lawrence Halprin & Associates;

Angela Danadijeva,

ect designer

&

Halprin's long

proj-

Edward McCleod

Associates, associate land-

and

productf\'e career has

been

of

collaborative

its

With

nourished by degrees in plant sciences and horticulture

from Cornell and the University of Wisconsin.

atmosphere especially congenial.

a strong interest in

making landscape

architecture transcend the functional

and

social to

scape architects. 1970-76. Here a dramatically naturalistic

space evokes the wilder-

ness

of the Pacific

Northwest

while masking the sounds

Madison, study

at Har\'ard

uith his adopted mentor

Christopher Tunnard after discovering Tunnard s Gar-

gian ps^cholog^' in search of s}Tnbols and archet}pes

dens in the Modem Landscape,

that hold universal meaning.

and emplo}'ment

San Francisco

office

of

in the

Thomas Church where he

woiked on the Donnell Garden (see figs. Lovejoy

Plaza, Portland, Oregon,

designed by Lawrence Halprin

& Associates

smdied Jun-

Echoing Olmsted's

of

the freeway.

Above right

attain a spiritual dimension. Halprin has

and Charies

13.24, 13.25).

Important to Halprin's work has been

his

under-

standing of landscape design as process rather than

unchanging product.

He

calls this

process "scoring,"

notion of the fundamental benefit of parks as an uplifting said,

'

of the

WTiat

spirit

we

throu^ the senses. Halprin has

are after

landscape, a magnificent

of the people

who

are

is

lift

a sense

of poetn.-

in the

which will enrich the iK'es

moving about

in the land-

Moore, with Moore/Lyndon/ Tumbull/Whitaker, Architects.

a musical

1961-68

spatial

«4

metaphor imphing

his intention to create

frameworks that allow

for

change over time

scape

.

He has nourished his own spiritual roots by

maintaining a strong connection over the years with

CONSERVING NATURE

brief texts

from famous speeches by Roosevelt, which

are incised into the memorial's walls of rusticated

Delano Roo-

15.11. Franklin

sevelt Memorial, Washington,

DC, designed

pink and red granite.

He combined these inscriptions

with sculptures by Tom Hardy, Neil Estern, Leonard Baskin, George Segal, and Robert

Graham

leadership during

two of the

ee/ow.

nation's gravest ordeals,

the Great Depression and World rial

also contains

hope

War II. Hie memo-

world peace

for

as

symbolized

by the inclusion of a statue of Eleanor Roosevelt

Estern

in a

chronological narrative of Roosevelt's presidency and

as a

by Lawrence

Halprin. 1997. sculpture by Neil

15.12.

Plan of Sea

Ranch, California, designed by

Lawrence Halprin ates,

& Associ-

Landscape Architects,

Moore/Lyndon/Turnbull/ Whitaker, and Joseph Esherick, Architects. 1967

delegate to the United Nations. Halprin's connection with to environmental planning

where he spent some time

Israel,

ing

on

a kibbutz.

country in the

the

is

after

the Walter and Elise

liv-

Haas Promenade built

mid-1980s in Jerusalem on a

Old

high school

His most notable project in that

hill

overlooking

In the United States, Halprin designed the 7.5-

Delano Roosevelt Memorial located in

West Potomac Park,

a 66-acre peninsula beside the

Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C.

cated on

May

2,

1997, the

(fig. 15.11).

memorial

Dedi-

to the thirty-

second president of the United States consists of

Ranch, a planned commuweekend and vacation homes and condominiums developed in the mid-1960s by Oceanic

in his "ecoscore" for Sea

nity of

Properties

on property occupying

a

for

a 10-mile stretch

sheep grazing. Halprin conceived the plan for the

first

1

,800 acres to

acre parcel in collaboration with

15.13).

As was

sequence of four interconnected garden spaces with

spaces,

and fountains.^^ With

his strong

makers to plot what he

film-

called "Roosevelt's journey

of

Halprin scripted a sequence of 21 quotations.

the archi-

later true

Ranch put

a

15.12,

of Seaside's plan, Halprin's

premium upon communal

and only about 50 percent of the land was sold

to private owners.

sense of landscape as theatrical performance and

employing the storyboard technique used by

MLTW,

Moore, Donlyn Lyndon,

William Turnbull, and Richard Whitaker (figs.

plan for Sea

narrative sculpture

be developed of the original 5,300-

tectural firm of Charles

richly planted 1,200-foot-long (365.8-meter-long)

life,"

McHarg's approach

perhaps most evident

of northern California coastline, which was once used

City.

acre Franklin

is

By

clustering the sites for houses

miniums adjacent to prin

was

existing cypress

able to leave the

and condo-

hedgerows, Hal-

former sheep pastures

open meadows with views

to the

as

ocean across the

485

beach

bluffs. Trails

throughout enable residents to

experience the landscape as a are held as

totality.

The meadows

commons and their maintenance made

community responsibility. Unlike

a

where low

Seaside,

picket fences manifest an ambience of yard-to-yard

neighborliness, at Sea

Ranch owners'

that properties be kept unfenced.

houses without

visible

is

The

clustered

property Hnes or landscaping

appear to merge with their natural tion

rules specify

setting.

vocabulary

— unpainted redwood or cedar

eaveless shed roofs of shingle or sod,

siding

which

and

are posi-

effort in

environmentally har-

monious place making and an expression of the 1960s idealism that motivated the careers of both

and Halprin, Sea Ranch deserves

McHarg

a place in the his-

tory of landscape design. Both of these landscape architects have seen city

and

and country as

their influence in furthering a

ative

a

continuum,

new moral imper-

by bringing ecological considerations to the fore

has been influential within their profession.

As much of the aging industrial infrastructure of cities falls into

disuse because of

new

transportation

and manufacturing technologies, landscape

architects

have been engaged in the reclamation of brownfields,

former factory

sites

Richard

through landscape design

and decaying waterfronts.

is

Haag (b. 1923), an early Postmodern conwhose Gasworks Park (1970-78) on the

textualist

shores of Lake Union in Seattle, Washington, and

Bloedel Reserve, Bainbridge Island, Puget Sound,

Washington

(1985-), demonstrate

concern for envi-

ronmental healing through bioremediation.

Although contemporary landscape

architects

have not entirely abandoned the principles of the Picturesque, Arts and Crafts, Neoclassical, and

Mod-

ernist design traditions that have constituted their

training during the past century

tioned to deflect the Pacific winds.

As an innovative

cize the industrial past

This inten-

furthered by Sea Ranch's rustic architectural

among those who have attempted to poeti-

Notable

still

rely

on some

styles as well as

and although they

of the principles of these design

upon McHargian environmentalism

to inform their work, several are adopting an

approach that seeks the same kind of creative

free-

dom granted to Conceptual artists. Thus, they look to their own imaginative resources as they manipulate stones, earth,

forms

in

and water to produce land

Earthworks

artists

share

as environmentalists,

manner and at the same As they,

art,

and of the landscape. At the same time.

some of the same concerns

and they work

in a similar

scale as landscape architects.

too, seek to manifest

beauty within a brown-

fields context, the distinction

between

scape design tends to dissolve.

art

and land-

EARTHWORKS. GOLF COURSES. PHILOSOPHICAL MODELS. AND PO ETIC METAPHORS

Eakthwokks, Golf Colikses, Philosophical Models, AND Poetic Metaphoks: Landscape as Akt Form, Sport, III.

Deconstkuctivism, Industrial

ANi:)

Phenomenology

technology has produced the machines that

can manipulate landscapes with an ease previously

undreamed

of;

without

would probably not

it

exist.

both intended and not,

Earthworks, or Land

There are certain

art,

ironies,

of these mon-

in the creation

umental and often beautiful projects. Many evoke

in

and cosmological intent the primary earthworks

scale

of prehistoric peoples, yet they are not expressions of

widely shared and deeply held cosmologically

ori-

ented religious belief as were the great earthworks created at Newark, Ohio, or Cahokia,

we examined

Illinois,

which

Chapter One. Rather they are the

in

heroic creations of artists who, often through the

agency of bulldozers and other earthmoving equipment, have accomplished with

work

relatively small

crews and within their own Hfetimes landscape transformations on a scale rivaling that of these original earthworks, the building of which employed battalions of workers over a period of

many

decades or

even centuries. Frequently placed by choice or necessity in

remote and inaccessible

locations, often the

American West, modern Earthworks

deserts of the

exist primarily for the appreciation

by means of

are willing, usually

vehicle, to experience

them

view

aerial

rarely if ever are these

undocumented.

important to the selves, (b.

and

for other

are content to

whose

is

their

handmaiden,

sometimes ephemeral

StiU

and moving images

for

proj-

are as

the Earthworks them-

artists as artists

such as Andy Goldsworthy

delicate

and poetic constructions are

and some

1956),

who

photographs of them.

Indeed, the camera

ects

a four-wheel-drive

firsthand

followers of contemporary art

who

of tourists

exceedingly transitory, have

become photographers

of professional stature in the service of their art

(fig.

15.14). Aerial

photography, which also allows us to

comprehend

better the configuration of such pre-

historic

earthworks

as the

Nazca

lines in

Peru (see

15.14.

Mound in Ohio (see fig. .37), is .35) similarly important in making many modern Earthfig.

or Serpent

1

works

legible.

to the sublime that substitutes for the inherent divinity that prehistoric

July 28, 1999

artists, especially

The space they occupy makes a territorial claim and ancient

societies ascribed to

their sacred places. Unlike the acts of cosmological

locate

them through

a necessarily

mundane

(b.

1935),

who for this

rea-

urban areas for some of obtaining permits

is

as

his projects, the process

of

important as the realization of

the art itself

Being

explicitly identified

with specific

artists,

must

contemporary Earthworks have an importance

process

within the context of our celebrity-conscious culture

involving negotiation of property leases or the pur-

chase of real estate. In the case of

Christo

son perhaps chooses important and conspicuous

centering performed by these early people, however,

the creators of contemporary Earthworks

some Earthworks

Red River, Jemez, New

Mexico, by Andy Goldsworthy.

1

more

often linked to the

name

of the

artist

than to

the concepts they are intended to manifest. This

is

487

— HOLDING ON AND LETTING

15.15. SpiralJetty.

GROW

Great Salt

Lake, Utah, designed by Robert

Smithson. 1970

Below:

15.16. Observatory,

Oostelijk (East) Flevoland, the

Netherlands, designed by

Robert Morris. 1971, reconstructed 1977. Influenced by

archaeology and by the phe-

nomenology

of

French philoso-

pher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Morris emphasized the experiential participation of the

viewer

who comprehends

dif-

ferent scales of time through

walking

in

and around

this

300-foot-diameter (91.4-meter-

diameter) Earthwork of

concentric mounds, embankments, and canals. These

dif-

ferent scales of time include

the actual time spent on the site,

prehistoric time as sym-

bolized by

its

archaeological

form, and cosmological time

as referenced by Morris's solar solstice sight lines.

unfortunate because

many were intended as a critique

Earthworks as Art Fokm

of art-world values as well as of Industrial Age envi-

AND Landscape

ronmental degradation. Although Earthworks have

Robert Smithson (1938-1973), Robert Morris

a materiality that transcends a strict definition

ceptual less

art

art.

the Earthworks

movement

is

of Con-

neverthe-

contemporary with, and part of, the Concepmal

movement. Both Land art and Conceptural art are

latter-day links in early-twentieth-century

Mod-

ernism's break with tradition and expansion of the definition of

what

late 1960s gestalt

is art.

Both are part of the same

of protest against the established

norms

for

eschew

style in favor

viewing and thinking about of idea and form.

art.

Both

1931), Charles

Ross

and James Turrell

(b.

Nancy Holt

(b.

(b.

1938),

1941) are nontraditional

Amer-

(b.

1937),

ican artists whose chosen

medium is the land itself

soil,

rocks, water, existing geological

and topograph-

ical

structures —

and sky

as well as light

15.15-15.21). Smithson, a prolific writer articulate

(figs.

and the most

champion of the Earthworks movement

before his premature death,

made it dear that his con-

cerns were with cosmic space and time rather than

with historical space and time.

He

aligned his

own

intentions with those of fellow artists of his generation

who were also concerned with "inactive history"

that brought "to

Golden

was

Age."'^''

in the

mind

the Ice

Age

rather than the

Further, in the late 1960s, Smithson

vanguard of

artists

who

wished to aban-

don the notion of art as object. Their polemic was directed against the current status of art as a marketable commodity.

Smithson was

in a sense

an environmentalist, a

man acutely aware of the degradation of natural landscapes by twentieth-century industry However, with the idea that even industrial wastelands have an intrinsic

beauty that can be given form and expression

through

art,

abandoned

he

actively

sought as

sites for his

work

quarries, strip mines, polluted lakes,

and

other disfigured portions of the landscape. His brand

of environmentalism was devoid of sympathy for protesters

who thought of industrialization as essentially

evU, a catastrosphe humanit}'

had visited upon nature.

His perception of time in "Ice Age" or geologic terms

gave him the

488

ability to

think within the context of

EARTHWORKS. GOLF COURSES, PHILOSOPHICAL MODELS. AND POETIC METAPHORS

planetary, rather than

human,

dialectics.

He brought from

to his art the perspective of earth science gained

frequent trips as a child to the American Natural History and on car

trips

American West. From

boyhood

ral history

his

Museum of

with his family to the interest in natu-

and his impressions of the immensity and

grandeur of Western scenery

as contrasted

with the

densely suburbanized and heavily industrialized land-

scape around Passaic,

New Jersey, where he grew up,

Smithson extracted a worldview that considered mod-

ern Machine Age humanity as part of nature and environmental remediation through

art as

an

inter-

esting opportunity for artists like himself

His explorations of desolate and deteriorating industrial landscapes resulted in

an exhibition of

a

new kind of sculpture he called Non-Sites. His work as

an artist-consultant to an architectural team com-

peting for the contract to expand Dallas-Fort

Regional Airport helped

him

to conceptualize

he could independendy make Land scale.

Worth

art

on an

airport

This led him to abandon the symbiotic

tionship

between

artist

and

and

gallery,

how rela-

in 1968,

he

augmented by

the industrial wastes and

machinery he found

abandoned

there, rusting derricks that

New

recorded past attempts to extract

oil

from

tar deposits.

The color of the water was the result of the presence of a microorganism. According to Smithson, the

immobile cyclone while

Earthwork.

He was particularly attracted to the red-

dish-violet color of salt lakes,

search in the

West

led

and

him and

in 1970, further

fellow artist

Nancy

Holt, also his wife, to a portion of the Great Salt Lake in

Utah "which resembled an impassive

sheet held captive in a stoney matrix,

faint violet

upon which the

entire landscape appear to quake.

rotary that enclosed itself in an

From

that gyrating space "^^ the Spiral Jetty

site,

.

.

TTiis site

Mexico, designed by

Charles Ross. Begun 1974. Star Axis

is

a

monumental

the North Star.

the

was

Below:

a

immense roundness.

emerged the

possibility

of

15.18.

Roden Crater

Project, near Flagstaff, Arizona,

designed by James

Begun

Turreil.

1970s. Turreil,

who sees

natural light as his primary

medium, has created within the

Using heavy machinery scarred the

.

made

the

ship of Earth's axis and Polaris,

and Utah

flickering light

in

site

"reverberated out to the horizons only to suggest an

of a suitable location for a large

located

demonstration of the relation-

traveled through the deserts of California, Nevada, in search

15.17. Star Axis,

desert east of Albuquerque,

like that

which had

Smithson deposited black basalt rocks

cone

of

spaces

an extinct volcano in

which

to

experience

the ambiences created by the

sun poured down

its

eyes, the peculiar

crushing light."^^ In Smithson 's

beauty of the desolate

site

was

and earth, creating a

sptraling

form

1,500-feet (457.2-

meters) long in the purpHsh-pink water. Underlying

sun and moon of

at various

times

day and year.

489

HOLDING ON AND LEHING

GROW

the sun at the time of the stices.

summer and

winter

sol-

Perforations in the pipes admit light in patterns

that evoke various star constellations.

More attuned

to evoking ancient cosmological expressions in the

landscape than

modern

physics, Holt's subsequent

Earthworks include 30 Below (1980) Olympics in Lake at

Miami

Placid,

Winter

New York; Star Crossed (1980)

University, Oxford, Ohio;

(1984) in Arlington, Virginia.

and Dark Star Park

Her most recent

work, Up and Under (1998), located sand quarry

for the

in

Earth-

an abandoned

of Pinsio near Nokia, Fin-

in the village

land, consists of seven horizontal concrete tunnels,

four of which are aligned

on an

east-west

three are oriented with Polaris, the 15.19, 15.20).

The

axis,

North

while

Star

(figs.

tunnels protrude from a 630-foot-

long (192-meter-long) snakelike

mound

ending

in a

roughly circular mound that is approximately 230 feet (70 meters) in diameter 15.19

and

exterior

15.20. Interior

views

of

and

Up and

Smithson's dialectical vision of industrialist and

and 26

feet (7.9 meters) high.

artist

Like ancient cosmological landscapes. Up and

engaged in exploitation and reclamation of the earth

Under has an "axis mundi in the form of a large ver"

Under, Nokia, Finland,

designed by Nancy Built in this

Holt, 1998.

an abandoned quarry,

Earthwork

is

composed

of sand, concrete, grass,

water.

the concept of the law of thermodynamics,

mod-

ern physicists' notion of the universe as being in a state

of entropy to which the

artist

grafted his con-

tical

tunnel placed

at the

crossing of four tunnels

beneath the round mound. with clouds,

stars,

It

brings a circle of sky

and sometimes the

moon into the

and

© Nancy Holt/licensed

byVAGA,NewYork, NY

is

temporary perspective of the natural environment as being debased by

human

activity

but capable

forcing the cosmological idea of centering space. Holt

took samples of soil from

nonetheless of poetic expressiveness.

ment

perception of the viewer within the tunnel. Rein-

villages

all

over Finland and

Shortly after working with Smithson to docu-

buried this mixture beneath the vertical tunnel. In

Nancy Holt under-

addition, she placed three circular sky-reflecting pools,

the creation of Spiral Jetty,

took to create Sun Tunnels, an earthwork

Utah (1973-76). Set within

in Lucin,

a vast desert landscape,

which are fed by an ancient spring, adjacent to the mounds,

whose

in the

quarry floor

slopes are covered

these 9-foot-diameter (2.7-meter-diameter), 18-foot-

with grass. The pools, which vary

long (5.9-meter-long) industrial concrete pipes are

22 feet (6.7 meters) to 30 feet

positioned in alignment with the rising and setting of

(12.2 meters), also

(9.1

in

diameter from

meters) to 40 feet

mirror the Earthwork.

It is

meant.

I.

490

EARTHWOR KS. GOLF CO URSES,

PHI LOSOPHICA L

MOD ELS, AND

15.21.

POETIC METAPHORS

Lower Porlrack,

Dumfriesshire, Scotland.

Designed by the owners Charles Jencks and Maggie

Keswick. 1990-2000. Characterized by of

Jencks as "a garden

cosmic speculation,

"

it

con-

tains a terrace of polished alu-

minum and arranged

astroturf,

in

a

which

warped

is

pattern

suggesting the physical configuration of

space caused by

a "black hole

as

its title

suggests, to be

viewed from above, along a

path that follows the crescent-shaped

cliffs

the operation of the former quarry, and

neath the earth, inside the tunnels.

It

created by

from under-

can also be expe-

rienced by following the path at the top of the

winding

mound or by moving around the forms on

the quarry floor. According to Holt, "Each changing visual experience leads to a questioning itself

— near and

reality, aerial

far,

detail, reflection

(b.

1939),

Keswick (1941-1995),

with his

late wife,

Mag-

of the Chinese

nomena, an

essential ingredient

also sought

observed

in

Within Ha,

meant matter,

a

modeled

terrain bears a superficial

in the

United

States.

were not interested tectural theorist as well as the

Jencks and Keswick, however,

in

evoking prehistory.

An

archi-

and popularizer of Postmodernism

author of The Architecture of theJumping

Universe, Jencks

is

fascinated with forms that relate to

life,

consciousness

a

time

(fig. 15.21).

upon the

various models of the universe based

upon

the Gaia,

Ptolemaic, armillary, constellational, and atomic

The climax of the garden is the

55-foot

mound and 400-foot (121.9-meter)

double-wave Earthwork created with dredged

property

were

spoil

that formerly occupied a part of the

(fig. 15.23).

Here the designers' intentions

to represent in interlocking sculptural patterns

Among

other

of grass and water the Chinese concept of qi and the

he wanted the garden to represent the

struc-

geomantic principles of feng shui together with the

as envisioned

dynamics of complexity science and chaos theory.

these sudden leaps at things,

our universe. Another terrace

Physic Garden for medicinal herbs) displays

land seeks to represent with elegance and wit Jencks 's

one of twenty, show the omnipresence of

jumps — energy, — that have taken place

gatepost fmials that are metal spheres representing

from the marsh

is just

is

A Physics Garden (an intended pun

(16.8-meter) spiral

chaos

Terrace, which

Astroturf and polished aluminum is meant to diagram the way black holes are thought to warp space-

hypotheses.^^

which

we

curving recessive checkerboard of

new theory of cosmogenesis, which claims that the new levels of organization. The "garden of cosmic speculation" in Scotsciences of complexity, of

as

to represent the four basic

a

new

of Chinese painting

Symmetry Break

the

lies

universe continually jumps to

idea that "the

the

phe-

concave section of the Giant Dragon

designed as

Its

qi,

all

Chapter Eight.

since the creation of

15.21-15.23).

means to

by Chinese garden designers,

created a garden in Dumfriesshire, Scotland

resemblance to archaeologicaUy inspired Earthworks

a

"breath," or inherent energy, possessed by

garden and fengshui principles of landscape design, (figs.

was

express in a twentieth-century Western context

and

ture of space-time

all scales.

"^^

and quantum physics

by contemporary cosmologists. Different from

maic and Cartesian space,

it

Ptole-

portrays, according to

the universe.

"curved, warped, undulat-

crinkly " ^^ For Keswick, their garden

Ha

a student

is

in

zigzagged and sometimes beautifully

ing, jagged,

and

and ground."^"

Charles Jencks gie

whole and

of perception

Jencks, a universe that

"

Thus, Jencks 's

spiral

mound, dubbed

the Snail,

was

created by piling the excavated material from the

491

HOLDING ON AND LFTTING

GROW

1522. Lower Portrack, kitchen

garden with sculpture

of pol-

ished aluminum representing a double-helix

1523. Lower Portrack, spiral

mound and double-wave Earthwork

marsh to an angle of repose just preceding that which

Kesuick's serpentine ponds assume the form of frac-

will cause a landslide

tals,

is

— "phase

transition" as this point

called in the theor}' of complexity- that physicists

while also serving as metaphors for the

have developed to explain the creative patterning of

energ}^-charged calm that resides in pools through-

matter that occurs on the border betw'een chaos and

out the universe.

order. sition

The

smooth

tran-

Like the creators of Earthworks, golf-course

observed in the manner in which unlike things

designers are concerned with sculpting the land,

reversing curve implies the

are enfolded into a spatial continuum.

492

the endlessly recurring paisley shapes observed

in nature,

As

a result.

although not to express conceptual meaning but

EARTHWORKS. GOLF COURSES. PHILOSOPHICAL MODELS, AND POETIC METAPHORS

848 the low-cost, durable ball

rather for strategic purposes that are intrinsic to the

1

game. Yet because of the sport's venerable history,

ral latex

impact on land and water resources, and

its

its

impor-

tance as an expression of contemporary cultural values, their

work deserves

invented. This also

Course architecture

is

nam-

possible the use of revolu-

first

demand

for

course designers were Scots and then

Englishmen with professional

qualifications derived

from greenskeeping, not landscape design. They

such a basic element of golf

worked almost

that the characteristics of each course account for the

drawn

degree of challenge

the

it

the

courses grew with the gradual spread of the

game, the

Landscape as Spokt: The Golf Coukse

made

tionary iron-headed golf clubs. As the

new

discussion here.

made from

of the tropical gutta-percha plant was

presents to players.^"* In a great

global family tree of golf courses

all

the branches can

on the ground, not from

paying attention to the

plans,

game

entirely

practicalities

of

rather than to any picturesque qualities

inherent in the landscape.

They did little to alter their

be traced to Scotland where the game grew out of

sites,

the landscape, the sandy, aUuvial terrain called links.

simply modifying courses, making them safer for the

Natural links are found in estuarine areas where rivers

growing population of goffers or extending the length

on their way

deposit sediment

and Forth. The

Tay,

first

golf course,

ing from the early fifteenth century,

form completely

Golf

origi-

of holes to take into account the longer

rivers

Eden,

new gutta-percha balls.

to the sea.

nated as a game along the estuaries of the St.

Andrews,

native bent grasses

soil

and some

In the

dat-

was in its earliest

natural, a treeless stretch of wind-

swept, rolling dunes with

incorporating existing turf and other feamres or

pockets supporting

"featherie,"

of the

second half of the nineteenth century,

innovations in the routing of the course introduced variability in

wind direction

as a challenge for players.

New machinery for mowing and new means of cutting

fescue.

The original game involved batting a

flight

and

improved the

lining holes with metal cups

quality of the greens. Discovery through

trial

and

a small leather-bound, feather-stuffed ball, along a route

error proved that the heathlands southwest of Lon-

improvised from the grass-covered

don were

links,

avoiding the

natural hazards of the gorse-encrusted dunes and

By

eroded sandy hollows. Tees, dearly defined fairways,

and well-manicured putting greens were unknown. Players simply

wandered across

this hillocky, treeless

ideal inland goffing

when

country

cleared

of certain vegetation. 1900, nearly a thousand courses

built in the

United

across rolling

many

States.

With

had been

their distant

views

meadowlike greenswards fringed with

of these goff courses offer scenery simi-

landscape, aiming their shots at whatever small holes

trees,

served as cups. Although a series of such holes became

lar to that

institutionalized through repeated play, the number of

ley at

cups on different Scottish links varied.

Prospect Park (see Chapters Seven and Nine). But this

In the

mid-eighteenth century, golfers' clubs

were formed to organize the

Andrews Goffers

play.

instituted turf

The

Society of

St.

maintenance for the

putting areas, or greens and, in 1764, set eighteen as

was later followed else-

the official circuit of holes that

where. Golf course architecture had the

members of

St.

Andrews

their natural golfing terrain

into enlarged greens

— one

its

inception as

is

found in "Capability" Brown's Grecian Val-

Stowe or Olmsted and Vaux's Long Meadow in

simply coincidence, because on golf courses the

designer's primary consideration

but rather the Ue

not the scenery

— the position of the goff

ceases rolling and

however scenic,

is

comes

ball as

it

to a stop. Bodies of water,

are intended as hazards for the player,

not aesthetic features. Near the putting greens,

fair-

started to manipulate

ways are punctuated with bunkers, shallow sand-filled

by cutting double cups

depressions, also intended as strategically positioned

for

matches heading "out,"

hazards.

To provide

a final challenge as the player

the other for those heading "in," widening the grassy

reaches the hole, designers have greens graded with

playing strip by substituting turf for heather, and

almost imperceptibly undulating surfaces.

The

adding artificial hazards. "Penal" design is represented

by the Old Course as it originally existed, where it was necessary to clear

hazards; the alterna-

hundred constructed each year between 1923 and

which

allows the player the

1929, boosting the national total

option of taking a sHghdy longer but safer route at the cost of additional strokes.

From these basic principles,

in

England and

after 1779 in

was played on rudimentary courses

America,

often lack-

ing the characteristics of linkslands terrain. But the

popularity of the

game

grew, particularly

when

in

from

1

,903 to 5,648.

Many of these were laid out by local greenskeepers, who were often emigrants from Great Britain, and amateur

goff course architecture evolved.

Adopted

was a golden era for goff course con-

many natural

tive is "strategic" design,

goff

1920s

struction in the United States, with an average of six

golfers

whose primary

intent

was

to shape

the landscape to suit the objectives of the game. Given

an extraordinar)^ sula,

site

on

California's

Monterey Penin-

two regional tournament champions, John

Francis Neville (1895-1978) and Douglas

S.

Grant

493

(1887-1981), designed die breaditaking Pebble Beach

Golf Links

in 1918. Built

on

a high bluff overiooking

die Pacific Ocean, Pebble Beach does not occupy true linksland, but

rain

its

sandy,

hummocky

windsu-ept

ter-

and magnificent views of Carmel Bay make

appear to

fit its

abbreviated the time addition, with

it

took to build a golf course. In

petroleum no longer

mowing machinery became

scarce, fuel for

readily available,

which

also stimulated course construction.

During this period Robert Trent Jones

it

1906)

(h.

rose to preeminence as America's foremost golf-

name.

Equally endowed, Cypress Point, adjacent to

course architect, and by 1990 his firm's portfolio con-

Pebble Beach, was laid out ten years later by Alister

tained 450 courses in forty-two states. Trent blended

Mackensie (1870-1934), a

turned

the "penal" and "strategic" types of design with the

who built courses in

creation of a style he called "heroic." His "heroic"

New

courses eschewed the elaborate bunkering of penal-

British physician

golf course designer Mackensie,

England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, Australia,

Zealand, and South America as well as the United States,

is

considered one of the most eminent course

r\-pe design, substituting

a single, formidable, diago-

nally placed hazard such as a

designers in golf historv; a reputation bolstered bv his

to clear with a long drive of

publication in 1920 of Golf Architecture, codiiA'ing

meters

thir-

teen key principles guiding course layout. These included

—

in addition to those directed at

enhancing

pond that the golfer had

more than 500 feet

choose an alternative,

less risk)-

penal, strategic,

ing to the nature of play a course

of the course

— one that advised blending the two

Bv the mid- 1930s, following the worst years of the Great Depression, course construction began to

Works Progress Administration (WPA)

work for

The

to

the unemployed. Municipal golf

courses began to appear in

and heroic design techniques accord-

receive, taking into

was expected

account whether

it

to

was munici-

pal operation for the general public, a resort for pay-

layout for an

venue

accelerate in the United States with the creation of

provide

employing

ing guests, a country club for members, a private

appeared indistinguishable.

the federal

52.4

route to the green.

Trent's particular gift as a designer lav in

convenience of players, and the year-round playabil-

course's artificial and natural features so that the

1

At the same time, the golfer was allowed to

the strategic interest of the game, the comfort and

ity

'

cities

across the countn,:

WPA crews moved earth and sculpted terrain

owner and

friends, or a

for professional golfers.

In the 1960s, professional golfers celebrities,

matches. the

tournament

were becoming

thanks especially to televised sports

The

popularirv' of golf, particularly

growing number of

responsible for a

new

among

active retired people,

was

land-planning phenomenon:

community built arotmd a golf course.

using wheelbarrows and hand tools rather than hea\y

the residential

machinery, but after World

War II when private golf boomed and massive unemployment was no longer a problem, modern

However, by the mid-1970s, the escalating cost of

course construction again

course construction, the energ\-

new environmental regulations in the

earthmoving equipment was used. This greatly

and land-use

crisis,

tight

money,

United

States,

restrictions in Japan curtailed the rate

of

EARTHWORKS, GOLF COURSES. PHILOSOPHICAL MODELS, AND POETIC METAPHORS

golf-course building. Then, during the prosperous 1980s, the pace of course construction revived.

George Fazio (191 2-1 986), working with his nephews,

Thomas Joseph Fazio

Fazio

1942) built

(b.

eral for clubs hosting

from Hole ald

major tournaments. Tlie view

known

18,

1945) and Vincent James

(b.

and revised courses, including sev-

as

Super Dune, on the Emer-

Dunes Golf Course in West Palm Beach,

shows how,

in 1990,

Tom

Fazio sculpted

Florida,

artificial

water bodies, sweeping fairways, and contoured greens to create a scenic panorama out of former scrub land covered with palmetto thickets In 1974, laus

(b.

(fig. 15.24).

eminent professional golfer Jack Nick-

1940) organized his

own

firm. In Scottsdale,

Arizona, his Desert Highlands Golf Club (1984)

demonstrated how a grass-demanding sport could be successfully integrated into a naturally arid landscape.

Restricted in the

amount of

irrigation

he could use,

Nicklaus created wide swaths of playable sand

between

fairly

narrow

turfy fairways

and the pebbles

and coarse rock of the surrounding theless, Nicklaus,

courses, insists

who

upon

desert. Never-

seeks a deluxe finish to his

velvety bent grass for

all

his

greens no matter the climate. In addition, he typically builds cascades for his water hazards, installs elaborate irrigation systems, of-the-art

and specifies the use of state-

mowing equipment.

Perhaps Thorstein Veblen's theory of conspic-

uous consumption, or nonproductive

leisure as a

means of

displaying wealth, discussed in Chapter

Twelve,

nowhere more manifest than

is

game

in the

of golf especially if this assessment takes into account the difficult issue of water rights in dry climates. In spite

of conservationists' protests, the popularity of

game

Landscape as Deconstructivist Theory: Parc de la Villette Architect Bernard

Tschumi (b. 1 944) designed Parc de

on the eastern rim of

politically difficult to

stem

la Villette

the tide of course construction, even in arid

com-

structivist exercise

the

is

such that

it is

Paris as a decon-

1

5.25.

Plan of Pare de ''^^'9"^''

la

^^'"^"^

Tschumi. 1984-89

informed by the concepts of

munities where water reservoirs run dangerously low

sociation developed

and capacity cannot be expanded. The

(b.

ing has

become almost an

corporate businesspeople

on

fact that golf-

obligatory ritual

among

who routinely meet clients

the Hnks exacerbates this difficult and continuing

ecological

and

societal

Although contemporary enthusiasm

for golf

evolution from the seaside links of Scodand to the

inland desert around Scottsdale, from a sport objectives

that

whose

and rules were shaped by landscape to one

employs

a

high degree of

artifice

and mecha-

nization in manipulating the landscape to create

challenges for players,

is

is

highly theoretical in

takes shape not

its

is

the landscape

design intent, one that

from the land or the requirements of

sport or other user demands. Such a landscape

de

la Villette in Paris.

(figs. 15.25, 15.26).

Whereas Earthworks

such as Smithson sought metaphysical repre-

sentation in their work, the deconstructivist Tschumi believes as did Derrida that "in architecture

we

find

is

sentation and thus everything linked to representation."^^ Like

Pare

Smithson, Tschumi starts from the same

Postmodern position

that chaos rules, but instead of

creating as did Smithson

an art that represents entropy,

he subscribes to Derrida's concept of architecture

which "the strongest reference

new

an entirely pragmatic one.

At the opposite end of the spectrum that

by philosopher Jacques Derrida

something that contradicts the metaphysics of repre-

problem.

may be capricious, the story we have briefly traced of its

1930)

artists

dis-

[is]

to absence.

Tschumi was one of 471 entrants competition for the

new

1

cattle

in the design

75 -acre park that

between 1984 and 1989 on the

site

in

"^^

was to rise

of the old Parisian

market and slaughterhouses. The competition

guidelines called for an innovative park that

would be

superior to the nineteenth-century Picturesque parks

designed by Alphand (see Chapter Ten).

A prolific the-

495

— HOLDING ON AND LETTING

GROW

resentational associations, a blank te.xtbook in

anyone can

inscribe

which

whatever meaning they choose.

.Although in Tschumi's theoretical view

it

has

no boundaries, Pare de la \^ette is anchored by a sci-

museum on its

ence

southwest end and by a music

conser\ ator%- and performance hall

perimeter These large cultural result

on

its

northeast

institutions, also the

of design competitions, were

built at approxi-

mately the same time as the park. In addition, the industrial structures that

once serv ed as slaughter-

houses have been reused as event centers. The park in

between and surrounding these buildings

is

an

open grassy plain designed as an imaginan.' grid punctuated by folies, a series of bri^t red. cubelike build-

which appear

ings,

as large abstract

geometric

upon

the greens-

sculptures set at regular interv als

ward. Tschumi intended his green platform with red 1526 Sunday

In

onst

the Pare de

The recreational

la Villette^

experiences enjoyed by tors within

Tschumi

s

lectual perspectix e.

from a highly

Tschumi saw Pare de

la

intel-

MUette's

essay

in

philosophy are more

design as an opportunit}" to manifest textual decon-

structKism in terms of landscape. selected

diverse and active than the

ones Sunday parkgoers have in

architecture

foUes placed at grid intersections as "a surface of multireferential

nineteenth-century Parisian

bv

.After his

out specified uses

at the

by

now function like

structures in conventional parks;

Roberto Burle Mars. Tschumi in\ited architect Peter to participate with

developing a small area within the park. Below right 1527 Pare Andre teams

of

two

him by

some

are snackbars,

To the com-

mission of designing a space v^ithin Pare de

la

MHette

Derrida brou^t his interest in Plato's Tittmeus and its

time of construction, these

one is a children's play structure,

another a first-aid station, and so forth.

below-grade Chemetofl"

.A.

curvilinear,

Bamboo Garden designed by .Alexandre

(b.

1950) provides a counterpoint to the

stria geometry of Tschumi's dieoreticalh" endless

competition entrants

Alain Provost. Jean-Paul Viguier

Thou^ with-

a partial coherence.

design was

a twent\"-one-person jury chaired

Eisenman and Derrida

which leads to

parks.

Crtrden designed by

anchoring points for things or people

visi-

park architecture as deconstnictivist

who practices

and Jean-Francois Jodry

and Patrick Berger and Gilles

tial grid. .At

plays against the regularit}" of the overall plan.

is

the condition for every -

thing to take place, the necessar)"

Clement 1985-92

a Below: 152S Pare Andre

grade, a similarly serpentine path also

definition of space as diora, the \irgin receptacle of place, or the spacing that

means of pro\'iding

web for places. Tschumi's self-imposed challenge was to give

Citrben

spatial expression to a philosophical idea that rejects

unitaiy

meaning in

favor of spontaneous multiple

occurrences, or "event-texts" in the language of deconstructi\Tsm. His

method was

to create a fluid,

nonspecific, uncentered. unconfined space oreticalh"

This highly inteUectuaHzed approach to landscape creation is the province of design competitions

—

a the-

boundaryiess receptacle devoid of any rep-

and the product of an avant-garde ment. The French have

cultural establish-

historically

been

especially

hospitable to innovation and cerebral forms of tic

artis-

expression. However, other new Parisian essays in

landscape creation, notabh- the new^ parks of Berc\-

and .Andre Citroen, do not pursue the deconstructi\ist

course charted

at

Pare de

la

MUette. These other

new parks project the kind of meaning and s\"mbolic structure of older gardens wiiere representation

the re-presentation of ideas, as opposed to the presen-

49E

EARTHWORKS, GOLF COURSES. PHILOSOPHICAL MODELS. AND POETIC METAPHORS

tation of

an

implicitly endless grid as

an intentionally

mmnin^-less space in which visitors find whatever

momentary

"event-text" or

wish

— aims

may

significance they

to create poetical place, not merely value-

neutral 5pflce

(figs. 15.27, 15.28).

Landscape as Concrete and Metaphysical Poetry Poet and visual

artist

Ian

Hamilton Finlay

(b.

1925)

established his reputation in the 1960s as a pioneer of

concrete poetry, the arrangement of individual words

on

a page, often

ways

that gives

accompanied by pictorial images,

in

them psychological resonance and

heightened meaning. His garden near Lanark, Scotland,

which he

wood

calls Little Sparta,

with

its

textual ele-

— — explores the gap between language and

ments

graphically beautiful incised stones and sign,

indulging a subtle interplay of word and form, within the context of landscape

(figs. 15.29, 15.30).

As

a gar-

42 and 37 c.e. Situated in the rolling Pcniland Hills of

15.29. Prostrate

southern Scotland where sheep graze, the garden

the inscription "Arcadia, a

Place

den of association.

Little

Sparta

is

reminiscent of such

effectively implies these earlier depictions

of a bucolic

eighteenth-century creations as William Shenstone's

landscape studded with a few antique ruins. In such

Leasowes or Henry Hoare's Stourhead, which

Claudian or Virgilian scenes

also

human

action occurs

hood,"

in

Sparta's Neighbor-

Little

Below:

column with

Sparta

15.30. Little Sparta,

Stonypath, Dunsyre, near

abound

in evocations

of antiquity.^* As

we saw

Chapter Seven, the Leasowes was aferme Stourhead, with

its

themes from the Aeneid,

ornee,

in

and

within the rhythms of a timeless agrarian round as

Lanark, Scotland, garden

move in sunlit meadows and rest

designed by Ian Hamilton

shepherds and flocks

lay.

is

a highly

poetic landscape manifesting Virgil's epic narration

beside shady groves and softly gliding streams. At tle

Sparta, the

of the founding of Rome. Like these eighteenth-

hills,

century predecessors.

den

Little

Sparta consciously recalls

the Arcadian paintings of the seventeenth-century artist

Claude Lorrain and the nostalgic echoes of a

Golden Age found pastoral poems

in Virgil's Eclogues, the series

composed by the

of

Latin poet between

themes of water and

land,

Lit-

waves and

boats and huts predominate, although the gar-

also contains references to the

under which

Fin-

1966. Inscription

on

rough-hewn stones: "The Present Order the Future

is

the Disorder of

— Saint Just"

French Revolution

and warfare, especially World War cally hints at the

Begun

II,

and symboli-

shadow of destructive nuclear power

we live

today.

our losses of innocence

With such memorials

as the fallen 'Arcadia"

to

column

497

HOLDING ON AND LEHING

GROW

and "Nuclear

able

Sail," a

smoothly rounded,

silkily fin-

matte gray "gravestone," Litde Sparta's improl>

ished,

and

ironic dialogue with the tranquil Scottish

may perhaps be

borderland

best characterized as an

elegant and elegiac meditation

on

Maya Ying

Lin

(b.

1959)

is

an

who works

artist

com-

she

is

less

clas-

concerned

with creating large-scale works of cosmological

ref-

Fund, sponsors of the competition, was that the

memorial contain the names of the more than 57,000 servicemen

who died or are

tragic conflict.

Conceived

missing in action in that

as

two

retaining walls of

erence in remote locations than with imaging a meta-

black polished granite holding a grassy bank at an

physical poetry in environments that are readily

angle of 132 degrees, this sober,

accessible

and where her

site.

For these rea-

path past the inscribed necrolog)' that begins and ends

work

Instead,

informed by psychology and phenome-

it is

meditation

upon death and war leads the \Tsitor along an inclined

sons, Lin's

is

tactile,

from

art gains significance

the opportunities presented by the

not abstractly philosophical.

apex of the triangular incision in the earth.

at the

Begun as a smdio project in an architecture class,

awesome and somewhat intimidating works of some artists, Lin's con- structions are

Lin's

competition entry drew inspiration indirectiy

from

a

intimate and inviting, while serving an essentially

Edwin Lutyens's monument

nology. Unlike the

poetic purpose.

Water and stone and images of time

memorial

that

was formally quite

she employs these in sensory as well as symbolical

names

ways. Psychology is evident in her use of other forms

realize those lost lives

tactile

and

and

listen.

aural,

She

visual:

her work is

encouraging one to touch, be

is

more concerned with

still,

investing

Somme in Thiepval,

immense archway upon which 100,000 inscribed. "To walk past those names and

France, an are

— the

effect

of that

strength of the design," Lin has written.

was

different: Sir

to the missing soldiers

of the World War I Battle of the

and movement are important elements in her art, and

of sensory stimulation besides the

498

to serve as abstract architectural demonstrations of

philosophical theory.

when she won the design competition for the Viemam Veterans Memorial (fig. 15.31). A requirement of the Viemam Veterans Memorial

sculpture, and, like Finlay, she understands the

artists,

that are intended

Lin sprang to prominence in 1981 as a Yale

zone between landscape design and

with Earthworks

significance than with

la \Tllette

undergraduate

bined power of words and visual imagery. Often sified

human

creating spaces like Pare de

postindustrial as

well as postpastoral civilization.

in the conceptual

places with universal

similarly "apolitical,

is

the

Her approach

harmonious with the

site,

and condliatory." Lin wished to produce a monument

— EARTHWORKS, GOLF COURSES. PHILOSOPHICAL MODELS. AND POETIC METAPHORS

15.31.

Vietnam Veterans

Memorial, Constitution Gardens, Washington,

designed by

was lacking

that

in histrionic

content but capable of

serving as a necessary cathartic vehicle for

mourning

the tragedy of the war, a means for veterans and other visitors to

come

to terms with the soldiers' deaths.

About the design, she says, and cutting into the

earth,

"I

opening it up, an initial vio-

lence and pain that in time

would grow back, but the pure

flat

surface,

cut

it

imagined taking a knife

would cut

initial

heal.

The

grass

would remain

a

The mirror finish also reflects the the surrounding park, "creating are a part of

to respond

geode when you

and remember.

...

to be chronological, to

I

always wanted the

make

it

so that those

served and returned from the war could find

One

side of the

sunken

V

which

reflected in the

experience the wide V's sober embrace,

fingers tracing over the letters of the names.

overdy heroic monuments

Few

command this degree

of

respectflil attention. Fresh flowers, recently written

and other newly deposited tokens of respect

living

and the dead. In enjoining artists "to portray a

ing, beautiful,

Charles Jencks cal

more

dynamic, and tragic is

interest-

universe,'"*'

thinking of the deeper cosmologi-

consciousness produced by twentieth-century

ence.

Along with Jencks, Lin

landscape expression to the

is

sci-

interested in giving

new concepts of the uni-

and technology. By coincidence, she was born and

Monument,

grew up in Athens, Ohio, near the Hopewell Mounds,

somber granite's mirror fin-

and while these ancient relics probably hold the same

points to the Washington

is directed toward the Lincoln MemorThe openness, darkness, and below-grade horizontality of the Viemam Veterans Memorial sub-

the other

oppose the self-containment, whiteness, and

ticality

some of their

Vietnam Memorial's wide

ial.

tly

still-

verse that are emerging through advanced science

their place in the memorial."^'

ish;

The

and love bespeak the continuing bond between the

a

and polish the edge. The need for the names to

is

enter.'"*"

notes,

on

ver-

of those structures. "By linking these two

strong symbols for the country,

1982

two worlds, one we

cannot

surface in the earth with a polished, mirrored

the surface

O.C.,

images and

much like

there was no need to embellish the design further. The people and their names would allow everyone

who

we

Lin.

ness and emotion are palpable as visitors descend to

be on the memorial would become the memorial;

names

and one

visitors'

Maya

I

wanted

to create a

unity between the nation's past and present, says Lin. "

fascination for her as for archaeologists

mologically oriented

mary objective

is

artists

to discern

and other cos-

of Earthworks, her

pri-

and express what we are

here suggesting as "fourth namre,

"

a state that inte-

grates the three preexisting categories of nature

wUderness, cultivated land, and the garden

— with

science and technology. This dimension of her work

499

— HOLDING ON AND LETTING

1531

7776

Wave

GROW

Field,

Francois-Xavier Bagnoud

Aerospace Engineering Building,

University of Michigan

Ann

Arbor, Michigan, designed

by

Maya

Lin 1995

derives inspiration irova the optical

—

that make new wa}-s.

cameras \-erse in

To

create The

ment in \\-hich children teei sate and inspired by

and photographic

— microscopes, telescopes, and

instruments

the pleasure that can

satellite

nectedness, and flow"*"

Wave

Field (1995), a 100-foot-

Francois-Xa\"ier

space Engineering Building at the

gan

in

Ann Arbor,

air

of Michi-

fligjit (fig. 15.32).

image that gave substance to the

of

Bagnoud Aero-

Uni\"ersit\-

Lin studied the fluid d\Tiamics

associated with the physics of

naq.;

fluidit};

The

indetermi-

and unending repetitiousness of the movement currents essential to flight

graph of ocean waves

was

for her a photo-

in a turbulent sea.

Here she

evokes both her notion of the indeterminate character

Place as indeterminacy and exp>erience as

of the endless ad\'ancing and receding ocean and

covery, play, interconnectedness.

and flow

dis-

are con-

cepts of the twentieth and twent}'-first centuries.

Earthworks and other forms of Conceptual \\itness to the entropic character of chilization.

space,

and

bear

contemporary

engage our imaginations in

logical perspectives

art

new cosmo-

on the meaning of time and our

pro\-ide metaphorical expression for

otherwise inexpressible sorrows or joys. At the same time, our everyday lives proceed in divtmal time real space.

and

Our understanding of contemporar\" place

the oceanic appvearance of the wa\ing prairie that was

must therefore accommodate

once the American Midwest. Each of the earthen

motion, and communication that characterizes the

sU^dy in breadth and hei^t, is a cozy shell in \siiich students come to sit and read. .As

new

waves, which van."

hend

is.

In The

Wave Hdd, indetermrnac}' becomes place.

Lin grounds it, makes ple.

She also

urgeno.; that

hymns

gi\"es it a

it

available to actual peo-

moral purpose, even an

would be

inconceis able in

to indeterminaq.: Tlie Wax'e Field

a case for art's abilit}' to

gather in an

many makes

encourage people to

emironment where they \sill be

comfortable -with one another and able to trust

what they have not

Postindustrial Age. a

We

the accelerated change,

must seek to compre-

geography that is both temporal and

spatial,

one of flows, instantaneousness. and \irmalir\". Place

Michael Brenson explains:

yet recognized

and what

they cannot measure or control; an emiron-

500

experiencing

the world in terms of disco\ er\-. play, intercon-

us percei^"e the world and uni-

square (30.5-meter-square) earth and grass memorial

commissioned for the

come from

in the last analysis, experiential, as

mind as an porar%^ ical

earthly

of

according to contem-

diou^t, grounded wthin us. within our ph)"s-

bodies as well as within our ps} ches. This

whether we are It is

reaUt}". It is.

much a state

stationary-

in place

— or

is

true

traveling.

important to understand that movement itself is

part of the experience of place and that a sense weavers of landscape.

It is

we

are

all

in

with this notion of

place-making as wea\ing and the reading of the world as a

loom of landscape,

will conclude.

a cultural geography, that

we

.

NOTFS FOR Cl

I

\P1

Fin TEN

II

1

City,

creation of historical narratives through

Roberta Gratz and Norman Mintz, Cities

M.l.T. Press, 1960.

landscape preservation and restoration,

Back from

Lynch's small influential classic volume on

see David Lowenthal, The Past Is a Foreign

foivn

CounfAy(Cambridge: Cambridge University

Wiley&Sons,

See Kevin Lynch, The Image of the

1.

Cambridge, Mass.: The

reading the city develops the concept of

nodes

— topographic features, landmark

structures, prominent or eccentric build-

open spaces

ings, public

— as

easily visu-

maps

alized reference points in the mental

Press, 1985). According to Lowenthal,

"We

are often innocent of conscious intent to

change what we mean simply to conserve or celebrate.

.

.

.

We can now see how ped-

25.

the Edge:

(New York:

New Life for Down-

Preservation Press, John

Inc., 1998).

Harlow Whrttemore,

Proceedings of

in

the National Conference on Instruction in

Landscape Architecture, Asilomar, Grove, California, July 5-7, 1957,

Pacific

As

p. 30.

that act like circuit boards of place within

agogic and patriotic commitments shaped

quoted

in

Peter Walker and Melanie Simo,

our brains.

Henry Ford's Greenfield and John

Invisible

Gardens: The Search for Mod-

2.

These words are being written on Janu-

ary

2000, after

1,

watching the millennial

fireworks bursting

New York

the night sky over

in

New Year's

sion broadcast of filmed brations

viewing a televi-

City while also

in

cele-

saw

every part of the world. One

the collapsing of time and space

in

the

detect our

13.

See

nial Revival in

Eiffel

Tower

monuments

other world

— now presented

man," transcript

of interview,

momentous transition as well as the foci

City's

New

of humanity.

of

York

Times Square, whose design char-

— appropriately power — distinguished is

in

an age

more by

in

Charles B. Hosmer,

Revival

nial

nial Revival in

highly

15.

bit thin,"

the self-proclaimed epicenter of this

3.

(1966),

According

to

in

keeping with contemporary aesthetics as

Age manufactur-

and maintenance practices

Smithson, "The slurbs, infinite

number

of

justified

on the

ground that eighteenth-century folk would surely have used such colours

if

they could

thal,

contributed to the architecture cit., p.

16.

13.

5. Ibid., p. 14.

David Lowenthal, The Heritage Crusade Spoils of H/srory (Cambridge:

bridge University Press, 1998),

p.

Cam-

Kevin Lynch, "Time and Place

in

Envi-

Marsh: Prophet of Conservation

Southworth (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press,

Nature,

1996), p. 630.

fied

629-30.

Power of Place:

good discussion

meanings assigned the see William Hill:

Butler,

Litchfield,

of the

upon

a

in

Fe:

Tradition

New

Mexico

Press, 1997).

^Z

For a

good

Washington Press,

1996, p. 44.

4,

See Cooper and

Taylor, op. cit, p. 72.

my knowledge

of the history of golf

course design as outlined below indebted to Geoffrey E.

am

I

Cornish and Ronald

S.

Whitten, The Architects of Golf, rev. ed.

(New York:

HarperCollins, Publishers, 1993).

meeting

35. Transcript of

tember

1985,

17,

in

in

New York, Sep-

Chora

Works by

L

by

Or,

Bernard Tschumi, Cinegramme

37.

2000),

Pare de

p.

Thomas Leeser

Monacelli Press, 1997),

la W//effe

Physical Geography as Modi-

Human

Action (1864), ed. David

38. is

Folie:

Le

(Princeton, N.J.; Prince-

ton Architectural Press, 1987),

Man and

p. 8.

36. Ibid.

(Seattle:

1

George Parkins Marsh,

p. 24.

According to John Dixon Hunt "Finlay

undoubtedly

a special

case

landscape architecture. He

is

modern

in

special not

Lowenthal (Cambridge, Massachusetts:

because he

The Belknap Press

radical invocation of basic devices from the

Harvard University

of

22. Ian

is

different but

because

makes more

his

Anniversary edition

SSons,

(New York: John Wiley

Spirn, 7776 Granite

often unconscious, underlying the re-

Human Design

York: Basic Books, 1984).

See also

Timothy Beatley, Green Urbanism: Learning from

of the

European C/Oes (Washington,

D.C.:

good discussion

term urban husbandry as a means

revitalizing cities as

Press, 2000),

Maya

New

See Anne Whiston

(New

(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania

39.

Inc., 1992), p. 5.

Island Press, 2000). For a interpretation of the motives,

25th

23. Ibid, p. 19.

24.

of

See John Dixon Hunt Greater Perfections

McHarg, Design With Nature,

Garden: Urban Nature and

Myth of Santa

(Albuquerque: University of

"Sermon

21. Ibid., p. 51, note 53.

City

Modern Regional

Julie V. lovine,

New York Times Magazine,

changing

The Colonial Revival

Chris Wilson, The

Creating a

As quoted by

on the Mound,"

history of place-making

pany, 1985), pp. 15-51.

See

67.

32.

those traditions than most other designers."

America (New York: W. W. Norton & Com-

11.

'p.

Press, 1965), pp. 38-9.

Connecticut, and the Colo-

nial Revival," in

Pri-

vate Garden for the Twenty-first Century,

20. Ibid., p. 465.

New England town,

"Another

Great

Cooper

p. xi.

Urban Landscapes as Public HistoryiCamPress, 1995),

Life of

329.

See David Lowenthal, George Perkins

19.

Delores Hayden, The

p.

in

Paradise Transformed: The

Taylor,

New York: The

267, note

10. For a

and

edited by Jeffrey Kipnis and

Lynch, ed. Tridib Banerjee and Michael

MIT

Charles Jencks, as quoted

31.

1961), pp. 443-44.

Design: Writings and Projects of Kevin

bridge, Mass.:

29. Ibid, p. 146.

17. Ibid.

University of

9.

Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings, p. 145.

Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman,

ronmental Design," City Sense and City

8. Ibid., pp.

p. 11.

American C/Oes( New York: Random House,

18.

xiii.

The Past Is a Foreign Country,

Jane Jacobs, Death and

Ram (Berkeley:

Robert Smithson, "Spiral Jetty" (1972),

34. For

boom have

7.

Collected Writings, ed. Jack

28.

New

Robert Smithson: The

(1966),

University of California Press, 1996),

burg, paints and fabrics brighter than

have found and afforded them." See Lowen-

and the

Robert Smithson, "Entropy and the

Monuments"

Ram (Berkeley:

housing developments of the postwar

6.

27.

February

were

Delano

Halprin's Franklin

30. Interview with the author, July 27, 2000.

nevertheless very pretty and

colonists ever had

to

Roosevelt Memorial," unpublished manu-

33.

urban sprawl, and the

of entropy." op.

Lawrence

tive:

For instance, "In restored Colonial Williams-

p. 11.

Delano

am mdebted

I

Reuben M. Rainey, "The Garden as Narra-

extends well beyond Shurcliff's gardens.

University of California Press, 1996),

Press, 1994), pp. 258-59.

26. For the history of the Franklin

New

Collected Writings, ed. Jack

4. Ibid.

"The Colo-

to

influenced by Industrial

MIT

bridge, Mass.:

Robert Smithson: The

Robert Smithson, "Entropy and the

Monuments"

As

make Williamsburg's which may have been "a little

ing standards

global party.

Jr.,

p. 62.

America, pp. 61-62.

The impulse

and photographic imagery than by any easrecognizable architectural character,

22,

and Early Garden Restoration," The Colo-

faded past,

ily

February

the Public Eye: Williamsburg

in

media

of

Mrs. George P Cole-

Archives: Oral History Collection),

quoted

American Landscape (Cam-

in the

script, 1995.

1956 (Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

technological visual display of information

was

America, pp. 52-70.

of

seemingly

"The Colo-

Mary Haldane Begg Coleman, "The

Reminiscences

ing as talismans in a time of

acter

Jr.,

many

Paris and

in

as intensely illuminated spectacles, serv-

mass gatherings

Hosmer,

and Early Garden Restoration," The Colo-

14.

the

B.

ernism

Roosevelt Memorial,

the Public Eye: Williamsburg

nial Revival in

present century's intensely globalizing cul-

—

less than Ford's or Rock-

op. cit, pp. 325-26.

See Charles

ture and observed iconic structures of

place

cannot

own preconceptions, which

warp the past no efeller's."

Rock-

D.

we

Williamsburg. But

efeller's

places to

live,

of

see

p.

Lin,

York

(November

117.

"Making the Memorial," The

Review of Books: 2,

XL\/lt:17

2000), pp. 33-34.

40. Ibid. 41.

"Landscape

of

Waves," Prospect Mag-

azine (Winter, 1996): 2-5, as quoted Beardsley, Earthworks

4Z "Maya

Lin's

Time,"

and Beyond,

in

Maya

Lin:

m

p. 197.

Topolo-

g/es (Winston-Salem: Southeastern Center for

Contemporary

Art, 1998), p. 41.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

THE WEAVING OF PLACE AND THE GEOGRAPHY OF FLOWS: LANDSCAPE AS BODILY EXPERIENCE

AND VEKNACULAK EXPRESSION Xhe

background shaping contemporary

cultural

toward landscape and place can be discerned

in philosophy,

toward the end of the nineteenth century found with psychology. During

alliance

attitudes

this period,

its

became

in

confidence in West-

split

ever further apart, and the restless search for truth

a matter of continually shifting premises.

scientific discoveries

As revolutionary

overthrew former religious belief about the

creation of the universe, they substituted

no reasonable new

mology, only the exhilarating yet sometimes disquieting tual

voyage into the

The Species, it

cos-

intellec-

unknown that continues still.

which Charles Darwin (1809-1882) published in

1859,

made

as separate

from

the rest of the animal kingdom. Furthermore, the field of scientific

geology developed by

whose

fossil

Sir

Charles Lyell (1797-1875), from

record Darwin drew

many of his conclusions, under-

a heliocentric universe

was

power

Big Bang has gained general acceptance as the generative

behind

a multigalactic universe

composed of many hundreds of

bilUons of solar masses. Telescopic space probes of heretofore

unimaginable depth are revealing ever more remote universal space

is

galaxies.

Today

understood to be curved, even malleable, rather

than as extending in a straight plane as Rene Descartes had cally

supposed

in a stable,

logi-

in the seventeenth century.

in the light

of biology, geology and physics, belief

unchanging, God-created world and belief in the

being's extraordinary, semidivine status within

it

human

were severely

shaken. Religion thus proved capable of providing personal conviction

and moral guidance only for the individual rather than

serv-

ing as a metaphysical structure of belief for society at large. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) laid

down

the premise for exis-

— the con-

tentialism with his declaration of "the death of God." Nietzsche

— could have been modeled

believed that, liberated from the concept of an objective reality

by mythological gods or a Divine Craftsman, rather than by the

based upon rationality, humans could realize their potential through

mined completely the notion text

that Earth's

and medium of landscape design

topography

natural forces of crustal upthrust and erosion

by wind and water.

At the same time that geologists learned that the shape of Earth's surface

is

the product of many eons of flux, physicists unset-

tled established verities regarding the stability

and timelessness of

the heroic enterprise of

vidual Truth. In

unshackled

self,

self- invention

art acquired the status

and the poet assumed the

mulation of the second law of thermodynamics, which

tivism,

entropy,

moves toward

undermined the Enlightenment's confident,

foretells

a state of

rational Carte-

indi-

formerly accorded religion,

seat of the philosopher,

was now generally confined

it

— the creation of an

Nietzsche's supremely Romantic vision of the

the universe. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the for-

the disintegration of the universe as

whose function

to the area of linguistics, logical posi-

and other noncosmological

subjects.

Psychology began to preempt the role of philosophy

in

informing human thought and providing cultural context. Sigmund

human psyche by interpreting the

sian-Newtonian cosmology. Albert Einstein (1879-1955) further

Freud (1856-1939) analyzed the

eroded the principles of Enlightenment science with the theory of

experiences of childhood and the symbolical messages divulged in

relativity,

502

truths.

relegated to the dustbin of science. In recent years, the theory of a

Seen thus

implications of evolutionary biology in The Origin of

dear that humankind could no longer be viewed

The Enlightenment concept of

which

domain

ern society's progressive ideology began to erode as science and philosophy

and time. Quantum mechanics further unseated accepted

and thus the independent and absolute nature of space

dreams.

He

posited that the unconscious

mind and powerful bio-

— THE WEAVING OF PLACE AND THE GEOGRAPHY OF FLOWS

logical instincts are the operative forces

of rationality and ethical impulses.

To

religion,

beneath

civilization's

Freud's psychology Carl Jung (1875-1961) added his

concept of the collective unconscious grounded by,

veneer

accounting for its darker, chthonic

in,

and structured

archetypal principles. Jung's theories provide insight into the

universality

of psychological experience and the persistence of myth

phenomenon and metaphorical instrument

as a cultural

ing intellectual perception and

for shap-

making art.

focus

on the

autonomous creative self and by psychology's

promoted individualism

interior lives of persons

primacy of the individual and the

belief in the

within the larger framework of society. belief in the

tem and citizens

supremacy of the

rights

spiritually

To some

extent, statism

state as the provider

and physically

upon

by the

spiritual crisis

of a value

sys-

— attempted to

fill

the vac-

of modern

life

by focusing

"sense experience." For Merleau-Ponty, "Sense experience

that vital

communication with the world which makes

as a familiar setting in the world,

of our

The body anchors

life.

it

nificance

its

means of cognition the

collective histories

actions, thereby giving

life

sig-

through

form.

course on the phenomenological aspect of space

maintains that our need to

we

spec-

our subject, landscape, Merleau-Ponty 's

In relation to

feel stable, in place,

instructive.

is

dis-

He

not vertiginously

but anchored somewhere, proceeds from our bodily constitu-

adrift

tion,

light,

transformation, projecting

upon both our personal and

and symbolic

real

present

connecting consciousness with the empirical and giv-

of the world but agents of

tacle

is

the individual

ing coherent structure to perception and behavior. In this

of individuals

and economic structures capable of sustaining

social

both

nihilism fostered

are not passive subjects registering by

The weakening of collective religious belief bolstered by Nietzsche's vision of the

leau-Ponty (1908-1961) also countered the existential angst and the

our innate sensation of up and down, which

our primary

is

uum left by religion's diminishing role in people's Hves. But, as Niet-

apprehension of space and of being in the world. The affirmation

zsche intuited, the liberating notion of humanity's essential freedom

of

and ability

to rationally fashion a society of

its

own choosing has a

dark side. People during an increasingly troubled and complex twentieth

century came to understand

this as divisiveness, enmity,

racism, and revolt flourished along with our propensity for exploitation

and

cruelty.

Unpersuaded by the rhetoric of

or inept political leaders of the substitute for

state's

evil

supremacy and

demagogues viability as a

this basic truth

experience puts

Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962). Bachelard used the combined approach of psychology and phenomenology to articulate Poetics of Space (1957) a

mate spaces of memory where he

which poetic

spiritually reinhabit the inti-

finds

images "which are

all

light

to live

if

humankind

is its

necessarily focus

upon

the

existentialism offered

new

on in us."^ According to Bachelard, through daydreams time

enfolded into psychic spatiaUty as intimate places, particularly the

is

places of childhood, abide in

space.'"*

has

of inquiry into an objective material universe and a subjective

Ufe, Lebenswelt,

or "life-world" as the basis of reaHty. Phenomenol-

— moods, — and the things of the material world, including

ogy, the investigation of the data of consciousness

val-

mathematics and the concept of space, constituted the philosophreforming spirimal

chology was more than a subjective awareness as

life.

Within

social science;

means

for

it

this

framework, psy-

validated intuition and

(1927),

Martin Hei-

at the University

of Freiburg, extended Husserl's phenomenologi-

cal investigations

and attempt to rescue humanity's understanding

of itself from the confines of rational science. Implicit in the philosophical concept he called Daseiyx

— meaning "attunement," or the world" — the cher-

dweUing

in

is

ishing of place as the intimate infrastructure of everyday experi-

ence. As the urban historian

Heidegger traced the verb cept of Dasein to

its

Sam

to dwell,

original

Bass Warner, Jr., reminds us,

which is fundamental to his con-

meaning: to bmld and to cultivate

land.'

major work, Phenomenologie de la perception (Phenome-

nology of Perception,

1945), the

His topophiUa, or fond remembrance of place, however,

counterpart. Instead of examining space, as did Bachelard,

terms of imaginative poetics and phenomenology resonant with

Jungian archetypes and individual psychology, Michel Foucault (1926-1984) studied

it

as a historical, non-absolute,

French philosopher Maurice Mer-

impermanent

phenomenon, with widely differing interpretations from era to era and from culmre to culmre. Foucault posited

a "hetero topology"

of "countersites" that challenges Bachelard's order of intimate psychical place

with an analysis of such politicized, historicized spaces

and parks.

as prisons, cemeteries,

In addition, in Les

degger (1889-1976), Husserl 's successor as professor of philosophy

inhabiting and

in

its

understanding the world.

With the publication of Being and Time

musing upon the poetics of place

constitute an examination of "the quite simple images of felicitous

Enlightenment philosophy following Descartes's separation of the

cognitive self Husserl gave primacy to the experience of everyday

memory and dreams.

Bachelard's philosophical

philosophi-

The German philosopher Edmund

Husserl (1859-1938) sought to overcome the dualism inherent in

In his

in

The

ulti-

Phenomenology and

there,

concept of "topoanalysis"

encourages the individual to

reverie

in

own

cal perspectives in this regard.

"being

with another French philosopher,

and shimmer," proving that "houses that were lost forever continue

individual as an instrument of action as well as cognition.

ical basis for

in league

in a

mate resource, then philosophy must

ues, desires

him

for personal

God, many thinking people found themselves

condition of existential despair. Yet

field

and Merleau-Ponty 's poetic regard

lish as

Mots

et les choses

(1966: translated into Eng-

The Order of Things: An Archaeology of

the

Human

Sciences,

1970) Foucault provides an analysis of the function of representation,

can be usefully applied to a garden. That account styles in favor

new and needed historiography of the

would suppress

as a

combination of nature and

historically relevant cultural values.' ises in

mind,

how

With these uitellecmal prem-

aU of us act as place-making agents as our

moving bodies claim space and as we

upon

this

art manifesting

we wiU conclude our history of landscape design with

meditation on

terns

recitation of a narrative of

of an analysis (such as has been attempted in

book) of landscape

a

Hunt extrapolates,

which, as landscape historian John Dixon

create forms

the landscapes of the world,

which

nature whatever our particular cultural values

and inscribe pat-

are forever part of

may be.

503

THE WEAVING OF PLACE AND THE GEOGRAPHY OF FLOWS

I.

Body and Space: The Weaving oe Place

Within the span of an individual difficult to

especially

life, it is

grasp the fundamental truth that every-

thing, including the architecture of nature tains, plains,

seas

rivers,

—

is

— moun-

forever changing.

Imposing order on nature and believing that the spaces

we shape have permanence seem to be neces-

sary imperatives for maintaining our bearings psychologically.

Even when space

is

outside of our

personal influence in terms of strucmre, priate

it

we

appro-

by the movements of our bodies.

Following Bachelard,

we may

which

are stored

lines

how habitual

passage over traditional

of movement invests landscape with significance

and mythic content. The Walbiri have imposed on

web of tracks called songlines

their territory a sacred

linking stations that are associated with totemic

These dreaming

beings, or dreamings.

ments

Walbiri,

of an arid locale where the scarcity of

Walbiri dreaming

think of our

many remem-

sites are ele-

mnemonic system employed by the who must memorize the features

in a

nomadic

knowledge of potential water holes

dwellings as nests of personal space and our craniums as the repositories in

demonstrate

sites,

rainfall

makes

essential.''

the locus of religious

ceremonies, serve as landmarks within an otherwise

The totems of

indistinguishable desert landscape.*

bered places, even, or especially, places erased by time.

the Walbiri consist of various animals, astronomical

we should not think of place as stationary. From the window of the moving automobile or, more sen-

features, the

But

sationally,

from the windswept, unprotected motor-

cyclist's perspective,

place

is

fluid,

the streaming

What is important to underthat whether we are in fast or slow motion,

elements

— wind,

human

even some important

and

rain,

artifacts

fire

— and

such as spears

or digging sticks. Cultural heroes wandered along the established songlines in the mythic period

known

as

scenery of the highway.^

dreamtime, which is conceived as both a long-ago and

stand

continuing category of existence.^ In dreamtime,

is

assumed human form, shaped

we are claiming space with the sensations experienced

these creative figures

by our moving bodies while

topography, gave the landscape

internalizing

meanings

features,

its

and

of place through the impressions stored in our minds.

deposited their totemic essences in the places where

Space can be thus likened to a loom, and our shut-

they halted in their journeys before transforming

tling motion as

we

traverse familiar habitats or explore

unknown ones makes us weavers of place ate a fabric of the

as

we

cre-

mind with which to cloak our naked

psyches and attach ourselves to the world.

themselves into animal or plant form and returning into the earth at a spot, usually of cal distinction, that

cipal shrine.

We may observe that our feet trace and retrace

to historical time,

nary world with

other biological creatures, also weavers of space,

dreamtime

place-making animals. To visualize

they impersonate.

metaphorically

we may

or better, because a

more

it is

a

this activity

traverse

an alternative

and the impregnation of the

its

spiritual essences

human

sponding impregnation of

ordi-

and the corre-

fetuses with the

dreamings of their place of conception shape the identity of individual affect their als at

mutual

members of

relationships.

the dreaming

sites,

men may

Walbiri

for a brief period,

the society and

By performing rituenter

becoming the heroes

The care of the dreaming sites and

think of strings with knots,

custodial responsibility for the rituals and songs

belonging to them are assigned to individual lodges

strings or lines represent the routes

we

and the knots or dots the stationary points

where we

as

more mapHke and therefore

placelike image, intersecting lines in a field

with dots. The

served as their memorial and prin-

Dreamtime continues

way we weave and reweave the fabric of physical and psychological space, making ourselves at home in the world. Our weaving capability is such that, like birds, some of us can live transient lives and over their course borrow or build many nests that we call home. Thus adaptable, we are Hke habitual steps. In this

some topographi-

Ngama

associated with each location. At

located near

Yuendumu

game and where

in a valley

Cave,

with abundant

three songlines converge, one lodge

continues to maintain the totemic wall paintings

settie for awhile.

depicting snake, dingo, and wallaby.

Claiming Space The

As we saw in Chapter Two, the ancient Greeks

theoretical reweaving of unraveled place consti-

tutes the

work of archaeological anthropologists who

attempt to understand the role of

movement

—

rit-

ual processions, ceremonial dancing, pilgrimage to

nature shrines, and so forth activities olithic

and hence the landscape designs of

Pale-

and Neolithic peoples. The Walbiri people

Australia, a society

sex

— in the place-making in

of contemporary hunter-gatherers.

wove

their colonial cities per stringas, as

bands of

north-south and east-west streets forming a Hippo-

damian grid, and then wove

a looser net of territorial

claims by extending pilgrimage routes to the shrines located near the limits of the chora.

By moving along

processional routes into the countryside to the temple shrines as well as polis,

people activated

by walking the this fabric

streets ot the

of space and

inter-

nalized

it

as place.'

So, too,

do we fashion fiom the

patterns of our movement our notions of place.

which

place,

is

the claim our

coterminous with our

own

Thus

selves,

is

moving bodies make upon regional accommodating our comings and

space, which, in

goings, gains familiarity

and accrues meaning. As phi-

losophy historian Edward Casey reminds build places

.

.

.

us, "Bodies

through inhabiting and even by

is

something that

songlines by

is

sequenced

movement along

we have invested sig-

nificance, if only the significance

West, the

commercial

rituals

Walbiri

routes that are punc-

tuated with landmarks in which

In the highly

like the

of customary

capitalist societies

newcomers granted land by law tory with established boundary

sight.

of the

of shopping and eating out are

The

as property or terri-

lines.

By contrast, the

migration of Pre-Columbian Native Americans found

is

in the archaeological record, particularly in the

ruins of long-abandoned pueblos dotted across the

Southwest.

travel-

ing between already built places."" Seen in this way, place

nature in nonreligious terms as a commodity.

Ironically, at

the

Americans began to

same time

restrict

that

post-Columbian

movements of Native

the

Americans, they set themselves in motion, weaving

new American chora of continental dimensions as moved west to colonize the land. The warp and woof of Jefferson's national grid became a loom of a

they

weaving such

spatial

as the

world had never seen

before. Within the mile-square, 640-acre sections

important components in our contemporary concept

described by

of chora, the regional receptacle of place.

smaller-scale grids of cities

orthogonal

its

and the

lines, fields

were

established.

But the

therefore kinetic, a pattern of habitual

actual roads that followed the engineers' surveys that

movements through remembered space. Where our

mapped the national grid were not created until much

Place

is

intuitive directional

system based upon familiarity and

repetition of experience breaks

numbers of strangers airports or train

down,

as

when large

are in transit, passing through

and bus

we

stations,

substimte for

later.

Depressions in the prairie grass where the Great

end near Fort Union

Plains

mark the Santa Fe

ruts of the Trail.

in eastern

New

Mexico

wagon wheels that formed the Law Olmsted, traveling in

Frederick

our mental maps of place well-developed graphic sys-

the antebellum South, found himself continually

down by the miry, rutted roads. With tolls but

tems containing conventional international symbols.

slowed

As highways, automobiles, and trucks have put more

no

and more people on the move and made mass mar-

upkeep, the roads of America were

keting and distribution systems commonplace, soci-

than a century and a half of the republic's existence,

ety's

impulse has been to delocalize place by creating

ubiquitous and predictable cultural geographies. Retail

able

and hotel chains and other

federal taxes to support their establishment or

making each region insular and all

way

travel

instantly recogniz-

commercial franchise operations such

as service

In

all

local for

more

long-distance high-

an arduous adventure.

Chapter Twelve

we examined how this situ-

ation changed as the automobile

became

a popular

and fast-food restaurants thus become the

and increasingly dominant mode of transportation.

denominators of the placeless place where anyone

The limited-access "townless highway" conceived by

stations

can presumably

feel at

Benton MacKaye and the

home.

As we saw in Chapter One, Puebloan people the Southwest have

in

woven place by establishing a flow

Long

Island

and

motor parkways on

first

in Westchester County,

were thought of

as regional arteries

New York,

and

their pur-

of energy that also guides the people's footsteps

pose as primarily recreational, bringing newly mobi-

between the pueblo and

lized city-dwellers nearer to nature.

marked mountain logical

the inconspicuously stone-

shrines that establish the

cosmo-

paradigm within the landscape. Like the agora

of the Greek polis, the bupingeh, or central plaza, constitutes the civic

and

social heart

of the pueblo, and

World War

II,

a

But following

powerful congressional lobby sup-

porting motor transportation interests fostered the creation of interstate highways,

and the United States

became

— multilane

laced with expressways

arteries

network sup-

the nansipu, the small stone-encircled depression

for trucks as well as cars. This national

within the bupingeh, marks the cosmological axis

planted the earlier regional one feamring parkways.

mundi and the centerpoint of

The journey was no longer its own reward; speed and

the spatial tapestry that

extends from the pueblo in four directions to the encircling

mountains that rim the horizon. But

although the pueblo sacralizes space,

it is

not

itself

considered to be a sacred, immutable form, being simply the temporary center of a people

who may move

to another location someday, allowing their

walls to melt back into the earth.

pueblos as

we know them

today

The

is

fixity

absence of

way

rarely

Bronx the

an

employed on roadway design

As park-

projects, as

was

when

the

the case in the early twentieth century

adobe

a product of

congestion replaced motorized

construction waned, landscape architects were

of the

Euro-American cultural construct that perceived

traffic

recreation as the engineer's primary goals.

River, Taconic, Merritt,

and other parkways in

New York metropolitan region were built. In the global, technology-oriented culture of the

twentieth-first century,

images of local and historical

THE WEAVING OF PLACE AND THE GEOGRAPHY OF FLOWS

16.1.

A

"geography of

flows." Freeway, Seattle

place have

become

replications,

universalized through endless

and we have become

infinitely

mobilized than participants in prior civilizations.

and space are experienced has

become

a

differently,

more Time

and the world

geography of flows: of people, of

goods, and of information

(fig. 16.1

).

The

result

is

a

multicultural landscape pastiche, a transcultural

scenery of borrowed design motifs and symbols.

may lament

the frenetic pace of contemporary

We life

arating Faustian experiences of human

too often

at the

bonds. But that does not is

all

expense of existing neighborhoods,

irremediably disrupting people's

struction

power are and

lives

social

mean that all highway con-

inimical, especially

were poUticians and

planners to heed the finest lesson offered by the Dis-

ney Company's theme-park planners:

a

system of

multiple, integrated transportation technologies

aimed

at creating

neighborhood-sized, car-free envi-

and long to get back to nature, but the journey can-

ronments. This goal would force careful considera-

not be accomplished without connection to the tech-

tion of exterior access

nology of transportation flows.

the interior infrastrucmre necessary to facilitate pedes-

Lawrence Halprin understood essay

this.

In his 1966

trian

and

and parking needs along with

light-rail transit flows.

An ethos of inteUigent stewardship of Earth's human environments and good

on freeways he wrote:

biological and

Freeways out

in the countryside,

with their

frameworks

for political decision-making are fun-

we

graceful, sinuous, curvilinear patterns, are like

damental

great free-flowing paintings in which, through

entific, technical,

participation, the sensations

space are experienced. In

of motion through

cities

head concrete structures with tied to the

ground and the

tilevers rippling

enormous

the great overtheir

haunches

vast flowing can-

above the local

streets stand like

sculptures marching through the

architectonic caverns.

These vast and beautiful

works of engineering speak guage of a new

scale, a

new

to us in the lan-

attitude in

which

mere

abstract conceptions but a vital

are to successfully address with sci-

and

artistic

chaUenges that confront regional planners have

us. In

begun

means

the global

Europe

especially,

to think of conserva-

tion in terms of the transportation costs associated

with the environmental footprints of the

would caution against

romanticizing the beauty of engineering and

506

vistas

from freeways. These

is,

them with

food, water, and energy

— and to

mass buildings and preserve green space with stronger regard for the natural channels of

air

and

water flowing through them.

The lite

flows of images and information via

technology and the Internet provide

grated international environmental

panoramic skyline

— that

satel-

new means

of advancing global stewardship and promoting inte-

part of our everyday experiences.^

Followers of Jane Jacobs

cities

amount of far-flung hinterland necessary to sus-

tain

high-speed motion and the qualities of change are not

if

exhil-

systems.

To succeed

encompass

fully, this

a psychological

attachment to place.

management

stewardship must

and phenomenological

We must therefore learn to value

—

the qualities that constitute place and understand

what it means to be

body that moves through space,

a

a corporeal self at rest and in motion, a being that

capable of place nature,

is

making within the context of home,

and community.

because

the

mind

imposing order on

we

—

that insists

space, place

on organizing

is,

in fact,

By being emplaced

are physically.

our planet

— longimde and

as a universally

gation. Satellites

wherever

to pinpoint position

now beam information that can be captured by com-

in space

we

wilderness accurate information about their current location and directions to their destinations. Survey-

ors have

made

possible the

mapping of virmally the

entire surface of the globe with great precision

demographers, economists, and

became

have added

a place as well as a heavenly body.

Movement is pleasure and often spiritual reward. by venmring forth

no

we

are explorers, claiming place

to look

and

learn,

intention of settling. Scaling the

even

if

we have

mountain sum-

To

at a fine scale.

much

aries

of

us to picture accurately places

our ability to

remains personal.

at the

in us the

Milky

myth and

at

both

aerial

visualize

and

remote

of space as place

Way and the

same sensation of cos-

mological awe that prehistoric peoples converted into

It is

photography

places. Nevertheless, the experience

myriad stars produces

religious

still

increases

away from city lights, gazing into

immensity of the night sky

cli-

Map reading enables we have never seen,

and watching the sun plunge beneath the the dark

well as

political scientists,

and nations, and human road

systems and settlement patterns.

and cinematic and

or,

scientists, as

useful information regarding

cities, states,

ground level

plain

and

base of topographical infor-

mate, geology, vegetation, wildlife habitat, the bound-

mit or diving below the ocean's surface imprints us

open

this

mation, geographers and natural

with experience of place. Standing on the mesa or the

horizon

— upon

agreed-upon aid to navi-

programmed

When the astronaut Neil Armstrong set his foot on the moon in 1969, claiming a giant stride for humankind, the moon ineluctably claim space as place.

Curious by nature,

latitude

puters, giving drivers of automobiles or hikers in the

Because mind and body cannot be divorced and it is

spatial coordinates

Campinc; To go camping

calendrical calculation.

most

important to distinguish between mind-

ing in

vividly its

is

to internalize spatial experience

and to comprehend human place mak-

most elemental form. Through

availing

among sentient creatures, human beings are capable

warm

clothing

manner of technical aids, such as made of industrially manufactured

of conceptualizing space in both real and abstract

synthetic fibers,

good topographical maps, or perhaps

body space and abstract,

intellectualized space.

terms, as lived experience

on

the one

Alone

hand and as car-

tography, mathematical model, or cosmological dia-

gram on

the other.

We have

imposed

a

system of

themselves of

a

all

handheld computer with satellite-beamed compass

orientation, exact location, tion, the

and directional informa-

backcountry camper claims wilderness

(first

THE WEAVING OF PLACE AND THE GEOGRAPHY OF FLOWS

nature) as an experience of place

by following

Blazed by the original explorers of wilderness,

trails.

trails

made by the feet of horses, cattle, and humans who have gone ahead (fig. 16.2). Each hiker who threads a way along these paths or bushwhacks are tracks

matrix. In us abides the cave, prenatal

and protected sancmary.

paradise,

mountain peaks;

ing,

sory impressions: the resinous pungency of pine, the

Together

low rumble from the thundercloud over the moun-

place

pet of leaf

on

picnic

moss,

litter,

meadow

in the

breeze-blown grasses and nodding wildflowers.

we may make

are journalists,

string of words, for narrative

we

of these experiences a

is

and even an

to place making,

If

of

an important adjunct

camper wiU

illiterate

have his or her story of the Way. Yet no story of a journey

and no trek

without

is

The camper,

sleep.

for the night,

or she

is

its

without its caesuras,

and

wayfarer seeking an inn

like the

must tie

is

a knot in the string of space he

where

a tent

makes

a

home,

the place

where, cocooned in a sleeping bag and covered by a fragile shell

of

fabric,

one

sets forth

on

a

voyage of

nocturnal dreams. Or, dispensing with the insubstantial

house that the tent represents, the camper joins

those prehistoric ancestors

through myth and

still

amazed,

if

governed

celestial observation,

movements of

rotational

who

their lives

studying the

the bright lights overhead,

not as wondering as they, about the

cosmological meaning of those

lights'

majestic

march

across the heavens through the hours of darkness.

This exhilarating venture into nature, our

home, sharpens our ine that, even as

senses, but

we must

not imag-

campers relearning ancient skills, we

can recover in wilderness the perspective of prehis-

humankind.

toric

We may only imagine

it

from our

and

men

shape space and

is

make

to immediately reor-

ordering principle of

intellectually, for the

it

our brain

much stronger than our wiU to acquiesce

is

To

to formless, spatial chaos.

feel at sea,

uncentered,

adrift in undifferentiated, essentially placeless space, is

to experience

an unbearable sense of disorder and

confusion, like the oppressive weight of darkness and

tomb or

dungeon. Even

airless

we

these dfre circumstances, however, as long as

aware of our tating heart

spatial anxiety

in

are

experiencing our palpi-

and dry-mouthed, wet-palmed

fear,

we

are in place, being, so to speak, in body.

Settlements, especially

over time, although

Within

cities,

the

this

cities,

accrue meaning

meaning is always changing.

more numerous and

sacred spaces are, the greater the

city.

their

cities

sometimes

most sacred spaces

are their unbuilt places: the

monumental

plaza or square, the public

agora, the park.

significant

Because

are fabrics of space dense with buildings,

These

amply

are the

filled-in

blanks within the

metropolitan spatial continuum. In

open spaces

parklike

erful definers tal

first

recesses, holding, contain-

by virtue of our movements and our decisions.

ganize

weaving, by selecting a temporary nest or

den, the spot

women

silence in a sealed

pauses, breaks for rest

men we

women we symbolize the earth's

as

and hidden

To deconstruct space

car-

and mushrooms; the

ferns,

sun-warmed rock

a

its

fertil-

embracing life within our wombs and in our arms.

of place. This takes the form of a composite of sen-

the darkness and cool of the forest with

men, we

stand for the potency represented by storm clouds and

fertile valleys

experience

are

female egg residing in the uterus. As

izes the

weaves out of

spatial distance a personal

we

If

produce semen, the procreative male seed that

with stream courses and sun position for guidance

tain;

are

fact,

parks and

sometimes the most pow-

of place, important markers in the men-

geography of every resident beyond the age of

early childhood ited,

when the concept of space is still lim-

not yet expanded beyond mother, home, yard,

and immediate neighborhood. One senses with cial force,

and sometimes poignance, the

persistence of the

vitality

spe-

and

human urge to interact with nature

own cultural vantage point. The vapor trail of the jet

and to create

overhead and the distant roar of

den, a provisional landscape occupying temporarily

its

engine as

it

courses along its prescribed skyway join the flight and

cry of the that

is

jay,

we live in a world own making. Yet even our

reminding us that

increasingly of our

satisfying places in the

vacant urban land. dicts facile

community gar-

The community garden

contra-

assumptions regarding urban dwellers'

indifference to nature

and predictions about the death

technologically derived environments are part of

of public space. Within these and other superficially

nature and must submit to nature's laws: this

insignificant, often

lesson of that

camping in those reserves of

"first

is

the

nature"

remain on a crowded planet.

Finally,

we are place. The

imbedded

in

expressions of ethnic identity, spiritual fulfillment, and

COMMLINITT GaRDLNS axis

mundi of cosmology is

our unconscious because

upright. Because

marginal spaces can be found

economic improvement.

Bodily Place

508

medium and

we walk

we walk upright we traverse space, If we are women,

With the

alteration of the social landscape of

ica following

became

less

World War

II,

dense and more

Amer-

the inner urban ring racially

mixed

as

both

making place through movement.

migrants and immigrants took up residence. The

we have wombs,

drop

the primordial image of place as

in real estate values that

made

rents in these

BODY AND SPACE

areas affordable for less incentive to

advent of the

newcomers

also gave landlords

maintain their properties. With the

civil rights

movement in

the 1960s and

the riots sparked by poHce confrontation with those

demanding

racial equality,

some of

these neighbor-

hoods experienced wanton destruction. of the

many

rioting,

In the

wake

landlords simply deserted their

destroyed properties and already deteriorated buildings.

With no

sites

were

ally

many

left

or maintenance services, these

also

utility

abandoned by

their tenants. Eventu-

buildings were torn

down and

their sites

open space. With no remittance

as rubble-strewn

of the taxes due on them, municipal real estate

departments were forced to claim these properties. But

still

there

were people who called the neigh-

borhoods surrounding these

lots

home, and

as

Sam

Bass Warner, Jr., points out, "today's American urban

community garden abandoned

is

new

the child of

city land."^

politics

Some of these gardens have

become showcases of ornamental horticulture as

green

and

retreats, recreational centers in

socialize

and

as well

which to relax

(fig. 16.3).

In spite of the

community gardens'

popularity,

many public officials believe that they are not the best use of random parcels of dty-owned land when measured against the need for housing and their desire to generate revenues from taxes and land sales to developers.

Those who turn open spaces into green places

through the investment of their labor

creativity, time,

and

— gaining themselves sense of place the — are confronted by those with superior a

for

in

process

power over land because of ownership and the ability to regulate

tem

in

its

use. This

which land

power stems from a value sys-

commodity and

considered a

is

place as something fungible. In Boston, Philadelphia,

Chicago, and Seattle, however, a

new

ethic that

at rest. is

to

To

connected and centered

feel

and locate ourselves

we

in the small

home. Because we

attempts to balance green space with the need for

centers ties,

ernmentaUy sponsored redevelopment programs

ers affect the nature of place

these

American cities

are being undertaken within the

context of neighborhood-based city planning.

Whether gardens are urban or suburban, of our

own making or ones we

create with the help of pro-

fessional designers, they are personal paradises

we life,

play,

and entertaining

friends.

But these are not

the only cherished landscapes. For some. Central Park

or the city of Paris are

valued than their

own

as anything a state of

claim space and

homes for the heart even more abodes, place being as

live place,

everywhere can be Utopia,

which literally means nowhere, but which we by our

acts of imagination

we

are able

live in

communi-

collectively

both individually and

with regard to the societal arrangements

regard to landscape design.

Our journey through

landscape design history

has enabled us to see that populism

our time and rior

that,

is

ascendant in

although often vulnerable to supe-

economic forces, landscapes like community gar-

dens are important expressions of culture and individual aspiration.

landscape

we

When we look at the entire built

see that

less individuals.

it is

The term

a fabric

woven by

vernacular

is

count-

often applied

to landscapes that manifest place-making by ordinary

people.

To make generalized observations about this

type of

human landscape,

whether moving or

Community

New York City

not in isolation, our decisions and those of oth-

will to convert into

are also forever in place,

Clinton

Garden,

temporary

We ourselves are place,

and

our own visionary somewhere. but

much

mind. As our bodies and minds

call

16.3.

we create to structure the allocation and use of space and the examples and standards we set forth with

where

find soul space, our places for dreaming, family

world

know how to find our way, to navigate ourselves

spatially

housing and municipal revenues is emerging, and govin

in the

analytic

it is

necessary to adopt the

approach of the cultural geographer.

509

THE WEAVING OF PLACE AND THE GEOGRAPHY OF FLOWS

CuLi UKAL Geogkapi

II.

Histories have

Ti

il

Loom of Landscape

been written since andent Greek times,

and landscape inevitably figures battle scenes

iy:

in the narratives

and descriptions of locales of human

dement. But like the landscapes found

of

set-

century's highly mechanized, capitalist culture that

disrupted these historic landscape patterns. Although his

work was slow to win a popular audience, by

the

in Renaissance

1970s his academic post, a television series featuring

paintings, landscape description in historical writing

Hoskins and the English countryside, and paperback

most often functions

republication of his remarkable

the foreground where elists

as a

backdrop

for the tableau in

human action takes place. Nov-

more than historians have proved capable of writ-

ing vivid prose descriptions integrating local landscape

and human

tion,

is

absent. This

from the

per-

spective of cultural history in Great Britain

and

elsewhere.

But even in novels, landscape as

affairs.

protagonist, the central subject of analysis is

and revela-

the province of the geographer

turned culmral anthropologist.

book sparked con-

siderable interest in landscape analysis

John BrinckerhofF Jackson (1910-1996) took related but very different stance

from

son's attention to landscape at a local scale,

with an

a

Hoskins.'"* Jack-

combined

eye for visual form and an appreciation

artist's

of architecture, nurtured his interest in "reading" the

Landscape as a Textbook of

landscape.

Human

he had gained

Cultural geography, the

landscape in

its

artifact, is a

inquiry.

More

and more

geography,

term describing the study of

Europe to analyze the landscape of his adopted region,

phering its cultural meanings could lead to a broader perspective

relationship

between humankind

and nature. Landscape, the magazine that he began

we can trace to the when history, natural history, and

publishing three times a year in 1951, was his princi-

part of a trend

At that time, when the pursuit of knowledge became increasingly specialized,

geography evolved from

cartographic origins to

become

pal

forum

a

its

combination of

for the next seventeen years.

Like Patrick Geddes, Jackson was fascinated

with

means of

aerial perspective as a

human

interpreting

settlements, but he did not share Geddes's

motives as a

city planner.

He wanted his readers sim-

earth science and social science, with an emphasis

ply to recognize and appreciate the social, economic,

upon

and cultural forces that had shaped "the compact

Not

economic potential of natural resources.

the

until the 1920s,

however, did a group of French

Indian communities, perched

on rocks overlooking

geographers attempt to project an intimate portrait

the fields, the sprawling tree-grown checkerboard of

of the settled regional countryside. As planned by

the Anglo-American towns, the Spanish villages

Blache and edited by Pierre Def-

strung along a road or a stream; the huddle of filling

Paul Vidal de

la

fontaines, the Geographie universeUe appeared

between

stations

and tourist courts

highway intersections in

at

was the

1927 and 1948 as a series of monographs. As editor

the desert."^ In addition, there

of the periodical Revue de geographie hurmine etd'eth-

house, which Jackson viewed as a manifestation of

nologie,

DefFontaines continued to relate landscape

appearance to culture and the history of human occu-

culture as well as an expression of certain spiritual

The

means of

of cultural geography, published The

the

American imagination

field

the English

Landscape (1955), a portrait of

country from the perspective of the historical evo-

lution of

on

foot

its

landscape.

By roaming

the countryside

and bicycle and smdying its surface

vegetation patterns, transportation ings,

emblem of

the

Making of his

road,

William G. Hoskins (1908-1992), another pioneer in the

Hoskins made

his readers

lines,

features,

and

build-

aware that landscape

could be read as a fascinating document, a morphological record

of other times and other lives. Hoskins

cherished the vestigial evidence of continuous

human

occupation over the centuries and the patina of

individual

and

biological needs.

pation of the land.

510

on the

approach than traditional

its

emerged as fields of professional endeavor.

art history

an intelligence officer in wartime

recent subject of disciplined

eclectic in

it is

as

the American Southwest, and how the process of deci-

as

philosophical and intuitive than scien-

nineteenth century

He saw how he could apply the experience

both nature and

broad dimensions

human tific

and Daiey Life

History

Jackson,

who

motorcycle,

restless

movement and

continental migration, resides within as

an important image.

traversed the country

made

many times by

the road an important, recurring

subject in his work. Unlike the critics of urban and rural visual blight, he never deplored the effect of the

automobile on the landscape as

(fig. 16.4).

He saw speed

an exhilarating sensory stimulus, and he would not

deny the

abstract beauty of "the

at a rapid,

sometimes even a

American highway was industrial-age folk art,

ancient heritage he found in long-setded landscapes,

tonk roadside

and he was vociferously alarmed by the twentieth

lots,

and

strip

for

new landscape, seen

terrifying pace.

him

a collective

"'^

The

work of

and he applied to the honky-

of motels, gas stations, used-car

fast-food franchises the

same

dispassionate

perspective that allowed

him to view side yards filled

with rusting automobiles and other eyesores as

evi-

dence of people's means of gaining

His

article

on "The

vitality

a livelihood.

Stranger's Path" describes the tawdry

methodology, nor did he work in any programmatic

way to bring about environmental improvement. His principal legacy lies in stimulating a more humanistic

approach to looking

at landscape.

of the route from the bus or train depot on

the urban fringe to skid row, the business civic center.

ple at the

He was

district,

and

interested in the ability of peo-

bottom rung of

society to find

accommo-

CONCL.USION As we have seen throughout sought

at certain

book, people have

this

times and places a correspondence

dation and even a sense of place within the landscape.

between abstract, philosophical notions of space and

Thus, landscape was for Jackson never something

designed manifestations of place.

merely to look

stemmed his

at,

but to

aversion to

live in.

From

modernism

and city planning, even when

this attitude

He doubted

of Ur, Knossos, and Teotihuacan centered their

cities

in architecture

constructions in landscape space according to a cos-

and planners

mological diagram. At Vaux-le-Vicomte and Versailles

architects

attempted to implement a thoroughly democratic agenda.

The builders of the

that even intelligent

landscape design such as Garrett Eckbo's,

suburban

whose book

there

is

a firm relationship

mology and

between Cartesian

experiential space.

The

cos-

desire for a cor-

respondence between philosophical and

scientific

Landscape for Living Jackson criticized as too abstract,

concepts of space and landscape can be seen in our

could serve as effectively as grassroots place-making.

own

Besides validating landscape studies as a field that included mobile

homes and

day, as

is

evident from

some of the Earthworks

discussed in the previous chapter.

But the grounding of spatial abstractions in the

trailer courts, Jack-

son argued against the dichotomous attitude that sees

landscape

nature and urbanity as polar opposites. In his unified

The force of history as inspiration for designing space

vision, nature

was

point out that the phy,

and he took pains to

all-pervasive,

same

forces of climate, topogra-

and vegetative growth that appear in the unbuilt

countryside operate equally within the built city.

Unlike Hoskins,

who wished

to arrest landscape

is

only part of the story of place making.

has only increased during the

The cachet of

last

two hundred years.

history and historic places has never

been more evident than

now as civilization embarks

upon its thfrd millennium of the

Common Era. The

several styles prefaced with "neo-" attest to this.

change and ugly Machine Age incursions that be-

Beyond mere

spoke contemporary people's increasing alienation

vaging of the past and sometimes a

from nature, Jackson stressed the

and re-creation of place has garnered the

inevitability

of land-

Jackson honed his iconoclastic perspective as a

Romantic

attitude

attitudes, especially the

toward nature promulgated by

Jean-Jacques Rousseau and later

history as a

sal-

literal replication

momentum

and resources of an international preservation move-

scape's ever-changing character.

means of jolting conventional

stylistic reiteration,

Henry David

Thoreau, but he never developed an analytical

ment. With the perceived endangerment of place, archaeological sites and landmarks are being protected

by

from

alteration.

tourists has

The consumption of

history

become a powerful motive for the

rent reweaving of place.

Old town

cur-

centers, such as

THE WEAVING OF PLACE AND THE GEOGRAPHY OF FLOWS

war-devastated Dresden, are being

rebuilt,

histonc

vil-

lages are being saved as exquisite corpses, their old

functional lives

now

replaced

tourist destinations. Tourist

by

their

accommodation

sarily alters the thus-valorized space.

ple,

new

role as

neces-

By way of exam-

the route leading to the sacred cave of Zeus

on

Mount Ida (see Chapter One) has been recently surfaced with asphalt paving to

facilitate

the arrival and

the vernacular landscape

is

to attest to

nor

in the

static.

human needs are

as

is

trial

it

became apparent that indus-

technology is a power that can efficiently destroy

economic

gain, impoverishing irreplaceable ecosystems, includ-

human ecosystem, and in some places destroy-

common interests of all who live together in

human

life,

while environmental science

is

working

a society, everyday environments are continually being

to restore degraded ecosystems. In this Ught, place

improvised and reinvented within

the planet Earth, a collective

this spatial

frame-

social

circumstances of lives change,

is

arise

out of

the impulse to arrest the fluidity

of place, to save what

is still

held dear, and to renew

the old as a representation of the desirable values that

their debt

to aristocratic tradition,

other. In that century

used to improve the conditions and duration of

are believed to reside in certain

mercially available products

sometimes bespeak

forced evacuation

meaning than any

technology is not innately inimical, and it is also being

and nature, there

landscapes created from com-

of place and destruction of

neither uni-

new new technologies, and new desires are born (fig. 16.5). And yet, in all the transactions that go on between human beings

Mexico.

more

spatial

twentieth centur\' witnessed

While some regulation of land use

economic opportunities

New

of

populations and eradication of spatial strucmre, the

ing entire species with ferocious rapidity. But

work as the

Contemporary vernacular

camps, and other heinous

in the brutally efficient displacement

ing the

is

garden, Pecos,

—

no one can predict more than the basic functional

versal

Mobile home with

applications

bombs, gas cham-

the fundamental implausibilitv' of master planning;

needs of others, and

16.5.

bers, rail transport to death

fire

the natural environment for short-term

parking of buses.

To value

exemplitied by machine guns,

tory,

even

when

the

temporary people

is

bygone periods of his-

meaning of

that period to con-

undergoing change along with

In

our survey of

cities,

human parks,

is

responsibility.

and gardens we

have examined landscapes as shaped space and defined place. In bringing our journey to an end,

important to

realize that the

place are continuous processes, as cal

it is

making and erasure of is

the philosophi-

conceptualization of space. These transactional

activities

between human beings and landscape

will

continue as long as there are minds to inquire about the cosmological lective

meaning of space and to confer col-

and personal meaning on place, and as long as

evident from the symmetrical

planning of this parterre with its

512

Renaissance-style fountain.

everything

there are hands, assisted by machines, to shape space

else.

Because of

its

use of industrial technology

in partnership

with nature.

No

1

1

M OK C\

I.Sam Bass Warner, Jr.,

I

AIM

Li^

Six

To Dwell Is to Gar-

i

un

sity of

Pennsylvania Press, 1999), pp. 78-80.

den (Boston: Northeastern University

Hunt's call for a revitalized historiography

Press, 1987),

of

2.

p. XM.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenol-

ogy of Perception,

Humanities Press,

York: 3.

(New

trans. Colin Smith

1962), pp. 52-53.

Maria Jolas (Boston: Beacon Press,

trans.

Perfections, chap. 6.

Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space,

landscape design and practice

scape architecture can be found

As

D.

W. Meinig

scape symbol America

Spell of the Sensuous,

Greater

Books, 1996),

points out, "the key land-

is

twentieth century

home not so

p.

XXXI.

traced on the landscape by the moving

5.

Foucault's position

W. Meinig, "Symbolic

Some

that existed, throughout the Classical age,"

Landscapes:

which he assumes

can Communities," The Interpretation of

be the seventeenth

to

century, the period of the

dawn

of

modern

science, "between the theory of represen-

and the theories

tation

language, or the

of

Idealizations of Ameri-

York: Oxford University Press, 1979),

See John

An

E. Pfeiffer,

The Creative Explo-

Inguiry into the Origins of Art

(New

Religion

representation disappears as the universal

lishers, 1982), pp. 153-73.

possible orders; language

as the spontaneous tabula, the primary grid of things, as

an indispensable

representation and things, turn; a

is

link

between

eclipsed

in its

profound historicity penetrates into

the heart of things, isolates and defines

them

in

their

own coherence, imposes

upon them the forms

of order implied

way

to the

8.

See M.

Australia (Chicago: The

Chicago Press, 9.

According

time

its

the density of

its

and becomes,

past."

See Michel

Foucault, The Order of Things

Vintage Books, 1994), For

{New

\ork:

p. xxiii.

John Dixon Hunt's discussion

of

op.

cit.,

pp.

ogy

dwell,

which

University of

also Casey's

in

—

that

the mytholis

a kind of

magical temporality wherein

of the

surrounding world

first

one another, and hence acquired the

evident shapes and forms by which

now know

them.

world

was

Itself

It

is

awake

(a

below the surface

still

exists just

ful

awareness)

—

we

that time before the

entirely

that

time that of

wake-

dawn when

emerged from

the

Foucault's exegesis on representation, see

totem Ancestors

Greater Perfect;ons (Philadelphia: Univer-

slumber beneath the ground and began

first

modern usage means

their to

to Its

Old Norse cognate dvija denotes "to

English cognate

dwalde

while

cit., p.

its

Old

go

signifies "to

astray," "to wander," or "to err."

12.

or Alcheringa

of Aboriginal Australia ...

powers

in

linger," "to tarry," or "to delay,"

A

took up their current orientation with regard to

See

reside or fasten close attention upon.

See

op.

114.

Lawrence

Halprin, Freewa)/s(

New York:

Reinhold Publishing Corporation, 1966), p. 15.

13.

Sam Bass Warner,

Garden, 14. For a

language

See

Edward Casey, Getting Back into Place:

the

all,

Polls."

Toward a Renewed Understanding of the

even withinihe evident, manifest presence

form coherent with

own

11.

time out of time, a time hidden beyond or

taxonomic

Press, 1993) for the descnption

80-93.

exchange

for

privileged position

turn, a historical

Pub-

David Abram, "Dream-

to

— the Jukurrpa,

of the land, a

in its

& Row,

1962), pp. 58-71.

plays such a prominent part

the

loses

Harper

Study of the Walbiri Aborigines of Central

dence over the search

above

York:

and

Meggitt, Desert People:

J.

duction, that of the organism takes prece-

characteristics, and,

MIT

"Weaving the

study of pro-

continuity of time; the analysis of

and money gives

by the

Mass.: of

etymological deconstruction of the word

p. 182.

century. With this change, "the theory of

all

McEwen,

P/sce-H/or/c/(Bloomington: Indiana Uni-

sion:

foundation of

1987).

indebted to Indra Kagis

versity Press, 1993), p. 116.

7.

the nineteenth

am

1

Ordinary Landscapes, ed. D. W. Meinig

natural orders, and of wealth and value" in

Books USA, 10.

(New

was

shattered beginning

See also Bruce

Architectural Beginnings (Cambridge,

a discrete

dispersed social network

automobile." See D.

(New York: Pantheon

164.

p.

of

See The

much

locality as a

coherence

search

author of Socrates' Ancestor: An Essay on

Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space,

that "the

in

but the highway,

4.

is

across the land

Chatwin, The Songlines (New york: Penguin

in late

and community

1969), p. 33.

way

of land-

8.

not the

is

in

sing their

food, shelter, and companionship."

Jr, 7b

Dwell

Is to

p. 20.

work

good comparative discussion

of

Hoskins and Jackson, see

D.

of

W. Meinig, "Reading the Landscape: An Appreciation of W. G. Hoskins and

Jackson,"

77je Interpretation

Landscapes: Geographical Essays,

W. Meinig (New

J. B.

of Ordinary ed. D.

York: Oxford University

Press, 1979), pp. 195-244. 15. J.

B.Jackson, Landscape], no.

1

(spring

1951). 16. J. B.

of the

Jackson, "The Abstract World

Hot-Rodder," Landscape! (winter

1957-58): 22.

GLOSSAR.Y

The

acropolis

Greek city,

of an ancient

baradari

upon a prominent

garden.

fortified height

a citadel sited

elevation overlooking a surrounding plain

and sometimes the

Baroque

An open-sided pavilion in a Mughal

A term signifying art and architec-

sea.

ture that

Greek city an important open public space around and in which important civic, commercial, and commu-

A didactic garden in which

botanical garden

families of plant specimens are arranged

robust, boldly sumptuous,

is

and labeled according

to

A

grandly ornamental, curvaceously

nication functions took place.

and therefore full of movement and the play of light and shade. Baroque design forms originated in Italy at the end of the sixteenth century and flourished there and in Germany, Austira, and Spain during the

bastion fortification, the

seventeenth and early eighteenth cenmries.

which the

A highly theatrical approach to design,

seventeenth century.

A tree- or hedge -bordered walk, usually of gravel or grass. Alices are a common allee

component of French garden design where a desired

geometrical layout

straight axes outlined

is

achieved by

by paths with per-

spective-reinforcing side elements such as palissades, parterres de broiderie, closely

trees,

or compartments of lawn.

arbor

A garden

the

Baroque sensibility penetrated but never dominated the art and architecture of

construction of open

France or England. Victorian practice of

arranging plants, usually brightly colored

A place where a collection of trees and other woody plants are arranged as arboretum

botanical specimens for scientific study, edu-

and ornamental display.

floral annuals, in either abstract

The

investigation of dis-

cerning the relationship of certain features

summer and winter solstices, maximum and minimum moon set points, constellato

tions,

and other astronomical phenomena.

automata Mechanically propelled garden features,

such as singing birds and various

kinds of mobile statuaiy which were some-

times built with waterworks in order to combine the movement of water with that of various sculpmral parts.

A tree-lined approach to a mansion

avenue

or other important structure that ciently

wide to accommodate

is

boulevard

is

derived from boulevart,

first

brownfields

town

meaning

walls

upon

boulevards were built in the

Former

industrial sites that are

fields, i.e.,

areas or recreational parkland,

natural

by means of

bioremediation.

designs or buffet d'eau

pictorial patterns.

suffi-

A

belvedere

A tablelike architectural arrange-

ment of bowls,

basins,

and troughs

set

structure, usually elevated,

against a wall or placed in a niche in order

designed for observing the surrounding The term is derived from the Italian bel (beautiful) and vedere (to see).

to animate the flow of water in an orna-

An arched trellis for climbing plants

course intended as a hazard for the player,

landscape.

mental manner. bunker

berceau

archaeological sites with the intent of

scaped roadway designed for promenading as well as for vehicular traffic. The word

conversion into green

The

climbing plants and provide shade.

archaeoastronomy

appropriated into English, signifying a land-

lat-

ticework or rustic work created to support

cational instruction,

boulevard

candidates for ecological reconstitution and

spaced bedding out

cate-

French term that has been

agora In an ancient

plastic,

taxonomic

gories of gerius and species.

similar to a pergola, also closely planted

form an arched foliage-covered walkway. This French term is derived from the word for cradle, probably because trees trained to

antique cradles have a similar deeply arched

A

on

sand-filled depression

a golf

also referred to as a trap.

Tewa language of some Puebloan peoples, the plaza around which the adobe dwellings of the Pueblo are bupingeh In the

centered.

form. bioremediation

The human-assisted

eration of natural ecosystems

responding biological borrowed scenery

regen-

and their cor-

cabinet

The French term

compartment within cabinet of curiosities

life.

The design

principle of

taking into account scenic views beyond the confines of the garden and planning the gar-

den with reference to them. Chinese garden designers frequently used borrowed

mens such

as

for a secluded

a garden.

A

collection of speci-

were sought when

it

was

still

believed possible to comprehensively assem-

room or garden representasamples of various forms of natural

ble in a single tive

history.

carriages.

The arrangement of low-

scenery, jiejin^, in their designs. Japanese

carpet bedding

axis run-

gardeners imaginatively exploited the same

growing

ning as a center pole from the zenith of the

design teclmique and term, which they pro-

in intricate carpetlike patterns of contrast-

sky through the ground, uniting heaven,

nounced

Earth, and the Underworld.

landscape architects, such as the Brazilian

The Spanish term for glazed tiles, the production and use of which were

Roberto Burle Marx, have adopted a similar approach, composing gardens that include within their visual frame natural

axis-mundi

An imaginary vertical

azulejos

derived from Islamic culture. Azulejos were

incorporated into the ornamentation of Spanish and Portuguese buildings and

The French term

bagatelle

gant house built

house

in the

A row

for a small, ele-

boschetto Within an Italian garden a small

stairs.

regular plan.

bosco

The

Italian

term

for a

wooded grove

The French term

grove within

a garden.

ing leaf color or floral hue. caryatid

of

a

A

supporting column in the form

female figure.

casino, casina

for a

A term referring mostly to a

on the grounds of an Italian villa garden. Usually casino denotes a summerhouse for dining and refreshment some distance from the principal villa residence, but in cases where a villa might be used simply for a day's sojourn,

it

signifies the pleasure pavilion

that serves as

of balusters topped with bosquet

of the same height

small pavilion or lodge

within a garden.

continuous rail, usually of stone, employed to form a parapet on terraces and to a

514

scenery outside their boundaries.

eighteenth century

a mistress.

balustrade

encase

and some Western

compartment of trees, usually found near the house and often planted according to a

gardens.

to

as shakkei,

foliage plants

wooded

ture.

its

principal architectural struc-

The term was adopted by

English-

speaking people and used to denote certain

ornamental pavilions and refreshment

GLOSSARY

and parks in Britain and America. It is also used to signify a gaming hall where gambling and other forms of Structures in gardens

entertainment take place.

The

castellum

Latin term for castle or

appeared in the seventeenth century and assumed its full proportions in the eighfirst

teenth century, as

fortress;

used also to denote a large

archi-

tectural display fountain constructed as a

The European evocation of Chi-

chinoiserie

nese architecture and decorative arts that

its

when the Rococo style was

height and pagodas, "Chinese" bridges,

and tea pavilions became popular features in Western gardens.

rule to signal an aqueduct's formal point of

entry into the

where

Typically in

city.

Rome,

were built, they commemorated the emperor or the pope who had commissioned the particular aqueduct marked by the castellum. several such fountains

Formal standards that honor

classicism

design arts and literature of ancient Greece

and Rome.

ceque

A

Italian

term

for

emanating from Cuzco,

sight line

the capital of the Inca emperors, like a sun

ray and used as a path of pilgrimage.

A

chabutra

shrub such as

fir.

The

windows, a

chahar bagh

a

were arranged to accommodate one who could enjoy from this

or two people

central position the garden's water-cooled

breezes and surrounding scenery.

Mughal gardens, an artificial cascade of masonry with ramplike surfaces chadar In

carved in a faceted pattern in order to ani-

mate better the movement of water and reflective light.

A building with heat and ample

for the indoor protection

and

greenhouse or glass house.

In the nine-

many

teenth century, although

conserva-

were important, domed, freestanding

enough to accommodate the growth of tall palm trees, the term comervatory also came to denote a glass-covered extension of a house, accessible from a principal room, where exotic plants are glass structures large

displayed.

corso

An

The fourfold Timurid garden, which became the design paradigm for other Islamic gardens, chahar meaning "four," and bagh being the Turkish word for "garden." The variant spelling char bagh denotes the Mughal garden of India, whereas the spelling form chahar bagh is

Italian

term

signifying a principal

new meaning became a fashionable recreation Rome and elsewhere after the appear-

thoroughfare, corso assumed

in referring to the

gardens of the

cha niwa Japanese tea garden where cha no is

ance of spring-hung carriages in the early seventeenth century.

performed.

wide thoroughfare capable of accommodating a daily for a

parade of carriages.

deme A

politically affiliated regional village

town within the territorial framework of an ancient Creek cit}'-state, or polis. espalier

A fruit tree

that

is

placed against a

and trained, through pruning and manipulation of its branches, to grow in a flat plane, usuafly in a symmetrical fashion. The term espaliei- is derived from spalla, meaning shoulder in Italian. wall or other structure

cha no yu Japanese tea ceremony, an important cultural practice

that displayed

principles of

an

performed

in settings

affinity for the aesthetic

Zen Buddhism,

specifically

the garden and to evoke poetic associations e.xotic locales.

The French term

originally used urban development on the outof the city; a suburb lying immedi-

faubourg

for areas of skirts

ately outside the

town

walls.

Today

certain

St.

Germaine

are fashionable city neigh-

borhoods. Like a faubourg, formerly an outer-edge neighborhood, a banlieue, which in France is usually synonymous with an industrial, working-class area, is a zone of settlement on the urban fringe. iVanslated from the Chinese as "wind and water," fmgshui is the practice of professional geomancers who divine beneficial and malign influences within a particfeng shui

ular location, thereby determining favorable

and alignments

for buildings

and

gar-

dens while also neutralizing objectionable aspects of the landscape in question. ferme ornee

The French term

for

ornamen-

farm used by the English after Stephen Switzer appropriated it in The Nobleman, tal

Gentleman, and Gardener's Recreation (1715)

promote the arrangement of agricultural compositions in which, typically, the hedgerows separating fields were enhanced with shrubs, vines, and flcjwers; an occasional monument was placed in a manner calculated to provoke poetic association; and a circuit drive was laid out to enable movement to

The French term

cours

or

Safavid rulers in Persia.

ceremony,

in

ruins, "hermitages, "and other similar

features intended to add visual interest to

sites

as driving

chahar bagh

sham

old Parisian jaut>ourg5 such as the Faubourg

natural daylight, usually from south-facing

toiies

yu, or tea

and

used to describe plants

is

this category.

conservatory

raised square stone dias in the

designed to serve as a platform upon which

used

a pine, spruce,

adjective coniferous

conservation of tender plants in the winter;

center of the cross-axis of pillows

A needle- or scale-leaved,

cone-bearing, generally evergreen tree or

of

allied

with the past and with

conifer, coniferous

The

water chain, an ornamental inclined channel designed to catch and animate the water falling from one shallow basin into another. catena d'acqua

as

authoritative the principles gcwerning the

A Rococo garden structure closely with French Picturesque painting. Fabriques became popular in the eighteenth century when the jardin anglais and the jardin anglo-chinois appeared on the Continent. These folies assumed the form of Turkish tents constructed of wood, chinoiserie tea houses and bridges, "Gothic" towers, rustic huts, "Egyptian" pyramids,

fabrique

estates as aesthetically pleasing

through the landscape. folie

The French term

for

folly,

a

garden

structure intended as an evocation of past cultures or faraway places.

Folies,

which can

be likened to theatrical scenery, were some-

that of rustic simplicity

times used to camouflage useful buildings,

called sabi,

such as

mellowed with age, which were conducive to a

mood of wabi, chateau

form of a castle or palatial manor house set in the French countryside, usually with attendant gardens.

One

of

A

semicircular bench with a high

back, usually of stone, for placement in the

refined austerity.

A magnificent establishment in the

chini kana

exedra

landscape; also, in classical architecture, a semicircular portico with seats, which

used

in

was

Greek, Roman, and Renaissance

times as a place for discussions; an apselike space formed by curving hedges in a garden.

a series

of small recesses eyecatcher

cut in the face of a terrace retaining wall in

Mughal gardens to hold small

oil

lamps and

A feature placed at a distant and

usually elevated point in a garden or in a ible location

outside

its

boundaries

in

vis-

order

flowers. to accent the view, provide scenic interest,

dairies, barns,

or icehouses, but they

often served no utilitarian purpose They are usually associated with the anglais

and with the jardin

fontaniere

A

at

all.

jardin

anglo-chinois.

Renaissance hydraulic engineer

capable of creating ingenious waterworks or automata.

Gardenesque

style

The term coined and

design theory propounded by John Claudius

Loudon beginning in 832 to define a method of displaying 1

and encourage

and draw one's gaze toward the horizon.

515

GLOSSARY

plants to best advantage

by granting them

to give the illusion of continuity

between

the appropriate horticultural conditions to

the garden or residential park and the rural

develop into attractive individual botanical

landscape beyond. John James's 1712 trans-

specimens.

lation of Antoine-Joseph

The term, which

geoglyph

is

compounded

from the prefix geo, denoting Earth, and the term glyph, meaning an engraved or incised symbolic figure, signifies an Earthvi/ork, such as those created by the Nazca of Peru, which is composed of an image pecked into the surface of a stony piece of ground.

The Italian term for a secret secluded and enclosed garden

giardino segreto

garden, a

room commonly found

in viUa

gardens of

the Renaissance and seventeenth cenmry.

The

term

for

water

games. Giocchi d'acqua were fountain

effects

giocchi d'acqua

Italian

designed by hydraulic engineers during the

Renaissance to add an element of amuse-

ment

to the garden experience as visitors,

who unintentionally activated jets of water from hidden

sources,

were treated

to sur-

DezalUer d'Ar-

and Practice of Gardening the end of a "Terrass is ter-

genville's Theory

how

describes

minated by an Opening, which the French call a claire-voie, or an Ah Ah, with a dry Ditch at the Foot of it." Horace Walpole said that the surprise experienced when one came upon this ditch caused one to exclaim, "Ha! Ha!"

hameau The French term for hamlet.

In

eighteenth-cenmry French Picturesque gar-

den design a hameau is a pretend- village, a group of farmlike buildings conceived as a piquant complement to the landscape and a means whereby aristocrats could make believe that they were rustics. hedge Compactly planted shrubs or lowgrowing trees with dense foliage that is clipped so as to form a solid wall of greenery that acts as a boundary or a screen.

iwan

mansion

estate.

male sculptural head mounted on

masonry

shaft. Originally displaying geni-

and conceived as representations of the god Hermes, herms were erected in antiquity as a series of boundary markers defining important public spaces, such as the agora. A single herm or pair of herms might mark the entrance to private property. In garden design from the Renaissance onward, the term has been used to signify any rectangular or tapering pedestal surmounted by a sculptural head.

A

structure similar to

conservatory or an orangery in that originally conceived as a

means of

it

a

was

over-

wintering garden greener)' that had been

imported from warmer climates. With the increase of plant material by botanical discover)-' and the advance of horticultural science beginning in the eighteenth centur); greenhouses were used for propagation as well as for the winter protection of tender plants. To promote indoor plant growth it

was necessary

to obtain a greater

amount

of sunlight than was admitted by orangeries

and other masonry, windowed in 1816,

structures;

John Claudius Loudon invented a wrought iron, which

curvilinear sash bar of

led to the construction of greenhouses that

admitted

from above. Because of

light

its

nearly all-glass construction, the green-

house

sometimes referred

is

glasshouse.

A greenhouse may be

to

as

entrance arch. Fully developed under Sassanian rule, iwans are found in the ruins of the mid-sixth-century c.e. palace complex

Ctesiphon^They were later used as monumental entrances to mosques and as pavilat

ions facing courtyards.

an inde-

to the side of a house.

A

natural cave,

presumed to

ited

by

Europe

which has acquired

inhabit

it;

also an archi-

tecmral version of a cave, usually rustic in

The Spanish term

herradura

for "horse-

geometrical French garden,

form of garden pavilions and other Rococo features. jardin anglais-chinois

which employed Rococo chinoiserie derived from William Chambers, whose books. Designs of Chinese Buildings (1757) and Dis-

quarter of the eighteenth century.

ble

from

a

deep boundar\'

few

feet

into the garden's design.

kami Japanese gods and goddesses

kampaku Often translated as "chamberlain," governmental official in the Japanese court whose function was to mediate between the emperor and court officials in affairs of state. a high

Dry landscape,

a style

temples. Kare sansui gardens are

of Japan-

Zen composed moss, and

pHng currents of water.

is fre-

is

karikomi Meticulously clipped shrubs con-

a distant view.

stituting

hortus conclusus

The

Latin term signifying

an enclosed, or waUed, garden.

built by families

urban mansion

of the French

and in

originally

nobiUt)'; after

on

a

a style of grandeur that followed

this aristocratic

model.

An Islamic term derived from the Permeaning

"gazelle-eyed," an attrib-

who served as companions for the

souls of

weathered term used to describe certain Japanese gardens of the Edo Period (1603-1867), especially those designed by Kobori Enshu and his followers. kireisabi Beaut\' infused with a

rustic qualit); a

kiva In Native

like a

sun

ray,

was located on

a

emanating from Cuzco where offerings were made.

ceque, a sight line

American Pueblo culture

a

subterranean circular strucmre descending a pit house and serving as a room in which tribal rimals are conducted in secrecy.

from

knot garden

huaca In the Inca culture, a spirit-inhabited place in nature, which

in Japanese

beyond.

the Revolution, a building constructed scale

an important element

gardens of the Edo Period (1603-1867) and

the faithful in Paradise.

away and serving the

who

sanctify certain places as their abodes.

quently located at a high point where there

ditch, invisi-

purpose of a fence separating the garden from the fields where cattle graze. The haha was conceived \n the eighteenth cenmry^

516

The Chinese technique of borrow-

ing scenery by incorporating distant views

horseshoe-shaped enclosure, which

ute associated with the beautiful virgins

A fairly

jie jing

of carefully arranged rocks,

presiding spirits. Grottoes that are identified

ha-ha

Oriental Gardening (1772),

became popular on the Continent in the last

gravel raked into lines that appear as rip-

houri

nymphamms.

The French version of

the Picturesque style of landscape design,

Native American shrine, usually a low,

sian huri,

are often called

often asso-

it is

ciated with fabriques, orfolies in the

shoe," also used to refer to an outdoor

sometimes sculptural representations of its

nymphs

in

ceived in reaction to the regularity of the

ese garden frequently associated with

character and often containing water and

with

garden, which

kare sansui

a hermit.

hotel In France, an

human significance because of the spirimal forces

The French term for the Engbecame popular in the eighteenth century. Con-

jardin anglais

resemble a rude hut such as might be inhab-

a

pendent, freestanding structure or attached

grotto

A rustic garden strucmre built to

hermitage

its

A Persian structure consisting of large

talia

greenhouse

sacred rock revered for

sertation on

A

herm of an aristocratic country

A

shallow- vaulted porch or hall with a pointed

lish-st}'le

prise drenchings as a practical joke. great house In England, the palatial

iwakura

indwelling spirit in Japanese Shinto practice.

in

A compartmentalized garden

which box or other low-growing com-

pact shrubs or herbs such as rosemary, lavender, or

thyme

are planted in intricate

designs resembling a looped and knotted

GLOSSARY

rope, while the interstices are filled with col-

of industrial manufacture

ored gravel or ground-hugging flowers.

the social welfare state.

crosses and erected once places in

more

in public

Rome. By the eighteenth century

because of its symbolic association with the

The Japanese term

kokoro

and the tenets of

signifying

nansipu In the tradition of Puebloan peoples

by extended meaning, a heart-shaped lake. Japanese garden designers used the device of a bilobate waterbody to provide a middle ground

of the southwestern United States, the earth

the obelisk had become a commonly accepted form for funerary and memorial monuments, and many miniaafterlife,

"heart" or "center" and,

within their landscape compositions.

Hawaii by Californians and other mainland Americans to denote a breeze way, loggia, or roofed patio adjacent to a

term

swimming pool.

limonaia Within an Italian garden, a walled filled

with potted lemon

An

open-sided covered arcade or gallery, usually attached to a building at ground- or upper-story level.

A

tree-shaded promenade.

The term

originated in association with the Italian

game

which became

paglio maglio,

trans-

The game, was played on an allee

lated into English as pall mall.

similar to croquet,

designed for the purpose. Since people

promenaded there as well, the word mall eventually came to signify a dignified public

space for outdoor exercise and social

encounter. After the middle of the twentito denote a shopping center

arranged as a series of stores lining a principal

landscaped walkway. The

were outdoors, but

later

first

malls

ones were

enclosed, with tiers of stores rising above a

broad, central open space serving as a place

of respite and recreation.

mausoleum ture built

An elaborate architectural strucas a tomb for one or more

A labyrinth in a garden that serves as

must be navigated, avoiding blind alleys, if one is to reach the interior goal. Of ancient origins, mazes have been formed using various kinds of barrier matea puzzle that

rial,

but the hedge maze, popular since the

seventeenth century,

is

a ring

of stones and sym-

the type

commonly

associated with gardens.

A

naumachia c(jnsisting

the

Underworld into the

Renaissance garden feature

of a a flooded basin designed to

unction as a theater where

were

light.

mock naval bat-

held.

began to be used

as grave

markers, especially in the non-sectarian rural

cemeteries built in the nineteenth century

Neoclassicism

The late-eighteenth-cenmry

Enlightenment reaction to Baroque and Rococo art and architecture reflecting a remrn to the design principles of classicism, which were believed to reflect better the laws of nature and reason. Neoclassicism stimulated further interest in classical archaeology, which had been awakened during the Renaissance. Implicit in Neoclassicism is the belief in the purity of primitive and purely geometric forms. However, the term applies not only to architecture of a sober, non-ornamental namre such as that echoing Greek Doric forms but also to the more sumpmously ornamental Beaux-Arts style reflecting the historicizing

fostered

tendencies

by the curriculum of the Ecole des

Beaux-Arts in Paris during the nineteenth-

A

orangery

building designed with

tall

arched windows for admitting maximum sunlight and used for the winter protection

of orange trees and other tender plants in boxes or tubs and placed in the

grown

garden

in

warm weather.

otium Denoting industrious leisure

suits

com-

worthwhile mental and physical pur-

prising

away from the distractions of urban and society. Otium as a

business, politics,

concept originated with ancient Roman villa owners and was practiced by proprietors of rural estates in subsequent societies where civilized country life was equated with virtue and refinement. palissade

A

hedge

French seventeenth-cenmry-style

in a

clipped, space-defining

tall,

garden.

The French term for a ground composed of patterned garden beds.

parterre

plane

Compartmentalized and geometrical in the Renaissance following Italian example, parterres in France evolved into parterres de

and early-twentieth-cenmries.

brciicric in

niwa The Japanese word for "garden," which may also refer to a sanctified space in nature set apart for the worship of Shinto

the seventeenth century.

The French term

parterre de broderie

signi-

fying an embroiderylike ground-plane

design

gods.

in

gravel and herbs,

boxwood, or

clipped grass, featuring decorative scrolls, noria

From

the Arabic

word nuriy meaning

palmettes, and arabesques, often with the

known

as a rehat, this large

addition of a

"shorter," also

wheel with attached buckets acting as pitchers was used for lifting water into an elevated canal or tank to irrigate Mughal gardens in India. nymphaeum The Latin term signifying grotto, a

cave or cavelike structure dedicated to

nymphs and

often containing fountains or

monogram.

obelisk

A monumental, rectangular, tapered

masonry a

shaft with a pyramidal top, called pyramidion. The obelisk as a form origi-

nated

in ancient

Egypt, where

its

pyramid-

ion symbolized, like the large-scale pyramid,

of a landscape construction such as the

sacred hen-hai, revered in association with

arrangement of megaliths

at

cir-

Stone-

the life-giving, sun-blessed the worship of the

mound,

the

Sun god Re. With

promise of rebirth

patte d'oie

form

of a

pergola

Three avenues radiating in the goose foot from a central point.

An open

structure consisting of

uprights and connecting Joists or arches

intended to support climbing plants, thereby creating a foliage-covered walkway similar to a berceau.

other water features.

An enormous stone, often used by prehistoric peoples as a monument or part megalith

cular

ture obelisks

river-current- or cjx-driven

deceased persons.

maze

a small hole

was commonly

eth century, the term

employed

marked with

emerged from

tles

amoenus The Latin term for a pleasant and delightful place; used in antiquity and the Renaissance to signify a rural or garden retreat of distinctive beauty.

mall

used to denote

trees.

locus

loggia

also

is

bolizing the place from which the people

f

garden

on top of each sacred mountain. The

within the center of the pueblo's plaza, usually

The Polynesian term borrowed from

lanai

navel

its

henge.

implicit

Modernism The term signifying the early twentieth-century avant-garde approach to design based upon a functionalist and reformist aesthetic honoring the principles

was apprc:)priated in Western culture symbol during the Renaissance when several toppled obelisks that had been garnered by the imperial Roman armies were surmounted by Christian

after death, the

The Italian term for a public square; England the word is used to signify an arcaded passageway similar to the colonnades that often frame Italian piazze. In American English a piazza is a porch or verandah such as those advocated in the nineteenth century through the influence of domestic tastemaker Andrew Jackson Downing. piazza

in

obelisk

Picturesque

as a Christian

enunciated by British landscape theorists William Gilpin, Richard Payne Knight, and Uvedale Price in the last quarter of the eighteenth

The

painting-influenced sU'le

cenmry and practiced in England, on

517

GLOSSARY

the Continent, and in America in variant

forms until the end of the nineteenth century. Although the design of English landscape had been previously influenced by paintings, notably those of it

was the

air

Claude Lorrain,

of rugged wildness character-

The French term for a produce garden containing vegetables and fruit trees.

potager

A fortified military garrison estab-

presidio

lished in Spanish colonial territories, espe-

American Southwest.

the

cially in

and naturalistic motifs developed in France and was universalized throughout the West. Rococo forms are delicate, elegant, lighthearted, and often amorous in spirit. In landscape design the term Rococo

is

associated

with ornamental garden structures display-

of the landscapes of Salvator Rosa that

propylaia In ancient Greece, a large cere-

Picturesque landscape designers cultivated.

monial gateway giving entry to an impor-

ornamental exuberance, including especially

Contemporary with the Rococo, the Picturesque style often incorporated Rococo

tant rimal space.

representations of chinoiserie.

istic

effects, particularly in

France,

where Rococo

French Picturesque gardens also embodied the influence of JeanJacques Rousseau and thus express his sentimental view of nature and imply the virtues of life uncorrupted by society. The penchant for rusticity found in French Picturesque landscapes is also derived from an admiration of Dutch seventeenth-centur\' landscape painting, as well as the works of taste originated.

French eighteenth-century artists ClaudeHenri Watelet, Francois Boucher, and

A

pueblo

Spanish term meaning town,

ico

New

Mex-

gate to the tea house, cha no yu. Visualized

and northeast Arizona, consisting of adobe or stone dwellings built by

An arboretum of specimen pines and other coniferous evergreen trees.

dewy path,

as a

it is

multilevel

in moss. Spatially

the descendants of indigenous prehistoric

row open corridor

peoples.

Romanticism

pururuaca In the Inca culture, a large stone

thought to be

a

transformed warrior and

venerated as such. pylon

later

from the entry

niwa, that leads the visitor

A monumental gateway composed

entrance to an Eg\^tian temple or pinetum

in a Japanese tea garden, cha

tribal

of a pair of truncated pyramids marking the

Hubert Robert.

The path

roji

on

often used to denote a settlement lands in northern and western

ing a quirky elegance, fandful exoticism, and

some

important structure or space such as a

nineteenth-century rural cemetery.

it

composed of stones set usuallv consists of a nar-

The term denoting the latemovement fos-

eighteenth-century aesthetic

tered by the

writing of Jean-Jacques

Rousseau and Johnann Wolfgang von Goethe. Derived from romance, the medieval genre

of storytelling feamring chivalric

heroes and adventurous

exploits. Romanticism promotes emotion and feeling as

modes of expression having as great a vaUd\ty as

those of reason and

intellect.

It is

the

place In a general sense, space invested with

pyramid

A monumental masonrv- structure

counterpart of Classicism, and as such it val-

use and meaning, a defined location. In a

with a rectangular base and four triangular

ues the individual and the subjective over

particular sense with regard to the urban

faces rising to a

common

the universal and the normative, holds the

landscape, place, which stems from the

Egv^t during the Old Kingdom

means

broad street, from which it became the French term for a pubLatin platea,

lic

a

a

a

tomb

for

pharoah. or king.

A

quincunx

square.

apex; in ancient

regular arrangement of five

trees or other vertical elements, four of

plaisance

A summerhouse or garden struc-

ture on the grounds of an estate. The term was also used as the name of a mall-like promenade that Frederick Law Olmsted

and Calvert Vaux conceived to link Jackson Park and Washington Park in Chicago. Although designed for the South Park Commission in the 1870s, the

Midway

Plaisance,

band of lawns and shrubbers" with a central canal, was not buUt until 1 893 after Olmsted returned as a member of the design team of the World's Columbian a linear

Exposition. pleasure garden In eighteenth-century England, a

commercial establishment

and offering food,

polls

An

drink,

The term

and music.

ancient Greek city-state.

A

often denotes a regular

the planting of a bosk, the resulting quin-

cunx of trees appears as multiple rows set on a running diagonal when \iewed at a 45degree angle; read from a straight-on position, the rows assume a staggered pattern.

allies

A circular area where a number

meet. Originally a clearing

in the

woods where converging paths brought huntsmen to

meeting place, the rond-point in garden and urban design following its use by .Andre Le Notre in the seventeenth cenmry. a

became prevalent

rural

cemetery

The

result

of religious and

sanitary reform, the rural cemetery

is

a

nineteenth-century landscape form harking

ragnaia In seventeenth-cenmr\' Italian gar-

back to ancient Greek burial practice and

monumental commemoration outside

the nets used to trap birds.

city walls.

recinto

A

large enclosed parklike precinct

within an Italian garden. Recinti might take

form of

trees,

boschetti,

informal groves of

or natural areas for hunting wild game.

entrance of a building.

denotes the that gained cur-

rency in the 1970s to denote the reaction to

rus in urbe Latin for "the

the

the

rocaille

A

French term formed by conflat(shell),

which

artistically rustic rockvv^ork

to fashion grottoes

used

and other rude-seeming

garden structures.

country in the dty,"

term was used in adv'ancing the case for

public parks in the nineteenth cenmr\'

when

people strongly believed in the therapeutic

and ing roditT (rock) and coquille

The term

rond-point

of

dens, a series of parallel hedges to support

porch or walkway with a roof supported by columns, often leading to the

Postmodernism

mark its

arrangement of trees set in a pattern composed of multiple units of five. When the quincunx form is thus used repetitively in

the

portico

Picturesque scenery.

a square or

rectangle, while the fifth serves to

center.

are characterized as sublime, as well as in

consist-

ing of grounds with walks and groves of trees

which comprise the angles of

commonplace in high esteem, and does not look to Greece and Rome for inspiration, but rather to the landscapes of namre that

spiritual benefit

of creating rural scenery

within the industrial metropolis. sion "the lungs of the dty" this

was

The expresalso

used

at

time to urge the cause of the reserva-

tion of large open, green areas in rapidly

growing, congested urban centers.

the functionalist, anti-ornamental aesthetic

Rococo

of Modernism and signif)Tng a late-twentieth-

to characterize the final, eighteenth-cenmr\'

century architecture associated with ver-

phase of Baroque

nacular elements as well as classical motffs.

decorative arts during which a curv^aceous,

of sabi is particularly characteristic of Japanese gardens dating from the

asymmetrical, pla)^l synthesis of abstract

Momoyama

518

term derived from art,

rocailk

and used

architecture,

and the

sabi

The mellowness produced by weathThe qual-

ered stone, mosses, and lichens. ity

Period (1573-1603).

"

"

GLOSSARY

shakkei Japanese pronunciation

oi' jiejing,

the technique of visually incorporating into a garden's design

beyond

borrowed scenery from

borders.

its

term

shin no mihashira

'

The

marks the where a

interval.

Edmund Burke in his influ-

the philosopher ential treatise

A

word

the

Philosophical Enquiry into the

Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beauti-

Origin of

sublime signifies majestic

scenery or turbulent nature capable of

human

ring the

elegance, but austere in character. In Heian-

reverence or thrilled awe.

style

period gardens, pavilions built in

this fash-

ion were placed at the edge of a lake.

1867 the hereditary

commander of the

army nominally

in the service

of

as well as military aftairs.

comprising shoji-screen-divided rooms with proportions based upon the module of a tatami mat (approximately three by six feet).

denote the hole within the floor of a kiva, symbolizing this place of emergence from,

and return specimen

to,

be characterized as

sidered representative ol an entire class, genus, or species; something that stands for entirety. Botanical

'

in

Japanese,

object in nature

is

signify a middle-class

A

precinct within the

Greek

land-

scape considered sacred to a particular

Marked

indwelling deity.

off

by stones or

defined by walls, a temenos contained

and other sacred and symmonuments, and natural

bolical structures,

forms. tholos A circular temple, an architectural form developed in ancient Greece and often

Roman times as well as later when

copied in

was used extensively in Western gardens as an ornament within the landscape. it

topia ings,

The

that are planted to

Renaissance

at a

during the

summer season.

volksgarten

The public park, or people's gar-

Germany

according to

the C.C.L. Hirschfeld's

recommendation

creation of didactic landscapes in which inscriptions served to

moral and patriotic sentiments, especially those promoting nationalism. inculcate

of poverty, a fundamental aesthetic

principle of Japanese

wilderness

oped

A wooded garden feature devel-

England

in

Zen Buddhism.

in the

as a localized version

seventeenth century

of the contemporary

French bosquet. Wilderness paths, which allecs arranged according to a geometrical plan, evolved from formal labyrinths into meandering byways as eighteenth-century designers attempted to induce in visitors within these secluded garden retreats greater sensations of adventure and surprise.

were originally straight

xian

The immortals of Chinese myth,

among

believed to inhabit,

other places,

three enchanted islands upheld by giant tortoises.

Roman and

Italian

in

yarimizu

A Japanese

riverbank garden.

Renaissance

yuniwa In Japan, a bare, gravel-covered,

gardens.

purified space associated with a Shinto topos

The notion of

place as coterminous

shrine.

The term may

also

be used to

instruct observers in the characteristic

with contained and defmed space, a concept

to the entry court of palaces

appearance and growth habit of various

derived from Aristotle.

monumental

plant species and their comparative aspects

other species within the same

genus.

Dredged material removed from an

dining couch or divan, usually

of carved stone, furnishing an ancient

Roman

ziggurat

a desired form.

developed

these are

strucmre of open latticework for

trees.

A

terraced pyramidal structure in ancient

Mesopotamia by the

Assyrians and the Babylonians to serve as a

temple tower, an axis-mundi connecting earth and sky.

tridinium, or dining area.

garden

A garden designed

nenced sequentially

as a series

to

be expe-

of scenes as

work

modeled wet

a single

foot.

vigna

stucchi Stucco

Three avenues radiating from

point, called in French apatted'oie, or goose

the visitor walks along a prescribed route.

reliefs

A

supporting vines, often in the form of an arbor or arch. trivia

stroll

when

empty or contain at most a pair of symbolic

A piece of garden architecture composed of open latticework trellises used to support vines and train plants to assume

trellis

A

structures

refer

and other

treillage

excavation. stibadium

in

Latin term for landscape paint-

used to denote frescoes of scenery

ancient

sojourn

wabi Refined austerity the pleasurable sim-

French for "green carpet," the term refers to a rectangular or other precisely shaped lawn. temenos

A

reverenced by practi-

tioners of Shintoism.

gardens and arbore-

tums contain specimens

spoil

rural

Theorie der Gardenkunst (1779-85) for the fearf ul

the Underworld.

An item such as a plant that is con-

relative to

country

or country estate, usually occurring

monuments and

"Sacred precinct

takamiya

shrines, temples,

cosmology of certain Puebloan cultures of the American Southwest, the mythical place where people emerged from the earth and the place where they return after death. The term is also used to sipapu In the

an

that can perhaps

tapis vert

A style of Japanese architecture

shoinzukuri

spirit,

villeggiatura villa,

plicity

the emperor, but exercising absolute authorcivil

used the word villa to suburban dwelling.

den, as developed in

often the sanctified area where a special

shogun Often translated as "generalissimo,"

both

a

Roman

stir-

causing an emotion

of Japanese construction derived from Chinese norms of

ity in

an ancient

teenth century, English-speaking people

ful,

Japanese

term denoting

implies the creation of hameaivc and other rustic garden features suggesting country pleasures. sublime In landscape terms, as analyzed by

heart post of a decon-

new shrine will be built after a twenty-year

until

Italian

retreat with a substantial house. In the nine-

place next to an existing shrine

A

An

estate, originally

for "landscape.

structed Shinto shrine, which

shinden-zukuri

villa

the eighteenth-century French Picturesque style,

shanshui Literally "mountains and water, the Chinese

The French term for "rural The style champetre, a component of

champetre

style

style.

An

Italian

term denoting the type of and rural retreat popular

in the

form of low

suburban

in sand,

cement, and

with wealthy aristocratic families during the Renaissance and later periods.

lime and applied on the outside of a building. Stucchi for interiors are

modeled

villa

in

plaster.

519

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phi Terrace, 1920. Venturi, Robert; Denise Scott

Marling, Karal Ann, ed. Designing Disney's Theme Parks: The Archi-

ed.

MIT Press,

Zukin, Sharon. Landscapes of Power: From Detroit

to

Disney World.

Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.

533

INDEX Note: Page numbers in

For an expanded version of

/Kbstract

and landscape, 437, 442-55

art

acropolis, 46, 67-8; Athens, 21, 46, 59, 61, 62, 62, 67, 68;

Pergamum,

77, 77

Adams, Thomas, 423 Addison, John, 233, 234, 235 agora, 46, 59 60, 68, 71-3 ,

78,

,

72, 73,

75-6,

77,

78-9

Akkadians, 34, 38 Alberti,

Leon

Battista, 123, 125, 128-9, 133,

Horace M., 373

Alcazar, 105-6,

Aldobrandini

J

150, 161. J 80, 180-1,

106-7

106,

67-9 71-5 ,

,

72,

78-9

Berenson, Bernard, 386

Augustans, 235, 241-7

Bialystok, 208

Augustus Caesar, 42-3

Bible, 98, 100-1, 142

Austen, Jane, 251, 260

Bigelow, Jacob, 334-6

Australia, 29, 504

Biltmore, 352, 396

Austria, 203-6, 204, 377-8, 406. 406, 413. 414

Bing, Alexander, 420

automata, 208

Birkenhead Park, Liverpool. 324, 324 Black Mesa, 52 Blaikie,

monu-

Greece, ancient, 60, 62;

mental urban,

194, 212-13; prehistoric

41-3, 45; Renaissance redis-covery

454

allegory and landscape, 21-2, 23, 58, 95, 119, 126, 130, 132

Thomas,

263, 385

Blenheim Palace, 250,

cultures, 22, 26, 40-1,

126, 133-4, 135, 149-51, 153;

174, 208, 210, 213, 440,

Bentham, Jeremy, 313 Bernini, Gianlorenzo, 139, 166, 213, 214

and ancient

.Alexander the Great, 24, 59, 75, 104

allies,

73, 78,

62,

Attiret, Jean-Denis, 261

axiality:

181, 185

Alhambra,

Athens, 21, 46, 59, 61,

www.elizabethbarlowrogers.com

477-81, 505, 510

06

(villa),

this index, visit

automobiles, 403, 426-7, 457-8, 460-1

147, 154, 195, 241

Albright,

italics refer to illustrations.

250, 255,

270

Blois. 154, 154

Blomfield, Reginald, 353, 376, 379-80, of,

Rome,

383, 389

Blondel, Jacques-Francois, 196

ancient, 79-82; seventeenth-century

Boboli Gardens, 138, 139, 161

extended, 166, 168, 172-5, 179-80,

body and

194,212-13

Bohemia, 206-8

space, 25, 502-9

Almerico, Paolo, 148

axis mundi, 28, 37, 508

Bois de Boulogne, 263, 263, 365

Amboise

Aztecs, 47, 48, 50, 448

Bomarzo, Sacro Bosco, 143-6, 146

(chateau

),

154

Americas: colonial period, 202, 221-30;

modern

21, 47-54, 505;

United

States, see

United States

Ammannati, Bartolomeo,

136, 137

Anasazi, 49

Ancy-le-Franc

Anet

books, influential, 121-2, 132-3, 161-3,

pueblos, 54-6; pre-Columbian,

195-6, 197, 221-2, 224, 237-8, 252-3,

Babel, Tower of, 40

255, 261, 287-8, 288-90, 295, 314, 386,

Babur, 108-10, 109

442-4. see treatises and illustrated

Babylonia, 34, 39-40, 41

books on gardens Borghese

Bachelard, Gaston. 25, 503, 504 (clidteau), 155, 15

(chateau), 156, 156

Anglo-Chinois

style,

261

Borromeo, Carlo, 189 Boscoreale,

263, 263

antiquarianism, 126, 200, 239

Baltimore, 332 Banister,

villa at. 86,

bosquets, 167, 173-6. 195,

Boston: Bunker Hill

WOliam. 226

Ariosto, Ludovico, 143

Barcelona, 408, 408-13, 409, 410,411

350;

Aristotle, 58, 59-60. 70, 80, 118. 166. 180

Barchetto atCaprarola, 142, 181^,

335, 336, 337

and landscape.

24; abstract art, 437,

Baroque

147-8, 148

style, 126,

182, 183

179-92, 194-231

442-55; Chinese and Japanese gardens,

Barragan, Luis, 447-9, 448, 449

23, 282-3, 285; deconstructivism,

Barron, William, 320

495-7; earthworks, modern, 487-93;

Bartolommeo, Michelozzo

Egyptian funerary painting,

botanical gardens. 128, 21

di,

Sandro, 130-1 Franc^ois,

254; eighteenth-cenmry France, influ-

Baxter, Sylvester, 351

ence of Dutch school on, 264; envi-

Beaux- Arts

ronmental

Beck, Walter and Marion, 440-1

bedding out, 321, 376, 379-80

Renaissance, 126, 130-1, 138. 140, 143,

Behrens, Peter, 413

146; sculpture, see sculpture

Beijing.

movement, 375-83, 413

boulevards

351-5, 354-5, 368-71

380; national park system, U.S., 372-3;

Arts and Crafts

1.

226, 250-1,

329-30, 350

129

Boucher,

Forbidden

City, 285, 291,

264

(boulevarts), 213,

215

Boyceau, Jacques, 162-3, 169, 195 Boyle, Richard (3rd Earl of Burlington), 148, 200, 235,

236

Bradford, William, 222, 224 291-3, 292

Belvedere Court, Vatican, 80, 133-5,

134,

138

Bramante, Donato,

132, 133, 134, 135, 138,

149

444-7, 444-7

associative landscapes, 21-2, 23

belvedere defined, 133

Brazil, 416.

Assyria, 39

Belvedere Palace. Vienna, 204, 204

Breton, Gilles de, 155

ben-ben stone, 35, 41

Bridgeman, Charles. 238-9, 240-1

astronomy and

534

astrology, 26,

1

26

334-7,

272, 313, 315-16, 316-17, 325-6,

Botticelli,

483-6; JekyU, Gertrude,

349, 349-50,

botanical exploration, 268, 325

Bauhaus, 413-14

art,

331-2,

Mount Auburn Cemetery,

Bath, 257, 257

style,

206-10

monument,

teenth-century England. 234-7, 248,

38; eigh-

185

332; "emerald necklace,"

Barbaro

(villa),

86

boschi, 132. 138, 142, 146,

arches, 8\,81, 355

art

185-6

85,

Bagatelle, 263, 263, 385, 385 bagatelles,

22-3, 199-200, 239-47, 267

J

Badminton, 202

Arcadian

style,

(villa),

1

INDEX

Brighton Pavilion, 258-9

Broadacre

City,

Catherine the Great (empress of Russia),

Brooklyn Park, 346-7, 354, 355, 355

Brown, Lancelot

"Capability," 233, 240,

Buddhism, 281, 283, 284, 295, 297, 299-302, 304, 308-9, 454-5 Buffalo, NY, park system, 347,

caves and cave 47, 56,

347-8

29-30, 38, 44, 44,

236, 239, 246,

254 (pope), 135, 149

Cleveland, William Shaler, 350 cloister gardens, 123, 123

Mount Auburn Cemetery

Athens, 74;

closed universe to boundless one, shift

from, 22, 194

Boston, 334-7; "rural" cemeteries of

Coimbra, 210,

nineteenth century, 332-7

Colbert, Jean-Baptiste, 20, 165, 172

Central Park,

161

monument,

art, 27,

62

cemeteries, 23; Kerameikos Cemetery,

247-51, 253, 254, 255, 274

246, 248,

Clement VII

220

Broadlands, 249

buffet d'eau,

Claude (Lorrain), 235-6,

Catalan nationalism, 409, 412, 413

422-3

337-44, 353-4

16, 42, 337-43,

210, 447, 447

Colchester, Maynard, 202

centuriation, 69, 79

Coleorton Hall, 278-9

Buonarroti, Michelangelo, 134, 150, 213

ceques, 53

Collins, Lester, 441

bupingeh, 49, 56

Cerceau, Jacques Androuet du, 154, 384,

colonial America, 202, 221-30

Bunker

Burke,

Hill

Edmund,

331-2, 332

238, 248, 254

Burlington, 3rd Earl of (Richard Boyle), 148, 200, 235,

Colonna, Francesco,

384

Cerda, Ildefons, 408

Cerro Gordo,

236

47, 47,

Burton, Decimus, 317

Cetto, Max, 448

Byodo-in, 298, 298-9

Chaco Canyon,

Byrd, William

I

and William

II,

226

color, use of, 321, 391,

community 33, 50,

50-2

compartmentalized gardens, 387 Confucianism, 282, 283, 289

Chandigar, 416

conservation, 25, 472, 481-6, 506

,

,

Constable, John, 248

Chantilly 178, 179, 265,265

Cahokia,

Chatsworth, 202, 322, 322

Chauvet Cave,

Paolo (Veronese), 142

California, 397, 397-400, 398, 399, 400, 447,

449-53

Chenonceaux

by name

Cooper, Anthony Ashley (3rd Earl of Shaftsbury), 233

Chetro Ked,

Campanian plains, villas of, 88-9 camping and hiking, 507, 507-8

Chicago: Beaux Arts design, 368, 368; park system, 348-9, 349, 427-30, 428, 429;

105-12, 115-6, 140-1, 142-3, 144-5,

Chilicothe, 33

154, 167, 169, 170-2, 173-5, 178, 192,

Chinese gardens,

199-202, 210. see also watercourses

and fountains

Canyon de Chelly 29, Cao Xueqin, 288-90

49, 50

368

254, 255, 274

Caprarola, Villa Farnese

at,

142, 181-4,

3rd Earl of (Charles Howard),

23, 42, 211-12, 250-1,

261,281-94, 297, 440, 441

prehistoric period, 21, 26-8, 47-54;

science replacing, 3 1

Counter- Reformation, 126, 151

Christianity, 22, 28, 54, 95, 97, 98, 100-2,

creation myths, 35, 47, 52, 55. 295

118-23, 126, 281

Crete, 21, 43-6, 511

Crystal Palace, 324-5, 325, 376

The Chronicle of Mm, 289

Ctesiphon, 104

carpet bedding, 321, 376, 379-80

Cite Industrielle, 406-8, 407

Carrogis, Louis (Carmontelle), 262

cities, see

Carson, Rachel, 480, 482

Claremont, 239, 239, 251

Carvallo, Joachim de, 384-5

classical orders, 147,

urbanism and

city

197

92

Rome,

58, 60,

classicism: "Capability"

Brown, 248;

Renaissance, 125-6, 147; at,

138, 139, 161

Castiglione, Giuseppe, 211

Casde Howard, 241-4,

244, 245,

254

Dante, 119, 125, 143, 409

Daoism, 281, 283, 284, 295 Darwin, Charles, 311, 481, 502

Davis, Robert, 478, 479

Roman

V5.

Greek, 58; seventeenth-century France, 166, 167, 179;

53, 54

Dasein, 503

defined, 58; Hellenistic world, 75;

Casey, Edward, 505 Castello, Medici villa

Greece,

58-75; paradises, 98-9; philosophy and

79-95

J

Cuzco,

t3aigo-ji, 303, 303

233, 241, 245, 249, 262, 265, 269-70.

watercourses and fountains

28, 29, 33, 44.

planning

landscape, 58-60, 67, 71;

see also

and worship,

Czartoryska, Izabelle, 208

187, 192, 199, 204, 206, 208-10, 213,

Caserta, 192,

rites

46. 55

of stone, wood, and earth, 30-3

classical period, 21-2, 24, 58-96;

170-2, 177-83,

cthonic

450, 451

circles

artificial, 167, 169,

267;

chora, 59, 66, 505

Carnac, 30

cascades,

modern 267; pre-

Chiswick, 235,235

Cicero, 127

51, J/

58-9; Descartes and, 166;

American pueblos, 54-6,

Columbian Americas, 47-54,

Carmonrelle (Louis Carrogis), 262

Casa Rinconada,

26,

Chinese

Chippendale, Thomas, 248

Church, Thomas, 449-51,

148, 241-4, 245

cosmology: astronomy and astrology,

gardens, 285; classical Greece and,

Christo, 487

182, 183

105, 105

Cordonata, 151

126; bodily space and, 508;

Choat, Mabel, 438-40

"Capability" Brown, 233, 240, 247-51, 253,

Carlisle,

Cordoba,

51

Fair,

25, 120-1, 358-9,

457-69, 470-2

29, 29

{chateau), 157, 157

Calthorpe, Peter, 477, 478

Worid's

Constant, Caroline, 147

consumerism, 23-4,

Chermayeff house, 443

canals and water channels in gardens, 84,

gardens, 508-9, 509

Chambers, William, 250-1 261 274

chateaux, 154-7, 168-72. seeabo

Caiiari,

448-9

columns and colonnades, 80-1

48

CZ-affarelli, Scipione, 185 32, 32-3, 49, 49, 486

125, 131-2, 154

seventeenth-cenmry

Italy 179, 192, 194, 196;

waning of 232

Dearborn, Henry, 331. 334-5 de Caus,

Isaac, 201

de Caus, Salomon, 161, 200, 203 deconstructivism, 495-7 Defontaines, Pierre, 510

535

INDEX

De rOrme,

155-6

Philibert, 63,

democratic

ideals, 23,

De MonviUe

of French and

63-5, 64, 65

Delphi, 61,

263-4, 267, 402, 457

Derby Arboretum,

De re aedificatoria

317,

317-18

(Alberti), 128-9, 195, 241

Descartes, Rene, 20, 26, 125, 166, 169, 179,

United

Fiesole, Villa IVIedici at, 129, 129-31, 187

States, 226-30, 267-73; city planning, 194,

Eliade, Mircea, 27

Fischer

Eliot, Charles, 351,

482 312, 334, 372

enclosure movement, 237

England: Anglo-Chinois 135, 139-42,

villa, 22,

140, 141, 147, 161

de

Vries,

Hans Vredeman,

197,

226

Dezallier d'Argenville, Antoine-Joseph, 195-6, 209, 234, 270 Diodati, Ottaviano, 187 dislocation,

modern

sense

357-8,

402, 471-2, 512

466-8, 473, 473, 475, 476 District

of Columbia, 24, 220, 229, 229-30,

329-30, 351-2, 352, 368-70, 369, 370, 485, 485,

fish

498-9

Douglas, David, 325

Downing, Andrew Jackson,

273, 276, 313,

Arts

226

135,

Henry, 400

Flitcroft,

Henry, 246

Florence, 79,

dissemination of French and Italian

floriculture, see horticulture

styles in, 199-203;

Edwardian period,

79, 130, 138,

186

and

floriculture

Florida, 400-1

263

376, 388-92; eighteenth-century estates,

follies,

233, 234-59; Italian Renaissance style,

Fontainebleau, 155, 155, 161, 178

of 385-8; London, 2 J 6, 216-18,

2J7, 218, 257-8, 258;

urbanism and

city

315-25

Fontaine-de-Vaucluse, 128

Fontana, Domenico, 151-3 fontanieri, 139, 177

Forbidden

City, Beijing, 285, 291,

291-3, 292

Enlightenment, 22-3, 228, 232-3, 267, 502

Forestier, Jean-Claude-Nicolas, 385, 385,

entertainment, landscape

forums, 60, 82

as,

430, 458, 464.

see also theater

Fountain Place, Dallas, 454, 454

Ephesus, 76,

fountains, see watercourses

76, 81, 81

Epidaurus, 66, 66

and fountains

Fountains Abbey, 245, 245

Heroes,

Monument of,

73, 73

Fouquet, Nicholas, 169

The Dream of the Red Chamber (Cao Xueqin), 288-90

Erasmus, 203

Fra Angelico, 123, 123

Ermenonville, 263-5, 264, 265, 331

Fragonard, Jean-Honore, 178, 266, 266

dreamtime, 504

Essay Concerning Human Understanding

France, see also specific areas: chateaux,

Dresden, 512

(Locke), 232

drinking in China, 284-5

Drottningholm,

estates

210

208, 209, 209,

and

154-7; classicism, 167, 179; development

estate gardens: colonial

federalist

and

America, 228-9, 268-71;

mod-

dry cascades, Japan, 300

England, 239-59; France, 261-6;

Duany, Andres, 477, 478

ern, 24, 388-401; United States, 228-9,

Duchene, Henri and

Dumbarton Oaks,

Achille, 383, 383-4, 385

394, 395,

Duncombe

Park, 245

Dutch

and influence, 197-9,

style

villa, 22, 135,

197-9,

mother goddesses,

46, 47, 61,

21

,

dissemination of French and Italian styles,

436-7; Picturesque

formal gardens, 383-5; "rural" cemeteries, 333;

existentialism, 502, 503

165-79; urbanism and city planning,

,

seventeenth-century

406-8 Francini family, 161 fi-eeways

F^brit^wei",

261, 266

and highways, 457-8, 505-6,

Freud, Sigmund, 311, 502

Eastern Europe, 206-8

fantasy, 23-4, 25

Fronteira, Palacio dos

Eckbo, Garrett, 443, 451-3, 452, 454

Farnese gardens, 181-4

Eden, Garden

Farnese

of,

98

Edo period, 304-9

villa at

Caprarola, 142, 181-4, 182,

Edwardian period, 376, 388-92

Farnesina

effigy earthworks, 53, 53-4, 54

Farrand, Beatrix Jones, 393-6, 394, 395, 396

Efiher, Joseph,

205

(villa),

135

Faust, 357

Egypt, 21, 34, 35-6, 38, 40-2, 43

Fazio family, 494, 495

Eiffel

460

Tower, 367, 367

eighteenth century 22-3, 24, 232-3; art

and landscape, 234-7; dissemination

536

211

Frontinus, Sextus Julius, 213

functionalism, 23, 454-5

Faulkner Farm, 387-8, 388

egaHtarianism, 23

Eichler, Joseph,

Marqueses

Fujiwara clan, 298-9

183

Federal Housing Authority (FHA), 459 Felibien, Andre, 175

fermeornee, 237, 256,

264-6, 269, 497

506,

510-11, 511

FaUingwater, 443

prehistoric, 32-3,

261-6;

Evelyn, John, 237

66

48-54

style,

Esterhaza, 206-7, 207

28, 43-4, 44,

earthworks: modern, 487, 48 7-93 488-92;

195-212; eighteenth-century,

261-6; Italian style, adaptation of 24,

Renaissance, during, 154-63; revival of

Eyserbeck, Johann Friedrich, 274 arth

of formal garden, 24, 154-7, 161-3;

154-7, 161-3, 165; modernist gardens,

139-42, 140,

141, 147, 161

202-3, 219, 226, 264

E

267-71, 393-401 Este family and

396

436

Foucault, Michel, 503

environmentalism, 25, 472, 481-6, 506

Eponymous

326-30, 337, 474

ponds, 90: 135,

Flagler,

style, 261;

planning, 404-6; Victorian period,

Disneyland and successors, 458, 464-7,

Erlach, Johann Bernhard, 204,

and Crafts movement, 375-83;

revival of, 25,

von

262

Desert de Retz, 266, 266

and

Finlay Ian Hamilton, 497, 497-8 Firdawsi, 100

desert gardens, 397, 397 d'Este family

urban-

212-20

Eleusinian mysteries, 29, 74, 95, 281

Emerson, Ralph Waldo,

192, 502

Fertile Crescent, 33

Ficino, Marsilio, 127-8

ism and

(Baron), 266

Italian styles, 195-212;

England, 233, 234-59; France, 261-6;

Cjambara, Giovanni Francesco (cardinal),22, 142-3

GambareUi

family, 189

La Gamberaia, 189-91, garden carpets, garden

cities,

190, 191

103, 103

407, 417-32

de, 21

1,

INDEX

garden ot

gardeners, professional, 161-3, 169

greenhouses, 3\7, 317

gardens, see specific types and locations

green theaters,

Gardens

Modem Landscape (Tunnard),

in the

Hindu style, 258-9 Hindu temples, 37 Hippodamus, 67, 70

337-50, 417-32

love, 101-2, 131

442-4, 484

Gamier, Tony, 405-8

180,

187

Grenville, Richard, 247

Hirschfeld, Christian Lorenz, 275-6

grid layouts, 69-70, 76, 79-80, 221, 267-8,

historicism/ traditionalism, 24, 25, 95, 375,

268,

397-401

346

Gropius, Walter, 413-14

history, rejection of,

Gaudi, Antonio, 409-13

Grosser Garten, Herrenhausen, 204, 204

Hider, Adolph, 414

Geddes, Patrick, 418-19, 419, 510

grottoes and nymphaea, 21 27, 60, 89-90,

Hittites, 39,

Garzoni

(villa),

187-9, 188, 189

,

Generalife, 106-8, 107

128, 132, 136-7, 137, 137, 147, 148, 161,

"the genius of the place," 233

161, 170, 176, 201, 233,

Genji, Tale of (Murasaki Shikibu),

297

236-7, 245-6,

Guell, Eusebi,

geography, cultural, 510-12

43

Hoare, Henry, 245-7, 307, 497

Hoffmann, Joseph, 413 Hofgarten, 206, 206

262, 265, 269, 276

geoglyphs, 54

and Pare

Giiell,

Hogarth, William, 238, 248

409-13,

Hojo gardens, 308

410, 411

Guevrekian, Gabriel, 436

Holland, Henry, 251

George, Henry, 402

Gustaf

Holt,

Georgian England, 233, 234-5, 239-59

gymnasiums, 68-9

geology, science

of,

502

Germany: commemorative

III

Nancy 488, 490, 490-1 Homer, 60, 61, 89, 98 Hopewell mounds, 33, 499

(king of Sweden), 209

landscapes,

331; dissemination of French

horticulture and floriculture: Arts and

and

Hadrian's

Italian styles in, 203, 203-6, 204;

eighteenth-century garden

406-7

villa,

21-2, 90-5,

92, 93, 95,

Crafiis

movement,

376, 378-80, 379;

Chinese gardens, 282, 294; Desert de

125, 133, 149, 391

style,

275-6; Karlsruhe, 194, 204, 204;

ha-ha, 238, 491

Retz, 266; Egypt, 38; eighteenth-

modernism, 413-14; Repton,

Halprin, Lawrence, 483-6, 484, 485, 506

century England, 256, 259-60; explo-

Humphrey, influence

259-60

Hamilton, Charles, 245

ration, botanical, 268;

129

Hamilton, William, 274

391; Jefferson,

giardino segreto, 127, 129-30, 138, 185, 186

Hampton

Gertrude, 376, 380-3; medieval revival

Gilded Age, 393-401 Gilpin, William, 252-3

Hanging Gardens of Babylon, 39-40, Hangzhou, 286, 286, 291

Ginkaku-ji, 309, 309

Han period landscapes, 283-4

314, 321, 352-3, 376, 378-80;

Hardouin-Mansart, Jules, 173-176, 177

seventeenth-century France, 176, 178;

Ghirlandaio,

Domenico

of,

del,

161,322

giocchi d'aqua,

Court, 201, 20J, 202, 250

Girardin, Marquis de, 264-5

Harlay Achille de, 161

Girling, Cynthia, 461

Hatshepsut, 40-1,

Giulia

(villa),

gloriette,

at,

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 233,

Golden

359,

Heian court,

Pavilion, 300-1, JOi

Goldsworthy Andy

297,

Howard, Charles

Heidelberg, 203, 203-4

Hell Mouth, Sacro Bosco at Bomarzo,

Governnient Rustic Granada,

105, 106,

Grasmere, 278, 278 54, 55

Great Serpent Mound,

54, 54,

487

Greece, ancient, see also specific

heritage, preservation as,

classical period, 58-75; Hellenistic

urbanism,

70, 75-9;

Minoan

herms, 71-3,

Crete,

43-6; Mycenaeans, 46; polis concept, 46, 59, 61, 66, 67-75; politics

and

land-

scape, 61-2, 66, 67-8, 70; religion

and

landscape, 43, 61-6, 70, 281; street patterns, 504-5;

urbanism and

Hungary, 206-8

Hunt, John Dixon, 235, 503 hunting parks,

83-5, 85, 86, 88, 88-9, 89

polei:

city

planning, 67-79

Greek Orthodox Church, 127 greenbelts and urban park systems.

58, 125, 126, 127-31, 138, 143,

203

Henry II (king of France), 155-7, 161 Henry IV (king of France), 158-61 Herculaneum and Pompeii, 82, 82, 83,

106-8

Great Bear Mound,

huacas, 53

humanism,

Helphand, Kenneth, 461

427

(3rd Earl of Carlisle),

Howard, Ebenezer, 403-5, 407

146, 146

style, 426,

203-4

148, 241-4, 245

Go-Mizunoo, 307 377

Palatinus, 203,

hothouses, 317, 317

Hellenistic urbanism, 70, 75-9

style, 319,

84-5

Hoskins, William G., 510, 511

297-9

golf courses, 492-5, 494

Gothic

1

Hosack, David, 325-6

Heidegger, Martin, 503

487, 487

Italy,

118-19, 121, 121-3

Hortus

Hearst, William Randolph, 398-9

273-7, 357

Native American

seventeenth-century

Hayden, Dolores, 473-4

205, 208

modern

hortus conclusus (walled garden), 101, 101,

360-7

35-6, 36, 40

of, 121;

cultures, 55; nineteenth-century 313,

42

Haussmann, Baron Georges-Eugene,

135-7, 136, 137, 147, 185

Giza, pyramids

4J,

41

Hidcote Manor,

Thomas, 268;Jekyn,

Husserl,

473-4

39, 103, 283

Edmund,

Hypnerotomadxia

503

Poliphili

(Colonna), 125,

126, i26, 131, 131-2, 132, 137, 154

73

herraduras, 51

Hesiod, 99

HetLoo,

198, 198-9, 199,

Hidcote Manor,

203

Identity, preservation as, 474-5

390, 390-1, 391

U Brolino, 400, 400

Hideyoshi, 303, 304

hierophany

spatial,

Ilford

27

highways and freeways, 457-8, 505-6, 510-11, 511

hiking and camping, 507, 507-8

Manor, 385, 385

imperialism, 21, 42-3, 60, 70, 75-80 506,

India, 21, 37, 97, 108-14,

Indians,

American,

416

21, 47-56, 398, 505

industrial developments:

modern

indus-

537

INDEX

trial

technology, effect

of,

24-5, 402-3,

Le Rouge, George-Louis, 261

254, 255

470-2, 487, 505-7, 512; nineteenth-

Kepler, Johannes, 166

LeRoy Julien-David, 265

century Industrial Revolution, 23, 25,

Kerameikos Cemetery, 74

Le Vau, Louis, 172

312-13,357-74

Keswick, Maggie, 491, 491-2, 492

Lever Brothers, 404

Kew Gardens,

Levittown, 459, 459-61

Inkas, 51,52-3,53, 54 Innisfree, 440-2, Ise shrine, 296,

250-1, 251, 313, 315-16,

Lewis and Clark, 268

3 J 7, 320

441,442

Khubilai Khan, 291

296

Liber ruralium

Isfahan, 116-18, 117-18

Kiley Daniel Urban, 179, 453, 453-4, 454

Islam, 22, 28, 95, 97, 98, 99-100, 103-18,

Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavilion), 300-1, 301

210-11

kirei sabi,

Isola Bella, 189-92, 192 Italy,

58, 60, 79-95;

Baroque and Rococo

179-92; dissemination of

French and

Italian styles,

French adaptation of

195-212;

Ligorio, Pirro, 134, 138, 139, 147

55

Lin,

Maya Ying,

498, 498-500, 499

Knight, Richard Payne, 253-4, 255, 443

Lindsay Norah, 390, 390-1

Knossos, 45,45,

linear city concept, 408, 408

knot gardens,

46,

511

131, 131,

197-8,320

Lioness Gate, Mycenae, 46, 46 literamre and landscape, 23, 98-9, 131-2,

Kobori Enshu, 305, 307, 308 Konchi-in, 308, 308

199-200, 233, 234-9, 260, 273-9,

154-7, 161-3, 165; Renaissance, 125-54;

Korea, 297

282-3, 284-5, 285, 288-90, 297, 298,

revival of Italian Renaissance style in

Kostoff, Spiro, 80

England and United

Kropotkin, Peter, 402-3

Little Sparta, 497,

Kunming

Locke, John, 22-3, 232-3, 236, 267

styles of, 24,

States, 385-8;

seventeenth-century 167, 179-92 I

(Piero de'

limonaia, 129, 130, 187, 187, 189

kivas, 47, 49, 50, 51,

see also specific areas: ancient/ classical,

style, 167,

305

commodonmi

Crescenzi), 121-2, 122

Tatti, 386,

386, 388, 391, 497-500

Lake, 293-4, 294

London,

Kyoto, 297, 297, 299, 299-309, 300-9

386

iwakura, 295, 296

497-8

216, 216-18, 217, 2J8, 257-8, 258

Loos, Adolf, 442 Lorrain, Claude, 235-6, 236, 239, 246, 246,

Labyrinth, Knossos,

La Gamberaia, 189-91,

Jacobs, Jane, 476, 477, 480, 506

Laguna West,

Loudon, John Claudius, 313, 316-19, 321

190, 191

Louisiana Purchase, 267-8

478, 47S

Jahangir, 110

Lake Maggiore, 189

James, Henry 386, 393

lakes, 21, 28, 47, 52, 249, 299,

Japanese gardens, 23, 281, 295-309, 441,

Lake Tai rocks, 286, 291

442, 443, 454-5

248, 254

45, 45, 511

Jackson, John Brinckerhoff, 510-11

Louis XII (king of France), 154-5 Louis XIII (king of France), 172, 174

308

Louis XIV (king of France), 20, 22, 58, 165-7, 169, 172-8, 194, 196, 215

Lan^ut, 208, 208

jardins anglais, 209, 238, 261, 265, 266, 385

landscape design defined, 235

Louvre, 158-9, 165-6

Jeanneret, Charles Edouard (Le Corbusier),

Langley Batty 237-8, 321

Lucerne, Switzerland, 467-8

lanterns, stone, 304, 304

Ludovisi (vUla), 185

Lante

Lutyens, Edwin, 380-3, 406, 498

4i4, 414-16, 415, 416, 442, 443

Jefferson,

Thomas,

69, 148, 230, 264,

LaReggia,

267-73, 326, 327 Jekyll,

(villa),

Gertrude, 256, 379, 380, 380-3, 381,

389

22, 142-5, 143, 144, 145, 179, 181

Luxembourg

192, 192

La Rotonda,

148, 148, 235, 271

Palace, 162, 163

Luxor, 40, 42

Lascaux cave, 29

Lyell, Charles, 481,

Jencks, Charles, 488, 491, 491-2, 492, 499

Las Vegas, 458

Lynch, Kevin, 473

Jensen, Jens, 427-30, 482

Latapie, Fran^ois-de-Paule, 261

382, 383, 385, 386,

Ji

Cheng, 287-8

502

Latrobe, Benjamin Henry, 272

AAacDonald, William

Johnston, Lawrence, 390, 390-1

La VaUiere, Louise, 172

Jones, Inigo, 200, 201, 216

lawn mower, invention

Jones, Robert Trent, 494

lawns, 173, 174, 229, 319-20

MacKaye, Benton, 420

Jones Beach, 426, 426

Laws of the Indies, 221-2, 224

MacMiUan plan for Washington,

Julius

II

(pope), 133, 134, 135, 136, 149

Jung, Cari, 25, 28, 32, 56, 484, 503

The Leasowes,

of, 313, 319,

319

245, 261, 265, 497

94

Madama

Le Brun, Charles, 172

Maderno, Carlo,

Le Corbusier, 403,

Madrid, 408, 408

(villa),

135, 135

181

FCabul, 108-10 Kamakura period, 299-300

Lemercier, Jacques, 168-9

Manning, Warren Henry, 437

Kant, Immanuel, 358

L'Enfant, Pierre Charles, 220, 229-30

Mansart, Francois, 168, 169, 173

kare sansui, 300

Lenne, Peter Joseph, 260

Marduk,

Karlsruhe, 194, 204

Le Notre, Andre,

market

Kashmir gardens,

20, 22, 163, \66-79, 195.

1

JO,

110-11,

in

Kent, William, 167, 238-9, 240-1, 248,

Leo X

Marly

(pope), 135, 149

Le Pestre de Vauban, Sebastien, 178, 213

34, 41

forces, 23-4, 25, 120-1, 358-9,

457-69, 470-2

201,212,213,215,453

Katsura Rikyu, 305, 305-6, 305-7, 306, 308

538

mandalas, 37

443

Karnak, 40, 44

D.C.,

368-70

Le Blond, Jean-Baptiste Alexandre, 209, 219

4J4, 414-16, 415, 416, 442,

L.,

Macedonia, 75

20, 158,

177, 177, 204,

272

Marsh, George Perkins, 31 1-12, 481

Marx, Kari, 388, 402

INDEX

Marx, Roberto Burle, 444-7

Mollet,

Mather, Steven, 373

Mawson, Thomas Hayton, Maya,

389,

389-90

monasteries,

Monceau,

48, 51

McHarg,

Andre and Claude,

Ian L., 428, 452, 482-3, 486

Medici family: Castello,

villa at, 138, 139,

156-7, 161, 166; Cosimo, 127, 128, 129;

1

18,

J

22, 123,

J

129; Giulio

(Clement

VII), 135, 149;

Lorenzo the Magnificent,

Moraine Farm,

Naumkeag, 438, 438-40, 439, 440 Nazca lines, 53, 53-4, 487

185

(villa), 150, 153,

Montespan, Marquise

Nazis, 414

de, 176

Monticello, 148, 267-70, 269

129-31, 187; Giovanni,

between, 511; Renaissance, 128, 129-31, 138, 140; Romanticism, 233;

monumentality

at, 129,

pre-Columbian Ameri-

47-54; rejection of dichotomy

Whately Thomas, 238

Fernando Medici

23

261, 262-3

Ferdinando (Grand Duke), 161; (cardinal), 138; Fiesole, Villa

cultures, 54-6; cas,

Mongol emperors, 291 Monks Mound, 32, 49, 49 Montalto

(queen of France),

161; Catherine

161, 169, 195,

201-2, 206, 208

70, 220,

neighborhood-unit principle (Clarence

368-71

Perry), 418, 420

Neoclassicism, 24, 208, 220, 267, 319,

351, 351

Morel, Jean-Marie, 264-5

351-5, 385, 392, 453-4

Morris, Robert, 488, 488

Neolithic period, 26-33, 504

Morris, William, 375, 413

Neo-Platonism, 128, 131, 232

medieval period, 97-124, 375

Moses, Robert, 425-7

Nero's Golden House

megaliths, 21, 30-2

mounds, 32-3, 48-9,

Meiji restoration, 309

mountains, architectural and natural, 21,

156;

128, 130,

Marie (queen of France), 161,214

memory, 24 menhirs, 30,

Menuhotep

54-5, 271

27, 28, 34-7, 47-8, 52, 281, 282, 285 30, II,

Mount Auburn Cemetery,

30-2

40,

40-1

(Domus Aurea),

125, 135

334-7, 335, 336,

Nesfield, William

Andrews, 320

Netheriands, The, 197-9, 297-9, 202-3, 219, 226, 264

Neutra, Richard, 455

337

Metamorphoses (Ovid), 174, 176

Mount Ida, 44, 44-5, 512 Mount Meru, 37 Mount Ventoux, 125 Mount Vernon, 228, 228-9,

metaphysics, 22, 495, 497-500

Moynihan, Elizabeth, 112

metropolitan growth and regional

Mu (emperor), 289

Newton,

Mughal Empire, 108-14

new urbanism,

477-81

Muir,John, 372-3

New York City

345-7, 423-4, 424. see also

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 503

Mesa Verde,

49, 49, 50

Mesopotamia,

21, 34-5,

38^0

planning, 417-32, 506

Mexico, 447-9, 448, 449

Newark earthworks, Newburgh, 331, 33 ]

Mumford, Lewis,

213, 418, 419-20

middle ages, 97-124, 375

Munstead Wood,

380, 380-3, 382

middle-heart place (hupingeh), 49, 54

Murasaki Shikibu, 297

227,

Muromachi

227-8

Miesian modernism, 443, 453-4

Muskau,

Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig, 443, 453-4

Muslims,

Muso

Miletus, 68, 69, 69, 70, 76, 78 Mill,

Millbrook,

259-60

NY (Innisfree), 440-2, 441,

103-18

Soseki, 299

Naples, 154, 192

Minoans,

Nara

Napoleon

21, 43-6, 511

Mirandola, Giovanni Pico

della, 128

398

III,

mound builders,

32, 50

Noailles Garden, 436-7, 437, 443

states,

growth

of, 194,

404, 404-6, 405,

Northern Song gardens,

282,

nymphaea, 60, 78-9, 136-7,

285-6

237, 147, 148

Nymphenburg, 205-6, 206

landscape, see abo specific topographies:

European

radical

modernism, 413-16; gardens, 434-56; States, receptivity to

urbanism and

212-13

Native Americans, 21, 47-56, 398, 505

Athenian countryside,

modernism

city planning,

402-33

alignment

of, 45,

47-56;

74;

495, 497-500, 502-3

"CapabUiry"

Brown, 247-51; China, 281, 282, 283; Egypt and the Nile, 73; Greece, ancient, 59, 62-3; Inka nature shrines,

52-3, 53; Japan, 281, 299, 309; mimetic architecture defined, 47;

Moliere, 165, 172, 175

urbanism and

Nippur, 39, 39

national park system, U.S., 371-3, 426-7

470

modern philosophy

States, 325-55;

niwa, 295

406, 417, 417-31,459, 459-61,460, 46],

432;

311-15, 502;

namral topography and designed

model towns and suburbs,

in,

landscapes, 330-2;

Nineveh, 39, 39

359, 360-2

court, 297

nation

Mizner, Addison, 400-1

United

commemorative

England, 315-25

Nash, John, 257-9

Mique, RJchard, 265

23;

districts

Nietzsche, Friedrich, 311, 357, 502, 503

United

^^afLSiprt, 47, 55

modernism,

and

city planning, 358-71; Victorian

Minamoto clan, 299 Ming Dynasty 287, 291

Mississippian

specific parks

502

Nichols, J., 461

scientific revolution,

442

mimetic architecture defined, 47

style,

Isaac, 22, 232, 311,

Industrial Revolution, 23, 25, 357-74; 46, 46

Milton, John, 234, 241

Mission Revival

474-5

nineteenth century 23, 31 1-56, 357-74;

22. 97, 99-100,

Mycenaean Greece,

James, 313

New England townships, 222^, 223, New Haven, 223, 223

Nicholson, Sir Harold, 391-2

period, 299, 300-2

259,

487

Newman, George, 227-8

Michelangelo, 134, 150, 213

Middleton Place,

33, 33,

327, 327

Crete, 43-4;

454-5;

Minoan

modernism, 441-2,

modern

Native American

C3belisks,

4],

41-3, 42, 153, 153, 194,

215-16 Oglethorpe, James, 225-6

Olmsted, Frederick Law,

16, 253, 254,

273,276. 314, 337-55, 368, 371. 378,

403,417, 437

Olmsted. Frederick Law. Jr.. 417. 423. 426 Oplontis,

villa

of Poppaea

at, 88,

88-9, 89

Opstal, Gerard van, 176

539

INDEX

orangeries, 105,

J

05, 173, 204,

258

origin myths, 35, 47, 52, 55, 295

Oh^n o/ Species (Darwin),

The

3

1 1

,

48 1 502 ,

Rome,

Peterhof, 209-10, 2J0

revolution, 260, 261, 273;

Peter the Great (emperor of Russia), 196,

ancient, 60; seventeenth-cenmry

219-20

French

classical style, 172-3, 174, 178,

Orlando Furioso (Ariosto), 143, 146, 409

Petit

Orsini, Pier Francesco, 143

Petit Trianon, 265,

otium, 86

Peto, Harold Ainsworth, 385, 385-6, 386

Polycleitus the Younger, 66

Petrarch, 125, 127

Polyphemus group, Sperlonga, 89, Pompeii and Herculaneum, 82, 82,

Ottoman empire,

108-10,

1

14-18, 206

Bourg, 168, 168

192; socialism,

265-6

Petworth, 249 Phaistos, 45, 45 Fainshill, 245

painting, see art

and landscape

Paleolithic period, 26-30, 504

phenomenology, 503

Ponzio, Flamminio,

Philadelphia, 224, 224-5, 483

Pope, Alexander, 128, 233, 234, 236

philosophy and landscape, 21, 22, 23, 31

1,

51 1-12. 5ee also specific philosophies

Poppaea,

and philosophers

populism, 509

style, 147-8, 195,

200, 234-5, 267, 269

Palm Beach, 400-1

(villa),

25, 382, 386-7, 458, 471

and squares,

186, 186

97-124, 126, 130-1 paradise defined, 97, 103

221-2, 258,258 Picturesque

85

villa

of

88,

88-9, 89

Portugal, 210-11

47, 48, 48-9,

49, 50, 54-6, 120, 120, 213, 216-17, 2J7,

paradise and paradise gardens, 22, 39,

1

Port Sunlight, 404, 404

Pia (Casino Pio), vUla, 138, 138 piazzas, plazas,

Palmer, John, 257

Pamphili

photography

Potnia, 43-4, 44, 66

Poussin, Nicolas, 235-6, 239, 246, 254

Poverty Point earthworks, 48 251-60,

style, 24, 196, 21 1, 233,

Praeneste (Palestrina), 80, 131, 134

Hugh, 462

252, 253, 261-6, 273, 316-19, 319, 326,

Prather,

328, 443

Pratolino. 161, 177

Piero de' Crescenzi, 121-2

prehistoric period, 21, 26-34, 43-54

Pindar, 99

preservationist

Pinsent, Cecil Ross, 386, 386

Price, Uvedale, 253-4,

Pare Monceau, 261,262, 262-3

Pinto, John A., 94

Primaticcio, Francesco. 155

Paris, 158-61, 159, 160,

plant material, see horticulture and

Pnmavera

Pare Citroen, 179, 496

Pare de Pare

495-7, 496

la VUlette, 495,

Giiell,

409-13, 410, 411

214^16, 215, 216, 263,

263, 331, 333, 359, 359, 360-7, 362-1

parks, 24, 424-7. see also specific parks; active rather than passive use, transition to,

430; greenbelts

and urban park

systems, 337-50, 417-32; London, 218; national park system, U.S., 371-3, 426-7;

Victorian England,

322^

Plater-Zyberk, Elizabeth, 477, 478

443

(Botticelli), 130,

130-1

processional axes, 40-1, 45, 63-5, 74,

Plato, 35, 58, 59, 68, 74, 127

149-50, 151-2, 194

Prospect Park, 345, 345-6, 346, 354

386-8, 387

plazas, piazzas,

movements, 473-81

Prince's Park, Liverpool, 322-3, 323

floriculture

Piatt, Charies,

83,

Poplar Forest, 270-1,271

Palestrina (Praeneste), 80, 131, 134

and Palladian

90, 90

83-5, 85, 86, 88, 88-9, 89

palissades, 162, 175

Palladio

402-3

Poliziano, Angelo, 130

and squares,

47, 48, 48-9,

49, 50, 54-6, 120, 120, 213,

216-17, 217,

psycholog>; 24-6, 311, 502-3

pubHc parks,

see

parks

Puckler-Muskau, Prince of 259-60

221-2, 258,258

parkways, 346, 346-7, 424-7, 425, 505-6

Plethon, Gemistos. 127

Pueblo Bonito.

Parmentier, Andre, 326

Plmy the Younger,

pueblos and Puebloan cultures, 21, 47,

Parmigianino, 136 parterres, 161-3, 162, 170, 173, 174, 176,

pururuacas, 52

180, 186, 188, 189, 195-7, 203,

Plymouth. 222 Poitiers,

327-8

49-56, 50-2, 54-6, 505

Plotinus, 128

203-211, 250, 320, 379, 388, 440 Pastoralism, 22-3, 199-200, 239-47, 267,

86-8, 125-6, 129, 200,

234, 241, 270

50, 51

Diane

pyramids, 21, 27, 35-6,

36, 40. 41, 47, 47,

47-8

de, 155-6

Poland, 206-8

F^ythagoras, 58-9

Polignac, Francois de, 68, 70

concept, 46, 59, 61, 66, 67-75

pathos, 23

polis

paving, 150, 150, 187-9, 306, 308, 308, 320

politics

and landscape: Catalan nationalism,

C^,

281, 283, 285, 287

Paxton, Joseph, 316, 322-5, 376

409, 412, 413: China, 282-3, 284-5,

Qin Shihuangdi. 282^

Penn, William, 224-5

291-3; courts and court

QuattroLihri (Palladio), 147, 148, 195, 269

cities,

194,

Pere-Lachaise Cemetery, 333, 333

196;

Pergamum,

402, 457; eighteenth-cenmry 239-47,

Quinta da Balcalhoa, 211.211

260; Greece, ancient, 46, 61-2, 66,

Quintinye. Jean-Baptiste de

67-8, 70; imperialism, 21, 42-3, 60, 70.

Quran, 99-100

76-8, 77, 78

peristyle courts, 76, 78, 81, 83, 95

Perrault, Charies, 172, 176

democratic

ideals, 23,

263-4, 267,

75-80; Japan, 295, 309;

Perry Matthew (commodore), 295, 309

planning, 220; national park system,

Persian gardens, 103-4

U.S., 373;

personalization of garden spaces, 22-3,

212-13; Nazis, 414; Picturesque

508-9

and, 260;

states,

growth of

polis, 46, 59, 61, 66,

194,

srv'le

67-75;

and andent world,

perspective, 26, 134, 194

prehistoric

Peruzzi, Baldesare, 135

24, 38, 42-3, 52; Renaissance, 138, 153;

540

la,

178. 195

monumental

Perry Clarence, 417, 418, 420

nation

Queluz, 210

21, 22,

F^acine. Francois Nicolas Radburn. 420-2,

Henr\', 266

421, 422

Rainaldi, Girolamo, 181

Raphael, 135 rationality, reason,

and

intellect, 21,

22-3,

INDEX

24-5, 58, 60, 67, 125, 169, 232-3

Robinson, William, 354, 376, 378-80, 389

Schliiter,

Andreas, 219

Red Books, 255

wcailk work, 187

Schoch,Johann George, 274

Reef Point, 393

Rockefeller family, 396, 475-6

scholar-poets and scholar-gardens,

Reformation, 126

rock gardens: China, 23, 281, 285, 286,

Regency townscape,

Chinese, 282-3, 284-5, 288, 290, 293

291; Innisfree, 440-2, 441, 442; Japan,

Schonnbrunn, 204-5, 205

192, 192

23,297, 300, 281,295-296

Schurcliff,

regional planning, 417-32, 506

rock inscriptions, China, 289, 289

Regional Plan Association, 423-24

rock shrines: Inkan, 52-3,

La Reggia,

257, 257-9, 258

Regional Planning Association of America,

418-22 religion

religions: China, 281-4;

dreaming

Walbiri people, 504; Egypt, 35-6;

sites,

Greece, ancient, 43, 61-6, 70, 281;

Mesopotamia, 34-5; Minoan Crete,

Romanticism,

Rome:

ancient /classical, 21-2, 42, 58, 60,

78-95; fountains of 214, 214; medieval, 149; pastoral style,

Americas, 47-54; prehistoric period,

England, 239-47; Renaissance,

21, 26-54, 56; Renaissance, 126, 128,

149-53, 150, 151, 152, 153, 158;

130-1;

Rome,

ancient, 79-80; science

weakening of

collective religious belief,

502-3

383-8, 512;

Rome,

importance of revival

Repton,

of 320,

of 127-48

Humphrey

83-5, 85

254-60, 255, 256, 260,

revivals: classical period, 24;

French formal

gardens, revival of 383-5; Italian style, revival

263-5, 511

125, 130

Scudery, Madeleine de, 175

modern,

437, 450-1, 454;

rural cemeteries of nineteenth century,

332-7 rural villages

Second Empire, 359, 360 secret gardens, 127, 129-30, 138, 185, 186

Senenmut,

41

Sen no Rikyu, 303-4, 305 and cottages, 256, 279

sensory experience, garden as place of 22-3, 232-4, 237-9, 276

Russell Sage Foundation, 417, 423

Serlio, Sebastiano, 155,

Russia, 196, 209-10, 219, 219-20, 220

Serpent Mound,

rustic gardens, 265-6,

279

197

54, 54,

487

seventeenth century, 165-7, 194; colonial

United

States, 221-6;

French and

dissemination of

Italian styles,

195-212;

France, 165-79; Italy 167, 179-92

Sackville-West, Vita, 391-2 Sacro Bosco, Bomarzo, 143-6,

Seville, 105, J

46

Richelieu, Cardinal, 168-9, 169

Saiho-ji, 299,

Ringstrasse, Vienna, 377-8

Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 161, 178

Riverside, IL, 348, 348

St.

Gall

St.

Petersburg, 196, 219, 219-20, 220

road systems: Athenian countryside,

74;

194, 213-20;

50-1; freeways

of

Seaside, 478-81, 479, 480, 485

24/

of 385-8;

Henry Hobson, 350

Chaco Canyon,

liberation

324, 331, 336, 339, 342-3, 342

Ryoan-ji, 299, 302

traditionalism /historicism, 24

Baroque urbanism,

and philosophy, science

Sea Ranch, 485, 485-6, 486

148, 148, 135, 271

Renaissance period, 383-8, 512;

Richardson,

502; religion

311-15,

Rococo, 206; nineteenth-century 316,

Ruskin, John, 312, 319, 375, 376, 380, 467-8

274, 318, 319, 321

Renaissance

classical, 83, 84,

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 23, 233, 260, 261,

149-53; sculpture,

126, 138, 146; villa,

nineteenth-

replacing, 311-12; Renaissance

sculpture:

Rose, John, 201

and land-

scientific, 194;

scientific revolution,

Baroque, 167, 171-7, 180-7, 192, 198,

Rousham, 240-1,

125-54; nature, importance of 138;

century

203; Renaissance, 126, 138, 146;

humanism,

scape, 138; revivals of style

149,

modernism,

urban gardens,

La Rotonda,

125, 127-31, 138; Italy

Descartes, Rene,

seventeenth-century, 184-6,213-14;

154-63; garden design, 131-48, 154-7;

origins of term, 127; politics

eighteenth-century

Rose, James, 454-5, 455

Renaissance, 22, 24, 58, 125-64; France,

1;

formal gardens, 166; geology, 502;

136

23, 24, 25, 233, 237, 247,

54-6; Mycenae, 46; pre-Columbian

replacing, 311-12;

replacement of 31

environmentalism and, 482-3; French

261, 269, 273-9, 357, 358, 502, 510

modem Native American culture,

from, 22, 194; cosmology,

shift

20, 125, 166, 169, 179, 192, 502;

Roman, Jacob, 198 Romano, Giulio, 135,

Japan, 281, 295-7, 299-302, 308-9;

44—6;

179-92, 194-231, 233, 251,

style,

476

311-13; closed universe to boundless one,

261, 321

see also specific

A.,

science and landscape, 23-4, 24-5, 232-3,

55; Japanese,

295-6, 296

Rococo

and landscape,

Arthur

and

]

05

and gardens, 100-2

Sezincote, 258, 258-9

300

monastery

sexuality

122, 123

Sakuteiki (Tachibana

no Toshitsuna), 295

Shaftsbury 3rd Earl of (Anthony Ashley

Cooper), 233

Shah Abbas, 116-18 Shahjahan,

110,

112-14

Salem, 223

Shalamar,

Sambo-in, 303, 303

Shanglin Park. 283

sand mounds, raked, 308-9, 309

Shenstone. William, 245, 261, 265, 269, 497

Sangallo the Younger, Antonin da, 135, 181

shindai-zukuri, 297-8

487; parkways, 346-7, 424-7, 505-6;

San Simeon, 398-9

Shintoism, 281, 295-7

pre-Columbian Americas, 53-4;

Sanssouci, 206, 206

Shipman, Ellen Biddle. 396-7, 397

processional axes, 40-1, 45, 63-5, 74,

Santa Clara Pueblo, 47, 54, 55

Shisendo, 308, 309

Sant'Elia, Antonio, 413, 413

shopping malls, 23-4,

Savannah, GA, 225, 225-6

shrubbery clipped,

Sceaux, 178, 178, 199, 3 85

Shugakuin Rikyu,

Schama, Simon, 131

Siena, 120, 120

Schinkel, Karl Friedrich, 260

Silent Spring (Carson), 480,

highways, 457-8, 505-6, 506, 510-11, 5J

J;

Greece, ancient, 504-5; Hellenistic

period, 75-6;

Nazca

149-50, 151-2, 194; 79-82;

Rome,

lines, 53, 53-4,

Rome,

ancient,

Renaissance, 149-51;

speedways, 353, 354;

trivio,

Washington, DC, 229-30 Robert, Hubert, 264, 265

150;

110,

110-11, 111

25, 461-4, 462, 463

see topiary

307, 307-8, 308, 441

482

541

INDEX

Tamburlaine, 108-10

Silvestre, Israel, 175

Topkapi, 114-15, 115

sipapu, 47, 50

Tang period,

283, 284-5

Toshihito (Prince), 305

Sissinghurst, 391-2, 392

Taos Pueblo,

48, 48

Toshitada (Prince), 305-7

Sitte,

Camillo, 375, 377, 377-8, 403, 406

sixteenth century, see Renaissance

V

Sixtus

taste,

151-3, 158, 214, 216

Smithson, Robert, 488, 488-90 snake goddess, 44,

45

44,

social reform, 402-3,

concept

174

tourism, 24, 251-2, 468, 475-6, 512

Tower of

313

of,

tea gardens,

303^,

technology

effect of, 24-5, 402-3, 470-2,

308

304, 305-6,

Traite

transportation, 359, 413, 426-7, 457-8,

Southcote, Philip, 245, 261

40-2; Fortuna Primigenia, Praeneste,

Southern Song gardens, 283, 286-7, 299

80, 80;

colonial settlements,

221-2; Islamic gardens, 104-8; urbanism

and

city planning,

408-13

41; Delphi, 63-5; Egypt, 38, 40,

Georgian England, 241,

80;

Hadrian's

37;

Pergamum,

villa, 94, 95;

77;

Hindu,

Roman,

Spence, Joseph, 236

37,

79-81;

at,

89-90, 90

and

illustrated

261, 287-90, 295, 314, 386

Domenico, 219

Trezzini,

93

triclinium, 90,

triumphal arches, 81,

Teotihuacan, 47,

books on gardens,

121-2, 132-3, 161-3, 195-7, 200,

Trissino, Giangiorgio, 147

Tenryu-ji, 299

Sperlonga, grotto of Tiberius

460-1, 477-81, 505, 510 treatises

209, 221-2, 224, 237-8, 252-3, 255,

243,

244, 246; Greece, ancient, 61-7, 68, 80,

Shinto, 295-7; Zen, 299-302

speedways, 353, 354

modernist gardens, 437-40

Temple Newsham, 202 Marduk,

American

du jardinage (Eoyceau), 162-3, 195

transitional

Soria y Mata, Arturo, 408

Spain:

397-401, 475

temenos, 62, 63

temples, 21, 27, 33; Babylon, temple of

299

282, 283, 285-7,

Babel, 40

traditionalism /historicism, 24, 25, 95,

487, 505-7, 512

404-6

Song of Songs, 100-1 Song period,

tapis vert, 173,

47, 48, 51

trivio,

8J,

355

150

sport and landscape, 323, 430, 492-5

Tessin family 196, 208, 209

Tsarskoye Selo, 210

Spotswood, Alexander, 226

Tew Lodge

Tschumi, Bernard, 495-7

springs, 21, 52, 62

theater: Athens, 74; Greece, ancient, 63.

squares, plazas,

and

piazzas, 47, 48, 48-9,

49, 50, 54-6, 120, 120, 213,

216-17, 217,

221-2,258,258 Steele, Fletcher,

437-40

The, WorHtz

circles,

240; Pare Giiell, 41 as, 126;

1

;

172,

(artificial

volcano), 274

theme

1

75-6;

ancient, 93, 94;

theme parks

as

form

of,

Tuileries, 158-61

Tunnard, Christopher,

484

458

parks, 23-4, 25, 95, 125, 430-2, 458,

Turner, Richard, 3 1

Tuscan garden design,

138,

186-9

Twickenham, Pope's grotto Tyrannicides (Kritios

at,

128,

236

and Nesiotes), 71,7]

461, 464-8

30-2

La Theorie

Stonehenge, 21, 30-2, 31

et la

pratique du jardinage

(Dezallier), 195, 195-6, 234,

270

Udine,

Giovanni

The Story of the Stone (Cao Xueqin), 288-90

Thirty Years' War, 196. 204

underworld,

Stourhead, 245-7, 246, 249, 269, 441, 497

Thomas Aquinas,

United

Stowe, 240, 242, 243, 244, 248, 254, 255, 270

Thomson, James, 236-7. 241 Thoreau, Henry David, 312,

Studley Royal, 245, 245

suburbs and model towns,

443, 455,

Turkish empire, 108-10, 114-18, 206

Renaissance

Rome,

seventeenth-century France, 165, 167,

stoas, 68, 70, 71, 72, 75, 78, 78

stone

65, 65, 66, 66, 69, 71, 77; Kent, William,

gardens

Stein, Clarence, 420-21 Stein,

Farm, 316, 3J6

118-19

da, 135

28, 29, 33, 44, 46, 55

States, see also specific places:

Beaux Arts monumental urbanism, 334, 511

368-71; colonial period, 202, 221-30;

Thornton, William, 272

eighteenth-cenmry 226-30, 267-73;

406, 417, 417-32,459, 459-61,460, 461,

Tiberius, grotto of, 89-90, 90

estates

470

Tiergarten, Berlin, 276, 276

268-71, 393-401; greenbelts and urban

404, 404-6, 405,

SuDy Maximilien de Bethune, duke

and

estate gardens, 228-9,

tilework, 210, 4J0

park systems, 337-50, 417-32;

TLmurid empire, 108-10

Renaissance

Titicaca (Lake), 52, 52

Jefferson,

Sumeria, 34, 38, 39

Tiwanaku, 52

267-73; national park system, 371-3,

Sunnyside Gardens, 420-1, 42 J

Tocqueville, Alexis de, 223, 326, 327

426-7;

sustainability 483

Tokugawa shogunate,

222-4, 223, 474-5; nineteenth-cenmry

Sutton Courtenay 390, 390

Tokyo, 309

Suzhou, 286,

tombs: Egyptian, 35-6, 38,

of,

158-60 Sulzer,

Johann Georg, 275

Sweden,

287, 288, 289

196, 208-9

304, 309

Ermenonville, 263-5, 264, 265, 331;

Mughal tomb gardens,

Minoan,

Switzer, Stephen, 237, 261

112-14; Neolithic, 33; pre-Columbian

44;

Americas, 49; Rousseau, funerary-

memorials

Tai (Lake), 286, 291

Thomas,

69, 148, 230, 264,

New England townships,

to, 264,

264—5; Washington,

George, 331,33] topiary: Japanese gardens, 308, 308, 309;

"rural"

cemetenes of nineteenth

century, 334-7; seventeenth-century

221-6; urbanism and

cit)'

planning,

221-30. 368-71, 413-32 universe, concepts of, 22, 194. see also

cosmology University of 'Virginia, 271-3, 272

Unwin, Raymond, 405-6 urbanism and

Taira clan, 299

Renaissance, 131, 131; seventeenth-

Taj Mahal, 112-13, 112-14

cenmr)', 197-8, 202, 203; Victorian

specific towns;

Tale of Genji (Murasaki Shikibu), 297, 298

gardens, 320, 320

212-20; Beaux Arts

542

Italian

385-8;

325-55; regional planning. 413-32; 38, 40, 40-1;

SwentzeU, Rina Naranjo, 55-6

Tachibana no Toshitsuna, 295

style, revival of,

city planning, 22. see also

Baroque

style, 194,

monumental

INDEX

urbanism, 368-71; classicism, 212-20; colonial America, 221-30;

community

gardens, 508-9, 509; Egypt, 34;

2J4;

181

Villandry 384, 384-5 villas

and

villa

eighteenth-century, 194,212-20;

estates

European

villas;

radical

modernism, 413-16;

England, 320-1,322

chateaux, 154-7, 168-72; Italian

Greece, ancient, 59-60, 66-79;

Baroque and Rococo

greenbelts and urban park systems,

Japanese, 305-8, 309; Palladian

337-50, 417-32; Hellenistic urbanism,

Veneto, 147-8; Renaissance revival

70, 75-9; Jefferson's anti-urbanism,

127-48;

267; linear city concept, 408, 408;

medieval

119-21; Mesopotamia,

cities,

34; military engineers, 213;

style,

villas

of

of,

ancient, 60, 86, 86-95,

87, 88, 89, 90, 92, 93,

The Wave

49, 49

500

Field (Lin), 500,

Webb, Jane, 319

179-92;

Westbury Court,

Wharton,

202, 202

Edith, 136, 387, 387, 393

Whately Thomas,

238, 270

Whigs, 234-8, 264, 267

95

Virgil, 60, 127, 142, 199, 234, 236, 241, 248,

modernism,

New

Watson Brake,

estate gardens; specific

Rome,

ancient, 78-9, 82, 82, 83,

84, 89-90, 93, 94, 95; Victorian

gardens, 21-2. see abo

and

Rome,

Whitaker, Charles Harris, 420

White, Stanford, 273, 354-5

409 Virginia, University of, 271-3

White Garden,

Virgin Mary, 101

Wiener Werkstatte, 413

Vitruvius, 125, 147, 197

Wilanow, 207, 207

century, 358-71; preservationist

Vizcaya, 399, 399

William and Mary (king and queen of

movements, 477-81; Regency

volcanoes. Romantic taste for (The Stein,

402-33; Neolithic period, 33;

England townships, 222-4,

new urbanism,

223, 474-5;

477-81; nineteenth-

townscape, 257, 257-9, 258; renewal,

V/orlitz),

226, 227

modern, 470-2, 511-12; Rousseau's

Volksgarten concept, 275-6, 331

von Herder, Johann

and corridors, 464,

Vouet, Simon, 169

model towns,

England), 195, 196, 198, 202-3, 207,

274

urban idealism, 267; shopping malls 464; suburbs and

Sissinghurst, 392, 392

Williamsburg, 202, 226, 226, 475-6, 476

Wilton House,

Gottfried, 375

200, 201

Wise, Henry 203, 250

Woburn Farm,

404, 404-6, 405, 406, 417,

Wood, John

417-32, 459, 459-61, 460, 461, 470;

245, 261

(Elder

and Younger), 257-9

theming, 467-8; United States, 221-30,

Wi-,

368-71, 413-32; walled

Wagner, Otto, 403, 406

Woodenge, Cahokia,

Walbiri people, 504

Wordsworth, William,

Waldie, Donald J., 459

World's Columbian Exposition, 352-3, 353

cities, 60,

118-21, 119, 149, 158, 194,213,216, 345

urban sprawl,

25,

470-2

,

wood

303

Usonianism, 422-3

Walker, Peter, 179

utilitarianism, 313

walled •

cities, 60,

200, 239, 244, 250

2 ]

9,

101,

32,

32-3

233, 260, 277-9, 372

23-4. 324-5, 352-3, 354,

Fairs,

367, 368, 430-2, 431, 434, 436, 459

149, 158,

Worid War

194,213,216,345

walled gardens, 101,

\anbrugh,John,

circles,

World's

118-21,

32-3

118-19, 121, 121-3

389, 393

I,

Woriitz, 274, 274

Walpole, Horace, 238, 252, 253

Wright, Frank Lloyd, 422-3, 443

van Ruisdael, Jacob, 264

Wang Shi Yuan, 290, 290-1 Wang Wei, 284-5,440

Wright,

van Santen, Jan, 185

Warner,

Vasanzio, Giovanni, 185

Washington, D.C.,

van der Groen, Jan,

197,

226

Vasari, Giorgio, 136

138; gardens, plan for, 133

337^9,

16, 276, 314,

24, 220, 229, 229-30,

354,

Xi

204

Veblen, Thorstein, 417, 427 villas of,

Yang Lou,

212, 2 J2

Watelet, Claude-Henri, 264

watercourses and fountains: Baroque,

Vaux-le-'Vicomte, 169-72, 170, 171, 175,

Veneto, Palladian

^Cenophon, 103-4

498-9

Washington, George, 228-9, 331

417

178,

485, 485,

Henry 420-1

Bass, Jr., 503

329-30, 351-2, 352, 368-70, 369, 370,

Vatican: Belvedere Court, 80, 133-5, 134,

Vaux, Calvert,

Sam

Wright, Gwendolyn, 460

147-8

1

79,

\eats, William Buder, 440, 468

184, 187, 189-92, 213-14; "Capability"

Yellowstone National Park, 372-3, 373

Brown, 249; China, 282, 283, 288, 291,

Y\

He

Yuan, 293-4, 294

293-4; Christianity, 22; dry cascades,

Yoch, Florence, 399-400, 449

Japan, 300; England, 202, 320-1, 322;

Yongle, 291-2

Yosemite National Park, 371-3, 372

vernacular landscape, 509, 512

Fountain Place, Dallas, 454, 454;

Veronese, 142

France, seventeenth-century, 161, 167,

Yoshimitsu, 300-1

Versailles, 22, 172-8, 173-7, 194, 198, 219,

174-5, 177-8; giocchi d'aqua, 161,322;

Yuan Ming Yuan,

Hortus Palatinus, 203^; Islamic

Yuan

229, 230, 265, 265-6, 305

Via Giulia,

Rome, 149-50

gardens, 22, 100, 103, 104,

1

10-1

1

,

1

Yi (Ji

293, 293, 441

Cheng), 287-8

17;

Vico, Giambattista, 375

Italy,

Victorian England, 315-25

184, 187, 189-92, 214, 2 J 4; Japan,

iZen Buddhism, 295, 299-302, 454-5

Victoria Park, London, 324, 324

297-300, 308; medieval gardens, 22;

Zhu

Vidal de

Mesopotamia,

ziggurats, 34-5, 35

la

Blache, Paul, 510

seventeenth-century 179,

180,

39; Netheriands, 198-9,

Vienna, 204, 204, 205, 377-8

202;

War Memorial (Lin), 498, 498-9, 499 Vignola, Giacomo Barozzi da, 136, 142-3,

Renaissance, 131-2, 135, 139-42, 145,

Vietnam

161;

Pormguese water

tanks, 210-11;

Rome, seventeenth-century

Mian, 286

zoning codes, Roman, 79

214,

543

PHOTOGKAPH CFIEDITS Introductorx

illiistratiotu:

Numbers

Picture Library / Brian Carter:

Central Park Conservancy:

£ Garden

Sara Cedar Miller/' EUen C. Rooney: 2-3;

1; .£

11; C'

e RogerWood/CORBlS; 4-5; C CORBIS:

gisches Institut, Fototeca,

refer to pages.

C Yann Arthus-Bertrand/ CORBIS: endpapers;

Michaels. Yamashita/

and chapter opener illustrations:

Numbers refer to pages. Bettmann/Corbis: 14 below. 402; C' James Blair/ National Geographic Image Collection: 12 lower center. 97; £ Andy Goldsworthy courtesy of Cameron Books, 2000: 15 lower center. 470; £ Mick Hales: 15 above, 434; (£• Michael Howell / Liaison International: 13 above, J. 165; €' Janos Kahnar: 13 upper center. 194; Sara Cedar Miller/ Central Park Conservancy: 14 above. 311; C' Michael Nicholson /'CORBIS: 12 upper center, 58; Haruzo Ohashi: 13 below, 281; C Elizabeth Barlow Rogers: 12 below; 13 lower center, 125, 232, 14 lower center, 375; £ Guido Rossi/'The Image Bank: 12 above, 26; C PhilSchermeister/CORBIS: 15 below. 502;

©

Solomon Solomon

Guggenheim Museum, New

R.

York. Gift,

Guggenheim, 1937. 37.463. Photograph by Sally Rirts €> The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. New York: 14 upper center, 375: £ The Walt Disney Co.: 15

upper

R.

center, 457.

1968.68.702): 1.20;

Elberts Peets,

York; 12.16.

H. Forsyth,

© Fototeca Unione. Rome: 2.24;

© Garden Picture Library: 3.14; from

Ikona: 4.27;

©

Andrea

'£'

London /The Bridgeman Art

Gallery.

Graham

Library: 6.42;

Museum of Art / Carolina Art Association:

Gibbes

©

© Mick Hales:

Corbis: 9.11;

Sammlung Alterriimer Germany:

© Hilprecht

13.6. 13.15;

Hirmer

1.14; £>

Fotoarchiv:

£

1.8;

Aerofilms. Ltd.

Agora Excavations, American School of

Classical

14.5; Lstituto

CORBIS;

Histo-

©

Geografico Militate: Municipal

9.4; Istiaito

12.7; £1

Dinsmoor, Jr), 2.21, 2.22; AKG London: 6.13, 6.14, 6.45, £ William Albert 'NGS Image Library: 1.35; American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia: 6.47; © Heather .'\ngel: 8.5. 8.6, 8.7, 8.10, 8.12, 8.13, 8.17; © Yann Arthus-Betrand/ CORBIS: 4.32, 5.3, 7.19;

Howell /Liaison International: 5.8; © Harald A. Jahn Vienna Slide Agency /CORBIS: 6.17; Image Bank: 14.2; Image File: 11.16; ©Janos Kalmar: 6.19, 6.24, 6.26; © Marc B. Keane; 8.21; © G. E. Kidder Smith/CORBIS: 15.13; Kyodo News: 8.20, 8.37, 8.40; £1 Balthazar

B.

:

Art Resource, N.Y.: ety: 15.16, 15.17;

seum

Q 2001

3.3, 3.24;

(ARS),

New York:

Artists Rights Soci-

I.

fig.

85: 1.17;

5.2, 5.5,

Bibliotheque Thiers, Paris. Photo: G.

©James Blair/ National Geographic Image Collection: 3.16; £ Marilyn Bridges /CORBIS: 1.38; The Bridgeman Art Library: 7.2; £ Horace Bristol/

turbesitz: 2.17;

£ Bntish Museum: Museum Archives: 9.43;

4.40, 4.41, 4.42, 4.43;

8.19;

£ Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, painting by Lloyd K. Townsend: 1.6, 1.29; £ Canali Photobank. Milano: 2.33; ©' Allan Chaisnet/TTie Image Bank: 1.19; Ching-feng Chen and David

Brooklyn

Bennett: copyright Edith

Mount, Lenox, Mass.:

Bndgeman

Wharton

Restoration at

The

© Christie's Images/The

11.19;

Art Library: 10.1;

©John

R. Clarke: 2.32;

House/ The Bridgeman Art Library: 6.39; Collection of The New-York Historical Society: 6.46, 6.49; Country Life Collection of the Earl of Pembroke, Wilton

Picmre Library: 7.4, 7.18, 11.8, 11.15, 11.23; Courtesy of Calthorpe Associates: 15.4; Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library :1 1.21

Courtesy of the Bostonian Society / Old State House: 9.22; Courtesy Byodo-in ;

Courtesy Duany Plater-Zyberk and Company: 15.5; Courtesy of the Frances Loeb Library, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University: 9.6, 10.15. 12.20; Courtesy of Institute of Fine Arts, N. Y: 10.7; Courtesy of James Turrell: 15.18; Courtesy of Lawrence Halprin Assoc. /Photo Mendy Lowe: 15.9; Courtesy of Lawrence Halprin Assoc: 15.12; Courtesy of the National Park Service, Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic .Site: 9.46, 9.47, 9.49, 9.50, 9.51, 12.21; Courtesy of Bernard Tschumi: 5.25; Courtesy of University of California, Berkeley, Department of Landscape Architecture, Documents Collection: 1 1.35; Courtesy of Cornell University Library Rare Books and Manuscripts Collection: 1 1:36; < Eric Crichton/ CORBIS: 6.12; £ Tim Crosby / Liaison

Temple:

8.23;

1

International: 1.32;

Culver Pictures:

CORBIS;

8.32;

© Crown Copyright.

7.46, 12.27;

©

Richard

NMR:

9.13;

Cummins/

© Bruce Davidson /Magnum Photos, Inc.:

'John Curtis/ D. Donne Bryant Stock Photography Agency: 1.36; G. Dagli Orti: 4,17; C Deutsches 14.1;

'(

Archaeologisches

InstituI

Archaeologisches

Institui: 2.12;

544

Athens:


Lautman:

Museums and Art GaUeries/The Bridgeman Library: 6.11; © Frani Lemmens/The Image Bank:

Art

Leeds

1.34; © Erich Lessing/Art Resource: 1.18. 1.22, 2.27, 2.36; © Liaison International: 4.38, 4.46; Library of Congress: 6.54, 9.20, 9.21, 9.23, 9.24, 9.54, 9.56, .38; © Tony Linck: 1.37; © London Aerial Photo Library /CORBIS: 1 1

Bob Lorenzson/ Courtesy of Robert Augustyn and Paul E. Cohen /New York City Parks Photo Archive: 9.33; © A. de Luca, Roma (Ikona): 5.20, 5.21; £ 2001 The Man Ray Trust /ADAGR Paris /Artists

6.10b, 6.41, 7.28; T.

New York,

Rights Society (ARS),

The

Purcell

Team/COF^IS:

RMC- Cornell

8.8;

University Library: 11.36; (Q

Edward Ranney:

© Elizabeth Barlow Rogers:

1.21, 1.24, 1.27, 1.31, 2.1,

15.17;

2.31, 2.34, 2.41, 2.43, 2.45. 2.46, 3.5, 3.6, 3.8, 3.17, 3.21, 3.22, 3.26, 4.3, 4.7, 4.8, 4.10, 4.11, 4.13, 4.16, 4.20, 4.23, 4.24, 4.25, 4.26, 4.29, 4.34, 4.48, 4.54, 5.6, 5.11, 5.16, 5.18,

7.7, 7.8, 7.9, 7.11, 7.13, 7.14, 7.29, 7.33, 7.34, 7.35, 7.36,

11.25, 11.26, 11.30, 11.31, 11.32, 11.33. 11.34, 11.37, 11.39,

13,5, 13.7, 13.8, 13.9, 13.10, 13.14, 13.16, 13.18, 13.25, 13.29.

6.20;

Baden Landesmu-

Karlsruhe, BUdarchiv: 6.16; A. Badawy,

Egyptian Architeaure.

© Michael

©)

11.41, 11.42, 11.43, 12.9, 12.11, 12.13. 12.14, 12.30, 13.4,

Studies at Athens. .AH Rights Reserved: 2.11a, 2.11b, 2.14

{drawing by William

State

Bndgeman

7.40, 7.48, 7.49, 7.50, 8.43, 9.7, 9.19, 9.25, 9.26, 9.31, 9.32.

di Historia, Barcelona:

Landesdenk. Baden- Wiirttemberg:

Youngstown

9.42, 9.52,9.53, 10.6, 11.9, 11.10, 11.11, 11.12, 11.13, 11.17,

DJeremy Homer/

2.23;

1988 Massachusetts Instinite of Technology: 8.11; Eric PoUitzer: 2.9; £' Richard Pirko.

6.8, 6.21, 6.22, 6.23, 6.29, 6.31, 6.32, 6.33, 6.34, 6.50, 7.6,

Hannover: 6.15; Ken Horan/Tony Stone Images: 16.4; £' David G. Houser/ Corbis: 6.25,

Text illustrations: Numbers refer to figures.

© (c>

5.30, 5.31, 5.33, 5.34, 5.37, 5.40, 5.41, 6.3, 6.4, 6.5, 6.6, 6.7,

Friedrich-Schiller Universitat,

Museum

The

2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, 2.8, 2.13, 2.16, 2.20, 2.26, 2.28, 2.29, 2.30,

6.51;

£ Andy Goldsworthy courtesy of Cameron Books, 2000: Farrell Grehan; 13.17; Annie Griffiths Belt/ 15.14;

©

Library

Art Library: 6.43; Prospect Park Alliance Archive: 9.44;

Getuli,

Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1970: 3.25;

Garnier, Une Cite Industriel: 12.6; 3.25; Gavin

1921—The New York Public

Lenox and Tilden Foundation: 6.40; © Pierpont Morgan Library: 6.9, Photo by Doug Fogelson: Photo by Ernie Braun/ Eichler Network Archives D-103: 14.4; Photo £ LeoCastelli: 15.16; The Poetics of Gardens, Charles W. Moore, William J. Mitchell, William Turnbull,Jr,

University, 1994: 1.7; Private Collection /The

F.

Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 5th ed.,

photo

Astor,

© Franz-Marc Frei/CORBIS: 2.25; Gardens of Pompeii, © 1993 Wilhelmina Jashemski, Aristide D. Caratzas, publisher: 2.37;

Nowitz/COR-

8.18, 8.24, 8.25, 8.26, 8.27,

S.

The Fotomas Index: 7.1; William H. Forbes and Company, The Obelisk, The Metropolitan

Museum of Art (Gift of William

© Richard T.

Haruso Ohashi:

8.28, 8.29, 8.30, 8.31, 8.34, 8.38, 8.41, 8.42, 8.44;

12.17, 12.18, 12.19;

risches

7.27; ©'

New

Paris/Artists Rights Society(ARS).

©

© Takashi Okamura, Rome: 4.4; © Jitendra Olaniya: 3.12, 3.13; © Harayoshi Ono/Burle Marx Archive: 13.13, 13.1^, © Osterreichische National Bibliothek: 6.18;

Minneapolis Museum of Fine Dick Durrance / National Geographic

©

Arts: 10.3;

Nicholson/ CORBIS: 2.15; BIS: 15.11;

.2;

1

Dunwoody Fund/ The

Jena,

© Adros Studio: 2.38; 5.23 (Ikona); £

© Direction

2.39, 2.40;

Image Collection: 1.28; Dwan: 15.15; © Patrick Eden/The Image Bank: 1.4, 1.9; © Douglas Fogelson: 12.33; Fondation Le Corbusier, © 2001 ADAGR

6-7.

Table of contents

Rome:

Regional des Affaires Culturelles de Rhones-Alpes: £ 1979 Dumbarton Oaks: 1 1.29; The William H.

N. Y: 13.3; Manuscripts

13.30, 13.32, 14.7, 14.10, 15.1, 15.2, 15.3, 15.6, 15.7, 15.21, 15.22, 15.23, 15.24, 15.26, 15.27, 15.28, 15.29, 15.30, 16.5;

© Gary Rogers /The Garden Picture Library: 28; © Gerard Roncarte © 2001 Inventaire General, ADAGP, 1 1.

Paris, Artists Rights Society

(ARS).

New

York: 13.2;

£ Ellen Rooney: 4.15, 5.39, 6.30, 7.16, 7.21; © Ellen Rooney /The Garden Picture Library; 7.20; © Guido Rossi /The Image Bank: 1.9. 1.16; £' Charies E. Rotkin/ CORBIS: 5.10. 6.38; The Royal Collection £' Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II: 6.10a; The Royal Horticultural Society. Lindley Library: 9.10; 2.3; Site: 1.33;

kukan.

SEF/Art Resource, NY:

£ Schermeister/ CORBIS:

Inc.: 8.35, 8.36, 8.39;

16.2;

© Ken Sherman

© Shoga-

1985: 16.3;

©Julius Shulman: 13.21 Osvald .Siren: 8.2, 8.15, 8.16; Lee Snider/ CORBIS: 9.58; Skyscraper Museum, New Robert Smithson licensed by VAGA, New York: 12.26; York, N.Y.: 1 5.5; £ Smithsonian Institution: ,30: c joseph Sohm/CORBIS: 15.31; .Solomon R. Guggenheim ;

©

©

1

Division. Special Collections Department. University of

Museum, New York,

Virginia Library: 7.47;

© Paulo Martin, Ikona: 4.30, 4.31; Mary Evans Picture Library: 9.9, 9.14, 9.15; © Middleton Place, Charleston, South Carolina: 6.52; © Sara Cedar

1937, 37.463

Miller: 9.34, 9.35, 9.39, 9.40, 9.41;

© Tim Street-Porter: 13.22; © Ted Streshinsky/CORBIS: 15.10; © Paulo Suzuki; 1.5,

Museum 10.5;

The Metropolitan

of Art/David H. McAlpin Fund, 1947. (47.149.4):

The Metropolitan Museum of

Wittelsey Fund, 1922, neg. no.

Art,

New York,

N. Y.

MM 53343B: 10.18; The

Metropolitan Museum of Art; Marriage of Annihale Altempsand Orteruia Borromeo. Engraving by Etienne Duperac. Harris Bnsbane Dick Fund, 1941. (47.72, 7,7,3): Kevin R. Morris/CORBIS: 16.1 Tony Mott: 3.7, 4.9;

©

©

;

3.9, 4.19, 4.28, 5.24, 5.25;

The Mount Vernon Ladies' Museu Calouste Gulben-

Association of the Union: 6.53;

kian, Lisbon/£:i Rinaldo Viejas: 7.42; £' 1994

New

Mexico

Press.

Museum

From Chaco Canyon: A Center and Deborah Reade: 1.33; National

of

Its

World. Illustration by

Archives: 7.43, 9.48;

£

© National Gallery London:

7.15;

National Geographic Society Cartographic Division/

NGS

Image Collection: Institution.

Lent by the

U.S.

Taipei: 8.1;

The National

Trust:

1

1.24;

© The

National Trust by Christine and Stuart Page: 1.27; '£'

© The National Trust Photographic Library/Tim Stephens: 7.17; © The Natural History Museum, Lon7.3;

9.

1

;

New York Public

The Astor, Lenox and The New York PubLenox and Tilden Foundation, The

Tilden Foundation: 6.44,

Library,

11.1, 11.18;

lic

Library Astor,

N

Phelps Stokes Collection of American Prints. Prints

1.

Division, Stokes Cat. No. 1734-B

York

I

listoncal Society

York: 10.13; Staatliche

Berlin: 2.19;

11,1.12, 2.2, 2.42, 2.44, 3.1

1,

3.15, 3.18, 4.2, 4.12, 4.22.

Van Volkenburgh, and Wood: 11.7; £' Richard Tobias; 2.18 (based on Alterttimer von Perga14,8;

Judith Tankard and Michael

GcrtrudcJckvU:

mon.

A

Vision of Gardai

12 vols.. Berlin 1885-1978), 2.35, 12.10;

© University of Michigan Photo Services,

Bill

Wood:

© Gian Berto Vanin/ CORBIS: 1.10; © Sandro Vannini/CORBIS: 712; Victoria & Albert Museum. London, 15.32;

U. K./The Bndgeman Art Library: 7.23; £ Brian Vikander/CORBIS: 8.4; © Leonard von Matt: 4.35; £1 The Walt Disney Co.: 14.9; £ Patnck Ward /CORBIS: 9.8, 12.12; '£> Nik Wheeler/ CORBIS: 14.6; Wildenstein and Com10.2; £ Adam Wolfirt/CORBIS: Yukio/ Retona. Tokyo. Japan: 8,33.

pany:

1.3, 5.7;

© Futagawa

New

-62.:

6.48; £>

York City:

The New-

9.57; £


Copv photos lyyAhm Zmdman/Lucv Franonl:

Department of

the Interior, Natujnal Park Service: 10.19; National Palace

Museum.

R.

Sally Ritts

Guggenheim Foundation. New

Museum zu I.

Solomon

1.23;

(Ikona): 4.33; £' National

Smithsonian

National Library, Rome Museum of American Art,

R.

Gift,

Photograph by

Michael

8.14, 9.2, 9.3, 9.5, 9.12, 9.16, 9.17, 9.18, 9.27, 9.28, 9.29, 9.,30, 9.36,

9.37, 9.38, 9.45, 10.8. 10.9a. 10.9b. 10.10, 10.11,

10.12, 10.16a, 10.16b, 10.17. 11.2. 11,3. 11.4, 11.5. 11.6, II. 14, 11.20, 11.22, 11.40, 12.1, 12.2, 12.3a, 12.3b. 12.4,

12.5, 12.7. 12.8. 12.22, 12.23, 12.24, 12.25, 12.29, 12.31,

12.32, 13.1. 13.11, 13.12, 13.20, 13.24, 13.27, 13.28, 14.3, 15.4.