Frederick Law Olmstead

LANDSCAPE EDGES

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

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

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

 Delphi Theatre/ toursofathens.com

 Delphi Theatre/ toursofathens.com

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

New Jersey Meadowlands/flicker.com

New Jersey Meadowlands/flicker.com

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

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

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

Central Park, lookout point as a threshold

Central Park, lookout point as a threshold

Saarinen's Gateway Arch.  

Saarinen's Gateway Arch.  

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

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

1. Form and Fabric in Landscape Architecture; Catherine Dee.

2. Introduction to Landscape Design; John Motloch

3. A Pattern Language: Alexander/Ishikawa/Silverstein.

OLMSTED LEGACY

Born in Hartford, Connecticut and raised by his father, unable to attend Yale College because his eyesight had weakened due to sumac poisoning, Frederick Law Olmsted sailed off to China where he returned a year later with scurvy.  After recovering, he set out his hand at farming on Staten Island, failing miserably to profit from his land holdings.  Next he embarked for England and Wales with his brother whereupon they encountered magnificent estates, parks and rural scenery.  Such was the indication of things to come.  Most influential in his journeys were Joseph Paxton’s design for Birkenhead.

Paxton sought to bring the grandeur of the aristocratic garden to the working people of Birkenhead. The park was a declaration of civic pride to nearby Liverpool and an attempt to tempt wealthy taxpayers to either build or purchase homes in Birkenhead. It is widely believed to be the first civic park in Britain, but more importantly within this context it provide the inspiration and template for Olmsted (and Calvert Vaux's) work.  Olmsted wrote "

"five minutes of admiration, and a few more spent studying the manner in which art had been employed to obtain from nature so much beauty, and I was ready to admit that in democratic America there was nothing to be thought of as comparable with this People’s Garden"."

 Illustration and photograph of  Birkenhead Park (youyesterday.com/flicker.com)

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

Illustration of Central Park/Bethesda Terrace and fountain

 

Much has been written on Olmsted’s intriguing life, including the most recent bestseller “A Clearing in the Distance”by Witold Rybczynski.  Thanks to the efforts of the Olmsted Legacy a film that was initially screened last year at select locations will now be coming to public television.

The Olmsted Legacy, with its name slightly tweaked to "Olmsted and America's Urban Parks" was aired appropriately on PBS for Earth Day, April 20th.

 

NAUMKEAG

Three pioneering figures in the history of landscape design within the United States are forever linked for their influence on the modern landscape-- Garrett Eckbo, Dan Kiley and James Rose. While enrolled in Harvard’s Graduate School of Design in the 1930’s, the three students became disenchanted with and rebelled from the status quo design aesthetic and conventional Beaux-Art teaching of the era. 

However, Fletcher Steele (along with Walter Gropius) were the only designers they respected for their development of modernism within the American garden.  Garret Eckbo remarked that Fletcher Steele was 'the transitional figure between the old guard and the moderns.”

Steele's work is considered by many to constitute the essential link, the transitional figure between nineteenth-century Beaux Arts formalism and the modern landscape design that Eckbo, Kiley and Rose ushered in.

Kiley states 'Steele was the only good designer working during the twenties and thirties, also the only one who was really interested in new things'.  Of the hundreds of gardens Fletcher Steele designed, Naumkeag remains his most written about creation.

map from Naumkeg website

map from Naumkeg website

Prominent attorney Joseph Choate hired Stanford White of McKim, Mead, White to design his 44 room “cottage” in Stockbridge, Massachusetts that he entitled Naumkeag (the native American name for the indigenous people of Salem, Ma.). Nathan Barrett developed the original design of the landscape, or Master plan. Mabel Choate (Joseph’s daughter) inherited the property and in 1926 began the famous collaboration with Fletcher Steele to create this most famous garden. This collaboration lasted thirty years as Mabel Choate and Fletcher Steele became close friends.  Within the mansion there was a bedroom maintained solely for Fletcher Steele, drawing table included.

Legend has it that the two of them (Mabel and Fletcher) were fond of a good martini and would spend many a day in the afternoon garden (which he designed) in a pair of stone chairs (at left in following photo) imbibing and collaborating… eventually they’d come to an agreement on their next project after several martins, and before the day was done Mabel would summon her staff for her checkbook and so began the next project.

Afternoon Garden – this is the first project Steele created at Naumkeag.  The brightly painted Venetian gondola poles around the perimeter of the garden frame views and give the garden a sense of enclosure.  The black obsidian oval within the two scalloped fountains mirror the infinite sky.

Fletcher Steele reclining in stone chair, afternoon garden

Fletcher Steele reclining in stone chair, afternoon garden

As an aside…Choate had originally approached Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. to design the master plan. When Olmsted expressed his thoughts that the house should be situated at the bottom of the hill, Choate realized he had approached the wrong designer, as his attraction to this parcel of land was the grand view of the Berkshire Mountains and the valley below from the top of the hill. 

Perugino view – located at the south end of the top lawn, the view was named after the Italian painter Perugino.   The dramatic vista through the gardens and orchard is framed by Monument Mountain.

Of all the grand gestures at Naumkeag, The iconic Blue Steps are perhaps the most celebrated. Simply breathtaking,... every connoisseur of garden design should experience them.  But what I found of special interest are the grand views, the linkage between spaces, the changes of perspective, the intrigue and sensorial journeys you embark upon as you move from one space to the next.

As you leave the Afternoon Garden, you traverse the Pyramid steps down to the Water Runnel or “Rill” which was created to link the fountains of the "Afternoon garden" to "The Blue Steps”

To one’s left is the South lawn where a curving line of Robinia pseudoacacia ‘umbraculifera’ define the west side of the lawn, while along the east side, a double hemlock hedge (Tsuga canadensis) separates the lawn from the driveway above.  The undulating shape of the lawn echoes the shape of the distant mountains.

A cast iron pagoda house is framed by Japanese maples (Acer palmatum), In the first photo of these photos an allee of Linden trees (Tilia occidentalis)  are in the distance, reminiscent of the strolling walks taken in Berlin.

The “Ronde Pointe”-- a low hedge of clipped arborvitae, (Thuja occidentalis) with a long teak bench and intricate patterned brick wall become “a gathering of paths” which lies adjacent to it.

Below the South Lawn is the Oak Lawn, which dominates the terrace.  This tall Oak (Quercus bicolor) that the family would picnic under was one of the primary reasons Joseph Choate purchased this parcel of land.  The vast area and orchards below/beyond the rock outcrops were used as farmland. Crops grown and harvested there supplied the cottage and the New York apartment in off-season.

The Blue Steps,  Rose Garden, Evergreen Garden, Chinese Garden to be continued in my next post…

*unless noted all photos ©ToddHaiman2014

DAN KILEY

Watching the solemn, harrowing and star-studded movie, Judgment at Nuremburg recently (a fictionalized account of the Nuremberg Trials), brought to mind Dan Kiley.

He was born in Boston Mass in 1912. From the age of 20 to 26 he worked in the office of Warren Manning who had worked in the office of Olmsted.  (Fletcher Steele had also worked in the office of Manning).  Quite a lineage!

During WWII (1942-45) Kiley served with the Army Corps of Engineers, where he became the chief designer/architect for the Nuremberg Trials Courtroom, which gave him an opportunity to visit European Gardens. 

While there he visited the work of André Le Nôtre at Sceaux Chantilly, Versailles, and Vaux-le-Vicomte,.  One could certainly see how the formality and geometric layout shaped his future Classical Modernist style.  The geometric layout of allees, bosques, water, paths, orchards, and lawns characterize Dan Kiley’s design – obvious examples being the Miller Garden, US Airforce Academy, Lincoln Center etc.

Back to Nuremburg….According to Nazi War Crimes by Michael Salter, “Kiley’s task was to incorporate novel presentation devices AND facilities into the very structure of the redesigned Palace of Justice at Nuremburg to enable the OSS trial evidence, particularly film and large charts.  These modifications had to be incorporated in a way that diminished the formality and aura of the courtroom.” (The US government hired Hollywood’s finest to create these films: director John Ford, producers Budd Schulberg and George Stevens.)

Kiley surveying construction

Kiley surveying construction

According to Joseph Disponzio in Daniel Urban Kiley, The Early Gardens, “ A typical courtroom configuration would locate the bench at the far end of a rectangular hall facing the adjudicating parties and the audience. Kiley altered the standard arrangement of a courtroom in a simple yet dramatic way.  He shifted the international panel of judges ninety degrees to one side, and placed the Nazi defendants facing them.  The victims, their representatives, and the world were seated, as if in a theatre, to witness the trial.  A film screen to show Nazi “crimes against humanity” (and charts) was placed on the wall behind the traditional bench location. 

Images of the actual War Crimes room

Images of the actual War Crimes room

Judgement at Nuremburg film clip

Bob Holden in the Independent speaks of Kiley as “an architect of space, dealing with ground as form, trees as sculpture, and shrubs, vines, groundcover and water jets as textures and shapes that articulate the surface of his forms. His is not garden design in the established English manner.  His effects were grand, noble and rigorous.”

One could begin to suggest that Nuremburg was instrumental in the development of this influential designer.