RONDEL

The formal layout of the beloved

Sissinghurst

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

 Sissinghurst 

photos: ©toddhaiman2011

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

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

oast-houses

, where hops lay in mounds.

Oast houses are buildings designed for drying or

“kilning” hops as part of the beer making or brewing process.

  They are true examples of vernacular architecture -- many of which have over time have been converted to homes. (Vernacular architecture is a term used to categorize methods of construction, which use locally available resources and traditions to address local needs and circumstances. Additional examples would be igloos and log cabins. Vernacular architecture tends to evolve over time to reflect the environmental, cultural and historical context in which it exists.)

Oast house photos, wikipedia

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

“of Italian Inspiration.”

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

London Underground logo, wikipedia

Castlerigg stone circle/ wikipedia

Excuse the pun, but “coming full circle”, a roundel enclosure is a type of pre-Christian and prehistoric enclosure found in Europe.  Stone circles. Timber circles,

prehistoric earthworks

enclosures are all examples of this.  Stonehenge, a megalithic structure of stones is recently

believed by some to have had multiple rondel hedges surrounding it thousands of years ago

.

GREAT GARDENS

A garden is…

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

Gardens Make Me Smile 1953

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

James Rose w. design maquette, jamesrosecenter.org

Isamu Noguchi w. playground maquette, Isamu Noguchi Foundation

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

You can visualize it, but can you smell it?” 1. Philosopher David Hume writes that the sense of experience, the perception of space through our “visceral interaction with the world forms our ideas about it. Like other art forms landscapes don’t always carry literal messages, but can trigger sensations.”  

Experiences based upon two-dimensional representations do not tell us much about first hand experiences with three dimensional landscapes and the specific attributes of these experiences.

Many preference studies are based upon peoples experiences with two-dimensional pictures rather than experiences with actual landscapes, so they omit powerful dimensions of landscape experience, such as thermal comfort, smell sound, and tactile sensation.

Children experiencing Charles Jenck's Garden of Cosmic Speculation (Picassa.com)

Back to James Rose..

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

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

FOUNDING FATHERS, FOUNDING GARDENERS

In the summer of 1776 the thirteen colonies declared independence.

30,000 British troops were approaching on warships, about to invade New York Harbor in the “Battle of New York” - George Washington sits down, takes his time and writes a letter to his estate gardener requesting him to plant a garden of native species only.  Shunning the past and as Andrea Wulfh calls it “horticultural independence.”  

Washington decided that Mount Vernon was to be an American garden where no English trees would burgeon in american soil.

By creating a landscape exclusively designed with plants and trees native to America, Washington was making a bold statement—a botanical declaration of independence from England.

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

In Andrea Wulf’s,

“Founding Gardeners”

she argues that the economic importance of agricultural crops, self-sufficiency and self-dependence and  a passion for nature, plants and agriculture was interwoven in the growth of the United States in its formative years – an ideological level of America as an agrarian republic. A national identity of nature was being invested with patriotic meaning. The “Founding Fathers” of the United States (George Washington,

Thomas Jefferson

, John Adams and James Madison) made everlasting political statements within the garden.

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

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

Monticello 2011, still a working farm 

image: Monticello.com

Most significant was the consideration of an ornamental farm, a “

femme ornee

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

Monticello

.

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

nps. gov

CONCEPTUAL GARDENS

Having returned from the Chelsea Flower Show, I must admit it just gets better every year.  Cleve West’s sunken Roman garden won best in show, Diarmuid Gavin theatrics stopped traffic, and my personal favorite garden was Luciano Guibbilei’s for his serene and elegant Laurent Perrier garden. 

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

Diarmuid Gavin's "Irish Sky Garden"

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

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

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

     A washbasin filled with rainwater to cleanse one's hands

Candlelight to illuminate the path at night

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

**all photos ©Todd Haiman 2014

PSYCHOLOGY IN THE LANDSCAPE

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hieronymus Bosch, Garden of Earthly Delights 1503-4

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

Because landscapes are essentially three dimensional when viewed, but four dimensional with the addition of “time”, people interpret a landscape whether viewed or experienced as three-dimensional. In

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

W. Eugene Smith, The Walk to Paradise 1946

Appleton stresses safety in Prospect-Refuge theory.  Kaplan takes it one step further in his last component to one that “makes sense” or is legible.  “Legibility” entails a promise or a prediction.

” It allows the viewer to assume a way to navigate through the space and out of it, an organization of the ground plane.  With a sense of depth and well-defined space, smooth textures and elements well distributed, the viewer is comfortable moving within the space.

Concepts to ponder when designing space.

Preference Matrix by Kaplan above.

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

2. Ibid

3. Ibid

4. Ibid

WHIMSY IN THE GARDEN

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

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

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

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

GARDEN INSPIRATION

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

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

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

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

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

'I never normally design anything so quickly. But I had this idea of screens so I made a scale model and a few walls, which I slid around, and got down to check the views. This design is all about the views.  

It's a metaphor for life. You have choices in the garden  - two different ways to go. Depending upon which path you take  - the direct path or the winding path  - you has different experiences along the way.  

As you journey through life, the screens open up and allow glimpses of what you might have experienced if you'd taken another path, but you end up at the same destination."

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

 Let Andy take you on a tour of his garden.

Find plant information here:

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01645/telegraph-garden-g_1645484a.

CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW

Queen Mary (in white) viewing the Chelsea show

As written in past years, I have an annual pilgrimage during the third week of May "across the Pond" to the Chelsea Flower Show in London. Here is a bit of context and history about what is referred to as "the Great Spring show.

England had been compared to a garden since at least the time of Shakespeare. This metaphor took on particular significance in the Victorian Era as it infiltrated visual, literary, and everyday culture in England.  The garden came to represent two things for the English in the Victorian era: home in the face of a massive Empire, and stability in the face of industrialization and a perceived disintegration of society.

English citizens were spread across the globe, (see past post on Rudyard Kipling) and began to seek a symbol that would unify those at home, and that would serve as a memory of home for those in their colonies.  This image was particularly significant during the Victorian Era as England expanded her empire and influence across the globe.  

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

London Bobby (policeman) admiring floral displays

 Women in 1940's reading the show's catalog

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

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

Crowds in 1950 swarming the show

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

1

previous five images of celebrities from bigpictures.com

1 -reprinted from RHS Show catalog

LANDSCAPE EDGES

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

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

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

 Delphi Theatre/ toursofathens.com

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

New Jersey Meadowlands/flicker.com

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

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

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

Central Park, lookout point as a threshold

Saarinen's Gateway Arch.  

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

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

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

2. Introduction to Landscape Design; John Motloch

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

OBLITERATED LANDSCAPE

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

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

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

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

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