Category Archives: Landscape Architecture

The design and care of great gardens

Short-term thinking produces such horrors as the ‘useful quick-growing screen’, achieved (left) with Lawson’s Hated Cypress (Chamaecyparis lawsoniana ‘Horribilis’). Long-term thinking produces such masterpieces as Katsura Imperial Villa (right).

It is a sobering thought, for the highly trained professional designer, that most of the world’s best gardens owe their brilliance to the work of owner-designers – not to professional designers. One thinks of Katsura Palace, the Taj Mahal, Sissinghurst and Little Sparta. Then one thinks of all the billions spent on public parks in the twentieth century: they produced a few good designs, a mass of trash and nothing in the first order of excellence. Think of the Parque Juan Carlos I . It must make the poor old King of Spain think about abdication (or just about changing its name to Parque General Franco?).

There is one outstanding candidate amongst many possible explanations for the problem. Professional designers think about making an impact on their immediate clients and their peers; owner-designers have often belonged to dynasties with a concern for the very long term future of their property in general and their gardens in particular. They combine the essentials of ‘ownership and control’ with a sense of duty to the past and duty to the future. Garden designers and landscape architects can assist only with help from enlightened patrons.

To make better public gardens and landscapes we require very much better patronage. What can the modern world do? Reinstate primogeniture? Abolish inheritance tax? Bring back the aristocracy?

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL OUR READERS

Desert experiences

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The painterly imagination

Image source: savill.com.au/austsydney.html

Most depictions of the desert are of a rather unhospitable place, yet this canvas by Robert Juniper entitled ‘Desert Landscape’, is rather enticing. Juniper is a West Australian artist of “poetic and spontaneous vision” best known for his evocative landscapes. His work is represented in the collections of most major Australian galleries as well as being collected privately.

What quality of landscape does his work capture? This is not the landscape of abstract contemplation – rather ‘people’ are intimately involved in their environment….as much a part of the scene, they are coextensive with the wildlife…

The poetic and the labyrinth

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pattern language and nature

Source: www.ap-m.co.uk/news.php

There is a particularly attractive spiritual quality about water and its many moods from calm to stormy. As such, it is the perfect location for a ephemeral labyrinth….

This labyrinth appears to be modelled on the seven ringed Scandinavian ‘trogaburg’ labyrinth, usually constructed by placing stones. It is said that these labyrinyths were almost always constructed close to the coast line. It is supposed that they were used by fisherman to trap ‘malevolent’ spirits within the labyrinth before setting out to sea!

During medieval times it is believed the labyrinth was adopted by Christianity as a spiritual device for meditation and prayer. One of the most famous unicursal or one way labyrinths is located at Chartes cathedral. [http://www.sacred-destinations.com/france/chartres-cathedral.htm]

For more labyrinths and mazes;

http://webecoist.com/2008/11/25/amazing-creative-hedge-mazes-and-labyrinths/

Does greenspace have a value?

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Werner Stiegler, arguing for more public green space in Florida, said “One needs to look no further than real estate ads to see that the demand for greenery is strong. It is common for ads to reference proximity to parks, and the value of greenery is often reflected in the price of properties close to green spaces.” Why should this be so? What is it about images of nature that so captivates us? Why do we seek recreation as an ‘escape’ from the city to ‘nature’?

Riding Mountain National Park in Canada forms part of the UNESCO International Biosphere Reserve. It “offers opportunities to study agricultural land uses and changes in relation to natural process ecosystems.” Use of land for agriculture is often the first stage of the alienation of land from its ‘wilderness’ state. As such it has much to tell us about our implicit and explicit valuation of land, apart from its scenic or existence value. Image courtesy Riding Mountain National Park Canada

Landscape architecture and urban design

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A friend with enviable portfolio of major projects, says that ‘We have to call ourselves urban designers to get the work. But we have to employ landscape architects to get the work done’. Another friend who spent many years teaching urban design to architects, planners and landscape architects remarks that ‘the landscape architects were the best’.

The Circus in Bath (UK) is a fine example of architecture+landscape but the idea (from John Wood) was of course inspired by Bramham Park (photograph of The Circus courtesy Casey Picker).

One can easily understand why the name ‘landscape architect’ is such a non-starter for clients. Most of them think landscape architects must either be garden contractors or the artistic inheritors of Capability Brown. So why should they be so good at urban design? I think it is because they are trained to think about SPACE rather than about the OBJECTS WHICH CONTAIN AND DEFINE SPACE (buildings, walls, trees, mounds etc). In urban design it is good practice to think about what type of space is required BEFORE thinking about what elements can be used to contain and define the space. As Laozi wrote:

Thirty spokes share a single hub,
Thirty spokes share a single hub,
And the central void makes the cartwheel useful.
Clay is moulded into a vessel,
And the empty space makes it valuable.
Doors and windows are cut out in the walls,
And these openings make the room livable.

Were Laozi to visit Bath he might comment that:

The central void makes The Circus useful.
Buildings are moulded into a vessel.

Or would he have noted that The Circus is more Visual Space than Social Space and remarked that landscape+architecture= urban design?

Greenwich Park Restoration after 2012 Equestrian and Modern Pentathlon Events

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Greenwich residents mostly oppose the plan to convert ‘their’ park into what the organizers call ‘A world-class venue on your doorstep‘. I support them but believe that, as at public inquiries, the objectors should also have a list of conditions to be imposed on the developers in the unwelcome event of permission being granted. For the horse riding events in Greenwich Park, this should include:

extensive protection and conservation of ALL historic landscape and architectural features
even more protection for the most ancient artefacts in the park: the remains of a roman temple and the Saxon burial mounds. The greatest possible care should go to the vestegial grass on the burial mounds: it may be the most ancient grassland in the whole of South London.
a full archaeological investigation and restoration of the Le Notre parterre. This is the only work in England by the greatest landscape designer of the seventeenth century and, some will argue, the greatest landscape architect who ever lived. The parterre is currently managed as though it were a football pitch. The lawn and its chiseled grass banks should be maintained with the precision they deserve.
the Giant Steps which ran up the axis from the parterre to the Greenwich Observatory should be restored using modern grass reinforcement techniques. They were the central visual component of the seventeenth century design for Greenwich Park. Restoration has been considered on several occasions. The proposed 2012 Olympic Equestrian Event creates an opportunity to act.

Unless the 2012 organizers can demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt their willingness to leave Greenwich Park in better condition than they find it, they should be thrown into the deepest dungeon in the Tower of London, thus creating what would undoubtedly be a popular tourist attraction. I will supply the salt beef and when dropping it in will ask “Why not use Charlton Park instead?”

Note: for more discussion see article on The Conservation of Greenwich Park.

A revised plan for the equestrian route was published in The October 2009 “Greenwich Park Venue Update”. It is shown below, on a Googlemap. Their plan shows it avoiding the Anglo-Saxon Tumuli but without a geophysical survey how can they be sure?

October 2009 Revised plan for the equestrian route

Garden Design and Landscape Architecture

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