COUNTDOWN TO CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW (1)

Created by one of my favorite designers, this show garden was exhibited at Chelsea in 2008. Enjoy!

With monastic simplicity as her theme, Arabella Lennox Boyd's design for The Daily Telegraph garden is a contrast of vertical and horizontal elements; of planting and water; of hard and soft. Quiet beauty and minimalism.  Her inspiration came from the zen garden of raked gravel at the temple of

Roan-ji in Kyoto Japan

.  There's also the echo of the traditional yin-yang symbol in the "s" shaped central pathway and balanced placement of rocks.

Dry Garden @ Roan-ji

Two thirds of the site has been flooded by water,  The garden is dominated by a rectangular shallow, stone-edged, pool of water which fills the centre of the garden, and is softened by planting on two sides.  The surface is broken by rocks and a serpentine path of slate paving. They are crossed by twisting ribbons of white waterlilies (Nymphaea alba), which links the front of the garden to the planting at the back, and leads the eye towards a bamboo thicket.

A narrow strip of  tiered yew hedging runs alongside the pool.  At the rear of the site, the garden diffuses into the green shade of a large Caucasion Wingnut tree. Pterocarya fraxinifolia. It's appreciates moisture, produces long green catkins and pendulous strings of fruit later in the season, has handsome pinnnated leaves. 

Large green leaves (including Gunnera), grey leaves, vertical bamboo and iris, rounded shrubs and roses create a rhythm.   At the rear of the garden, under the large Pterocarya fraxinifolia,  Arabella has set a mirror behind a grove of bamboo (Phyllostachys aurea and P. sulphurea f. viridis) which provides a bright, flickery shimmer that echoes the play of light on water.

The pool is edged in loose slate chippings sandwiched beween 2 strips of purbec limestone, hand hammered to create a dimpled surface.

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

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

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.

ENGLISH LANDSCAPE

I will be attending the Chelsea Flower Show in late May.  The “Great Spring Show” (as it was once labeled), has become an annual pilgrimmage for my family.  As a precursor to this show and as a way to share my enthusiasm for it, I will frequently be writing posts about context, history of the show and providing past designs of show gardens from recent years. Enjoy.

A very young and spry (then) Princess Elizabeth at the Chelsea Flower Show (circa 1949)

CURB APPEAL

As a follow-up to my

last post (on kitsch)

and not as ubiquitous as the pink flamingo, "tonga man" here and the accompanying floral arrangement were found at the top of Mount Ellen, Sugarbush Ski resort.  No doubt one could consider this as great "curb appeal" adjacent to the maintenance "house" as seen while riding a chairlift two thousand feet up on the slopes. 

If curb appeal is defined as ... the attractiveness or the welcoming factor of a landscape, then this was surely a success.  Notice the attention to detail in creating a sinuous curve (Burle-Marx inspired) to the terraced plantings! Also have to appreciate the toucan wind chime in this white-out.  Really a fun site to behold!

After complimenting the designer, he proudly proclaimed to me (tongue-in-cheek) on my 4th run down the hill "that he knew about horticulture and these "plants" could survive the Zone 3 temperatures... he had had great success with them in British Columbia!"

ENGRAVINGS OF REYNOLDS STONE

While pouring through some books at the Argosy book store in Mid-Manhattan, I came across a book of landscape engravings by Reynolds Stone. 

Alan Reynolds Stone 1900 – 1979 was a noted English engraver, designer and painter. Much of his work was done in the field of printing and publishing, as a designer of typefaces and book jackets.  Among his body of work is the famous clock logo of the London Times, the Grand entrance to the V&A Museum, the memorial to Sir Winston Churchill and others in Westminister Abbey. 

If you haven’t been to the UK, you’ve surely seen his work as the Royal coat of arms which is on everyone of his countryman’s passport.  His sense of design has been described as having  a “timeless rightness about them: formality without bombast; balance and composure.”

“He sketched and painted outdoors, loving every detail of the Dorset countryside, its mosses and wild flowers and weeds and streams; he would have been content never to leave his garden, and resisted London and the modern world.” (London Times)

Creating an engraving from one of his paintings.

His family had

created a site

several years ago to publicize his legacy.  A forty-five minute presentation

“A life in graven letters”

by his son can be witnessed at this site. 

(This post is for

Kurt

.) 

BLOOD + SOIL

Blood and Soil further examined from

my previous post

….

The search for national identity gained momentum, at least in Europe, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In Germany this search also led to a closer look at nature. The goal was to find particular natural settings that could help to distinguish German nature and landscapes from the natural environments of other nations and thus be identified as “truly” Germanic. According to

Johann Gottfried von Herder

(1744–1803), a “nation is called a people because it is first of all through nature.” Ideologically this meant that a people then can be called a nation when it can be derived from nature.

Similarly,

Alexander von Humboldt

(1769–1859) influenced later concepts of natural garden design. In his Ideas for a Physiognomy of Plants (Ideen zu einer Physiognomik der Gewächse), published in 1806, Humboldt referred to “patriotic plant characters” (“vaterländische Pflanzengestalten”) and addressed the decisive impact exercised by the vegetation of a country on the development of individual cultures. According to Humboldt, “the knowledge of the natural character of different regions of the earth [is] most intimately connected with the history of the human race and with its culture.” “The character of a people, gloomy or happy mood of humankind,”  According to Humbolt the outer appearance of plants, their physiognomy, gained considerable importance; he assumed that it could influence even the character of a people.

Eugene Gradmann wrote a book on Homeland Protection and Landscape Cultivation (Heimatschutz und Landschaftspf lege) in 1910. The idea of protecting native plants took on a nationalistic theme. Lange and Schultze-Naumburg emphasized the need for a garden to be rooted in a particular place and to demonstrate an understanding of the region in which it was set. Wilhelm Bolsche, also a founder member of Homeland Protect League, wrote a book with a title drawn from Goethe Die and Become! (1913) (Stirb und Werde!). He called private gardens to be treated as biospheres dedicated to the preservation of the native fauna and flora, so that they could be saved from extinction.

According to research done at Dumbarton Oaks, Willy Lange’s (1864– 1941) was professor of garden design in Berlin and one of the most significant garden theorists in early twentieth-century Germany. In his publications Lange claimed that “the German nature garden was the highest form of garden art and proof that Germany would be the cultural bearer of humankind in the field of garden art. In 1905 he stated: “The highest development of garden design is consequently based on the scientific

Weltanschauung

of our times and is reflected in the artistic nature garden.”   Some years later he said about natural garden design: “History will call this new stage of garden style, which is firmly based on its precursors, the stage of the German garden style. Germany has chosen to lend its name to this style in the history of gardens and to become once again ‘an improver of the world”. 

The Blood + Soil theory was that true Aryan race, the German/Nordic peasant races were ‘rooted in the soil’, superior and those foreign were inferior.  Lange also wrote that the “highest form of garden culture was only attainable by the German/Nordic races”. Therefore only German plants should be used in gardens.  Much like the Nazi’s believed that any nomadic or homeless race – Gypsies or Jews (the prime focus of the Holocaust) were inferior, plants from other countries should be rejected or destroyed.

Many “garden architects” as they were referred to, left Germany during the National Socialist reign. Alwin Seifert, a chief architect of the autobahn, (another postulated example of Germany’s superiority) banned all foreign plants from the planting of the autobahn.

In opposition to these precepts was Karl Foerster (1874-1970), German nurseryman, plant breeder and writer, who created his own garden in Potsdam-Bornim which dates back to 1912. Many are familiar with his name due to the popularity of Feather reed grass/ Calamagrostis acutiflora 'Karl Foerster' (among 350 other species) which he introduced and named.

He promoted the design of artistic low-maintenance gardens by offering appropriate hardy plants.  The garden is famous for its combination of architectural and naturalistic garden styles and its sunken garden. Foerster and his circle (landscape architect Herta Hammerbacher and Hermann Mattern with whom he founded a design studio in 1928) would embrace “world gardens” and even wrote a book on them.

During the Nazi era, Foerster took the risk and employed numerous Jewish friends in his operation and resisted the Nazi demand to primarily propagate and sell native German, pure plants. After the war, the soviet military administration puts claim on Foersters nursery, which was now managed under tight Soviet rule and remained the only perennial supplier for East Germany. Today the garden is managed by Foerster’s daughter Marianne Foerster and is part of the UNSECO World Heritage Site Potsdam-Sanssouci.

NATIVE PLANTS

Roberto Burle Marx (1909-1994) one of the seminal figures in 20th century landscape design, was the child of a Brazilian mother (Burle) and a German-Jewish father (Marx). His mother fostered his passion for gardening and his father in design. His father had immigrated to Brazil around the turn of the century.  Born in Sao Paolo, at the age of 19, (1928) Roberto moved to Berlin to study art while engrossing himself in the massive cultural revival of the Weimar Republic. (Burle-Marx left after a couple of years as the political climate had quickly changed, most obvious of which was the building anti-semitism). However, It was while studying painting in Germany during the Weimar Republic, as he would later tell it, that Burle Marx realized that the vegetation Brazilians then dismissed as "scrub and brush," preferring imported pine trees and gladioli for their gardens, was truly extraordinary. Visiting the Botanical Garden in Berlin, he was startled to find many Brazilian plants in the collection and quickly came to see the untapped artistic potential in their varied shapes, sizes and hues.

The irony here is that these native Brazilian plants were not as prized in Burle-Marx’s homeland of Brazil as they were in Germany. Yet the twist is that they were soon to disappear from the Botanical Gardens because at around this time the Nazi party was developing it’s “Blood + Soil” ideology. “Blut und Boden” ideology insisted on the close relationship between nature and the German people and with it, preached the crucial role of landscape in forming and preserving national culture. This included the banishment of all non-native plants and trees from the Fatherland (Germany).

Reich Minister of Food + Agriculture Richard Darre, 

one of the leading proponents of "Blood + Soil."

Tried and convicted at the Nuremburg trials, he died of alcoholism.

RUDYARD KIPLING

A prolific English poet and author, most famously known for The Jungle Book, and Just So Stories, who is often associated with romantic British Imperialism, specifically in the Indian subcontinent.

Kipling was a lover of gardens and a maintained a luxurious estate in England, presently preserved and part of The National Trust (as pictured below).  Homes in Vermont and Mumbai have also been preserved and turned into museums.

A favorite of mine, this poem attributes the garden as a telling part of the culture and heritage of the British Monarchy, it also remains inspirational to the present day reader.

The Glory of the Garden

,

Rudyard Kipling, 1911

Our England is a garden that is full of stately views,

Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues,

With statues on the terraces and peacocks strutting by;

But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye.

For where the old thick laurels grow, along the thin red wall,

You will find the tool- and potting-sheds which are the heart of all ;

The cold-frames and the hot-houses, the dungpits and the tanks:

The rollers, carts and drain-pipes, with the barrows and the planks.                                 

And there you'll see the gardeners, the men and 'prentice boys

Told off to do as they are bid and do it without noise;

For, except when seeds are  planted and we shout to scare the birds,

The Glory of the Garden it abideth not in words.

And some can pot begonias and some can bud a rose,

And some are hardly fit to trust with anything that grows;

But they can roll and trim the lawns and sift the sand and loam,

For the Glory of the Garden occupieth all who come.

Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made

By singing:--"Oh, how beautiful!" and sitting in the shade,

While better men than we go out and start their working lives

At grubbing weeds from gravel-paths with broken dinner-knives

There's not a pair of legs so thin, there's not a head so thick,

There's not a hand so weak and white, nor yet a heart so sick.

But it can find some needful job that's crying to be done,

For the Glory of the Garden glorifieth every one.

Then seek your job with thankfulness and work till further orders,

If it's only netting strawberries or killing slugs on borders;

And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden,

You will find yourself a partner in the Glory of the Garden.

Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees

That half a proper gardener's work is done upon his knees,

So when your work is finished, you can wash your hand and pray

For the Glory of the Garden, that it may not pass away!

And the Glory of the Garden it shall never pass away!

A PATTERN LANGUAGE

By the book. Or,…

buy the book

.

A Pattern Language

, written by several authors -- is an attempt to codify generations of architectural wisdom. While utopian in its ideals, it reveals how architecture and design connects people to their surroundings in an infinite number of ways based upon natural considerations. This book is about functional design for humans rather than design for design's sake. It promotes design which fits the needs and desires of the user, not the developer, architect or designer.

The reader is given an overview of some 250 patterns that are the units of this language, each consisting of a design problem, discussion, illustration, and solution. By understanding recurrent design problems in our environment, readers can identify extant patterns in their own design projects and use these patterns to create a language of their own.

I’ve read that the

“Sim” computer games

were fashioned from this book.

A summary of the book can be found

here

. 

My thanks to

Jan Johnsen

for turning me onto this amazing book.

PROSPECT - REFUGE THEORY

Why do we appreciate certain landscape design and shun others?

Prospect-Refuge theory is a concept established by Jay Appleton in his 1975 text - The Experience of Landscape.  (Rather expensive, if you can locate it!)  His idea is that human aesthetic experience of landscape is based on perceptions that are evolved for survival.  The concept is rooted in evolutionary psychology.  On one hand you have places to hide, versus areas which are escape routes, places with a clear view.

Appleton predicts that within a given landscape preferred locations are found at interfaces between prospect-dominant and refuge-dominant areas. These vantage points combine unimpeded visual prospects with a ready opportunity for concealment and/or withdrawal to a safe refuge. Thus a treeless landscape is less visually attractive than a habitat containing isolated trees that can provide opportunities to hide or escape from potential predators.  

Landscapes that enable prospect while providing refuge are considered  desirable when designing the sensory driven landscape.