Landscape architect

“ His idea was that the definite artificial lines of a building should not be contrasted, but harmonized, with the free and careless grace of natural beauty. This could only be effected by a scheme of architectural gardens, graduated, as it were, from regular formality in the immediate neighbourhood of the building itself, through shrubberies and plantations, less and less artificial, till they seemed to melt away in the unstudied simplicity of the park or wood without. In this the architect and landscape gardener must work side by side. ”

“ He takes the English Flower Garden as the expression of landscape gardening practice; whereas the book, in all the parts that treat of design, is a protest against the formation by landscape gardeners of costly things which have nothing to do with gardening and nothing to do with true architecture. The good architect is satisfied with building a beautiful house, and that we are all the happier for. ”

“ During the past year, after very careful consideration, the faculty has also established an option in the course of architecture, devoted particularly to landscape architecture, including, besides a large amount of work in architecture proper, instruction in horticulture and landscape design, on the one hand, and in surveying, topographical drawing, drainage, etc., on the other hand. The landscape architect has heretofore had no opportunity to secure a thorough training in his profession, except by passing through an apprenticeship, as was formerly necessary in the older professions. ”

“ All designs for buildings must be approved by the community architects with consideration of their harmony with neighboring buildings. A public landscape architect should have supervision over and give expert advice for the planting of trees and shrubbery and the beautifying of yards back as well as front. ”

“ All landscape architects realize the importance of giving particular attention to the laying-out of the path. Here the bit of garden demands a straight path, yonder to bring gardens into unity a grass path should be laid, while level stretches demand charming floral treatment, wrought out through proper use of flowers in the borders. ”

“ A recognition of the fact that the parks were much more beautiful than the kept grounds when thus fashioned, led early in the 16th century to the art of landscape gardening, or, as it is more generally called out of England, landscape architecture. The aim of the new art was, while still keeping the park fenced off, to manage the pleasure grounds in such a way that they would provide a harmonious and appropriate foreground to landscapes extending over the park, and to make such changes in the park itself as would improve the composition of these landscapes. ”

“ The term “Landscape Architecture” in a restricted sense (of Architecture in Landscape) was used in England by Laing Meason in 1828 as the title of a work which contained a discussion of Italian villas: The Landscape Architecture of the Great Painters of Italy. This work was referred to in a Review of Downing’s Cottage Residences and two other books on landscape gardening, which appeared in the North American Review, Oct., 1844, p. ”

“ Olmsted might almost equally [Pg 127] have been addressing a commissioner of 1858, had there been park boards at that time outside of New York City.
With reference to your undertaking there is less room for choice than may be supposed among the landscape gardeners or landscape architects of the country. (I have come to prefer the latter term, tho’ I much objected to it when it was first given me. I prefer it because it helps to establish the important idea of the distinction of my profession from that of gardening, as that of architecture from building—the distinction of an art of design.) ”

“ Landscape architecture is not yet an established profession among us, in spite of the achievements of Downing, Cleveland, and Olmsted and their disciples; yet much has been accomplished within the last twenty-five years to realize the predictions on this subject made by Emerson in his lecture on The Young American. He pointed out in that lecture that the beautiful gardens of Europe are unknown among us, but might be easily imitated here, and said that the landscape art "is the Fine Art which is left for us.... ”

“ Everybody knows the old boast of the landscape-architects—that they can make one piece of ground look twice as large as another of the same measure, however small, by merely grading and planting the two on contrary schemes. The present writer knows one small street in his town, a street of fair dwellings, on which every lawn is diminished to the eye by faulty grading.
Shrubs are better than annuals for masking right angles. ”

“ But, where the rock joins the ground, where the shadow falls, and the eye is not attracted, she puts in bold forms of ornament, large leaves and grass, bunches of moss and heather, strong in their projection, and deep in their colour. Therefore, the architect must act on precisely the same principle: his outward surfaces he may leave the wind and weather to finish in their own way; but he cannot allow Nature to put grass and weeds into the shadows ”

“ If the arrangement of our later woods be not quite so formal, they at least present frequent openings, carpeted with green sward, and edged with various foliage, which the architect (for so may the designer of the avenue be entitled) should do little more than reduce to symmetry and place in position, preserving, as much as possible, the manner and the proportions of nature. ”

“ Clustered over a generous expanse of hill and valley, of field and garden all laid out as though some landscape gardener had made it a labor of love, were houses such as he had dreamed of—houses with dignity of line and proportion, with architectural beauty of design. ”

“ Whatever may be said against the abuses of the artificial landscape-gardening, a mixture of pure art in a garden scene, adds to it a great beauty. This is partly pleasing to the eye, by the show of order and design, and partly moral. A terrace, with an old moss-covered balustrade, calls up at once to the eye, the fair forms that have passed there in other days. The slightest exhibition of art is an evidence of care and human interest. ”

“ None of these feelings arise out of the landscape, properly so-called: the pleasure with which we see a peasant's garden fairly kept, or a ploughman doing his work well, or a group of children playing at a cottage door, being wholly separate from that which we find in the fields or commons around them; and the beauty of architecture, or the associations connected with it, in like manner often ennobling the most tame scenery;—yet not so but that we may always distinguish between the abstract character of the unassisted landscape, and the charm which it derives from the architecture. ”

“ Not only do they contribute nothing to the artistic effect of the general design, but they even mar the appearance of the grass that accommodates them. Design they have, but not design of that quality which alone justifies its intrusion. No wonder "Nature abhors lines" if this base and spurious imitation of the "old formality," that Charles Lamb gloats over, is all that the landscape-garden can offer in the way of idealisation. ”

“ Of the fine arts, architecture alone subserves utility. We build for use. But the geometrical proportions which the architect observes, contain the element of beauty and powerfully influence the soul. Into the language of arch and aisle and colonnade, of cupola and façade and pediment, of spire and vault, the architect translates emotion, vague perhaps but deep, mute but unmistakable. When we say that a building is sublime or graceful, frivolous or stern, we mean that sublimity or grace, frivolity or sternness, is inherent in it. ”

“ Hence his mimicry can never rise above Nature. Indeed, if it remains faithful to the negative opinions of its practitioners, landscape-gardening will never construct any system of device. It has no creed, if you except that sole article of its faith, "I believe in the non-geometrical garden." A monumental style is an impossibility while it eschews all features that make for state and magnificence and symmetry ”

“ These two conditions are assisted and promoted by landscape-gardening, but it has by no means such a mastery over its material as architecture, and therefore its effect is limited. The beauty with which it is concerned belongs almost exclusively to nature ”

“ It will be seen hereafter, when we leave the lowly valley for the torn ravine, and the grassy knoll for the ribbed precipice, that, if the continental architects cannot adorn the pasture with the humble roof, they can crest the crag, with eternal battlements; if they cannot minister to a landscape's peace, they can add to its terror ”

“ But doubtless what is lost in this external picturesqueness of architecture is amply compensated by that capacity of internal grandeur and embellishment which the more modern style of building possesses. The landscape of the park is truly beautiful. ”

“ The entrance to the close here shown is a wonderful example of picturesque beauty; as for architecture, in the modern sense of the term, it possesses none, but it simply owes its{177} pleasing appearance to the quaint combination of its parts, all of which are plain. There is nothing whatever to prevent its being adapted to an entrance for workshops or a builder’s yard, and so enlivening a dreary street. The only difficulty is in always being able to find the architect capable of designing anything so picturesque. ”

“ Almost every one is capable, with such hints as have been freely given in the volumes of the Horticulturist, in the leading papers which treat on rural art, and the numerous valuable publications on rural architecture, to make such a combination of rooms as will best suit his peculiar wants, tastes, or fancies, and then, with the aid of an architect, it can readily be freed from mechanical impracticabilities, and put into a proportionate and harmonious form. ”

“ Some critics think that architecture had its start in the making of a bird's nest. Have you ever watched birds at work on their nests? If you have, you must know that they go about the job like artists. In our profession we like to insist, you know, that there's a big difference between architecture and mere building. In its truest sense architecture is building with a fine motive. It's the artistic printing press of all ages, the noblest of the fine arts and the finest of the useful arts. I know, of course," the architect went on, "that there's another tradition not quite so flattering. ”

“ The scenery around must be naturally rich, that its variety of line may relieve the slight stiffness of the architecture itself; and the climate must always be considered; for, as we saw, the chief beauty of these flights of steps depends upon the presence of the sun; and, if they are to be in shade half the year, the dark trees will only make them gloomy, the grass will grow between the stones of the steps, black weeds will flicker from the pedestals, damp mosses discolour the statues and urns, and the whole will become one incongruous ruin, one ridiculous decay. ”

“ More exquisite curves, better studies for a healthy-minded and original architect, could hardly be found. The interlacing branches are suggestive of tracery-patterns, not to be outdone even in the flamboyant windows of York and Rouen. There is no excuse for the squat, ugly, and stupid arches one sees in almost every attempt at pointed architecture, when the elm-tree springs by every riverside in the land. ”

“ We have, he says, the Italian, the French, and the Dutch Schools of the Geometric Style. The Modern, or Landscape Style, when it first displayed itself in English country residences, was distinctly marked by the absence of everything that had the appearance of a terrace, or of architectural forms, or lines, immediately about the house. The house, in short, rose abruptly from the lawn, and the general surface of the ground was characterised by smoothness and bareness. This constituted the first School of the Landscape Style, introduced by Kent and Brown. ”

“ When, however, we know that the architectural design which finds almost universal favour is that of the column or the pilaster—which is little more than the palm-tree of the Oriental forest of many thousand years ago—I chink we are justified in assuming that we have not yet quite lost sight of the fact that our dwellings are most acceptable when they retain such elements as are congenial with their ancient homes, which homes were undoubtedly incidents in the natural landscape. ”

“ As one must needs have a system in planning grounds, there is none that will more certainly bring honour and effect to them than the regular geometrical treatment. This is what the architect naturally prefers. The house is his child, and he knows what is good for it. Unlike the imported gardener, who comes upon the scene as a foreign agent, the architect works from the house outwards, taking the house as his centre ”

“ That which we feel at the sight of an edifice, the artist has felt a hundred times in contemplating the shifting curves of a hill, the bold edge of a haughty peak, the immensity of an even plain, a ground hollow, or gently undulating sheet of water which loses itself in the mists of the horizon. All the effects produced by architecture are only an interpretation of natural ones. ”

“ In our examination of the genuine art of gardening it is most important to distinguish the painter's point of view of it from that of the architect. All that pertains to mere park construction, for instance, is not truly architectonic, no building, that is, with freely disposed natural objects, but an artist's portrayal [109] , which leaves the objects in their natural form and aims at imitating wide Nature in its freedom. ”