Landscape architecture

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ I am not sorry occasionally to refer the reader to that work, the fact being that it and this are parts of one whole, divided merely as I had occasion to follow out one or other of its branches; for I have always considered architecture as an essential part of landscape; and I think the study of its best styles and real meaning one of the necessary functions of the landscape-painter; as, in like manner, the architect cannot be a master-workman until all his designs are guided by understanding of the wilder beauty of pure nature. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Not a shrub, tree, bench or pergola broke the bare, slanting expanse, which rose like the head of a mushroom to a low summit on which was placed the squat bungalow of brick— that type of architecture which conceals from any casual observer the actual immensity of any building. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ We have several times alluded to the extreme richness and variety of hill foreground, as an internal energy to which there must be no contrast. Rawness of color is to be especially avoided, but so, also, is poverty of effect. It will, therefore, add much to the beauty of the building, if in any conspicuous and harsh angle, or shadowy molding, we introduce a wreath of carved leafwork,—in stone, of course. ”

“ 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 sunshine and shade the sides of the street approach in an unvarying ratio; a cloud goes over, and the lines do not soften; brilliant light succeeds, and is merely light—no effect accompanies it. The architecture conquers, and is always architecture; it resists the sun, the air, the rain, being without expression. The geometry of the street can never be forgotten. ”

“ Instead of being filled with air, the vast space between the walls is crowded with Nature’s grandest buildings,—a sublime city of them, painted in every color, and adorned with richly fretted cornice and battlement spire and tower in endless variety of style and architecture. Every architectural invention of man has been anticipated, and far more, in this grandest of God’s terrestrial cities. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I have quite made up my mind, that the best situation for almost any sort of building is an advancing point of land; not an insulated summit, let that summit be high or low, sheltered or unsheltered, and never in a hollow. Prior park near Bath, though standing very high, is in a hollow, and loses half the praise its architecture would obtain, if it were better placed. Half way down, on the point forming one side of the little valley in which it stands, it would be better sheltered, have a more pleasing variety of view, be more accessible, and form incomparably a better object. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Lofty ranges, ever green at base, ever white at top, are there tied with luminous bands of meadow into knots and loops, and knots and loops again, tightening and loosening, opening and shutting in labyrinths, of which only rivers know the secret and no man can speak the charm. Villages which find place in lands like these take rank and relation at once with the divine organic architecture already builded; seem to become a part of Nature ”

“ They are laid off with beautiful balance, and the courtyards, large or small, are usually paved with stone. Sometimes trees are planted in them, or bridges and rock gardens and peony mountains are made. The finer and more numerous the houses, the more beautiful and elaborate the architecture of these separate, single buildings, the larger and more elaborate the courtyards, the more filled they are with trees, lilac-bushes, stone bridges, and other charming details. ”

“ A small undulation of surface, or embarrassment of road, makes large difference in the portability of masses, and of consequence, in the breadth of the possible intercolumniation, the solidity of the column, and the whole scale of the building. Again, in a hill-country, architecture can be important only by position, in a level country only by bulk. ”

“ It is almost impossible to believe that from the brain of one man could have emanated such a multitude of fanciful styles of architecture. I speak of the delicate arches crowning the massive walls, and which, open to the daylight, trace their delicate proportions against the blue sky; of the row upon row of tiny domes that crown each arch, while these again, repeated in tiers above and below each other, line the three sides of the quadrangle. ”

“ A hundred lessons in architecture may be gained every time that we walk along a pleasant lane, and the village with a cheerful row of cottages grown over with creepers, and showing tall chimneys, is full of suggestions in light and shade and composition. In all importations of foreign architecture—and it is not pretended that there should be none—the first thing to consider is its fitness for the climate and surroundings. ”

“ Sometimes the stalactite roofs are lofty, sometimes we have to bend our heads in order to pass from one vaulted chamber to another; here we have a superb column supporting an arch; here a pillar in course of formation, everywhere the strangest, most fantastic architecture, an architecture moreover that is the work of ages; one petrifying drop after another doing its apportioned work, column, arch, and roof being formed by a process so slow that the life-time of a human being hardly counts in the calculation. ”

“ Clear to the horizon, league on league, the snowy folds, with shallow creases between, and with here and there stately piles of vapory architecture lifting themselves aloft out of the common plain—some near at hand, some in the middle distances, and others relieving the monotony of the remote solitudes. ”

“ We cannot all have our gardens now, nor our pleasant fields to meditate in at eventide. Then the function of our architecture is, as far as may be, to replace these; to tell us about nature; to possess us with memories of her quietness; to be solemn and full of tenderness, like her, and rich in portraitures of her; full of delicate imagery of the flowers we can no more gather, and of the living creatures now far away from us in their own solitude. ”

“ One characteristic of the New Forest is its freedom from underwood; hence the height of the stately trees is undiminished, and the sweep of the open place unbroken. Architecture, the first of sciences, took, in our northern world, its earlier lessons in the forest—the Gothic aisle and arch were found amid the beech and oak. ”

“ Let no man henceforth ever despair of a dead flat.” The hall was surrounded by lawns and paddocks, reaching down to a lake. These were converted into a succession of gardens of regular design, stepping down by terraces from the house to the lake, and by balustrades, vases, statues, and flights of steps, so connected with the architecture of the house as to spread out its base, and give it the dignity and apparent height which its natural position forbade. ”

“ The buildings are very extensive, and though now ruinous, bear evidence of great beauty in the architecture: light galleries, supported by slender columns, long cool arcades, screened squares and terraced walks, are the principal features. ”

“ They are the acme of Nature's architecture, and in building them she has outrivalled all her erstwhile conceptions. She will never originate a more faultless design, never erect a more perfect edifice. ”

“ We have no reason to repeat the enthusiastic descriptions which travellers never tire of giving, impressed as they are sure to be by an architecture which, with all its wealth and oddity of detail, harmonizes perfectly with the rich vegetation in the midst of which it is placed. ”

“ A wooden country house, together with its out-buildings, should always be of a cheerful and softly-toned color—a color giving a feeling of warmth and comfort; nothing glaring or flashy about it. And yet, such buildings should not, in their color, any more than in their architecture, appear as if imitating either stone or brick. Wood, of itself, is light. One cannot build 45 a heavy house of wood, as compared with brick or stone. ”

“ Diversified as are the features of our country in climate, soil, surface, and position, no one style of rural architecture is properly adapted to the whole; and it is a gratifying incident to the indulgence in a variety of taste, that we possess the opportunity which we desire in its display to almost any extent in mode and effect. The Swiss châlet may hang in the mountain pass; the pointed Gothic may shoot up among the evergreens of the rugged hill-side; the Italian roof, with its overlooking campanile, may command the wooded slope or the open plain ”

“ The object, in addition to our own designs, has been to apply practical hints, gathered from other structures in use, which have seemed appropriate for a work of the limited extent here offered, and that may serve to improve the taste of all such as, in building useful structures, desire to embellish their farms and estates in an agreeable style of home architecture, at once pleasant to the eye, and convenient in their arrangement. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every part of the landscape is in unison; the same glory of mourning is thrown over the whole; the deep blue of the heavens is mingled with that of the ever-lasting hills, or melted away into the silence of the sapphire sea ”

“ In southern architecture the roof is of far less importance; but here the soul of domestic building is in the largeness and conspicuousness of the protection against the ponderous snow and driving sleet. You may make the façade of the square pile, if the roof be not seen, as handsome as you please,—you may cover it with decoration,—but there will always be a heartlessness about it, which you will not know how to conquer ”