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Landscape 
 Architecture 
 
 A Definition and a Resume 
 of Its Past and Present 
 By STEPHEN CHILD 
 
 F.ellow American Society of 
 Landscape Architects 
 
LANDSCAPE 
 ARCHITECTURE 
 
 A DEFINITION AND A RESUME 
 OF ITS PAST AND PRESENT 
 
 By 
 
 STEPHEN CHILD 
 
 FELLOW AMERICAN SOCIETY OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS 
 
 S. B. MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, 1888 
 
 MEMBER AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS 
 
 BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, AND 
 
 SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA 
 
 "This paper was presented before the Cg 
 of Technology held tn Boston, April 10-1% 
 commemorating the fiftieth anniversary _, 
 granting of the charter of the school. " 
 
 Published by 
 
 R. J. HAIGH-T 
 
 440 S. Dearborn St. 
 CHICAGO 
 
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I. LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT OR LANDSCAPE 
 GARDENER? 
 
 There is at the present time much apparent misunder- 
 standing of the terms Landscape Architecture and Landscape 
 Gardening. It is not unusual to hear it stated that "this 
 calling a man a landscape architect instead of a landscape 
 gardener" is merely a fad "filling one's mind with images of 
 quarries, stone cutters, creaking derricks, tapping trowels, 
 and the like, instead of with pictures of free hand dealings 
 with sunshine and shadow, trees, flowering shrubs and leaping 
 fountains." One well known writer has even gone so far as 
 to state that "the men most deeply engaged in the art have 
 not decided what to call it," and that it is suspicioned "that 
 the present fashion among the professional brethren of calling 
 themselves landscape architects is promoted by two acciden- 
 tal causes : first, the feeling that architecture sounds bigger 
 than gardening and can demand a better fee, and second, 
 the fact that the architectural style of landscape work is the 
 present vogue among wealthy clients." 
 
 I am going to ask you to look at this a little more carefully 
 with me and see what is true in this discussion. In the first 
 place, the term is not a "recent fad." Frederick Law Olm- 
 sted, the elder, called himself a landscape architect away back 
 in 1856, when he first entered upon the work of developing 
 Central Park in New York City, and the fact that he did so, 
 and continued to so designate himself during the whole of his 
 career has had much to do with the general adoption of the 
 term. But the fact that one man, even an eminent one, 
 adopted this title is perhaps not entirely sufficient, although 
 those of us who are familiar with Mr. Olmsted's work and 
 with his wonderful genius and mastery of the subject in all 
 of its details may well feel assured that he did not adopt the 
 title without most careful thought. Unfortunately he did 
 not in his writings, so far as I am aware, really explain his 
 reasons. He was so immersed in the great battle then going 
 on, for public parks for large cities, in showing their value 
 and necessity and in laying down the principles and executing 
 the work of these great undertakings that he apparently had 
 little time to explain fully why he assumed the title. We 
 
 258758 
 
4 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 may, however, be perfectly assured that he had reasons, and 
 most excellent ones, and a little study of these may be inter- 
 esting and profitable. 
 
 In the process of the development of mankind there has 
 been noticeable a constantly increasing tendency toward 
 differentiation and specialization, each step in the process 
 being a slow one, and, as a rule, taken at first by some man 
 or group of men trained in some other line. In this way have 
 come about many new forms or fields of work, each adapted 
 more or less from others of a previous and perhaps lesser 
 civilization. Each new profession, or branch from an older 
 one, demanded and received a new cognomen. This process 
 of differentiation has developed more or less clearly defined 
 groups of men, as, for example, the professions of the ministry, 
 medicine, law, civil engineering, architecture and so on. 
 
 Fifty years ago, when Mr. Olmsted began his landscape- 
 work, there was beginning to be a demand in this country for 
 men to do a certain line of work that was intrinsically quite 
 different from that previously carried on by either the archi- 
 tect, the engineer or the gardener, and yet work that embod- 
 ied some of the principles heretofore utilized by all of these 
 men. Here was this great tract of land, now known as Cen- 
 tral Park, to be developed and made beautiful, for the purpose 
 of providing the crowded millions of the great city of the 
 future with the opportunity "for a form of recreation to be 
 obtained only through the influence of pleasing natural 
 scenery upon the sensibilities of those quietly contemplating 
 it." This was a new problem for this country, and indeed 
 for any country, for none of the great parks in Europe now 
 utilized for this purpose were originally created for anything 
 of this sort. They are chiefly the result of developing land 
 that had originally been set aside as hunting forests by the 
 great nobles or rulers of Europe. 
 
 I think it will be generally conceded that New York was 
 fortunate in its selection of the master mind to work out this 
 problem, and that Central Park has been most successfully 
 designed and executed. Mr. Olmsted saw clearly the great- 
 ness of the task and the differentiation of this form of design 
 from that of the architect or engineer and certainly from the 
 work of the gardener. He chose to call himself a landscape 
 architect. Let us, therefore, look into the meaning of these 
 words and see whether they are not well selected and worthy 
 of our respect and of general adoption. 
 
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 5 
 
 That most delightful and interesting writer, Philip Gilbert 
 Hamerton, says of landscape: "We use the word in two 
 distinct senses, a general and a particular. In the general 
 sense the word, 'landscape' without the article, means the 
 visible material world, all that can be seen on the surface 
 of the earth by a man who is himself upon the surface; and 
 in the special sense 'a landscape' means a piece of the earth's 
 surface that can be seen at once, and it is always understood 
 that this piece will have a certain artistic unity or suggestion 
 of unity in itself"; and further he adds, "although the word 
 refers to the natural land, it does not exclude any human 
 works that are upon the land." The word is derived from 
 two good Anglo-Saxon parts, "land" and the suffix "scape," 
 corresponding to "skip" or "ship," as in the word "friend- 
 ship," meaning "the state or condition of being." Landscape 
 then means "the state or condition of being land." When 
 we come to add the word architecture, however, the conno- 
 tation conveys to many people a wrong impression, but it 
 should not, for in its early and primitive meaning the word 
 architect meant simply and solely "chief workman" or 
 "master artisan." It is well, I believe, for us to recall this 
 earlier meaning of the word at the present time. 
 
 It is quite largely the architect himself who is responsible 
 for any wrong impression that may have developed in the 
 use of the term landscape architect ; as many have assumed 
 that, because the word "architect" is used at all, the term 
 "landscape architect" means simply an architect who med- 
 ples a bit with the landscape immediately surrounding his 
 buildings. Many architects have done this, with regrettable 
 results both to the client and to the profession of land- 
 scape architecture. I think it is but fair to suggest that if 
 the architect solves the problems of his buildings success- 
 fully, he may well leave to the landscape architect the mat- 
 ter of designing the surroundings for them, realizing that his 
 own architectural problems are many and difficult, and that 
 the trained landscape architect can, by co-operating with 
 him, greatly improve the net result; for, as we all know, the 
 effect of many a successful building has been seriously im- 
 paired by lack of a proper setting. 
 
 What Mr. Olmsted meant when he termed himself a land- 
 scape architect was that he was aiming to be a master artisan 
 in matters pertaining to land and to human works thereon, 
 having regard both to the beauty of its appearance and to its 
 
6 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 use. In a very real sense such work covers agriculture, for- 
 estry, gardening, engineering and the elements of architecture. 
 Landscape architecture has been denned as "a group of 
 activities which include horticulture, architecture, civil en- 
 gineering and agriculture." Humphrey Repton, a great 
 English authority on matters of this sort, says that in order 
 to carry out this line of work one must possess not only artis- 
 tic ability and taste, but "a complete knowledge of surveying, 
 mechanics, hydraulics, botany and the general principles of 
 architecture." We may well weigh his words, for Hum- 
 phrey Repton was a cultivated English gentleman of great 
 refinement and good taste. He was the first Englishman 
 from such a grade of society to undertake the planning or 
 designing of country estates. Kent, one of his predecessors 
 in this line of work, was a coach painter by trade who pos- 
 sessed some artistic taste but little culture. "Capability" 
 Brown, Repton's most famous immediate predecessor, was 
 a gardener, who, by association with men of refinement and 
 by his tact and native ability, worked his way up to an hon- 
 orable place; but Repton was a well-educated Englishman, 
 who had traveled and studied much. Repton, however, 
 called himself a landscape gardener, as did all of the ethers 
 at that time, but Mr. Olmsted chose to avoid that term for 
 several reasons. In the first place, these workers in land- 
 scape design in England had confined their efforts almost 
 entirely to the design of country estates. The term, land- 
 scape gardening, was, I believe ; first used by the poet Shen- 
 stone to mean particularly an informal or picturesque treat- 
 ment of the grounds of an estate, as distinguished from the 
 older style of formal treatment that had been in vogue and 
 carried to such excess. In the early part of the eighteenth 
 century formality had been pushed to the point of puerility. 
 A reaction set in, due to numerous causes, and the "new 
 style," or so-called "English style," was introduced by Kent 
 and others, who, as Sir Horace Walpole enthusiastically ex- 
 claimed, "leaped the wall and saw all nature was a garden," 
 and so in fact it is in those delightful parts of old England in 
 which they labored; those country estates with their deer 
 parks and pleasure grounds. These men made a practice of 
 designing country places in an informal or naturalistic 
 manner, and termed this landscape gardening. They were 
 in favor of abolishing all formality, and they themselves 
 carried their theory to excess. 
 
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 7 
 
 Later, in the latter part of the eighteenth century and the 
 first of the nineteenth century, men like Repton came for- 
 ward, realizing that formality had its place and value, and 
 began to use it under certain circumstances but still called 
 themselves landscape gardeners. This latter use of the 
 term was a serious twisting of the original meaning; for a 
 garden is, properly speaking, a place engirt, inclosed or set 
 apart and highly cultivated. Landscape is, as we have seen, 
 a piece of the earth's surface that can be seen at one time by 
 a man who is himself standing upon the earth, and may, of 
 course, mean a broad stretch of country not all enclosed. 
 
 There is another important point and one that has not 
 been particularly mentioned in discussions of the term land- 
 scape architect, one to which I have already alluded, namely, 
 that the English landscape designers mentioned were en- 
 gaged almost exclusively in the preparation of plans for 
 country estates. These were, of course, not always large, 
 and often were walled in or engirt (girt in), and, therefore, 
 perhaps in a sense gardens. Mr. Olmsted in 1856 had before 
 him not such a problem, but that of designing a great public 
 park for a large city. This work was not gardening in any 
 sense of the word; it was something quite different. It was 
 work of design, a work that could be undertaken and success- 
 fully carried out only by a "master artisan in matters per- 
 taining to land." Here were to be developed, and we know 
 how well it has been done, broad peaceful landscape effects, 
 giving the tired city dweller opportunity for restful contem- 
 plation and relief from city sights and sounds. These were 
 to be designed and executed where none had existed before, 
 and in such a way that there should be no obtrusive 
 evidence of man's elaborate control and no marring of the 
 pleasing, restful effect by such garden elements as beds of 
 geraniums or rare and striking shrubs clipped into formal 
 shapes; in other words, no gardening, as we now understand 
 that term. This was what he termed landscape architecture. 
 The French landscape designers had already adopted this 
 term, their phrase, architede paysagiste, meaning simply 
 landscape architect. 
 
 Many of Mr. Olmsted's great works are familiar to us all. 
 They include Central Park, New York; Prospect Park, 
 Brooklyn; the almost unrivaled Park System of Boston; the 
 great work designed by him at the World's Fair at Chicago; 
 and almost innumerable country estates, notably Biltmore 
 
8 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 at Asheville, N. C., the mere enumeration of which serves 
 to show some of the diversity of the work, and even the most 
 casual observer can see in them some of the reasons why this 
 sort of work is not properly to be called landscape gardening. 
 A gardener, as commonly understood, is one who cultivates 
 a garden. He may, and of course should, know a great deal 
 about botany and horticulture, but when you come to asso- 
 ciate the word garden with landscape there is implied simply 
 that we have a gardener who cares for a garden having a 
 naturalistic or landscape character; the absolutely essential 
 factor of creative design disappears. Expensive mistakes 
 have often resulted from employing on landscape work a 
 person who was simply a common gardener and ignorant of 
 the principles of this sort of design. Art commissioners 
 would not think of employing a man to design a monumental 
 public library or city hall simply because he was a good stone- 
 mason. 
 
 Landscape architecture is then, as Charles Eliot, one of 
 Mr. Olmsted's gifted disciples, has well said, "the art of 
 arranging land for use and the accompanying landscape for 
 enjoyment." Landscape gardening is, it seems to me, a 
 term conveying in itself confused ideas, but used, if at all 
 properly, simply to cover that part of the landscape archi- 
 tect's work which has to do with the development of formal 
 or natural beauty by the simple process of removing or setting 
 out and caring for plants. This is quite secondary to the 
 matter of designing a general scheme for the development 
 of land for any given purpose. 
 
 Certainly the elder Olmsted's maintenance of his title 
 and his great works and those of his disciples since under this 
 title, coupled with the fact that the only society of men pro- 
 fessionally concerned primarily in such work containing most 
 of the better trained practitioners calls itself the American 
 Society of Landscape Architects is sufficient rejoinder to the 
 statement that the leaders in the art have not decided what 
 to call it. 
 
 It is no accidental matter but a fact that both architec- 
 ture and landscape architecture are bigger than gardening 
 and may in justice demand larger compensation. Neither 
 does the fact that it may be fitting in the design of the imme- 
 diate surroundings of important buildings to utilize an ar- 
 chitectural or formal style of landscape work rob the term 
 "landscape architecture" of its true significance as a correct 
 
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 9 
 
 one covering very properly the work of the profession in all 
 its branches. 
 
 While this term and its present day significance are rela- 
 tively quite modern and undoubtedly the ancient tongues 
 contain no connotation of words used in exactly the sense 
 which we have in mind when we speak of landscape architec- 
 ture, still our studies of ancient landscape design reveal most 
 clearly that the principles of our art were more or less well 
 understood and followed in very early times. 
 
II. LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE OF ANCIENT 
 
 TIMES AND OF THE ITALIAN AND 
 
 MEDIAEVAL PERIODS. 
 
 In ancient Egypt even, the arrangement of the grounds 
 about the royal palaces and their important buildings, while 
 they were distinctly temporary in their character and have 
 long since been destroyed, are well preserved in wall decora- 
 tions and other drawings, showing many evidences of thought- 
 fulness in design. These show a distinct effort to conform 
 to the existing condition of flat topography, fertile soil, ample 
 space, and hot, dry climate. Provision is made for irrigation, 
 for desirable protecting walls, and there are many evidences 
 of the fact that while the economic motive may have been 
 to a certain extent present, the primary one was agreeable- 
 ness and pleasure. There is ample provision for shade and 
 for flowers, many of which were used in the religious cere- 
 monies of those times. There were decorative pavilions, 
 painted walls, sculptured ornaments, all planned for pleasing 
 effects and with careful thought as to scale and proportion. 
 There was no particular attempt at symmetry as a whole, 
 but in the smaller structures and portions of the grounds 
 symmetry is recognized. Repetition is effectively used and 
 a certain degree of unity is clearly noted in many of the 
 drawings. 
 
 What has come down to us in the records of Mesopotamia 
 show similar thought and study, and here as well as in Persia 
 we know not only about the famous so-called hanging gar- 
 dens of Babylon, but of great enclosed hunting parks arranged 
 with a more or less orderly system of avenues and paths 
 through them. 
 
 Homer's famous description of the grounds of the Palace 
 of Alcinous show how beautiful these must have been and 
 how carefully the Greeks studied and thought out all such 
 problems. No people before or since were ever more thought- 
 ful of matters of design in the arrangement of their grounds 
 ^ and the placing of their statuary and buildings to fit the 
 
 slightest bit of unusualness of topography. All this is very 
 different from gardening, and here as in Egypt we note the 
 application of true principles of design. 
 
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 11 
 
 The Roman conquerors took these thoughtful designers of 
 the best landscape art of the Greeks, together with their other 
 artists, to Rome, and as a result Roman estates and villas 
 reflect this fine Greek influence. The greater wealth avail- 
 able and the changed physical conditions brought forth from 
 the fertile brains of these designers new forms of landscape 
 art evidenced by the ruins of the great Roman and Pompeiian 
 estates and gardens that have come down to us. Here are 
 shown not only the ideas of Egypt and Greece modified to 
 
 PLAN OF VILLA LANTI, ITALY 
 
 meet new conditions, but careful consideration of the ques- 
 tions of distant view and vistas. It is clear that these men 
 planned to have informality at a distance from their mansions 
 and palaces with a more evident approach to formality as 
 one nears the very formal designed palaces and terraces. 
 There was a thorough appreciation of the need of conformity 
 to the same architectural style throughout in a word, unity. 
 This is again correct design and what we are seeking for 
 today. 
 
12 
 
 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 We find also among the Romans some of the best and very 
 earliest carefully designed city squares and public parks. 
 These in some cases were first designed for the private grounds 
 of the emperor and others, but later given to the people partly 
 to gain popularity. In the preparation for them houses were 
 removed and the resultant space treated as open public 
 grounds laid out with rare skill and dedicated later to the use 
 of the people. Fitness, definiteness of purpose, a careful con- 
 
 VIEW IN VILLA LANTI, ITALY 
 
 sideration of the question of scale as well as beauty and art 
 and unity were all studied, and as a result we can today to 
 our very great advantage study these designs in connection 
 with our own efforts at planning for public parks and squares. 
 The habit of setting aside such areas for the recreation of 
 the people grew apace, and the question of their distribution 
 throughout the city was studied with care, and as a result 
 Rome was very well supplied and the parks were particularly 
 
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 13 
 
 well distributed. Under the empire the park areas of Rome 
 were one-eighth of the total area of the city. We today are 
 struggling with this part of the problem in our own city 
 planning. 
 
 Then came the setback of the so-called dark ages, but the 
 flame thus lighted was never completely extinguished and 
 
 PLAN OF VILLA D ESTE IN ITALY 
 
 finally burst forth again in the renaissance more gloriously 
 than ever. Even in the mediaeval times we find evidence 
 of an effort at design in gardens and grounds. There was 
 indeed more or less similarity to the work of the Greeks in 
 this respect. 
 
 Mediaeval designers were, however, influenced by limited 
 financial and other resources and by lack of labor and space. 
 
14 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 There is a marked absence of symmetry in their designs as a 
 whole. It appears, if at all, only in minor details. They 
 show none of that recognition of axis or of balance about an 
 axis, such a notable feature of Roman and Italian designs. 
 They met their own peculiar conditions well, however, and 
 fitness may be said to have been their controlling motive. 
 
 These were warlike times and security was looked for 
 first, with pleasure and beauty as later considerations. The 
 
 VIEW IN THE VILLA D'ESTE, ITALY 
 
 gardens and grounds of the old monasteries and feudal castles 
 were essentially places of leisure and contemplation, and the 
 high embattled walls lent an element of austerity to such 
 grounds. All these conditions made simplicity, fitness and 
 a complete utilization of every part important. Castles were 
 built on hill tops for their better defense, and areas were there- 
 fore limited and very irregular in outline, but this irregular 
 space was completely utilized. Everpthing was compact, 
 neat and orderly. These were noticeable features of English 
 
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 15 
 
 design, as we shall see, but the conditions of mediaeval times 
 did not lend themselves to a high development of landscape 
 design. 
 
 With the cessation of these harsh warlike conditions and 
 the dawn of the Renaissance, landscape design entered upon 
 a new and glorious era, for now, especially in Italy, great 
 protective fortress walls were useless, and we begin to find 
 country places designed solely for enjoyment and the enter- 
 tainment of guests, not as retreats for protection from war- 
 like neighbors. Then was developed that perfect thing in 
 landscape 'design, the Italian villa. 
 
 The greatest artists, such as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael 
 and many others, made plans for them, and as we study their 
 work in this regard we see that the best principles of land- 
 scape design were instinctively used. An Italian villa in- 
 cluded the entire creation of roofed and unroofed buildings, 
 terraces, fountains, paths, walls, seats and planting. Every- 
 thing was most carefully provided for with one well rounded 
 purpose in view. 
 
 The site was selected in an agreeable country, giving ac- 
 cess to good breezes and rare views; accessibility and con- 
 structive considerations were remembered. It was a hilly 
 country and rather high up, but not at the top of these hills 
 were placed the villas. There was always the closest ad- 
 justment to topography, but this adjustment differed from 
 that of mediaeval times. These sloping situations led nat- 
 urally to the development of the terrace, and while the Re- 
 naissance designers may have modified the topography more, 
 they did not contradict it, as was done in the earlier Roman 
 times. Definiteness was retained, but a larger unity was 
 introduced dependent more or less upon symmetry. Sym- 
 metry was almost lacking in mediaeval times, but in the 
 later Renaissance was carried to extremes. Repetition was 
 most effectively employed. Shade and an abundant water 
 supply were always provided. Social conditions were ever 
 in mind, in fact, the purpose of the Italian villa was largely 
 social. These were not hunting lodges or ascetic retreats, but 
 places for the social enjoyment of wealthy princes and prel- 
 ates and their many friends. Here we may not mention 
 the many details thought of, but the Villas Lanti and d'Este, 
 to mention only two of the more famous, show how perfectly 
 all was considered. 
 
III. ENGLISH, FRENCH AND AMERICAN DESIGN. 
 
 As we go forward with the years we may follow the devel- 
 opment in the landscape design of France and England, both 
 countries feeling to a more or less degree the influence of the 
 Italian renaissance, France even more than England. In the 
 latter country more evidence of mediaeval influence and 
 
 THE GROUNDS AND PALACE OF VERSAILLES 
 
 motives are to be noted. In the Italian villa and its grounds 
 we have a single and very highly developed unit of rather 
 limited size larger than the mediaeval unit to be sure, but 
 still domestic in its scale. In France, while this Italian in- 
 fluence is noted at first; it soon spread to a much more vast 
 conception. The motives of the great French landscape de- 
 signers were the wealth and power of their nobility and their 
 desire to express these two things in the surroundings of their 
 palaces and chateaux by the extent of their finished grounds. 
 They deviated from the Mediaeval and Italian designs by 
 adding unit after unit. 
 
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 17 
 
 The topography being quite generally nearly level, all 
 things were adapted to this. Terraces became broader, 
 greater areas of water were employed and the development 
 of the chateau appeared. Here we have the mediaeval idea 
 of the moat seized upon formalized and elaborated to a great 
 extent as at Fontainbleau and Chantilly. The highly or- 
 ganized axial arrangement of the Italian school was retained 
 in the French designs but the scale of everything was im- 
 mensely enhanced. It became no longer domestic or human 
 
 GROUNDS OF HAMPTON COURT IN ENGLAND 
 
 but superhuman, especially in the time of Louis XIV, the 
 self-styled Grand Monarch who firmly believed he was some- 
 thing more than human. 
 
 He had LeNotre and Mansard design Versailles and 
 Chantilly with these motives in mind. In these estates 
 there was a greatness and a strong and simple relation of 
 parts one to another. The scale is always colossal and the 
 emphasis is rightly enough under the circumstances placed 
 not upon convenience but almost wholly upon appearance. 
 The purpose was to express magnificence and was for effect 
 wholly, and the results, while grand and impressive, are not 
 as exquisitely interesting as in some of the Italian work. 
 
18 
 
 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 Relatively little of this grand but superhuman style spread 
 elsewhere, although it is somewhat in evidence at Hampton 
 Court in England and Schoenbrunn near Vienna, and Wil- 
 helmshohe are respectively Austrian and German examples 
 of this influence. This influence of LeNotre's style is evident 
 not only in the later work of Haussman and Alphand and 
 Andre at Paris, but to a certain degree of L/ Enfant in his 
 plans for the city of Washington. 
 
 PLAN AND SECTION MONTACUTE HOUSE, ENGLAND 
 
 English landscape design was as a rule more human, more 
 influenced by mediaeval motives, and there was less emphasis 
 placed upon the strictest axial and formal motives, and dis- 
 tinctly less symmetry than in either the French or Italian 
 work. There was a good deal of unity withal and a very dis- 
 tinctive difference is shown as regards the planting. In the 
 French formal work the gravel paths are the basis of the 
 design and the parterres, fountain basins, pools and other 
 details are laid out or set out, as it were, in the midst of the 
 gravel walks which are always very much in evidence. In 
 
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 19 
 
 the best English work the effects secured were quite the 
 opposite. There is always the background of turf and foliage 
 masses upon which the paths are laid out as a much more in- 
 cidental feature. 
 
 With this very brief and altogether inadequate resume of 
 the more salient principles of earlier landscape design before 
 us, let us now turn for a few moments to the result of all this 
 as expressed in the landscape architecture of the present day, 
 
 GROUNDS OF MONTACUTE HOUSE IN ENGLAND 
 Note the predominance of greensward and foliage 
 
 especially in America. Our problems here are many and 
 varied and far removed in the character of the surroundings, 
 climate and other conditions from almost all of those we have 
 mentioned. The trained landscape architect in America 
 uses his study of these earlier problems if he has the right 
 spirit as a guide to correct principles solely. These earlier 
 European landscape designers did this in their own case and 
 were constantly and indefatigably searching for right prin- 
 ciples of design applicable to the particular problem in hand. 
 The best of them never slavishly copied others and we should 
 
20 
 
 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 
 
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 21 
 
 not. We should use these right principles to secure distinct- 
 ive American types of work. Let us now briefly consider 
 some of the many classes or types of problems in landscape 
 design met with in the practice of this profession in America 
 today, and note how we are helped in their solution by this 
 study of the past. 
 
 PLAN OF BRICK WALL HOUSE AND GROUNDS, ENGLAND 
 
 Note the mediaeval influences, the fittings of existing conditions, and the 
 more or less disregard of exact symmetry. 
 
 In the first place what may be termed domestic landscape 
 architecture, the designing of suburban and country estates 
 and grounds. How varied these are, located on the rugged 
 coasts of Maine, the tropic sands of Florida, amid the moun- 
 tains and on the level prairies and amidst the semi-tropic 
 conditions of the Pacific Slope. How make rules for such 
 varieties of conditions? Manifestly no rule, of thumb will 
 
22 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 answer. Right basic principles are of the utmost importance, 
 however, and these are suggested by our earlier studies. 
 From Egypt, Greece and Rome, from Italy, France and 
 England do we draw our inspiration but none of their works 
 do we copy, only the principles there determined. 
 
 In these domestic problems there are always two main 
 groups of factors of importance; first, the local ones, that is 
 to say, the conditions of topography, existing vegetation, 
 climate, soil, proximity and direction of outside factors af- 
 fecting the accessibility of the site, and second, the personal 
 factor. WhtfTs the home for? How many are to live in it? 
 
 A NEW ENGLAND GARDEN 
 
 Is it to be an all-the-year-round one, or to be used only in 
 the summer or winter? What funds are available for the 
 adjustment of the land and improvement of the landscape? 
 All these and many other things are to be ascertained as a 
 basis from which to proceed. A careful consideration of 
 these two points, the local and the personal, will prevent any 
 sameness of treatment even in similar localities. 
 
 As we particularly noted in the case of the design of the 
 Italian villa and grounds, fitness, accessibility as to supplies 
 of material, water and so on, are considered. Provision is 
 made for means of approach both for guests and service. 
 Views or outlook from the site and the aspect of the finished 
 
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 23 
 
 scheme from without are all studied, and the proportioning 
 of the three vital elements of the design, the entrance, the 
 service and the living or pleasure portions of the grounds are 
 carefully determined, usually the greater area being devoted 
 to the latter. Local topographical and climatic conditions 
 affect all these points as do also the client's personal desires. 
 From the work of these earlier designers we get inspiration 
 helping us to determine the general character of the special 
 treatment. Shall it be formal or informal and here is where 
 there should be the heartiest co-operation between the client, 
 the architect of the buildings and the landscape architect, 
 
 A NEW ENGLAND GARDEN 
 
 for manifestly the type of house selected should suit the site 
 as well as fit it, and the best design is that which most com-s 
 prehensively meets all these conditions. While some sites 
 much more emphatically demand rigid formality than others, 
 almost every house no matter how informal its general char- 
 acter, is composed of rigid straight lines and definite angles. 
 There is therefore almost always a Tightness in some formality 
 immediately about such a structure. This formality may 
 not go so far as to involve exact symmetry or balance and the 
 gradual cession of any sort of formality, the merging of this 
 sort of design into the free and informal natural surroundings 
 is of the utmost importance in securing that unity and har- 
 mony without which no design is successful. 
 
IV. PARKS AND PUBLIC GROUNDS. 
 
 Another great class of problems are those coming under 
 the general head of public reservations including greater 
 and lesser parks, city squares, playgrounds and the like, 
 the mere mention of which indicates the variety of condi- 
 tions to be met. Here as in the domestic problem, we have 
 again two main factors, namely: the local and the personal. 
 In these problems, however, as we are now dealing with per- 
 sons in the mass, the latter element becomes more stable and 
 we strive to determine the wants of the average personality 
 rather than those of the special or distinctive one. The 
 Romans, as we earlier noted, showed us many vital principles 
 in such designs and not the least in their study for the dis- 
 tribution of these areas throughout the city. 
 
 Definiteness of purpose is always to be maintained; that 
 of a great country park for a large city being to afford perfect 
 relief and rest to the tired citizen by offering to him and pre- 
 serving for him the contrast of broad restful rural scenery 
 unmarred by any of the sights and sounds of city life. This 
 involves many considerations as to the choice of the tract of 
 land, its bounds, its present scenic effect, its accessibility, 
 and the design of roads and paths through it so that the public 
 may enjoy but not destroy its beauties. Notable examples 
 of the very best of this sort of design in this country are 
 Central Park in New York, Prospect Park in Brooklyn, and 
 Franklin Park in Boston, all the work of the elder Olmsted 
 and subjects of the most careful study by all his followers. 
 Space allows mention only of such important problems com- 
 ing under this general head as public gardens, city squares 
 and playgrounds, all requiring distinctive treatment. 
 
 The distribution of city parks, squares and playgrounds 
 brings with it the problem of connecting parkways involving 
 much careful thought as to location and details of grades and 
 so on. Perhaps the banks of a hitherto neglected sluggish 
 stream until now an unsightly dumping ground, can be trans- 
 formed by careful design into beautiful parkways. Never 
 has this been better done than in the case of the "Riverway," 
 a part of Boston's parkway system leading from the city 
 proper to Franklin Park. Beautiful and natural as this all 
 
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 25 
 
 appears now, there is hardly a line or bit of vegetation, except 
 the older trees, that has not been placed by the hand of man 
 where we now see it. Fifteen or twenty years ago this part 
 of the town was one of the ugliest sights imaginable. A 
 brackish stream struggled along through the tangled masses 
 of sedges and swamp land. Now it has the beauty of the 
 most restful park, but every particle of it is the result of 
 design. This is not landscape gardening, but landscape ar-~ 
 
 BOSTON, MASS., RIVERWAY PARKWAY 
 
 chitecture, the work of a "master artisan in matters pertain- 
 ing to land." 
 
 Real estate allotments and new residential town sites 
 offer vital and interesting fields of endeavor for the landscape 
 architect. Here we may get much that is helpful in the way 
 of suggestion from the present day work in these lines being 
 done in England and Germany. But these so-called English 
 garden cities and the German suburban townsite develop- 
 ments can again be copied only in the principles involved. 
 
26 
 
 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 These are fitness, convenience, definiteness, study and skill 
 in adapting needs to conditions, forethought to meet future 
 demands of traffic, and so on. 
 
 All this leads up to, and in fact in many respects is part 
 and parcel of the great subject of city planning in general, a 
 most complicated one, and in the case of great growing cities, 
 never ending, for it is most certainly true that no compre- 
 hensive plan can be made at any given time which will solve 
 
 VIEW OF THE RIVERWAY, BOSTON PARK SYSTEM 
 
 for all time the problems of the great cities' growth. These 
 are constantly changing and must be as constantly modified. 
 Any right study of this great question, while it may solve 
 some particularly important immediate need, as for example 
 that of the right placing and design of a civic center and the 
 grouping of public buildings thereabout and may make pro- 
 vision for other peculiar needs, must be relatively tentative 
 and must by constant effort and study of proposed schemes 
 
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 27 
 
 be kept up to date. Certain right principles, however, can 
 be laid down; further extension, for example, of the vicious 
 gridiron system of streets may be stopped. Efficient control 
 of suburban growth may be placed in intelligent hands and 
 not allowed to go on at the merest whim of property owners.^ 
 In many of these matters the trained landscape architect | 
 can be of greatest service in an advisory capacity. Modern 
 
 PLAN OF A REAL ESTATE ALLOTMENT AT SANTA BARBARA, CAL. 
 
 city planners are realizing more and more that the first essen- 
 tials are practicability, fitness and convenience, and that the 
 beauty sought must be as a resultant of all these, not an ad- 
 junct, not something to be embroidered on, but an intrinsic 
 part of them. Mr. Olmsted has well expressed this in a re- 
 cent address. "The kind of beauty most to be sought in 
 the planning of cities is that which results from seizing in- 
 
28 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 ' stinctively with a keen and sensitive appreciation the limitless 
 opportunities which present themselves in the course of the 
 most rigorous practical solution of any problem." Thisistrue 
 landscape architecture applied to city planning, and it must 
 not be forgotten that it must all be supported by the strong, 
 high minded public opinion of any community in order to 
 result in any marked degree to the city's good. 
 
 \ As an instance of the feeling for the necessity of something 
 of this sort and of the growing sentiment that the utterly 
 
 REAL ESTATE ALLOTMENT AT BEVERLY, MASS. 
 
 haphazard and thoughtless methods, or lack of methods, of 
 the past, must be abandoned and something better substi- 
 tuted, it is to be noted that in this country alone fully seventy 
 cities are engaged in more or less elaborate studies with this 
 purpose in mind. In Europe great city planning efforts are 
 going forward; staid old London is having its very vitals 
 renovated; Berlin is in the midst of similar upheavals, and 
 Paris, which we have been brought up to believe was nearly 
 perfect in this respect, is getting ready to spend untold mil- 
 lions for further improvements of this sort. 
 
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 29 
 
 It has not been possible within the necessary limits of such 
 a paper as this to more than enumerate some of the salient 
 features of this profession and the preparation necessary for 
 the practice thereof. Inadequately and briefly as this has 
 been done, however, the aim has been to make clear that while 
 as its leaders contend this our beloved profession of landscape 
 architecture is most assuredly one, if not in its comprehen- 
 
 of tb 
 
 SLOPE-* BEACON HILL 
 LOWER CHARLES Witt 8RSIN 
 
 1WUEL FELLS** 8EVEE EACH 
 
 STEPHEN CHILD 
 
 BOTQR MM*. -~" 
 
 A CITY PLANNING SCHEME FOR BOSTON 
 
 siveness, the greatest of all the fine arts, its sure foundation 
 and its never failing handmaiden is science. There has been 
 perhaps much too strong a feeling in the past on the part of 
 some of the present-day leaders in this profession that the 
 influence of science in connection with this or any other fine 
 art is of necessity more or less contaminating. Art and 
 science have been regarded as antagonistic. But are they? 
 Certainly the greatest painters, sculptors and composers have 
 
30 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 been absolute masters of the technique, or in other words, the 
 science of their particular art. There was never a truly fine 
 art developed without a complete mastery of its technique. 
 Many of the old masters spent years of patient study in the 
 preparation of their colors alone, and we know how success- 
 fully. 
 
 Quite as certainly is it true that this technique must never 
 be allowed to master art. We know how thoroughly Michael 
 Angelo, for example, in the pursuit of perfection in his art 
 studied anatomy and how some of his later work was marred 
 by his evident desire to show therein his complete knowledge 
 of the most minute details of human anatomical conditions. 
 It is by a thorough knowledge of the principles and facts, in 
 other words the scientific data in each case, and yet by an 
 equally complete subordination of all this to the highest 
 aesthetic purposes or aims that perfection in this or any other 
 art is attained. 
 
 Therefore do we study the past ; therefore do we require 
 the most careful preliminary investigations and the prepara- 
 tion of accurate scientifically prepared topographical plans 
 before we can do any of our work successfully; for fitness and 
 practicability are always to be considered first. It was be- 
 cause they never forgot these things and were trained to do 
 them that the masters in our profession in both Europe and 
 America had such success. Alphand and Andre in France, 
 and Major L'Enfant in the early days here in his preparation 
 of that masterpiece of landscape architecture, the plans for 
 the City of Washington, followed by that greater master of 
 the art, the elder Olmsted, all had scientific training of the 
 most rigid sort and never forgot its principles or their appli- 
 cation to the work before them. 
 
 So must we follow in their footsteps, not as copyists or 
 imitators,but as thorough conscientious students of principles. 
 
 How great shall be the benefit to mankind when in this 
 art which so vitally affects humanity, all such problems as 
 have been referred to and many others allied thereto, shall be 
 attacked and solved in the right spirit ; a true blending of art 
 and science. Neither first, but both keenly and sensitively 
 appreciated for their true worth, for as Mr. Olmsted has well 
 said: "The demands of beauty are in a large measure iden- 
 tical with efficiency and economy, and regard for beauty 
 neither follows after regard for the practical ends to be ob- 
 tained nor precedes it, but must inseparably accompany it." 
 
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