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The
Spirit of Place
by
Bruce Turley
Reprinted from The Understory, June-July 2004
I came across this passage (thanks to Marcie
Lee) from Frederick Law Olmsted, "the father of landscape
architecture." From the book, Frederick Law Olmsted, Designing
the American Landscape, by Charles E. Beveridge and Paul Rocheleau:
Dame Nature is a gentlewoman. No guide's
fee will obtain you her favor, no abrupt demand; hardly will
she bear questioning, or direct, curious gazing at her beauty.
To illustrate his views, Olmsted compared
the effect of a common wildflower in a bank of mossy turf with
that of a gaudy hybrid of the same genus. The hybrid was rare
and would attract immediate attention, he said, but "the
former, while we have passed it by without stopping, and while
it has not interrupted our conversation or called for remark,
may possibly, with other objects of the same class, have touched
us more . . ." This single comparison summed up the difference
of intent, design, and effect between the horticulturist and
gardener on the one hand and the landscape architect on the other.
In Olmsted's judgment, the truth of his
design concepts required the rejection of much gardening practice
of his time. The mid-nineteenth century saw a revolution in horticulture
that introduced hundreds of new flowers and shrubs. At the same
time many plants and trees began to be imported from Japan, China,
and other distant parts of the world. The result was the development
of highly decorative displays of exotic flowers and plants. By
the 1890's he complained that "almost everywhere & most
in the newest work, the landscape end is confused with &
subordinated to other ends--Japanese ends." Olmsted objected
to much of the specimen planting and flower-bedding by gardeners
of his time because it went against the "spirit of place"
and thus against his perception of good taste. His main criterion
for tastefulness was that a design element should be "fitting"
and proper in its setting, not clashing and incongruous.
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