Garden Designing

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 77, 22 June 1927, Page 12

Garden Designing

To Enhance the Home “Crying Need for Improvement’’ SOME people imagine that an architect’s interest in a building ceases when he has made the building sound structurally and been paid his fees. The true architect, however, is primarily an artist and he pictures his buildings finished, decorated internally, and set in their appropriate environment. Mr. A. J. Brown, A.R.1.8.A., gave an address on “Garden Design from the Architect’s Point of View,” under the auspices of the Auckland branch of the New Zealand Institute of Architects recently.

He said that in America landscape architects were specialists, eagerlysought after. It would be many a year before such specialists would find scope for their training here. “Almost every successful garden scheme large or small has, as its climax, a work of architecture,” he continued. “It may be a palace, a casino, a villa, a chateau, or a humble cottage. The building must be so placed to dominate the scheme. Vistas should be designed to frame the architectural composition both in general mass and by focussing the eye on salient features. “Again the architect instinctively feels the necessity for some transition from the formal and artificial lines of architecture to the informality of wild nature. Martin Shaw Briggs expresses this point of view very clearly in referring to the work of the Italian Renaissance school, when he says: ‘So the main principle of these architects seems to have been to lead one in gentle stages from the salons of the house to a formal terrace with balustrades and statues, from the terrace to a formal

Here are two designs made by Mr. Brown to illustrate what can be done with, and what can be done to, a building site. The length of the section runs north and south. The top one illustrates the fallacy of making the house face the main rohd, with the verandah on the south side and absurdly-curving paths running to the front entrance, while an unsightly medley of fowl run, kitchen garden and drying green takes up the sunny length of the section. The lower picture shows a gardendesign, so that “the eye may wander

alley between close-clipped ilex hedges, from the ilex walk to the rustic wilderness of the bosco or wood beyond.’ “Here, of course, the writer is referring to gardens on a large scale, where such features as balustrades and statues would be in harmony with the palace or casino dominating the scheme, but the principle applies, however modest our house or garden may be.” COMPROMISE WANTED Mr. Brown suggested a compromise between points of view of the horticulturist, who wanted to grow as many flowers and shrubs as he could, and the landscape planner. When the speaker was studying in London he was set, as an exercise, the designing of a pleasure island. After the laying out of an open-air theatre, a bandstand and a swimming bath, there was still room for something and stone paving was spread out ruthlessly. Mr. Robert Atkinson, the instructor, had remarked after gazing at the scene of desolation. “You should forget you are architects when you are doing a subject like this!” It was necessary to put oneself in a certain frame of mind to design a beautiful garden, or it might be more accurate to say that one should allow the spirit of the garden to take possession of one’s mind.. The rigid rules governing formal architecture should be departed from in some degree a certain playfulness should be evinced in the main conception and in the architectural accessories. Touching on the history of architectural gardening, Mr. Brown mentioned the grandiose schemes of 17th and 18th century Europe. True the social order which brought Versailles and the Italian Baroque gardens into being had passed away, and each year saw the dividing up of large estates, but the new democracy was turning its attention to civic beautification. To what school of design were the architects to turn if not to the monumental schools of Vignola, Ligorio, Fontana and the Frenchman, Le Notre? Were the gardens of Vei'sailles less appreciated today by a republican nation than by the exclusive court circle? Babylonians, Greeks and Romans all practised formal garden designing, but there was little to record between the days of Imperial Rome and the Renaissance because feudal lords lived in walled castles. RENAISSANCE STYLE The castles of the middle ages gave place to great country houses after the Renaissance and the classical principles found expression in Italy, France and England. The principal elements in these formal gardens were knots and flower parterres, water parterres, terraces, balustrades, statuary and labyrinths. Louis XIV. of France found in

: Andres Le Notre a man who could give expression to vast conceptions of things and provide a setting for such a palace as Versailles. Here the scale was enormous, exceeding by far anything attempted previously. Literary men like Walpole and Pope induced a violent reaction to the naturalistic school. It was not long before gardens began to take on the aspects of wild nature in miniature. The great mistake of the gardeners of the 18th and 19th centuries was to imitate nature rather than adorn it. Then the swing of the pendulum brought a modified phase of the “formal” school back again. “The crying need for improvement in the laying-out of the average garden in New Zealand impels me to take up the question of the small garden.” “No garden can be eminently successful when it is not considered in relation to the house. Accessibility from the one to the other is most desirable. The house should be so designed that the entrances from the

from the formal lines of the terrace, down unbroken lawn, flanked by the brilliance of herbaceous borders, over the sombre clipped hedge to the trees and the distance beyond.” The entrance is at the side and the kitchen garden, near the main road, is screened by hedges and trees. The house faces the sun and there is a loggia from which the family may see the pleasant prospect. The line of flag stones down the middle of the lawn leads to a pergola, a summer house, or perhaps a pool which reflects the trees and the sky. street are kept separate from the principal living rooms and verandah or loggia. Where possible this street entrance should be arranged as a forecourt and laid out in a simple and dignified fashion, having nothing of the intimacy of the pleasure garden.” Simple lawns, drives arid paths, shrubs and perhaps ornamental trees in tubs, flanking the entrance door, may provide the elements for this forecourt. Easy access should be arranged from the living rooms and loggia to the garden itself. The ideal arrangement is to step from the living room on to the loggia and thence by a few broad and shallow steps to a paved or grass terrace extending the full width of the garden front. It should be realised that a level site can never offer the opportunities for interesting garden development to the same extent as that with changing levels.” CHARM OF WATER

Gardens full of beautiful flowers might at the same time be devoid of any charm and mystery other than which the blooms lent. Two essential elements in all gardens in a hot climate were shade and water. Auckland experienced enough warm weather to welcome both. Contrast, of shapes, of open and planted areas, of foliage and colour should be aimed at. “Let the eye wander from the formal lines of the terrace down the unbroken lawn, across the herbaceous border flanking it, the brilliant colour of which is set off by the sombre green of clipped hedge, and over to the trees and the distance beyond,” he said. Tennis courts, owing to the unsightly screens necessary, should be shut off by a hedge and each end should have a background of trees. The kitchen garden might be enlivened by a few fruit trees and flowers. The fashion of growing fruit trees espalier fashion might be tried. The tendency to omit high walls, fences and hedges, enhanced by judicious tree-planting transformed residential thoroughfares into pleasant places. Stone, which was plentiful in Auckland, could be used very effectively for garden walls, built either in mortar or dry. For paths and paving, concrete blocks might be used and it would be advisable to vary the dull monotony of natural cement with colouring matter. Stone looked better still. Random and crazy paving sometimes looked very well if the stone was rustic. Nothing could be more pleasant than grass walks flariked by flower borders and hedges and with some terminal feature, such as a pool, a stone seat or a garden house. Flags set flush with the grass and spaced as stepping stones were useful and interesting. Pergolas should bestride a quiet walk, mark an intersection of paths or terminate a vista; they should not be erected aimlessly.

No element gave greater charm to a garden than water. In a small garden it was almost impossible to have running water. The garden of the Villa a’Este in Tivoli was an outstanding example of the exploitation of running water. The garden court or patio of Italy, Spain and the Orient might be made in a modified form in Auckland. What could be more fitting than to arrange the galleries of Auckland’s new art building round a garden court made gay with formal planting, fountains and sculpture? Trees of dense growth were most suitable as a background for house and garden, but they might be relieved by others of a more feathery nature. No trees were more complementary to architecture than those of the cypress family.