A Publication of the

Foundation

for Landscape Studies

A Journal of Place Volume vıı | Number ıı | Spring 2012

Essays: Landscapes of the Pacific Northwest and Coastal California 3 Laurie Olin: Oyster Light: Pacific Northwest Reflections Thaisa Way: Richard Haag: New Eyes for Old Susan Herrington: Cornelia Hahn Oberlander: Canada’s Modern Landscape Architect Kathleen John-Alder: California Dreaming

Place Maker 15 Susan Chamberlin: Isabelle Greene

Book Reviews 17 Reuben M. Rainey: La Natura come amante: Nature as a Lover; Richard Haag Associates By Luca Maria Francesco Fabris Linda Parshall: The Fortune Hunter: A German Prince in Regency England By Peter James Bowman Elihu Rubin: Pastoral Capitalism: A History of Suburban Corporate Landscapes By Louise A. Mozingo

Contributors 23 Letter from the Editor Ranch in northern California. This issue’s Place Maker compliments from readers enterprise, we strongly urge The emphasis on site and is landscape architect who appreciate the quality of you to enclose a check or scenery at this modernist Isabelle Greene, who has the writing and graphic provide your credit-card planned development result- centered her distinguished design as well as the subjects information on the envelope his issue of ter she pays particular atten- ed in what would be called career mainly in and around treated in Site/Lines. We are that is inserted in this issue. Site/Lines has as its tion to his two best-known today an environmentally Santa Barbara, California. In proud that this publication Donors of $150 and over thematic focus and most innovative and friendly design. Al Boeke, an focusing on the garden appears to occupy a previ- will receive a personally coastal California influential landscapes, Gas apostle of California mod- Greene designed for Carol ously unfilled niche in the inscribed copy of my recent- and the Pacific Works Park and Bloedel ernism and New Town Valentine in Montecito, realm of landscape periodi- ly published book Writing TNorthwest. In writing about Reserve. design principles, represent- Susan Chamberlin makes the cals and that several libraries the Garden, A Literary Conver- the latter, the eminent land- Susan Herrington treats ed the developer, Oceanic reader aware of how this have requested complete sation Over Two Centuries. scape architect Laurie Olin, the work of another pioneer- Properties. His hiring of pio- designer’s knowledge of sets. Although you may In anticipation of your gift who is a native of this ing landscape modernist, neering landscape architect botany enabled her to employ access current and back of any amount, we thank you region, eloquently captures Cornelia Hahn Oberlander. Lawrence Halprin to collab- the region’s xeric vegetation issues electronically on our for helping us to continue its meaning as place in a Based in Vancouver, orate with architects Joseph to achieve the same kind of Web site, we think that read- fulfilling this essential part series of personal medita- Oberlander’s long and dis- Esherick, Charles Moore, and strongly patterned ground ing Site/Lines in its paper of our mission. tions based on memory. tinguished career over the William Turnbull resulted in plane with contrasting colors form is still a preference Olin’s lifelong practice of past sixty years has included a plan for a community of and boldly delineated shapes among many of our readers. With good green wishes, recording his impressions of several commissions in col- sensitively sited second that Brazilian modernist However, we must face the landscape in sketchbooks laboration with notable homes built in the Bay Area Roberto Burle Marx demon- fact that funding for this demonstrates his method of modern architects in Canada style. John-Alder’s essay strated using tropical plants. option falls short of cost. grounding design in an and the United States. As a examines how the initial Here, as in Greene’s other Since the publication of understanding of the under- woman in what was still a design’s compatibility with work, the design simplicity Site/Lines is a donor-support- Elizabeth Barlow Rogers lying patterns of nature. man’s field when she entered the environment has been she derived from the Zen ed rather than a subscription President, As a student in the the Harvard Graduate compromised over time. aesthetic of Japanese gardens Foundation for Landscape School of Architecture at the School of Design in 1943, can also be seen. Studies University of Washington Oberlander, who had been The Foundation for Land- and later while working in influenced by Bauhaus scape Studies is gratified the office of Richard Haag, design theory in her native to have received numerous Olin was influenced by the Germany, asserted her inde- design theories and practice pendence from Harvard’s of this preeminent landscape then-prevailing Beaux-Arts architect. Thaisa Way, who curriculum. Herrington dis- now teaches landscape archi- cusses how in doing so she 2012 John Brinckerhoff 2012 David R. Coffin tecture at Olin’s alma mater, was able to forge a personal Jackson Book Prize Winners Publication Grant Winners the University of Washing- style compatible with the ton, is currently exploring modern architecture move- David Coke and Alan Borg Bianca Maria Rinaldi Elizabeth Hope Cushing Emily Pugh Haag’s development of mod- ment, which was still in its Vauxhall Gardens The Chinese Garden: Garden Arthur A. Schurcliff (1870-1957) Architecture and the Cold War: ernist landscape principles infancy in the United States. Yale University Press, 2011 Types for Contemporary and the Road to Colonial The Berlin Wall and the as a personal design idiom. Kathleen John-Alder, a Landscape Architecture Williamsburg Construction of East and Lawrence Halprin, with fore- In her insightful essay on former associate partner at Birkhäuser, 2011 West Berlin word by Laurie Olin Alison Hirsch this twentieth-century mas- Olin Partnership and now A Life Spent Changing Places Kirk Savage City Choreographer: Lawrence William Tronzo an assistant professor in the University of Pennsylvania Monument Wars: Washington, Halprin and Public Performance Petrarch’s Two Gardens Department of Landscape Press, 2011 D.C., the National Mall, in Urban Renewal America On the Cover: Suzanne L. Turner Architecture at Rutgers and the Transformation of the Sauk River Farm on steelhead fish- Eugenia W. Herbert Karen M’Closkey The Garden Diary of Martha University, looks at the Sea Memorial Landscape ing trip near the Cascade Flora’s Empire: British Gardens Unearthed: The Landscapes of Turnbull, Mistress of Rosedown University of California Press, Mountains, Washington, 1967. in India Hargreaves Associates Plantation 2011 Drawing by Laurie Olin. University of Pennsylvania 2 Press, 2011 Landscapes of the Pacific Northwest and Coastal California

Oyster Light: Pacific Northwest Reflections Since that time I have filled ’m a landscape architect who loves to draw. I have been nearly one hundred fifty drawing ever since I was a child in Alaska, where I grew up. sketchbooks, but probably When I was young, I learned about art from books – there none have had more to do were no galleries or art museums up north at that time – with who I became – a land- and I learned about the environment directly from one of scape architect who has Ithe last truly “natural” places on earth. People often ask me spent his career bringing how someone from Alaska happened to end up in landscape nature and landscape to architecture, something I have wondered myself from time to cities and people – than time. I had certainly never heard of it in Fairbanks in the those I filled in my early 1940s and 1950s. I started college in civil engineering, which years in Alaska and was one of the more intellectual and creative things a person Washington. To draw one could do on the frontier. After a year at the University of has to be quiet and sit still Alaska, I shifted to architecture – something that seemed, if and look very carefully. If only vaguely, more artistic – and came “Outside,” as we called you do, things will reveal leaving Alaska, to study at the University of Washington in themselves. The world will Seattle. This led to the beginning of my professional life in the open and unfold. city and on the islands of Puget Sound. While my teachers were a great influence upon me – espe- There are many stunning cially the landscape architect Richard Haag, for whom several natural places in the Pacific of my classmates and I worked off and on between 1958 and Northwest: the snow-clad 1970 – it was the landscape of Alaska and the Pacific Northwest volcanic mountains, the that nourished and shaped my sensibility; that made me real- green realm of the rain ize that designing buildings was not enough for me. I was forests, and the Columbia taken by space, by natural processes, by ecology, by the life of River canyons and gorge. Of the landscape and its creatures. all the natural features of the Driftwood on beach, Agate Point, these evocative places has its own shape, rocks, waves, and Looking back, I see that I have always been curious and that Northwest, however, the Bainbridge Island, Washington, birds; its own moods, personality, and weather. I have always tried to capture my discoveries on paper. When I most beautiful and stimulat- 1969. Beaches are ideal places to walk, scavenge, play, and eat. For was eight years old, my family moved to the woods and I ing for me may be the Pacific generations people have built shelters in the sand from the began exploring my environment on foot. By the time I was Ocean beaches with their receding cliffs, stranded rocks and logs, driftwood, and battered materials that wash up on the sixteen, I found pleasure in sitting about in the landscape stacks, and vast jumbles of logs and wreckage. Here one sees shore. In these havens they laze about, read, snack, embrace, drawing. My first sketchbooks are of places – not just of people the relentless energy of the earth and its churning, chewing, and take naps out of sight and out of the wind: first as chil- or buildings or trees, but of all of them together. I learned that regurgitating creation. From Tatoosh Island, Cape Flaherty, dren, then as teenagers, and finally as adults. We walk at if one tries to draw something, one has to see it clearly, has to and Neah Bay in the north to Cannon Beach, Bandon, and the margin, at the waves’ edge: looking for shells, studying the look closely to learn how it is made or what gives it character. Coos Bay in the south of Oregon, the coast is magnificent. spindrift and wrack, pushing the shorebirds feeding at the Drawing the landscape became for me a way to study and Possibly the most beautiful of all such places in Washington tidemark ahead of us until finally in irritation they take off, learn from the world directly, and in my years in the North- are the sequence of beaches and bays that form the coast just wheel out to sea, and swing around behind us to alight again west it was a world that was beautiful and very much alive. south of Neah Bay at the northern tip of the Olympic in the shifting lines of foam. Peninsula – a collection of big, rough bays with stacks of rocks The North Pacific is a cold ocean despite the relatively and trees standing just offshore; receding cliffs, toppling trees, warm Japanese current that comes down from Canada and acres of logs, and piles of driftwood. These will forever be associated with the Native Americans who, for millennia, have lived, fished, and set out to sea after whales from here. Each of

3 Alaska in a big arc along the coast, sending masses of cloud Rocks on beach at low tide, who often captured it in and rain ashore. As such it encourages bonfires and feasts. One Agate Point, Bainbridge Island, scenes inspired by the Skagit night my friends and I gathered our haul of fish and clams 1969. River Valley north of Seattle, from a trip to Lopez Island in the San Juans and buried it with its ramshackle build- beneath a large fire we’d built on the sandy beach. We then sleeping, rundown commu- ings, farms, and flooded flats. took a skiff out onto the moonlit bay for an hour or more, stir- nity of Long Beach lay. I wondered if this gener- ring phosphorescent plankton with our oars in great dreamy It was always gray, windy, al, diffuse light and absence swirls and returning to dig out and unwrap the steamed and wet. Somewhere off to of shadows was a prompt seafood from beneath the embers. The fish was rock cod we’d the left in the fog or rain, to the native peoples of the caught that afternoon. It was a feast not dissimilar to others across the river and ranks of Northwest to paint the eaten on these beaches for millennia. Another fond memory is foaming breakers, was weathered cedar planks of going to Willipa Bay where my friends and I would occasional- Oregon. After a time some- their communal homes, ly pick up oysters at the Nahcotta dock. Sometimes we would one would invariably bring which face the grey waters, also make forays to Long Beach and Chuckanut Bay near up Lewis and Clark and the with large, black, graphic Bellingham to gather oysters on the beach at low tide, eating horrible winter they spent designs. The forms with them in their saltwater brine on the spot. not far from that spot, with which they translated ani- When I was in architecture school in the late 1950s, the their tents, boats, and clothes mals and spirits echo the taverns in Seattle closed at midnight on Saturday because of rotting around them. Then shapes of the eroded stones the blue laws that prevented them from selling alcohol on we’d go back to the car, drive down onto the beach and head and fragments of wood that line the estuaries; yet similar Sundays. My schoolmates and I would buy a case of beer at up the coast to the town. Sometimes the tide would be far out, forms occur in the work of humans around the world (one midnight, get in a car, and drive from Seattle to the mouth of and we would dig razor clams by hand. We’d take our haul of thinks of ancient Chinese and Mayan artisans). The stunning the Columbia River, arriving at North Head on the ocean on clams to Jeff Ollila’s home on the main street – he was from a graphics painted by the Haida, Tlinget, and Shimshian on the Washington side in the grey light of daybreak. We’d walk Finnish logging family there – and his mother would fry them, their houses, boxes, chests, masks, and totem poles substitute on a narrow path through banks of wet salal to look at the serving them up to us with pancakes and eggs. After that we’d for shadows that might otherwise come from carving and surf coming in on the gigantic get in the car and go back to school again. depth – from form as revealed in sunlight. Mushrooms from the forest, beach, a wet plain that In this milky light I used to stare at a boulder left by a glac- Agate Point, Bainbridge Island, stretched toward infinity in the In 1969 l spent over a year in a cabin in the woods on ier that stands in the tidal zone on the beach at Agate Point, at 1969. mist. Northward, unseen, the Bainbridge Island. As I painted and drew the landscape and the north end of Bainbridge Island. From the back it is an the objects within it along the beach at Agate Point, the sights enormous, dun-colored rock covered with barnacles. On the and sounds of the Northwest landscape settled into my being other side – facing east out to Puget Sound and the Olympic like so much sediment carried steadily down a river. Here I Peninsula and the native settlement that contains the burial experienced how twice a day, early in the morning and at the site of Chief Seattle across Agate Pass – one finds a set of end of the afternoon, the sun comes under the clouds and ghostly faces, eyes and mouths carved by the people who came shines laterally across the water and hills, the scrubbed roads and camped here before time was remembered or recorded. and buildings of the Pacific Northwest: shimmering on sur- The tide sweeps in and out against its base. Shellfish in the faces, sparkling and glinting on pebbles and fir needles alike, mud below the cobbles and rocks are plentiful and sweet. A casting crisp, elongated, graphic shadows. Much of the rest of variety of fish swim close. The wind blows and mist rises. the time it seems the sky is covered from horizon to horizon Herons, gulls, and fish crows move along the shore. Above and with a luminous gray shade, like some sort of dirty, watery cur- behind the beach a young forest of cedar and Douglas fir slow- tain. It is light, however, and oddly bright. There are no shad- ly reclaim an area logged at the end of the nineteenth century. ows at all and a surplus of detail, grain, and texture. I first It is quiet except for the water and the wind in the trees. heard this called “oyster light” by the painter Richard Gilkey, Although the literature on landscape frequently mentions its appeal to the senses, little is said about sound. And yet sounds are always with us and tell us so much about our sur- roundings, whether we are in the mountains or by the sea. In

4 the Pacific Northwest, one is always listening to the movement and whispers as waves draw back on a gravelly beach. they depart the scene. Unobtrusive plovers, sandpipers, and of wind and water. There is the sound of a light breeze in the The wind, too, has many moods. Sometimes it can be dis- stilts whistle or peep as they scatter, wheeling away along the tops of the trees in a fir forest and the gentle waves lapping turbing – the howl of a storm, or a moan that persists for shore when a person or dog arrives to interrupt their meal. By against a lakeshore. Like the rhythmic crashing and booming hours or days – or merely a steady rushing noise, with the contrast the crows announce their presence with abrasive and of the surf on ocean beaches and the continuous tumult of haunting rubbing of limbs keening somewhere nearby. At annoying calls and disputes as they shift about in groups. river rapids, these sounds produced a level of deep calm and other times it barely catches one’s attention as it rustles The occasional croak of a lone raven in the mountains or well-being in me, especially at night as I descended into sleep. dry leaves or rattles the branches of straggling plants at the the northern portion of the Olympic Peninsula can startle the I grew familiar with the remarkable variety of sounds water edge of clearings, dying into whispers, making soft swishy solitary walker. So too can the sudden, unexpected racket a makes: the sibilance of a light rain as it brushes through sounds in tall grasses. Steller’s jay makes as it arrives, telling everyone that you are branches, needles, and leaves in a forest; the louder cadence of Alone in nature, I became more attentive to the sounds of there and he has spotted you. These gregarious, troublesome, a steady downpour that beats upon the surface of a body of animals, especially birds, fellow creatures that in part define and noisy birds animate the landscape in broad strokes, water, hissing and sizzling as much as crashing; the plash and our responses to the landscape. In the Northwest, the most whereas warblers and songbirds flit along the edges and gurgle of a small stream as it rushes among tumbled rocks common calls along the shores of lakes, rivers, bays, and the through the trees, supplying an intermittent and furtive set of and fallen timbers of a mountain slope; the roar of a cascade ocean are those of seagulls and crows. The gulls with their cheeps and chirps, with occasional trills and songs from sunny as it spills off a ledge and falls freely into a gorge below; the constant squawking and bickering and complaining – usually spots and clearings. Within the fir forests there is a smaller groans and pops of ice in the sun as it warms and shrugs (it seems) from somewhere further along the shore – instill in population of birds – mostly creepers and tits, harvesting bugs against constraining rocks and the listener a sense of isolation and vast distances. Most of the in the bark – and one doesn’t hear too much, except occasion- Goat Lake, Cascade Mountains, squeaks, creaks, and snaps other shore birds are relatively quiet. In the shallows herons, ally the abrupt knocking of a large pileated woodpecker. These Washington, 1963 under foot; the sibilant rattles silently stalking small fish and crabs, emit but a single croak as gorgeous creatures are furtive, but their attacks reveal that there are large, older trees not far off. Likewise the liquid bur- bling and trilling of red-winged blackbirds announce the proximity of a clearing, with water and the tangle of reeds, cat- tails, willows, and alders common to the lowlands and valleys of the region. Stepping out of the silent moss and dim green shade of the forest into brilliant sun, one suddenly hears any number of songbirds singing and chattering away.

In reflecting on the part of my life spent in the Pacific North- west, what I most remember is its sonorous quiet, its wild ani- mals and marine life, and its luminous oyster light. At such times the words of the poet Theodore Roethke come to mind: “Over the low, barnacled, elephant-colored rocks, Come the first tide-ripples, moving, almost without sound, toward me, Running along the narrow furrows of the shore, the rows of dead clamshells; Then a runnel behind me, creeping closer, Alive with tiny striped fish, and young crabs climbing in and out of the water…”1

“I think of the rock singing, and light making its own silence…”2

– Laurie Olin

1 “Meditation at Oyster River,” in The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke (New York: Doubleday & Company, 1966), 190. 2 “The Rose,” Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke, 204. 5 Richard Haag: New Eyes for Old scape architects, architects, artists, and writers in and around towers; their setting on the promontory; the Olympic ichard Haag is considered by many to be one of the Seattle. This approach draws on the qualities of the natural Mountains visible in the far distance. As well as being inher- most influential landscape architects of the twentieth landscape and its importance to the urban culture while also ently visually dramatic, the towers served as a reminder of the century. Although he is based in the Pacific North- expressing the region’s cultural connections to Japan and the city’s industrial past, which had only just come to an end. west, his projects have won international recognition Pacific Rim. In the Emerald City, as some have called Seattle, When, as head of the university’s new landscape-architecture for their artistic subtlety and their groundbreaking Haag’s landscapes offer an abstraction of nature in the urban program, Haag solicited ideas for the site through a national Rsolutions to the challenges of postindustrial landscapes. context by translating the natural landscape into poetic experi- student design competition in 1963, he discovered that others Haag’s designs for two Seattle sites, Bloedel Reserve and ences. His artful manipulation of landforms has become a rec- did not share his vision. Of the one hundred-plus submis- Gasworks Park, are among the most celebrated modern ognizable element of his approach to design. sions, not a single proposal suggested retaining any of the American landscape-design projects. Gas Works Park initiated Gas Works Park opened in 1975, reflecting more than a existing structures – or for that matter, the ground on which interest in the adaptive reuse of toxic landscapes, serving as decade of community activism and design process. The park they were built. Instead, the competitors proposed tearing the first demonstration of bioremediation in the public realm. includes 20.5 acres of land projecting four hundred feet into down the remains of the industrial plant and carting the toxic Bringing together science, politics, community participation, Lake Union, with nineteen hundred feet of shoreline. The soil to external landfills in order to create a public place in the and design, Haag opened new doors to collaborative design canonic nature of the project lies in its development of meth- tradition of Central Park. A tabula rasa approach appeared to practice. Bloedel Reserve is recognized for its poetic response ods of adaptive reuse of waste landscapes as public spaces – be the only acceptable option. to a complex landscape of environmental degradation and not merely ameliorating toxic land, but transforming it on-site In 1969, however, Richard Haag Associates (RHA) was abuse. Haag’s design suggests an alternative language that syn- in order to make both the site and the process of restoring it retained by the Seattle Park Board to analyze the site and thesizes Japanese philosophies and design principles with publicly accessible. develop a master plan for a new park. Having already devel- the nature of the Pacific Northwest landscape while grappling Almost immediately after arriving in Seattle, Haag was oped the basis of his argument, Haag recommended preserva- with the challenges of extractive industries – including log- drawn to the abandoned Gas Works – the tall, somber black tion of portions of the plant for “historic, esthetic and ging. In the words of University of Virginia Professor Elizabeth Meyer, these projects “open up connections between both the environmental and cultural histories of a particular place – Seattle and the Pacific Northwest – and phenomenological response and ecological thinking.” In 1958 Richard Haag was invited to establish a department of landscape architecture at the University of Washington. He accepted, moved his small practice to Seattle, and launched a career that is still busy today. The 1960s was a turning point in the profession of landscape architecture, and Haag’s teaching reasserted that landscape, as the landscape architect Gary Hilderbrand has written, might be the site for “urgent and meaningful work.” He taught students to treat design as a form of civic engagement in the environment – an engage- ment that might even address the challenges outlined by writ- ers and scientists such as Rachel Carson in Silent Spring (1962). Criticizing earthwork artists for treating land as card- board rather than landscape, Haag explored the shaping of landforms to create dynamic spaces. The fact that his design process is a form of inquiry is evident in his drawings and notes as well as in his teaching. With almost all of his five hundred-plus projects in the Pacific Northwest, Haag has helped to shape a regional approach to design shared with the larger community of land-

Looking across Gas Works Park from atop the Great Mound, the dips and rises of the landscape clearly evident (photograph by 6 Reuben M. Rainey). utilitarian value.” After an intense public process, his master While the radical nature garden from the meadow plan for an industrial-preservation park was unanimously of Gas Works Park is imme- beyond. He then covered the approved by the park board. The board members had not only diately obvious as one mounds in blue fescue, a come to see the disturbed site with new eyes but also to recog- approaches the site, Haag’s color that resonated with the nize the potential in a new approach to site history. design for Bloedel Reserve, commonly seen grey blue of Instead of erasing the site’s former purpose, Haag’s master another disturbed site, is Seattle’s sky. plan focused on recycling its buildings and machinery: by the more subtle and requires a In the center of this gar- adaptive reuse of key structures, the rich history of the site has thoughtful eye to understand den stood the remains of the been both salvaged and underscored. What has been most the sublime nature of the swimming pool in which the often noted is Haag’s recycling of the gas-generator towers; the design. In this garden, Haag poet Theodore Roethke had exhaust-compressor, which has been painted in primary col- does not aggressively con- drowned. Haag transformed ors; and the boiler house, which now serves as a picnic shelter. front the viewer but rather the pool into what he titled Equally revolutionary, however, was that Haag proposed pre- entices and draws the partic- the Garden of Planes, serving the poisoned soil and treating it in place. Through ipant through a series of which was composed of two phytoremediation techniques being developed by a collaborat- experiences, prompting a pyramids: one a solid and ing soil scientist at the University of Washington, the site response that is as powerful one a void. This was not would be healed and cleaned. In essence, the toxins would be as that evoked by Gas Works a kare-sansui garden of rock broken down by means of naturally occurring bacteria from Park. and sand but instead an the soil and the addition of compost, in conjunction with the Haag’s introduction to abstracted notion of Zen natural hydrological systems of the land. Plants would eventu- Bloedel Reserve was in 1969, meditation and place. A large ally grow on the site, further processing toxins either by leech- when Prentice Bloedel com- pine tree with dramatic roots ing them from the earth or breaking them down into safer missioned his advice on a shapes the corner nearest components. reflecting pool initially the entrance to the guest- The story of the park is not limited to that of the buildings designed by Thomas Church. house. (Unfortunately, this and the soil; rather there is a larger narrative of the region Over more than fifteen years garden has been radically itself: the story of land, ecologies, and cultural practices. One Haag worked with Bloedel to altered by the current stew- story writ large for the park is that of Seattle’s natural land- develop the landscape – most ards and the Garden of scape as it is experienced from a modern city. Most immedi- famously creating a sequence Planes no longer exists.) ately, views of and from the park engage Seattle’s iconic of four garden spaces, which The second garden, the landscapes: water and coastline, trees and forests, hills and were designed between 1978 Anteroom, was created by mountains. At the same time, the site suggests critical reinter- and 1984. Haag describes Kites soaring above the Great Mound selectively pruning a bog landscape that had been logged in pretations of these icons. The looming gas towers suggest these spaces as reflecting an at Gas Works Park, below them the the 1880s. Stumps, uprooted trees, and logs are carpeted in industrial mountains; the toxic valleys suggest the hydrologi- abstraction of principles and capped toxic soils (photograph by moss, fungi, and ferns as they decay back into the earth. It is a cal systems that have been called upon to heal this site; and approaches learned in Japan, Thaisa Way). primordial place – wet, thick, and beautiful, with standing the “forest” is revealed to be a thin strip of trees separating where he spent two years in trees providing shelter and intimacy. As Elizabeth Meyer has park and parking lot. Kite Hill reminds us of the presence of the mid-fifties, immersed in the Japanese landscape. It was noted, “Deep time – the longue durée, the thickness of time – is toxic soils generated by the mountainous towers. during this period, he claims, that he developed his vision of embedded into spaces and surfaces,” and this garden engen- This place is not an Olmstedian respite from the city but design as a nonstriving effort. The sense of economy, the ders a response from deep inside the visitor. The path mean- instead a complex monument to our industrial age, both its influence of Zen, the habit of, as Haag put it, “borrowing and ders, mimicking the stroll in a tea garden, and then an end is successes and its grand failures. The movement of rainwater using parts of what was there”: all this had a profound effect revealed; this garden prepares one for the next stanza of the through the site’s undulating form recalls the ever-present tox- on his thinking. Thus the interrelated spaces at Bloedel sequence. ins and tar that still bubble up periodically in the grass lawns. Reserve are not Japanese gardens per se, but gardens designed The Reflection Pool culminates the series of formal gar- Similarly, the meager boundary of trees does not protect us in a Japanese manner and influenced by Japanese philosophy. dens. Nearly two hundred feet long and forty feet wide and from the chaos of the city but instead engages the dual nature One enters the first of the garden spaces along what Haag surrounded by a ten-foot-high yew hedge, the reflecting pool of Seattle as both urban and natural, as culture in nature. called a Ceremonial Path, the sequence beginning with a gar- is silent. This is a garden composed of ground, water, plants, den space adjacent to a Japanese-inspired guest house. Haag’s and sky, each in its most elemental form. It is as if Haag has first move was to enclose the area by expanding several exist- ing mounds of earth left over from another garden project so that they physically although not visually separated the new 7 dynamic and reciprocal rela- Cornelia Hahn Oberlander: tionships between culture Canada’s Modern Landscape Architect and nature and between the ad Cornelia Hahn Oberlander come to Vancouver, individual and the land- British Columbia, in 1953 with the ambition of scape. Bloedel Reserve, designing private gardens in the spirit of the Arts which is now open to the and Crafts movement, her career would have faced public, offers the visitor both fewer stumbling blocks. In fact, such an ambition refuge, in the form of Hwould have been so readily accepted that we might never have enclosed spaces, and glori- heard of her. Perennial border gardens, woodland groves, ous prospects across the and rose gardens were at that time greatly admired throughout meadows to the water and the city as the perfect accessories to the Craftsman-inspired islands of Puget Sound. The domestic architecture constructed before World War II. dynamic alternation of scale Fortunately Oberlander had no intention of designing histori- and outlook represents the cally inspired private gardens. Instead she sought to create experience of the Pacific modern landscapes for the public. This type of landscape Northwest – in particular, proved indispensable in postwar Vancouver, which was trans- the Seattle region – where forming itself into Canada’s third largest city. immense trees create For more than half a century Oberlander has been design- canopied spaces while hills ing landscapes that embrace the language of modern design and cliffs offer expansive with simple yet bold forms and a limited plant palette that views. reinforces the spatial qualities of vegetation. Her work has Although Bloedel and Gas been strikingly public and urban, bringing water and the ani- Works Park are the best- mate world of plants into environments of concrete and glass. known designs by Haag, For Oberlander, a modern landscape does not sit on top of a Reflection Pool at Bloedel Reserve peeled everything away to there are others where he has choreographed an equally structure like a doily; rather, it is part of the roof, the walls, by Thomas Church and Richard Haag, reveal nature at its most potent dialogue between and among users and place. and the ground plane of the architecture. a glade in the woods (photograph by basic, offering a place for Steinbrueck Park, at the tip of Seattle’s Pike Place Market, This vision is beautifully evident at Robson Square, a gov- Reuben M. Rainey). culture to engage. might at first glance seem like a leftover triangle of urban ernmental and cultural complex spanning three blocks in From the reflecting pool’s space poised above a three-level garage. Instead, this terraced downtown Vancouver. Oberlander joined the architect Arthur stillness, the visitor moves into the bird sanctuary – although park with its circular landform suggests a small microcosm of Erickson’s design team in 1974, and her input was crucial to in Haag’s plan one can only view the sanctuary from an edge, Seattle’s hills and valleys; both Puget Sound and the distant making the central block of this project a three-dimensional for this is the place that is given over to nature. There is a Olympic Mountains can be admired from the abundance of canvas that expresses the natural environment of British pond in the sanctuary, and through the clearing in the woods seating areas. The homeless, the tourist, and the local office Columbia. Indeed, more than 60 percent of the structure on around it one can see a series of tiny islands and peninsulas; worker each finds space within the park to experience the this block is unrecognizable as a building. Waterfalls double as the mood of this space, which is larger than the previous gar- views, the climate, and the chatter. Haag’s design for the interior walls, a water basin serves as a luminous ceiling for den, is at once contemplative and interactive. Battelle Research Center campus, near Laurelhurst in Seattle, offices below, and a series of stramps (a combined ramp and Drawing on Prentice Bloedel’s description of his vision for offers a more introverted landscape, one defined by mounds stairway system) provide access to the extensively planted the reserve, Haag once wrote that its gardens and landscape surrounding a central pond. The experience here encourages upper-plaza levels, which are also rooftops. Reclining on the “represent a synthesis of humankind’s immutable bond with quiet contemplation. large convex mound designed by Oberlander, you have no idea nature, a bond that transcends time, language and culture.” He Such designed landscapes have shaped not only the cultural that you are sitting on top of office space below. also suggested that his contribution was a “cerebral exercise and environmental image of the Pacific Northwest but also the Oberlander and Erickson exploited the symbolic potency of that paid a special tribute to Jay Appleton – it was the ultimate architecture and landscape architecture practiced in the region plants at Robson Square. Working together on the planting distillation of his prospect/ refuge theory: its geometry was the and well beyond. Today Haag’s influence remains powerful plan, they used vegetation to represent the coastal mountain essential counterpoint to the Anteroom, the Reflection Room around the globe: in China he is designing new projects; and the Bird Sanctuary – each space interpreting Nature in a in Naples, Italy, designers working on the adaptive reuse of the different but complementary way.” Haag’s design suggests Bagnoli steel plant site see his accomplishments as both a challenge and a source of inspiration. – Thaisa Way

8 range that is the city’s backdrop. They placed high-altitude ject, dominated. Again, since women were perceived as less plant material such as kinnikinnick on the upper plaza levels knowledgeable in the technical areas of design, this created and selected for the lower levels a combination of Japanese another barrier to their acceptance as modern designers. maples, magnolia trees, and rhododendrons. Today a cher- Nonetheless, Oberlander had been determined since child- ished landmark in the city, Robson Square was a major turn- hood to become a landscape architect. In 1940 she was accept- ing point in Oberlander’s career – one that displayed her ed into Smith College’s program of architecture and landscape vision of fully integrating landscape and architecture, both architecture. There, Kate Reis Koch, one of her first instruc- formally and spatially. tors, encouraged Oberlander to look beyond small-scale resi- Oberlander faced obstacles as a landscape architect precise- dential design to the city, and to consider the relationship ly because she wanted to practice modern landscape architec- between landscape and urban planning – that in fact the city ture. Women were granted access to education in landscape was a complex landscape to be planned. The Graduate School architecture after World War II, just when modern architecture of Design at Harvard University customarily only admitted and landscape architecture gained momentum. Yet at the same men as full-time students, but the war had precipitated a dra- time the very idea of modern design presented challenges to matic drop in enrollment. In response to this crisis, Harvard’s them in practice. The popular conception of the Modern Governing Boards authorized the Faculty of Design to admit architect was a male genius who did not rely on history to women. On March 5, 1943, Oberlander received a letter from inform his design work, instead fashioning new styles by vio- then-Dean Hudnut admitting her to the Graduate School of Cornelia Hahn Oberlander and When Oberlander entered lating familiar rules and conventions and making ground- Design. Later that summer she joined the second class in the Peter Oberlander in front of the school in 1943, however, she breaking use of technologies and materials newly available school’s history to include women as full-time students. Here Einstein’s Tower (photograph by found that many of the profes- after the war. Women were seen as lacking both the requisite yet more obstacles awaited her. Judy Oberlander). sors still wanted little to do spark of genius and the technical training necessary to fill this A familiar tale in the history of modern landscape architec- with anything modern. Then- role. Even the drawings created by modern designers no ture is that of the revolt at Harvard’s Graduate School of chairman Bremer Pond, who had a fondness for topiary, was longer relied on skills obtained in the fine arts, such as paint- Design in the late 1930s. Initially recounted by Garrett Eckbo particularly resentful of Oberlander’s zeal to learn about mod- ing and drawing. As construction drawings and specifications in Landscape for Living (1950), the story goes that architecture ern design. When Pond requested that students include service became increasingly formalized, plan views and sections, professors Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer, originally part entrances in their residential-design projects, Oberlander which conveyed technical information needed to build a pro- of the German Bauhaus, greatly inspired landscape architec- argued that not everyone could afford servants. When Pond ture students Garrett Eckbo, encouraged students to employ historically inspired forms and James Rose, and Dan Kiley. ornaments, Oberlander countered that her designs would Much to the distress of the express forms that all people could interpret. When Pond landscape-architecture facul- asked students to produce watercolor washes depicting their ty, who supported École des design proposals, she perfected her technique with Leroy let- Beaux-Art models of teach- tering and drafted with ink on linen. ing, the threesome champi- Oberlander graduated with a bachelor of landscape archi- oned modern design and tecture degree in 1947. This was a feat – particularly given that wrote articles in Pencil Points many female students enrolled in the Graduate School of magazine (now Progressive Design at Harvard did not continue their education after the Architecture) promoting a new end of World War II. Although she likes to describe herself vision of landscape architec- as “this crazy girl who wanted to design modern landscapes,” ture. Given their successful her determination paid off. Arriving in Philadelphia in the careers as modern landscape early 1950s when it was striving to reinvent itself as a modern architects, it might be metropolis, she worked as an associate in the firm of Dan inferred that their rebellion had influenced the landscape architecture department at Harvard.

Robson Square demonstrating the integration of plants as part of the building structure (photograph by Turner Wigginton). 9 Kiley and with architects Oskar Stonorov and Louis Kahn on efficiency that comes with industrial standardization. Her and texture that appear to float above the city. This landscape several public-housing projects. mother Beate (née Jastrow) Hahn was a trained horticulturalist has become a symbol of Vancouver’s commitment to sustain- Why did Oberlander persevere? Part of the answer can be who taught Oberlander and her siblings the art of gardening ability, and it is not an empty symbol. The lush groundcovers traced back to her own upbringing a continent away in and who was familiar with modern design principles, such function as a sponge, soaking up rainwater and delaying water Germany. She was born in Mülheim an der Ruhr on June 20, as creating a garden that was considered another room of flow into the city’s overtaxed drainage system. 1921, but her family eventually moved to the Berlin suburb of the house. Oberlander recalls playing daily at her best friend’s Oberlander’s work on integrated green roofs brought her Neubabelsberg and became very active in the vibrant intellec- house, which had been designed by the architect Erich back to Germany in 2005. In collaboration with the Toronto tual and artistic life unfolding in Berlin. For example, her Mendelsohn. Certainly, life in Weimar Germany exposed firm Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects, Oberlan- father, Franz Hahn, an engineer, studied the Baukasten or Oberlander to one of the early phases of modern architecture der was commissioned to design the rooftop of the Canadian “building blocks” housing system designed by Walter Gropius and design. Although her family escaped Germany in the late Embassy on Leipziger Platz, Berlin. This on-structure land- and Fred Forbat in the 1920s. 1930s and eventually settled in the United States, modern scape was composed of a simple palette of plants that referred On top of the roof at Library Made of wood, steel, and glass, design was never merely an abstract construct for her; it was a to another great North American watercourse: the Mackenzie Square. These mature plants help these interlocking forms could way of life she had experienced firsthand. River, whose length is second only to the Mississippi. Bringing absorb rainwater and delay its flow be assembled in numerous Another contributing factor to Oberlander’s success has the image of a Canadian river to a green roof in Berlin also into the drainage system (photo- ways to achieve a multitude of been her talent in the technical areas of landscape design. Her resulted in a personal victory – she convinced Peter Oberlan- graph by Susan Herrington). configurations, but with the innovations in on-structure planting have enabled her to fully der, her husband, to travel with her. Peter grew up in Vienna realize her vision of integrating landscape and architecture. and, like Cornelia, he had fled Nazi persecution to North Oberlander’s willingness to undertake the technical challenges America, eventually founding the School of Community and needed to realize Robson Square, for example, was one of the Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia and reasons she was hired as its landscape architect. While green persuading Oberlander to join him in Vancouver. Although he roofs had been incorporated into some of the earliest First travelled extensively as a renowned architect and planner, he Nations architecture in British Columbia, this was one of the had refused to return to Austria – and Germany was a country first urban projects to make extensive use of planted struc- he had never even visited. Together they toured the staging tures in public spaces connected to the street. Knowledge of grounds of her youth in Wannsee and Berlin. They also visited lightweight growing mediums and waterproofing membranes Potsdam to see Einstein’s Tower. Designed by Erich was in its infancy at the time. In fact, the other landscape Mendelsohn between 1919 and 1921, the building is a quintes- designers working on Robson Square were perplexed by the sential example of German Expressionist architecture, and a idea of plants growing in “a medium” instead of garden soil. structure they had both admired before they had even met. Nonetheless, Oberlander found the right, lightweight mixture Weimar influences would figure again in Oberlander’s work of peat, sand, and perlite, and the plants grown therein in 2009 when she began working as a consultant to to reached full maturity. Sharp & Diamond Landscape Architects and the architecture Oberlander went on to create numerous on-structure land- firm Busby, Perkins + Will for the new visitor center at scapes in Canada and the United States, and in the 1990s she the VanDusen Botanical Garden in Vancouver. Established in designed a green roof for the high-rise building Library 1975, VanDusen Botanical Garden displays plant collections Square in Vancouver. Expanding the ecological role of the structure, she designed a landscape for Library Square that was integral to retaining the storm water falling on the flat roof. She also planted the roof much like a painted surface. It was visible from adjacent towers, and Oberlander wanted people to see it “and recall the magnificent natural landscapes that surround us.” She used a simple palette of blue and green fes- cues and kinnikinnick, arranged in sinuous swaths, to refer to British Columbia’s Fraser River. The Library Square green roof has now matured. Those lucky enough to experience it firsthand are confronted with a windswept field of grasses that create flowing bands of color

Entrance to the VanDusen Botanical Garden Visitor Centre (photograph 10 by Stuart McCall/North Light). bols of the New Objectivity California Dreaming movement. The connections n July 23, 2009, the Sonoma County Board of to Oberlander’s work – Zoning and Adjustments met to consider a fifty- nature seen through a mod- million-dollar expansion of the main lodge at the ern lens – are obvious, and Sea Ranch. The proposed expansion had already she quickly drew the design received a strong endorsement from tourism offi- team’s attention to the Ocials and Sea Ranch residents. If approved, the existing twenty- images in his 1928 book room structure would be replaced with new facilities: sixty Urformen der Kunst. In addi- semi-detached, family-friendly bungalows; a new restaurant, tion, to identify native plants bar and lounge; updated meeting rooms; a health and wellness that could inspire the roof spa; and a swimming pool. structure, Oberlander and A press release issued by Passports Resorts LLC, a resort the Architects Busby, firm catering to an exclusive clientele and the current owner Perkins+Will team consulted of the Sea Ranch Lodge, made an aggressive case for the pro- The Journal of Archibald ject, calling the proposed plan a “sensitive” update that hon- Menzies (1794). Menzies, a ored the Sea Ranch’s environmental legacy. Only five acres of Scottish botanist, accompa- the fifty-two-acre parcel would be developed. Ocean views nied Captain George from the Coast Highway, though narrowed, would be framed Vancouver on his explo- by LEED-certified bungalows whose sod roofs and sloped rations of the Pacific profiles honored key elements of the original award-winning Northwest. The design team designs and visually minimized the architectural intrusion. settled on the leaves of the The press statement also noted that Passports had agreed to white bog orchid identified retain a public trail to a seaside overlook called Black’s Point – by Menzies and the archi- although it did reserve the right to close the trail to the public On top of the roof at the VanDusen from tropical South Africa, tects translated its foliage into built form. during certain planned events. Botanical Garden Visitor Centre (pho- the Himalayas, South The visitor center opened in the fall of 2011. Approaching During the meeting, a member of the Sea Ranch Design tograph by Stuart McCall/North Light). America, and the Mediter- the building, you are immediately struck by its dramatic Board raised an objection to the plan. Like the lodge, the ranean, and from the boreal rooflines. The exterior of the roof has been planted by board is a legacy of the original master plan. An oversight forests, Great Plains, and Pacific Coast of Canada. The garden’s Oberlander, who personally oversaw the installation. Its ver- committee, it reviews all development and construction pro- primary mission is to promote an understanding of plants and dant, lanceolate planes, which are visible from parts of the gar- posals and oversees the management policies for the commu- their fundamental contributions to life; the design team den, create rolling surfaces that in no way suggest a roof of a nal recreation facilities and open space. The group has always sought to express this mission in the design of the visitor cen- building. The roof ’s underside is ribbed with wooden beams included members of the original design team, making this ter. While it was planned that Oberlander would consult on that undulate above the interior and exterior spaces. quasi-public agency in effect the guardian of the Sea Ranch’s the green roof, she extended her influence beyond the roof ’s Conceived more than thirty years after Robson Square, the initial project objectives and the de facto gatekeeper for its surface to help the architects shape the entire roof form. VanDusen Botanical Garden Visitor Center is an exquisite community vision. During their initial meetings, the architects were intent on example of how Oberlander’s on-structure landscapes have Having already forced certain concessions from Passports, finding a plant that would serve to generate the form for their come full circle. While Robson Square’s landscape forms were the board argued that the new plan was insensitive to the building. Oberlander immediately recalled the work of dictated by the geometric orthodoxy of the interior structure, planners’ original design intent. It quickly became apparent, German photographer Karl Blossfeldt. Known for using van- here the organic forms of the landscape shape the very archi- however, that this objection lacked public support – both guard photographic techniques to capture his imagery, tecture itself. – Susan Herrington within and outside of the Sea Ranch community. The Board Blossfeldt gravitated to an unlikely source for inspiration – withdrew its objection, and the plan passed easily in a show- plants, particularly flowers. While flowers were often the sub- of-hands vote. jects of romantic art, under Blossfeldt’s lens they became sym- The Sea Ranch Lodge, unlike the community’s Hedgerow Houses, Condominium One, and Swim Cub, has never received architectural acclaim. However, it was the nominal heart of the original master plan, and its property contains

11 one of the community’s highly prized open-space meadows. At That same year, Oceanic Properties, the issue is whether or not the purity of this open space should be development arm of the Los Angeles firm sacrificed to allow the lodge to update its facilities to accom- Castle & Cooke, hired Boeke to oversee their modate contemporary lifestyle preferences. And if so, how will operations. Flush with cash and land as the this impact what is generally considered to be an iconic exam- result of the recent purchase of the Dole ple of mid-twentieth-century environmental planning? Company of Hawaii, Oceanic sought to posi- The lodge itself houses an eclectic mix of social venues and tion itself as a major real-estate developer. sales opportunities. These include a community post office; a Boeke built his first project, the Mililani gift shop; and a bar, restaurant, and lounge. There is also a New Town in Oahu, on Dole agricultural real-estate office, which is strategically located to snare poten- land. The project’s financial success forced tial buyers dazed by the mellow glow of good food, good wine, Oceanic to seek new development opportu- and a golden ocean sunset. Guest rooms allow nonresidents to nities to shelter profits from taxes. Sights experience the beauty of this Northern California community. were then set on California. Rates vary depending upon the quality of the view and the Boeke first saw the five-thousand-acre amenities provided; large corner rooms provide panoramic sheep ranch that would become the Sea views of the ocean, while secluded garden suites with fire- Ranch from the air. Quickly grasping the places and hot tubs foster a more intimate experience. unique development potential of this vast, Today members of the landscape-design community, windswept landscape, he immediately decid- myself included, tend to idealize the early history of the Sea ed Oceanic should purchase the property. Ranch, forgetting that the project has always been a well-mar- He spent the next week walking the land and keted dream sold to a willing public. We overlook this fact Coastline, the Sea Ranch (photo- well as Alexander’s scheme to cataloguing its attributes for the sales pitch that ultimately because the original dream was so successful that it changed graph by Elizabeth Barlow Rogers). use agricultural greenbelts to convinced the company president to support the project. At the way succeeding generations of designers perceived and control suburbanization in the the same time, Boeke began informal negotiations with the worked the land. Indeed, the very grammar of the original San Fernando Valley. However, he gravitated to project man- ranch owner, Ed Ohlson. The discussions between the high- proposal, with its site-specific, nonrepresentational mimesis of agement and cost estimating because, in his words, he wanted flying developer and the down-home rancher took place in wind and water, established new ways to think and talk about to learn how to design and build with codes and budgets in sheep pastures and over a gastronomically eclectic mixture of design. The new designspeak combined a reverence for ecolo- mind: “all the things you’re stuck with” before you lay pencil local abalone and homemade strawberry shortcake in the gy and the vernacular with bold graphics and hip site happen- to paper. rancher’s kitchen. ings. The result was a trendy subversion of social norms and In 1959, frustrated by the constraints of property-limit plan- As Boeke later noted, a cool, damp sheep ranch wasn’t design standards that blended easily with a cool, laid-back, ning, Boeke traveled to Sweden, the epicenter of modern exactly the typical “New Town site.” He knew that whatever was California style. But as indicated by the two sides of the cur- urban development, to see “the other perfect and opposite built would remain a hard sell – particularly when compared rent lodge debate, this story line is much more complex and example.” This trip, part of a study-abroad program hosted by to developments in the more amenable climates of Santa Cruz, layered than it seems, with the designers and the design itself Penn State University, gave participants the opportunity to talk Carmel, Monterey, and Big Sur. The relatively remote location, positioned in the middle of a dialogue shaped by both utopian with Swedish government officials about the country’s inte- which, according to one of the original design team members, idealism and fiscal necessity. grated planning approach in which these same officials served was “three hours by car or two hours by Porsche north of San The Sea Ranch saga began with Al Boeke, a financially savvy as client, planner, decision maker, and project coordinator. In Francisco,” presented another obstacle. Yet Boeke was con- idealist who dreamed of creating the best planned community an oral history, Boeke repeatedly used the word “quality” to vinced that the climate could be made comfortable enough for in the United States. An architect by training, the handsome, describe his impressions of the experience. When he returned second-home development if he selected the right design articulate Boeke personified all the attributes of the ambitious, home, Boeke read all he could on the physical and economic team. Perhaps most important of all, Boeke had personally self-made man. Born in Denver and raised in Los Angeles, he attributes of Swedish New Towns and immersed himself in the fallen for the wild landscape and believed its romantic appeal served in the military during World War II prior to studying nuances of this rational, egalitarian, and health-conscious would draw a certain type of buyer: one less interested in architecture at the University of Southern California. Early in urban-design approach. He rebranded himself a New Town active outdoor recreation and play and more inclined toward a his career, Boeke worked for Neutra & Alexander in Los expert and began lecturing on the topic. quiet, meditative relationship with the land. Angeles, where he was exposed to innovative open-space devel- Boeke selected the landscape architect Lawrence Halprin, opment projects such as Baldwin Hills in Los Angeles, with whom he had worked on Mililani, to coordinate the mas- designed in conjunction with the planner Clarence Stein, as ter-planning effort. A letter from Boeke, dated July 2, 1963, established the project directives. These included an evalua- tion of the geography and ecology for all five thousand acres,

12 an overall site plan, a schematic plan for approximately one for the Sea Ranch environmental studies, described the dramatically placed on a cliff edge overlooking the sea, it thousand acres inclusive of lot and utility layouts, and detailed approach: transformed into a promontory boldly resisting the forces of plans for five model homes. Additional memos called for the erosion. You can learn the history of the land over a hundred years, discreet accommodation of cars, and buildings clustered Meanwhile, Boeke, who knew that sophisticated ecological the knowledge can tell you what processes are at work in around preserved common land, which, Boeke argued, would design was not enough to sell homes, hired Marion Conrad to the region – both constructive and destructive. From these, distinguish the Sea Ranch from its “suburbanized” California be the project’s marketing guru. A scion of old California, you can learn how to use the land, how to plan a develop- competition. Above all, though, Boeke was a realist; he expect- Conrad skillfully used her connections with the San Francisco ment; where to locate buildings, roads and plantings. You ed the design to “remain flexible” and not “too explicit” before elite to make sure the right people and publications heard do not necessarily have to conform to the processes at work, market testing. about the Sea Ranch. Part of her strategy involved an exclusive but at least, if you choose to go against them, you are in a The schedule was tight. Boeke wanted an environmentally debut party. The press release for the event enticed potential better position to estimate the consequences and costs. friendly design, but he needed to meet strict development clients with the slogan “dynamic conservation”: a clever brand- deadlines that would allow Oceanic to recoup its investment The Sea Ranch, with over ten miles of coastline; vast, ing of Halprin’s open-space design that championed land through a relatively rapid sale of property and homes. He had windswept meadows; steep, forested hillsides; and the San development “for human use and enjoyment without sacrific- already hired the politically connected engineering firm Sarles, Andreas Fault afforded Halprin the opportunity to explore his ing its natural values.” Coordinated tours of the “most unusual Brelje & Race to survey the property boundary and submit process-oriented design thesis at a scale that matched the second-home colony ever conceived by nature and man” design-approval packages to the county. Halprin’s office would High Sierra surroundings. What resulted was an innovative included a picturesque walk or horseback ride along the sea ensure that the proposed development parcel could accommo- design whose formal logic appropriated the fluid dynamics of cliffs past the old ranch barn at Black’s Point, panoramic views date the desired design features – roads, house clusters, village coastal landscape. Most notably, an analysis of the site’s wind from Crow’s Nest Drive, and a stop at the new restaurant and center, golf course, swim club, and airport. patterns by Halprin’s office established principles that enabled country store. Halprin was not really known as an ecological designer project architects Joseph Esherick, Charles Moore, and William The graphic designer Barbara Stauffacher (today, Stauffacher before the Sea Ranch. Trained at Harvard during the Gropius Turnbull to develop a prototypical slant-roof building that Solomon) polished the nature-lover-oriented sales theme. She era, he began his professional career in the office of Thomas deflected wind and captured sunlight, thereby creating out- hired Ernst Baum, a Sierra Club photographer, to memorialize Church, where he worked on the iconic Dewey Donnell garden door spaces that mediated the most unpleasant aspects of the the landscape at dusk and dawn. According to Solomon, the in Sonoma County, California. In 1949, he opened his own cool, damp climate. When this form was nestled against one “glowing golden, pink, and amber” images captured a “version firm. His early projects, although successful, were relatively of the ranch’s cypress hedgerows, the sloped profile mimicked of beauty that the real-estate men, bankers, and buyers can modest gardens and urban plans in the Modernist tradition. the wind-sheared form of the trees; when clustered and agree is profitable, photographic and sexy.” Reasonably priced However, beginning with a properties ranged from six thousand to thirteen thousand dol- sketchbook labeled “The Sierra lars, depending upon the quality of the view. Notebook,” which he used In 1966 Conrad convinced John Peter, the lifestyle editor of between 1956 and 1958, Halprin Look, to feature the Sea Ranch in an issue devoted to California. began to formulate a design The two-page spread, nestled among articles on swimming, philosophy based upon obser- LSD, Anna Halprin’s Dancer’s Workshop, Synanon, and the vations of the landscape’s rejuvenating effects of estrogen-replacement therapy, boldly physical properties. The basic proclaimed: “Fifty years from now the rest of the United States premise called for landscape will look like California.” The article praised the Sea Ranch for design to follow the cyclic “pioneering the proposition that you can develop the land rhythms of geologic formation without destroying the landscape,” and went on to extol the and decay. In 1962, a year virtues of a lot layout that guaranteed every homeowner an before he began work on the ocean view across a native-grassland meadow. A dramatic Sea Ranch, Halprin codified double-page photograph that captured Charles W. Moore and these ideas in an article titled William Turnbull’s award-winning Condominium One, “The Shape of Erosion.” This is perched above a windswept sea, dominated the two-paragraph how Richard Reynolds, the cul- description. No cars were in view. tural geographer responsible Unpublished transcripts of the Look interview, however, tell a more complex story. According to Boeke, the Sea Ranch may have begun “as an emotional response to the land” but it quickly evolved into a complicated financial transaction that Existing barn and original houses, the Sea Ranch (photograph by Elizabeth Barlow Rogers). 13 required a long-term commitment. As already indicated, the for, all coastal development. The commission found the Sea good marketing skills – in the alternative language they set critical issue pivoted around the question of how to profit Ranch in violation of public-access and affordable-housing in motion. from the land without destroying its basic qualities. Boeke, in regulations, and put a stop to the project. Negotiations The unvarnished story of the Sea Ranch overturns many consultation with the design team, decided to develop the between the two parties remained at impasse for over seven deeply held suppositions concerning heroes and villains in environmentally sensitive but more scenic southern area first. years. Eventually, the State of California passed legislation to development scenarios. For example, the Coastal Commission This included the lodge parcel. Boeke knew he would exert the resolve the dispute, but not before the commission extracted litigation did increase public access to the beach and force the most influence over the design and finances early in the pro- concessions that forced the Sea Ranch to more fully open itself construction of low-income housing. Yet, when the commis- ject’s development. The environmental sensitivity of the to outsiders. First, the fledgling community had to maintain sion decreased the overall density in order to preserve coastal southern area necessitated a low density that both convenient- five open-access points to the shoreline, and fifteen view corri- open space they inadvertently destroyed the initial, carefully ly reduced cost and exploited the marketing potential of the dors from the Coastal Highway. Second, it had to build forty- crafted fiscal integrity of the project, including its close coor- beautiful setting. Density would then increase along with five affordable-housing units, which eventually became dination with the innovative open-space plan. This in turn, financial obligations as the project moved north, past a Pebble housing for lodge and golf-course employees. These conces- tarnished the project’s environmental reputation, but not its Beach-inspired golf course toward the river and town of sions clearly benefitted the general public, but they also irrevo- profits and popularity. Today, lots sell for three hundred thou- Gualala. This fiscally shrewd buildup was to culminate in a cably changed the project’s environmentally friendly fiscal sand dollars and homes prices range from five hundred thou- pedestrian-friendly village. The Sea Ranch, Boeke observed, structure. Most significantly, the Coastal Commission reduced sand to over two million dollars. would evolve and “adapt itself to time, and change in the mar- the number of development parcels by more than half. As a And what about the personal dreams the Sea Ranch embod- ket, and change in need,” as its designers and developers con- result, the cluster-housing concept was no longer economical- ied? Around the time of the Coastal Commission moratorium, tinued to wrestle with the issue of profit and the quality of the ly viable. Higher lot prices and larger homes were required to Boeke left Oceanic and moved back to Los Angeles to pursue a place. recoup development costs; the pedestrian-friendly village was more lucrative (but never built) New Town project on Catalina Halprin spoke about the physical attributes of community. never built. The policy of “dynamic conservation” then became Island with Bechtel Corporation and the Wrigley family. He According to his vision, the untamed landscape would envelop a travesty as trophy homes were crowded together close to the eventually retired to the Sea Ranch. Halprin, Moore, and built forms in the southern half of the site, whereas “dense” sea cliffs along a “suburbanized” street system. Esherick took advantage of a design-team discount, and pur- and “crystalline” buildings would frame the landscape in the What exactly does this story tell us? Probably nothing that chased some of the site’s best lots and buildings. Marion less-scenic north. This strategy established two alternative designers do not already know, as well as some things they are Conrad never lived at the Sea Ranch. She died of a heart attack visions of landscape design and stewardship that were seam- afraid to acknowledge. For example, design is a complex while playing tennis with friends. Barbara Stauffacher lessly integrated with the project’s finances. Perhaps in process fraught with compromise. The client is everything. Solomon, one of the few remaining members of the original response to mounting charges of exclusivity, Halprin also Change is inevitable, and control is an illusion. And ecofriend- design team, recently told me she considered the project a stressed that the proposed village, if constructed, would ly design, particularly when applied to a second-home resort, tragic conception that marred the stark beauty of a windy, iso- anchor a community that imposed no membership restric- is an elitist venture serving those with the time and money to lated sheep ranch. But she was a young designer, a single tions on the basis of income, race, or religion. This social purchase a morally cleansing ambiance. Which brings us to woman with a family to support, so she eagerly accepted the utopia, as it continued to evolve, would function as a living the ironic fact, seldom discussed, that much environmental work. The commission bought security and helped pay for her framework to safeguard the community’s environmental preservation owes its very existence to the elite’s time and own version of the California dream – a small house in values. money. But there is also a moral here that is linked to the eco- Stinson Beach. Recently, she was commissioned to design a By 1967 the first stage of the project was well under way. nomic and social limits of individual agency and to hackneyed fiftieth-anniversary commemorative logo that will grace The subdivision layout for the initial one thousand acres had notions that dreams fade away, like the grand ambitions of objects in the lodge gift shop. Shortly after receiving approval been approved. Guidelines and community bylaws for the youth, the promise of Synanon, or the miracle of estrogen from the Board of Zoning and Adjustments, the lodge restruc- ownership and management of the open space were complete. therapy. Personally, I prefer the equally banal but less cynical tured finances to avoid foreclosure. The expansion project is Architectural standards for the homes had been codified in adage that dreams are essential to design. Sometimes, when currently on hold awaiting a turnaround in the economy. built form. Designs for a lodge and recreation center were in these dreams occur at a particular place and at a particular – Kathleen John-Alder progress. From a design and business standpoint, all the parts moment in time, they can inspire a new cultural lexicon that were in place for the development to proceed smoothly and then forces us, both individually and collectively, to think I am indebted to the Architectural Archives of the University of expensive, full-time consultation was no longer considered more deeply about the harsh fate of environmental dreams Pennsylvania; the Halprin Collection; the Environmental Design necessary. Boeke began to terminate services, beginning with within a society structured to incentivize profits. When this Archives, University of California, Berkeley; the MLTW Collection; Halprin. happens, designers have to have a little faith – buttressed by Katherine Smith for graciously sharing Albert Boeke’s oral history; Then an economic slump slowed the pace of development. and Barbara Stauffacher Solomon for her insight and a copy of her unpublished memoir. Shortly thereafter, a huge oil spill in Monterey Bay led to the 1972 formation of the California Coastal Commission, which was charged with the regulation of, and issuance of permits

14 Place Maker beaches. Her swaths of colored foliage reference Roberto Burle trips to his house with its “wonderful tactile qualities,” and the Marx, the Modern-era Brazilian landscape architect, who has pergola festooned with wisteria and ‘Climbing Cécile Brünner’ been a touchstone since her earliest commissions. Greene, roses that rained petals onto her swing. More important, she however, deploys color in the service of water conservation in believes, has been the role that art has played in unlocking her Isabelle Greene, F.A.S.L.A. the semiarid West. Silver is her signature because plants with creativity and guiding her toward decisions that are right for he Valentine garden in Montecito, California, made gray leaves reflect sunlight and retain water efficiently. the landscape – or for that matter, life. Patrick Taylor’s list of the world’s twenty most Greene has described herself as being daunted upon first Now age seventy-seven, Greene has lines on her face in all influential gardens, which was published in a 2006 seeing Carol Valentine’s two-acre site. Although it sat at the the right places – from smiling and from furrowing her brow issue of The Garden, the journal of Britain’s Royal base of the wild Santa Ynez mountain range in Santa Barbara when she is lost in thought. Feelings well up, causing her voice Horticultural Society. No mere pontificator, Taylor County, it seemed removed from nature because it was to catch in her throat, or she will be so filled with joy that Thad just edited The Oxford Companion to the Garden (an update enclosed by tall white walls, with a brand-new white house as she will do a little shimmy and grin. Her childlike sense of to the famous Jellicoe encyclopedia), and the list boiled it all its focus. After a decade of drought conditions, water rationing wonder is palpable, and so is her disapproval of those who down. It is fun to dispute his choices, but the influence of the was in effect. When Valentine asked for a Zen garden, Greene don’t measure up. Sometimes that judgment has been directed Valentine garden on designers around the world cannot be thought, great – lots of gravel could help solve irrigation and at herself. denied. Widely written about from the moment it was runoff problems. She decided to put timidity aside and “go for Other people have always believed in Greene’s abilities, finished, it demonstrated that xeriscapes (as drought-tolerant broke.” however, even when she didn’t. Shortly after graduating in 1956 gardens were then called) could be rich with symbolism and As it turned out, the only clearly Zen-like quality is near the from the University of California, Los Angeles, with a B.A. in lush with color – just about the opposite of the way they were front door. In this minimalist space, a pond is rimmed with botany, she began illustrating the botanical research of her often perceived in the popular imagination. irregular, bluish stones. These stones are also used to symboli- husband, J. Robert Haller, who taught at UC Santa Barbara. A Undertaken in 1980 by Isabelle Greene, F.A.S.L.A., before cally represent a stream, which flows around the side of the colleague asked her to illustrate his forthcoming botany text- she had even obtained her landscape architecture license, this house and tumbles down several terraces on its steep, ocean- book, and some of the drawings were selected for the First garden is the perfect synthesis of the ecological sensitivity, view side. The terraces – filled with bands of silver, gray, and International Exhibition of Botanical Art and Illustration at sustainability, and aesthetic blue succulents and groundcovers punctuat- the Hunt Botanical Library in 1964.1 She remembers traveling she has been exploring since ed by spiky agaves and aloes – are abstrac- to Pennsylvania alone to see her “prim, kind of tight-ass, care- the early 1960s. Greene uses tions of Indonesian rice paddies. Their ful drawings” on display, looking in the glass case, and think- permeable surfaces; drought- planting patterns suggest water draining ing, “Hmm, not bad, needs some training. I think I’ll go back tolerant, often native plant- into the stream. In the absence of this acad- to school in art.” And so she did. ings; foliage color and emic explanation, a visitor will find a garden Michael Dvortsak, her teacher in the Art Department at UC texture for interest instead of that is a stunning composition of swirling Santa Barbara, ignored her for several weeks in Beginning flowers or clipped hedg- colors and subtle contrasts, reminiscent of Drawing, and her confidence plummeted. Eventually he ing; and abstract patterns to the distant ocean on a stormy day. It is fasci- glanced over her meticulous renderings and told her she was shape well-proportioned nating from any place within it. Much of the too good for her own good. He asked her to draw with her spaces instead of formal property requires no irrigation, but the left hand. Isabelle promptly burst into tears; then she picked design conventions. Many of parts that do are clustered for efficiency. A up her pen and produced a drawing of great beauty that the colors she chooses or the rose or two can be found, and an arbor pro- revealed both her subject and her heart. Six years went by, dur- shapes and stones she plays vides a shady spot to sit near the vegetables, ing which she learned to “Never make a tentative line.” Being with allude to California’s which are tucked into one of the terraces. “ruthlessly honest,” she says, was the pivotal lesson. She natural landscape. She grew Her talent for landscape architecture, also figured out how to “drop below the intellect level and let up in the southern part of Greene insists, is erroneously attributed to a kind of knowing bubble forth” that taps all her experiences the state, studying botany her Pasadena upbringing as the grand- and puts her on the right track. Still, she continued to take and hiking its sage-covered daughter of Henry Mather Greene of classes. One day Dvortsak pulled her aside and said, “Isabelle, mountains, rocky arroyos, Greene & Greene, the celebrated Arts and I’ve taught you everything I have to offer, and you don’t seem sparkling deserts, and foggy Crafts-era architectural partnership. And yet, when pressed, she’ll concede that her abili- ties might be encoded in her genes. Certainly her love of gardens stems from 1 Greene’s botanical drawings from the 1964 exhibit are in the permanent collection of the Hunt Institute. Her landscape design Isabelle Greene (photograph by is well documented in the museum catalog mentioned above and William Joyce). on her website: www.isabellegreene.com. 15 to know what you want to do with it, so I have nothing more Hunt-Stambach House he and his wife had recently purchased. with “the heavy lifting.” This includes sharing design work and to offer.” She left immediately, devastated, but realized he was The house had to be relocated to save it from demolition, coping with the technology, which frees her to focus on the right. She also realized what she wanted to do with her life. and before long Greene was not only devising a Victorian-style larger picture. She also acknowledged the masons, metal and She wanted to design gardens. landscape to complement the house but also siting it on the wood crafters, contractors, and gardeners who have always The notion that she should go into landscape architecture new lot and designing the carport. When Alexander’s clients, played a large role in creating and maintaining the quality of came from one of the people who believed in her. Based on a Jon and Lillian Lovelace, needed a swimming pool, he recom- the gardens. few ideas she had tossed out, Dr. John Carleton asked her mended Greene. The pool she designed for the Lovelaces in Three views from a 1982 sketchbook, showing the Kern to design the areas around his new clinic in downtown Santa Montecito in 1972 set a new standard and has since appeared River plunging down a slope, illustrate the way Greene finds Barbara. Selecting the plants was the easy part. Her color in numerous books both in the U.S. and abroad. Neither kid- the patterns that give shape to her ideas. The first is a natural- palette was inspired by pictures in a book on Burle Marx that ney-shaped Modern nor neotraditional Postmodern, it seems istic drawing that captures the scene; the second is abstracted; she loved. A second book on Japanese gardens constituted all organically suited to the unusual location she selected. Hidden and the third reduces movement to its essence with firm, dark that she knew about design. Adding her own imagination and away in an oak woodland strewn with huge sandstone boul- lines tracing the water’s course through the planes that con- her intuitive understanding of spatial relationships, she recy- ders from an ancient geologic episode, there are just enough tain it. She laughs as she describes the process she developed cled concrete from a driveway demolition into Japanese-style openings in the tree canopy overhead to permit sunbathing. to discover what is right for an actual job site: “I began to learn stepping stones leading to a shady patio devoted to private Boulders from the site trace the contours of the pool, and one that the more comfortable I could make myself, the more like- reflection. A second, sunny patio near the entry was envisioned of them serves as a diving platform. No one can tell it is a lap ly it would come, so I’d ask for a cup of coffee, I’d sit down, I’d as a more public space. Decomposed granite (a sandlike, native pool, including the ducks that fly in each year to nest there. banish the clients, I’d do everything as boldly as I could, and gravel) replaced thirsty lawns along the parking strip, and she With no formal education in landscape architecture, Greene finally I just learned that letting myself love something brings improved the circulation by creating a walkway for pedestrians was suddenly the most sought-after garden designer in Santa up the answers I need.” Now she says, “I can tell right away – I to separate them from traffic in the driveway. Barbara. It was essential to acquire more technical knowledge need a hollow here, I need shade, I need a sense of view, I need I met Bob and Isabelle Haller during this period, when I for the increasingly large commissions coming her way from purple, I need a wispy bush, I need flat planes – I just know was in the fourth grade and they lived across the street near the big estates in Montecito, so she applied for work with these things, but drawing . . . .” She trails off as she contem- the beach in Isla Vista, not far from UC Santa Barbara. There every licensed landscape architect in town. They were all one- plates how hard she still finds it. were only two floor plans on our block of new houses, and the man offices, and no offers were extended. She decided to hire This hasn’t stopped the accolades from piling up for her fenced backyards for each contained identical rectangles of one of them to work with her instead. Michael C. Wheelwright landscape design, which was officially elevated to the status of lawn. Her garden, however, was absolute magic. With a lily agreed to help, and by 1974 pond, leafy shadows, dichondra to roll in instead of grass, and they were associates. He interesting corners to explore, it seemed like its own little encouraged her to take the world. Kids liked to linger there. grueling exam to obtain a The Hallers had no children themselves, so when the mar- landscape architecture riage ended, Isabelle literally struck out on her own. Although license. She failed almost all she was on the leading edge of the counterculture, the nascent parts of it. After no less than women’s movement had no bearing on this decision; she sim- seven attempts and several ply had to support herself. Rather than go back to her maiden years of three-hour name, McElwain (difficult to pronounce) or keep Haller (as the roundtrips to Los Angeles to drawings were signed), she decided to try her luck as a Greene. pursue course work, she Her grandfather had always been both supportive and loving. finally passed the last sec- Greene’s path to prominence was anything but typical. The tion. clinic project won an award in 1966 and was written up in Newly licensed in 1982, the local newspaper. It also caught the eye of interior designer she opened her own office, John Alexander, who asked her to do a garden for the historic Isabelle C. Greene & Associates, Inc. When I inter- viewed her recently, she was quick to credit her associates

Overview of Valentine garden, Santa Barbara (photograph by Russ 16 Marchand). art when the University Art Museum at UC Santa Barbara Books landscape architects in the duced a plethora of biogra- Fabris, an Italian scholar launched a show devoted to her work in 2005. Greene did United States; by his phies and design critiques and academic, brings solid installations in the gallery to accompany it. David Streatfield, mid-sixties he possessed a encompassing the full arc of qualifications to his task. the preeminent California landscape historian, noted in the portfolio of built work num- Haag’s work. Oddly enough, Educated as an architect, he catalogue that her gardens are not “placed” in nature the way La Natura come amante: bering over five hundred this is not the case, and this is a research fellow in build- modernist designs typically are, but “completely embedded” in Nature as a Lover; projects, including site plans neglect of the full range of ing technology at Milan it. In his view, four of her projects (Valentine, Lovelace, Richard Haag Associates for private residences, Haag’s work is a large blind Polytechnic. He has authored Pulitzer, and Overall) “are unquestionably among the finest By Luca Maria commercial buildings, an spot on the retina of land- numerous essays on archi- examples of western garden art of the late twentieth century.” Francesco Fabris exposition, a nature reserve, scape-architectural scholar- tectural topics and a book on Recognized as one of the originators of environmentally Maggioli Editore, 2010. memorials, an embassy, and ship. (Haag himself has environmental planning, and aware contemporary design who was practicing sustainable urban parks. Two of his written a few articles on Gas is a design critic who coordi- landscaping before the term was coined, Greene is in the Richard Haag works, by over- Works Park but little else.) nates the Project and Design history books. The American Society of Landscape Architects was a child whelming There have been perceptive section of the Italian journal made her a fellow, its highest honor, in 1999. Carolann prodigy. At the consensus of and illuminating studies of Costruire. In addition, this Stoney’s 2011 film, Women in the Dirt, positions her as the elder age of four, his profes- Haag’s individual works by Tocquevillian design critic stateswoman of the current generation of California landscape while attend- sional peers, Patrick Condon (Bloedel has known Richard Haag architects. But a surprising number of the entries in her pro- ing a national have become Reserve), Susan Frey (Bloedel for a decade and journeyed ject list are for architectural consulting, and she has worked in conference on canonical – Reserve), and Elizabeth to several of Haag’s works many places throughout the country: in New York, Alabama, horticulture Gas Works Meyer (Gas Works Park) and accompanied by Haag him- Florida, Pennsylvania, and “The Happiest Place on Earth.” with his father, Park in Seattle the Harvard Graduate School self. Such professional cre- Unfortunately, this last commission at Disneyland, where she he astonished and the of Design sponsored an dentials, combined with was hired to design the grounds of the Grand Californian the gathering Bloedel exhibition of Haag’s work in Fabris’s firsthand site obser- Hotel, proved to be an unhappy experience. Her designs were of nurserymen Reserve on the early nineties. Also Gary vations and personal rela- revised so many times by others that she refused to even see by correctly Bainbridge Hilderbrand has authored an tionship with Haag, foster how the landscape turned out. In her work, Greene confided, identifying a Island in insightful essay on Haag hope for excellence. Excel- the ends never justify the means: “The means are what you number of exceedingly rare Washington State. In addi- as a teacher and Laurie Olin lence there is, but there are must get right. They generate their own ends – it’s all one plant species and demon- tion to coordinating the a useful but brief overview also shortcomings in this organic whole, and therefore the ends will be right too.” She is strating his sophisticated wide range of distinguished of his life and work. How- well-meaning monograph. glad she said no to projects she didn’t believe in even when grafting skills. Unlike prodi- work flowing from his small ever, not until Luca Maria Fabris adheres to the typi- she was hungry for work because “it’s nice to go from the cra- gies whose narratives fade Seattle office, Haag founded Francesco Fabris’s design cal design monograph struc- dle to the grave with a whistle-clean conscience.” later in life, Haag continued the degree program in land- monograph, La Natura come ture, a familiar workhorse Photos of her client and fast friend Carol Valentine, who to develop his precocious scape architecture at the amante: Nature as a Lover, has approach proven to be safe, died in 2009, and Greene’s grandfather hang on the wall of her knowledge of plant ecology, University of Washington anyone attempted to chart reliable, and effective, where- office, standing watch over her drafting table. Greene confi- combining it with his other and quickly gained a reputa- and critique a comprehen- in illustrations far outweigh dently states that she plans to be designing for another thirty gifts to pursue a career in tion as one of the profes- sive selection of Haag’s work. text: there is an introduction years, but she feels she is just beginning to discover what she landscape architecture. sion’s outstanding educators. The erotic undertone of by the critic, copiously illus- wants to say with her drawings. And after carting her grandfa- These included a highly Given his many notable the title is not derived from trated case studies with brief ther’s piano around for decades, she is finally playing it again. original artistic talent, prob- achievements over a career some sort of hyperbolic critical observations, a nota- Composing music is a new creative outlet. “It’s part of allow- ing curiosity, strong self- spanning a half century, one Romanticism on the part of tion of the subject’s awards, a ing myself to know these things beneath the intellect, and to confidence, and a keen sense would expect historians and Fabris; rather it comes from biography (in this case an explore them, and to feel enriched by them,” she says, remem- of the power of nature to design critics to have pro- a remark by Haag himself autobiography written, curi- bering a lesson from Dvortsak: that’s all art is – how well you evoke the deepest and most characterizing landscape ously, in the third person), put yourself to it. – Susan Chamberlin intense emotions. By his architecture as the only pro- mid-forties Haag had fession that regards nature emerged as one of the most as a lover. As such, it is an original and influential apt distillation of his design sensibility.

17 and a select bibliography. Fabris’s discussion of developed by bringing his perspective. Haag would be ue to prefer these landscapes and Steven Kellert, and is Given his ten-year acquain- Haag’s engaging personality academic career to bear on the first to laugh at this in large part because of the one of the most engaging tance with Haag, one would and sophisticated approach his professional work. characterization – but so pleasurable sensations they dimensions of his work. have expected an interview – to design, as well as his This overview, as far as it would a Zen master. arouse. Haag’s frequent Although Fabris does de rigueur for many design analysis of specific works, is goes, is a good one. We can Fabris makes some other inclusion of symbolic mention in a number of monographs – but none is both perceptive and helpful. appreciate Fabris’s succinct- significant omissions as well. mounds, well-defined edges, instances Haag’s profound included. The text is pre- To his credit, he highlights ness and his avoidance of an He fails to discuss in suffi- and valley-like forms in his debt to Japanese design tra- sented in both Italian and Haag’s “independence of overblown, jargon-ridden cient detail some key ele- site plans clearly reveals ditions gleaned from a English. The English transla- thought,” “reverence and introduction of the kind that ments of Haag’s design Appleton’s influence. On one Fulbright year in Japan, tion by Jeremy Scott is for respect for the cycle of has marred many a mono- sensibility. Perhaps if he had occasion he explicitly inter- more discussion is called for. the most part clear and accu- nature,” and “intelligence graph. Furthermore, his included an interview with preted his “garden of planes” Haag has a good grasp of the rate, although on one occa- that is magnanimous and analysis in individual case Haag this might have been in the Bloedel Reserve to Japanese language and is a sion Stott errs by translating perceptive.” He notes the studies is often instructive. avoided. (Haag’s autobiogra- his client Prentice Bloedel as serious student of Zen the Italian for “landscape profound influence of the For those of us who know phy at the end of the volume a symbolic expression Buddhism and Taoism. As architects” (architetti del pae- Japanese design tradition on Haag personally, though, is far too brief to address of prospect/refuge theory. Patrick Condon has pointed saggio) as “landscapers,” a Haag and his ability to cre- Fabris’s portrait of the man these matters.) The first of However, Haag departs out, some of the seven stages term regarded more as an atively adapt it to the himself does not quite cap- these is Haag’s interest in somewhat from Appleton in of Zen spiritual practice are epithet than a title by most Northwest region of the ture the extraordinary quali- cultural geographer Jay emphasizing the emotional expressed in the Bloedel members of the profession. United States. He discusses ties of his personality. Haag Appleton’s prospect/refuge intensity of responses to Reserve garden sequence, Fabris’s deep respect and Haag’s pioneering work in is a legendary teacher whose theory of human aesthetic landscapes of prospect and including the consciousness admiration for his subject bioremediation to detoxify charisma has inspired a preferences for a certain type refuge. For Haag they are not of the transience of all living resonates throughout the the soil at Gas Works Park in whole generation of stu- of landscape – an influence merely pleasurable; they things and the peace of book, which is more a cele- Seattle, a project that dents. His theory class that is reflected in some of evoke exceedingly powerful satori or enlightenment. bration than a critique. His inspired new directions in shunned the opaque and Haag’s most important work, non-rational feelings. On While Fabris attempts to most outstanding contribu- urban park design by pre- pretentious literature of such as the Bloedel Reserve, one occasion he character- bring this element of Haag’s tion is his analysis of a broad serving the industrial rem- much contemporary design Gas Works Park, and his ized them as the “rapture of values into focus in his case range of Haag’s work, some nants on the site. He praises criticism and emphasized an Orange County Great Park the deep.” Haag clearly studies, his commentary twenty-six projects over a the designer’s sequence of immediate awareness of competition entry. In brief, intends his designs to stir mostly skates on the surface fifty-year period. The variety four garden rooms at the one’s design context; he even Appleton claims there is a the most primitive depths of of a much deeper sensibility. of the projects is remarkable, Bloedel Reserve for its power taught his students to camp strong preference encoded our brain’s limbic system. This may be because Fabris and their sophistication and to inspire meditation. He out on a site for several days in human DNA for land- Another key element in is aware of Haag’s notion quality are outstanding. For commends Haag’s regional to deeply absorb its intrinsic scapes that allow one to “see Haag’s design psychology is that his work is open to mul- those who know mostly approach to design and his qualities. One typical Haag without being seen.” These his understanding of chil- tiple interpretations, and it Haag’s canonical works, this extensive use of the natural final exam contained two landscapes contain dren’s play as an expression is to his credit that he wants monograph will reveal the vegetation of the Pacific questions: “What is the pre- “prospects” (high viewing of transcultural universals: to avoid imposing a lengthy scope of the accomplish- Northwest; the way he builds sent phase of the moon?” points such as mounds and climbing to high points, and pretentious commen- ments that have earned him upon the intrinsic qualities and “What plants are cur- hills) and “refuges” (valleys, exploring cavelike spaces, tary. (Haag reminds one of the reputation of being of a site and respects its rently in bloom in Seattle?” caves, and forest edges offer- digging and hiding. Haag’s Robert Frost who, when one of the most important ecosystems. For Fabris, his There is an aura about him ing shelter and protection). highly creative playground asked the meaning of one of landscape architects of the subject’s designs are “predi- reminiscent of a Zen master. Such habitats were crucial designs are based on this his poems, simply read it twentieth and twenty-first cated upon a balance A conversation with him is for survival in early humani- understanding, which unfor- again to the questioner.) centuries. The author’s between nature and technol- punctuated with long ty’s hunter-gatherer culture, tunately Fabris does not dis- Instead, the author invites us analysis is accompanied by ogy,” a sensibility Haag silences, followed by sudden and Appleton believes that cuss. This perspective, which to develop our own analysis outstanding illustrations, brilliant insights. One is they still deeply resonate in is grounded in evolutionary based on the apt and abun- many of which have never aware of his intense, laser- our brains today. We contin- biology, places Haag in the been published. like gaze that incinerates theoretical company of E. O. one’s academic pretensions, Wilson, Steven Pinker, Judith as well as a subtle sense of Heerwagen, Gordon Orians, humor that keeps matters in 18 dant illustrations he has pro- The Fortune Hunter: A extending not only across sojourn in England: his credentials he had ready In 1830 the first two vol- vided. This is welcome, but German Prince in Regency Europe but to the United youth, military service, early access to high society in and umes, entitled Briefe eines succinctness has its limits. England States as well, where he was amours (including the fact around London and Verstorbenen (Letters of a Also, as helpful as the By Peter James Bowman admired by Frederick Law that he saved drafts of love Brighton. He visited famous dead man), appeared and illustrations are, there are Signal Books, 2010 Olmsted and many other letters so he could reuse sites, paid calls, dined lavish- proved an immediate suc- some problems with the way important American land- them when appropriate), ly, gambled, gossiped, stayed cess. The unnamed author Fabris organizes them. The Hermann scape designers, previous trips on the up all night at balls, and and editor were identified lack of captions is unfortu- Ludwig several of Continent, his first journey never failed to observe the only as a prince and his nate, but even more so is the Heinrich, Prince whom visited to England (with visits to English and their customs anonymous friend; both absence of any sort of mean- of Pückler- Muskau. (See numerous parks and gar- with a fond if incisive and were, of course, Pückler him- ingful order to the case stud- Muskau the recent col- dens), his marriage to Lucie skeptical eye. Throughout self. This ruse, readily appar- ies themselves. (1785–1871) lection of Pappenheim (who was his adventures he corre- ent to the well-connected, Chronological arrangement achieved wide essays, Pückler daughter of the Chancellor sponded faithfully with presumably added a certain would have allowed us the renown during and America, ed. of Prussia and a divorcée Lucie, usually several times a frisson to the letters’ appeal. opportunity to trace Haag’s his lifetime as a Sonja nine years his senior), the week, relating details of his Pückler and Lucie were development. Alternatively, a prolific writer of Duempelmann, couple’s shared devotion to bride search and his encoun- delighted by the substantial typological arrangement letters and travel German his vision for Muskau, the ters with prostitutes (some- income these volumes gen- would have been useful. descriptions, Historical resulting financial woes, and times too candidly for erated and accordingly the Instead, Fabris appears to with over twenty Institute, finally the mutual decision Lucie’s taste). He also remaining letters soon have tossed his twenty-six published vol- Washington, taken in their eighth year of described at length the appeared in two subsequent examples into a box and umes to his DC, 2007). marriage to divorce so that a places, people, events, and volumes, again to enormous pulled them out randomly. credit. But his enduring Peter James Bowman’s new, wealthy bride might sal- politics unfolding around success, winning accolades There is one exception. He fame, at least among land- carefully researched book vage their landscaping him; lamented the weather; from the likes of Johann does conclude with Haag’s scape historians, rests on his does not focus on Pückler as dreams. It was hardly sur- fretted about his health; and Wolfgang von Goethe and most recent residential pro- accomplishments as a gar- a landscape designer. Rather, prising that the couple much else. When finally he Heinrich Heine. The Briefe ject. Is he treating these den designer; he undertook as the title makes clear, it sought salvation in England, had to admit his failure to also caused a sensation in works as some sort of non- to transform his entire prin- examines the prince’s cam- for many impecunious con- land an heiress, he expended England under the title Tour rational, Zen koan arrange- cipality of Muskau into a paign to find a wealthy tinental gentlemen were his meager remaining funds in England, Ireland, and ment, which he regards as landscape park, and then English bride during his seeking the same deliverance on further travel through France in 1826, 1827, 1828, and true to the spirit of Haag? If later dedicated himself to a tour of the British Isles from in that prosperous country. more far-flung parts of 1829, translated by the spirit- so, it’s a clever device, but a similar project on a smaller September 1826 to January The problems a young wife England, Wales and Ireland. ed and learned Sarah Austin. misguided one. scale at Branitz, another 1829. But Pückler’s ambitious might encounter adjusting Once back at Muskau, after Having discovered the Despite its limitations, family estate. His 1834 plans for Muskau Park were, to the triangulated domestic an absence of nearly two and author’s identity, Austin her- Fabris’s pioneering study Andeutungen über Landscafts- in fact, what sent him on his arrangements at Muskau, one-half years, he and Lucie self began a passionate, deserves great credit for its gärtnerei (Hints on Landscape bride quest in the first place, where the continued pres- decided to publish his letters years-long, epistolary rela- attempt to map for the first Gardening), illustrating because the transformation ence of the former spouse as a way of recouping some tionship with him, a comple- time Richard Haag’s highly his plans and outlining his of his property was bank- was assumed, were to be money from the trip, and mentary story wonderfully creative and original body of opinions on landscape rupting him. This worry was worked out later. they enlisted Pückler’s friend chronicled by Lotte and work – a vast yet hitherto lit- design, is a landmark in the never far from the prince’s Pückler cannot be accused Karl August Varnhagen von Joseph Hamburger in their tle-investigated domain. One field. (The first French and mind, and the fact that of lack of effort, and the Ense to assist in abridging 1992 book Contemplating hopes that this well-inten- English editions appeared in Bowman keeps it alive for subsequent chapters of The and editing them. The main Adultery: The Secret Life of a tioned and worthy first ven- 1847 and 1917, respectively.) his readers adds to The Fortune Hunter provide objective was to remove all Victorian Woman. Thus ture will serve as a catalyst Although generally under- Fortune Hunter’s appeal for ample proof of his vigor as a traces of the bride hunt and the letters were not only a for more comprehensive appreciated today, Pückler’s those concerned with garden suitor. Given his aristocratic excise most proper names of publishing sensation in explorations of the extraor- influence was considerable, history. individuals and estates, so as Germany but made waves in dinary accomplishments of Bowman begins with to protect the many promi- England and, soon after, in one of America’s most dis- three chapters describing nent people who had wel- tinguished landscape archi- Pückler’s life before the comed Pückler as a guest. tects. – Reuben M. Rainey 19 America as well. where divorce was not only nizes the prince’s pursuits in finds too loose and not outs of English society as it and collective prosperity. Yes, The epistles to Lucie are frowned upon, but rare – much greater detail – in par- always reliable). And he appeared to a charming the city was congested and the main source material for indeed achievable only by an ticular the lives of the young offers many additional tid- and learned – if sometimes chaotic, but it was a produc- The Fortune Hunter, but given Act of Parliament! Near des- women and their families; bits, such as an elegant vain and self-important – tive type of congestion, one that the published versions peration, his matrimonial he even appends a brief epi- recipe for “Fürst-Pückler- Continental traveler. that validated its primacy as had been “cleansed” of all aspirations seemingly logue on the subsequent for- Eis,” an eponymous ice- – Linda Parshall a financial hub. Little could but oblique references to the doomed, Pückler was then tunes of the most prominent cream concoction familiar the corporate chieftains of matrimonial enterprise, swept off his feet by the of Pückler’s quarries. There even today to anyone who Pastoral Capitalism: A the early twentieth century Bowman turned to archives opera star Henriette Sontag, are a number of illustrations, has grown up in Germany. History of Suburban have predicted that, by the in Germany and Poland a famous beauty, to whom he including several caricatures Readers should be warned Corporate Landscapes 1950s, an altogether different where he examined the orig- actually contemplated and portraits. An appendix about Bowman’s scholarly By Louise A. Mozingo model for corporate distinc- inal manuscripts in their full proposing, though the union contains translated excerpts apparatus, however, for his MIT Press, 2011 tion would emerge: one candor. He also tracked would have had no financial from the published Briefe citations are often insuffi- in which suburban office down numerous other pub- advantage. Her preemptive along with a few English tes- ciently specific (grouping When Frank landscapes lished and unpublished let- rejection nearly undid him. timonies to the impression several sources in a single Woolworth featured low- ters by Pückler and his Any further endeavor was Pückler made in British footnote covering a number made a new profile build- acquaintances and culled rendered impossible when society. The bibliography of of paragraphs, for example). home in ings framed local newspapers, broadsides, the unfortunate timing of an primary and secondary The references to the pub- Manhattan by well-tend- and relevant material in innocent encounter, misrep- sources runs to ten pages lished Briefe are particularly for his com- ed lawns, lush English family archives. The resented by gossips and the and is useful for anyone troubling. Here Bowman pany in 1913, berms, and women singled out for spe- press, led to him being wishing to pursue the sub- cites only the two-volume the building wooded cial attention in The Fortune blamed for the suicide ject further. Insel paperback edition of was more groves. These Hunter are Lady Lansdowne, attempt of Napoleon’s scan- By focusing on Pückler’s 1991, which is extremely than a func- enclaves were Mary Woolley Gibbings, dal-ridden niece, Letitia many months in the English hard to find. (It is not avail- tional space accessed by Georgiana Auguste Henrietta Bonaparte. The moment had metropolis and its environs, able in the Library of from which to graded drives Elphinstone, and Harriet come to depart voguish Bowman provides an Congress, the British Library, manage the that led the Kinloch. When these and a London for less expensive insightful portrait of both or the Berlin Staatsbiblio- business operations of a motorist (and the employee few other early prospects destinations. His bride Regency London and the thek.) More frustratingly, he dime-store empire. In the and visitor alike were invari- proved unattainable, Pückler search was now over, so The dandified German prince lists only a volume and page first quarter of the twentieth ably motorists) to a porte went on to woo Harriet Fortune Hunter does not who attempted to conquer it. number from that edition. century, the downtown office cochere, as if one were arriv- Bonham, although in fact he accompany Pückler on these The chapters on London as Given that Pückler’s corre- buildings of large financial ing at a country estate. was languishing for her further adventures. “Capital of the World” and spondence has appeared in corporations like Metropoli- In Pastoral Capitalism, older married sister Lady Pückler’s exploits have the sketch of Brighton as the many different editions, tan Life and the headquar- Louise Mozingo takes the Garvagh (neither had been widely discussed over watering place for the “fash- Bowman should have pro- ters of commercial or story of corporate iconogra- dowries that could have the years and the unpub- ionables” are particularly vided the dates of the indi- industrial corporations such phy into the postwar period, saved Muskau). Next he set lished letters have been vivid. The closing chapter vidual letters instead, which as Woolworth or Singer in which many corporations his sights on Elizabeth examined, not least in Eliza gives a reliable overview of would allow a reader to con- were considered civic icons – adopted precisely this strate- Hamlet, a jeweler’s daughter, M. Butler’s comprehensive the following decades of sult any of the German or symbols of, and advertise- gy, commissioning campuses and even employed a matri- and thoroughly engaging Pückler’s life – he would English editions. However, ments for, the important role and modern-day villas in monial agent to assist him. biography The Tempestuous have many more adventures these lapses are exceptions that corporations played in verdant, suburban settings as Rumors about his abnormal Prince: Herman Pückler- during his remaining forty in this otherwise well- American society. With its both administrative com- relationship with his ex-wife Muskau (1929), which also years! The translations of the researched and handsomely soaring, steeple-topped mand centers and state- were circulating, and eventu- recounts the bride search. letters, whether from manu- produced volume, which tower, the skyscraper in the ments of patronage and ally it became inescapable Bowman, however, scruti- scripts or published ver- will prove valuable to anyone twentieth century inherited that his circumstances were sions, are Bowman’s own, interested in the ins and the symbolic role of the an insurmountable obstacle and they are excellent. (He belching smokestack in the in proper English society, eschews Sarah Austin’s nineteenth century, becom- renderings, which he rightly ing a sign of economic vigor

20 power. Greenness, Mozingo physical plant – often a col- as patrons of important sci- In geographical terms, operation – from the center new building, President writes, was linked to good- lection of buildings along a entific breakthroughs that pastoral capitalism implied city to suburban locations. Frazar B. Wilde organized a ness; the landscape itself was river or railroad spur of a also had commercial appli- the shift of business activi- Tired of the dirt, dust, noise, conference, “The New intended to call forth an growing metropolis. But the cations. With the rise of ties to the suburban fringe, and traffic congestion of the Highways: Challenge to the ameliorative social influence. rise of managerial capitalism defense spending in the following the trajectory of center city, many corpora- Metropolitan Region,” and In the milieu of postwar established research and Cold War years, corporations middle- and upper-class tions looked to the periphery offered his own company’s America, the corporation development (R & D) as a joined universities and other households. This move to for sites where they could suburban estate as an answer profited from the implied distinct division within the research institutes as centers the suburbs both coincided stretch out and manage their to those problems. moral order of the pastoral management hierarchy of of scientific innovation. with and hastened the own space. In 1950, the Not every company could landscape. Suburban office the corporation. As scientists In 1942, AT&T Bell decline of city centers. As Hartford-based insurance afford to own and maintain landscapes drew on the pres- and engineers were elevated Telephone Laboratories Mozingo writes, “the center company, Connecticut its own suburban facility. tigious ambiance associated in their corporate status and planned for a move from a city was noisy, diverse, General, purchased 280 acres The developer-built office with the exclusivity and corporations competed for loft building in lower crowded, unpredictable, in Bloomfield, Connecticut, park, however – Mozingo’s appeal of the suburbs them- the best and the brightest Manhattan to a 213-acre site inflexible, expensive, old, and five miles outside of Hart- third type of pastoral capital- selves. scientists coming out of uni- in Union County, New Jersey, messy – a dubious state ford, where it built a low- ism – extended the opportu- In this handsome and versities, many companies setting a new standard for of affairs for postwar capital- rise, modernist campus. In nity to lease space in a well-illustrated volume, split off R & D from the grit- corporate research and ists bent on expansion.” making the move, the com- parklike setting to smaller Mozingo charts the evolu- ty, blue-collar manufacturing development facilities. Frank Furthermore, the rise of pany decided that an effi- firms as well as back office tion of three strands operations. As early as 1911, Jewett, the president of Bell automobile transport and cient and attractive work and branch operations, while of pastoral capitalism – the the National Electric Lamp Labs, was one of the first the planning and construc- environment – one that con- offering easy access to the corporate campus, the cor- Association (NELA), which American physics Ph.D.s to tion of parkways and region- tained many employee emerging network of region- porate estate, and the office turned out to be a covert eschew academic life to join al highway networks made amenities, including tennis al highways. These office park – and connects these extension of General an industrial-research opera- one of its prime advantages – courts and a bowling alley – parks, based on the industri- influential landscape types Electric, built a campus out- tion and he placed as high a ease of access – less impor- outweighed the benefits al park (planned industrial to the rise of managerial side of Cleveland to house value on the pastoral land- tant. And while the center of a downtown location. districts that began to prolif- capitalism, with its rational- its research laboratories, call- scape as he did on the labo- languished, the suburbs Connecticut General’s subur- erate in the 1920s), were built ization of corporate-manage- ing it a “University of ratory structures themselves. brimmed with optimism. ban estate was an expression by real-estate developers in ment functions. Introduced Industry” and modeling it on Jewett hired a well-known Moving to the gracious sub- of power underwritten by upper-end residential sub- in the 1920s and coming to the archetypal university landscape-architecture firm, divisions of Connecticut, the patronage of distin- urbs as pastoral enclaves for the fore amid the tremen- campus with dignified, low- the Olmsted Brothers, to New Jersey, Westchester guished architecture. The white-collar workers. In the dous corporate growth of the rise structures that framed a design a low-rise quadrangle, County, and suburban main building, a low-slung 1950s and 60s, many start-up 1940s, the system of manage- central green lawn. In the a commission that helped Detroit, for example, was structure designed by archi- high-technology firms were rial capitalism – character- 1940s, important industrial assure worried neighbors part and parcel of profes- tects from the large office of drawn to suburban office ized by an institutionalized corporations like AT&T, that the new arrival in their sional advancement and con- Skidmore, Owings & Merrill parks in the Bay Area of San hierarchy of salaried, profes- General Electric, and genteel residential area ferred class status – these under the leadership of Francisco and outside of sional managers – allowed General Motors followed was not an industrial plant neighborhoods were “pre- Gordon Bunshaft, was laud- Boston along Route 128, a for a potentially unlimited suit, creating suburban-cam- but a prestigious, scientific- dictable, spacious, segregat- ed as one of the finest new ring road completed in the expansion of the corpora- pus settings for industrial research facility. Suburban- ed, specialized, quiet, new, office structures in the coun- 1950s. The office park was a tion, a proliferation of its research where young Ph.D.s ites were further comforted and easily traversed.” try. It embraced the taut, real-estate product that was divisions, and a decentraliza- could tinker in environ- to learn that the well-educat- Distinct from the R & D steel-and-glass curtain wall copied across the United tion of its physical and ments that mimicked the ed employees of the labs campus, the corporate estate of modernist, International States and beyond. administrative components. prestigious universities from were the type of people who marked the company’s dislo- Style architecture. At the Mozingo makes the point In early industrial instal- which they had been drawn. would fit easily into the cation of its leading man- same time, Connecticut that pastoral capitalism was lations, management offices, In such milieus, corpora- surrounding communities. agers – the headquarters General’s move reflected not only a physical abdica- research space, and the man- tions established themselves Scientists solidified their broad disenchantment with tion of the center city but ufacturing works themselves corporate standing and urban environments. To cel- were housed in the same social prominence by relo- ebrate the opening of the cating to the corporate campus. 21 also a civic abdication of such as urban renewal and ambitious program of contained landscape within across the globe today, the a node in the global, fiber- efforts at urban reform. highway construction that administrative decentraliza- it that the corporation could brainy youngsters are equally optic cable infrastructure – a “Dedication to city affairs promised to yield the same tion, erecting regional home wholly control. attracted to creative offices major interchange in the was inevitable as corporate large building sites – and offices in several cities across Pastoral Capitalism joins a carved out of urban lofts and information superhighway offices stood directly on automotive access to them – America, corporate managers growing literature that is the funky neighborhoods and thus a privileged physi- streets and corporate work- that were available in the deliberately looked for loca- reassessing the familiar nar- that surround them – places cal location for a business ers walked at least some dis- suburbs. tions within city limits. ratives of the suburbs to like Dumbo in Brooklyn, located in the “cloud” of dig- tance through the city to Even when corporations Together, Prudential’s suite reveal a more complicated Tribeca in Manhattan, and ital communication. The work; participation in the decided to remain in the of regional headquarters – place than we imagined. A SOMA (South of Market) in location of the building is functional and aesthetic city, they did their best to with the company’s name combination of individual San Francisco – where young also a sign that many attrac- improvement of the collec- mimic the spatial standards always clearly spelled out desires and corporate workers in marketing, tive and well-qualified tive public realm was in the that made suburban land- across each building’s cor- maneuvering produced the design, and technology sit at employees enjoy urban corporations’ own self-inter- scapes so appealing. For nice line – were like little trend of pastoral capitalism. modern-day drafting tables living. est while broadly beneficial example, Lever Brothers, the Rocks of Gibraltar, visually Has this trend subsided? Not equipped with iMacs. But this return to the city to city residents.” But the American division of the reinforcing the company’s at all, if we are to heed In 2010, Google – whose is a relatively recent and suburban corporate enclave Anglo-Dutch soap corpora- faith in American cities and Mozingo’s reports on the headquarters is a campus in poorly distributed phenome- was free from such burdens. tion Unilever, decided its magnanimous decision to global office landscape. Mountain View, California – non among the formerly Pastoral capitalism removed in 1950 to relocate its corpo- invest in them when their Suburban research and office purchased one of the largest successful and powerful corporate leaders from the rate headquarters from future was not secure. parks in England, France, single buildings in Manhat- cities of the industrial era. In heart of the American city, “a Cambridge, Massachusetts, Nonetheless, Prudential India, and China are still tan to house its New York the late 1960s, on the heels categorical abandonment by to midtown Manhattan. eschewed the tight confines deemed distinguished offices. Google spent $1.9 bil- of upheaval in many powerful, self-interested, and Lever’s president, Charles of the central business dis- addresses by their tenants lion on 111 Eighth Avenue, a American cities, the exodus economically generative Luckman, commissioned trict for its regional homes and provide safe, secure, and massive, red-brick structure to the suburbs intensified entities essential to civic Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and looked instead for large pleasant facilities for out- that was built in 1932 by the and many cities are still health.” to create a modern office midtown sites where it could posts of global firms. Port Authority of New York recovering from that aban- Not every influential cor- tower on Park Avenue. The stretch out and build gra- It is both fascinating and and occupies an entire block donment. The suburban cor- poration left the center city design team, led by Gordon cious campuses with plenty distressing to see other in the Chelsea neighborhood porate estate was the central in the 1950s, and more atten- Bunshaft, turned the build- of car parking. The most countries hurrying to of Manhattan’s West Side. At command post for the ascen- tion devoted to develop- ing’s thin slab perpendicular ambitious of these projects, embrace a suburban tradi- three million square feet, the dant global corporation ments in the city in Pastoral to the street and left the the Prudential Center in tion that scholars like building is 50 percent larger and its far-flung industrial Capitalism would have ground level as an open-air Boston, created a multifunc- Mozingo are now reassess- than the Empire State empire, the place from enhanced our appreciation plaza. Both techniques tional world unto itself, with ing. Even as these trends Building. Where there was which raw-material procure- for the metropolitan trends countered the density of the office space (punctuated by a play out on a global scale, once a loading dock, young ment, engineering and it describes. How could the city without giving up its signature 52-story tower), there are indications that programmers take a break design, and manufacturing, city fit into the emerging advantages. retail, apartment housing, both individual and corpo- from the computer screen to distribution, and marketing pattern of highways and pre- Other corporations, like hotels, and convention facili- rate energies are reversing play Ping-Pong. Google would be coordinated. serve itself as a business and the Prudential Insurance ties, all built on a platform of them in some American employees have organized Decisions about the fate of office center in the face of Company, also made a point parking garages that strad- cities. In the 1950s, corporate the internal landscape of the particular industrial plants – the benefits and convenience to stay in the city. The large dled a new, urban-highway chieftains were convinced structure as a microcosm of and the impacts of those of suburban locations? For life insurer committed to its extension. Prudential hedged that brainy youngsters were Manhattan itself, with its shifting resources – could be cities that were losing eco- downtown Newark location on its commitment to the attracted to a campuslike own neighborhoods and sys- made in the isolated comfort nomic vigor, one response and in 1961 constructed a city by constructing a self- atmosphere that mimicked tem of streets. The building of a glass room with a wood- was to enact mechanisms gleaming, modern sky- the university idyll. But is in a strategic location for land view. When reduced to scraper on the site of its many of the leading scien- Google’s business: it sits atop numbers on a spreadsheet hulking 1896 headquarters. tists and researchers who and examined in a suburban In the 1950s, when were once seduced by the idyll, the corporate practices Prudential embarked on an suburbs no longer want to of pastoral capitalism turned live there. In leading cities

22 out to have negative effects Contributors on many communities, espe- cially in North America and parts of Europe. It is all well to say that New York, San Susan Chamberlin is a land- book, Cornelia Hahn Ober- of La Foce: A Garden and 2004); and “Hirschfeld, University of California, Francisco, and Seattle, for scape historian with an M.A. lander: Making the Modern Landscape in Tuscany Pückler, Poe: The Literary Berkeley, and a bachelor of example, will come back, but in architectural history and a Landscape (University (University of Pennsylvania Modeling of Nature” in arts from Yale. He is the what about Buffalo, landscape-architecture of Virginia Press, 2012). Press, 2001), and Vizcaya: An Pückler and America (Ger- author of Insuring the City: Cleveland, and Detroit? license. She has contributed American Villa and its Makers man Historical Institute, The Prudential Center and the In some cities, the model to publications ranging from Kathleen John-Alder is an (University of Pennsylvania 2007). Postwar Urban Landscape of the research park is Arts & Architecture magazine assistant professor in the Press, 2006). The designer (Yale University Press, 2012). returning to the city. Is there to Shaping the American Department of Landscape for the transformation of Reuben M. Rainey is William a role for corporations to Landscape (University of Architecture at Rutgers Bryant Park and Columbus Stone Weedon Professor Thaisa Way is an associate play in these places that will Virginia Press, 2009), and she University. Her research Circle in New York City, the Emeritus in the School of professor of landscape archi- have positive effects for both is the author of Hedges, examines the role of ecology grounds of the Washington Architecture of the Universi- tecture and adjunct faculty themselves and their urban Screens & Espaliers (HP and environmentalism in Monument in Washington, ty of Virginia and former in architecture at the surroundings? In Detroit, a Books, 1983). As a founding the discourse of mid-twenti- D.C., and the new Getty chair of the Department of University of Washington. partnership between Wayne member of the California eth-century urban design. Center in Los Angeles, he Landscape Architecture. He She is the author of State University, General Garden and Landscape She is a contributing author received the American also serves as codirector of Unbounded Practice: Women Motors, and the Henry Ford History Society and a com- of Kevin Roche: Architecture Society of Landscape Archi- the School of Architecture’s and Landscape Architecture in Health System, with addi- munity activist, she has been and Environment (Yale Uni- tects Medal for Lifetime Center for Design and the Early Twentieth Century tional support from the involved in campaigns to versity Press, 2011). A former Achievement in 2011. Health. Coauthor of three (University of Virginia Press, Kresge Foundation and save historic properties from associate partner at Olin books on twentieth-century 2009), which received the other grant makers includ- development. Partnership, she is currently Linda Parshall is a scholar of landscape architecture and John Brinckerhoff Jackson ing the federal government, teaching a design studio German literature and gar- author of articles on cultur- Book Prize of the Founda- has created TechTown, Susan Herrington is a profes- course that has been selected den history whose publica- al-landscape preservation, tion for Landscape Studies. a nonprofit business incuba- sor of architecture and by the National Park Service tions include a translation of nineteenth- and twentieth- Her scholarship focuses on tor for entrepreneurs. landscape architecture at the and the Van Alen Institute as C. C. L. Hirschfeld’s Theory century urban parks, and how historic narratives shape TechTown’s first location in University of British Colum- a regional finalist for the of Garden Art (University of Italian villas, he also copro- perspectives of landscape central Detroit’s New bia in Vancouver. She is a Parks for the People compe- Pennsylvania Press, 2001); duced the American Public architecture and urban Amsterdam area was a struc- licensed landscape architect tition. “Motion and Emotion in Television series GardenStory. design. She is currently ture built in 1927 and in the United States C. C. L. Hirschfeld’s Theory researching the history of designed by Albert Kahn as a and current president of the Laurie Olin is a professor of of Garden Art” in Landscape Elihu Rubin is an architectur- landscape architecture service department for Landscape Chapter of the landscape architecture at the Design and Experience of al historian, city planner, and through two lenses: the work Pontiac. TechTown calls Society of Architectural University of Pennsylvania Motion (Dumbarton Oaks, documentary filmmaker. of the landscape architect itself a technology park, bor- Historians. She is author of and founding partner of 2003); “Landscape as History: Since 2007 he has served as Richard Haag and the work rowing the language of pas- On Landscapes (Routledge, OLIN, a landscape architec- Pückler-Muskau, the ‘Green the Daniel Rose Visiting of women in the emergence toral capitalism, but 2009) and the forthcoming ture firm in Philadelphia. Prince’” in Nature in German Assistant Professor of of modernism in landscape bringing technology back to He is the author of Across the History (Berghahn Books, Urbanism at the Yale School architecture. the traditional center of Open Field: Essays Drawn of Architecture. He received industrial innovation: the from English Landscapes a doctorate in architecture city. – Elihu Rubin (University of Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in city Press, 1999), coauthor planning from the

23 Volume vii, Number ii Spring 2012

Publisher: Foundation for Landscape Studies Board of Directors: Vincent Buonanno Kenneth I. Helphand Robin Karson Nancy Newcomb Therese O’Malley Laurie D. Olin John A. Pinto Reuben M. Rainey Frederic Rich, Chairman Elizabeth Barlow Rogers Margaret Sullivan

Editor: Elizabeth Barlow Rogers Associate Editor: Alice Truax Assistant Editor: Margaret Sullivan Copy Editor: Margaret Oppenheimer Designer: Skeggs Design Contributors: Kathleen John-Alder Susan Chamberlain Susan Herrington Linda Parshall Laurie Olin Reuben M. Rainey Elihu Rubin Thaisa Way

Landscape Studies Landscape For more information about the Foundation for Landscape for Studies, visit www.foundationfor landscapestudies.org., or contact [email protected] 7 Street 81st West New York, NY 10024 Foundation Foundation