Quick viewing(Text Mode)

Proof 4 PDF:Site/Lines Spring

Proof 4 PDF:Site/Lines Spring

A Publication of the

Foundation

for Landscape Studies

A Journal of Place Volume ıv | Number ıı | Spring 2009

Essays: The Landscapes of Classical Antiquity 2 Paula Deitz: Garden Letter from John A. Pinto: ’s Villa and the Landscape of Allusion Kathryn Gleason: Digging Ancient Gardens

Place Keeper 12 Margaret Bamberger, Land Steward

Book Reviews 14 Reuben M. Rainey: The Papers of Frederick Olmsted, Volume VII, Parks, Politics, and Patronage, 1874-1882 Edited by Charles E. Beveridge, Carolyn F. Hoffman, and Kenneth Hawkins The Master List of Design Projects of the Olmsted Firm, 1857-1979, 2nd ed. Edited by Lucy Lawliss, Caroline Loughlin, Lauren Meier Claudia Lazzaro: Magnificent Buildings, Splendid Gardens By David R. Coffin. Edited by Vanessa Bezemer Sellers Elizabeth Barlow Rogers: The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in the Vanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed By Michael Meyer

Memorial 21 Wilhelmina Jashemski (1910-2007)

Awards 23

Contributors 23 Letter from the Editor columns and ivy-entwined of the , raise the issue Wilhelmina Jashemski their Grand Tours. From and the elegiac mute- of the validity of interpretive (1910–2007) to interpret the this experience they were ness of these signs of van- landscape intervention with- configuration of ancient inspired to see landscape ished glory stirred Romantic in an archaeological site, landscapes. Using her recent and antiquity as comple- like to stroll in the recent- nection with its past. Ruins emotions. Ruins became a even when sponsored by work at the Villa Arianna in mentary forces. According to ly renovated Greek and began to speak. metaphorical mine for poets, scholarly institutions of the Stabia, , as an illustra- Pinto, “A garden in ruins, a Roman galleries at the In the eighteenth century, a subject for artists, and first order (in this case the tion, she describes the meth- garden with ruins, forces us Metropolitan Museum of a pilgrimage to Rome was de a source of inspiration for American School of Classical ods contemporary landscape to muse on the passage of Art. The daylight bathing rigueur for artists and young landscape designers. Studies at ). Deitz, archeologists employ in this time. Landscape is so allu- Ifigures of white marble cre- nobleman making the Grand Paula Deitz writes about however, argues that “seeing relatively new field. At sites sive precisely because it ates a sunny Mediterranean Tour. The rediscovery of the her first view of the Athenian the temple with its clipped such as Stabia that were combines place and time; atmosphere even on a cold buried cities of and and her discovery hedges today, so complete in buried by the eruption of the place is fixed, but it grey day. Here one feels , along with the of the landscape of the Agora appearance itself and in bal- Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE, changes; it always looks both immersed in a kind of happy writings of the pioneering below. The oaks, plane trees, ance with the landscape, wall paintings, mosaics, plas- forward and back.” idyll, but always there is the Hellenist Johann Joachim and laurels planted there in makes the scene feel con- ter casts, and ground-pene- In this issue we begin a haunting question, “Who, Winckelmann (1717–1768), accordance with archeologi- temporary with antiquity.” trating radar all play a part new feature, “Place Keeper,” a really, were they – the ones helped give birth to the cal research during a restora- Kathryn Gleason, a pro- in identifying the types of profile of a land steward represented by these careful- fields of archaeology and art tion dating from the 1950s fessional archaeologist and vegetation that were origi- whose lifework exemplifies ly cataloged fragments dis- history. It became possible were intended to simulate landscape historian, tells us nally planted and in recover- the nurturing, improvement, played with instructive to make period distinctions the Agora’s appearance in the how she learned by the ing the outlines of walks and and interpretation of a par- curatorial commentary?” The and discriminate between time of . On a hill example of classical land- beds. ticular landscape. Our first gods, athletes, portrait busts, Greek, Greco-Roman, and opposite stands the Temple scape archaeology pioneer John Pinto, an architec- subject is Margaret Bam- sarcophagi, mosaics, and Roman art. Neoclassicism of Hephaestus (449 BCE), the tural historian whose abid- berger, a natural science Pompeian wall paintings came into fashion. most intact Doric temple in The Athenian Acropolis with the ing interest in the classical educator who disseminates seem strangely distant yet At the same time, the pic- Greece. Its grounds, replant- (421–407 BCE) in the tradition led him to coau- the methods used by her closely familiar. In spite of turesqueness of broken ed as part of the restoration background. thor the definitive work on husband and fellow land the fact that the remains are Hadrian’s Villa, revisits this steward, J. David Bamberger, so tantalizingly fragmentary, scholarly endeavor in order to transform their Texas Hill their world is somehow our to explore the powerful com- Country ranch, “Selah,” from world, the foundation of our bination of site and associa- a derelict property into a . We sense tion. Pinto sees this cynosure of sound environ- the connection. magnificent landscape and mentalism as well as a place The Renaissance marked architectural ruin as a para- of great beauty. the end of centuries of indif- digm of classicism’s role in ference to ancient remains, Western art and the power of Good green wishes, and humanists’ avid curiosi- allusion. He maintains that ty about antique literature, by introducing themes that art, and architecture initiated dominate the pastoral tradi- Western civilization’s recon- tion – growth, decay, death, and rebirth – Hadrian’s Elizabeth Barlow Rogers Villa is a progenitor of the Editor On the Cover: eighteenth-century gardens Corinthian capital and Acanthus, of English lords, many the Athenian Agora, with the of whom visited the villa on (449 BCE) in the background. (Unless otherwise credited, this and other photographs in this issue are by Elizabeth Barlow Rogers.) 2 The Landscapes replanting, transforming the Agora into a tree-lined archaeo- solid canopy over a dry terrain. At harvest time, the gardener logical park ornamented with indigenous shrubs and flowers. gathers the ripe fruit and delivers it to a local press, sending of Classical Antiquity While the buildings and monuments of ancient civiliza- some of the back to the grove’s owners in exchange. tions crumble under the desecrations of time, which often Views from the high cliffs of this pine-fringed coast to Garden Letter from Greece buries their remains under new settlements, the landscapes nearby outer islands, like , reminded me of Robert But on a well-banked plot that give these historic sites their sense of place – the contour Fitzgerald’s travel notes to The Odyssey (8th century BCE) in Odysseus found his father in solitude of the terrain, the native vegetation – often endure. In the end, which he describes how he recreated the voyages of , although I went to Greece to experience these ancient sites, I and thus Odysseus, in order to translate accurately the Greek spading the earth around a young fruit tree. became equally entranced by descriptions of the clustered – Book xxiv, The Odyssey by Homer (24.250–52), exceptional contemporary islands and their landscapes. translated by Robert Fitzgerald gardens built in our own era At night, brilliantly lighted by those who had wrested ferryboats connecting these any years ago, on our first visit to London togeth- from this arid climate culti- islands glide across the er, my husband and I spent hours studying the vated environments of sin- dark waters, illuminating Elgin marbles at the British Museum, particularly gular beauty and purpose. each island port in turn. the sculptures from the east pediment of the My embryonic knowledge I soon learned that . On the left, Helios, the sun god, rises of Greek gardens was first Skiathos possesses an active Mwith his horse-drawn chariot at daybreak; the central figures expanded in the unlikely set- garden club, its members depict the birth of ; and to the right, Selene, the moon ting of the Athens airport, including both seasonal and goddess, descends with her chariot, closing the arc of the com- as I awaited my flight to the resident gardeners. In mak- position at the far end. So taken were we with the beauty of island of Skiathos. The ing a round of visits, I dis- these figures that we bought from the museum shop a life-size Airport Museum was hosting covered how enterprising replica of the head of the horse of Selene, the final figure in a prize-winning archaeologi- these women were in culti- the sequence, straining visibly against the efforts of his night’s cal exhibition, Mesogeia vating a kind of lush beauty run. Now mounted on driftwood at the end of my lawn in History & Civilization. alongside the practical. Maine, overlooking Blue Hill Bay, he presides over the watery The show documented the Christina Kofinas, who lived path of the August full moon. Living with him each summer excavation of the rural town- at the end of a dirt road filled me with the desire to visit the sculpture’s original setting ships or of Attica now on a cliff, had constructed a on the Acropolis in Athens. occupied by the new international airport and its landing Watercolor rendering of Ralph E. series of arcades, massed But it was another occurrence that finally propelled me to strips – excavations that exposed the many layers of develop- Griswold’s 1950s landscape restora- with climbing roses, leading Greece last spring. In 2000 and 2001, respectively, I read the ment from 3200 BCE through the 18th century. After admiring tion plan for the Athenian Agora. up to her low-slung house obituaries of the eminent archaeologists Dr. Homer A. Thomp- the handsome collection of terracotta pottery from several with its ample verandah. An son (93) and his wife Dr. Dorothy Burr Thompson (101). The periods, I concentrated on site models of Hellenistic-era coun- orchard of oranges, lemons and apricots, the source of her two died in Hightstown, New Jersey, almost exactly a year try houses that were built, according to the catalogue descrip- renowned confitures, shaded the surrounding garden areas, apart. Their romance began in 1934 when Homer was the act- tions, next to cultivated fields or at the far end of gardens, including a kitchen garden. While there was a marked differ- ing deputy (he later became the director) of the excavation of in landscapes that can’t have been very different from those I ence between the cultivated areas and the scruffiness of the the Agora, the civic center of ancient Athens, and Dorothy the would soon see for the first time. parched landscape, I found that this contrast between wild and first woman appointed a fellow of the excavation. His obituary Having arrived in Skiathos late at night, only the next tame added to the beauty of Grecian gardens. told how her research on ancient gardens was eventually used morning did I experience waking up amidst a hillside olive At the end of another dirt road, Chantal Prieux and her to fulfill her dream of replanting the Agora. Although I tried to grove that swept down to the sea. The gnarled and irregular husband had made a single long house out of three huts that meet with her after learning this, her advanced age had closed branches, some interlocking with neighboring trees, formed a had originally provided temporary shelter for shepherds graz- the door to outsiders. Nevertheless, I followed up by reading ing their sheep and goats on the high cliffs. The compound Garden Lore of Ancient Athens, the booklet she prepared with was painted gaily in the typical Grecian palette: pure white Ralph E. Griswold, a prominent Pittsburgh landscape architect. In the 1950s, based on their research, Griswold undertook the

3 walls set off louvered shutters, doors, and windows in cerulean them. Recently planted olive blue. The patio, which hugged the perimeter of the house, was groves will be the main fea- covered with flowerpots and ceramic bowls of the same vivid ture of the landscaped gar- hue. These overflowed with a variety of tropical plants, all dens surrounding the shaded by a pergola draped in wisteria vines that extended the museum. entire length of the patio. Lavender fields terraced into the No photograph does jus- hillside provided Chantal with the raw material for her own tice to the physical sensation special brand of lavender oil, which she packaged in elegant of approaching the monu- small bottles and sold locally. mental scale of the Acropolis On walks along the cliff roads, I could look down into gar- along the Dionysious dens below – and in one instance catch glimpses of the most Areopagitou, the promenade prominent rose garden on the island. Even from a consider- that runs parallel to the pow- able height it revealed trim beds with dense patches of deep erful buttressed walls as it red and pale pink roses. Though not native to Greece, roses winds its way upward past have been grown there at least since wrote about the Theater to the them in his Histories in the fifth century BCE. But beauty is top amidst plantings of often trumped by practicality in Greece; I found myself spend- cypress and pine. Although ing one day helping others gather basketsful of humble - visitors pass quickly between John’s-wort, the small, five-petaled, yellow flower that has the Doric columns of the proven to have prodigious healing powers when stored in olive Propylaia, the ceremonial oil. gateway, this edifice is in fact the only classical structure Though it was close to midnight when I arrived in Athens on the Acropolis that may be from Skiathos, I left my hotel in the , the old city, to visit entered and therefore an the Acropolis. After climbing through narrow back streets, I experience to be savored The Acropolis, Athens, Greece. Before I left the stony landscape of the Acropolis, I lingered suddenly faced a sheer wall of glowing rock rising to clas- both coming and going. for awhile near the of the Ionic temple called the sical grandeur under a sliver of moon. That held me until Unlike the ancient Romans, who constructed their buildings Erechtheion (see page 2). As I watched, restorers worked fever- morning when I began the true ascent. First I entered the on direct axes derived from military installations, the ishly to raise marble blocks on ropes, using a system of new at the base of the mount, designed by preferred more circuitous routes. Hence the Parthenon is cranes and pulleys. They were filling in missing elements of Bernard Tschumi, who won the commission in a fourth round deliberately situated to one side of the Propylaia, providing an the Parthenon to make it whole once more. It could have of international competitions. Worth the wait, in my opinion: early example of their indirect site planning. been 440 BCE, when the Parthenon was being constructed in it is a streamlined glass, steel, and concrete structure that hints Although I had read copiously about the Parthenon, I still the age of , except for the white beach umbrellas that at the classical by its delineated vertical sections. The top-floor found myself counting the fluted marble Doric columns as I had sprouted up all over the temple to protect workers from exhibition gallery that is intended to house the Parthenon moved slowly around to view the east pediment. I knew that the sun. It was an engaging, industrious sight. sculptures is rotated slightly off the base to face the object of the original of my horse’s head, that of one of the four horses While this sacred summit was stunning in its architectural its study. The museum was not yet officially opened with fully- drawing Selene’s chariot, was lowered from the pediment on detail, I was anxious to descend to the Agora – literally the installed galleries; nevertheless, visitors were permitted to May 10, 1802, under the aegis of the permit or firman Lord gathering place, the center of civic life. Though I could imag- view the building’s grand entrance area, which turns out to be Elgin received from the Turkish government. As I turned the ine the religious processions celebrating Athena on the a museum in itself, perched over the ancient landscape. southeast corner, I saw to my astonishment Selene’s horse’s Acropolis, my heart beat faster as I followed the paths once Through interior and exterior floors of fritted glass, people head, like mine, straining over the edge of the pediment. walked by . Because the teachings of the Greek can examine the excavated ruins of the earlier neighborhoods There, too, were Helios’s rearing horses and the reclining philosophers are integral to our own culture, they feel closer that once clustered around the Acropolis as they walk above figure of Heracles at the opposite end. I discovered later that in time than pagan rituals of the same period. Once, in writing these casts of the originals were placed within what remains about porches, I cited the stoa (an open gallery with a roof of the pediment by the Greek Archaeological Service. I was unprepared for this realism; nevertheless, the casts convey how details of the sculptures would have been starkly articulated in the searing light of the noonday sun.

4 supported by a colonnade) as an early example of this inside/ were planted along paths that frame the major antiquities; racotta pots filled with earth on the ends of tree limbs; once outside form, and pointed out that Zeno’s austere Stoic school smaller laurels and carobs provided background for important the limbs took root, they were cut off and placed into tree pits of philosophy had been named after the Poikile Stoa on the structures; cypress and pine emphasized boundaries; and dark with the pots broken underneath. In this case, the trees were north end of the Agora, where he taught his disciples. Now I evergreens punctuated the landscape, replacing the myriad planted on either side of the temple, parallel with the temple’s could stand there. missing heroic statues that had once been a part of the columns. Instead of reproducing the original design, Griswold I entered the Agora from the south end to find not the dry panoramic view. For the rest, there are olive and almond trees, created a starkly classical planting: a double hedge of pome- panorama of sun-baked ruins I still half expected, but a city and an abundance of wildflowers and plants in open spaces: granate and myrtle surrounding the temple on three sides. park filled with wildflowers and families. Systematic excava- oleander, rosemary, tree heather, and yellow jasmine, to name Seeing the temple with its clipped hedges today, so complete tion of the Agora by the American School of Classical Studies a few. There is also, of course, acanthus, which gave its leaf in appearance itself and in balance with the landscape, makes at Athens began in 1931. Before Dorothy Burr Thompson’s form to the Corinthian column (see cover). (Thompson and the scene feel contemporary with antiquity. study of the plants of antiquity in the Agora, however, scholar- Griswold point out that in antiquity wreaths were fabricated This is what the restoration of landscape produces: a sense ly interest in the 10-acre site related to its unique importance for every honorific occasion; their ubiquity in art and litera- of continuity that the ruins themselves cannot convey alone. to the ’ planning and the placement of its ture provided Griswold’s team with additional guidance con- In the Mauzy book, there is a photograph of Ralph Griswold governmental, religious, theatrical, and commercial buildings. cerning plant material.) participating in a Greek circle dance with his male workers in These would have been laid out in harmony with the natural Simultaneously with the landscape restoration, the Ameri- May 1955, after completing the planting of these splendid landscape and established pathways, rather than superimposed can School rebuilt the II (king of in spaces so significant to Western democracy and philosophy. I on the site. It wasn’t until 1953 that Ralph E. Griswold – who the 2nd century BCE) along its eastern boundary to be the felt like dancing myself after I saw the Agora. had been trained in landscape architecture at Cornell Univer- Agora Museum. A shopping arcade in antiquity, the stoa now sity and the American in Rome, and designed contains sculpture and artifacts from the excavation that por- On the plain of Mesogeia, an agricultural and wine-growing Pittsburgh’s Point State Park – arrived in Athens to draw up a tray the Agora’s political and commercial life. Its verticality region east of Athens extending to the , three con- landscape plan for the Agora and execute Thompson’s vision. and long double colonnade of Doric and Ionic columns for temporary gardens preserving local traditions in horticulture Realizing the pioneering aspects of the undertaking, he wrote the display of sculpture provide a welcome sense of scale, have influenced and even inspired the wider world of garden- in his report: “It is as unique in modern archaeological prac- helping one to imagine how the now-mature landscape would ing. In 1962, after spending many summers in Greece, Mary tice as the Agora was in its historical significance and will add have embraced buildings of comparable size. Jaqueline Tyrwhitt, an Englishwoman and professor of urban new interest to its ancient traditions.” Among the most challenging aspects of the excavation design at Harvard University who specialized in the evolution Fortunately, Griswold’s elegant watercolor renditions of relating to landscape was the discovery of the planting pits of human settlements, purchased land near Peania. She had proposed plantings, painted over earlier photographs of the around the Temple of Hephaestus, which stands on a hill over- spotted the location on a walk down Mount Hymettos, the site, have been preserved and published in Craig A. Mauzy’s looking the Agora (see cover). Built in 449 BCE by one of the mountain that dominates Athens and the surrounding area, Agora Excavations 1931-2006, a pictorial history celebrating the architects of the Parthenon, the Temple of Hephaestus is the and her knowledge of shifting populations told her that this entire project’s seventy-fifth anniversary (see page 3). The plant most intact Doric temple in Greece. Once surrounded by site would not soon be suburbanized, although it offered her list, based on writings by ancient authors and inscriptions foundries, the temple is dedicated to the god of fire and the easy access to the city and the airport. referring to the Agora, included only indigenous plants or oth- forge, who played a pivotal role in : Thus was born Sparoza, “the hill of sparrows,” a four-acre ers acclimatized to the area. According to the notes I took that commanded Hephaestus to alleviate his severe headache by garden (purchased in narrow strips called stremata) that grad- day, most of them are still in striking him with a forging ually climbed up a hillside. Tyrwhitt constructed a simple evidence, although the trees hammer, thus splitting open house of local stone, with a high-ceilinged living room fur- have grown to a stately size, his head to give birth to nished with tall bookcases and a southern glass wall shaded by providing welcome groves of Athena – the scene depicted a covered verandah. Entwined with wisteria vines, the veran- shade. on the east pediment of the dah leads to a sunken walled garden partially shaded by a Griswold’s plan, which Parthenon. jacaranda tree. Tyrwhitt’s purpose was to create a garden of was the result of his observa- It was customary in the drought-resistant indigenous plants capable of surviving tions of tourist routes and 4th century BCE to stick ter- strong winds and the unrelenting heat of stifling summer his study of irrigation pits months, when the concrete-hard dirt had to be blasted to plant and aqueducts, has an intrin- new trees. sic beauty that is structural After retiring from Harvard in 1969, she lived there full as well as horticultural. time, and, before her death in 1983, she wrote a book entitled Large trees – plane and oak – Making a Garden on a Greek Hillside that includes a monthly journal of events, chores, climate, fauna, and native plant lists

Picnickers on the slope between the Agora and the Acropolis. 5 totaling around five hundred species and sub-species. Pene- beaches for rare and unusual native plants, like Saponaria offici- , where he has built his own series of houses and lope Hobhouse has pointed out that this number of plants is nalis and Bupleurum falvum, which she grows from cuttings gardens in the classical style. Though ample in size, the field- practically the same as the one found in De Materia Medica by and seeds. She lays them out in unlabeled pots so closely stone house Shoup designed feels like a garden pavilion. Pedanius Dioscorides, a Greek physician in the first century packed together that the three acres of extensive clearings at It has arcaded outdoor rooms for family occasions and wide who traveled the Mediterranean with the military forces of the the forest’s edge are like a fantastic pointillist landscape. The staircases that lead directly into an elaborate and seemingly Roman emperor . nursery stretches out on either side of a mountain stream, endless series of walled gardens that bear the direct influence Bequeathed to the Goulandris Natural History Museum, the which can be crossed on a wobbly but serviceable suspension of other Mediterranean landscapes: the water gardens of the garden had one interim tenant before the knowledgeable and bridge. Generalife at the Alhambra, and the garden Nicole de Vésian energetic Sally Razelou became the resident gardener in 1991. One of Mrs. Parayios’s customers is Eleni Martinos, who designed near Bonnieux in Provence, with its clipped green With intermittent advice from a few professional designers owns an elegant gallery of antiques in Athens and gardens on globes using every imaginable plant conducive to the form. and a loyal volunteer corps, she has maintained the garden to a grand scale in , halfway between Sparoza and the Water is plentiful here. Green expanses of lawn, often orna- perfection ever since. In 1994 Ms. Razelou and her associates, nursery. When the Martinoses bought the land in 1991, the mented with a pond, fountain, or a piece of sculpture, are sur- meeting at Sparoza, founded the Mediterranean Garden eight-and-a-half-acre site was covered in pine trees and rounded by borders burgeoning with plants and flowers, some Society. The society, which now has twenty-three chapters in had spectacular views of the foothills of Mount Penteli and with elaborate color schemes. The high point is a long canal, eleven countries (including three in California), spreads the of the Mesogheia plain. A devastating series of fires left the bordered by olive trees trimmed into cubes, with underplant- garden’s horticultural message through its informative quar- land barren and vulnerable to the fierce winds while the new ings cascading romantically over the water’s edge. Levels are terly journal, The Mediterranean Garden, and frequent meetings airport destroyed the view. constantly changing as one climbs up and down the many and plant exchanges. Nevertheless, Mrs. Martinos made a fresh start in 1992 with stone staircases; distant views lure the visitor to outer gardens By the time I arrived in late May, the brilliant wildflower the American architect Charles Shoup, who lives in the with ornate examples of topiary – an exuberant variety of season was over, and the garden was a lush silvery haze. It was shapes and shades of green juxtaposed one against the other. entering what Ms. Razelou calls the estivation or dormant It is a masterful design that also has its hidden corners, like a period of summer, characterized by little or no rainfall, and no secret garden where Cavafy’s famous poem “Voices” recalling watering. And although interns were already cutting back the voices of those who are departed has been inscribed. plants, the outlying gardens and three descending terraces While each of these three gardens represents a different along the east facade of the house had retained their layered approach to the landscape of Greece, their success derives appearance: canopies of trees, including olive, Mediterranean from an understanding and appreciation by their overseers of oak, and pomegranate with tiny red blooms, provided shade the challenge of maintaining the rich selection offered in this for the undergrowth of shrubs, grasses, and aloes, vines cling- arid climate. Through the centuries, the possibilities inherent ing to stone walls, and a preponderance of long-stemmed in cultivating the harsh terrain of Greece have remained con- plants blooming in subtle shades of white, lavender blue, pink, stant. In a final touching scene in The Odyssey, Homer relates and yellow – salvia, larkspur, iris. The hillside beyond was how Odysseus, desperate to prove his identity to his father punctuated with dark cypress trees, and tucked in everywhere after returning to Ithaca, resorts finally to this shared memory: were decorative terracotta pots and jars overflowing with Again – more proof – let’s say the trees you gave me foliage. Sparoza is the mother lode of Mediterranean gardens. on this revetted plot of orchard once. . . . From there I traveled north. At the base of Mount Penteli, after a circuitous route along suburban Socrates Street, the You gave thirteen pear, ten apple trees, road narrows to the sort of a dirt trail that typically signifies and forty fig trees. Fifty rows of vines an approaching dead end. But one more bend lands the visitor were promised too, each one to bear in turn. in a forested wilderness at 6 Asclepiou Street. This is Nea (24.371–72, 24.375–77) Penteli Phytorio, probably the most serious and specialized nursery in Greece. Fortunately, the owner, Chryssanthi This could be a garden today, say, on the island of Skiathos. Parayios, exudes a cheerful enthusiasm for her calling despite – Paula Deitz her embroidered black cotton widow’s weeds. While other Greek nurseries sell typical resort flowers, like petunias and geraniums, Mrs. Parayios combs the mountainside and the

Eleni Martinos’s garden, Pallini. 6 (Credit: Maya Bailey) Hadrian’s Villa and the Landscape of Allusion principal axes evident in the rom classical times to the present, artists of all kinds villa’s plan were largely have drawn on landscapes both real and imagined to determined by the topogra- give significance to their works. In architectural and phy, but Hadrian’s engineers landscape design, the inspiration of place is obviously also imposed structure upon crucial – intrinsic to the designer’s intentions and the the land, extending terraces Fultimate physical manifestation of those intentions. In paint- out over valleys and accentu- ing and poetry as well, a given place – metaphorical or sub- ating the natural contours of stantial – often plays a central role in creating both a starting the site. Water was brought point and a final meaning. Artists use landscape and a sense of in from the aqueduct lines place to allude to eternal themes: the transience of fame and that supplied the imperial the desire for immortality. capital. Displayed in over a Poetic and pictorial evocations of place are, of course, fun- hundred fountains of differ- damentally different from existing sites. Whether we think of ent types, including reflect- Shakespeare’s forest of Arden or Poussin’s poetic distillations ing pools, grand nymphaea, of the Roman Campagna, we must acknowledge that they are and moving sheets, its visual idealized and abstracted versions of reality, and by virtue and aural play contributed to of their medium, incapable of change. In contrast, actual land- the definition of place. scapes are perennially in flux. With the passage of time, func- A pleasing place, or locus tion and patterns of use also change, and intended meanings amoenus, emerges early as a become blurred or forgotten as new interpretations emerge central trope of the pastoral, and are projected onto the landscape. and the veneration of its Few classical sites illustrate this process – and the rich presiding spirit, the genius complexity of the landscape of allusion – better than Hadrian’s loci, is a recurrent theme Villa near Tivoli, twenty-two kilometers east of Rome. Laid The so-called Temple of Venus at Hadrian’s role in the cre- from to Alexander Pope, who memorably advised his out between 118 and 134 CE, Hadrian’s Villa surpasses all other Hadrian’s Villa. The circular temple ation of the villa is not patron Lord Burlington to “Consult the genius of the place in ancient villas in its scale, architectural originality, and reso- anchors the northern end of what was directly documented, but all, / That tells the waters or to rise, or fall.” From its inception, nance. It can also be seen as a paradigm of classicism’s role in once an extended landscape composi- ancient texts record his Hadrian’s creation was a pragmatic manifestation of the pas- Western art, and its extended history is an unusually full tion probably intended to evoke the interest in planning and toral. To the east of the villa the contours drop off sharply to record of the crosscurrents and projections such visionary cre- Thessalian Vale of Tempe near Mount design. It is reasonable to form a valley of great natural beauty, and temples and towers ations can generate. Olympus. assume that serious discus- were erected to provide lofty viewpoints over the surrounding Set against the background of the Sabine Hills, the villa sions took place among the countryside. At the same time, the contradictions of the pas- remains one of the most haunting sites in the Roman coun- emperor, his architects, and his artists, and that in this broad toral tradition are nowhere more starkly evoked than here. tryside: it represents an inspired integration of architectural sense the villa was Hadrian’s creation: we should view it Although the villa was in one sense a rural retreat, a place structure with the contours of the surrounding landscape. As through the lens of the emperor’s will. where Hadrian could remove himself from the concerns of the the great twentieth-century architect Le Corbusier remarked, Hadrian situated a variety of discrete architectural forms – capital, it was also the hub of an empire and a reflection of its “At Hadrian’s Villa the levels are established in accordance strongly differentiated enclosures, pavilions, and peristyles – in ruler’s authority. with the Campagna; the mountains support the composition, unanticipated sequences across a vast, broadly terraced park. In fact, the grounds themselves were designed to evoke which is indeed based on them.” The villa’s ancient limits are With no grand allées, the design was one of considerable sub- portions of Hadrian’s far-flung territories. In the course of his difficult to define, but it likely occupied more than 300 acres. tlety: the villa revealed itself only as it was traversed. The three reign, Hadrian traveled extensively, acquiring a first-hand Its scale is suggested by comparisons with modern parks: Kew knowledge of the classical world in all its cultural complexity. Gardens (292 acres), Hyde Park (365), and the extended Wash- On his tours of inspection he demonstrated a fascination with ington Mall (357). Greece and Athens in particular. A passage in a fourth-century biography of Hadrian relates that the emperor had portions

7 of the villa made in such a way that he might call them after as well as political opinion – and sometimes they are all specific classical texts or to erect reproductions of Roman famous places and provinces of the Greco-Roman world: three. The appearance and nomenclature of English gardens buildings. Literal copies of classical temples began to appear were meant to recall such classical locations as Palestrina in English gardens only after the middle of the eighteenth Hadrian fashioned the Tiburtine Villa marvelously, in such or Posillipo but also, by extension, the order and grandeur of century. For the generation of Pope and William Kent, it was a way that he might inscribe there the names of provinces Augustan Rome. The landscape of Hadrian’s Villa reflected enough to suggest a correspondence without realizing and places most famous and could call certain parts, for a similar regard for yet more venerable sites such as Tempe, absolute visual congruity. instance, the , the Academy, the Prytaneum, the with its poetic associations of a golden age of pastoral ease, Roman taste had sanctioned copies of original works of art, Canopus, the Poecile, the Vale of Tempe. And in order to even as it simultaneously appropriated the site for its own especially of statues by Greek masters, recognizing the copies omit nothing, he even made an underworld. enhancement. as admirable in their own right. The context and function This passage in the Historia Augusta not only underscores If scholars are on less secure ground in identifying other of such copies, however, invariably differed from the originals. the potential of one place to evoke another but also, through surviving portions of Hadrian’s Villa with famous places men- Witness the caryatids that line one of the most striking its reference to the underworld and its associations with the tioned by his biographer, it is largely due to one extremely features of Hadrian’s Villa, the so-called Canopus, or Scenic myth of Pluto and Proserpine, introduces themes that would important characteristic of these topographical allusions. Canal. Hadrian’s caryatids are reflected in the shimmering dominate the pastoral tradition to come: growth, decay, death, Rather than being literal imitations of the older monuments water of the canal and outlined against the shadowy concavity and rebirth. whose names they carried, all were of new and innovative of the Serapaeum, rather than silhouetted against the Attic The circular colonnade of one structure, often identified as design, often bearing only the most general visual relationship sky – a transformation that cannot fail to affect our perception a Temple of Venus, anchors the northern end of what was once to their namesakes. of their form and meaning. The emperor’s contextual transfor- an extended landscape composition probably intended to The revival of classical forms that emerged as a central mation of the Erectheum caryatids was paralleled in a later age evoke the Thessalian Vale of Tempe, near , the accomplishment of the Renaissance similarly involved a vital, by James “Athenian” Stuart in a garden folly at Shugborough, pastoral setting par excellence. Hadrian’s passion for collect- creative process of translation or imitation, inspired by active which was modeled on the of Hadrian at Athens. ing, as it were, evocations of buildings and places whose commerce with past masterpieces. Several centuries later, the Any man’s time and accomplishments will pass, whether he names ring with hallowed associations anticipates the attitude English Augustans viewed the architectural forms of classical leads the simple life of a shepherd or the sophisticated life of of well-traveled English lords whose gardens were sown with antiquity primarily through the medium of Renaissance trans- an emperor. After the collapse of the , Hadrian’s allusions to favorite spots on their Grand Tours. lations codified in the treatises of Serlio, Palladio, and others. Villa was systematically despoiled and served as a quarry Varro, in his treatise on agriculture, drily commented on Their vision of landscape was likewise based on classical texts, for over fifteen hundred years. And yet the villa’s connection to the fashion among wealthy Romans for attaching exotic names many of which had been visually translated by such seven- the enigmatic emperor and the great natural beauty of its to their villas. “They do not think they have a real villa,” he teenth-century painters as observed, “unless it rings with many resounding Greek Claude and Poussin. names.” The villa of Cicero’s friend Atticus, in Epiris, included The most influential an Amalthaeum, named after the legendary site on Mount Ida English landscape theorists where Zeus was raised. The Amalthaeum comprised a grove, a and gardeners were at their stream, and a sanctuary, together forming a planned landscape ease with verse – composition that Cicero was eager to imitate at his own villa. Alexander Pope and Joseph We also learn from Cicero that Brutus’s villa at Lanuvium Addison were poets steeped included a Eurotas and a Persian Porch. Brutus’s Eurotas in classical literature – and referred to a river flowing through , and his porch to a they were also often architec- portico commemorating a Spartan victory over the Persians. tural dilettantes of consider- Brutus’s choice of these landmarks for inclusion in his garden able erudition. But this did declares his political and philosophical affinity with Spartan not mean that they were liberty as contrasted with Persian servility to an absolute content merely to illustrate . Hundreds of years later, similar moral and political values were expressed in eighteenth-century English gardens – notably Kent’s Elysian Fields at Stowe. At the same time, such allusions to earlier eras may be expressions of poetry or power

The Canopus, or Scenic Canal, at 8 Hadrian’s Villa. setting ensured that it would be visited by future generations While I contemplated this picture, a thousand confused Digging Ancient Gardens of artists, writers, and patrons. Most of these visitors would ideas passed across my mind. At one moment I admired, n the dusty haze of this warm December morning, I am come from Rome, leaving the city behind them to enter this at the next detested Roman grandeur. At one moment standing with archaeologist Ehud Netzer on the slopes Arcadian scene, where shepherds tended flocks and farmers’ I thought of the virtues, at another the vices, which distin- of an artificial mountain at Herodium, looking out towards ploughs turned up tessellated pavements and fragments of guished the lord of the world, who had wished to render Jerusalem, visible to the north. This is where Professor statuary. As they wandered over the vast site, so richly strewn his garden a representation of his empire. I called to Netzer of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem recently dis- with mementos of the past, they would inevitably muse on its mind the events by which his superb villa had been Icovered the tomb of Herod the Great. The archaeological imperial associations and ponder the implications of its decay. destroyed. . . . While these different thoughts succeeded world is humming with the news, made vivid in a recent At the same time, the particulars of the scene before them – each other, an inward voice mixed itself with them and National Geographic special and cover story (November 2008). magnificent ruins in a pastoral setting – only strengthened the repeated to me what has been a hundred times written on As part of a four-day conference on villas of the Roman connection between landscape and antiquity, which would the vanity of human affairs. There is indeed a double Empire that we are both attending, Professor Netzer has remain one of the central manifestations of the pastoral for vanity in the remains of the Villa Adriana: for it is known agreed to give participants a private tour of the site. As we wait centuries. that they were only imitations of other remains, scattered for the others, he says he has a surprise for me: a tomb garden. Landscape is so allusive precisely because it combines place through the provinces of the Roman empire. The real I urge him to explain how he knows this, but he responds and time; the place is fixed, but it changes; it always looks both temple of Serapis and , and the real academy at simply, “You will see.” We scramble along the steep slope, the forward and back. Evocations of place and time are themes Athens no longer exist; so that in the copies of Hadrian fortress palace looming above and the great pool and colon- intertwined through history at Hadrian’s Villa, like the strands you only see the ruins of ruins. nades of this ancient royal burial complex extending outwards of ivy that form natural garlands pendant from the villa’s below. Chateaubriand’s text bristles with the contradictions ruined vaults. These strands appeared repeatedly in examples Reaching the terrace where the limestone tomb was recent- implicit in the pastoral tradition: complexity and simplicity, of villa and landscape design from the Renaissance through ly discovered, we study the fine masonry of its central cham- urbanity and rusticity, reality and artifice, vanity and humility, the eighteenth century, and we can trace parallel themes in ber, which contained the remains of several sarcophagi, or the temporal and the eternal. He concluded his meditations painting and literature, extending through the haunting land- coffins, now at the university. (The most distinctive among with these remarks: scapes of Claude Lorrain and Marguerite Yourcenar’s Memoirs them, presumably Herod’s, had been deliberately smashed by of Hadrian. Many travelers, my predecessors, have written their names vandals.) Outside the tomb, a pool originally flanked one side When François-Auguste-René Chateaubriand, one of the on the marbles of Hadrian’s Villa; they hoped to prolong of the chamber, its waters leading out to the forecourt of fathers of French Romanticism, visited Hadrian’s Villa in 1803, their existence by leaving a souvenir of their visit in these the terrace. And there, sandwiched between the crushed white he was surprised by a rain shower and sought refuge in one celebrated places; they were mistaken. While I endeavored limestone construction fill below and the destruction debris of the baths: to read one of the names recently inscribed which I above, is a deep brown layer of loam. The soil must have been thought I recognized, a bird took flight from a clump of ivy, carried up the hill from the surrounding fields and spread A vine had penetrated through fissures in the arched roof, and in so doing caused several drops of water from the across the terrace, which would have been watered from a while its smooth and red crooked stem mounted along the recent rain to fall: the name vanished.* nearby cistern. Now we know that Herod – like his friend and wall like a serpent. Round me, across the arcades, the benefactor, Augustus – was buried in a tumulus with a garden Roman country was seen in different points of view. Large Here is the preoccupation with mortality that informs so or grove. elder trees filled the deserted apartments, where some soli- much of the pastoral mode, and yet in Hadrian’s grand design The moment takes me back to 1985, during my doctoral tary black-birds found a retreat. The fragments of masonry the human desire for immortality still struggles valiantly studies, when Professor Netzer first offered me the opportuni- were garnished with the leaves of scolopendra, the satin against the inexorable cycles of nature. – John A. Pinto ty to examine an ancient garden at the Hasmonean and verdure of which appeared like mosaic work upon the Herodian winter palaces at Jericho, dating from the second white marble. Here and there lofty cypresses replaced the *Chateaubriand, F.-A.-R., Voyage en Italy (Paris, 1969), pp. 134-135; and first centuries BCE. Excavations by various teams over columns, which had fallen into the palaces of death. The translation: Recollections of Italy, England and America (Philadelphia, the previous three decades had revealed a highly constructed wild acanthus crept at their feet on the ruins, as if nature 1816), pp. 27-28. landscape of terraces, palace structures, artificial hills, water had taken pleasure in reproducing, upon the mutilated systems, pools, and ornate retaining walls, including a stepped chefs d’oeuvre of architecture, the ornament of their past theater whose benches held flower pots rather than spectators. beauty. . . . My first project was a small courtyard beside the dining hall, where Netzer had unearthed several pots in a test trench. The

9 Plan of Villa Arianna, Stabia, Italy. of the Temple of Peace in the Imperial Fora. At Petra, Jordan, a The villa, with its large peristyle young doctoral candidate, Leigh Ann Bedal, set out to explore viridiarium, sprawls along a high the Lower Markets and discovered an extensive pool and gar- cliff above the Bay of . den complex that once greeted parched travelers along the (Credit: M. Palmer) Arabian trade routes. As part of an ongoing initiative begun by Peristyle Courtyard Michel Conan, then director of Landscape Studies at Dumbar- features and even the design ton Oaks, and the Society of Garden Archaeology to create of the garden emerged clear- Atrium a sourcebook of garden archaeology, this project became a text ly: seven simple rows with case. Thanks to these and other discoveries, Dr. Jashemski was eleven planting pots or tree able to catalog over 1500 Roman gardens around the empire pits in each. The original by the time of her death last year. With three fellow scholars, I surface soil contours and am now preparing for publication the manuscript of this subsurface construction were great work, Gardens of the Roman Empire. remarkably intact. Trapezoidal The evidence for gardens in typical preservation conditions Cultivated soils are often Peristyle is a complex combination of soils, artifacts, and “ecofacts.” We the first indicator of an can detect the shape of planting beds, paths, and often post- ancient garden or park, but The Great holes of fences and trellises. We can recover rows of planting they are not always so dra- Peristyle pits, which sometimes contain ceramic planting pots; these matically presented; it has mark the location and suggest the general size of plants. The taken me years to develop work of the young scholar Elizabeth Macaulay Lewis has techniques to confidently demonstrated just how widely such vessels were used through- O 25M 50M identify garden features in out the Roman Empire. Understanding the movement of water the field. I subsequently leads to further understanding of any garden, and we find found evidence of gardens water channels and pipes, pools, fountains, and grottos. Art on Masada and in the palace areas at Herodium, but it considered so ephemeral that few historians bothered with played a large role in the Roman garden, and nymphaea, wall would be thirteen years before I found such well-preserved them. But the Jashemskis’ work spurred first a new sense of painting fragments, paths with mosaics, and statues and their features as at Jericho – this time in Italy at the villa of the possibility and then a dramatic growth in the field of garden bases are often among the remains. This cultural and environ- ancient Roman poet Horace, a contemporary of Herod’s. study, and the couple’s method of combining scientific tech- mental evidence, when interpreted together, allows us to visu- Again, ceramic planting pots, cultivated soils, and soil discol- niques with humanistic inquiry remains the model. Professor alize the three-dimensional space of the garden and the varied orations revealed a garden laid out along a central axis. Jashemski collaborated for nearly forty years with Dumbarton human activities that took place there. We can also begin to The most famous Roman gardens are those excavated by Oaks in Washington, D.C., to gather archaeologists working reconstruct the garden’s relationship to the architecture and Wilhelmina Jashemski at Pompeii and other areas buried by around the world to develop garden-finding methods that surrounding landscape. Mt. Vesuvius in 79 CE. These landscapes were abruptly sealed would be useful on sites with more typical preservation condi- One big surprise from archaeology is the nearly complete by volcanic ash and lava flows instead of succumbing to over- tions. The first of these conferences was held in 1979, featuring absence of the type of plan assumed to be quintessentially growth, erosion, or changing uses. With the assistance of her Barry Cunliffe of Oxford University, who had discovered an ancient: the quadripartite garden. Not one example has been husband Stanley, an eminent scientist, Jashemski excavated all important villa garden at Fishbourne in Sussex, and Jorge identified in the hundreds of sites in Jashemski’s catalog, yet it kinds of gardens, from small urban peristyles decorated Alarcão, who had found peristyle gardens with intricately has been so ubiquitously represented since the Renaissance ornately in the latest fashion to shopkeepers’ gardens, temple plumbed fountain basins at Conimbriga in Portugal. Their as the “Garden of the Ancients” that most gardens recreated at gardens, vineyards, commercial plots, and orchards. She also success inspired many archaeologists to tackle the gardens of Roman villas opened for tourists take this form. Not only is investigated the monumental and luxurious villa at nearby the famous places of antiquity. the quadripartite garden absent in Roman culture, there is no , discovering delightful interplays among gardens, Since then, Italian and Danish archaeologists have found firm evidence of it in the Persian, Egyptian, and Greek tradi- garden paintings, and architecture. the gardens of the imperial villa of Augustus and Livia at tions either. We do have evidence within the geometries of The conditions of the Vesuvian region are unique in the Prima Porta, which boasts the the most famous classical gar- Roman gardens for cruciform pools or paths that casually classical world. Many of the methods developed there for gar- den painting discovered to date (see page 11). Bernard Frischer cross, and we may yet find a geometrically laid out quadripar- den archaeology are not applicable to more typical sites, which and I studied the large peristyle of Horace’s villa in Licenza, are usually less well preserved. Indeed, gardens were generally Italy, for the American Academy in Rome with great success. Investigators at the École Française de Rome revealed a series of gardens on the Palatine, and the Soprintendenza archeolog- ica di Roma exposed for the first time the great public garden 10 tite peristyle garden. However, we must dispense with the The equivalent of landscape architecture in the Roman Museo Nacionale in Rome, a staple image of every garden his- Post-Enlightenment view of the garden as an axial and world was called ars topiaria – not the craft of clipping shrubs, tory textbook. This garden has always been interpreted as an symmetrical form, one shared with the mandala and other but the art of making places. A Danish scholar, Lena Landgren, idyllic one, whose plants flower and bear fruit simultaneously symbols of the cardinal directions. has recently shown that the term appears in Rome suddenly in in a timeless moment of abundance. The viewer can stroll Most large Roman gardens were in fact laid out as sequences the mid-first century CE, along with the word for its practi- around the room along the wall, studying its exquisitely por- of linked spaces for perambulating on foot or in a litter. Each tioner, the topiarius. Garden effects range from oases in desert trayed plants and birds, all of which can be identified scientifi- garden space was almost always oriented toward a scenic view. locales, as at Jericho, Masada, or Petra, to miniaturized topogra- cally. Yet from a stationary position, perhaps while dining, the Wherever one ate, whether in temples, schools, urban domi- phies, including hanging gardens in emulation of mountains, viewer notices a rocky ledge at the top of the painting, evoking ciles, or villa gardens, reclining rather than sitting at meals as on the Palatine in Rome or on the coast of Caesarea Mar- the sense of reclining in a cave and looking out on a lushly was the norm. For that reason we find no conventional dining itima (Israel), and imitation rivers or canals, an example being planted garden. tables, only stone couches. the Canopus at Hadrian’s Villa or the cool Euripus that carried Garden paintings abound around the Roman empire, both In two famous letters Pliny the Younger (61/63–113 CE) leads the waters of the Aqua Virgo through the Campus Martius in on interior and exterior walls, creating imaginary verdure for us through each of his villas Rome. We know from poetry urban courtyards or extending small gardens into fictional not simply by stating the that flowery valley meadows spaces. This phenomenon is not, however, what has brought contents of the rooms and were also recreated in minia- me to Jerusalem. Instead I am here to report on the discovery gardens, but by telling us ture, although as yet no of what I believe to be an actual viridiarium at the Villa Arianna what we will see and from examples have been found in Stabia, Italy, a site buried by the eruption of Vesuvius. In what vantage point we will archaeologically. All these fact, the great peristyle of the Villa Arianna appears to be the see it. Like other ancient innovative garden features most densely planted monumental ornamental garden pre- Roman gardens, his appear were not merely surface served in the Roman world. to have been linear and view- treatments but instead Two years ago, archaeologists from the Soprintendenza based. In spite of Pliny’s expensive, man-made ecolo- archeologica di Pompei removed the volcanic lapilli from the words to this effect, many gies requiring engineering, surface of the villa’s largest peristyle to find only dirt – no art, latter-day architects have aesthetic, and horticultural no pavements – which is highly unusual. At their invitation, I drawn imaginary reconstruc- knowledge comparable to visited last spring to record the contoured surface with its tions of his two villas that that employed in landscape many root cavities, which were awaiting plaster casts. Working take the form of symmetri- architecture today. with a team from the Restoring Ancient Stabia Foundation, we cally axial layouts of the kind Also appearing in the used LiDAR, a type of advanced scanning technology, to create that became prevalent from literary record in the first a detailed contour map of the surface, allowing us to calculate the time of the Renaissance. century CE are places called the careful grading used to manage water flow across the site. Earlier, in his famous De viridiaria, long translated Ground-penetrating radar has also allowed us to see, beneath Architectura, the architect and simply as green spaces. the surface, the terrace’s original construction and the varying engineer Vitruvius (c. 80–70 Oxford scholar Nicholas sizes of the cavities left after the decay of plant roots. I worked BCE–c. post-15 BCE) says Purcell now interprets them with colleagues and students to carefully remove lapilli from that extensive walks should as collections of green plants hundreds of these cavities. Our analysis indicated that numer- be laid out according to the (viridia), perhaps in the sense ous small trees, shrubs, vines, and herbaceous plants had once status of owner. He describes of imported trees, shrubs, grown there. We also found other holes indicating the former a variety of architectural and and herbaceous species, but presence of fence posts and stakes. garden walks, such as the more probably in the sense While the final design awaits our studies later this year, we colonnaded portico or peristyle; the freestanding xystus or lin- Detail, garden painting, the Garden of arrangements curated to have the overwhelming impression that this garden at the Villa ear walks along the cliffs of the Villa Damacuta on Capri; and Room of Livia at Prima Porta. (Credit: create a topia, or richly evoca- Arianna, with its rich array of vegetation held back by fine the hippodrome garden – that strange horticultural adaptation Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.) tive place. During this peri- fence-work, strikingly resembles the garden room of Livia at of equine sport – seen on the Palatine and at Hadrian’s Villa. od, garden paintings became Prima Porta, as well as other garden paintings around the All of these walks feature dramatic landscape views and gar- popular as well. The earliest and preeminent example is Roman Empire. It seems that these beautiful representations dens alongside or within the circuit. Places for delightful din- the Garden Room of Livia at Prima Porta, now housed in the were not merely idyllic; they portrayed actual viridiaria, ing are arranged throughout the gardens and structures, strolling gardens that, with the provision of abundant water with attractive views framed by windows to resemble paintings and many kinds of plants, offered the smells, sights, and or illusionistic paintings simulating views. sounds of spring – even in the heat of an August day in the shadow of Mt. Vesuvius. – Kathryn Gleason 11 Place Keeper oaks in shades of scarlet, yellow, and russet – the Spanish oak Canyonlands. As the soft, uplifted limestone weathered over (Q. buckleyi), the Texas red oak (Q. Texana), the bur oak (Quercus time, creeks and rivers such as the Colorado, Guadalupe, macrocarpa), and the small blackjack oak (Q. marilandica). And and Pedernales carved numerous canyons between distinctive on the Bamberger ranch many other native tree species, such ridges. This undulating topography is what gives the Hill Margaret Bamberger, Land Steward as the drought-tolerant big tooth maple (Acer grandidentatum) – Country its name. ave you seen my blog?” Margaret Bamberger asks now a glowing crimson – contribute to the fall spectacle. If The geological uplift also caused fissures to open up in the me. It is the fall of 2008, and we are sitting in the you go to Margaret’s November 23, 2008, posting (brp-journal. porous rock. Water percolating belowground created what kitchen of her house on a sparkling day in the blogspot.com/2008/11/selahs-colors-of-fall.html) you’ll find geologists call karst, a spongelike layer of partially disintegrat- Texas Hill Country. Both Margaret’s life and her her images of these trees in their full autumnal splendor. ed limestone in which caves form, some pocket-size and work revolve around Selah, the 5,500-acre ranch Although you wouldn’t guess that they weren’t spontaneously others quite large. Spelunkers are attracted to the caves, and Hcum nature preserve surrounding us that her husband of the seeded, some of them are not indigenous to the Hill Country bats often colonize them in huge numbers. But the main last 11 years, J. David Bamberger, began creating in 1969. “I’m but were propagated from seeds of trees growing elsewhere in function of the permeable karst strata is to serve as an aquifer, getting ready to post my 52nd entry,” she continues. “When Texas. The Bamberger policy is to reintroduce to the extent an underground reservoir where subsurface water collects. I started last year I promised myself I would possible native trees that may have grown on Rainwater replenishes these aquifers, and it was through write one a week. As a cancer patient, it’s not the ranch before being extirpated by over- understanding the intimate bond between sky, earth, and sub- always been easy. What I miss most is my grazing and agriculture. The tall thick grass surface aquifer that David was able to transform a formerly energy. But the blog is my way of continuing rippling on the meadow slope below us is desiccated landscape into a parklike series of meadows and my life as an environmental educator – even part of the same plan to replant the ranch flowing streams, a continuing labor that Margaret has shared if I can’t teach at the Center, take kids on as with different species of native Texas vegeta- for the past fifteen years. many nature walks, or develop new programs tion. When David first bought the ranch in 1969 it was complete- like I used to do.” Beauty is often deceptive. The Texas Hill ly overgrown with Ashe juniper (Juniperus ashei). Often called In 2004 Margaret was diagnosed with Country is environmentally fragile, drought- “cedar” (a common misnomer), Ashe juniper is extremely rot- Stage 4 cancer; a miracle of modern oncology prone, and historically unfriendly to farmers resistant, making it an ideal wood for fence posts, and its has prolonged her life but not cured the and ranchers. Although it looks entirely nat- dense, green, feathery foliage is appealing to the eye. For Hill disease. Many patients with terminal diseases ural, the landscape of the ranch is as much a Country ranchers, however, these assets are far outweighed by make a career of illness. In contrast, product of human ingenuity as is New York’s the fact that this native species spreads like a weed in soil- Margaret’s career is life, the life of nature. Central Park. To understand the nature of impoverished, overgrazed areas. The remaining grasses have a During my visit last fall, I found her happy, David Bamberger’s accomplishment and difficult time surviving as the juniper’s shallow roots drink up relaxed, and focused on the beauty and Margaret Bamberger’s love of this place it is much of the groundwater that would otherwise nourish their ecological richness of world surrounding her. necessary to look at the geological structure growth. Moreover, much of the rain falling on the juniper’s If you visit the Bamberger Ranch website Margaret Bamberger of the land and the dynamics of its vegetative dense leaf canopy evaporates before reaching the ground. (www.bambergerranch.org) and click on community. Because there is little vegetation and mostly bare earth “Margaret’s Blog” at the top of the page, you will find a In geological terms the ranch is part of the Edwards beneath this canopy, the rain that does fall to the ground potpourri of information about life at Selah – part ranch news, Plateau, an uplifted portion of the calcified sediments of the erodes the already thin layer of soil. The run-off washes over part journal, and part lesson in environmental science – Cretaceous sea that covered a large portion of the middle of the bare ground and little water is absorbed. Thus the aquifer with wonderful illustrations, for Margaret is an excellent the North American continent a hundred million years ago. is not adequately recharged, and the seeps and springs that photographer. Because it is a marine formation, the limestone has numerous flow from it at the surface dry up. The Bamberger house rests on a hilltop, and out of the win- fossils of mollusks and other forms of sea life embedded in David knew that the only way he would be able to restore dow there is a view of rolling grassland punctuated with it. It also has the occasional set of dinosaur tracks imprinted the land to the kind of savannah Native Americans had kept stands of live oaks whose dense low-hanging canopies provide by the large reptiles that roamed the shallow margins of the open through periodic burning was to remove as much shade and cover for whitetail deer (Odocoileus virginianus). prehistoric sea. The southern edge of the Edwards Plateau is juniper as possible, leaving only a few stands to serve as breed- The Texas live oaks are one of a number of oak species that are sharply defined by an escarpment known as the Balcones ing habitat for such birds as the Golden-cheeked warbler called “live” because their leaves are never shed at the same (Dendronica chrysoparia), an endangered species whose summer time and remain a glossy dark green all year. These include range is restricted to this part of Texas. With the purchase of a the Spanish oak (Quercus buckleyi), the Lacey oak, (Q. laceyi), and second-hand bulldozer and the hard work of a knowledgeable the plateau live oak tree (Q. fusiformis). neighbor and a small crew of Mexican laborers, he began a Even though the handsome live oaks are resisting the con- multiyear clearing operation. Where open ground was exposed ventions of the season, we are also surrounded by deciduous by the juniper removal, he sowed native grass seed. As the

12 grass roots trapped water in the soil and filtered it into the about their behavior, their native habitat (the savannahs of people who are thinking on conservation issues to come aquifer, dry springs started to flow again, and the rolling Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad, and Sudan), and the program to together.” savannah visible from the kitchen window where Margaret and save them from extinction in Margaret’s blog posting of Part of David’s talent for people ranching lies in his ability I were talking began to take form. The bulldozer also served February 4, 2008 (brp-journal.blogspot.com/2008/02/scimitar- to attract exceptionally knowledgeable and dedicated persons as an earthmoving machine, which David used to carve basins horned-oryx-at-bamberger-ranch.html). to work with him. Not long after they met he invited Margaret and build earthen dams to create lakes that are fed by a large In contrast to David, Margaret does not speak the language to come live at the ranch and begin a series of environmen- aquifer reservoir he was lucky enough to tap. The largest of mission statements; hers is the factual speech of someone tal classes at the Center. Soon their relationship of these artificial water bodies is Lake Madrone, named for the trained in both biological and environmental science. Living deepened into something more than mutual admiration, and Madrone tree (Arbutus texana), a rare and delicate species in Austin as a single mother, she raised three children while they married in 1998. Although she often dryly teases her hus- whose peeling bark reveals pinky tan limbs and trunk. working in a laboratory analyzing white blood cells. Because band when his penchant for hyperbole in extolling the perfec- David named the ranch “Selah,” a biblical term meaning she was able to get her lab work done in a thirty-five rather tions of Selah exceeds her more scientifically descriptive “pause and reflect.” Although it is nominally a working ranch than forty-hour week, she could use the remaining time to approach, Margaret has obviously found both the perfect out- and cattle are grazed there, its real mission is to teach the educate herself as a naturalist, learning a great deal about geol- door classroom and her ideal life partner. ethics of responsible land stewardship by serving as a role ogy, botany, and ornithology by serving as a volunteer in the David’s instinct for lucky recruitment paid off again in model for environmental regeneration and management prac- Austin Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas. The more 1999 when he was selling Christmas trees for a charity in San tices that, in the words of David, “nurture Mother Nature.” He she immersed herself in natural history, the better she under- Antonio and Colleen Gardener, a Peace Corps volunteer calls this “people ranching.” In 2002 he formed the Bamberger stood how she could change her focus from the cytotechnolo- recently returned from Niger, stopped by to choose a Douglas Ranch Preserve, a not-for-profit corporation whose purpose is gist’s microscope to the whole-earth perspective of the fir. When her interest in environmental preservation became to keep Selah intact and perpetuate David’s land-stewardship environmental educator. She jumped at the chance when she apparent, David invited her to the ranch, and soon she had ethic beyond his own lifetime. was offered the opportunity to teach at the Austin Nature and become its indispensable factotum and Margaret’s teaching For now, however, the vigorous 80-year-old people rancher Science Center. She could never have imagined that she would assistant. At the Center they set up easels for poster-board pic- is working every day, planting native tree species or overseeing eventually have a 5,000-acre ranch for her outdoor classroom. tures of wildlife and built a library of field guides and other the prescribed mating patterns of a herd of scimitar-horned In 1994 a mutual friend introduced Margaret to her future books on natural history subjects. Schoolchildren and families, oryx (Oryx dammah) on a 640-acre section of pastureland husband. At first, Margaret did not know what to make of this as well as local ranchers in need of David’s persuasion in the he set aside in 1980 under the terms of an agreement with the wealthy, ebullient man whom she admired but who was, she ways of land stewarding, were invited to the Center. After Species Survival Program of the American Association of says, “much too rich for me,” adding, “I certainly didn’t want to focusing the attention of their ranch guests on the lesson of Zoological Parks and Aquariums. The purpose of the program become anyone’s trophy wife and buy expensive clothes. But I the day, Margaret and Colleen would take them on a walk is to breed genetically diverse animals culled from the remain- liked coming to the ranch on an occasional field trip to go where they learned to identify birds and marine fossils and – ing 29 African bloodlines and in the future to reintroduce birding or attend one of David’s land-stewardship conferences, most exciting of all – to recognize a set of dinosaur footprints some scimitar-horned oryx back into the wild. In the mean- so I kept driving over from Austin when something was going that calcified eons ago in the now-exposed limestone on one time, to see a herd of these graceful animals running across on.” David had by this time built the Center, a large, one-story of the bluffs at the ranch. the ranch range, as opposed to observing them individually in meeting hall and dormitory of native Texas limestone. The Some say, “Build it and they will come.” This was true in the a zoo, is a thrilling sight. I purpose of the conferences at the Center, which were led by case of the bluebird nest boxes. As Margaret explains in her “Selah,” the Bamberger Ranch. found a wealth of information agricultural scientists, was, according to him, “to get all those March 10, 2008, blog posting (brp-journal.blogspot.com/2008/ 03/bluebirds-set-up-housekeeping-at-selah. html), eastern bluebirds (Sialia sialis) are found in the eastern and central United States, including Texas. When she set up the boxes on the ranch, a breeding pair soon took up residence in one. The photos for this particular lesson in bird identification and behavior are credited to Amanda Fulton, whose husband Steven, a biologist, teaches at the ranch along with Colleen. Accompanied by Margaret’s captions, the photographs show

13 what the bird looks like from different directions and how the Books ans, biographers, and design the People: A History of remarkable career. male flies back and forth to feed the nesting female whose critics have focused more Central Park (1992) presents The Papers of Frederick Law head pokes expectantly out of the box hole. attention on Olmsted than a revisionist view of Olmsted Olmsted, Vol. VII: Parks, A yet greater triumph in habitat creation occurred soon any other American land- as an upper-class elitist Politics, and Patronage 1874- after David and Margaret were married. Previously David The Papers of Frederick Law scape architect. No one is who believed “it his duty as a 1882 is the latest addition to had helped to make publicly accessible a privately owned Hill Olmsted, Volume VII, Parks, even a close second. Their gentleman to train the poor an editorial endeavor begun Country cavern that had been colonized by migratory bats. Politics, and Patronage, labors have produced a wide and uneducated, whom he in the early 1970s by the late Disgusted by its subsequent commercialization as a tourist 1874-1882 spectrum of results, includ- did not entirely trust, in the Charles Capin McLaughlin. attraction, he decided to build his own bat cave on the ranch – Edited by Charles E. Beveridge, ing reverent accolades, vigor- tastes and manners he had Over the 65 years of his pro- an entrepreneurial piece of real estate development skeptics Carolyn F. Hoffman, and ous criticisms, and insightful inherited.” More nuanced fessional career, Olmsted dubbed “Bamberger’s Folly.” He and Margaret wanted to Kenneth Hawkins histories. and better-documented produced no less than use their manmade Chiropotorium – a neologism they The Johns Hopkins The first of the accolades, books and articles by Albert 60,000 personal and profes- coined, conflating the bat’s genus name, Chiroptera, with “audi- University Press, 2007 which predates Roper’s Fein, Elizabeth Barlow sional papers. The intent of torium” – not as a sightseeing experience but rather as part of biography, was the 1922 pub- Rogers, Charles E. Beveridge, this projected twelve-volume the ranch’s nature education program. The only question was: The Master List of Design lication of a selection of and Charles Capin McLaugh- series is to publish “the most Would bats populate the 6,500 square feet of domed spaces Projects of the Olmsted Olmsted’s professional lin, published during the last significant” of Olmsted’s awaiting their arrival? For five years their organically irregular, Firm, 1857-1979, 2nd ed. papers, Forty Years of Land- three decades, have struck a personal correspondence, grass-covered, manmade cave, nestled in the side of a low Edited by Lucy Lawliss, scape Architecture, edited by balance between these two unpublished writings, pro- hill, remained empty. Then Mexican free-tailed bats (Tadarida Caroline Loughlin, Lauren Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. poles, providing insight into fessional reports, design braziliensis), the most prevalent of the 32 species of Texas, Meier and Theodora Kimball with Olmsted’s work and legacy. plans, and newspaper and began to colonize it. Today the bats are prolifically breeding, National Association for laudatory introductions and Olmsted well deserves periodical articles in anno- and one of the great Selah spectacles is the emergence on a Olmsted Parks and National glosses. Censorious voices this ever-increasing applica- tated form. This latest vol- mid-June evening at dusk of well over a hundred thousand Park Service, Frederick Law did not emerge until later in tion of scholarly effort. His ume, produced by the bats. Margaret’s photographs in her January 11, 2008, posting Olmsted National Historic the century. Roy Rosenzweig extensive body of significant editorial troika Charles E. (brp-journal.blogspot.com/2008/01/crazy-about-bats.html) Site, 2008 and Elizabeth Blackmar’s design work has shaped the Beveridge, Carolyn F. show how, as if on cue, a cloud of these nocturnal-foraging controversial The Park and American cultural landscape Hoffman, and Kenneth mammals swoops from the cave mouth and soars into the If present more than any Hawkins, exhibits the superb darkening sky in search of moths and other insects. trends contin- other practi- scholarship of its predeces- In addition to the ones already mentioned, last year’s 52 ue, the ever- tioner of land- sors and adds yet another postings on Margaret’s blog consist of descriptions of educa- expanding scape significant I-beam to an tional activities such as “Birding Workshop held May 17 and shelf of architecture. impressive structure of edi- 18,” with her own painted illustrations of birds (May 19, 2008); Frederick Law In addition, torial achievement. plant and animal lessons, such as “Ragweeds and other Plants Olmsted the sheer Since it has taken almost that Make us Sneeze,” written from her hospital room in scholarship quantity and a generation to arrive at vol- Houston between chemotherapy treatments (September 22, may soon quality of his ume VII, it is obvious that 2008); images she has captured with her ever-busy single-lens- require its books, articles, the various editorial teams of reflex digital camera while on vacation with David; and per- own bookcase. professional the series will not be rushed. sonal accounts of family visits, including “A Wonderful 70th Since the pub- reports, and The almost glacial time span Birthday” (December 18, 2008). lication of private corre- is witness to their scholarly On this occasion, her birthday present to herself and her Laura Wood spondence rigor as well as testimony to readers was her blog pledge “to continue for at least another 52 Roper’s magis- comprise a the formidable task they posts.” – Elizabeth Barlow Rogers terial study FLO, a Biography rich legacy of design ideas to have undertaken. Their edi- of Frederick Law Olmsted be reckoned with in the torial policy is both clear and thirty-five years ago, histori- twenty-first century. Two recent works substantially contribute to our under- standing of Olmsted’s

14 sound. Every document Buffalo park systems, reports lucid and informative gener- less so when viewed in a sentence from his entry which was rooted in his selected must satisfy at least on the site plan of the al introduction by Beveridge nineteenth-century context, on “Landscape Gardening” Puritan heritage, prevails. one of these criteria: “pro- nation’s capitol, an architec- highlighting Olmsted’s surrounded by individuals from Johnson’s New Universal As Beveridge notes in his vide insight into Olmsted’s tural critique of the New work of the period and plac- of similar energy and ideal- Cyclopaedia (1877) is typical: introduction, at no time in character, present valuable York State capitol in Albany, ing it in historical context. ism. We meet again the fer- his career was Olmsted more In the possibility, not of commentary on his times, or several private estate com- Chapters are arranged in vent idealist, certain his directly involved in his making a perfect copy of contain an important state- missions, preservation initia- chronological order, and design work embodies the design work than during any charming natural ment on design.” The 756 tives for Niagara Falls, each is introduced by a help- values of American democra- these eight eventful years. landscape, or of any parts pages of volume VII render suggestions for a resort ful synopsis of its main cy. Unwavering in his per- While this volume does doc- or elements of it, but of it literally one of the weight- hotel, and even an evaluation events. Some chapters are sonal integrity, he abhors the ument the corruption and leading to the production, iest tomes of the series, yet of the federal government’s devoted to only a few chicanery of political patron- complexity of New York where it does not exist, its strict adherence to editor- Reconstruction policy and months, others several years. age and is exasperated by politics and illuminates under required condi- ial policy makes it one of the civil service reform. About 80 percent of the 136 those who fail to grasp the a few interesting facets of tions and restrictions, of most fascinating and infor- The scale, complexity, and entries are private corre- depth and nuances of his Olmsted’s character, its some degree of the poetic mative of the lot. significance of many of these spondence, with the remain- concept of urban parks. He greatest value lies in the beauty of all natural land- As Beveridge notes in his projects could occupy a full der consisting of project constantly argues for the amount of detail Olmsted scapes, we shall thus find introduction, the period career, but for Olmsted they reports, published articles, status of landscape architec- reveals about the develop- not only the special func- from 1874 to 1882 was one of were less than a decade of and personal memoirs. ture as a rigorous profession ment of some of his most tion and the justification the most active and signifi- work. This frenetic pace Because the material is orga- requiring such specialized significant design projects – of the term landscape gar- cant of Olmsted’s career. sorely tested his psychologi- nized chronologically, the knowledge as site engineer- the U.S. Capitol Grounds, dening, but also the first With a nod to the nautical cal and mental health. In let- narrative leaps from topic to ing, planting design, aesthet- the Boston Park System, the object of study for the terms Olmsted often used to ters to friends he wrote of topic, conveying a sense of ics, design precedents, and Bronx, Tompkins Square, landscape gardener, and spice his correspondence, being “dilapidated” and “so just how diverse, stressful, the ability to relate design the Campaign for the the standard by which one might say that his pro- dog tired I could hardly sit and fast-paced Olmsted’s form to social and individual Niagara Reservation, Mont alone his work is to be fessional practice was run- up.” “A little exercise” set his practice was. Thus, to trace needs. His maturity and Royal, Montreal, and several fairly judged. ning at full sail before the “heart bouncing.” The addi- the development of a specific mastery as a designer are planned communities and wind through often-stormy tional strain of confronting project, copious use of the manifest – a quick and deci- Much of his personal cor- private residences. The edi- seas. The period begins the politics and patronage well-designed index is a sive eye for the intrinsic respondence is warmer and tors have included plans for with the last years of his New surrounding his work in must. Each selection is pro- qualities of a site, the ability more graceful, however, many of these projects, but York office and ends with Central Park was especially vided with extensive foot- to weigh complex alterna- revealing him as a loyal in most cases they are poorly him happily relocated in trying. Two long confession- notes on every imaginable tives and choose the best, friend and caring father. In reproduced. This has been suburban Brookline, Massa- al ruminations on the vicis- subject related to the text. and the capacity to work one letter to his six-year-old a problem with all seven vol- chusetts. The editors have situdes of work in the public This will no doubt please the effectively at a wide range of son, Frederick Law Olmsted umes. One hopes the two selected extensive material realm in New York City scholar, but less so the scales. Jr., he invents a tale featur- last volumes of the twelve- relating to his designs for round out the editorial selec- layperson who may well Olmsted was quite aware ing a locomotive named volume series devoted pri- Tompkins Square and tions: the bitter, self-pub- become entangled in the of his limitations as a writer Succotash and a rat, Tzaskoe marily to plans and drawings Morningside Park, his con- lished catharsis “The Spoils thicket of references or just and speaker. Responding to (the latter of Norwegian will fare better. tinuing work on Central of the Park” and a series of bored. an 1877 invitation to lecture provenance). While revealing At the end of the volume Park, and his planning private journal fragments The portrait of Olmsted in Montreal, he remarked, “I a playful imagination, we find Olmsted mostly efforts to develop a mass dealing with similar subject that emerges from this cannot write in a popular the plot concludes with the freed from the turbulence of transportation system matter. wealth of material is consis- way upon my subject and I tragic death of Tzaskoe, a New York’s politics and tak- and topologically apt street The volume contains a tent with the one revealed in have no gift for public speak- clear warning to young ing up residence in the qui- system for the Bronx. An the previous six volumes of ing.” This rather Germanic Fred of the disastrous conse- additional wealth of material his papers. By twenty-first quences of and includes plans for the century standards, Olmsted neglect of social responsibil- Boston, Montreal, and was clearly a work-obsessed ity. Olmsted’s moralism, polymath, but he appears

15 eter water of leafy Brookline, work of Olmsted himself as its projects. Of special merit want to know if the Olmsted assembles the fragments of The Last Days of adopting the suburban life well as his firm, which con- is “Researching an Olmsted firm designed any private thought embedded in his Old Beijing: Life in the he believed to be “the ideal tinued practice until 1979. Landscape” by Lawliss and residences in my hometown, collected papers and notes Vanishing Backstreets middle landscape between For over a century Olmsted Meier, a step-by-step guide Charlottesville, Virginia. A the extraordinary signifi- of a City Transformed city and countryside.” His and his successors at the that also lists all available quick glance at the private cance and range his projects, By Michael Meyer psychological health is much Brookline office produced a archives and their locations estate category reveals that there emerges a powerful Walker & Company, 2008 improved and no longer is prodigious number of pro- and Web sites. This entry will between 1932 and 1937 the legacy of design that speaks there “a great noise” in his jects – about 6,000 in all. prove especially helpful to firm produced a site plan for to the challenges of the All cities are palimpsests, head, and he feels lighter on These included site plans for laypersons and preservation- W.A. Rinehart, and that 27 twenty-first century. He landscapes on which the his feet. As he confides to his 700 public parks, parkways, ists. Excellent photographs plans and related correspon- reminds us the essence of marks of time are constantly lifelong friend Charles and recreational facilities, and plans of representative dence are available under job design is the giving of form being inscribed and erased. Loring Brace: 350 subdivisions and examples of the firm’s work number 09319. If I wish to to values. He affirms land- Even a city’s topography and planned communities, 2,000 complement the essays. research this project, I sim- scape architecture as a joint land forms, such as its hills You can have no idea what private estates, 250 college The new editors have ply set up an appointment at endeavor with architects, and bodies of water, cannot a drag life had been and school plans, 100 hospi- been wise to retain the very the archive and make plans engineers, planners, and withstand the relentless pas- to me for three years or tals and asylums, and 125 useful classification system to journey to Brookline. To other professionals. He sage of time and the actions more. . . . I enjoy this sub- commercial and industrial of the old edition devised by supplement my efforts, I will emphasizes meticulous, of subsequent generations of urban country expression buildings. Plans and corre- Charles E. Beveridge and also follow the advice of edi- comprehensive, well-docu- inhabitants. Infrastructure beyond expression. . . . spondence for much of this Carolyn F. Hoffman. In brief, tors Lawliss and Meier to mented site analysis and the and street patterns may We have had great trials work are housed in the office the system is typological and consult my local historical melding of design form with change at a slower rate than and agitation in the past archives. Unless you live in a geographical, dividing the society as well as the Olmsted human needs and the wel- the structures that are con- year but their result on very remote part of the material into fourteen cate- Research Guide Online fare of the natural environ- stantly being erected, altered, the whole has been withal United States, there is a good gories (parks, private estates, (rediscov.com/olmsted). The ment. He advocates the and torn down as cities tranquilizing. I am to turn chance that a design by suburban communities, latter will allow me to refer- creative interpretation of rebuild themselves, but even sixty with two grandsons. Olmsted or his firm is near- arboreta and gardens, etc.). ence additional materials in design precedent to meet they are subject to transfor- In the remaining thirteen by or at least once existed in Within each category the the manuscript division of present challenges and mation. years of Olmsted’s career, in your vicinity. If you wish to projects are listed by state in the Library of Congress. insists on staunch commit- One of the most conspic- a new place with a new locate this work or perhaps alphabetical order, along Both of these recent pub- ment to the welfare of the uous examples of urban beginning, even more out- engage in efforts to preserve with their job numbers. At lications complement one public realm in a democratic transformation today can be standing work was yet to it, this master list will per- present it is necessary to visit another. Volume VII of the society. Finally, his vision of seen in Beijing. The 2008 come. form admirably. the archive at the Frederick Olmsted papers is a fascinat- park systems reminds us Olympics focused the Yet another valuable This second edition, Law Olmsted National ing primary source revealing that one indispensable ele- world’s attention on the dra- addition to the Olmsted cosponsored by the National Historic Site to access this Olmsted’s innermost ment of a vibrant, socially matic rapidity of this city’s shelf, The Master List of Association for Olmsted material, but eventually all thoughts concerning some just, and functional city is an seemingly overnight alter- Design Projects of the Olmsted Parks and the National Park the documents will be avail- of his most enduring and interconnected matrix of ation. The confidence Firm, 1857-1979, is a much- Service’s Frederick Law able online. Also, each typo- significant design work. The parks, plazas, parkways, and with which its government improved second edition of Olmsted National Historic logical section includes a Master List of Design Projects other types of civic spaces. planners are adding a West- a work published eleven Site, is a welcome metamor- brief, helpful introduction by of the Olmsted Firm leads us These excellent books unroll ern-style inscription to the years ago. It is an indispens- phosis of the more minimal- a leading Olmsted scholar to the plans and correspon- a scroll of remarkable design latest layer of its palimpsest able reference for scholars, ist earlier version. Editors placing the designs in his- dence relating to these pro- achievements and testify to gives pause to those who see lay persons, and preserva- Lucy Lawliss, Caroline torical context. jects, as well as many others the scope of an enduring cities as amalgams of new tionists interested in the Loughlin, and Lauren Meier This system is quick, by him and his successors. legacy. – Reuben M. Rainey and old, places where past have added 1,000 new entries informative, and compre- Olmsted never wrote a and present can coexist and four new succinct and hensive. For example, I may systematic or comprehensive in harmony. China’s rapid informative essays on the treatise on his overall design modernization due to its history of the Olmsted firm theory. However, when one recent economic prosperity and the scope and nature of is clearly bringing a higher

16 standard of living to many hood of Dazhalan. After it was announced hutongs or architecturally city’s many eras from prehis- tary to read English from millions of people. But at Located just outside Front that Beijing would host the interesting parts of them. toric times to the present in a Chinese primer featuring a what social and environmen- Gate, the main opening in 2008 Olympics, the Hand But when restored, these are a lively account of his life as mischievous monkey called tal cost? This is a critical what was once the outer wall redoubled its efforts to erad- only semblances of their for- a teacher and the lives of Mocky. They are supervised question for our times. along the city’s north-south icate the city’s hutongs and mer selves, for their social those he lived among. He by educational authorities In The Last Days of Old axis, Dazhalan, which relocate their residents to vibrancy has been drained lets his story emerge vividly with total jurisdiction over Beijing: Life in the Vanishing includes 114 ancient lanes, or high-rise apartments on the away as their current occu- from the voices of his neigh- the school curriculum. These Backstreets of a hutongs, dates urban perimeter. Because pants can no longer afford to bors: the officiously solici- officials also provide songs City Transformed, from the 1200s. the communist government rent their old apartments. tous Widow, Recycler Wang, encouraging patriotic right Michael Meyer In the seven- owns the land, long-term To live in Dazhalan as its the Hans, who repair cell thinking that Miss Zhu and writes about the teenth century lease arrangements with lone foreigner and not seem phones, Soldier Liu who Meyer must teach the chil- country’s ruth- the neighbor- real-estate developers have odd, it was necessary for runs his family’s shaved noo- dren to sing. lessly changed hood assumed spurred the destruction of Meyer to become an active dle shop, and Miss Zhu, On Red Bayberry and not its lively com- most old neighborhoods member of the community, his Coal Lane Elementary Slanted Bamboo Street merely as an mercial charac- closer in toward the center which he did by talking co-teacher. Anecdotally, he Meyer became friendly with informed out- ter after the and their replacement with his way into a job as a volun- makes the reader aware his neighbor Recycler Wang, side observer emperor for- commercial buildings, shop- teer teacher at Coal Lane that an “urban corner,” the who haggles with the other but also as bade theaters, ping malls, and chain opera- Elementary School. With the Chinese euphemism for neighbors over the amount someone with artisans’ shops, tions. In this way Beijing ability to read the language slum, can be a place where he is willing to pay for their intimate knowl- teahouses, is acquiring a cityscape and speak colloquially, he “you heard laughter and live- discarded rubbish and then, edge gained inns, restau- where lanes and stall-lined could both dig in historical ly talk and occasionally, tears in turn, with the wholesale by living inside rants, brothels, streets are rapidly giving way archives and share in the and arguments, just like any- garbage entrepreneurs of his subject. He first came to and other such establish- to wide motorways and lives of his fellow hutong where else.” He says that in Trash City who pay him a China in 1995, as a Peace ments within the imperial plazas anchoring banks and dwellers as they went about comparison with the new slightly marked-up price that Corps volunteer. For two confines of the Inner City. corporate headquarters. As their daily business while Beijing of detached high-rise yields him a profit of a few years he taught in Neijiang, a Today a conglomeration of everywhere, the city has waiting for the Hand to apartments, “People treated yen. Once Recycler Wang mid-size city located on a subdivided and badly sprouted a plethora of inter- mark their shops and abodes each other with something I invited Meyer to accompany bend in the Tuo River in the decayed mansions housing nationally familiar global with the character chai. missed the minute I set foot him to Trash City. The dump southwestern province of 57,000 residents within half franchises such as Starbucks, During his Peace Corps days, outside the hutong: civility.” is organized as a series of Sichuan. In 2003 he returned of a square mile, Dazhalan is McDonald’s, and Marriott the Chinese name of Heroic The longtime tenancy lanes that are named accord- to China and settled in one of the densest popula- Hotels. Signaling this Eastern Plumblossom had of the Widow in the govern- ing to the recyclables that Beijing where he became fas- tion clusters in the world, aggressive westernization, been conferred on him ment-owned courtyard are bought and sold there. cinated by the city’s vanish- sustained by a vibrant web new names such as Invest- because his surname sound- house Meyer shares gives her Navigating Plastic Bottles, ing traditional architecture of human connection. ment Plaza and Corporate ed like mai’er, the word for unspoken authority over the Bottle Caps, Fan Blades, Paint and the social structure that Unfortunately, it is also in Square are being conferred “sold son,” meaning a boy other residents. She keeps Buckets, Sink Basins, Card- it represents. To master writ- the process of being on old places, while hutongs that had been auctioned off walking into his apartment board, Musical Instruments, ten Chinese, he spent a year destroyed. For the Hand, as like Glazed Tile Factory by his parents. His Dazhalan with bowls of steamed Bedsprings, Bicycle Frames, at Tsinghua University, using Meyer characterizes the Antique Street, Prolong Life neighbors now nicknamed dumplings saying, “Eat, Bus Seats, Cooking Oil city-planning histories as impersonal governmental Street, and Red Bayberry him Little Plumblossom, and Little Plumblossom!” Inside Bottles, Office Papers, and his texts. Then he found two authority that anonymously and Slanted Bamboo Street it was as Teacher Plum- the classroom with Miss Zhu Pillows, Recycler Wang and rooms for rent in a dilapi- paints the character chai – in Dazhalan have become an blossom that he was known (who longs to have the one his wife negotiate the best dated courtyard of the raze – under the cover of endangered species. At the in the classroom. child she may bear under the prices they can get for what hutong called Red Bayberry darkness on the mud and same time the government is Meyer shifts back and country’s population-control they have brought in their and Slanted Bamboo Street, brick walls of its houses and aware of heritage as a tourist forth between the grand policy), he teaches the chil- dilapidated truck that day. in the venerable neighbor- shops, this ancient neighbor- commodity, and therefore sweep of Beijing’s history dren of Coal Lane Elemen- Meyer notes that the name hood is an affront to the the Hand spares some and the quotidian details of of one of Trash City’s lanes is city’s image of itself as a his neighborhood and per- Beams from Old Courtyard major contender in the race sonal relationships, embed- Houses, thereby giving the toward modernization. ding his summary of the 17 reader a sign of the times and punctuated by ceremonial 1648 when Qing emperor mode of transportation. But Liang soon learned, however, thousand. Only the collapse an indication of the meager gates. Just outside the gate Shunzhi wanted to turn the Dazhalan remained in a that Mao’s regime was if of the Great Leap Forward in economic thread that will be of the Inner City – the outer- Inner City into an ethnic time warp. Meyer conjures anything more authoritarian 1958 spared the hutong broken when Recycler Wang most enclosure – Yongle enclave for Manchu admin- up the neighborhood then than its imperial predeces- dwellings from being eradi- and other hutong residents built the Altar of Heaven istrators, Han residents, just as “a procession of profes- sors. By the mid-1950s cated. They were simply left are relocated. flanked by two circular tem- like the residents of Dazha- sions, including barbers, Beijing could boast of being to deteriorate. The modernizing of ples, the Temple of Heaven lan today, were subject to a china menders, lamplighters, the home of 149 of China’s Further erosion of the Beijing that Meyer describes and the Temple of Agricul- compensated eviction policy. herbalists, toy makers, 164 types of industry includ- city’s imperial heritage is not a singular phenome- ture, or Hall of Prayer for And over the next two and florists, fortune-tellers, magi- ing petrochemicals, rubber accompanied Mao’s Great non. In the four chapters in Good Harvests. To the south a half centuries, Beijing saw cians, and bear baiters” navi- products, plastic, pig iron, Proletarian Cultural which he recounts the city’s of Front Gate he decreed the usual transformations gating the crowded narrow power generators, woolen Revolution of 1966. The last urban history, it is apparent the creation of Dazhalan as wrought by emperors, wars, hutong on foot and in rick- cloth, cars, color televisions, remaining intact gate in the that the current transforma- a commercial quarter. and natural disasters as new shaws – as is still the case internal combustion engines, city wall came down in 1969 tion is only the latest of During the reign of imperial landmarks and today. washing machines, refrigera- to enable the construction many periods of construc- Jiajing (ruled 1522–1566), pleasure gardens were built After Beijing was overrun tors, sewing machines, and of the Second Ring Road. In tion and alteration. altars were raised to the and subsequently destroyed by Japanese invaders in 1937, beer. spite of his earlier forced In 1271, a few years after Earth, Sun, and Moon at the by edict, conquest, and fire. the occupation government Mao declared that the Old confession of the error of his conquering China and estab- cardinal points just outside But it wasn’t until the twen- built roads inside the Old City “completely serves feu- opinions, Liang was labeled lishing the Mongol empire, the Inner City. At about the tieth century that the twin City but located its own resi- dalism and the imperial era” “a piece of contemptible Khubilai Khan founded the same time a fourth wall was forces of politics and mod- dential quarters in a new and that the eradication dog shit” for protesting the capital of the Yuan dynasty begun, only the southern ern technology all but eradi- district. Westerners stayed of this taint was one of the destruction of his city’s on the site that would one portion of which was com- cated what remained of on in the colonial sector, mandates of communism. architectural patrimony. day become Beijing. He exca- pleted. The Outer City Beijing’s past. romantically attuned to the Spurred on by Soviet plan- Although rehabilitated after vated the lake known as Bei defined by this wall – an area In 1912 Sun Yat-sen’s city’s beguiling charms. ners, much of the Inner City the Cultural Revolution, his Hai, or Northern Sea, and containing Dazhalan and the Nationalist Party took con- Their idyll ended for good in was altered to serve as gov- plan for a progressive city created hunting preserves – adjacent neighborhood of trol of the county and estab- 1949 when Communist ernmental headquarters. The with a protected past went today public parkland – Fresh Fish Junction, a hutong lished the Republic of China. forces defeated the National- remaining parts of the wall unheeded; it soon became surrounding it. Little else of district where the current With this move toward an ists. Simultaneous with the that once enclosed the Inner abundantly clear that urban this first imperial city pace of demolition is even apparently more democratic founding of the new People’s City were deemed politically planning in China was still remains. After taking power more advanced – was there- society, the public was Republic of China, Chairman incorrect. The People’s Daily in the hands of authoritarian in 1403, the second Qing fore a large rectangular allowed to tour the Imperial Mao Zedong proclaimed that exhorted people who loved officials and that there would emperor, Yongle, created appendage attached to the monuments within the industrial production would the Party to “use their hands be as little transparency what is now thought of as southern portion of the walls Inner City and admitted for be the primary goal of the to destroy – you pull down a as in imperial times. Today the ancient city. Guided by of the Inner City. Today the the first time into the communist regime and that piece of stone, who can stand “Progress” remains the geomancy, Confucian sym- combined walls of the Inner Forbidden City. The throne the old hutong neighbor- by idly? ‘A single idiot can Party line, and protesters are bolism, and cosmology, the and Outer City are gone, and room became the Palace hoods of Beijing would move a mountain,’ so should reduced to bargaining over imperial city planners creat- in their place is the Second Museum, and the space adja- become a sea of smoke- citizens of every district help the terms of resettlement. ed a hierarchical ordering of Ring Road. Beyond it are the cent to the Altar to the God stacks. The Chinese architect pull down the wall.” The only The fate of the hutong res- space in which three mas- Third and Fourth Ring of Land and Grain became and planner Liang Sicheng – part of the outer wall that idents in modernizing sively walled enclosures – the Roads, where the suburban Beijing’s Central Park. Moats whom Meyer met with sever- was left standing was the Beijing prompts reflection Inner City, the Imperial City, residential towers for former were dredged, the city wall al times and quotes at some historic Front Gate’s twin on all urban palimpsests as and the Forbidden City – hutong residents are being was pierced by roads in sev- length – questioned the towers. Inside the Front testaments to changing cul- were nested each within the built. eral places, and trolley transformation of the capital Gate, facing the Inner City’s tural values and systems of other. This closely guarded Forced relocation is not a tracks were built around the into a Chinese Manchester Gate of Heavenly Peace governance over time. In triple complex, still the heart new policy in Beijing. In perimeter of the old wall. in a country where there are (Tian’anmen), Mao built the 1998, when Meyer was still of the capital, was centered Electric lights and macadam so many other urban centers. largest urban square in the on a great north-south axis pavement appeared, and the world, now expanded to fifty bicycle became a common acres with the capacity to hold a crowd of six hundred 18 teaching in the northwest environs are vulnerable to in a word, insane. In sum, he Magnificent Buildings, Shepherd of Italian Gardens assembles twenty of his most part of the city, he observed crime. However, the issue is asking why, in its race Splendid Gardens of the Renaissance, published significant articles and that a nearby farming village that Meyer wants his readers toward industrial and com- By David R. Coffin. Edited by thirty-six years earlier. essays on Italian Renaissance had been plowed under to to face is not just the erasure mercial , should Vanessa Bezemer Sellers Jellicoe’s presence highlight- and later architecture and make way for a high-tech of an architecturally historic China repeat the sins of the Princeton Department of Art ed the revolution going on gardens, and on English gar- research park. Noticing three and socially vibrant part of West in copycat fashion? & Archaeology in association in the field, since he repre- dens of the seventeenth pits dug in the now bare the Beijing palimpsest or the What is the toll that is being with the Princeton University sented an earlier generation through the nineteenth cen- earth, he introduced himself cost in human terms of taken not only on Chinese Press, 2008 of landscape architects who tury. Produced over fifty to an archaeologist from the destroying the homes of its society but also on the health had focused on garden plans years, 1951–2001, the articles Cultural Relics Bureau who present hutong population of the planet if a country so In April 1971, supplemented were chosen by Coffin him- told him, “I don’t have much but rather the ways in which large and populous contin- eleven years with snippets self and published after his time. These will all be buried today’s developer-driven ues on this present course? after the publi- of largely death through the efforts of next week.” urban planning is impover- History never reverses cation of his familiar histo- his former student, Vanessa The archaeologist had ishing human life every- itself, and the economy and groundbreak- ry and legend. Bezemer Sellers, herself a been collecting artifacts where. culture of China are chang- ing study The Predictably he scholar of seventeenth-cen- from what he surmised to be No one would argue that ing irrevocably. To assert its Villa D’Este at was irked by tury Dutch gardens. The tombs of a Han dynasty the coal-burning stoves con- real greatness as a nation Tivoli, David R. the new volume stands as witness to settlement. He said that the tributing to the city’s pall of China should be accommo- Coffin orga- approaches he the accomplishments of government-sponsored polluted air are better than dating this process by build- nized the first heard, which this prolific scholar and developer had promised to central heating or that public ing more humane and conference at focused on reflects his many interests. build a museum to display latrines are preferable to livable cities that mix tech- the newly insti- meaning and Coffin’s academic and the two-thousand-year-old indoor plumbing. What is nological improvements tuted Garden social and cul- intellectual life centered pottery and tools discovered being lost in Beijing and with local customs, indige- and Landscape tural context, around Princeton, where he on the site. Wryly, Meyer other globalizing cities is, nous planning forms, and Studies program at Dumbar- instead of on what he pro- was both an undergraduate remarks, “It never did. Now besides their individual building technologies, while ton Oaks in Washington, claimed to be most impor- and a graduate student, and it is filled with identical rows identities, the familiarity of instituting effective controls D.C., modestly titled “The tant about Italian gardens: subsequently a faculty mem- of walk-up apartment build- neighbors who recognize on industrial pollution. But Italian Garden.” In a later their design. For younger ber from 1949. There he ings. They are made from each other as they mingle on without similar actions on essay, Coffin described not academics, however, both the studied with Erwin Panofsky, cement and painted bone- the street or in the market. the part of other countries only the limited character of conference and the subse- the German émigré scholar white – ossuaries for a later Meyer, who has read Jane this is not likely to happen. publications on the subject quent volume of its proceed- who from 1935 was professor generation to exhume.” Jacobs’s Death and Life of The real question to ask our- at that time, but also how ings, which Coffin edited at the Institute for Advanced Meyer does not see the Great American Cities, wants selves is why isn’t the coun- difficult it was to find pan- and published, represented Study in Princeton and current reinvestment in the us to see that ripping apart try that has been such an elists for the conference the exciting future direction taught at the university. Cof- urban core to be contextually the physical and social fabric unfortunate role model for itself. His many phone calls of garden studies. fin’s moving tribute to beneficial. In one of their of place and reweaving it the whole world in terms of and letters produced only Widely credited as one of Panofsky (1968), which is conversations, the architect with coarse indifference to object architecture, heedless four participants, one the founders of the new aca- included in this volume, Liang characterized the the form and texture of what sprawl, automobile owner- American scholar and three demic discipline of garden praises him as “the greatest “starchitecture” of Beijing makes urban life rewarding – ship per capita, and overall Europeans; there were sim- history, Coffin approached humanist.” The legendary and so many other present- a vibrant mixture of com- environmental degradation ply no other scholars work- Italian Renaissance gardens Panofsky is most associated day cities as “objects” discon- mercial and residential uses, not engaging in leadership ing on gardens. with the full apparatus of the with iconography – the nected from their surround- neighborly face-to-face by example. Perhaps in these Coffin invited as a discipline of art history. study of subject matter or ings. These architectural encounters on a daily basis, dawning days of an adminis- respondent to the papers Sir He published five books and meaning in works of art and icons as well as the uniform easy access to work, and less tration committed to change Geoffrey Jellicoe, the promi- the edited volume on the the ways in which cultural high-rise apartment build- dependency on bureaucratic we can have the audacity to nent British landscape archi- Dumbarton Oaks confer- ideas resonate in images. ings that are replacing governmental agencies – is, hope that American cities tect and co-author with John ence, as well as numerous Profoundly influenced by his the courtyard houses of the can be transformed into bet- articles and book reviews. mentor, Coffin was the first hutongs stand in isolation. ter planning models for the His last book, Magnificent Deprived of street life, their rest of the world. Buildings, Splendid Gardens, – Elizabeth Barlow Rogers 19 to recognize that gardens, private agent sent to his feast on delicious food and views and explains their sig- those (including Michelan- the region harnessed into like painting and architec- patron in another city. Coffin sophisticated literary conver- nificance as images of gelo) who did not follow the spectacular and ingenious ture, have intellectual con- uncovered a cache of such sation. position and wealth, not just model of the ancients and fountains. At the same tent and culturally specific documents in the State Documents themselves chronicles of the site. ignored the principle of time, its vertical axis, which meanings; he was also one of Archives of Modena during are idle clues – finding them Beyond gathering decorum or appropriateness. branched into a Y at the the first scholars to investi- his study of the Villa d’Este, is only the first step. They descriptions, views, and con- This and several other stud- steep upper garden, evoked gate those meanings. which allowed him to deter- need to be checked against temporary accounts to ies did not exhaust Coffin’s through design and statuary Scholarship resembles a mine the dating and attribu- each other, analyzed, and understand Renaissance gar- interest in the multifaceted the mythical Garden of the good mystery story. The tion of fountains and to questioned in order to con- dens, Coffin also embarked sixteenth-century figure. Hesperides and Hercules’s scholar tracks down clues – compile a complete building struct a larger story. An early early in his career on a sus- A monograph, Pirro Ligorio: choice of virtue over plea- bits of evidence – and out of history. essay in this volume, “John tained study of one of the Artist, Architect, and Antiquar- sure – a choice that ultimate- these clues constructs a nar- Coffin also unearthed Evelyn at Tivoli” (1956), con- architects most deeply ian, was published posthu- ly won him the golden rative, whether about the clues in published texts, cerns the visit of the English involved in creating original mously in 2004. apples of the Hesperides. By attribution, meaning, or especially early guide books diarist and horticulturalist to gardens, Pirro Ligorio, the Taking to heart Panofsky’s implication, the wisdom larger cultural significance and travel journals, as both Tivoli. Individuals, even designer of the sixteenth- lessons about iconography, of Hercules was replicated by of the object of inquiry. genres gained popularity in learned ones like Evelyn, century Villa d’Este at Tivoli, the study of meaning, Coffin his descendant, Cardinal Departing from the limited the later sixteenth century commonly copied descrip- near Rome. A humanist with deduced the existence Ippolito d’Este, in creating information and interests when Italy became the tions from another travel wide-ranging interests and of an iconographic program this garden. that characterized previous acknowledged cultural capi- journal or guidebook rather abilities, energy in abun- devised by Ligorio at the Coffin was also in the studies on Italian gardens, tal of Europe and both than recording what they dance, and an encyclopedic Villa d’Este at Tivoli. Clues vanguard in seeking mean- Coffin sought a great range Italians and foreigners began actually observed, or added knowledge of ancient arti- came from the garden’s ing in eighteenth-century of evidence. He is famous for to tour the country with gar- only limited original com- facts (which he recorded in fountain imagery, and from English gardens. He once his emphasis on facts, but dens prominently on their ments. To determine what two unpublished manu- contemporary writings about told me that it was the expe- what is really novel in his list of sites to see. The words was only planned, but never scripts), Ligorio worked for the villa. The brilliance in rience of seeing gardens in early writing on gardens is of some of those contempo- executed, or what may have an influential cardinal before Coffin’s study was not just England during his war ser- not that he gets the facts raries form the substance of been altered, Coffin in this he was appointed papal uncovering the meaning vice that originally inspired right but that he gathers a a brief essay in Magnificent case compares Evelyn’s diary architect. After his ambitions itself, but also in identifying his academic interest in whole new kind of evidence. Buildings, “The Gardens of entry with both printed collided with rivalries at the how meaning emerged by them – although a return to Evidence, for Coffin, ,” one of his later pub- views and early guidebooks. papal court, the architect and means of design, plantings, those particular gardens began with documents. lications (2001). From the Engraved views of gar- antiquarian ended his career and sculpted imagery as the came to fruition only a half Many of the documents he visitors quoted by Coffin, we dens were increasingly pop- in the employ of the duke of visitor progressed through century later in his book The sought are housed in learn that Venice was filled ular from the late sixteenth Ferrara. Ligorio’s erudition, the garden. The garden joins English Garden: Meditation archives in Italy. Handwritten with lovely gardens as early century, but even more his belief in the importance two themes, both common at and Memorial, published in documents from the early as the late fifteenth century. important for reconstructing of facts, his curiosity, and his the time but both given par- 1994. In “The Elysian Fields modern period are some- We also discover how they the original state of Renais- activity as supplier of intel- ticular relevance at this site – of Rousham” (1986), Coffin times barely decipherable, were planted, organized, and sance gardens are the views lectual content for paintings, a garden as a unique mar- argues for a unified meaning especially those in Italian, as decorated with fountains, of villas that were commonly architecture, and gardens, riage of art and nature and of the Oxfordshire site Latin was more suited to fine and how they played an painted inside the villas made him a fitting subject its ability to convey the story through the statues, garden penmanship. Coffin spent important role in entertain- themselves. These may indi- for Coffin. One of the arti- of a mythical hero – in this structures, and topography, long hours searching out the ing. Titian, the most famous cate a state before later cles in this volume, “Pirro case, Hercules, the ancient within the framework of the records of notaries docu- Venetian artist, had a garden changes or losses, or alter- Ligorio and the Nobility of deity of Tivoli and legendary natural garden and the menting payments to artists overlooking the lagoon, nately, original intentions the Arts” (1964), presents the ancestor of the Este family. cultural and philosophical and architects, property-sale where he invited other that were not carried out. disillusioned and bitter The Villa d’Este was a work context of the eighteenth deeds, and other legal mat- artists and intellectuals to In a relatively recent article, architect’s reflections on his of art carved out of the raw century. In landscape design- ters. He also made great use “The Self-Image of the own time. Ligorio castigated materials of its natural set- of letters and avvisi – hand- Roman Villa during the ting, the land terraced at written newsletters by a Renaissance” (1998), Coffin great expense and the abun- brings together and analyzes dant springs and rivers of a number of these painted 20 er William Kent’s work he own work and spared us Memorial been preserved there for millennia by the of the erup- finds an evocation of the much labor, was typical. It tion ultimately led her to study history at York College. She classical theme of the earthly was at this dinner that went on to earn an M.A. in ancient history at the University of paradise, interpreted in Sellers announced to Coffin Nebraska and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. She Renaissance gardens as the the gift of this volume of his Wilhelmina Jashemski (1910-2007) always considered herself a Nebraskan, however, in spite of a Golden Age, Parnassus, or essays. In the years that fol- ilhelmina Mary Feemster Jashemski, the pio- life spent far from the plains. The University of Nebraska pre- the Garden of the Hesperi- lowed, many of the students neering archaeologist and historian of ancient sented her with an honorary Doctor of Humanities in 1980, des, but at Rousham acquir- at the dinner, as well as oth- Roman gardens, has died at age 97. During and in 2004 she was honored by the city of York and the State ing the elegiac associations ers who could not attend, decades of work at Pompeii and other sites of Nebraska with a citation and exhibition of her life’s contri- of the Elysian Fields, the contributed to Magnificent buried by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 butions. Homeric paradise for the Buildings, Splendid Gardens by CE,W she studied the many and various gardens preserved At the University of Chicago she studied Roman law with virtuous. writing brief commentaries there and brought them vividly to life for schoolchildren and Jakob A. O. Larsen, completing her dissertation in 1942. At Coffin’s habit of culling on the selections. (These are scholars alike. Her work animated our vision of the Roman Chicago she also met and married her fellow graduate student evidence from a wide variety published at the back of the peristyle garden by supplying evidence for the mythical associ- Stanley Jashemski. Subsequently they both found posts in the of historical sources and book and might best be read ations of its plants, the delicious meals served under its pergo- Washington, D.C., area, and settled permanently there. In 1946, subjecting it to rigorous as prefaces to the essays las, the daily offerings made in its wall shrines, and the games Wilhelmina joined the history department at the University of inquiry was part of the lega- themselves.) played amidst its art and fountains. Much of this new evidence Maryland and developed her dissertation into a well-received cy he passed on to those who Unassuming in both per- was a result of the scientific techniques she developed with book on Republican Rome, The Origins and History of the studied gardens with him. sonality and scholarship, her husband, Stanley Jashemski, a noted physi- Proconsular and Propraetorian Imperium to 27 B.C. He collected the fruits of his Coffin was as devoted to cist, and a team of specialists; together, Then, tenured and in her forties, she archival and library research- undergraduate teaching and the couple and their colleagues pondered her next project. es in small blue notebooks, administration as he was to established a new discipline, One morning, while she and assembled by topic, added to his own research. His gradu- garden archaeology. In 1977 Stanley were enjoying breakfast and mined throughout his ate students, as well as some the American Society of Land- in their own garden in Silver life, and remarkably, shared undergraduates, remained scape Architects awarded Spring, Maryland, he pro- with his students. Coffin also lifelong friends, and their Jashemski the Bradford posed the idea of studying kept his comprehensive – work on gardens – in the Williams Medal, which she the gardens of . some might say obsessive – Tuscan and Roman Renais- displayed proudly on a book- Wilhelmina later confessed bibliographic card file in the sance, in eighteenth-century case in her study, and in 1996 her trepidation in raising this library, where it was accessi- France and England, in sev- the Archaeological Institute of delightful, and therefore possibly ble to all. This was a particu- enteenth-century Holland – America gave her a Gold frivolous, idea with her mentor, larly valuable resource in the is a part of his legacy. At the Medal, its highest honor. Stanley and Professor Larsen. She recounted watch- days before there were com- celebratory dinner in 2003, Wilhelmina Feemster was Wilhelmina Jashemski. ing with bated breath as he paced along his puters, electronic databases, Coffin was presented with a born in York, Nebraska, in bookshelves, pulling down volumes and thumbing through or even a photocopy booklet of reminiscences 1910. In her memoirs, she recalls how her mother, of Swiss and indices. Eventually he turned and pronounced the topic to machine in the art library. from his former students. In German descent, vainly tried to cultivate the northern be not only of great importance but also barely touched by In May, 2003, five months it Richard Betts, architectural European garden flowers of her ancestors on the hot Nebraska scholars. Ancient history, he felt, had too long focused on war before his death, Vanessa historian at the University plains. With her daughter’s help, she stubbornly persisted; per- strategy, law, and political history. Gardens would shed new Sellers organized a celebrato- of Illinois at Urbana-Cham- severance would become a hallmark of Wilhelmina’s character light on Roman culture. ry dinner for Coffin and his paign, wrote, “He inspired as well. A favorite family photograph from those years records After several years of research with the ancient texts, former students at Prospect the highest standards of Wilhelmina at about 11 years old, in a cotton dress, ankle Wilhelmina traveled to Europe for the first time with Stanley House on the Princeton exacting scholarship while boots, and neat braids, holding a plump, ripe tomato from her during her sabbatical in 1955 to see what the archaeological University campus. Many of treating his students with own garden. sites might reveal of ancient gardens. She assumed that the us fondly recalled Coffin’s kindness and respect.” His Her father, a mathematics professor at York University, excavation reports were already published and that she would blue notebooks at that din- words speak for all of us. attached great importance to a classical education for his quickly gather the evidence into a book entitled Gardens of the ner, and our astonishment – Claudia Lazzaro daughter. She recalls first learning about archaeology in The that they were entrusted to Last Days of Pompeii and reading under her covers for hours us. But this enormous gen- past lights-out. Her fascination with the way of life that had erosity, which launched our 21 Roman Empire. A second trip, in 1957, brought the couple to Dumbarton Oaks, Harvard’s famed landscape research cen- Wilhelmina worked with its directors of landscape studies, Pompeii and Herculaneum. Here she met the distinguished ter in Washington, D.C., was the locus of much of this effort especially Michel Conan during his tenure from 2000 to 2008, Russian scholar Dr. Tatiana Warscher, who had worked in the over the following decades. Working initially with the Director to make the institution the foremost center for the develop- ancient city since 1911, photographing the buildings with their of Landscape Studies, Elisabeth MacDougall, Jashemski hosted ment of garden archaeology – not only of ancient Roman gar- garden peristyles. Knowing the extent of the unpublished a conference in May 1979, “Ancient Roman Gardens,” to see dens but also of other gardens of other times and places. For evidence, Warscher predicted, “My dear girl, your first book whether what had been learned from Pompeii could illumi- those of us who worked closely with her in the last twenty will be on the gardens of Pompeii.” Warscher was correct. nate garden sites around the Roman Empire. The conference years, Wilhelmina’s garden room was the intellectual salon for Thus in 1961, at an age when many field archaeologists are at Dumbarton Oaks attracted not only archaeologists and his- the continuing development of the discipline of garden winding down, Jashemski began the systematic excavations of torians but also landscape architects, horticulturalists, scien- archaeology. Pompeian gardens that she would continue over the next tists, and others. It is widely regarded as marking the moment Wilhelmina Jashemski’s greatest effort and perhaps ulti- 25 years. Eventually she added gardens outside the region as of emergence of a new discipline. Many archaeologists mately her most important contribution is her posthumous well, at Hadrian’s Villa and Thurburbo Maius in Tunisia. thought for the first time of looking for garden remains at Gardens of the Roman Empire, the 56-year project that began her The eruption of Mt. Vesuvius had covered Pompeii in a their own sites, and I as a young student became determined explorations of gardens in 1951 and to which she returned layer of volcanic ash, or lapilli, small pebbles of pumice stone. to devote my career to this research. Wilhelmina encouraged in 1988. Because so many archaeologists, myself included, had As the trees and shrubs gradually decayed beneath the thick me not to join her at Pompeii, as I had hoped she would, but begun to excavate gardens and ancient plant remains, she blanket of ash, the lapilli sifted into the cavities left behind. to see what ancient gardens I might unearth elsewhere. As a wanted to gather all of the new evidence in a catalog and vol- Jashemski employed a technique that had been developed to promising beginning, that day I met Professor Barry Cunliffe ume of interpretative essays. As part of this effort, she and I visualize the bodies of the human and animal victims of the of Oxford University who discussed his discoveries at the put together a conference in 1995 at the University of Pennsyl- eruption, in which a cavity is cleaned of the distinctive lapilli Roman villa of Fishbourne in England with me. He would vania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at which and braced with reinforcing wire. Plaster or cement is then later become my supervisor. scholars and members of the public learned of an astonishing poured into the cavity and allowed to set, creating a cast in the In 1982 Wilhelmina and Stanley’s remarkable 37-year col- variety of gardens that had been discovered around the Medi- form of the original contents of the void. In many instances, a laboration came to end with his unexpected death. While terranean and Europe since the Ancient Roman Gardens cast of roots allows botanists to identify the plant that origi- pushing ahead with the excavations at Pompeii, Hadrian’s symposium, sixteen years before. The conference was followed nally grew there, or to narrow down the range of possibilities. Villa, and Thuburbo Maius and promoting garden archaeol- in 2003 by a symposium at Dumbarton Oaks to review the Stanley Jashemski, who always joined his wife on site as her ogy, Wilhelmina worked with their close friend Frederick G. importance of the findings. Since then, the project has collect- staff draftsman and photographer, brought his scientific Meyer of the National Arboretum to honor Stanley with the ed nearly 2,000 sites of Roman gardens – many at Pompeii and perspective to other kinds of evidence. Carbonized plants and publication of A Natural History of Pompeii (2002), which details Herculaneum – and Cambridge University Press has agreed charcoal were studied with scanning electron microscopes; the scientific research the Jashemskis had undertaken over to publish this research. pollen was sampled; the soils were analyzed; and zoologists the years. The couple’s partnership at Pompeii was recognized As Wilhelmina entered her nineties and could leave home and entomologists examined faunal and insect remains. The in 2005 with the creation of the Stanley and Wilhelmina less often, the scholarly world came to her. Fortified by her evidence was exciting, and the picture of Pompeii’s cultivated Jashemski Lecture sponsored by the Archaeological Institute of Nebraskan persistence, she worked daily in the garden room urban landscape grew, along with a new understanding of America, offered annually in Washington, D.C., on a Roman to complete the manuscript with the help of an assistant, for- daily life in the residential gardens, temple groves, commercial garden topic. mer students, friends, neighbors, and a team of colleagues. nurseries and vineyards, and luxury villas. Shortly before Stanley’s death, the Jashemskis discussed the At the same time, she insisted on mastering the constant new By the time of her retirement from the University of Mary- creation of a “garden room” off Wilhelmina’s study. When it developments in internet technology so that she could stay land in 1979, Jashemski had excavated and/or documented was completed a decade later, she would receive colleagues and in touch with her colleagues around the world. The volume’s nearly six hundred gardens buried by Vesuvius. Decades of guests from around the world there to share news, books, and progress and the constant arrival of new discoveries for the journal articles culminated in a spectacularly illustrated book, discoveries over tea or luncheons of chicken sandwiches or catalog delighted her daily. She died with the manuscript at The Gardens of Pompeii: Herculaneum and the Villas Destroyed by Waldorf salad. At Christmas, her home and tree were decorat- her side on the morning of Christmas Eve, a year ago, but her Vesuvius, with a second volume containing a catalog following ed with hundreds of dolls brought by these guests from their legacy of scholarship and mentoring scholars has ensured some years later. For many academics, this would have been a travels. Although long past retirement, she mentored three that this monumental achievement will soon be available to culminating achievement, but for Wilhelmina Jashemski it was new generations of young garden archaeologists, several of all. – Kathryn Gleason but the beginning of the next phase of her career. She still whom stayed with her regularly to work on her projects with envisioned the work at Pompeii within the larger context of Dumbarton Oaks. Serving as a consulting advisor there, Author’s note: Some of the information from this essay is drawn from the Roman world, and so she turned to her original goal of Wilhelmina Jashemski’s unpublished memoirs, which she assembled bringing to light the gardens from around the empire. with the generous assistance of Professor Emeritus Clopper Almon of the University of Maryland. I would also like to thank her executor, Henry Ferry, for permission to use this material and for providing details. 22 Awards Contributors

2009 David R. Coffin John Dixon Hunt ings, and photographs of Paula Deitz is editor of The with Naomi F. Miller of The University, where he offers Publication Grant The Venetian City Garden: the cultural geographer John Hudson Review, a magazine Archaeology of Garden and courses on Renaissance and The Foundation for Place, Typology, and Brinckerhoff Jackson. of literature and the arts Field (University of Pennsyl- Baroque architecture and the Landscape Studies is proud Perception published in New York City. vania Press, 1994), and execu- history of garden and land- to announce the winners of Publisher: Birkhäuser Judith K. Major As a cultural critic, she tive editor of Gardens of scape design. Together with the 2009 David R. Coffin The Evolution of a writes about art, architecture, the Roman Empire by the late William L. MacDonald he This book is a history of the Publication Grant, which is Landscape Critic: Mariana and landscape design for Wilhelmina Jashemski published Hadrian’s Villa and Venetian garden as a repre- given for the purpose of Griswold Van Rensselaer newspapers and magazines (Cambridge University Press, Its Legacy (1995). He is cur- sentation of the city’s unique research and publication of Publisher: University of here and abroad. Of Gardens, forthcoming). rently finishing a book enti- cultural and environmental a book that advances schol- Virginia Press a collection of her essays, tled Speaking Ruins, which conditions. arship in the field of garden will be published in the near Claudia Lazzaro, Ph.D., is pro- explores architects, archaeol- This book is the first full- history and landscape future by the University of fessor of the history of art at ogy, and antiquity in eigh- Janet Mendelsohn and length study of the artist, studies. Pennsylvania Press. Cornell University. Among teenth-century Rome. Christopher Wilson, Editors architect, critic, historian, her extensive publications My Kind of American and journalist Mariana Lawrence Halprin Kathryn Gleason, Ph.D., is on Italian Renaissance villas Reuben M. Rainey, Ph.D., is Landscape: J. B. Jackson Griswold Van Rensselaer’s A Life Spent Changing associate professor of land- and gardens is The Italian William Stone Weedon Speaks writings on landscape Places: An Autobiography scape architecture at Cornell Renaissance Garden: From the Professor Emeritus in the Publisher: Center for gardening. Publisher: University of University. A specialist on Conventions of Planting, School of Architecture at American Places Pennsylvania Press the archaeology of ancient Design, and Ornament to the the University of Virginia. This publication is made up Roman landscape architec- Grand Gardens of Sixteenth- He is a former chair of the This book is an autobiogra- of a DVD documentary, a ture, she has excavated Century Central Italy (1990). Department of Landscape phy by one of the world’s book of essays, and a portfo- gardens around the Mediter- With Roger J. Crum she Architecture and the author leading landscape architects, lio of images. It provides ranean, currently at Stabia edited Donatello Among the of a wide range of studies on environmental planners, and a composite portrait of the (near Pompeii) and at Petra, Blackshirts: History and nineteenth- and twentieth- urban design innovators. teachings, writings, draw- Jordan. She is coeditor Modernity in the Visual century American landscape Culture of Fascist Italy (2005), architecture. His most recent which includes her own book, coauthored with J. C. David Coffin surrounded by his essay, “Politicizing a National Miller, is Modern Public Princeton colleagues and former Garden Tradition: The Gardens: Robert Royston and students at the tribute and reunion Italianness of the Italian the Suburban Park (2006). He held in his honor on May 16, 2003, Garden in Fascist Italy.” is also coexecutive producer at Prospect House on the Princeton of GardenStory, a ten-episode campus. Celebrating Dr. Coffin’s John A. Pinto, Ph.D., teaches documentary for public forty-year career as an architectural in the Department of Art television. historian specializing in the history and Archaeology at Princeton of landscape design are, left to right: Lydia Soo, Patricia Fortini Brown, Meredith Gill, Vanessa Bezemer Sellers, Barbara Paca, Teri Noel Towe, Edward S. Harwood, David Coffin, Pierre du Prey, Claudia Lazzaro, John Pinto, Richard J. Betts, David van Zanten, Tracy Erlich, Graham Smith, Betsy Rosasco, David Gobel, John M. Schnorrenberg, and Richard Turner. 23 Foundation e ok Y10024 NY York, New West 81st Street 7 Good Housekeeping: We Are Updating Our Mailing List!

for Your name is on the mailing list of the Foundation for Volume iv, Number ii Landscape Studies because you are a landscape historian, land- Spring 2009

LandscapeStudies scape architect, city planner, or member of a growing audience of general readers who enjoy thematically organized essays Publisher: on landscape-related subjects. Is this true? Foundation The publication of Site/Lines is part of our mission: “To for Landscape Studies foster an active understanding of place.” A major portion of Board of Directors: our annual budget is devoted to this end. The copy you Vincent Buonanno are now holding on The Landscapes of Classical Antiquity cost Kenneth I. Helphand $7.50 to write, edit, print, design, and mail. Robin Karson • If you are not a regular reader and wish not to receive Nancy Newcomb future issues, we would be grateful to know this so that we Therese O’Malley may remove your name from our mailing list. John A. Pinto • If you do wish to receive future issues, we encourage you to Reuben M. Rainey make a contribution to ensure the continued publication of Frederic Rich, Chairman this donor-supported journal. Elizabeth Barlow Rogers • If you know of others who may have a sincere interest in Margaret Sullivan reading Site/Lines, please send us their names and addresses. For your convenience an envelope addressed to the Editor: Foundation for Landscape Studies is enclosed. Elizabeth Barlow Rogers Associate Editor: Alice Truax Assistant Editor: Margaret Sullivan Copy-editor: Margaret Oppenheimer Designer: Skeggs Design Contributors: Paula Deitz Kathryn Gleason Claudia Lazzaro John A. Pinto Reuben M. Rainey

For more information about the Foundation for Landscape Studies, visit www.foundationforlandscape studies.org, or contact [email protected].

Top View