Seeing the Landscape with J. B. Jackson 3 Helen L

A Publication of the Foundation for Landscape Studies A Journal of Place Volume xv | Number ıı | Spring 2020 Essays: With New Eyes: Seeing the Landscape with J. B. Jackson 3 Helen L. Horowitz: Introduction Chris Wilson: J. B. Jackson’s Intellectual Legacy Laurie Olin: J. B. Jackson and Landscape Architects F. Douglas Adams: On the Road: Forays with Brinck Jackson Kenneth I. Helphand: Motion Pictures: Drawing While Moving Robert Calo: Schooled: A Lesson in Time with J. B. Jackson Place Keeper 20 Paula Deitz: Oak Spring Garden Foundation Awards 23 Contributors 23 Letter from the Editor andscape expresses whose landmark Design with with its editorial flair and perceptive appreciation of colored crayons, ink, and In her Place Keeper aesthetic tastes and Nature, published in 1969, substantive originality, the Jacksonian zeitgeist watercolor at hand, experi- essay on Rachael Lambert cultural meanings ushered environmental and his gifted teaching that evolved over time as ences he recounts in “On the Mellon’s estate in Upper- marked by significant consciousness into the pro- that ensured him a peren- the terms “vernacular” and Road: Forays with Brinck ville, Virginia, Paula Deitz shifts in perception fession of landscape plan- nial following at two great “cultural landscape” came Jackson.” provides a profile of Jack- Lover the course of time. ning and design, and John universities, launched a new into common usage among Kenneth Helphand, son’s diametric opposite: an Design geniuses like André Brinckerhoff Jackson, who epoch in landscape history. historic preservationists, another Jackson disciple, aesthetically refined lover of Le Nôtre and Capability interpreted the social his- Reminiscing about her own social and environmental provides a twist on these horticulture and landscape Brown changed the course tory and cultural geography long friendship with Jack- historians, and landscape road trippers’ ride-and- design whose genius lay in of landscape history: the of heretofore-disparaged, son, Horowitz writes in her architects. stop method of sketching the creation of an extraordi- first used axial and topo- ordinary, everyday land- introduction to this issue, Laurie Olin’s reflection the landscape. In his essay nary garden and rare-book graphic geometries to create scapes. “His baritone voice was on “J. B. Jackson and Land- “Motion Pictures: Drawing library. These are now being the seventeenth-century This issue of Site/Lines, beautiful, and as he spoke it scape Architects” draws a While Moving,” he explains protected and developed classical garden and the sec- which has been coedited by expanded to fill the space. distinction between Jackson how he records the experi- by the Oak Spring Garden ond abandoned formality to Helen Lef kowitz Horowitz, I remember noting the way the writer and Jackson the ence of mobility itself by Foundation. develop a naturalistic design the Sydenham Clark Parsons he used the words ‘we’ and academic, while showing drawing the fluid topog- As always, I would like to language that morphed Professor of History and ‘us.’” That voice resonated how his own practice as a raphy and scenery he sees remind our readers that into the eighteenth-century American Studies, emerita, in the fortunate ears of landscape architect, teacher, from the window of a train the publication of Site/Lines Picturesque style and at Smith College and author those who became Jackson’s and planner has been or plane. is only made possible by nineteenth-century Roman- of Traces of J. B. Jackson (Uni- students, and the brilliant influenced by this public In “Schooled: A Lesson readers who support its con- ticism. versity of Virginia Press, contrarianism of his writing intellectual’s worldview. in Time with J. B. Jack- tinued publication. For this Writers too, including 2020), constitutes a literary brought to the academy an Landscape observation and son,” filmmaker Robert reason we hope that you will Pliny the Younger, Jean- symposium of essayists who entirely new valuation of the sketching are inextricable Calo recalls how, as he was send a contribution to the Jacques Rousseau, and Alex- collectively explore the sub- prosaic as a genre of land- activities for Olin as they attempting to “capture” his Foundation for Landscape ander Pope, have played a ject of her book’s subtitle: scape history. were for Jackson, and the subject for his documentary, Studies for this purpose in role in landscape paradigm The Man Who Taught Us to In his essay “J. B. Jack- same is true for Douglas Jackson was simultaneously the enclosed envelope. shifts. Twentieth-century See Everyday America. What son’s Intellectual Legacy,” Adams, who engaged in determined to introduce America boasts two such emerges is a picture of a Chris Wilson provides a many expeditions into the him to a revelatory way of With good green wishes, original and revolution- willfully unconventional broad open landscape of the reading the landscape. ary writers: Ian McHarg, observer of the quotidian American West in Jackson’s who, through his creation company, sometimes by of the magazine Landscape, motorcycle and always with Elizabeth Barlow Rogers President On the Cover: La Cienega Chapel, New Mexico. To view additional images related to this issue, visit Drawing by J. B. Jackson, 1982. www.foundationforlandscapestudies.org/gallery. 2 With New Eyes: Seeing the Landscape with J. B. Jackson Introduction ers and doers. After he retired from teach- J. B. Jackson. Photograph by ohn Brinckerhoff Jackson (1909–1996) was a perceptive and ing in the late 1970s, he continued to lecture Jennifer Williams, 1981. insightful interpreter of the cultural forces shaping the through the next decade. Until his death in natural world. He wrote, illustrated, published, taught, and 1996, he wrote essays that were published in at that time on the his- lectured about what he named “landscape.” It was a word a wide variety of periodicals and antholo- tory of American zoos, Jthat Jackson redefined. Long associated with oil paint- gized in important books. His writings, and conveyed to me that I ings and formal gardens, “landscape” as Jackson reframed university teaching, and lectures reshaped was engaged in his kind of it encompassed the full imprint of human societies on the the understanding of those who read his enterprise. He charged me land. As its interpreter, he saw his task as understanding how work or heard him speak, enabling them to with carrying my pursuit dwellings, fields, neighborhoods, downtowns, suburbs, and see everyday America in new ways. of landscape studies to the roads expressed the culture and way of life of the peoples who West. I felt elected by him, shaped them. Jackson also gave to landscapes a fourth dimen- Mr. Jackson was my friend from the time I and yet I was quite conscious sion – time. Through their evolution, landscapes were, as he first met him in 1973. A year earlier I and my that he assumed I was wrote, “history made visible” – visible through the materiality husband, Daniel Horowitz, had jointly writ- aware of many things that of structures, developed land, and transportation systems. ten a review of his 1972 book American Space: I actually knew nothing Jackson’s principal subjects were houses, roads, fields, The Centennial Years, 1865–1876. Dan and I about. I remember trying to towns, cities, commercial buildings, and signs. To these he were then living in Washington, DC, during a research year explain to him that I was a historian of more limited scope – gave a human face by imagining the lives of those who lived supported by fellowships. The process of writing that review a novice – but he either wanted to have none of my excuses or in and around them. He demonstrated ways that cultural led us to the Library of Congress’s card catalog and the dis- pretended to misunderstand me. forces such as religion, technological change, and political covery of his magazine Landscape. We learned that he taught It was a long visit in the café, and we walked back to his and economic pressures gave shape to terrain and structures. in the fall semester at Harvard. office in the late afternoon half-light. He gave me handouts He conveyed how human desires and tastes came into play, Later that autumn, before we left the East to teach in that included copies of material on the balloon-frame house writing essays with wit as well as clarity. In 1951 he began to California, we returned to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to say and the grid. publish a magazine of his own creation that he titled Land- goodbye to friends. We also gave ourselves a farewell visit to Once Dan and I settled in Claremont, California, Mr. scape. For the next seventeen years, he not only edited it but Harvard University where we had both done our graduate Jackson and I began a correspondence. Receiving a letter from wrote for it in a wide range of voices, designed work. As we were walking across the Har- him was a memorable event. Each was heavy – it weighed in it, and drew many of its illustrations. vard Yard, Dan had the idea that we might the hand, with the recipient’s name large in black ink on the Landscape began to attract other writers meet Mr. Jackson. We located his office and envelope. And inside was his voice – interested, kind, and and became a forum for planners, architects, knocked on the door. A resonant voice said encouraging. Begun in spring 1974, our correspondence con- and cultural geographers in and outside of “Come in.” A small man welcomed us into a tinued until his death. the academy. With his captivating personality large room in which a seminar table served Dan and I next saw Mr. Jackson when he taught a brief on the podium, Jackson built a public career as a desk.

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