An Aerial Garden Promenade: Nature and Design Along the High Line Paula Deitz: Hugh Johnson: a Visit to Tradescant’S Garden at Saling Hall Kenneth I
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A Publication of the Foundation for Landscape Studies A Journal of Place Volume v | Number ıı | Spring 2010 Essays: Garden Variety: An Uncommon Offering 2 Elizabeth Barlow Rogers: An Aerial Garden Promenade: Nature and Design along the High Line Paula Deitz: Hugh Johnson: A Visit to Tradescant’s Garden at Saling Hall Kenneth I. Helphand: Gardens and War Reuben M. Rainey: The Garden in the Machine: Nature Returns to the High-Tech Hospital Place Keeper 18 David and Dan Jones: Louisville’s 21st Century Parks Visionaries Book Reviews 19 Robin Karson: Unbounded Practice: Women and Landscape Architecture in the Early Twentieth Century By Thaïsa Way Long Island Landscapes and the Women Who Designed Them By Cynthia Zaitzevsky Exhibitions 21 Awards 22 Contributors 23 Letter from the Editor rich tradition of English offered their own firsthand ance during the twentieth industrial activity in their horticulture to surround the stories, further proving the century; he then discusses plans as compelling mellow antiquity of his author’s thesis that garden- how new research on the reminders of the history of a manor house and its adja- ing is a fundamental and response of the immune sys- particular site, but few have he mission of the found on great estates and cent fourteenth-century self-affirming act of place tem to contact with nature had the kind of commission Foundation for adjacent to manors. Paula church with a garden of making in the face of dehu- has led to attempts to ame- that would allow them to Landscape Studies Deitz writes about a particu- great beauty. manization. In this issue, liorate the sterility of high- turn a derelict piece of is to promote an larly fine manor garden, Other types of gardens Helphand, a board member tech medical facilities. industrial infrastructure into active understand- Saling Hall, which is the cre- besides those on private of the Foundation for Readers will be glad to learn a public garden. The conver- Ting of the meaning of place ation of Hugh Johnson, property provide joy and Landscape Studies, shares that teams of physicians, sion of New York City’s High in human life. The making OBE, a prominent author deep personal satisfaction. some of these stories with staff, patients, psychologists, Line, an elevated railroad of a garden is perhaps the who is widely considered the The kind of gardens that our readers. engineers, architects, and trestle, into an elegantly most direct act of place mak- doyen of wine connoisseur- Kenneth Helphand, profes- Another board member, landscape architects are cur- designed promenade where ing there is, stemming from ship. In addition to produc- sor of landscape architecture Reuben Rainey, a professor rently working together to naturalistic drifts of inter- some basic component ing many books on wines, at the University of Oregon, emeritus in the School of create gardens specifically mingling grasses and plants of our DNA that genetically Johnson is also a prolific calls “defiant” certainly Architecture at the University focused on the needs of vari- set off breathtaking views of links human beings and writer on gardens. Readers of belong in this category. of Virginia, is an author and ous classes of patients, such the surrounding cityscape plant cultivation. We have the column he wrote for Defiant gardens are, accord- filmmaker who has made as those with HIV/AIDS or have made what was once a therefore chosen to focus many years in the Journal of ing to Helphand, ones that what are called healing or children’s diseases. busy freight transportation this issue of Site/Lines on the Royal Horticultural Society have been created under restorative gardens his spe- A previous issue of corridor into a quiet aerial four types of gardens – gar- under the nom de plume improbable circumstances cial area of inquiry. Here Site/Lines was devoted to oasis. The extraordinary dens that meet some of our Tradescant admire the way by oppressed, endangered, he has assembled a body of essays on the postindustrial story of how this unusual most fundamental needs and in which his conversational and incarcerated persons as evidence that proves that landscape. In it we main- new park came into being is desires in quite different voice makes them friendly life-affirming antidotes to patients who are exposed to tained that brownfields – one that I am eager to share. ways. partners in observing horti- the sufferings caused by dis- views of greenery or have abandoned riverfront docks, Personal paradise, survival The word “garden” imme- cultural varieties, composi- crimination, peril, and physical access to gardens capped sanitary landfills, stratagem, therapeutic green diately conjures a picture of tional effects, and seasonal imprisonment. A winner of experience less stress and decommissioned military space, elevated promenade – a plot of land, usually near a alterations of garden scenery. the Foundation for Land- recover more quickly than facilities, and other kinds of these are the kinds of gar- house or cottage, that is used As with his predecessors scape Studies’ 2007 John those whose institutional disused urban lands – have dens we seek to explore here for growing flowers, fruit, or Gertrude Jekyll and Vita Brinckerhoff Jackson Book surroundings are designed become a new frontier for with you. We hope you will vegetables. The term also Sackville-West, Johnson’s Prize, Helphand’s book exclusively to serve medical landscape designers. Some enjoy touring them with us. brings to mind the princely writing is born of personal Defiant Gardens: Making technology. Rainey also practitioners involved with gardens that adorn palace experience. By spending Gardens in Wartime has maintains that gardens in brownfields projects have With good green wishes, grounds and the gardens time with him at Saling Hall, engendered unanticipated hospice settings bring solace incorporated relics of former Deitz came to understand responses from many quar- and a more humane end-of- his genius as a garden ters. Numerous readers have life experience to the dying. maker. Here she shares her He delves first into the ori- appreciation of the way in gin of healing gardens in the Elizabeth Barlow Rogers which he has built upon the Middle Ages and the reasons President for their eventual disappear- Important Message entirely on gifts from our read- The Foundation for Landscape ers. Please consider contributing On the Cover: Studies is a donor-supported, by check or giving us your The High Line. Photograph by not-for-profit organization, and credit-card information on the Elizabeth Barlow Rogers. the publication of this non- envelope inside this issue of 2 subscription journal depends Site/Lines. Thank you! Garden Variety: the spaces between the slowly rotting ties, and the disused rail back into use, but in what way? One possible answer was light- bed had transformed itself into a meadow of wildflowers. The rail transportation – an elevated subway line like the ones that An Uncommon Offering story of how this piece of abandoned train track became an used to run above Third and Sixth avenues. But soon their elegantly designed public park inspired by that serendipitous first impressions of the place began to rule their thinking. An Aerial Garden Promenade: transformation is one of the most impressive in recent New Hammond says, “Our goal became to make what felt like a very Nature and Design along the High Line York City history. private and privileged experience – almost like entering a n 1980 a train carrying three carloads of frozen turkeys rum- magical world combining wildscape and incredible urban vis- bled along the 1.5-mile-long elevated trestle called the High It begins in 1999 when Robert Hammond, a young man who tas – available to others without destroying that feeling.” He Line into the manufacturing, warehousing, and meatpacking lived in the West Village just below the southern end of the and David began to envision the High Line as an elevated, lin- district located around Gansevoort and Washington streets High Line, found his curiosity piqued by the puzzling piece of ear park. on Manhattan’s Far West Side. It was the last train to run on industrial infrastructure he saw on his daily walks through Ithe High Line. The tracks had been elevated in 1934, after years the neighborhood. Hearing that there was to be a community At the time Hammond was a business consultant versed in of agitation over the frequent accidents at the at-grade pedes- planning board meeting to discuss its future, Hammond Internet marketing, and David was a free-lance writer on sub- trian crossings along Tenth Avenue – or Death Avenue, as it decided to attend. As he listened to testimony that made the jects such as travel, fashion, and food: neither one of them was then called. But containerized shipping had eventually High Line’s removal practically a fait accompli, he began knew much about the workings of government or how to go made the West Side docks obsolete, and interstate trucking to think it a shame that this relic of New York’s past was being about preserving a historic landmark. They started out by con- had caused a severe decline in rail transportation. Half a cen- torn down. Unfortunately, however, only one other person in sulting with members of the Central Park Conservancy and tury after its inception, the useful life of this Hudson Line the room – Joshua David, who lived a few blocks to the north, others who had formed public-private park partnerships. spur was over. Yet its owner, Conrail, did not want to shoulder in Chelsea – Looking for a the cost of taking it down. seemed to precedent for For the next twenty years, as the railroad company made share his an elevated periodic efforts to sell off this unconventional piece of real contrarian park, they estate, the surrounding neighborhoods of Chelsea and the view.