Conserving the 20Th Century's Landscape Design

SUMMARY

Status of the conservation and protection of landscapes of the mid and late 20th century; Raising awareness of issues; Approaches and practical challenges to conservation; Stimulating action.

Dr Jan Haenraets Proceedings under the scientific direction of Dr. Jan Haenraets

The conference on ‘Landscapes of the Recent Future: Conserving the Twentieth Century’s Landscape Design Legacy’ was organised with the objective to share recent findings and experiences in relation to the status of the conservation and protection of landscapes of the mid and late Twentieth Century. In doing so it was the intention to assist with raising awareness of key issues and make expertise available about practical approaches and challenges for the conservation of such sites, this with the objective that the conference can contribute towards stimulating action to protect and conserve the sites of the recent future.

The starting point is that more of such action and awareness is needed. This conclusion is based on various findings, but as a simplified example, we notice from publications from the recent years on the subject of architecture and landscapes of the recent past (or recent future, as used in the title of the conference) that designed landscapes from the recent past appear to have gained recognition as significant heritage. However, at the same time we see that significant sites from the mid and late Twentieth Century are being demolished, are condemned or endangered. Such as for example of Gibberd’s Water Gardens in Harlow New Town, which was relocated even though it was listed by English Heritage.

To achieve these objectives the conference started with an introduction to the conference theme by Dr Jan Haenraets about the need for nurturing greater support, understanding and stewardship for landscapes of the recent future. The theme of threats to sites and the status of protection was further illustrated by Catherine Croft who spoke about the challenges regarding the continuing destruction of sites, sites at risk and campaigns to save landscapes of the recent past.

Various papers provided views about the designer’s perspective and designers’ philosophies and legacies. Under this theme Chloe Bennett provided insight into Frank

cover photo: The Commonwealth Institute in London with landscaping by Dame Sylvia Crowe, image by Jan Haenraets

Landscape of the Recent Past: Conserving the Twentieth Century Landscape Design Legacy Proceedings of the DOCOMOMO ISC Urbanism + Landscape Conference, April 2011 SUMMARY

Various papers provided views about the designer’s perspective and designers’ philosophies and legacies. Under this theme Chloe Bennett provided insight into Frank Clark’s legacy and some of the conservation needs at sites designed by Clark. Dr John Byrom reflected on the subject of philosophies, legacies and challenges in the Modern Movement in Landscape Design. Dr Andrew Saniga looked at the subject from an international perspective by exploring landscape and infrastructure through defining and interpreting modernist landscapes of post war Australia.

A number of papers focussed on experiences in tackling conservation at sites of the recent future. John Watkins provided insight in the conservation management process by illustrating the case of Great Dixter. Ed Bennis’ paper highlighted the challenges in making these invisible landscape visible, while Dr Barbara Simms discussed the background of Span Estates and the importance of landscape conservation at these estates. Ian Appleton’s paper with useful thoughts on the Span Estates was not presented at the event, but was inspired by the conference and is added to the proceedings as it makes a valuable contribution to the subject area. Chris Rankin looked at the legacy of landscapes of the recent future from a contemporary designer’s perspective by asking what the 20th century landscape design legacy might mean for today’s landscape practitioner. A concluding discussion allowed for questions from the attendees to the panel of speakers and further reflections on the subject.

The conference concluded with an evening masterclass by Dr Jan Haenraets which provided an overview of the findings from an international survey into the key problems and challenges regarding the conservation of the landscape design legacy of the post- 1945 period. This included a review of the status of inventory work and conservation initiatives, and lessons learned from UK case studies at significant landscapes. In conclusion recommendations for strengthening action at an international level were given and the objectives of the DOCOMOMO ISC/U+L Landscape Action Plan were illustrated.

Landscape of the Recent Past: Conserving the Twentieth Century Landscape Design Legacy Proceedings of the DOCOMOMO ISC Urbanism + Landscape Conference, April 2011 Acknowledgements

Sincere thanks to the DOCOMOMO International Committee on Urbanism and Landscape (ISC/U+L) for organising the conference, and to the Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) for hosting the conference and masterclass and providing the venue. Special thanks to DOCOMOMO Scotland for their support.

Kind thanks to Dr Jan Haenraets, Dr Miles Glendinning and Melissa Hollingsworth for the development of the conference programme, the proceedings and coordination of the event. Special acknowledgements to Melissa Hollingsworth for the design layout of the conference poster, leaflet and proceedings. Amy Hickman, Joanna Wemyss and Melissa Hollingsworth facilitated the online publication of the proceedings. Thank you to Moira Seftor at the Edinburgh College of Art for assistance with the event bookings.

Thank you to to Dr Ola Uduku, Dr Jan Haenraets and Dr Miles Glendinning for chairing of the conference sessions and introducing the event sessions. We are most grateful to all speakers for sharing their insights and experiences, and enthusiasm for the subject area.

Kind thanks to attendees of the conference and their engagement in the question and answering sessions and concluding discussions. Thank you to the students of the Scottish Centre for Conservation Studies, Edinburgh College of Art, who volunteered their time to assist with hosting the conference.

Landscape of the Recent Past: Conserving the Twentieth Century Landscape Design Legacy Proceedings of the DOCOMOMO ISC Urbanism + Landscape Conference, April 2011 Table of Contents

PAPER 1 : “Introduction - Nurturing greater support, understanding and stewardship for landscapes of the recent future” Dr Jan Haenraets (Landscape Consultant / Member, DOCOMOMO ISC/U+L) page 1-7

PAPER 2: “Conserving 20th century Landscapes: The Twentieth Century Society’s Role” Catherine Croft (Director, Twentieth Century Society) page 8-10

PAPER 3: “Frank Clark - His Legacy” Chloe Bennett (Landscape Historian / Council member, The Garden History Society) page 11-19

PAPER 4: “The Modern Movement in Landscape Design: Precepts, legacies and challenges” Dr John Byrom (Former Director of the Master of Landscape Architecture Programme / Honorary Fellow University of Edinburgh) page 20-27

PAPER 5: “Landscape Conservation on Span Estates” Dr Barbara Simms (Lecturer, Department of History of Art and Screen Media, Birkbeck, London University) page 28-36

PAPER 6: “Span Estates: A Personal Reflection” Ian Appleton (Lecturer, Department of History of Art and Screen Media, Birkbeck, London University) page 37-40

PAPER 7: “Landscape and Infrastructure - Defining and interpreting modernist landscapes of post war Australia” Dr Andrew Saniga (Senior Lecturer in Landscape Architecture and Urbanism, Faculty of Architecture Building and Planning, The University of Melbourne / Member, DOCOMOMO ISC U+L) page 41-46

Landscape of the Recent Past: Conserving the Twentieth Century Landscape Design Legacy Proceedings of the DOCOMOMO ISC Urbanism + Landscape Conference, April 2011 Table of Contents

PAPER 8: “What the 20th century landscape design legacy might mean for today’s landscape practitioner” Chris Rankin (Partner in rankinfraser landscape architecture, Edinburgh / Lecturer in Landscape Architecture, Edinburgh College of Art) page 47-50

PAPER 9: ECA EVENING MASTERCLASS “Conserving Landscapes of the Recent Past - Increasing our understanding of key problems, roles, initiatives and required action” Dr Jan Haenraets (Landscape Consultant / Member, DOCOMOMO ISC/U+L) page 51-61

PAPERS 10 & 11 (to be added to e-proceedings in due course): “The conservation management process and the case of Great Dixter” John Watkins (Head of Gardens and Landscape, English Heritage)

“Making the Invisible Visible” Ed Bennis (Landscape Consultant/Member, Awards Committee European Garden Heritage Network / Former Head of Landscape Architecture and Research, Manchester Metropolitan University / Chairman, Cheshire Gardens Trust)

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Nurturing greater support, understanding and stewardship for landscapes of the recent future

Dr Jan Haenraets (Landscape Consultant / Member, DOCOMOMO ISC/U+L)

INTRODUCTION Changes in listing and legislation A first trend that was highlighted was the As an introduction to the conference gradual change of attitude towards heritage theme and to place the papers within a from the post war period that occurred in the context, the background and status of the early 1980s. Changes in listing and legisla- conservation of landscapes of the recent tion occurred with the recognition that ‘... past was introduced. For this purpose a history does not stop...’ (Powers, 2008). For number of observations made during the instance English Heritage adopted a ‘thirty- process of compiling the doctoral research year rolling rule’ for its listing programme on ‘Identifying key problems regarding (Page, 1992). the conservation of designed landscapes: Landscapes of the recent past’ (Haenraets, New recommendations & listing initiatives 2010) were illustrated. From the research Towards the late 1980s also various new it became clear that a number of general recommendations were put forward, this by trends and developments occurred since independent authors and key conservation the 1980s within the field of the conservation organisations. The example was given of of architecture and landscape architecture the founding of the International Working of the mid and late Twentieth Century. Party for Documentation and Conservation A brief summary overview of these main of Buildings Sites and Neighbourhoods trends is given hereafter, roughly following of the Modern Movement (DOCOMOMO a chronological outline. It must be kept in International) in 1988 and the preparation by mind that these headings and summary DOCOMOMO International of the Eindhoven notes present an overly simplified version Statement in 1990 (Docomomo International, of what occurred over these past decades 1990). These organisations also initiated and the reality is of course more layered various new efforts towards documenting and complex. More detail about this subject and identification of key heritage from can be found in the full thesis on ‘Identifying this era. This can be illustrated with the key problems regarding the conservation of Eindhoven Statement DOCOMOMO, which designed landscapes: Landscapes of the set out its main mission under six themes: recent past’. 1. Bring the significance of the A GRADUAL CHANGE OF ATTITUDE TO modern movement to the attention THE RECENT PAST IN THE 1980S of the public, the authorities, the

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professions and the educational was the exhibition by English Heritage on community concerned with the built ‘The Age of Optimism: Post-war Architecture environment. in England 1945-70’ (Saint, 1994), and the 1996 brochures on ‘Something Worth 2. Identify and promote recording Keeping? Post War Architecture in England’ of works of the modern movement, (Harwood, 1996). (Figure 1), A conclusion including a register, drawings, was that by 1995 a whole series of initiatives photographs, archives and other had been undertaken with an emphasis on documents. post war architecture, but that none of these activities and resources had a special focus 3. Foster the development of on landscapes (Figure 2). appropriate techniques and methods of conservation and disseminate this knowledge throughout the professions.

4. Oppose destruction and disfigurement of significant works of the modern movement.

5. Identify and attract funding for documentation and conservation.

6. Explore and develop the knowledge Fig. 1: The English Heritage exhibition on ‘The Age of the modern movement. of Optimism: Post-war Architecture in England 1945- 70’ with on the poster cover the Leicester University Engineering Building by Stirling and Gowan (1953- Other mentioned initiatives include the 63) and the Elephant and Rhinoceros Pavilion at Council of Europe’s Recommendation London Zoo, by Casson, Condor and Partners (1962-65) (Saint, 1994). on the Protection of the Twentieth- Century Architectural Heritage (Council of Europe, 1995), and the ICOMOS General Recommendations on the Protection of Twentieth Century Heritage (ICOMOS, 1995).

Increasing awareness Within this context some first initiatives were also undertaken to increase awareness amongst the wider public. An example given

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occasional paper on landscapes was delivered at the DOCOMOMO bi-annual international conferences and the founding of an International Specialist Committee on Gardens and Landscapes (Panzini, 1996). The Committee later became the Specialist Committee on Urbanism and Landscapes.

A slow start in the United Kingdom In the United Kingdom, very little efforts were noted in the mid 1990s on the subject Fig. 2: Cover of the English Heritage brochure of of the protection of recent landscapes. For 1996 on ‘Something Worth Keeping? Post War Architecture in England’. Illustrating the Severn instance, by 1997 the English Heritage Post- Bridge, Avon, by Freeman, Fox and Partners (1961- War Listing Steering Group for buildings 66), the Epidauros, St Ives, Cornwall, by Barbara suggested that they would be available to Hepworth (1961), and Crescent House, Golden Lane Estate, City of London, by Chamberlain, Powell and liaise with the Gardens Register Team at Bon (1958-61) (Harwood, 1996). English Heritage on designations of post war gardens and landscapes (Harwood, 1997). INITIAL INITIATIVES ON LANDSCAPES A first Twentieth Century conference in the OF THE RECENT PAST SINCE 1995 United Kingdom on the theory of post war gardens and landscapes took place in March Key initiatives in the United States 1998 at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and It took until the 1990s for the first significant was attended by about 200 delegates. The literature and initiatives on the subject of Twentieth Century Society and the Garden landscapes of the recent past to emerge. History Society collaborated to organise this The first key initiatives occurred outside the event, with proceedings published in 2000 in United Kingdom. In 1995 several activities the Garden History Journal (Woudstra and took place in the United States on landscape Ratti, 2000)(Figure 3). architecture of the recent past, including the ‘Preserving Modern Landscape Architecture Fig. 3: Papers of Conference’ in Wave Hill, New York in the first Twentieth Century 1995. Charles Birnbaum formulated at the conference conference some of the first overarching in the United Kingdom in the recommendations for improvements in the Garden History protection of modern landscapes (Birnbaum, Journal, with the pedestrian 1999). ctions by DOCOMOMO walkways at Byker, Newcastle New international landscape initiatives upon Tyne (Woudstra and around the mid-1990s occurred within Ratti, 2000). the context of DOCOMOMO. While the

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EMPHASIS ON MATERIAL AND Landscape Architecture Conference TECHNOLOGICAL CHALLENGES OF also took place in 2002 (Birnbaum et. al., BUILDINGS OF THE RECENT PAST 2004). Key areas for action still included the identification of significant structures, In the same period from 1995 to 2000 their documentation and evaluation, the several authors and events had started to understanding of their aesthetics and address the building related questions about technology, and the development of the material and technological challenges methods for their repair and conservation. of recent past heritage. Again a number The Council of Europe had launched in of important initiatives occurred in the 1995 its ‘Recommendation on the integrated United States. The National Park Service conservation of cultural landscape areas published by 1993 a special themed journal as part of landscape policies’ (Council of on the recent past (Shiffer, 1993). By 1995 Europe, 1995). More important was that the a book by Thomas Jester of the National Council launched the European Landscape Park Service became ‘...the first in-depth Convention (Council of Europe, 2000). survey of important construction materials State parties sign up to the Convention’s used since 1900...’ (Jester, 1995). The five specific measures which mirror many Preserving the Recent Past conferences in of the other recommendations including the United States from 1995 (Slaton et. al., awareness raising, training and education, 1995) and 2000 (Slaton and Foulks, 2000) identification and assessment, landscape also had a key focus on technologies. In quality objectives, and implementation. the United Kingdom English Heritage held Most importantly the European Landscape a ‘Modern Matters’ conference (English Convention specifically states that it does Heritage, 1995), and the ‘Preserving post- not just apply to remarkable landscapes but war heritage’ conference around the same also to ‘...ordinary everyday landscapes and time (English Heritage, 1998). Again most blighted areas...’ (Council of Europe, 2000). of these initiatives focussed on architectural Therefore it also applies to those of the recent challenges and were not developed from a past. Similarly the Montreal Action Plan of designed landscapes perspective. ICOMOS calls for an understanding of the full diversity of Twentieth Century heritage INTERNATIONAL INITIATIVES ON and all of the issues related to its recognition LANDSCAPES OF THE RECENT PAST and conservation, and a promotion of this SINCE 2000 heritage (Bumbaru, 2001). Of importance was also the 2002 follow-up conference In 2000 a period of heightened activity on the Preservation of Modern Landscape commenced with the mentioned follow- Architecture and the Wave Hill Charter that up conference on Preserving the Recent was agreed at the event, and became the Past and the preparation of the ICOMOS first charter on the Preservation of Modern Montreal Action Plan in 2001 (Bumbaru, Landscape Architecture (Birnbaum et. al., 2001). The second Preserving Modern 2004)(Figure 4).

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Fig. 4: Proceedings of the Preserving Modern Landscape Architecture Conference II, 2002, on the theme of Making Postwar Landscapes Visible, showing the Miller Garden, Columbus, Indiana, Fig. 5: Sir Frederick Gibberd’s Water Gardens at designed by Dan Kiley in 1955 (Birnbaum et al., Harlow New Town in 2006 after relocation for retail 2004). development (Author’s photograph, 2006).

The charter is very brief and specifically to the subject and meant that the theme applicable to the United States, but stayed for several years prominently on the nevertheless remains of importance, as it English Heritage agenda with new initiatives is to date still the only specific charter on such as a post-1945 landscapes typology landscape architecture of this period. (Duterloo-Morgan, 2002) and some theme studies being developed (English Heritage, Significant for the landscape context was also 2003). The case of the Water Gardens is that Charles Birnbaum took in 1998, in the not unique and many other examples of wake of the Preserving Modern Landscape damaged or demolished sites can be found Architecture conferences, the initiative to internationally. For example, the Cultural set up the Cultural Landscape Foundation Landscape Foundation’s (2008) online (2008) in the United States. initiative ‘Landslides - Landscapes at Risk’ illustrates several cases. Other initiatives INCREASED FOCUS ON LANDSCAPES in the United Kingdom worth mentioning OF THE RECENT PAST IN THE UNITED include the work towards establishing KINGDOM SINCE 2000 a more specific Urban Register by the DOCOMOMO Scottish National Group The proposed relocation of Gibberd’s Water (Haenraets, 2003). The Garden History Gardens at Harlow New Town in 2001 became Society’s (2003) in the meantime started a watershed in the United Kingdom in its an online collaborative research effort on recognition of the importance of conservation post war Gardens. The Landscape Design of landscapes of the recent past (English Trust (2008) also started to publish a series Heritage, 2007)(Figure 5). The case of the of monographs on eminent practitioners in Water Gardens contributed to increased landscape architecture. In general more attention paid by several organisations publications on landscape design from the

Landscape of the Recent Past: Conserving the Twentieth Century Landscape Design Legacy 5 Proceedings of the DOCOMOMO ISC Urbanism + Landscape Conference, April 2011 Paper 1 recent past came out but most of these still point out the need to follow existing methods looked at iconic sites and designers, rather and implement proper conservation and than at the conservation of such sites. management of significant sites of the recent past. Similarly it is clear that good and bad THE MOMENTUM STAGNATES AND practices of conservation can be found. THE CONTINUING DESTRUCTION AND Progress has been made since the 1980s, DISFIGUREMENT OF SIGNIFICANT but it remains obvious that conservation of SITES landscapes of the recent past must improve and that more actions and efforts to achieve By about 2002 the interest in, and awareness this are required. The lack of recognition for of modern landscape architecture and its the recent past remains an underlying threat preservation appeared to have increased to the safeguarding of these landscapes. much, but there remained much work to do and a feeling surfaced that the momentum A conclusion from the examples given is stagnated. Important is also that by 2003 still also that if even at these better-known only fourteen of the 1450 sites on English and significant sites worrying conservation Heritage’s Register of Parks and Gardens occurs, than this must mean that for lesser- were post war sites with Gibberd’s Water known sites conservation will potentially be Gardens being de-listed (Conway, 2003). even worse or more problematic.

In reality, serious threats to significant sites from the recent past remain an ongoing References concern. Impacts and threats can take Birnbaum, C.A. (1999), ‘Preserving Contemporary numerous shapes, and a simplified way Landscape Architecture: Is Nothing Permanent But Change Itself?’, in C.A. Birnbaum (ed.). Preserving to look at some examples is by grouping Modern Landscape Architecture, papers from cases in the following three general levels the Wave Hill-National Park Service Conference, Spacemaker Press, Cambridge, Ma: 5-8. of impacts: • Physical neglect and poor Birnbaum, C.A., Brown Gillette, J. and Slade, N. (eds.) (2004), Preserving Modern Landscape Architecture II, maintenance of sites Making Postwar Landscapes Visible’, Spacemaker • Inappropriate disfigurements of Press, Washington, DC.

sites Bumbaru, D. (2001), ‘Montreal Action Plan’, ICOMOS • Destruction of sites (Paris) Conway, D. (2003). ‘Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest: Harlow Water Gardens, Essex’, unpublished letter, English Heritage, London. CONCLUSION Council of Europe (1991), Recommendation on the Protection of the Twentieth Century Architectural Of importance is to acknowledge that Heritage – R (91) 13, Council of Europe Press, Strasbourg. existing conservation methodologies are available and that several recommendations Council of Europe (1995), Recommendation No. R (95) 9 of the Committee of Ministers to member states have been prepared by key organisations to

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Harwood, E. (1997), ‘Post-War Gardens and on the integrated conservation of cultural landscape Landscapes’, unpublished letter, September 1997, areas as part of landscape policies (Adopted by the English Heritage, London. Committee of Ministers on 11 September 1995 at the 543rd meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies), Council of ICOMOS (1995), ‘Seminar on 20th century heritage Europe Press, Strasbourg. - Séminaire sur le patrimoine au XXe siècle: Helsinki 18-19 -VI-1995’, Working Paper, ICOMOS, Paris. Council of Europe (2000), ‘European Landscape Convention, European Treaty Series - No. 176, Jester, T.C. (ed.) (1995), Twentieth-century building Florence, 20.X.2000’, Council of Europe Press, materials: history and conservation, National Park Strasbourg. Service (Washington, DC), McGraw-Hill Professional Publishing, New York, NY. Cultural Landscape Foundation (2008), ‘The Cultural Landscape Foundation, Stewardship through Landscape Design Trust (2008), ‘Books’, http://www. Education’, http://www.tclf.org/index.html [Accessed landscape.co.uk/shop/books [Accessed 12 March 8 March 2008]. 2008].

Duterloo-Morgan, F. (2002), ‘Landscapes Post 1945 Page, J. (1992), ‘Listing of post-war buildings’, – A Typology’, unpublished paper, English Heritage, Conservation Bulletin, 16: 2-3 London. DOCOMOMO International (1990). The Eindhoven English Heritage (1995), ‘Modern Matters: Principles Statement, DOCOMOMO International, Eindhoven. and Practice in Conserving Recent Architecture’, English Heritage, London. Panzini, F. (1996), ‘ISC/Gardens and Landscapes’, unpublished paper, DOCOMOMO International English Heritage (1998), ‘Preserving post-war Specialist Committee on Gardens and Landscapes, heritage: conference on the care and conservation of Rome. post-war listed buildings’, English Heritage, London. Powers, A. (2008), ‘Robin Hood Gardens and the state English Heritage (2003), ‘List of Gardens Register of post-war listing’, BD The Architects’ Website, http:// Theme Studies’, unpublished table, English Heritage, www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode= 725&stor London. ycode=3107727&featurecode=12177&c=1 [Accessed 8 March 2008]. English Heritage (2007), ‘Historic Parks and Gardens Panel, Index of Agenda Items, 5 June 2001 to 24 April 2007’, unpublished paper, English Heritage, London.

Garden History Society (2003), ‘Postwar Garden History Collaboration: A Garden History Society Collaborative Project’, http://pub4.bravenet.com/ forum/show. php?usernum=301965630&cpv=1 [Accessed 12 October 2003].

Haenraets, J. (2003), ‘DOCOMOMO International Specialist Committee on Urbanism and Landscapes, Report of Meeting held at 77 Cowcross Street – London – 12 May 2003’, Unpublished Minutes. DOCOMOMO ISC/U&L, London.

Haenraets, J (2010), ‘Identifying key problems regarding the conservation of designed landscapes: Landscapes of the recent past’, unpublished PhD thesis, De Montfort University, Leicester.

Harwood, E. (1996), Something Worth Keeping? Post- War Architecture in England, English Heritage, London.

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“Conserving 20th century Landscapes: The Twentieth Century Society’s Role”

Catherine Croft (Director, Twentieth Century Society)

The statuory role of the 20th century is It seems obvious that this trend will continue not best suited to alerting us of threats to and that potential future 20th century cases landscapes, nor does it encourage us to will include more examples of these sorts of take a holistic view of structures as forming features/landscapes and many more which part of wider landscapes. are likely to be even more controversial and challenging. • As a national amenity society, we • out of town office park are consulted on listed building • out of town supermarket consent applications for demolition • outsider art landscape of post 1914 buildings in England. • 1960s heritage interpretation

• Local Authorities have no duty to The following examples of these were briefly inform us of any of the following: discussed. Conservation area designations/ demolitions; Applications affecting A NUCLEAR POWER STATION the setting of listed buildings; post 1914 parks and gardens; structures Trawsfynydd Nuclear Power Station by not yet considered for listing; and Basil Spence and Sylvia Crowe scheduled ancient monument consent. Now decommissioned, this has been recently considered for listing by CADW and Recent Twentieth Century Society cases turned down. It is now proposed to lower the have included examples of all of the exterior walls and bury the reactor creating following, all of which have a clear landscape two artificial hills. Although the presence of dimension: this structure in the historic landscape has • A nuclear power station a similar impact to a mediaeval castle, this • Motorway bridges literal ‘power house’ of the 20th century is not • A prefab estate acceptable as a sublime landscape feature, • Post war housing estates and there is strong pressure to erase this • A commercial office development chapter of our recent past. • A holiday village

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A PREFAB ESTATE landscaping, including the raised seating blocks topped with historic tomb stone slabs, The Excalibur Estate in Catford south-east which were part of the original design. London. The Twentieth Century Society supported the request for the listing of the A COMMERCIAL OFFICE entire estate in 2008, but only six of the DEVELOPMENT residences were selected. It also backed The Broadgate Development, City proposals to create a conservation area, of London.This 1980s Post Modern but the local authority who are backing development has been put forward both for the redevelopment of the site were not conservation area designation and listing. surprisingly not willing to designate this. It is the relationship of buildings to open This is certainly an example of a ‘heritage spaces, many of which have high quality asset’ where the whole is more than the sculpture that is most remarkable. sum of the parts (or certainly than six parts), and the Estate was unusual in that rather A HOLIDAY VILLAGE than positioning the prefabs spread out so that they defined plots for later permanent Portmeirion by Clough Williams Ellis (1921- development, they were compressed to fit 1975). After some years of partial neglect the maximum number on the site whilst still and use of inappropriate repair materials, allowing for good orientation and access Portmeirion is now very well cared for and routes. extremely popular.

POST WAR HOUSING ESTATES Possible examples of specific future cases The Alexandra Road estate, Camden, shown included Stockley Park, an office park London; the Bishopsfield Estate, Harlow; with a good mix of high quality architecture and the Barbican Estate, City of London. and sculpture, out of town superstores At Alexandra Road, plans to redevelop the (ubiquitous and unloved, but certainly integral park have faced opposition from typical of recent decades and a testament to some residents, and in fact many of the hard many facets of recent social and economic landscaping features are specifically covered history); the cleared landscape created in by the Grade II* listing. Bishopsfield Estate the 1960s around Shakespeare’s birthplace is an example of a development where the in Stratford and Kevin Duffy’s extraordinary relationships between a formal piazza, Rectory Nurseries near Wigan - an ever fingers of countryside penetrating between growing collection of miniature half timbered blocks, and private courtyard gardens are facades. crucial to the concept. It has been proposed for listing, and has an active residents group who support this. At the Barbican there are proposals to make changes to the

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Finally the paper made a plea for consideration of the evidence of everyday amateur landscaping skills, showing a set of cigarette card images of crazy paving techniques, and suggested that behind the current unease about the conservation of 20th century landscapes lies a horror of many schemes never realised (such as housing on coastal farmland at Newhaven and Clough Williams Ellis’s 1931 scheme for the development of Bulstrode Park Gerrards Cross Buckinghamshire, for housing. This combined with our uneasy relationship to the beauty of decayed concrete structures, means that the conservation of 20th century landscapes is still contested.

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“Frank Clark - His Legacy”

Chloe Bennett (Landscape Historian/Council member, The Garden History Society)

INTRODUCTION designer. It was there he met his fellow pupil, Christopher Tunnard. This paper will describe Frank Clark’s training, work for both private clients and His early professional life began (in 1936) public commissions, his teaching and assisting Christopher Tunnard on a number writing. Two case studies will follow, the of projects including Bentleys Wood, first showing how his early life and travels Sussex for Serge Chermayeff in 1937 influenced his later designs especially of the producing planting and costing lists. To York University campus. The other case increase his drawing skills he took evening study will show his interpretation of another classes at St John’s Art School. He helped designer’s landscape. to research Tunnard’s book ‘Gardens in a Modern Landscape’ published in 1938. Frank Clark didn’t come to landscape It is thought by some that the chapter/ architecture until he was in his thirties. He section ‘The Planters Eye’ may have been was born Herbert Francis Clark, in 1902, written by Clark. This period has been well in Manila in the Philippines and educated documented in David Jacques’ recent book at Marlborough College and Clare College on Christopher Tunnard. Cambridge. After Cambridge he returned to the Philippines as a clerk for Smith Bell & Tunnard left to work in America in 1939 and Co, copra importers, where his father had Clark worked briefly for Russell Page and worked before him. As the clerk’s pay was later for Jellicoe, Page and Wilson. He also low and prospects of promotion unlikely for produced a design for Paul Nash’s garden many years he decided in 1925 to travel to in Hampstead in the late 1930s. the west coast of America travelling from San Francisco to Alaska. He returned home During the war Clark worked in the Civil to the UK in 1932. Defence. Between shifts he researched in the British Library for what became his book CLARK’S CAREER IN LANDSCAPE ‘The English Landscape Garden’ published ARCHITECTURE : after the war in 1948.

Clark’s involvement with landscape He and Marjorie Clark, his second wife, architecture began when he became articled lived in Hampstead, a very artistic commu- to Percy Cane, the well-known landscape nity, throughout the War and into the early

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1950s. They were members of the 1940s plans were being made for the 1951 Organising Committee for Hampstead Artists Festival of Britain. Clark was appointed Council, founded in 1944, for the exhibition landscape consultant for the whole site, ‘Hampstead Seen by Artist, Architect and assisted by Maria Shephard-Parpagliolo), Camera’ held in 1949. Peter Shepheard designed the area downstream of the railway bridge; upstream Clark’s post war career was a mixture of the concourse area was by Clark and private commissions, public landscape Shephard and the rest of the site by Peter design, teaching and writing. Clark began Youngman. teaching at the Institute of Park Administration at the Grotto from 1940s. The garden of the Regatta Restaurant (by Clark and Shephard) was within the central From 1946 he taught in the Department well of the Restaurant overlooked by diners of Civic Design, Liverpool University and at ground level. It was described by Jane taught Landscape Architecture at Reading Brown in her book the Modern Garden as a University. In the 1950s he began his long ‘dramatically sinuous island, wholly abstract association with the Institute of Advanced and Picasso inspired’ A sculpture by Lynn Architectural Studies Summer School, run Chadwick was ‘of abstractly furled ‘sails’ by Patrick Nuttgens at Kings Manor, York, of green bronze’ surrounded by ‘ground- teaching at the annual summer school. covering foliage, highlighted with clumps In 1951 he was elected to the Institute of of majestic Ligularia’. At the back of the Landscape Architects. Festival Pavilion and as a background to a section on pre-history Clark and Shephard Clark’s work for local authorities began created an illusion of primeval forest with when in 1947 when he was appointed a dramatic mass of foliage lit by eerie light Consultant Landscape Architect to Holborn from above in the cave-like space. Borough Council for the reinstatement of the Bloomsbury Squares (not executed), Clark and Shephard worked on a number and St Giles Churchyard. The brief was to of private commissions. In addition to ‘reconstruct an overgrown churchyard as a the partnership private work, Clark was sitting place for city dwellers and workers appointed to his first new town as Consultant and children’s playground in a very busy Landscape Architect for Stevenage part of London. More trees were planted and Development Corporation which had been the existing trees preserved, some of the old designated on 11 November 1946. gravestones were laid flat and others on sarcophagus-like pedestals (as described Clark had begun writing poems while in by Peter Shepheard in his book Modern America, and had continued to write during Gardens in 1953.) his research in eighteenth century landscape. His first article ‘Eighteenth Century Elysiums’ More public work followed as in the late was published in 1943 in the Journal of the

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Warburg & Courtauld Institute. His first article in book form by the Architectural Press. published in the Architectural Review (A.R.) was ‘Lord Burlington’s Bijou or Sharawaggi Clark’s work for local authorities continued at Chiswick’ in 1944. Other articles for A.R. as he and his family moved from London followed ‘Parks and Pelargoniums’ in 1946 to Berkshire then Oxfordshire. There was and ‘The Landscaping of Stockholm’s parks’ a great expansion of school building all in 1947. His book, The English Landscape over the country as the numbers of school Garden was published in 1948. children grew. In 1955 Clark had a contract with London County Council to lay out the In the 1950 Clark co- wrote with Brenda Colvin landscape for some primary schools in the and Sylvia Crow ‘Landscape Architecture County of London including Kidbrooke Park in the New Towns’ for the Journal of the and Clapham Park Primary schools. Institute of Landscape Architects (ILA). More design work on schools in Oxfordshire His exhibition work had begun in 1939 followed including his landscape work on when with Tunnard he designed panels for Ickneild Secondary School in Watlington for Research is still to be done on his landscape Oxfordshire County Council commissioned and planting plans. A book is planned which in 1956 and completed in 1958. It was will bring together the many strands of his described in the Journal of the Institute of professional life.the Institute of Landscape Landscape Architects in 1959 as follows Architect’s exhibition, ‘The Man-Made ‘The main siting of the building and path Landscape’. He contributed an article on system was decided by the architects planting to Misha Black’s book on Exhibition before the landscape architect was briefed. Design. He had written an article on ‘Indoor The design consisted of ‘ a belt of trees and Exhibition Planting’ in the Architecture along the southern boundary to screen a Yearbook in 1949. He designed decorative rather indeterminate landscape of cottages, planting for the exhibition at the ICI Stand at kitchen garden and back gardens; school York and the decorative planting design for entrance court, pupil gardens and a school the Basil Spence stand at the International garden lay along the south east boundary. Exhibition of Landscape Architecture at The dominating feature of the site was a line County Hall in Westminster. of large elms along the south east boundary and the open character of the surrounding Indoor Plants had been published in monthly landscape which determined the scale of instalments in ‘A Special Number of The the planting.’ Architectural Review’, May 1952. It was written by Clark with his sister, Margaret. Clark’s interest in education and landscape Jones, edited by Patience Gray and illustrated teaching is shown by the articles he wrote by Gordon Cullen. His sister was by this time including ‘Principles of Landscape Design’ running a nursery garden. In 1952 the book for Architectural Design from 1953 to 1955. ‘Indoor Plants and Gardens’ was published Other articles included ‘The Schools, A Series

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of Articles on Existing University Courses’ as ‘hills’ and wildlife areas. for the Journal of Institute of Landscape Architects. In 1959 Clark was appointed In 1961 he produced planting plans for the President of the Institute of Landscape Bannockburn Memorial in Stirlingshire and Architects, giving as his presidential speech in 1963 he worked with Robert Matthew & ‘The Education of the Landscape Architect’. partners on the plan for Cockenzie Power Station at Port Seton near Edinburgh. In In the late 1950s, Sir Robert Matthew, 1966 he worked plans for the Prestonlinks Professor of Architecture at Edinburgh Electricity Generating Station. In 1962 University set up a post-graduate course in the Institute of Landscape Architects’ Landscape Architecture in the Architecture Conference was held in Edinburgh entitled Department and in 1959 Clark was appointed ‘Towards a Landscape Policy’ as Senior Lecturer for the course. He taught full time, teaching architecture students as Clark was appointed as Consultant well as the landscape architecture students Landscape Architect for the University of who came from all around the world. York which designed by Robert Matthew Johnston Marshall & Partners was to be While at the University he also taught built in phases. This will be discussed extra mural classes as well teaching the in the case study. In 1964 Clark worked horticultural students at the Royal Botanic again with Sampson this time on the River Garden in Edinburgh. In 1960 he was Ouse Survey Report commissioned by the elected Associate of the Institute of Park York Civic Trust. The Report ‘A Survey of Administration. the River Ouse’ was presented by the Archbishop of York, Dr Donald Coggan, to Clark continued his public design work the Lord Mayor and Corporation of York at including the Gorbals redevelopment in a Lord Mayor’s Reception in the Guildhall. Glasgow (1961) for which he did landscaping The plans included the re-design of an and planting plans. Other housing eighteenth century walk along the Ouse. development work included Broomhill in This was carried out financed by the Joseph 1962 for Scottish Special Housing and the Rowntree Memorial Trust. Other elements Ladywell Redevelopment in Glasgow in of the report, including a Folk Park, were not 1963. He also designed the landscape carried out. plan, landscape layout and planting plan at Ninewells Teaching Hospital in Dundee. Clark continued to work in York and the Clark worked with Douglas Sampson in surrounding areas including Ledston Hall, 1963 on design proposals for the Blackburn- near York, discussed in the case study. Seafield, West Lothian, rehabilitation of Clark and Sampson were the landscape shale bings (coal spoil heaps). The bings, architects for other work in York including now covered in vegetation, are still very the Retreat and nurses home at Garrow Hill. evident in the West Lothian landscape, both This was designed by Basil Spence, Glon,

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and Ferguson and was again financed by of Rural England (CPRE) when he lived in the Joseph Rowntree Trust. Oxfordshire.

More work followed with Robert Matthew Having been involved in Stevenage New Johnson Marshall & Partners on Stirling Town some years before Clark was asked in University. The Development plan report 1964 to work as a consultant on Livingston was published in 1968. Clark completed a New Town in West Lothian. The plans landscape plan for Phase 1 of the master for Craigshill and Howden Development plan but unfortunately he died before the Project, among his papers, are dated 1964 University was completed. The University but the development was built in the 1970s was built in the grounds of Aithrey Castle. after his death. A large lake was part of the existing landscape. Clark continued working, teaching and writing and spoke at the Garden History In 1964, Clark contributed to the Shell Society Seminar in 1968 at Stowe School Gardens Book edited by Peter Hunt and on ‘The Restoration and Reclamation of published by George Rainbird. The team Gardens’ and still found time to send a of contributors included Peter Hunt, Miles proposal for a book ‘Garden Design and Hadfield and Laurence Fricker. The book Landscape Architecture, A Short History’ provided garden visitors with details of garden but this was not written as he had a series of features, garden styles through the centuries heart attacks and died on 29 March 1971. and brief biographical notes on the gardens designers. Letters among correspondence In 1974, a group of his friends and pupils in Clark’s archive illustrate the hunt for good brought out a book of essays to express their examples of various garden features. gratitude to him - Furor Hortensis Essays on the history of the Landscape Garden in Clark was one of the co-founders, with Peter memory of H.F. Clark. Hunt and Miles Hadfield of the Garden CASE STUDY 1 - History Society in 1965, described in Tim DESIGN INFLUENCES Richardson’s history of the Garden History Society. Clark became the first Chairman and The first case study traces the influences the first conference was held in Edinburgh. on the development of Clark’s designs Clark continued his work in Edinburgh being from the 1940s. In 1947 he wrote the invited to become expert witness for a article ‘The Landscape of Sweden’s Parks number of amenity societies - including the - space between buildings’. In the later Cockburn Association in 1964, the Cramond part of his article he showed the urban Association in 1967 and 1969 he became a landscape design including cafes and their member of the Amenity Committee for Hydro furniture including Helga Blom’s famous Electric Development. He had already been portable gardens - ‘those precast concrete involved with the Council for the Protection

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circular plant containers arranged with plants they may have become intellectual well designed brightly painted park seats abstractions.’ He later said ‘sixty nine semi- by tram and bus stops and casual corners mature trees ranging from twenty to fifty feet of the city’. He said in the article that ‘the high, (were transported) from Winchester most interesting examples of open space and other places near London...The fact that development are the children’s playgrounds they are at present all breaking into leaf is a and the famous Nord Malärstrand on margin source of great relief to Mrs Shephard and of Lake MäLaren.... The Mälarstrand was myself.’ As well as supervising the overall constructed for recreation, for the casual landscape Clark and Shephard found time evening stroll, for mothers and their children to design the Regatta Garden. This was and for picnic making. The margin is loosely illustrated in Clark’s later article written defined with casually placed water-worn with William McCance on The influence of boulders or groups of reeds and water loving Cubism on garden design. The plan shows plants and the only floral decorations are the organic shape of the space the design naturalistic groups of indigenous Swedish was probably influenced like by Burle Marx wild flowers.’ as were many other landscape architects at the time. Clark travelled to Stockholm in 1952 with his wife and young family for the International By the early 1960s Clark had been appointed Federation of Landscape Architectures Consultant Landscape Architect for the Conference. While Clark attended the University of York. He was very familiar with conference sessions his wife and children York having taught at summer schools at visited the children’s playgrounds. King’s Manor in York for many years.

The planning for the Festival of Britain Again he was working with water on a site had begun by this time and Clark was the - in fact the site in the grounds of Heslington landscape consultant for the whole site Hall had severe drainage problems. Clark assisted by Maria Shephard. As he said thought that a lake would provide a superb in his paper to the Institute of Landscape setting for the Clasp built college buildings Architects in April 1951 the landscape and as it was a low lying site would be the architects came in after the master plan was answer to the drainage problems. The lake prepared: ’Our principal work has been to act was enlarged from the boating pond used as horticultural advisers and to take charge by the Yarboroughs at Heslington Hall. of the design and construction of what had become known in Festival circles as ‘soft’ In 1984 Astragel in the Architectural Journal landscaping. We were, in short, responsible referred to the campus ‘to be a place that for tree planting and the colour decoration of has become an asset to the ancient and the exhibition, adding plant colour and life to noble city of York, so much so that the buildings and vistas - not an unimportant job burghers come to take their picnics in the when it is remembered that without growing grounds and generations of young Yorkists

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are brought to play amid the groves of CONCLUSION Academe. Clark’s brilliant masterstroke was to solve the water problem of the whole site This paper will have shown that although by creating a lake. The buildings reflected Clark’s landscape career was relatively are, as the designers intended, a sort of brief, his work is very representative of neutral background containing England’s his time, starting with private design work last landscape garden.’ before and after the war, continuing with public work after the war with schools and The Henry Moore statue overlooking the universities. His work for the Festival of rectangular pond - part of the ‘new’ University Britain would have been a very busy, but a landscape and facing Heslington Hall (The very exciting time. statue has since been moved from the site). His interest in landscape history is reflected CASE STUDY 2 - LEDSTON HALL in the book and articles he wrote as well as the fact that he was the Chairman of My second case study is of Ledston Hall - a The Garden History Society. His interest private commission in the mid 1960s. The in modern landscape practice and the design for the landscape is attributed to education of the landscape architect is Bridgman in Peter Willis’s book. Clark was reflected by his work as a landscape asked by the owner, Mr Wheler, to produce architect and by his teaching over the last planting plans to interpret the Bridgeman thirty years of his life. His physical legacy design for the terrace opposite the Hall. He will be the campus at York and the York produced a series of plans. I was invited Ouse Walk as well as the public work that to see the Hall by Jane Furse who is he designed both for schools, universities, researching the site. Ledston Hall is on the and other public projects. English Heritage Register. Research is still to be done on his landscape Clark’s design used beech hedging to and planting plans. A book is planned which outline the original Bridgman design of will bring together the many strands of his 1716 for Lady Elizabeth Hastings. From professional life. the east front of the Hall a central vista lined with tall beech hedges continuing to compartments to the left and right statues of ‘King’s beasts’ amid regularly planted trees. Further compartments are joined by alleys and serpentine walks. Research is ongoing on this site. It is exciting to find an example of private commission by Clark.

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IMAGE DESCRIPTIONS:

Fig. 1: Chalk drawing of Clark by Kenneth Martin c.1940s (Photo: private collection).

Fig. 4: Central Hall and Vanbrugh College, University of York (Photo: C. Newnham now Bennett).

Fig. 5: Henry Moore Statue at Heslington Hall (Photo: private collection).

Fig. 2: Clark and his students at the Grotto in 1959 (Photo: private collection).

Fig. 6: Ledston Hall - vista to Ledston Hall (Photo: C. Bennett).

Fig. 3: Seafield Law (Photo: C. Bennett).

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References

Clark, H. F. (1948), ‘The English Landscape Garden, Pleides Books Limited, London.

Jacques, David and Woudstra, Jan (2009), Landscape Modernism Renounced, The Career of Christopher Tunnard 1910-1979, in association with the Landscape Design Trust, Routledge, London and New York.

Jones, Margaret E., Clark, H.F. (1952), ‘Indoor Plants and Gardens’ The Architectural Press, London.

Newnham, C. E. (1996), ‘Conserving Campus Landscapes of the 1960s’, a dissertation for MA in Conservation Studies, University of York, York.

Shepheard, Peter (1953), Modern Gardens, The Fig.7: Serpentine Walk (Photo: J. Furse). Architectural Press, London.

Tunnard, Christopher (1938), Gardens in the Modern Landscape, The Architectural Press, London.

Willis, Peter (ed.) (1974), Furor Hortensis, Essays on the history of the English Landscape Garden in memory of H.F. Clark, Elysium Press, Edinburgh.

Willis, Peter (2002), Charles Bridgeman and the English Landscape Garden, Elysium Press Publishers, Newcastle upon Tyne.

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“The Modern Movement in Landscape Design: Precepts, legacies and challenges”

Dr John Byrom (Former Director of the Master of Landscape Architecture Programme / Honorary Fellow University of Edinburgh)

This is a huge subject, and in its summary It was distinctive in its expression of the I must be brief, be bright and be gone. G. structural frame, stripped of historical K. Chesterton once observed that the world reference; and it found application in cheap will never be short of wonders, but only, blastfurnace steel, particularly at first in perhaps, of wonder itself. Keeping our the United States, and in a parallel but sense of wonderment intact leads us to seek not exclusive use of reinforced concrete to conserve the best of our surroundings so in Europe. Both of these materials helped that we may pass on their value as anchors foster the so-called ‘free plan’, independent and cues of cultural context to the future. of loadbearing walls. Further freedoms in expression came with the ‘balloon’ or Many of these wonders are landscapes: softwood stud frame, using machine-made human constructs by definition partly ‘natural’ nails and improved sawmilling; and with and partly ‘man-made’, and straining to further innovations including plateglass, change in their space, time and expression. plywood, and electric lifts and elevators. These, and their underlying ideologies, Modern Movement ideology as a whole glimpsed by myself, as a teacher, landscape sought essentially to express the functional architect and grumpy old man, are the honesty of machine technology and its subject of this talk. mantra ‘form follows function.’ So much then for buildings, but rightly or wrongly Strictly speaking the so-called Modern their characteristics were and are often Movement1 refers only to the functionalist transferred and applied to their surrounding ideology in building design, evolving and landscapes. practised from the mid-19th century and informing much of the architecture of the ‘Modernist’ functionalism permeated following century. By definition, all buildings deep, not just into building design, but form part of landscapes and are often into all aspects of 20th century culture their most important components, so we worldwide: into its literature, music, theatre cannot here avoid at least summarising the and dance and certainly into all the plastic functionalist ideology in building design. arts, including landscape design. Its chief

1. I doubt very much if the 20th century will be allowed to go on arrogating to itself the term ‘Modern Movement’, ‘Modern’ or even ‘Modernist’. Horace Walpole was referring to ‘Modern Landscapes’ in the mid-18th century, and these quickly ceased to be modern. As convenient temporary labels they will have their use, while permanent reference takes time to settle. The term ‘Renaissance’, for example, was not applied to the ferment of 16th- century Italy until 1823.

Landscape of the Recent Past: Conserving the Twentieth Century Landscape Design Legacy 20 Proceedings of the DOCOMOMO ISC Urbanism + Landscape Conference, April 2011 Paper 4 protagonists in architecture were Lloyd the machine gun, the tank, the bomb and Wright, Gropius and Le Corbusier, handing the mine; and the second half to a greater on by example and through the Dessau and greater concern with conservation in Bauhaus and its following schools and response to these powers of destruction, practitioners2 to a further three generations and to the threat of nuclear extinction. of modernists and their peers including Aalto, Kahn, the Saarinens and Utzon, but The early years of the century were marked also to a long line of largely unsung town by a long overdue reaction to the squalor planners and landscape architects. All were of overcrowded industrialised urban living to some extent inspired and subverted by conditions and the degradation of the the iconoclasms of Picasso and Matisse; working man. This reaction was evident and by a following host of abstractionist in the work of Riehl in Germany, Reclus in painters and sculptors, in the name of France, Grundvig in Denmark, Kropotkin in Cubism, Fauvism, Futurism, Surrealism and Russia, Ebenezer Howard in England, and the rest of the 20th century’s extraordinarily here, on our doorstep in the work of Patrick rich, exuberant and bewildering eclecticism. Geddes. Geddes was a protégé of the great In their hands the world was taken apart and T. H. Huxley, and he described himself as put together again as never before. a biologist and sociologist. He had, in fact, no formal qualifications; but a part-time Now that much of the dust of the 20th century professorship in Botany at Dundee, created has settled, we can see sufficiently clearly for him, allowed him to travel and to promote to review its significant design ideologies his passionate conviction that Man in Society in two halves: those before and those after needed to rediscover his place in Nature. 1945 and the ending of World War 2. Its first half was culturally distinctive, as described, Geddes’ great contribution in the battle in its adulation of the machine, but also against urban deprivation and squalor was to in the machine’s paradoxical capacity to take the new discipline of town planning and destroy catastrophically, as an instrument to harness it to the newly-minted science of of war. Its second half was equally ecology, that is, to the study of life forms in distinctive in a growing self-awareness their place and community. He expressed this of the need for Mankind to curb the worst partnership in a single great natural system excesses of machine-based destruction and which he referred to as the Valley Section, consumption, in reaching an accommodation and to its sequence of natural habitats: with Nature. Its first half was thus parent its moorlands, woodlands, meadows, to the monster of mechanized war and to marshes, estuaries, coastlines and so on, the mass slaughterings of the howitzer, all in relation, along the line of section, to

2. Among these and of particular importance was CIAM (CongresInternationauxd’ArchitectureModerne) set up in Frankfurt in 1929, and in Britain the MARS group (Modern Architectural Research) in 1931.

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their many varied human settlements, in hectare, and for a middle class able to afford balanced harmonious healthy partnership a modest mortgage. They were hugely with Nature. Geddes described this as the wasteful of land. Interwar Edinburgh, for living study and practice of Civics, and he example, by 1939 had increased in area sought to promote it by replacing the narrow by some 78%, while its population had three ‘R’s of conventional education by the increased by a mere 6%. Little or nothing three ‘H’s of Heart, Head and Hand. As a was done during this time to ameliorate the preliminary to all his plans for social action, nation’s inheritance of urban industrialised he insisted on the collection of accurate data squalor. by survey, for, as he observed, in a ‘fully biological outlook, geography and ecology, By the end of the 30s, but as world war once anthropology and evolution are all at one again threatened, long-term change towards in the understanding of Place, Work and Geddesian improvements began at last to People in living interaction’, and he quoted seem attainable directly and unexpectedly with great approval Comte’s celebrated from the science of Ecology itself – a science aphorism: ‘Voir pour prevoir, prevoir pour scarcely heard of by pre-war architects, pourvoir’. Much of his life Geddes spent planners and landscape architects, let alone tilting at windmills, but slowly his teaching understood by them. Ecology, that is, as attracted a more and more influential we have noted, the study of life forms in following. place and community (in effect Geddesian Place – Work – People), began as a science Town planning itself was formally established in Britain in the vegetation mapping and in Britain as a professional discipline3 in descriptive work of Moss, Tansley, Elton and 1914, followed by Landscape Architecture others from 1901 onwards, and by Clements in 1930. Until mid-century, both these and Shelford in the United States4. It was design disciplines espoused an odd mixture promoted by the British Ecological Society of Beaux Art Neo Georgian formalism, founded in 1913, and by its journal ‘Ecology’. combined with ‘The Garden Beautiful’ and In 1939 it found its authority in Tansley’s a diluted form of Unwin and Parker ‘Garden two-volume ‘The British Isles and their City’ planning. The latter found service Vegetation’. For years earlier, Tansley, in in ‘Homes for Heroes’ and white collar the American journal, ‘Ecology’, had coined commuter colonies, respited to city edges as the term ‘ecosystem’, that is, a system speculative bungalow suburbias. They were which by location as an ‘ecotope’ (Greek reached by tram and train, and provided topos: place), forms a home (Greakoikos: safe refuge and nominal contact with the house) for the life forms inhabiting it. In full soil, at densities of some 25 dwellings to the succession he described a typical system

3. Geddes himself was a founding member of the TPI, and the only one to describe himself as a sociologist. 4. The world ‘Oecology’ was coined in 1873 by the German botanist Haeckel and simplified to ‘Ecology’ in 1902.

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as proceeding from ‘primary bare areas’ avoid a need to plan its land consumption. through ‘seral stages’ to a ‘climatic climax’ Enter the 1947 Town and Country in relative dynamic equilibrium, and subject Planning Act, appointing local planning to damage and reversion. The work of authorities to survey and draw up approved Tansley and his colleagues, in retrospect, Development Plans for their areas, and was certainly one of the great legacies of requiring development approval for all the 20th century in its fundamental influence except forestry and agriculture. Enter also on the nature and practice of conservation. the 1949 National Parks and Access to the It gave conservation a human and ethical Countryside Act, giving extra protection basis which raised it from mere ideology to specially designation National Parks; to philosophy. But to grasp this we need to also to designation Areas of Outstanding return to our timeline. National Beauty; and powers also to the newly-established Nature Conservancy to In 1945, from the ashes of the former designate Nature Reserves and Areas of League of Nations, and the exhaustion, Special Scientific Interest, nationwide. waste and huge loss of life in World War 2, sprang the United Nations. The Sir Arthur Tansley himself, shortly before UN’s primary peacekeeping role and his death, became the first Director of the charter for international cooperation was Nature Conservancy. His successor, the coordinated by its Council, and by its special amateur ornithologist and civil servant Max organisations, including UNESCO, which Nicholson, ably assisted by Huxley, Melanby, was given responsibility for conservation. Fraser Darling and others (all eventually World population increases in relation to knighted for their services to conservation) productive land shortage quickly became a promptly set about their task, and in a ‘now UN focus, and of its most densely populated or never’ urgency. Within a decade they had member nations, including Britain. Simple achieved wonders, but which are regrettably arithmetic began to concentrate minds, and beyond the detailed scope of this paper. in a post-war reconstruction, conservation became a watchword. But to return in summary to the activities of British post-war reconstruction. The 1951 In Britain, ready reference was made to Festival of Britain helped lift the design (Sir) Dudley Stamp’s nationwide 1933 professions out of a long period of austerity. Land Utilisation Survey, in quantifying land It gave the Man-Nature profession of shortage. Post war, and with an annual landscape architecture the opportunity to landtake of some 25,000 ha for all forms of expand its ambitions into a broader public development, and an inherited legacy realm. A war-stalled generation of British of some 100,000 ha of slag heaps, tips landscape architects, led by Colvin, Crowe, and industrial wasteland, a succession of Jellicoe, Youngman and Clark now made typically British government committees at significant contributions to the design of the last realised that Britain could no longer so-called Mark I British new towns5, including

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Harlow and Stevenage. As time went on they with conservation, I would therefore like and their followers became involved in a to consider it in more detail; and to draw wider and wider range of projects, including attention to what I consider to be one of the new university campuses, large-scale 20th century’s greatest challenges to the reclamations of industrial wasteland, the present century, namely that of applying the phased planning of open cast coal workings; concept of energy transfer between tropic and, following the 1967 Countryside Acts, the levels, to all aspects of design. planning of regional parks and countryside leisure projects. Conservation, worldwide, took a leap forward in 1948 with the setting up of the IUCN Supporting this greatly expanded work load (International Union for the Conservation of came new university courses in London, Nature) under the aegis of UNESCO (The Edinburgh, Newcastle, Sheffield and United Nations Educational, Scientific and elsewhere, set up to train following cohorts Cultural Organisation). The 1972 General of landscape architects and town planners. Conference of UNESCO established its In retrospect, most of their design activities convention for encouraging the identification, can be seen as contributing a new social protection and preservation of cultural and awareness to the distinctive British aesthetic natural heritage sites around the world. of the Picturesque and its long-established This, of course, is now officially expressed presence in the wider landscape; and which in the listing of World Heritage Sites, in its character was at least modernist, if not advised by two technical committees: firstly, specifically of the Modern Movement. the World Conservation Union (formerly the IUCN), advising on Natural Sites; Minor stylistic and following diversions and secondly, ICOMOS (the International included Postmodernism, Minimalism, Council on Monuments and Sites), advising Deconstruction and other even slighter on Cultural Sites, and assisted since 1988 eclecticisms. The final twenty years or so by Docomomo6. By the end of the 20th of the 20th century, and particularly since century, the UNESCO World Heritage the Kyoto Accord on Climate Change in Committee had designated some 630 sites 1990, saw an increasing emphasis on worldwide: 480 of these being cultural, 128 sustainability in all aspects of design. To being natural, and the remainder being myself, as a grumpy old man, sustainability combined designations. From this, now is an annoyingly woolly, and unhelpful term distant initiative, many member nations, which has so far failed to focus adequately including Britain, set up their own lists of on the conservation of natural resources. cultural and natural sites of national and As this conference is particularly concerned local importance, and conferring degrees

5. These Mark I British New Towns, and their Mark 2 and Mark 3 successors, drew on the ideas of Howardian satellites, Le Corbuser’s La Ville Radieuse, and Clarence Stein’s traffic-segregated Radburn planning, each with a clearly defined hierarchy of recreational open space. 6. Set up in Eindhoven by the Dutch architects Hubert Henket and Wessel de Jonge as an international working party to assist ICOMOS in documenting and conserving building sites and neighbourhoods of the Modern Movement.

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of statutory protection. The inventory, for and Plenty’, the ecologist Frank Fraser example, of noteworthy Scottish gardens Darling had stressed the urgency of man’s and designed landscapes was begun in need to plan his consumption of natural 1986. It is maintained by Scottish Natural resources. Not surprisingly, he defined the Heritage and Historic Scotland, but has as term ‘conservation’ as ‘practical ecology’, yet only advisory status. and he called for an entente between economics and ecology. He noted the irony In their conservation the distinction that both words were derived from the same between listed cultural and natural sites is Greek root, oikos: a house. not as apparent as it might seem. Few, if any, natural sites can be described as true Fortuitously, also in 1969, Ian McHarg, an wilderness areas, untouched by Man; and émigré Scots architect, had published from both inevitably therefore, on designation, his new base in Pennsylvania University his share the common characteristic of book ‘Design with Nature’. Fraser Darling being maintained by Man in a preferred had praised it in his Reith Lectures for its state. This preferred state is specified in outspoken attack on careless large-scale carefully considered management plans corporate despoliation of land and natural for both designations, to ensure that resources. McHarg called for coordinated their special significance is safeguarded. landscape planning using all the resources of Both kinds of designation are thus linked, natural science to guide such development however disparately by preferred state at a in a benevolent and balanced Geddesian philosophical level7. manner; and he demonstrated this balance in a number of case studies carried out by The conservation ethic generally, during himself and teams of graduate students. the second half of the 20th century, was McHarg’s book rapidly became an article influenced very notably by three figures of faith to the landscape professions, of world stature: the Greek planner, and he followed its influence around the ConstantinosDoxiadis; the Scottish proto- world in a number of influential lecture ecologist, Ian McHarg; and the American tours. Here, certainly, was Fraser Darling’s technocrat, Richard Buckminster Fuller. accommodation of ecology and economics. None of them were from natural science backgrounds, but they all had a Man- The second of the world figures I have listed, Nature stance at the centre of their design ‘Dinos’ Doxiadis, in his early 20s became thinking. Director of Town Planning Studies in Athens, and set up an office for national, regional In his 1969 BBC Reith Lectures ‘Wilderness and town planning studies. This became the

7. A typical management plan, based on a thorough Geddesian survey and inventory, might, for both a ‘cultural’ and a ‘natural’ site, specify a preferred state in certain areas and at certain times conditioned by restrictions of access and use, certain types of grazing and cutting regimes, and selective periodic clearances.

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centre of a brilliant programme of post-war parochiality. The influence of Fuller, McHarg reconstruction development plans, firstly and Doxiadis in supporting conservation at serving Greece itself, and then the wider a world scale still resonates today. world through his assistance given to the UN. Doxiadis, in promoting this work, sought In review of the 20th century as a whole, it is to partner ecology and economics with remarkable that none of its design historians, ‘Ekistics’, the science of human settlements and certainly none dealing with architecture, (a creation of his own). He focussed its planning or landscape design – Giedion, study, with great energy, in a sequence of Pevsner, Mumford, Jellicoe, ReynerBanham annual symposia from 1963 to 1975. These and Jencks among them – should have were gatherings of invited experts from understood the importance of the new many backgrounds, each gathering ending science of Ecology in informing all aspects with an assembly, declaration and published of design. Even today most designers seem proceeding in the great amphitheatre of ignorant of its true purpose in guiding Man’s Delos. Like McHard, Doxiadis called for a partnership with the Biosphere. Perhaps world picture to test all new development. the greatest legacy of the 20th century, He died young, but his message continues therefore, and certainly one of its greatest today in regular meetings of the World challenges, is to accept the need for all Society of Ekistics. designers to work to energy budgets in aligning production and consumption in Contributors to the Delos symposia included closest possible, cleanest and most sparing R. H. Matthew and C. H. Waddington physical proximity. By this we show our real of Edinburgh University, representing wonderment of the world around us. architecture and genetics. A significant contributor also was the American engineer Richard Buckminster Fuller. Fuller was by nature a pluralist. He understood the message of Geddes; and he was in his element at Delos and in lecture tours around the world, promoting the Doxiadis ‘global village’ served by his own omni-purpose global widespan geodesic domes. He visited Edinburgh twice, on the initiative of L. J. Fricker, tutoring in Matthew’s Landscape Architecture Programme. After visiting the Geddes Outlook Tower and in a number of three to five hour lectures, using the never- ending sentence, he stunned his largely Modern Movement audiences with their own

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References

Geddes, P. (1906), Sociological Papers 1904 & 1905, Sociological Society, Macmillan, London.

Geddes, P. (1979), ‘Civics as Applied Sociology’ in The Ideal City, ed. Meller, H., UP, Leicester.

Howard, E. (1970 rep), Garden Cities of Tomorrow, ed. Osborn, F., Faber, London.

Mumford, L. (1940), The Culture of Cities, Secker & Warburg, London.

Sharp, T. (1940), Town Planning, Pelican Books, London.

Stein, C. (1949), in The Town Planning Review, vol XX, Liverpool.

Tansley, A. (1949), The British Isles and their Vegetation, LP, Cambridge.

McHarg, I. (1969), Design with Nature, SUP, Penn.

Colvin, B. (1948), Land and Landscape, Murray, London.

Crowe, S. (1956), Tomorrow’s Landscape, Architectural Press, London.

Darling, F. (1969), Wilderness and Plenty, BBC Reith Lectures.

Doxiadis, C. (1977), Ecology and Ekistics, ed. Dix. Elek, London.

Stamp, D. (1969), Nature Conservation in Britain, Collins, London.

Moffat et al. (1969), Open Space Plan for Edinburgh, City Corporation of Edinburgh, Edinburgh.

Fuller, R. (1970), The Buckminster Fuller Reader, ed. Mellor, Pelican Books.

O’Connor, F. (1974), The Ecological Basis for Conservation’ in Conservation in Practice, ed. Warren, Wiley, London.

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“Landscape Conservation on Span Estates”

Dr Barbara Simms (Lecturer, Department of History of Art and Screen Media, Birkbeck, University of London)

ABSTRACT in their communal landscapes. This paper, therefore, considers a number of issues Span was the vision of the architect Eric Lyons concerned with the ethos, current situation (1912-80). His aim was to provide a new style and maintenance of Span estates. Most of private estate development, ‘affordable, importantly it evaluates why (or, indeed, if) well-designed homes in landscape settings, Span estates should be conserved and, if which would foster a village community so, how this can best be achieved. atmosphere’ (Simms, 2001: 54). Span was ‘a bridgehead’: it spanned, in Lyons’s words, THE DEVELOPMENT AND ‘the gap between the suburban monotony CHARACTERISTICS OF SPAN of the typical spec’ development and the architecturally designed, individually built After the Second World War, working with residence that has become, for all but a few architect Geoffrey Townsend (1911-2002), ... financially unattainable’ (Span, 1960). Lyons started to build speculative group Early 1960s promotional literature described housing around Twickenham in south-west his vision as follows: London. Townsend found the sites and acted as property developer, while Lyons Go to any Span development and you will did the designs. They set out plans to create discover ... what Span has to offer. Perfect ‘total environments’; buildings, planting, settings, visually uncluttered; a sense of roads, car parks and children’s play spaces spaciousness and elegance totally unlike integrated within, to quote Townsend, ‘a any modern speculative building you have pleasant and stimulating background for ever seen ... A genuine twentieth century day-to-day living’ (Townsend, 1955: 72-3). contribution to better living made for people Key to Lyons’s vision was the establishment who regard it as vitally important. of residents’ societies for the management and maintenance of each estate. He Span and Lyons’s concept were influential believed that this would preserve the visual on estate design and management in the unity of the houses and the integrity of the second part of the 20th century, but what communal landscape, and would positively is the situation in the twenty-first century? encourage interaction between residents. Because the estates were created between Between 1948 and 1984 Lyons and his thirty and sixty years ago, it is inevitable colleagues built 63 developments in the that changes have taken place, particularly south of England, from 1957 under the name

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Span Developments Ltd. The estates were in attractive suburbs, mostly near London, or towns such as Oxford and Cambridge. The housing design evolved as terraces or blocks of distinctive Scandinavian-style buildings with the landscape flowing ‘around the buildings without the interruption of hedges or individual front gardens’ (Edwards 1981, 176). Uniquely, to quote Lyons (1977: 495):

The architects designed the landscape hand- in-hand with the design of the dwelling; and it was the integration of roads, car-parks, Fig. 1: Parking court at Fieldend, children’s play spaces etc – that created an Teddington (Photo: author) ambience and scale hitherto unknown in housing for ordinary people.

Influenced by the Radburn concept of separation of cars and pedestrians, instead of parking outside each house, Span produced separate car parks and ‘car squares’ that were screened by planting (Figure 1). The design meant that residents walked through the communal gardens and this encouraged informal meetings and the opportunity for residents to get to know each other. Street furniture was carefully detailed; all features from signs, house/ flat number plates, lamposts, garden lamps and bollards were specifically selected or purposely designed to develop a sense of cohesion and belonging. The mushroom-shaped outdoor lamps became a signature of Span housing developments (Figure 2). Fig. 2: Span signature mushroom lamp. Reproduced in Simms (2006: 120) (Photo: Tim Crocker) Early schemes were small two- and three- storey flats with densities of 50-80 persons per acre and little landscaping, as at Oaklands, Whitton (1948), but by the early 1960s, and in collaboration with the building

Landscape of the Recent Past: Conserving the Twentieth Century Landscape Design Legacy 29 Proceedings of the DOCOMOMO ISC Urbanism + Landscape Conference, April 2011 Paper 5 contractor, Leslie Bilsby, and the architect individual houses, its focus was also on estate and landscape architect, Ivor Cunningham, layout (Howlet, 1938: 26). It condemned the this had been extended to larger schemes ‘vast streets of treeless land’ of speculative of courtyard flats such as at Parkleys, Ham houses interwar suburban development as Common (1956); The Priory, Blackheath well as local authority low-density estates (1956); and Highsett, Cambridge (1960) of semi-detached houses or short terraces (Figures 3); and to single-family terraced with private gardens. It proposed instead housing with private and communal gardens, alternatives that were described as ‘a true such as Fieldend, Teddington (1961) (Figure 4).

In the mid-1960s Lyons proposed a more ambitious project - ‘a new kind of village in attractive surroundings ... [where] the architectural quality of the village will be achieved by a close relationship between buildings and landscape’ (Span, 1962). This became New Ash Green in Kent, a community of neighbourhoods which Lyons saw as ‘Designed for today, for a multitude of different ways of individual living’ (Ambrose, 1967: 63). Lyons ended his association with

Span in 1969 after New Ash Green suffered Fig. 3: Highsett 1, Cambridge. Reproduced in Simms financial difficulties during a national (2006: 148) (Photo: Tim Crocker). economic slump and was eventually forced to sell to Bovis. He returned in 1976 to work on four housing schemes in Blackheath and to begin Span’s last development, Mallard Place, on a riverside site at Twickenham.

ARE SPAN ESTATES GOOD EXAMPLES OF POST-WAR DESIGN?

Although Lyons claimed to be proposing a ‘new style’ of private estate his vision was in tune with interwar thinking on the design of houses and housing developments. On 13 October 1938, the ‘Small House’ Exhibition had opened at the RIBA. Although primarily Fig. 4: Terraced housing at Fieldend, Teddington concerned with improving the design of (Photo: Nick Collins).

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expression of contemporary life, free from worked with Lyons from 1955. It elicited the any mimicry of the past and yet worthy of response that it is the total design concept our past tradition’ (RIBA, 1938: 3). – the relationship of the built form to the spaces (Cunningham, 2001). 1960s Span Emphasis was on the house in its landscape, promotional literature expanded on this: which was to be ‘contented and intimate, the perfect background for a domestic It is very pleasant to live in an environment architecture’ (ibid.: 7). The layout of groups in which proportion and harmony are of housing merited particular attention, the acknowledged to be relevant, in which suggestion being that instead of single units the site and its trees and the architecture in their own plots of land, ‘houses should achieve unity and in which no detail fails be grouped in terraces and squares to take to contribute happily to the total effect ... advantage of natural features and contours, Sites are not bulldozed into a drearily level trees and open views’ (ibid.: 8). Small service conformity: established trees are retained, roads to the houses and garages were roads follow natural contours, lawns sweep recommended to give ‘the front rooms a view naturally into vistas, planting enhances the of grass and trees instead of an expanse of spaces rather than merely fills them. asphalt’. The planting of new trees and the incorporation of existing mature trees into Both Lyons and Cunningham were convinced the layout of an estate were considered of the advantages of retaining existing essential. landscape features, particularly nmature trees, and this resulted in unique layouts, After the insecurity of the war years, the such as at Templemere, Weybridge (1965). concept of community was also fundamental Templemere is one of several Span schemes to government guidance on estate design built on Lord Lincoln’s 18th-century Oatlands (MOH, 1949). It was thought that a mix Park, a landscape embellished by William of private and communal gardens would Kent and Henry Holland. Special offset encourage this sense of community, ‘pavillion’ houses with large picture windows particularly if the houses or flats overlooked were designed there to accommodate the the communal areas. New thinking on existing mature cedars. housing in the post-war period, therefore, was based on these three key principles Landscape was the starting point for all - an integrated design approach, the Lyons’s designs and Ivor Cunningham was incorporation of existing landscape features, the major contributor to this (Lyons, 1960). and the development of community. Lyons In an unexecuted design for a Coventry was well versed in this current thinking estate (1957) Cunningham described when he began work again with Geoffrey his approach as ‘wall-to-wall landscape Townsend after the close of war. carpeting’, conceived as a ‘romantic layout The question, ‘What is the essence of a Span of curving paths, free forming groups of estate?’ was posed to Ivor Cunningham, who plants and trees and grassed areas that

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overlapped and interlocked with each other; of buildings and to screen car parks, as at the whole composition framed by the house Fieldend. fronts and the screened car parking areas’ (Cunningham, 1980) (Figure 5). He stated At Corner Green the planting was more that ‘By facing the houses onto a pedestrian- informal, with smaller plant groupings only green the landscape became the social reinforcing a sense of the domestic. At as well as the spatial focus of the estate’. A Fieldend the planting by Michael Brown few years later the design was incorporated and Cunningham was more naturalistic and into Corner Green, Blackheath (1959). included low plantings of Hypericum and ivy and Vinca, offset with strategically placed hardy shrubs to complement the sweeping areas of lawn and groups of tree. Jasmine and clematis covered the end walls of the terraces. There are detailed planting plans for a number of developments and these provide information on the palette of plants used. This included popular contemporary shrubs such as pampas grass (Cortaderia), Fatsia japonica, spirea, juniper, philadelphus, mahonia, phormium and roses (e.g. Rosa Fig. 5: Unexecuted design for St Nicholas Street, Coventry. Reproduced in Simms rugosa). Groupings were typically repeated (2006: 41) throughout a scheme. The Dutchman Preben Jakobsen’s who worked for Span 1961-69 increased the range of plants used The early Span planting schemes were as, for example, at Templemere (Figure 6). primarily concerned with functional issues There swathes of veronica underplanted (Woudstra, 2006). At Parkleys Geoffrey robinias, beds of shrub roses, lavender Townsend, a keen horticulturist, conceived or Bergenia were planted alongside the the landscape design, but no formal planting houses and Clematis Montana covered the plans were drawn up, leaving Cunningham end walls. to lay out the pre-ordered plants with the assistance of gardeners from the nursery SPAN ESTATES TODAY on which the estate was built. At The Keep, Blackheath (1957) the small front gardens How then have Span estates fared over the were divided from the communal space by 30-60 years since their construction and low shrubs such as lavender (Lavendula planting? Happily, the underlying design of ‘Hidcote’), berberis (Berberis verruculosa) the sites, in terms of the relationship of the and cotoneaster (Cotoneaster simonsii). buildings to the spaces, is still intact, as is Strategic planting here and in other early the visual unity of the terraced houses and schemes was used to soften the corners blocks of flats. However, the communal

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Many Span estates were built on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century gardenland and thirty or more years on many trees have outgrown their positions, overhanging roofs and tiles, obscuring entrances and Fig. 6: Extract from Templemere landscaping plan by Preben Jakobsen (Ivor Cunningham, Landscape their roots lifting/ cracking paving. They Design) also reduce the light to flats and houses. In contrast, at Fieldend there were few existing trees and Cunningham and Brown planted nearly 400 trees including 240 silver birches (Betula pendula) and 30 semi-mature plane trees (Platanus x acerifolia). Although later described by Pevsner as ‘the most sylvan of all Span developments in London’ (Cherry and Pevsner, 1999: 552) the intention was to remove the silver birch trees when the plane trees had growth to create the ambience of a London square. This has been hampered by the Tree Preservation Orders (TPOs) Fig. 7: Silver birch trees at Fieldend (Photo: author) now in force (Figure 7). In addition to the practical problems caused by tree growth, where new shrubs have been ‘dotted’ rather the imposing nature of many mature trees than being placed to created the masses affects the sense of scale and proportion typical of Cunningham’s original plans. At carefully detailed by Lyons. Applecourt, Cambridge (1961) some of his defining shrub and tree planting (e.g. junipers, As shrub and groundcover plants mature maples) have been replaced by decorative and outgrow their position their replacement flower beds (Figure 8).On estates designed is also a key issue. At New Ash Green with picture-window houses and flats with there are good examples of the original open plan front gardens, permanently drawn shrub plantings in some areas but in others curtains, blinds, shrubbery partitions and residents have created ‘flowery incidents’. strategically placed plant pots indicate that Also at New Ash Green, however, outgrown many residents crave greater privacy than or neglected areas of planting have often was originally intended. At New Ash Green, been replaced by grass in the interests many residents use hedges and fences to of low maintenance. Other examples of obscure views to and from the communal inappropriate planting include The Keep, green.

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gardens are well maintained. As private housing, decisions relating to issues such as tree growth, lighting replacement and shrub planting are the responsibility of the residents’ societies committees established by Lyons as the means by which residents would be compelled to participate in management and maintain the integrity of Span estates. Is there, therefore, any justification for outside agencies to influence or attempt to influence their management?

Fig. 8: Modern borders have replaced Span planting Are the landscapes sufficiently significant or schemes at Applecourt, Cambridge (Photo: author) ‘at risk’ to warrant statutory protection in a Characteristic Span detailing included national context (listing or registration) or the paving, cobbles, gravel, garden lights, and local (conservation area, local list)? standard green lettering and numbering on the blocks of flats and window boxes. Currently four Span developments have The hard landscaping, in particular the listed building status, all examples of characteristic rectangular and hexagonal Lyons’s late 1950s flat-roofed low-rise paving in the earlier estates, is in need of blocks based on a courtyard design. One of repair or replacement. At The Keep one of the these, Hallgate, Blackheath (1958), features car squares, originally of brushed aggregate Keith Godwin’s sculpture, The Architect with granite sett dividers and exposed in Society, which commemorates Lyons’s aggregate bollards, has been resurfaced planning battles with Greenwich council. with concrete and new bollards installed. Listing safeguards the visual integrity of the At Parkleys signage has been changed, building, but offers little, if any, protection to mushroom lamps have been replaced with the landscape. Recent guidance in Planning uplighters, and the council, which owns Policy Statement 5 (PPS5) takes a more the road through the estate, has installed holistic approach to heritage assets focusing several street lights with modern designs. on value and character and whether the sum Road and pavement repairs have also been of the parts can transform the ordinary into made using inappropriate materials. something special.

CONSERVATION OF SPAN ESTATES Designation of a Span estate at a local level as a conservation area or protection Compared to the distressing states of within a conservation area might, therefore, some post-war landscapes the situation on be a more appropriate form of protection. Span estates may be seen as insignificant Nineteen Span housing schemes are within as both the buildings and the communal the Blackheath Park Conservation Area in the London Borough of Greenwich; and

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in the London Borough of Richmond upon the original landscape designs have been Thames (LBRuT), Mallard Place, Fieldend lost. It is intended that, in replacing plants in and Parkleys have all been designated future, the original plans will be followed as separate conservation areas. Richmond closely as is practicable so that as much as Conservation Area Statements for these possible of the original ‘atmosphere’ of The indicate an awareness of the gradual erosion Lane can be recovered. of the character of Span estates. This sounds promising but statutory protection is no The Lane Residents’ Society has its original guarantee for their safe future. Key to their landscape plans and photographs, writings successful management as acknowledged and the memories of early residents and heritage assets is to ‘get the residents and promotes the uniqueness of Span by using local authorities on board’. this information. This must be the most effective method of ensuring the conservation Recent studies demonstrated that only a of the estate. minority of present residents were aware of Span’s philosophy and Lyons’s vision CONCLUSION of community identity and the ‘sharing of responsibilities’ (Simms, 2001). Few Management by residents was a key part of participated in estate management. Some Lyons’s vision as it encouraged a sense of attempts have been made to address this. community and ownership. This philosophy For example, LB Richmond has recently has been the basis of much government drawn up ‘a listed buildings guide for owners’ guidance on the funding and management of although this does not address landscape public spaces, such as urban parks, in recent issues. Most promising is a handbook for years. Lyons’s innovative designs are now residents produced by the Residents’ Society recognised as part of the historic environment at The Lane, Blackheath (1964). This ‘gives by architectural historians, practitioners and information about The Lane’s architecture, those in related fields. Statutory protection landscape and management system, and can only be a part solution to the conservation offers advice to all those concerned in of Span estates. More effective will be raising preserving its special character’. In line the awareness of both residents and local with the original Span ethos, it emphasizes authorities of the Span ethos and the provision the development of community, but also of practical information to prevent unwelcome provides practical information on the repair changes. How then can residents of all and replacement of key features such as Span estates be encouraged to follow The signage, windows and planters. It also Lane’s example, with however the emphasis confirms that: on landscape conservation? As a start the following could be considered: In spite of inevitable changes over time, The Lane still has an attractive green setting • Provide residents with information on though some of the variety and subtlety of Span philosophy and its influence

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on the design of the development. References

This understanding would hopefully Ambrose, Eric (interview with Eric Lyons), ‘New Ash encourage more residents to Green, New Village, New Way of Life’, Ideal Home participate in the management (October 1967). scheme; Cherry, Bridget and Nikolaus Pevsner (1999), The Buildings of England. London 2: South, Penguin, London. First published 1983. • A handbook with suggestions on appropriate repair and replacement Cunningham, Ivor, ‘Spick and Span’, talk given at a seminar, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew (7 March of hard landscaping materials, tree 1980). management and soft landscaping Cunningham, Ivor, in discussion with the author (6 maintenance could usefully guide April 2001). the decision-making of residents’ Edwards, Arthur M. (1981), The Design of Suburbia. societies on all Span estates; A Critical Study in Environmental History, Pembridge Press, London. • Information on Span planting Howlett, M., ‘The “Small House” Exhibition’, JRIBA (7 concepts with examples of planting November 1938). plans could be made available; Lyons, Eric, ‘Building a Community’, Architectural Design (September 1960), pp. 344-55. • Each scheme would benefit Lyons, Eric (1977), ‘Private Housing’ in 25 Years of from a management plan to provide British Architecture, RIBA, London. a statement of significance, a Ministry of Health (1949), Housing Manual, HMSO, vision for the future and a planned London. scheme of conservation; RIBA (1938), ‘The Small House’ Exhibition Catalogue, RIBA, London. • Encourage liaison between representatives of Span Simms, Barbara, (2001), ‘Landscape Conservation on Span Estates’. Unpublished MA dissertation, Architec- management committees and tural Association, London. relevant local authorities. Simms, Barbara (ed.) (2001), London’s Garden Sub- urbs. Community Landscape and the Urban Ideal, London Historic Parks and Gardens Trust, London.

In the meantime Span housing estates are Simms, Barbara (2006), Eric Lyons & Span, RIBA, in danger of losing the landscape character- London.

istics that make them unique post-war de- Span promotional literature (1960s), RIBA Span signs. Archive Box 3/1.

Span promotional literature (1962), A New Village near Hartley, Kent, New Ash Green.

Townsend, Geoffrey, Architects Journal (20 January 1955).

Woudstra, Jan (2006), ‘Landscape first and last’ in Simms, Barbara, Eric Lyons & Span, RIBA, London.

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Span Estates: A Personal Reflection

Dr Ian Appleton (University of Edinburgh)

The lecture by Dr Barbara Simms on Span Eric Lyons was able to raise funds available Estates prompted thoughts about suburbia to all while the partners not members of the and community definition. Both topics fit RIBA overcame membership conditions. into a planning agenda and receive much There did remain at the time the question of debate. how the company had access to funds with schemes seen as innovative and a risk. Span Estates refer to housing developments in and around suburban London as well There were various influences on the type as latterly in towns such as Oxford. The and style of development. First perhaps founder of the company was the architect is the function and attraction of suburban Eric Lyons. The development partners were areas in London. My parents moved from not members of the RIBA, although qualified. the north in the 1930s to the edge of London Architects at the time were not allowed to at the time, attracted by immediate access be involved in building developments. The to the countryside and convenient access company attracted landscape architects. to the centre of London by train. My father The housing developments had the became a typical commuter while the characteristic of integrating landscape and housing estate had all the characteristics open space into the layouts. of suburban development. Semi-detached houses, ease of access to schools and I was brought up in the area which shops and engulfing of inherited villages, experienced the early Span Estates with towns and large buildings and amenities. the development of Ham Common, in south Michael Frayn in his recent book My London, as the main example at the time. Father’s Fortune: A Life outlines in detail This development has been categorised as a similar pattern of being attracted into flats and courtyards, integrating landscaped suburban estates. He became an advocate public open spaces. A management fee of suburban life and was part of a television was paid annually for the maintenance by series on architecture, advocating his flat owners. parents’ choice of location. (Michael Frayn acted as a developer At the time of the initial developments by and produced with the other eventual Span Estates was the question of source of owners a terrace of houses which match finance for developments. The profession did their requirements in a direct gesture of not embrace involvement in developments. participation.)

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The book by Matthew Engel, Eleven Minutes aim where they would support interaction Late, A Train Journey to the Soul of Britain between residents in a housing unit. The outlines the impact of the railway on suburban layouts provided a grouping of houses, say, developments and commuter work patterns around a cul-de-sac with the hope of identity and travel. as a community. This aim set aside a Span Estate from other housing developments at Suburban London continued to expand the time. engulfing those farms on the edge. However support within an estate is Ham Common was a high amenity open debatable. There is an initial problem of space, surrounded by large houses in their not necessarily understanding community. grounds. Cleared sites became available (Sociologists have identified some 93 for development such as by Span Estates. different definitions.) With the housing estates there were issues such as estate Advocates of urban renewal reacted to management and costs, social and support increasing suburbanisation. There were functions and some understanding of empty sites across inner London as a result identity. There was the common experience of bombing during the Second World War. such as living together through the Second Major sites were available for redevelopment World War. The views of community were in the City of London. Peter Chamberlin recognised among the middle classes. argued effectively for urban renewal to avoid the suburban sprawl. His firm produced the Wilmott and Young studied communities in pioneering Golden Lane block of flats in the east end of London, especially those the City of London, and then produced the which were re-housed from high density Barbican scheme in the City, with its housing terrace housing. The strong sense of and amenities (it included the London base community was lost on change of location for the Royal Shakespeare Company). and housing types (blocks of flats). The community spirit included support systems On the map of London at the time, plotting especially held together by poverty, but also new housing was dominated by the erection the dimension of immigration. Different and management of public housing. The continental European countries and Irish Barbican scheme, modest in scale, was provided their own identity in the east end for a new middle class close to the place of of London. work. Span Estates appealed to the aspiring The Span Estates were for a middle class professional groups. The Wilmott and Young known now as the young professional class. observations appear not to be applicable. They did not address community facilities There are the observable status symbols such as schools, but did have a community and neighbourly competition. The barbeque set in each garden or court became the

Landscape of the Recent Past: Conserving the Twentieth Century Landscape Design Legacy 38 Proceedings of the DOCOMOMO ISC Urbanism + Landscape Conference, April 2011 Paper 6 common symbol. Such fashions appeared provided a picturesque aesthetic. There to be a result of marketing through the colour was also a display of new technologies magazine which was introduced in the early which were not transferable into housing. days of Span Estates. They retained being fashionable. Habitat produced furniture The book on traditional construction details to match, to the blessing of the cultural by McKay was the initial source. The historian. hanging tiles of the early scheme were a characteristic, using McKay details. Eric Michael Frayn lectures on the current lack Lyons was a hands-on principal architect. of community. Two of his recent books There are various stories. An example reminisce about a time when there was was the reduction of 75 diameter rainwater community spirit and dependency as a pipe to 50 diameter. This was not just cost- consequence of the war experience. The saving but an aesthetic decision to establish strength of local organisations after the war a refined, variously textured outcome. fell away as the post-war adult population passed. This contrasted with the Stirling and Gowan design approach where all details were The starting point for this paper lay with the large and relatively crude. This illustrated a Span estate at Ham Common. A further wider debate. The Festival of Britain divided site became available off Ham Common approaches into two groups. There were but developed to the design of Stirling and those who emerged in Britain influenced by Gowan. It was a brick and concrete block in exhibition design (only form of work during the Brutalist style. This scheme became a the Second World War and immediately cult scheme if not for all occupants. after the war) and an English delight in the underplayed and picturesque. A radical Meanwhile other estates were being alternative emerged as an approach developed by house-builders, usually influenced by the work of Le Corbusier and subject to strong criticism by architectural other central European architects. This commentators. The specific scheme near alternative was underwritten by a form of Ham Common was Tudor in style with streets social idealism. Examples of the approach known a Tudor Lane and Tudor Avenue. The to housing is seen in the Parkhill flats style was poor arts and crafts within large in Sheffield and the Robin Hood flats in leafy trees. London.

The initial Span developments were The speaker, Dr Barbara Simms, mentioned influenced by the Festival of Britain in the community aims of the Span Estates, 1951 and an involving contemporary style. with reference to examples in continental This approach included the integration of Europe. Examples were requested by landscape with buildings as well as artworks John Rosser from the audience. These with a view of colour, texture and form which may occur but I offer a commercial skill

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as the characteristic of the Span Estates. to context, landscaping and maintenance Eric Lyons gave public talks and lectures charges. in the local school of architecture. He was one of a group of architects who claimed The flats and courtyard layout at Ham being socialist, covering though improving Common allowed occupants to overlook the housing conditions while using other the courts and minimised vandalism. The schemes to give authority to housing types sole sculpture was subject to vandalism and layout. I recall him praising Scandinavian but, I believe, only once. Planting and trees Modern. Sweden was the model country eventually grew both in the public and private showing the potential of public housing and open spaces. Where private, the owners evidence of the welfare state. This was to were required to maintain their own efforts. justify the Span approach. A management fee covered maintenance of the public spaces. Eric Lyons supported the The Swedish approach did not always go arts as shown at the Festival of Britain. A down well among potential purchasers of court in the Ham Common scheme received Span houses. Eric Lyons changed the a metal sculpture (abstracted figure). country to Switzerland to justify the Ham Common scheme. The schemes were not Other schemes were built by Span Estates. named but the Swiss provided the authority. Blackheath received various schemes with The Ham Common scheme was different in the terrace house the common pattern. its layout of flats and courts with an emphasis on landscape and needed justification. Eric Lyons became President of the RIBA (and stopped, by the way, the takeover of the At the same time a housing scheme by RIBA by the public architects). Subsequent Atelier 5 was being built in rural Switzerland developments included releasing the as a row of terrace houses. The scheme was architects to allow them to operate as refined Le Corbusier and was admired by developers. Meanwhile the barbeques the protagonists of the Modern Movement. continue to burn during those few days of A scheme by Benson and Forsyth was the year when climate permits. adopted by the radical groups in London.

Wates took on the challenge set by the Span Estates and the radical alternatives, by employing Atelier 5 while acknowledging their aesthetic. The annual maintenance charge was adopted as was the importance of landscape. Wates cited Span Estates. Barratts joined the list of house builders who were influenced by the success of Span Estates, by employing architects, responding

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Landscape and Infrastructure – Defining and interpreting modernist landscapes of post war Australia

Dr Andrew Saniga, Senior Lecturer in Landscape Architecture and Urbanism Faculty of Architecture Building and Planning, The University of Melbourne

The profession of landscape architecture between a nurseryman and a market can be difficult to define from a historical gardener & an orchardist, and an artist. point of view. It is often found to be And the planting of a street or road – the straddling various disciplinary boundaries arrangement of villages streets – is neither and it assumes multiple occupational titles, Landscape Art, nor Architectural Art, nor interchanging one for the other seemingly is it both together, in my mind – of course it at random. It has origins in the English is not, & it will never be in the popular mind. landscape gardening movement and thus (Olmsted, 1865) [italics as in the original domestic garden design, yet much of its published version]. development in the nineteenth and twentieth century was pitched towards developments The multidisciplinary nature of landscape in civic art, architecture and town planning. architecture is both its strength and its Complexities in defining landscape Achilles heel. As well as having to acquire architecture are essential to understanding potentially vast fields of knowledge about its subsequent development in the mid- land and environment, landscape architects twentieth century and are historically rooted find themselves constantly battling other in the profession’s birth. At the time that the professions for territory. Sociologist Andrew professional title was coined, the founders Abbott, in his The System of Professions of the profession, Frederick Law Olmsted (1988) explains that professions exist within (1822-1903) and Calvert Vaux (1824-1895), a system and that movements within the each made prophetic claims concerning system have repercussions elsewhere. what it was that defined their professional Dimensions for professional competition pursuits. Olmsted wrote to Vaux: include subjective and objective arguments that in the case of Olmsted and Vaux, I am all the time bothered with the miserable included the objective foundations provided nomenclature of L.A. Landscape is not by the new bureaucracies controlling a good word, Architecture is not; the Central Park, New York, and the subjective combination is not. Gardening is worse... foundations identified by Saniga (2004a) The art is not gardening nor is it architecture. through Olmsted’s writing in manuscripts What I am doing here in Cal[ifornia] such as The Spoils of the Park (1882). especially, is neither. It is sylvan art, fine-art A theoretical argument such as Abbott’s, in distinction from Horticulture, Agriculture in which interdependence is so intrinsic, or Sylvan useful art. We want a distinction seems particularly relevant for landscape

Landscape of the Recent Past: Conserving the Twentieth Century Landscape Design Legacy 41 Proceedings of the DOCOMOMO ISC Urbanism + Landscape Conference, April 2011 Paper 7 architecture, which has been born of other landscape architects in these projects. Six more established professions such as years later the RAIA commissioned a study architecture, planning and forestry, among titled Australian Outrage (1966) depicting others. Some of the early landscape the plight of Australia’s rapidly developing architects in Australia worked within cities. A growing expectation for more government departments in which the thoughtfully designed landscapes further internal bureaucratic structures required stimulated professional activity but one different professions to co-exist and thus to significant precursor to these developments serve each other. Hierarchical structures and in the profession is the project of Serpentine battles over professional jurisdiction were Dam, Western Australia (1961), designed implicit in the division of labour within the by Perth landscape architect, John Oldham bureaucracies, as individuals attempted to (1907-1999). find a niche for their professional involvement in planning and design. John Oldham was single-handedly the instrument of the landscape architecture In my research, aspects of Abbott’s profession in Western Australia. As early as sociological model have been used to 1956, he had begun landscape architectural structure the historical narratives I have work related to infrastructure, working chosen to explain (Saniga, 2004a). The mainly within the Western Australian Public most rapid development of the Australian Works Department (PWD). Predating the profession of landscape architecture formation of the AILA by ten years, Oldham occurred post-World War II. Throughout created his own role as a landscape the 1950s and 1960s a very wide range architect in government departments where of occupational groups came together none had previously existed. Oldham was to form the new profession of landscape a self-taught practitioner who had very architecture. By 1966 that profession was diverse work and life experiences, as an sufficiently differentiated and confident to architect, poster designer and producer, establish its own professional institute, the watercolourist, landscape architect and Australian Institute of Landscape Architects. conservationist, consequently possessing a But what work opportunities enabled people rare and essential combination of concerns to move into the new profession? Large- and capacities, that Newton claimed to be scale projects in the 1950s and 1960s the making of a ‘well-rounded landscape brought many new opportunities in the architect’ (Newton, 1971, p 391). Oldham development of infrastructure and in the knew how to manufacture institutional support planning of sites associated with large new for his profession but he was also artful in the public institutions. A growing awareness of way he worked with other professionals and the ugliness of Australian cities, which was in the way he communicated and advanced emphatically defined by writers such as Robin his causes. He was instrumental in forming Boyd, especially in the book, The Australian conservation organisations in Western Ugliness (1960), further advanced the role of Australia and the fact that he did so while he

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was professionally involved with engineers was linked to the project of building a nation in developing infrastructure makes his work and as physical achievements infrastructure all the more challenging to critique. was linked to national pride. At Serpentine Dam, John Oldham developed movement Serpentine Dam is seventy kilometers systems around a series of viewing points southeast of Perth and, as well as being one from which the tourist could discover the of the main water supplies for the region, is beauty of infrastructure. These included a a popular destination for day-trippers from series of vantage points such as a newly Perth. The scale of this project was a ‘first’ designed restaurant and viewing points in for the State Government as was the early close proximity to the wall itself and these decision to comprehensively plan and design were intended to generate an awe-inspiring the dam and its environs. Oldham’s role in response from the viewer. Oldham believed landscaping was to fit the dam into the valley that the aesthetic translation of functionalist and he stated that his predominant concern planning combined with the conscious use of was ‘not to strive to subjugate nature; nor Australian native plants and natural building to try to keep the natural environment in its materials would imbue a project with beauty original state; but to harmoniously integrate and art. He believed the modern landscape man’s works with nature’s’ (Oldham, held the potential for Australia to break away 1966, p 201). But ‘fitting in’ was not solely from English landscape gardening principles an artless exercise in camouflage or of and concluded somewhat self-consciously, softening the scars of progress. His first ‘as we develop a garden aesthetic inspired by significant intervention was strategic. He this “Australian Vision”, we shall also create claimed that he persuaded the engineers to a characteristic and beautiful Landscape take construction material only from areas Architecture’ (Oldham, 1959, p 30). that would eventually covered by the new reservoir. He also became heavily involved The sweeping curve, combined with in cut and fill, ensuring that all earthworks local materials sourced from blasting the and access roads in the dam’s construction spillway through rock, was used in the could be used later as design opportunities construction of the car parks, picnic areas, in a new tourist landscape (Hillman, 2003). fountains, seating and viewing platforms as a transitional element between built To reveal and enhance, and even to form and the surrounding landscape. The proclaim, the beauty and magnitude of design intent was to unite man and nature. engineered structures was typical of The economy of using on-site resources practitioners of this time. Sylvia Crowe wrote was in keeping with modernist thought about infrastructure and landscape (1958 and planting selection became an exercise and 1960) and many practitioners including in showcasing Australian native flora. At Brenda Colvin amongst others practiced Serpentine Dam gangs of men, including under the inevitability of infrastructure in the the ‘Balts’ or new immigrants, who had been post-war years. In Australia, infrastructure sent to work on such large public service

Landscape of the Recent Past: Conserving the Twentieth Century Landscape Design Legacy 43 Proceedings of the DOCOMOMO ISC Urbanism + Landscape Conference, April 2011 Paper 7 projects, collected pieces of nature from the inherent in what we found left of Oldham’s surrounding landscape and moved them landscape design. Particularly difficult was onto the site. Oldham also desired the use the parterre garden, which for most of the of Aboriginal colours and in doing so was students represented blatant tokenism in making an early attempt to reflect Australian the context of contemporary Aboriginal indigenous culture in landscape design rights but that conversely was an important (Saniga, 2004). In retrospect, he might now historic marker of the times. This was made be criticized for tokenism, as he went so more salient considering that in the 1960s far as to design the layout of the car park Aboriginal Australians had not even the planting beds to mimic emu tracks similar right to take part in the Australian political to those depicted in Aboriginal rock art. The election process yet Oldham was using most dramatic appropriation of indigenous Aboriginal symbolism within the Western culture, however, is the design he generated Australian government’s capital works. The for the parterre garden below the restaurant. results of the design studio were substantial Here, Oldham’s design came from a sacred and require more time and space to discuss ritual board relating to a Gamadju rock but the best student projects realised that hole in the Western Desert south of Balgo, the interpretation the historic importance therefore not from the indigenous people of Serpentine Dam had as much to do with of the Serpentine Valley. Concentric circles understanding its landscape design as it represent waterholes with the serpent had to do with understanding the more weaving and coiled among the sources invisible or intrinsic significance of Oldham’s of water. The garden plan was a modern professional achievements. Oldham used expression of an ancient hope: the hope of infrastructure and the bureaucracies of public assured water supplies at Serpentine Dam. service to promote landscape architecture In 1964 there was enough rain to allow water and ensured that landscape design should to rise up against the spillway gates. When be a part of all capital works. He applied a the spillway was first commissioned in that modern aesthetic underpinned by locality year, the partially opened gates released and Australian identity, including Aboriginal such a gush of water that large boulders Australia and conservation debates of the were torn from the spillway floor and the time. His efforts were experimental and gates were never fully operable again. expressive and he explored his own artistic ideas at a massive scale. In this sense, he In the year 2000, I led a group of landscape managed to combine three different and architecture students from the University often contradictory worlds: the abstract of Western Australia in a design studio. world of artistic expression; the seemingly Their brief was to re-design parts of the disconnected world of the professions; and Serpentine Dam landscape in response to the world of engineering and infrastructure. Perth Water’s plan to rectify the troubled spillway once and for all. The students and I struggled with the complexity of meanings

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Fig. 2: Serpentine Dam Reservoir Wall. (Photo: Saniga, 2000)

Fig. 1: Serpentine Dam Fountain Precinct and Reservoir Spillway and Wall. (Photo: Saniga, 2000)

Fig. 3: The Parterre at Serpentine Dame. (Photo: Saniga, 2000) Fig. 4: Serpentine Dam Parterre and view to Reservoir Wall. (Photo: Saniga, 2000)

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References

Abbott, Andrew, 1988, The System of Professions: an essay on the division of expert labor, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Boyd, Robin, 1960, The Australian Ugliness, Melbourne: Cheshire.

Crowe, Sylvia, 1958, The Landscape of Power, London: Architectural Press.

Crowe, Sylvia, 1960, The Landscape of Roads, London: Architectural Press.

Hillman, Robert, 2003, Letter to Andrew Saniga.

Newton, Norman T, 1971, Design on the Land: the development of landscape architecture, Belknap Press: Cambridge.

Oldham, John, 1959, ‘Home Landscaping’, in The Architect, Perth.

Oldham, John, 1966. ‘Engineering and environment: An address to the 1966 conference of the N.Z. Institution of Engineers’, New Zealand Engineering, Vol 21, 1966, pp 207-214.

Olmsted, Frederick Law, 1865, Letter from F L Olmsted to Calvert Vaux, Bear Valley, 1 August 1865, in V P Ranney [Ed], The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted: Volume V The California Frontier 1863-1865, 1990, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp 422-423.

Olmsted, Frederick Law, 1882, The Spoils of the Park, Detroit: F. L. Olmsted.

Royal Australian Institute of Architects and Gazzard, Donald [Ed], 1966, Australian Outrage: The Decay of a Visual Environment, Sydney: Ure Smith.

Saniga, Andrew, 2004a, ‘An Uneasy Profession: defining the landscape architect in Australia 1912- 1972’, PhD Thesis, Faculty of Architecture Building and Planning, The University of Melbourne.

Saniga, Andrew, 2004b, ‘Artless or Artful? John Oldham’s profession of landscape architecture in 1960s Australia’, in J Raxworthy and J Blood [Eds], The MESH Book, Melbourne: RMIT University Press.

NOTE: A more extensive description of Serpentine Dam complete with historic photographs and plans is provided in Saniga 2004b and is available online from Queensland University of Technology’s Digital Repository.

Landscape of the Recent Past: Conserving the Twentieth Century Landscape Design Legacy 46 Proceedings of the DOCOMOMO ISC Urbanism + Landscape Conference, April 2011 Paper 8 Landscapes of the recent future - an incomplete project? What the 20th century landscape design legacy might mean for today’s landscape practitioner

Chris Rankin (Partner in rankinfraser landscape architecture, Edinburgh / Lecturer in Landscape Architecture, Edinburgh College of Art)

ABSTRACT 1. That the issues practitioners are required to address today are often The presentation was a reflection on the concerned with the reconfiguration relationship of contemporary landscape of landscapes of the recent past due practice in Scotland and the landscapes of to their failure to adapt or evolve, or the recent past. It was organised around to have been considered at all (this two central questions: was later illustrated by the Garscube Landscape Link project). 1. Do current practitioners reflect on the original designers’ intentions 2. That further exploration of the when proposing development of relationship of landscape and significant sites, and do they respect architecture is possible when works from this era? considering current practice within a modernist framework (this was later 2. How will designers wish that their illustrated by the landscape design designs be treated in the near for the Maggie’s Lanarkshire). future? THE INCOMPLETE PROJECT It was firstly suggested that the landscapes of the recent future within the Scottish context By the incomplete project is meant that can be considered as an ‘incomplete project’. unlike in architecture, landscape was often What is meant by the incomplete project is not considered as an integral component that the landscape was often not considered of buildings and developments of the or designed as an integral component of post war period and remained as the un- new developments in the period in question designed background or context rather than but was rather seen as picturesque context an integral design element. This approach or background into which architecture was can be seen as following the precedent sited. By landscape it is meant both parks set by earlier influential works such as the and gardens as well as the urban realm of Farnsworth House by Mies van der Rohe streets, squares and urban infrastructure. or Le Corbusier’s La Tourette, both projects The consequence for the contemporary where landscape has importance as setting landscape practitioner is therefore two fold; and context but is not in itself the subject of design intervention.

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Scottish examples of where the approach Furthermore the drawings of Basil Spence’s was adopted were presented through a Mortonhall Crematorium and Newton Aycliffe comparison of photographs and drawings of housing and William Whitfield’s Glasgow projects from the period with the picturesque University (Figure 3) were analysed for their landscape paintings of Claude Lorrain (Figure representation of landscape as decorative 1). The comparison illustrated the similarities (picturesque) components of the view. between the picturesque 17thC view of the relationship of landscape and architecture with contemporary representation of modernist buildings in mature landscapes which, if designed at all, dated from a much earlier period. Thus ‘Landscape with

Aeneas at Delos’, 1672 was juxtaposed with Fig. 3: William Whitfield’s Glasgow University a photograph of Gillespie Kidd & Coia’s CIA’s St Brides Church, East Kilbride (Figure 2); Landscape with Apollo and the Muses, LEGACY 1652 was compared to James Stirling’s St Andrews University student residences and The legacy of this picturesque view of Landscape with Shepherd (Pastorale) was landscape (which remain undesigned) for presented beside Robert Matthew’s Stirling the contemporary practitioner is the often University campus. dilapidated condition that much of the public realm of the recent past now finds itself. When commissioned to work with landscapes of the recent past, the requirement is very often to address the failings of the past and reconfigure these landscapes to meet contemporary standards.The design challenge can be defined as ‘how does one respond to the particular aesthetic of the existing landscape, where are the qualities worthy of retention or conservation and Fig. 1: Landscape painting by Claude Lorrain where is transformation of the landscape required?

GARSCUBE LANDSCAPE LINK

Many of the above challenges were present in the Garscube Landscape, a crucial pedestrian underpass connection Fig. 2: Gillespie Kidd & Coia’s CIA’s St Brides between the Forth and Clyde canal network Church, East Kilbride

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and Glasgow City Centre under the M8 whilst seeking to balance the introduction motorway. The project brief called for the of consciously new elements within a radical revitalization of the space, which had reconfiguration of the existing spatial deteriorated over time since its completion qualities. as part of the wider motorway construction. The inner city section of the motorway was built between 1968 and 1972 and required large areas of demolition along its route. The result of the motorway construction was the severance of many neighbourhoods from the city centre and the consequent requirement to re-connect these areas for pedestrians. The Garscube Underpass (Figure 4) was one such connection which had degraded Fig. 4: Garscube Landscape Link over time to a hostile, dark noisy and intimidating space. It did however retain a particular spatial quality, ‘cathedral like’ in the MAGGIE’S LANARKSHIRE height of the overhead carriageways, with a monolithic concrete materiality characteristic The proposal for a new Maggie’s Cancer of the period of its construction. Care Centre at Monklands General Hospital (Figure 5) was use to illustrate RESPONSE how contemporary designers (Reiach and Hall Architects and rankinfraser In addressing the obvious spatial problems landscape architecture) respect the legacy of the underpass the design team of of landscapes of the recent past and rankinfraser landscape architecture and reconfigure the elements from this period 7N Architects deployed three main design into new arrangements appropriate to today. approaches. These can be characterised The work of the Scottish practice Morris and as; spatial transformation, widening the Steedman at Avisfield and Carlo Scarpa at pedestrian route considerably; contrast, bright Fondazione Querini Stampalia were cited surface colours and sculptural aluminium as important precedents for the proposed ‘flowers’ were introduced to counteract the single storey brick building which extends dominance of concrete; transformation of a brick wall into the landscape creating a materials, re-use of materials from the earlier scheme were combined with complementary materials and reconfigured into different situations.

The combined effect of the three approaches creates a necessary spatial transformation

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of the landscape design. The nature of some of the changes, which resulted from both a requirement for increased security measures and enhanced health and safety requirements, would appear in certain instances to dilute the original design intent. Whilst today’s designers may well view these alterations as an unfortunate (and perhaps inevitable) consequence of the demands placed on contemporary public Fig. 5: The proposal for a new Maggie’s Cancer Care Centre at Monklands General Hospital. landscapes, it was suggested that the nature of the interventions should always be carried out with a clear vision of how the walled garden process of change is revealed and how the authorship of the parts communicated for THE FUTURE future generations.

Finally the question of ‘How will designers wish that their designs be treated in the near future?’ was addressed by reference to the landscape of the Scottish Parliament. This is a landscape of the very recent past which has already undergone a series of alterations and additions. Whilst it is inevitable that landscapes change and evolve, indeed it is the essential quality of landscape that they do, and one supposes most designers accept this, the nature of the change is worthy of consideration. The landscape of the Scottish Parliament presents an interesting case study where, unlike many post-war landscapes, the original designers, EMBT, are still practising. That the client chose not to re-appoint the original designers and instead appoint a local practice that sought to replicate the particular aesthetic of the original design raises interesting issues of authenticity and possibly a blurring of the process of change and authorship

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Conserving Landscapes of the Recent Past - Increasing our understanding of key problems, roles, initiatives and required action

Dr Jan Haenraets (Landscape Consultant / Member, DOCOMOMO ISC/U+L)

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES AND METHOD the recent past will be impossible without a comprehensive understanding of the This paper, presented as an evening present situation and the key concerns. Masterclass at the conference, gives an overview of the findings from an A qualitative method was applied using the international survey into the key problems between-method triangulation research and challenges regarding the conservation methodology, which combined two methods of the landscape design legacy of the post- of investigation, namely data triangulation 1945 period. The survey was developed as and theory triangulation. Theory triangulation part of a PhD research project at the De allowed for an investigation of the wider Montford University, Leicester, under the context or ‘the general’ and a comparison of title ‘Identifying key problems regarding findings from published sources and records, the conservation of designed landscapes: including an examination of the existing Landscapes of the recent past’ by Dr Jan inventories and the roles and initiatives of key Haenraets and under the supervision of Dr stakeholders. The data triangulation used Obas John Ebohon. a case study survey, with questionnaires and interviews, to enable the collection and The purpose of the research project was to analysis of data from different categories of improve the understanding of the present stakeholders from a site-specific perspective status and the key problems regarding the or ‘the particular’ context. The case study conservation of designed landscapes of the survey investigated eleven case study sites recent past. Another aim was to investigate using questionnaires and interviews. A total the roles and initiatives undertaken by key of 146 respondents were contacted and 103 stakeholders and recommend main areas completed responses were received. for measures and action to enhance the conservation and protection of designed DEFINING THE SUBJECT AREA landscapes of the recent past. The emphasis of the research was on the United Kingdom To set the scene for the research project the but relevant findings and actions from key terminology was defined and explained an international context were included. A within the context of the study. For this research question and philosophy behind the purpose designed landscapes were defined, approach was that developing and enhancing after which the meaning behind the recent the conservation of designed landscapes of past within the context of this study was

Landscape of the Recent Past: Conserving the Twentieth Century Landscape Design Legacy 51 Proceedings of the DOCOMOMO ISC Urbanism + Landscape Conference, April 2011 Paper 9 explored. This allowed for the preparation of an overview of categories of designed • The Register of Parks and Gardens landscapes of the recent past. Given the of Special Historic Interest in scope of the research the definitions for England conservation and the conservation process were also clarified. The main categories of • The Inventory of Gardens and stakeholders, or organisations and people Designed Landscapes in Scotland that are involved in the conservation process of designed landscapes were also • The National Register of Historic explored as these categories needed to be Places, United States understood as a useful framework under which the activities of all stakeholders could • DOCOMOMO Registers be assessed. - DOCOMOMO National and Regional Registers RESEARCHING ‘THE GENERAL’ - DOCOMOMO International Selection Continuing destruction and disfigurement of - DOCOMOMO and the significant sites UNESCO World Heritage From the research it became clear that List while policy frameworks and international - DOCOMOMO Scottish conservation charters are in place to facilitate National Group Urban the protection of significant heritage, serious Register pilot project threats to sites remain. The conference - DOCOMOMO at Risk Lists introduction paper on ‘Nurturing greater support’ gives further clarification about • The UNESCO World Heritage List these findings. • The ICOMOS Heritage at Risk Inventory Work Reports From the literature review of existing recommendations it became clear that one • Parks and Gardens UK Database of the suggestions for actions that was mentioned frequently in existing charters • World Monuments Fund: Lists of and recommendations was the need for the endangered sites preparation of inventories and the official listing of designed landscapes of the recent • Lists of endangered sites of the past. To enhance the general understanding recent past of the status of landscapes of the recent past on existing inventories and registers Some of the main findings from this review an assessment was undertaken of several include: registers, including: • Small number of designed

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landscapes from the recent past on 1. A gradual change of attitude to the inventories recent past in the 1980s a. Changes in listing and • Thematic restrictions of inventories legislation b. New recommendations and • Need for better statutory protection listing initiatives and control for sites on inventories c. Increasing awareness

• The importance of non-listed sites 2. Initial initiatives on landscapes of the recent past since 1995 • Unified inventories and allowing the a. Key initiatives in the United listing of groups of features States b. Actions by DOCOMOMO • Need for consistency in approaches c. A slow start in the United Kingdom • Poor accessibility of inventories 3. Emphasis on material and • Absence of initiatives to nominate technological challenges of buildings landscape sites for governmental of the recent past listing 4. International initiatives on • Involving landscape specialists landscapes of the recent past since and promoting registers amongst 2000 landscape specialists 5. Increased focus on landscapes Conservation Initiatives by Stakeholders of the recent past in the United The conference introduction paper on Kingdom since 2000 ‘Nurturing greater support, understanding and stewardship for landscapes of the 6. The momentum stagnates recent future’ (which can be found in these proceedings) did present a summary of Clearly many valuable initiatives were general trends and developments that undertaken in recent decades that occurred since the 1980s within the field of the directly or indirect contributed towards the conservation of architecture and landscape conservation of landscapes of the recent architecture of the mid and late Twentieth past. Nevertheless many sites continue to Century. In the Masterclass additional get damaged or lost and more actions are examples of initiatives by stakeholders acting required to achieve for these landscapes at an international and national level were the objectives of recommendations such explored. The chronological key trends were as found in the European Landscape summarised under the following headings: Convention. Based on this analysis already

Landscape of the Recent Past: Conserving the Twentieth Century Landscape Design Legacy 53 Proceedings of the DOCOMOMO ISC Urbanism + Landscape Conference, April 2011 Paper 9 a number of conclusions and suggestions for • The data analysis method: It was action could be made, which would inform decided to use a manual method final recommendations of the research. to analyse the data, while making use of coding techniques. RESEARCHING ‘THE PARTICULAR: THE • The sample frame was based on: CASE STUDY SURVEYS - The selected case studies - The types of respondents It became clear that existing literature per site and research resources did not provide sufficient information about ‘the particular’ • The selected case studies context, meaning from the perspective of the stakeholder categories of people closely • The types of respondents per site involved in the day to day management - Age groups of sites and the wider public and visitors. - Targeted number of surveys To address this fundamental gap in - Total number of responses understanding it was decided to use field - Number of respondents for surveys under a case study method. The each case study site case studies allowed for the collection of new primary data through questionnaires The cross-examination and analysis of and interviews and in-depth examination the main concerns and challenges that and analysis of the data. Eleven case study were raised by respondents in the case sites were selected for this purpose. In study surveys were summarised under the masterclass the approach to the case ten categories. Ten categories were used study methodology and sample frame was for ease of interpretation and to facilitate explained by illustrating: empirical validation of the theoretical analysis in the literature review chapters. • Criteria and validity: The case study The first category, lack of awareness and method must fulfil three criteria: recognition, also gave more insights about - Reliability people’s opinions about landscapes of the - Internal validity recent past, the reasons for poor recognition - External validity and the threat this poses to landscapes of the recent past. • Data Triangulation using a Qualitative Methodology a. Awareness and recognition - Interviews The subject of awareness and recognition - Questionnaires came up consistently in the findings of the previous literature review and the case • The gathering of limited quantitative study survey, and confirms that people’s data opinions and the lack of recognition remain an underlying threat to landscapes of the

Landscape of the Recent Past: Conserving the Twentieth Century Landscape Design Legacy 54 Proceedings of the DOCOMOMO ISC Urbanism + Landscape Conference, April 2011 Paper 9 recent past. The survey provided more insight into the opinions of people about recent past landscapes, a subject area which would still benefit from further research. An important conclusion was nevertheless that not everyone has an opinion and where opinions are shared for designed landscapes of the recent past, not all of such opinions are low. Finally, opinions change and evolve over time. Fig. 2: Urgent need of repairs of the landscaping of the Commonwealth Institute in London in 2006 b. Concerns about management and (Author’s photograph, 2006). maintenance continuity and commitment is needed; The survey provided data in relation to the lower expectations of maintenance in work done by stakeholders that are involved public spaces can be observed; staffing in the day to day management of sites, for levels and equipment for maintenance are which limited documentation was available a major concern; impacts of design and in existing literature sources. Concerns that understanding on maintenance; high cost of were raised in relation to the maintenance maintenance; and the need for taking into of sites included: low opinions caused by account environmental friendly approaches poor maintenance of sites (Figure 1 and 2); and climate change. A key finding is that threats to sites due to poor maintenance ; further research is needed to improve the understanding of the problems with the management and maintenance of designed landscapes of the recent past.

c. Concerns about finance and budgets Significant concerns were voiced in the survey, such as the shortage of funding for equipment, material and plants, and staffing. On-site staff wish for endowment funds and a change of attitude by funding bodies. The difficulty to tap into major public funding Fig. 1: Dereliction of the landscaping of the and risks associated with exclusive private Commonwealth Institute in London. A 1958 building sector funding for commercialisation were commission for the architectural firm of Sir Robert Matthew, Johnson-Marshall & Partners (RMJM), with raised, as was the apparent waste of funds landscape design by Dame Sylvia Crowe (Author’s and business-run misuse of budgets. photograph, 2006).

Landscape of the Recent Past: Conserving the Twentieth Century Landscape Design Legacy 55 Proceedings of the DOCOMOMO ISC Urbanism + Landscape Conference, April 2011 Paper 9 d. Challenges associated with materials and design The analysis in the literature review showed that the understanding of technological and material challenges was highlighted in existing recommendations. The fact that more research is still required on the subject of materials for landscaping purposes was also confirmed through the case studies. The survey did also point out a number of gaps in recommendations and initiatives Fig. 4: Challenging designs with the use of contemporary materials at Portrack, the Garden of under this subject. Most importantly existing Cosmic Speculation (Author’s photograph, 2006). recommendations have paid less attention to the issues relating to the design of sites. The e. Shortcomings in conservation planning use in design of poor materials, experimental and development processes approaches, narrow range of plants, together In general survey, analysis and evaluation with academic unrealistic and unpractical of sites received proper attention in existing designs, now cause practical challenges recommendations, and stakeholders paid that need further investigation (Figure 3 much attention towards improving planning, and 4). It can be concluded that both design but nevertheless there always remains and planting are areas of concern that must scope for better implementation of planning be highlighted in recommended areas of methodologies. A key finding is that the actions for the conservation of landscapes subject of development in landscapes of the recent past. was highlighted by many respondents as a main area of concern and given the ongoing destruction of sites it is clear that the issue should receive more attention in recommendations and guidelines to improve the conservation of sites. Similarly drivers behind the decisions in conservation processes can be further researched as major concerns were mentioned about the politics behind sites, the use of design competitions, and the ignorance over subtle approaches compared to a favouring of non- sensitive big impact schemes (Figure 5). Finally, an observation is that respondents did not highlight monitoring and recording in the surveys. Fig. 3: The Gibberd Garden’s Castle and Moat makes use of experimental materials (Author’s photograph, 2006).

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g. Concerns about social problems and vandalism The case study survey was most valuable in pointing out that while matters relating to social problems have not been highlighted in existing recommendations, this is seen as an important area for concern by the wider public and people involved in the day to day management of sites. Respondents saw an important need for addressing Fig. 5: Major redevelopment proposals proposed social problems, vandalism and security in 2004 the removal of the Modernist Rotunda at issues, for the well being of the community Bannockburn. Proper conservation research and planning resulted in the listing of the Rotunda and the site (Figure 6). Communities have and new more subtle proposals in 2011 retained an important role to play in this process. and integrated the Rotunda in the redevelopment proposals (Author’s photograph, 2004). f. Challenges with consulting and involving people In the study consultation and participation have consistently been pointed out as of essential importance to the conservation of sites. Nevertheless the responses in the survey showed that planning processes still frequently fall short in regard of holistic interdisciplinary approaches and consultation. Staff at sites desire a greater Fig. 6: Safety and vandalism remains a concern involvement and original designers are rarely about the Rotunda at Bannockburn, Scotland consulted. A concern that was noted was that (Author’s photograph, 2006). respondents forgot to mention educational h. Concerns about legal protection and institutions and archives as being important politics stakeholders that should be consulted and The lack of proper supportive legal involved in the conservation process. While protection and legislation was mentioned cooperation has been highlighted in many throughout the study and respondents also recommendations, this came up as a gap raised various concerns. Key observations in the responses of the case study surveys. are that there is limited statutory protection This indicates that there is still a significant for these landscapes and approaches need for action to improve partnership and differ between countries, and even within cooperation at a wider level, and site-specific the United Kingdom. The inventories of level. landscapes of the recent past are still seriously lagging behind, when compared

Landscape of the Recent Past: Conserving the Twentieth Century Landscape Design Legacy 57 Proceedings of the DOCOMOMO ISC Urbanism + Landscape Conference, April 2011 Paper 9 with buildings. Respondents also said that identified another shortcoming in available listing is not always helpful and that politics recommendations and data, namely the surrounding sites cause conflicts. challenges with education (Figure 7) and access to sites. The importance of education i. Concerns about marketing and and access is recognised but opening commercialisation hours, events to generate income, general The case study survey identified several wear and tear, access for dogs, groups and concerns in relation to the marketing and children, the impact of facilitating better promotion of sites, and their commercial access, health and safety regulations, were use. The promotion of sites does get some all viewed as conflicts (Figure 8). mention in existing recommendations, but mainly in relation to improving awareness. The case study survey also gathered better opinions on the subject of marketing from the perspective of people involved at sites. A key lesson learned from these responses is that while sites and marketing specialists appear to struggle to promote designed landscapes from the recent past, respondents see significant concerns regarding increased Fig. 7: Constructing the Swiss Landscape at Harvard University Graduate School of Design in visitor numbers, commercial activities and 2006 (Author’s photograph, 2007). events at certain sites, and the risks of damage through popularity. j. Concerns about education, enjoyment, interpretation and access The subject of education and training was mentioned in several existing recommendations. The case study survey confirmed that further efforts are required to improve achievements within this area, in particular the need for specialised skills Fig. 8: Conservation challenges of visitor access and wear and tear at the narrow paths at Little and understanding of the conservation of Sparta (Author’s photograph, 2006). designed landscapes of the recent past. The current skills crisis in horticulture makes CONCLUSIONS FROM THE CASE STUDY the need for action urgent. Given the fact SURVEY AND CROSS-EXAMINATION that the case study surveys studied the issues from the perspective of the wider The case study survey provided new public, visitors and people involved in the data to help us understand whether day to day management of sites, responses current measures for the protection and

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conservation of designed landscapes are of designed landscapes of the efficient, and assisted in identifying gaps recent past and shortcomings. Many of the problems that were raised in the case studies are • Use the current and established not new to conservation and apply to the standards, methods and principles conservation of sites from any era. On the of conservation other hand, several problems are specific to designed landscapes from the recent past • The preparation of an and their conservation. A general conclusion international charter or guideline is that many of the issues would not arise on the conservation of designed if the existing conservation processes and landscapes of the recent past methodologies would be followed. • Formulate national strategies The cross-comparison of the findings of the literature review, evaluation of • Develop recommendations that actions by key stakeholders and the case are more site specific and of local study surveys of sites resulted in key relevance conclusions and recommendations. Gaps that exist in the implementation of existing • Improve the efficiency of legal recommendations could be identified. This protection and registration of lead to a series of recommendations and landscapes of the recent past general observations which were structured under three main headings, which to a • Improving the understanding of the degree overlap. However, by structuring the wider context and full diversity of recommendations in these three categories landscape architecture of the recent the survey aimed to highlight that action past needs to occur at various levels. • Improve the understanding Recommendations and observations for the of technological and material wider context challenges, including that on planting and soft landscaping • Progress was made, but much materials. ongoing efforts are required Recommendations for the site-specific • Landscapes require more attention context

• Prepare accessible data and • Progress systematic identification, overviews of existing initiatives survey, evaluation and planning

• Improve awareness and recognition • Improve the management and

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maintenance of sites actions for specific disciplinary categories • Resolve challenges associated with impractical and experimental • Establish expert committees on designs the subject within existing organisations, such as professional • Avoid inappropriate disfigurements landscape architecture membership of sites and developments organisations

• Improve monitoring and record • Set up a specialist organisation keeping, and ensure proper to promote stewardship and archives conservation of landscapes, including designed landscapes of • Address finance and budgets, and the recent past the use of funds THE DOCOMOMO LANDSCAPE • Increase promotion and marketing ACTION PLAN of landscapes of the recent past The thesis research and survey assists with • Recognise and manage impacts of the development of documentation towards access and enjoyment of sites some of the needed actions, but further actions and research is clearly needed to Recommendations relating to stakeholders make the required progress at all levels. The research confirmed that DOCOMOMO • Integrate consultation and International should play a key role in the participation in all aspects of the process of enhancing the conservation of conservation process landscapes of the recent past. In order for DOCOMOMO International and its National • Increase training, education and Working Parties to take some of the interpretation opportunities recommendations forward, DOCOMOMO ISC/U+L is developing a DOCOMOMO • Improve conservation practice Landscape Action Plan. The initiative to through cooperation and work towards such Plan was endorsed by partnerships DOCOMOMO International at their bi-annual • Tackle the problems associated with International Conference in Mexico City in anti-social behaviour at sites August 2010.

• Compile accessible overviews of The key objectives and timetable to achieve who is doing what, and who should such Plan that are taken forward by DOCOMOMO ISC/U+L are: be doing what, with suggestions of

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• April 2011: The organisation of • August 2012: The presentation of the conference on ‘Landscapes of an agreed Intention Statement the Recent Future at the ECA in and Action Programme at the Edinburgh. 2012 International Conference in Helsinki for Docomomo International • 2011-12: The development of and National Working Groups. the ISC U + L website to raise awareness about the • August 2012 -2015: Implementation conservation of landscapes of the first actions, such as: of the recent past and as a resource database. The site Home work by DOCOMOMO may also highlight landscapes at National Working Groups, such as risk and link to other important the preparation of a stipulated initiatives online. number of Fiches on landscapes of the recent past. This would fit within • 2011-12: the approach launched in 2002 DOCOMOMO ISC U+L for the thematic approach to will development an analysis of international fiches with every the findings of Jan Haenraets’ national working party being asked thesis to assess what is applicable to submit five fiches on a specific to DOCOMOMO, what this theme. means for DOCOMOMO, and which actions DOCOMOMO Development of International and the National a DOCOMOMO International Working Parties should as a result publication on key landscapes undertake. of the recent past or modern movement. Preparation of an Intention Statement for With the organisation of the Day Conference DOCOMOMO International in on Landscapes of the Recent Future a relation to a programme on first step towards the realisation of the landscapes of the recent past/ Landscape Action Plan has been realised. modern movement. DOCOMOMO ISC/U+L will use the outcomes of the conference to inform and finalise the Revisiting the idea of a Landscape Action Plan. book by DOCOMOMO ISC/U+L on key issues, progress and challenges with the conservation of landscapes of the recent past.

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