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Home , Pleasure garden, Vauxhall

A Matter of Taste: Pleasure and Civic Life

Phyllis Andersen

“To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up.” —Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband

opular taste is not a criterion that those who serve our public can “P respect.” So said Mariana Van Rens- selaer, the distinguished New York art critic and first biographer of architect H.H. Richard-

son. That remark, made in 1888, fueled the of J immy Tu rner . co u rtesy controversy that erupted over her criticism of flowerbeds in Boston’s Public . Describ- ing them as crude hues in false situations, she took particular offense at ‘Crystal Palace Gem’ geraniums: “The cherry colored blossoms with yellow-green leaves are the most hideous prod- ucts of recent .” William Doogue, the Irish-born horticulturist in charge of the A source of color and controversy, ‘Crystal Palace Gem’ geranium. Garden’s plantings, took exception to her criti- cism and also rebuked her social position, per- engineers, landscape , and talented sonal habits, and Harvard-connected amateurs—represented a remarkable shift friends. Doogue defended his work as accom- toward the narrative of the picturesque. Other modating the general taste of the public, who more traditional plans presented highly embel- loved his plantings. He protested to the local lished gardens with formal promenades, foun- newspapers and the Mayor, and anyone else tains, arches, statues of Greek deities and New who would hear him out. York politicians, bandstands, and extensive for- Was all of this brouhaha caused by some mal layouts of flowering . ill-placed geraniums, or was it indicative of a By the mid nineteenth century, the educated deeper division in how we imagine our public public understood that the picturesque land- parks? This division is illustrated by the well- scape was the aesthetic ideal for public parks, known story of the 1858 design competition allowing the mind to wander along with the for New York’s Central Park, won by Freder- body. Among others whose opinions counted, ick Law Olmsted and architect Calvert Vaux economist and social critic Thorstein Veblen with a plan titled “Greensward.” Their pro- pointed to an upper-class predilection for public posal offered a picturesque landscape evocative parks that were rustic and natural. Enlightened of the English countryside, combining rustic park advocates rejected the pleasure garden structures with meadows punctuated by groves, model with its emphasis on flowery display, the- rock outcroppings, and sinuous water bodies. atricality, sociability, and amusement, believ- “Sylvan” and “verdant” were words used by the ing its artificiality and “claptrap and gewgaw” designers to describe their design as “a constant lacked moral uplift and tasteful restraint. suggestion to the imagination of an unlimited Like sin and grace, the picturesque park and range of rural conditions.” The contrast with the pleasure garden are mutually defining. Olm- the majority of proposals from competitors— sted used medical metaphors to promote his Pleasure Gardens 11

notion of the park ideal: parks should be an ’s most completely and antidote to urban ills, healing places for dam- intensely captured the public’s imagination. A aged minds. Calvert Vaux’s famous comment favorite watering hole for Samuel Johnson, it on Americans’ intuitive love of the country was was frequently used as a fictional backdrop by at the core of learned park discussions. Vaux novelists. It offered grand promenades, open-air spoke of an “innate homage to the natural in temples imitating ancient buildings, an array of contradistinction to the artificial, a preference dining and drinking pavilions, small theatres, for the works of God to the works of man.” Sup- bandstands, tea gardens, and private bowers for porters of the pleasure garden model rejected romantic interludes. Linking the attractions the imposition of rural scenery on the city and were elaborate flower displays of local and for- embraced the seductive lure of sensual sound, eign blooms selected for color, fragrance, and color, and light—a sustained Fourth of July cel- mood-evoking exotic origins. There were fire- ebration, an extended summer fête. works and beguiling night-lighting in an era when both were rare. In its heyday, The Origin of the Public Pleasure Garden Gardens attracted aristocracy, royalty, and any- The public pleasure garden originated in Lon- one who wished to mingle and immerse in an don in the eighteenth century with extensive environment designed to please. public gardens established at Ranelagh, Maryle- New York entrepreneurs transported the bone, and . But on Vauxhall Gardens concept, name, and menu of P hyllis A ndersen

Central Park’s Sheep Meadow reflects the pastoral, naturalistic theme inherent in Olmsted and Vaux’s winning design for the park. 12 Arnoldia 66/3

Music, dining, and assorted other revelries made London’s Vauxhall Gardens the place to see and be seen. Vauxhall Gardens, 1785, engraved by Robert Pollard II after . credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Elisha Whittelsey Collec- tion, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1959 (59.333.975). Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

attractions to New York in 1805, to the area urban parks. Certainly the questions posed 150 around Broadway and East 8th Street, which is years ago continue to resonate: Who owns the now known as Astor Place. At the same time, parks? The planners? The middle class? The even the less than sybaritic Hoboken, New Jer- working class having no other options? And just sey created Elysian Fields, a popular waterfront as important: What is the purpose of a park? park that offered ferry service from Manhat- The success of the public pleasure gardens tan, and where, some say, the first organized was due to diligent management by entrepre- game of baseball took place. The last of the neurs who owned them and developed new New York pleasure gardens, Palace Gardens, attractions: balloon launches, water gondolas, opened in 1858 (the same year as the Central music commissioned for special occasions. The Park competition). It offered the usual array of eventual demise of the public pleasure garden dining pavilions, water features, and elaborate was due in part to competition from new urban night-lighting. amenities: restaurants, concert halls, theatres, tearooms, and cafes dispersed throughout the Legacy of the Pleasure Garden city. It was due as well to the growth of petty Today, the tradition of the pleasure garden con- crime that, then as now, often attaches to public tinues to influence the way we think about venues that draw huge crowds. And some plea- Pleasure Gardens 13

sure gardens, having contributed to the growth trasts arranged in geometric or pictorial pat- and desirability of the city, became victims of terns. Some traditions, such as the theatrical their own success and were lost to real-estate display of plants in graduated tiers, evolved development pressures. The prototypical evoca- from the eighteenth-century English estate tion of a pleasure garden that survived is Copen- garden into the public pleasure garden, as still hagen’s Tivoli, which opened in 1843. Patterned seen in Boston’s Public Garden today. Civic on London’s Vauxhall and named for the beauti- horticulture draws on a rich planting tradition ful resort town near Rome, it still offers fami- that evokes admiration of both the beauty of lies a complete pleasure garden experience with the plantings and the ingenuity of the . attractions interspersed among flower displays The immense popularity of the in appropriate to the season. the Fens section of Boston’s Emerald Necklace, The horticultural display of pleasure gar- of the planted borders in downtown Boston’s dens, with its emphasis on seasonal flowering, Post Office Square, and the grand flowerbeds evolved into civic horticulture—embellishment at Copley Square are fine examples of horti- of city-spaces that are not within the purview culture that enlivens the city, akin to Pop Con- of the professional landscape architect and most certs on the Esplanade. often maintained by gardeners trained through Although theme parks and amusement parks apprenticeship and guided by trade magazines. are obvious descendents of the pleasure garden, These plantings typically feature massing of recent trends in urban public parks suggest that large numbers of flowers of strong color con- the pleasure garden is enjoying a renaissance of T ivoli P hotos co u rtesy

Modeled on public pleasure gardens such as Vauxhall, Tivoli opened in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1843. Tivoli’s exotic Moorish- styled Nimb building is shown in 1910 (left), one year after being built, and as it appears today (right). 14 Arnoldia 66/3

wood have developed a highly ornamental - ing plan for the North End Park of Boston’s Rose Kennedy Greenway. The Dutch horticulturist Piet Oudolf is acting as a con- sultant for a number of new urban parks in the United States, bringing his skill at highly tex- tured perennial planting in changing seasonal pat- terns to a new audience. Yet, we still drag issues of public taste behind us, although now couched in concerns for environ- mental suitability, often with the same moral overtones that charac- terize the Central Park

P hyllis A ndersen discussions of the mid- nineteenth century. We lay a huge respon- sibility on our urban parks. They must be didactic, educate about ecology, unify communi- ties, and convey history. They must exhibit good taste and local values. But if we are to sustain parks in cities, they must embrace the imagination of the public. The term Beds of brightly colored annual flowers feature prominently in views of Boston’s “Disneyfication” is now Public Garden from an early-1900s postcard (top) and a 2006 photograph (bottom). an indictment, but one suspects that William of sorts. We are in the midst of defining a new Doogue would have welcomed Walt Disney’s urban park discourse, one that rejects the pic- words: “We are not trying to entertain critics. turesque and encourages new kinds of urban I’ll take my chances with the public.” engagement—drawing in the city, making use of technology, and embracing theatricality. Chi- cago’s Millennium Park, an assemblage of cul- Phyllis Andersen is a landscape historian and the former director of the Institute for Cultural Landscape Studies tural attractions and elaborate planting displays, of the Arnold . She is currently working lists “theatre consultant and lighting designer” on a book on public pleasure gardens scheduled for as part of the design team. The team of Kathryn publication in 2010. Gustafson and Crosby, Schlessinger and Small- This article originally appeared in ArchitectureBoston.