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Glossary Acropolis - Castellum Acropolis the Fortified Height of an Ancient Baroque a Term Signifying Art and Architecture for Vehicular Traffic

Glossary Acropolis - Castellum Acropolis the Fortified Height of an Ancient Baroque a Term Signifying Art and Architecture for Vehicular Traffic

Landscape Design A Cultural and Architectural History 1

Glossary acropolis - castellum acropolis The fortified height of ancient A term signifying art and for vehicular traffic. The word boulevard is Greek , a citadel sited upon a prominent ele- that is robust, boldly sumptuous, grandly orna- derived from boulevart, meaning bastion vation overlooking a surrounding plain and mental, curvaceously plastic, and therefore full fortification, the walls upon which the first sometimes the sea. of movement and the play of light and shade. boulevards were built in the seventeenth Baroque design forms originated in Italy at the century. agora In a Greek polis, or city, an important end of the sixteenth century and flourished open public space around and in which impor- brownfields Former industrial sites that are there and in , Austira, and Spain dur- tant civic and commercial functions took place. candidates for ecological reconstitution and ing seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. conversion into green fields, i.e. natural areas arbor A construction of open lattice- A highly theatrical approach to design, the or recreational parkland, by means of bioreme- work or rustic work created to support climbing Baroque sensibility penetrated but never domi- diation. and provide shade. nated the art and architecture of or . buffet d’eau A table-like architectural arrange- A place where a collection of ment of , basins, and troughs set against and other woody plants are arranged as botani- bedding out The Victorian practive of arranging a wall or placed in a niche in order to animate cal specimens for scientific study, educational plants, usually brightly colored floral annuals, in the flow of in an ornamental manner. instruction, and ornamental display. either abstract designs or pictorial patterns. bunker A sand-filled depression on a allée A - or –bordered walk, usually A structure, usually elevated, course intended as a hazard for the player, also of gravel or grass. Allées are a common compo- designed for observing the surrounding land- referred to as a trap. nent of French where a desired scape. The term is derived from the Italian bel geometrical layout is achieved by straight axes (beautiful) and vedere (to see). bupingeh In the Tewa language of some outlined by paths with perspective-reinforcing Puebloan peoples, the plaza around which the berceau An arched for climbing plants side elements such as palissades, de adobe dwellings of the Pueblo are centered. similar to a , also closely planted trees broiderie, closely spaced trees, or compartments trained to form an arched foliage-covered walk- cabinet The French term for a secluded com- of . way. This French term is derived from the word partment within a garden. archaeoastronomy The investigation of archae- for cradle, probably because antique cradles cabinet of curiosities A collection of specimens ological sites with the intent of discerning the have a similar deeply arched form. such as were sought when it was still believed relationship of certain features to summer and bioremediation The human-assisted regenera- possible to comprehensively assemble in a sin- winter solstices, maximum and minimum tion of natural ecosystems and their corre- gle room or garden representative samples of moon set points, constellations, and other sponding biological life. various forms of natural history. astronomical phenomena. The design principle of tak- carpet bedding The arrangement of low-grow- automata Mechanically propelled garden fea- ing into account scenic views beyond the con- ing foliage plants of the same height in intricate tures, such as singing and various kinds fines of the garden and planning the garden carpetlike patterns of contrasting leaf color or of mobile statuary, which were sometimes built with reference to them. design- floral hue. with waterworks in order to combine the move- ers frequently used borrowed scenery, jie jing, in ment of water with that of various sculptural caryatid A supporting column in the form of a their designs. Japanese imaginatively parts. female figure. exploited the same design technique and term, A tree-lined approach to a mansion or which they pronounced as shakkei, and some casino, casina A term referring mostly to a other important structure that is sufficiently Western landscape architects, such as the small or lodge on the grounds of an wide to accommodate carriages. Brazilian Roberto Burle Marx, have adopted a Italian villa garden. Usually casino denotes a similar approach, composing that summerhouse for dining and refreshment axis-mundi An imaginary vertical axis running include within their visual frame natural scenery some distance from the principal villa resi- as a center pole from the zenith of the sky outside their boundaries. dence; but in cases where a villa might be used through the ground, uniting heaven, Earth, and simply for a day’s sojourn, it signifies the plea- the Underworld. bosco The Italian term for a wooded grove sure pavilion that serves as its principal archi- within a garden. azulejos The Spanish term for glazed tiles, the tectural structure. The term was adopted by production and use of which were derived from boschetto Within an Italian garden a small English-speaking people and used to denote Islamic culture. Azuelos were incorporated into compartment of trees, usually found near the certain ornamental and refreshment the ornamentation of Spanish and Portuguese house and often planted according to a regular structures in gardens and in Britain and buildings and gardens. plan. America. It is also used to signify a gaming hall where gambling and other forms of entertain- bagatelle The French term for a small, elegant The French term for a wooded grove ment take place. house built in the eighteenth century to house a within a garden. mistress. castellum The Latin term for castle or fortress; A didactic garden in which used also to denote a large architectural display balustrade A row of balusters topped with a of specimens are arranged and constructed as a rule to signal an continuous rail, usually of stone, employed to labeled according to taxonomic categories of aqueduct’s formal point of entry into the city. form a parapet on terraces and to encase stairs. genus and species. Typically in Rome, where several such baradari An open-sided pavilion in a Mughal boulevard A French term that has been appro- were built, they commemorated the emperor or garden. priated into English, signifying a landscaped the pope who had commissioned the particular roadway designed for promenading as well as aqueduct marked by the castellum. Landscape Design A Cultural and Architectural History 2

Glossary catena d’acqua - geoglyph catena d’acqua The Italian term for water , coniferous A needle- or scale-leaved, add visual interest to the garden and to evoke chain, an ornamental inclined channel designed cone-bearing, generally evergreen tree or poetic associations with the past and with exot- to catch and animate the water falling from one such as a pine, spruce, and fir. The adjective ic locales. shallow basin into another. coniferous is used to describe plants of this faubourg The French term originally used for category. ceque A sight line emanating from Cuzco, the areas of urban development on the outskirts of capital of the Inca emperors, like a sun ray and conservatory A building with heat and ample the city; a lying immediately outside the used as a path of pilgrimage. natural daylight, usually from south-facing town walls. Today certain old Parisian faubourgs windows, for the indoor protection and conser- such as the Faubourg St. Germaine are fashion- chabutra A raised square stone dias in the cen- vation of tender plants in the winter; a green- able city neighborhoods. Like a faubourg, for- ter of the cross-axis of a chahar bagh designed house or glass house. In the nineteenth merly an outer-edge neighborhood, a banlieue, to serve as a platform upon which pillows were century, although many conservatories were which in France is usually synonymous with an arranged to accommodate one or two people important, domed, freestanding glass struc- industrial, working-class area, is a zone of set- who could enjoy from this central position the tures large enough to accommodate the growth tlement on the urban fringe. garden's water-cooled breezes and surrounding of tall palm trees, the term conservatory also scenery. feng shui Translated from the Chinese as “wind came to denote a glass-covered extension of a and water,” feng shui is the practice of profes- chadar In , an artificial cascade house, accessible from a principal room, where sional geomancers who divine beneficial and of masonry with ramplike surfaces carved in a exotic plants are displayed. malign influences within a particular location, faceted pattern in order to animate better the corso An Italian term signifying a principal thereby determining favorable sites and align- movement of water and reflective light. thoroughfare, corso assumed new meaning as ments for buildings and gardens while also chahar bagh The fourfold Timurid garden, driving became a fashionable recreation in neutralizing objectional aspects of the land- which became the design paradigm for other Rome and elsewhere after the appearance of scape in question. Islamic gardens, chahar meaning “four,” and spring-hung carriages in the early seventeenth ferme ornée The French term for ornamental bagh being the Turkish word for “garden.” The century. farm used by the English after Stephen Switzer variant spelling char bagh denotes the Mughal cours The French term for a wide thoroughfare appropriated it in The Nobleman, Gentleman, garden of India, whereas the spelling form capable of accommodating a daily parade of and ’s Recreation (1715) to promote the chahar bagh is used in referring to the gardens carriages. arrangement of agricultural estates as aestheti- of the Safavid rulers in Persia. cally pleasing compositions in which, deme A politically affiliated regional village or cha niwa Japanese where cha no yu, typically, the hedgerows separating fields were town within the territorial framework of the of or tea ceremony, is performed. enhanced with , , and , an an ancient Greek state, or polis. occasional monument was placed in a manner cha no yu , an impor- A fruit tree that is placed against a wall calculated to provoke poetic association, and a tant cultural practice performed in settings that or other structure and trained, through circuit drive laid out to enable movement displayed an affinity for the aesthetic principles and manipulation of its branches, to grow in a through the landscape. of Buddhism, specifically that of rustic sim- flat plane, usually in a symmetrical fashion. The plicity mellowed with age, called sabi, which folie The French term for , a garden struc- term espalier is derived from spalla, meaning were conducive to a mood of wabi, refined aus- ture intended as an evocation of past cultures shoulder in Italian. terity. or faraway places. Folies, which can be likened A semicircular bench with a high back, to theatrical scenery, were sometimes used to château A magnificent establishment in the usually of stone, for placement in the land- camouflage useful buildings, such as dairies, form of a castle or palatial manor house set in scape; also, in classical architecture, a semicir- barns, or icehouses, but they often served no the French countryside, usually with attendant cular portico with seats, which was used in utilitarian purpose at all. They are usually asso- gardens. Greek, Roman, and Renaissance times as a ciated with the jardin anglais and with the jardin chini kana One of a series of small recesses place for discussions; an apselike space formed anglo-chinois. cut in the face of a terrace retaining wall in by curving in a garden. fontaniere A Renaissance hydraulic engineer Mughal gardens to hold small oil lamps and eyecatcher A feature placed at a distant and capable of creating ingenious waterworks or flowers. usually elevated point in a garden or in a visible automata. The European evocation of Chinese location outside its boundaries in order to Gardenesque style The term coined and design architecture and decorative arts that first accent the view, provide scenic interest, and theory propounded by John Claudius Loudon appeared in the seventeenth century and draw one’s gaze toward the horizon. beginning in 1832 to define and encourage a assumed its full proportions in the eighteenth fabrique A Rococo closely method of displaying plants to best advantage century, when the Rococo style was as its allied with French Picturesque painting. by granting them the appropriate horticultural height and pagodas, “Chinese” bridges, and tea Fabriques became popular in the eighteenth conditions to develop into attractive individual pavilions became popular features in Western century when the jardin anglais and the jardin botanical specimens. gardens. anglo-chinois appeared on the Continent. These geoglyph The term, which is compounded classicism Formal standards that honor as folies assumed the form of Turkish tents con- from the prefix geo, denoting Earth, and the authoritative the principles governing the structed of wood, chinoiserie tea houses and term glyph, meaning an engraved or incised design arts and literature of and bridges, “Gothic” towers, rustic huts, symbolic figure, signifies an Earthwork, such as Rome. “Egyptian” pyramids, sham , “her- those created by the Nazca of Peru, which is mitages,”and other similar features intended to Landscape Design A Cultural and Architectural History 3

Glossary giardino segreto - kokoro composed of an image pecked into the surface surprise experienced when one came upon this They were later used as monumental entrances of a stony piece of ground. ditch caused one to exclaim, “Ha! Ha!” to mosques and as pavilions facing . giardino segreto The Italian term for a secret hameau The French term for hamlet. In eigh- jardin anglais The French term for the English- garden, a secluded and enclosed garden teenth-century French Picturesque garden style garden, which became popular in room commonly found in villa gardens of the design a hameau is a pretend-village, a group of in the eighteenth century. Conceived in reaction Renaissance and seventeenth century. farmlike buildings conceived as a piquant com- to the regularity of the geometrical French gar- plement to the landscape and a means whereby den, it is often associated with fabriques, or giocchi d’acqua The Italian term for water aristocrats could make believe that they were folies in the form of garden pavilions and other . Giocchi d’acqua were fountain effects rustics. Rococo features. designed by hydraulic engineers during the Renaissance to add an element of amusement hedge Compactly planted shrubs or low-grow- jardin anglais-chinois The French version of the to the garden experience as visitors, who unin- ing trees with dense foliage that is clipped so Picturesque style of landscape design, which tentionally activated jets of water from hidden as to form a solid wall of greenery that acts as a employed Rococo chinoiserie derived from sources, were treated to surprise drenchings as boundary or a screen. William Chambers, whose books, Designs of a practical joke. Chinese Buildings (1757) and Dissertation on herm A male sculptural head mounted on Oriental (1772), became popular on great house In England, the palatial mansion masonry shaft. Originally displaying genitalia the Continent in the last quarter of the eigh- of an aristocratic country estate. and conceived as representations of the god teenth century. Hermes, herms were erected in antiquity as a A structure similar to a conserva- series of boundary markers defining important jie jing The Chinese technique of borrowing tory or an in that it was originally con- public spaces, such as the agora. A single herm scenery by incorporating distant views into the ceived as a means of overwintering garden or pair of herms might mark the entrance to garden’s design. greenery that had been imported from warmer private property. In garden design from the . With the increase of plant material by Japanese gods and goddesses who sanc- Renaissance onward, the term has been used botanical discovery and the advance of horticul- tify certain places as their abodes. to signify any rectangular or tapering pedestal tural science beginning in the eighteenth centu- surmounted by a sculptural head. kampaku Often translated as “chamberlain,” a ry, were used for propagation as high governmental official in the Japanese court well as for the winter protection of tender hermitage A rustic garden structure built to whose function was to mediate between the plants. To promote indoor plant growth it was resemble a rude hut such as might be inhabited emperor and court officials in affairs of state. necessary to obtain a greater amount of sun- by a hermit. light than was admitted by and other kare sansui Dry landscape, a style of Japanese herradura The Spanish term for “horseshoe,” masonry, windowed structures; in 1816, John garden frequently associated with Zen temples. also used to refer an outdoor Native American Claudius Loudon invented a curvilinear sash Kare sansui gardens are composed of carefully , usually a low, horseshoe-shaped enclo- bar of wrought iron, which led to the construc- arranged rocks, moss, and gravel raked into sure, which is frequently located at a high point tion of greenhouses that admitted light from lines that appear as rippling currents of water. where there is a distant view. above. Because of its nearly all-glass construc- karikomi Meticulously clipped shrubs constiti- tion, the greenhouse is sometimes referred to hortus conclusus The Latin term signifying an tuting an important element in Japanese as a glasshouse. A greenhouse may be an inde- enclosed, or walled, garden. gardens of the Edo Period (1603–1867) and pendent, freestanding structure or attached to hôtel In France, an urban mansion originally beyond. the side of a house. built by families of the French nobility; after the kirei sabi Beauty infused with a weathered A natural cave, which has acquired Revolution, a building constructed on a scale rustic quality, a term used to describe certain human significance because of the spiritual and in a style of grandeur that followed this Japanese gardens of the Edo Period (1603– forces presumed to inhabit it; also an architec- aristocratic model. 1867), especially those designed by Kobori tural version of a cave, usually rustic in charac- houri An Islamic term derived from the Persian Enshu and his followers. ter and often containing water and sometimes -ri, meaning “gazelle-eyed,” an attribute asso- sculptural representations of its presiding spir- kiva In Native American Pueblo culture a sub- ciated with the beautiful virgins who served as its. Grottoes that are identified with nymphs are terranean circular structure descended from a companions for the souls of the faithful in often called . pit house and serving as a room in which tribal Paradise. rituals are conducted in secrecy. ha-ha A fairly deep boundary ditch, invisible huaca In the Inca culture, a spirit-inhabited from a few feet away and serving the purpose A compartmentalized garden in place in , which was located on a ceque, of a separating the garden from the fields which box or other low-growing compact a sight line emanating from Cuzco like a sun where cattle graze. The ha-ha was conceived shrubs or such as rosemary, lavender, or ray, where offerings were made. in the eighteenth century to give the illusion of thyme are planted in intricate designs resem- continuity between the garden or residential iwakura A sacred rock revered for its bling a looped and knotted rope, while the and the rural landscape beyond. John indwelling spirit in Japanese practice. interstices are filled with colored gravel or James’s 1712 translation of Antoine-Joseph ground-hugging flowers. iwan A Persian structure consisting of large Dézallier d’Argenville’s Theory and Practice of shallow-vaulted porch or hall with a pointed kokoro The Japanese term signifying “heart” Gardening describes how the end of a “Terrass entrance arch. Fully developed under Sassanian or “center” and, by extended meaning, a heart- is terminated by an Opening, which the French rule, iwans are found in the ruins of the mid- shaped lake. designers used call a claire-voie, or an Ah Ah, with a dry Ditch sixth-century C.E. palace complex at Ctesiphon. the device of a bilobate waterbody to provide a at the Foot of it.” Horace Walpole said that the Landscape Design A Cultural and Architectural History 4

Glossary lanai - Picturesque middle ground within their landscape composi- ring of stones and symbolizing the place from rural cemeteries built in the nineteenth century. tions. which the people emerged from the orangery A building designed with tall arched Underworld into the light. lanai The Polynesian term borrowed from windows for admitting maximum sunlight and Hawaii by Californians and other mainland naumachia A Renaissance garden feature con- used for the winter protection of orange trees Americans to denote a breezeway, loggia, or sisting of a a flooded basin designed to func- and other tender plants grown in boxes or tubs roofed adjacent to a swimming pool. tion as a theater where mock naval battles were and placed in the garden in warm weather. held. limonaia Within an Italian garden, a walled otium Denoting industrious leisure comprising garden filled with potted lemon trees. The late-eighteenth-century worthwhile mental and physical pursuits away Enlightenment reaction to Baroque and Rococo from the distractions of urban business, poli- locus amoenus The Latin term for a pleasant art and architecture reflecting a return to the tics and society. Otium as a concept originated and delightful place; used in antiquity and the design principles of classicism, which were with ancient Roman villa owners and was prac- Renaissance to signify a rural or garden retreat believed to reflect better the laws of nature and ticed by proprietors of rural estates in subse- of distinctive beauty. reason. Neoclassicism stimulated further inter- quent societies where civilized country life was loggia An open-sided covered arcade or gallery, est in classical archaeology, which had been equated with virtue and refinement. usually attached to a building at ground- or awakened during the Renaissance. Implicit in palissade A tall, clipped, space-defining hedge upper-story level. Neoclassicism is the belief in the purity of in a French seventeenth-century-style garden. primitive and purely geometric forms. However, mall A tree-shaded promenade. The term origi- the term applies not only to architecture of a The French term for a ground plane nated in association with the Italian sober, non-ornamental nature such as that composed of patterned garden beds. Compart- paglio maglio, which became translated into echoing Greek Doric forms but also to the mentalized and geometrical in the Renaissance English as pall mall. The game, similar to cro- more sumptuously ornamental Beaux-Arts style following Italian example, parterres in France quet, was played on an allée designed for the reflecting the historicizing tendencies fostered evolved into parterres de broderie in the seven- purpose. Since people promenaded there as by the curriculum of the École des Beaux-Arts teenth century. well, the word mall eventually came to signify a in during the nineteenth- and early-twenti- dignified public space for outdoor exercise and parterre de broderie The French term signifying eth-centuries. social encounter. After the middle of the twenti- an embroidery-like ground-plane design in eth century, the term was commonly employed niwa The Japanese word for “garden,” which gravel and herbs, boxwood, or clipped grass, to denote a shopping center arranged as a may also refer to a sanctified space in nature featuring decorative scrolls, palmettes, and series of stores lining a principal landscaped set apart for the worship of Shinto gods. arabesques, often with the addition of a mono- walkway. The first malls were outdoors, but gram. noria From the Arabic word nu-riya meaning later ones were enclosed, with tiers of stores “shorter,” also known as a rehat, this large patte d’oie Three avenues radiating in the form rising above a broad, central open space serv- river-current- or ox-driven wheel with attached of a goose-foot from a central point. ing as a place of respite and recreation. buckets acting as pitchers was used for lifting pergola An open structure consisting of mausoleum An elaborate architectural struc- water into an elevated canal or tank to irrigate uprights and connecting joists or arches intend- ture built as a tomb for one or more deceased Mughal gardens in India. ed to support climbing plants, thereby creating persons. The Latin term signifying grotto, a a foliage-covered walkway similar to a berceau. A in a garden that serves as a cave or cavelike structure dedicated to nymphs piazza The Italian term for a public square; in that must navigated, avoiding blind and often containing fountains or other water English the word is used to signify an arcaded alleys, if one is to reach the interior goal. Of features. passageway similar to the that ancient origins, have been formed using obelisk A monumental, rectangular, tapered often frame Italian piazze; and in American various kinds of barrier material, but the hedge masonry shaft with a pyramidal top, called a English a piazza is a porch, or verandah, such maze, popular since the seventeenth century, is pyramidion. The obelisk as a form originated in as those advocated in the nineteenth century the type commonly associated with gardens. ancient Egypt, where its pyramidion symbol- through the influence of domestic tastemaker megalith An enormous stone, often used by ized, like the large-scale pyramid, the life-giving, Andrew Jackson Downing. prehistoric peoples as a monument or part of a sun-blessed mound, the sacred ben-ben, Picturesque The painting-influenced style landscape construction such as the circular revered is association with the worship of the enunciated by British landscape theorists arrangement of megaliths at Stonehenge. Sun god Re. With its implicit promise of rebirth William Gilpin, Richard Payne Knight, and after death, the obelisk was appropriated in Modernism The term signifying the early twen- Uvedale Price in the last quarter of the eigh- Western culture as a Christian symbol during tieth-century avant-garde approach to design teenth century and practiced in England, on the the Renaissance when several toppled obelisks based upon a functionist and reformist aesthet- Continent, and in America in variant forms until that had been garnered by the imperial Roman ic honoring the principles of industrial manu- the end of the nineteenth century. Although the armies were surmounted by Christian crosses facture and the tenets of the social welfare design of English had been previ- and erected once more in public places in state. ously influenced by paintings, notably those of Rome. By the eighteenth century, because of its Claude Lorrain, the seventeenth-century French nansipu In the tradition of Puebloan peoples of symbolic association with the afterlife, the painter of the Roman Campagna, it was the air the southwestern , the earth navel obelisk had become a commonly accepted form of rugged wildness characteristic of the land- on top of each sacred mountain. The term is for funerary and memorial monuments, and scapes of Salvator Rosa that Picturesque land- also used to denote a small hole within the cen- many miniature obelisks began to be used as scape designers cultivated. Contemporary with ter of the pueblo’s plaza, usually marked with a grave markers, especially in the non-sectarian Landscape Design A Cultural and Architectural History 5

Glossary pinetum - shakkei the Rococo, the Picturesque style often incorpo- pueblo A Spanish term meaning town, often garden structures displaying a quirky elegance, rated Rococo effects, particularly in France used to denote a settlement on tribal lands in fanciful exoticism, and ornamental exuberance, where Rococo taste originated. French northern and western New Mexico and north- including especially representations of chinois- Picturesque gardens also embodied the influ- east Arizona, consisting of multilevel adobe or erie. ence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and thus stone dwellings built by the descendants of The path in a Japanese tea garden, cha express the sentimental view of nature and indigenous prehistoric peoples. niwa, that leads the visitor from the entry gate imply the virtues of life uncorrupted by society pururuaca In the Inca culture, a large stone to the tea house, cha no yu. Visualized as a that is characteristic of one of the principal thought to be a transformed warrior and vener- dewy path, it is composed of stones set in authors of . The penchant for rus- ated as such. moss. Spatially, it usually consists of a narrow ticity found in French Picturesque landscapes is open corridor. also derived from an admiration of Dutch sev- presidio A fortified military garrison estab- enteenth-century as well as lished in Spanish colonial territories, especially romanticism The term denoting the late-eigh- the works of French eighteenth-century artists in the American Southwest. teenth-century aesthetic movement fostered by Claude-Henri Watelet, François Boucher, and the writings of Jean Jacques Rousseau and pyramid A monumental masonry structure Hubert Robert. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Derived from with a rectangular base and four triangular romance, the medieval genre of storytelling fea- pinetum An arboretum of specimen pines and faces rising to a common apex; in ancient Egypt turing chivalric heroes and adventurous other coniferous evergreen trees. during the Old Kingdom a tomb for a pharoah, exploits, romanticism is an artistic stance that or king. place In a general sense, space that is invested promotes emotion and feeling as modes of with use and meaning, a defined location. In a pylon A monummental gateway composed of a expression having as great a validity as those of particular sense with regard to the urban land- pair of truncated pyramids marking the reason and intellect. Romanticism is the coun- scape, place, which stems from the Latin platea, entrance to an Egyptian temple or some later terpart of classicism, and as such it values the a word derived the Greek plateia, means a important structure or space such as a nine- individual and the subjective over the universal broad street; from hence it became the term in teenth-century rural cemetery. and the normative, holds the commonplace in French signifying a public square. high esteem, and does not look to Greece and quincunx A regular arrangement of five trees Rome for inspiration, finding it rather in the plaisance A summerhouse or garden structure or other vertical elements, four of which com- landscapes of nature that are characterized as on the grounds of an estate. The term was also prise the angles of a square or rectangle, while sublime as well as in Picturesque scenery. used as the name of a mall-like promendade the fifth serves to mark its center. The term that Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux often denotes a regular arrangement of trees rond-point A circular area where a number of conceived to link Jackson Park and Washington set in a pattern composed of multiple units of allées meet. Originally a clearing in the woods Park in Chicago. Although designed for the five. When the qunicunx form is thus used where converging paths brought huntsmen to a South Park Commission in the 1870s, the repetitively in the planting of a bosk, the result- meeting place, the rond-point became prevalent Midway Plaisance, a linear band of and ing quincunx of trees appears as multiple rows in garden and urban design following its use by shrubbery with a central canal, was not built set on a running diagonal when viewed at a 45- André Le Nôtre in the seventeenth century. until 1893 after Olmsted returned as a member degree angle; read from a straight-on position, rural cemetery The result of religious and sani- of the design team of the World’s Columbian the rows assume a staggered pattern. tary reform, the rural cemetery is a nineteenth- Exposition. ragnaia In seventeenth century Italian gardens, century landscape form harking back to ancient In eighteenth-century England, a series of parallel hedges to support the nets Greek burial practice and monumental com- a commercial establishment consisting of used to trap birds. memoration outside the city walls. grounds with walks and groves of trees and recinto A large enclosed parklike precinct with- rus in urbe Latin for “the country in the city,” offering food, drink, and music. in an Italian garden. Recinti might take the form the term was used in advancing the case for polis An ancient Greek city-state. of boschetti, informal groves of trees, or natural public parks in the nineteenth century when areas for hunting wild game. people strongly believed in the therapeutic and portico A porch or walkway with a roof sup- spiritual benefit of creating rural scenery within ported by columns, often leading to the rocaille A French term formed by conflating the industrial metropolis. The expression “the entrance of a building. rocher (rock) and coquille (shell), which denotes lungs of the city” was also used at this time to the artistically rustic rockwork used to fashion Postmodernism The term that gained currency urge the cause of the reservation of large open, grottoes and other rude-seeming garden struc- in the 1970s to denote the reaction to the green areas in rapidly growing, congested tures. functionalist, anti-ornamental aesthetic of urban centers. Modernism and signifying a late-twentieth-cen- Rococo A term derived from rocaille and used sabi The mellowness produced by weathered tury architecture associated with vernacular to characterize the final, eighteenth-century stone, mosses, and lichens. The quality of sabi elements as well as classical motifs. phase of Baroque art, architecture, and the dec- is particularly characteristic of Japanese gar- orative arts during which a curvaceous, asym- potager The French term for a produce garden dens dating from the Momoyama Period metrical, playful, synthesis of abstract and containing vegetables and fruit trees. (1573–1603). naturalistic motifs developed in France and was propylaia In ancient Greece, a large ceremonial universalized throughout the West. Rococo shakkei Japanese pronunciation of jie jing, the gateway giving entry to an important ritual forms are delicate, elegant, lighthearted, and technique of visually incorporating into a gar- space. often amorous in spirit. In landscape design den’s design borrowed scenery from beyond its the term Rococo is associated with ornamental borders. Landscape Design A Cultural and Architectural History 6

Glossary - ziggurat shan shui Literally “mountains and water,” the sublime In landscape terms, as analyzed by the volksgarten The public park, or people’s gar- Chinese term for “landscape.” philosopher Edmund Burke in his influential den, as developed in Germany according to the treatise A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of C. C. L. Hirschfeld’s recommendation in Theorie shin no mihashira The heart post of a decon- Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, der Gardenkunst (1779–85) for the creation of structed , which marks the place sublime signifies majestic scenery or turbulent didactic landscapes in which monuments and next to an existing shrine where a new shrine nature capable of stirring the human spirit, inscriptions served to inculcate moral and patri- will be built after a twenty-year inteval. causing an emotion that can perhaps be char- otic sentiments, especially those promoting shinden-zukuri A style of Japanese construction acterized as fearful reverence or thrilled awe. nationalism. derived from Chinese norms of elegance, but takamiya “Sacred precinct” in Japanese, often wabi Refined austerity, the pleasurable simplic- austere in character In gardens, the sanctified area where a special object in ity of poverty, a fundamental aesthetic principle pavilions built in this fashion were placed at the nature is reverenced by practitioners of of Japanese Zen Buddhism. edge of a lake. Shintoism. wilderness A wooded garden feature developed shogun Often translated as “generalissimo,” tapis vert French for “green carpet,” the term in England in the seventeenth century as a until 1867 the hereditary commander of the refers to a rectangular or other precisely shaped localized version of the contemporary French Japanese army, nominally in the service of the lawn. bosquet. Wilderness paths, which were originally emperor, but exercising absolute authority in straight allées arranged according to a geomet- both civil as well as military affairs. temenos A precinct within the Greek landscape rical plan, evolved from formal into that was considered sacred to a particular shoin zukuri A style of meandering byways as eighteenth-century indwelling deity. As such, it was marked off by comprising shoji-screen-divided rooms with designers attempted to induce in visitors within stones or defined by walls and contained proportions based upon the module of a tatami these secluded garden retreats greater sensa- , temples, and other sacred and symbol- mat (approximately three by six feet). tions of adventure and surprise. ical structures, monuments, and natural forms. sipapu In the cosmology of certain Puebloan xian The immortals of Chinese myth, believed tholos A circular temple, an architectural form cultures of the American Southwest, the mythi- to inhabit, among other places, three enchant- developed in ancient Greece and often copied cal place where people emerged from the earth ed islands upheld by giant tortoises. in Roman times as well as later when it was and the place where they return after death. The used extensively in Western gardens as an orna- yarimizu A Japanese riverbank garden. term is also used to denote the hole within the ment within the landscape. floor of a kiva, symbolizing this place of emer- yuniwa In , a bare, gravel-covered, puri- gence from, and return to, the Underworld. topia The Latin term for landscape paintings, fied space associated with a Shinto shrine. The used to denote frescoes of scenery in ancient term may also be usd to refer to the entry court specimen An item such as a plant that is con- Roman and Italian Renaissance gardens. of palaces and other monumental structures sidered representative of an entire class, when these are empty or contain at most a pair genus, or species; something that stands for an topos The notion of place as coterminous with of symbolic trees. entirety. Botanical gardens and contained and defined space, a concept derived contain specimens that are planted to instruct from Aristotle. ziggurat A terraced pyramidal structure devel- observers in the characteristic appearance oped in ancient Mesopotamia by the Assyrians treillage A piece of garden architecture com- and growth habit of various plant species and and the Babylonians to serve as a temple tower, posed of open latticework trellises used to sup- their comparative aspects relative to other an axis-mundi connecting earth and sky. port vines and train plants to assume a desired species within the same genus. form. spoil Dredged material removed from an exca- trellis A structure of open latticework for sup- vation. porting vines, often in the form of an arbor or stibadium A dining couch or divan, usually arch. of carved stone, furnishing an ancient Roman trivio Three avenues radiating from a single triclinium, or dining area. point, called in French a patte d'oie, or goose stroll garden A garden designed to be experi- foot. enced sequentially as a series of scenes as the vigna An Italian term denoting the type of visitor walks along a prescribed route. suburban villa and rural retreat popular with stucchi Stucco work in the form of low reliefs wealthy aristocratic families during the modeled wet in sand, cement, and lime and Renaissance and later periods. applied on the outside of a building. Stucchi for villa An Italian term denoting a country estate, interiors are modeled in plaster. originally an ancient Roman rural retreat with a style champêtre The French term for “rural substantial house. In the nineteenth century, style.” The style champêtre, a component of the English-speaking people used the word villa to eighteenth-century French Picturesque style, signify a middle-class suburban dwelling. implies the creation of hameaux and other rus- villeggiatura A sojourn at a Renaissance villa, tic garden features suggesting country plea- or country estate, usually occurring during the sures. summer season.

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