A Publication of the Foundation for Landscape Studies A Journal of Place Volume vııı | Number ıı | Spring 2013 Exceptional Grounds: The Landscapes of Institutions 2 Laurie Olin: The Campus: An American Landscape Elizabeth Barlow Rogers: Representing Nature: The Dioramas of the American Museum of Natural History Warren T. Byrd, Jr.: In Ambivalent De-Fence of Zoos Katherine Harmon: Plants for the People: Henry Shaw’s Enduring Missouri Botanical Garden Place Keeper and Place Maker 19 Genevieve Munson Trimble / Antonia Adezio Book Reviews 20 Frederic Rich: Sanctified Landscape: Writers, Artists, and the Hudson River Valley, 1820-1909 By David Schuyler Cynthia Zaitzevsky: Graceland Cemetery: A Design History By Christopher Vernon Contributors 23 Letter from the Editor 2013 Grant and Book Awards andscapes such as existing structures not con- exemplifies the conundrums I am happy to report that 2013 John Brinckerhoff 2013 David R. Coffin campuses, botanical sidered. At best, where the of zoo design in an ecologi- there were several excellent Jackson Book Prize Winners Publication Grant Winners gardens, museums, original works of architec- cally sensitive age – an era in applications in 2012 for and zoos differ from ture have sufficient gravitas which animals are displayed David R. Coffin grants as Mireille Galinou Sonia Dümpelmann parks and gardens and grandeur, the surround- in simulations of their native well as numerous submis- Cottages and Villas: The Birth Flights of Imagination: Pow- Lin their design intentions. ing landscape typically habitats. Katherine Harmon sions of eligible books for of the Garden Suburb ered Aviation and the Art and They are an integral part of disappears from public con- discusses the transforma- the John Brinckerhoff Yale University Press, 2011 Science of Landscape Design the institutions for which sciousness and is simply tions of the Missouri Botani- Jackson Book Prize. We are and Planning they are named, with growth perceived as setting. cal Garden from the time of pleased to announce in University of Virginia Press usually driven by mission Nevertheless, many insti- its founder Henry Shaw to this issue of Site/Lines the rather than design, and so tutions are the crown jewels the present. My essay is names of the grantees and Georges Farhat they often lose their original of their cities, and although about the American Museum prizewinners who were The French Formal Garden: planning coherence as budgetary constraints exist, of Natural History’s extraor- selected by the awards com- Garden Types for grounds expand and new they are rarely dire enough dinary collection of diora- mittee. Contemporary Architecture wings and structures are to prevent at least some basic mas – theatrical displays that Please remember that Birkhäuser added. Because the passing “landscaping,” as the green- transport visitors to wild Site/Lines is entirely donor- years bring new needs, tastes, ing of building perimeters is landscapes that most would supported, and if you wish to Wybe Kuitert building technologies, and usually called. When, how- never otherwise see. continue reading essays on Gardens and Landscapes in goals, for better or worse, ever, directors and trustees In addition to these essays diverse landscape themes, we Japan, 1650-1950 institutional landscapes engage in the kind of master on the theme of institutional urge you to send us your University of Pennsylvania inevitably become more planning that makes land- landscapes, you will find contribution in the enclosed Press Todd Longstaffe-Gowan crowded and less unified scape aesthetics an integral Frederic Rich’s review of envelope. The London Square: over time. Added to these part of growth and change, Sanctified Landscape: Writers, Mark Laird Gardens in the Midst of Town inherent trends is the reality institutional landscapes can Artists, and the Hudson River With good green wishes, The Natural History of the Library of American that landscape design is fre- maintain their integrity. Valley, 1820-1909 by David Eighteenth Century Garden Landscape History quently architecture’s In this issue, landscape Schuyler and Cynthia Yale University Press stepchild; even when design- architect Laurie Olin pro- Zaitzevsky’s review of Grace- ers produce institutional vides a comprehensive his- land Cemetery: A Design His- Micheline Nilsen buildings of distinction, site tory of campus design with tory by Christopher Vernon. Elizabeth Barlow Rogers The Working Man’s Green planning is often secondary reflections on both form and President, Space: Allotments and stylistic harmony with meaning. Warren Byrd, a Foundation for Landscape and Community Gardens landscape architect and col- Studies in Britain, France, lege professor, demonstrates and Germany 1870-1919 how the Washington Zoo University of Virginia Press William E. O’Brien Landscape of Exclusion: State Parks and Jim Crow in the American South Library of American Landscape History On the Cover: Marshall College, Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. Drawing by Laurie Olin. 2 Exceptional Grounds: The Landscapes of Institutions The Campus: An American Landscape the campus buildings were generally arranged closely enough gian buildings placed in the open. Subsequently they were merican universities have been, and probably still for convenient communication, although sufficiently separated augmented in a gradual, neighborly fashion with additional, are, one of the glories of our culture. Eight of the for fire protection and differentiation of purpose. They were freestanding structures. Despite not being attached or con- ten most highly regarded universities in the world small enough to finance and build without too much nected, the buildings eventually formed an architectural com- are located in the United States. Many thousands difficulty. munity, set off by relatively level or gently sloping areas of turf of students from all over the world come here Early schools such as Harvard (1636), William and Mary and trees that soon grew higher than the buildings themselves. Aannually to study at the undergraduate or graduate level. Col- (1695), Yale (1717), and Princeton (1755) possessed what might be The mess and distraction of horses and carts, goods and ser- leges and universities are major contributors to our economy, described as a loose-fit formality. They tended to comprise vices, washhouses and outhouses were banished from one or both directly – through institutional purchases; the buying reasonably attractive buildings, well designed but not grand, more quiet, roughly rectangular, loosely bounded spaces that power of students, faculty, and staff; the creation of local jobs; arranged orthogonally to each other or the adjacent commu- were called “quads.” the building and expansion of facilities – and indirectly, nity and facing a principal street or road. While at least one Near the end of our colonial era, an alternative convention through the generation of ideas and the training of students campus (William and Mary) was originally intended to be built for the American university began in Pennsylvania with the who will be influential in their chosen fields. All this creates around a contained courtyard in emulation of the Oxford College of Philadelphia (1754). This was the urban academic jobs, innovation, commodities, and commerce. quadrangles of the founders’ alma mater, none of the Ameri- institution, which would later cross-pollinate with the earlier Far less attention has been paid to another aspect of the can schools were enclosed. Unlike Oxford or Cambridge – the rural type. Unlike its New England predecessors, the College of American university: its physical structure; the way its campus institutions where a number of early American ecclesiastics, Philadelphia wasn’t a divinity school. Founded by Benjamin is set into the landscape and interacts with and changes the tutors, intellectuals, and politicians had been educated – with Franklin in polyglot post-Quaker Philadelphia, it was intended surrounding community. Today such interrelationships are in their late medieval, Jacobean, and Georgian courts, cloisters, to foster science, the practical arts, and humanities such as the purview of the landscape architect, but they existed well arcades, towers, and quadrangles formed by conjoined struc- history, law, and the classics. The young school soon turned before landscape architecture was a profession; in fact, since tures, these New World institutions were simply a set of Geor- into the University of Pennsylvania, America’s first true univer- the first American schools were founded. Because the Ameri- sity. Like its religiously can university campus is a homegrown product, its physical oriented, country-bred pre- form has grown from its own needs and setting. It is part of decessors, it too consisted of the larger community as well as a community unto itself, and well-mannered, three-story it has evolved along with its changing landscape and environs. Georgian architecture. After The earliest and best-known institutions of higher educa- all, these were Englishmen tion in the English colonies were divinity schools. Although of the Enlightenment – not exactly monasteries, they were usually founded in rural vil- Franklin and others were lages like Cambridge, Massachusetts, or on the edge of towns members of the Royal Soci- like New Haven, Connecticut, set among farms, dozy lanes, and ety – albeit on the edge of scraps of relict forest. Almost all these schools, like many that the wilderness. Here medical would come later, began as a single building