Invisible Gardens: The Search for Modernism in the American Landscape

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00070

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-16616

Invisible Gardens is a composite history of the individuals and firms that defined the field of landscape architecture in America from 1925 to 1975, a period that spawned a significant body of work combining social ideas of enduring value with landscapes and gardens that forged a modern aesthetic. The major protagonists include Thomas Church, Roberto Burle Marx, Isamu Noguchi, Luis Barragan, Daniel Urban Kiley, Stanley White, Hideo Sasaki, Ian McHarg, Lawrence Halprin, and Garrett Eckbo. They were the pioneers of a new profession in America, the first to offer alternatives to the historic landscape and the park tradition, as well as to the suburban sprawl and other unplanned developments of twentieth-century cities and institutions. The work is described against the backdrop of the Great Depression, the Second World War, the postwar recovery, American corporate expansion, and the environmental revolution. The authors look at unbuilt schemes as well as actual gardens, ranging from tiny backyards and play spaces to urban plazas and corporate villas. Some of the projects discussed already occupy a canonical position in modern landscape architecture; others deserve a similar place but are less well known. The result is a record of landscape architecture's cultural contribution—as distinctly different in history, intent, and procedure from its sister fields of architecture and planning—during the years when it was acquiring professional status and struggling to define a modernist aesthetic out of the startling changes in postwar America.

Author

PublisherMIT Press

Print publication date October 1994 (in print)

Print ISBN 9780262231770

EISBN 9780300238808

Illustrations 156 Illus.

Print Status in print

Publisher (in print)

WorldCat

Google Books

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List of illustrations

General plan of Riverside Illinois
Stourhead
Back Bay Fens
Central Park
View Towards Hudson Valley
Franklin Park
Court of Honor, World's Columbian Exposition
Lagoon with Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building, World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago
The Long Meadow, Prospect Park
Portrait of Clarence S. Stein
Portrait of Henry Wright
Radburn, New Jersey, view toward central open space, or "meadow.
Plan of Radburn, New Jersey
Along the Prado, Panama-California International Exposition, San Diego
Sunnyside Gardens, Borough of Queens, New York: part of a block with an inner court and three courts opening off the street, built in 1927
Sunnyside Gardens, an inner court built in 1926
Radburn, New Jersey, plan of Burnham Place
Chatham Village
Monet Painting in His Garden at Argenteuil
Baldwin Hills Village, Los Angeles, California: Plan
Odette Moneiro garden, Rio de Janeiro, 1948; current residence of Luis César Fernandez.
Plan of a garden around and under an apartment house on Pilotis, São Paulo, Brazil
Roof garden, Instituto de Resseguros do Brasil (Brazil Reinsurance Institute, Rio de Janeiro (now destroyed).
Santo Antonio da Bica, Burle Marx's country Home, Guartatiba, near Rio de Janeiro.
Portrait of Luis Barragán
Barragán's studio, seen from the garden. Barragán residence, Tacubaya, Mexico
The Soothsayer's Recompense
El Pedregal (The Rocky Place), entry to the residential subdivision, Mexico City.
El Pedregal, garden gateway
San Cristobal, Los Clubes, residential subdivision, Mexico City
Las Arboledas, entry to the residential subdivision, Mexico City
Roof garden, Barragán residence
Portrait of Isamu Noguchi. Noguchi stands by one of his works in his studio, now the Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum in Long Island City, New York
Stage set for Martha Graham's dance performance, "Errand into the Maze
Model for "Contoured Playground," not built
Connecticut General Life Insurance Company (now CIGNA) headquarters, Bloomfield, Connecticut: Terrace
Courtyard garden, CIGNA
Sculpture garden, viewed from Reading Room, Beinecke Rare Books Library, Yale University
California Scenario
Portrait of Thomas Church
Keator Garden, plan, Hillsborough, Califonia
Landscape (The Hare)
Meyer and Kuhn Garden
Sullivan Garden, San Francisco, California: Four alternative plans.
Sullivan Garden
Kirkham Garden, San Francisco, California, plan
Kirkham Garden, section
Kirkham Garden
Donnell Garden, Sonoma, California: Preliminary pool study
Donnell Garden, live oaks growing up through wooden deck
Vase—Bust
Donnell Garden, sculpture, pool, live oak.
Martin Garden, Aptos, California
Martin Garden
Portrait of Garrett Eckbo. Behind him is a plan for Ladera, a cooperative residential community in the San Francisco peninsula designed by a collaborative team including his firm, Eckbo, Royston, and Williams. (The plan was partially realized.)
Portrait of Robert Boyston
Portrait of Edward A. Williams
Farm Security Administration, multifamily housing, Firebaugh, California
Barcelona Pavilion, plan
Farm Security Administration, plan of a park near Gridley, California
Plan for Community Homes, Inc., Reseda, California
Muller Garden, plan
Muller Garden
Naify Garden, Woodside, California, axonometric plan
Alcoa Garden at the Eckbo residence, Laurel Canyon, Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles. California
Construction
Sunbreak, or wind-screen, among other patio furnishings on exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Standard Oil Rod and Gun Club
Mitchell Park, child's playground, Palo Alto, California: Axonometric Plan
Mitchell Park
Portrait of Lawrence Halprin
Bentley Wood," Chermayeff residence
Haas Garden
Caygill Garden, San Francisco Bay Area: plan
Walter and Elise Haas Promenade
Lawrence Halprin & Associates, group photo
Lovejoy Plaza, aerial view
Freeway Park
Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial
Sea Ranch, California, plan
Sea Ranch
Jacob Riis Plaza, aerial view
Jacob Riis Plaza
Paley Park
Henry Moore Sculpture Garden, Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, plan
Henry Moore Sculpture Garden, Nelson Atkins Museum of Art
Hamilton-Cosco Company
Oakland Museum, aerial view
Miller Garden, Columbus, Indiana
Miller Garden, apple orchard
Miller Garden, west terrace of house with weeping beeches
North Carolina National Bank, plan
North Carolina National Bank
Hamilton Garden
Basic plan types, chalk drawing on blackboard
Hideo Sasaki with Stuart O. Dawson, a student and, later, a colleague at Sasaki, Dawson, DeMay and Associates
A series of gardens, The Bloedel Reserve, Bainbridge Island, Washington, plan
Reflection Garden, The Bloedel Reserve
Sea Pines Plantation, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, detail of master plan
University of Michigan, Studies for Expansion of the Central Campus: plan
University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, aerial view of Central Campus
Deere and Company Headquarters, Moline, Illinois: plan
Deere and Company Headquarters
Constitution Plaza: aerial view
Foothill College, aerial view
Alcoa Plaza, Golden Gateway Center
Sidney Walton Square, Golden Gateway Center
Upjohn Company Headquarters
Upjohn Company Headquarters: courtyard
Weyerhaeuser World Headquarters, Federal Way, between Seattle and Tacoma Washington
Crocker Plaza
University of Colorado, at Boulder, Preliminary Site Plan for the Engineering Sciences Center
University of Colorado, at Boulder, campus buildings erected before World War II
University of Colorado, at Boulder, Engineering Sciences Center, amid panoramic view of the campus
DELMARVA (acronym for "Delaware, Maryland, Virginia"), computer-generated map
In the studio "Urbanization and Change," Harvard Graduate School of Design. Guided by computer-assisted analysis, Bruce White, a student, forecasts where changes in suburban Boston may occur, before producing a design plan to accommodate those changes--or oppose them.
Proposal for urban renewal of downtown Providence, Rhode Island: model
View of Manhattan Island
Land Features, from the Metropolitan Open Space from Natural Process study
From the Richmond Parkway Study, New York City, in Design with Nature: a series of maps (to be used as overlays) indicating areas of ecological, economic, social, and cultural value.
Siting study for Minnesota Power Plant: "Environmental Constraints Composite"
The California Housing
Woodbridge, Irvine, California: Landscape study, macro-scale
Woodbridge, aerial view
Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Marin County, California: master plan
Ethan's Glen
Promontory Point Housing
Concord Pavilion
Elkhorn Resort
Garden for Mr. and Mrs. J. Irwin Miller. Allée of honey trees and sculpture by Henry Moore.
Weyerhaeuser World Headquarters, Federal Way, between Seattle and Tacoma Washington
Odette Monteiro Garden; current residence of Luis César Fernandez
Las Arboledas, red wall
California Scenario
Garden for Mr. and Mrs. Dewey Donnell
Lovejoy Plaza
Paley Park
Garden of Planes, Bloedel Reserve
Deere and Company Headquarters
Foothill College
Tanner Fountain, Harvard University

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Contents

Invisible Gardens: The Search for Modernism in the American Landscape

Contents

Author

PublisherMIT Press

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00070.001

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-16617

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Preface

Invisible Gardens: The Search for Modernism in the American Landscape

~In 1975, after almost twenty years of continuous professional activity, I returned to teach at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. The years of practice had been intense in both growth and change. American corporations had returned to peacetime, expanded their power, and consolidated their self-image in a series of great corporate palaces. All levels of...

Author

PublisherMIT Press

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00070.002

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-16618

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Acknowledgments

Invisible Gardens: The Search for Modernism in the American Landscape

Acknowledgments

Author

PublisherMIT Press

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00070.003

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-16619

Introduction: The Legacy of Landscape Architecture: Art or Social Service?

Invisible Gardens: The Search for Modernism in the American Landscape

Over the past 130 years, landscape architects have shaped portions of the American continents no more dramatically than water has shaped the land over geological periods of time...

Author

PublisherMIT Press

Related print edition pages: pp.2-29

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00070.004

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-16620

Chapter subject tags:Landscape architectureCity planningGardensGarden citiesUrban parks

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Chapter 1: The Garden as Social Vision

Invisible Gardens: The Search for Modernism in the American Landscape

Between Olmsted’s era and that of American landscape architects who came of age just before and after World War II, nearly half a century of transformations had passed. Not only had people and their environments been forever changed by the intervening world wars...

Author

PublisherMIT Press

Related print edition pages: pp.30-55

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00070.005

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-16621

Chapter subject tags:Landscape architectureCity planningPlanned communitiesGarden citiesUrban parks

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Chapter 2: The Garden as Art

Invisible Gardens: The Search for Modernism in the American Landscape

Three of the most provocative landscape designers of our time have come to the field without formal training in landscape architecture. Born in the Western Hemisphere at the dawn of the twentieth century, Roberto Burle Marx, Luis Barragán, and Isamu Noguchi pursued a range of arts and sciences...

Author

PublisherMIT Press

Related print edition pages: pp.56-91

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00070.006

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-16622

Chapter subject tags:Landscape architectureGardensArchitecture, ModernUrban parksModernism (Art)

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Chapter 3: The Modern Transformation of Thomas Church

Invisible Gardens: The Search for Modernism in the American Landscape

By the middle of this century, Thomas Church and his gardens had become an irresistible topic for the print media (figure 41). Talented, inventive, admired by his colleagues, and sought after by a burgeoning middle- and upper-middle-class clientele...

Author

PublisherMIT Press

Related print edition pages: pp.92-115

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00070.007

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-16623

Chapter subject tags:Landscape architectureLandscape architectsGardensArchitecture, DomesticModernism (Art)

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Chapter 4: Beyond the American (or California) Dream

Invisible Gardens: The Search for Modernism in the American Landscape

On October 24, 1929, a day of unprecedented panic on Wall Street, Garrett Eckbo was eighteen years old. Robert Royston was eleven and Edward Williams, fifteen. On December 7, 1941, the day Pearl Harbor was attacked...

Author

PublisherMIT Press

Related print edition pages: pp.116-143

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00070.008

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-16624

Chapter subject tags:Landscape architectureGardensArchitecture, DomesticGarden citiesCity planning

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Chapter 5: From Backyard to Center City

Invisible Gardens: The Search for Modernism in the American Landscape

A sequel to Lewis Mumford’s The Culture of Cities (1938) appeared more than twenty years later, his equally awesome The City in History (1961). By then, a second world war had shown the magnitude of power that man could wield against his fellow man and the environment...

Author

PublisherMIT Press

Related print edition pages: pp.144-169

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00070.009

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-16625

Chapter subject tags:Landscape architectureGardensCity planningPublic spacesUrban parks

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Chapter 6: The Lone Classicist

Invisible Gardens: The Search for Modernism in the American Landscape

It was an enviable commission: to design a sculpture garden for a major art museum and to place within its seventeen acres of gently sloping ground a collection of twelve bronze pieces by Henry Moore. After a limited competition, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, awarded this commission to Dan Kiley...

Author

PublisherMIT Press

Related print edition pages: pp.170-197

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00070.010

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-16626

Chapter subject tags:Landscape architectureGardensPublic spacesArchitecture, DomesticLandscape architects

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Chapter 7: The Modernization of the Schools

Invisible Gardens: The Search for Modernism in the American Landscape

“Common sense is actually nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind prior to the age of eighteen. Every new idea one encounters in later years must combat this accretion of ‘self-evident’ concepts...

Author

PublisherMIT Press

Related print edition pages: pp.198-222

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00070.011

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-16627

Chapter subject tags:Landscape architectureLandscape architectsGardensCity planning

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Chapter 8: The Corporate Office, a New Organism for Practice: First Wave

Invisible Gardens: The Search for Modernism in the American Landscape

Recently Hideo Sasaki reflected on the early years of his multidisciplinary design firm, then known as Sasaki, Walker and Associates: “I’ve always felt that practice-the way we practice-is the same as teaching,” he observed...

Author

PublisherMIT Press

Related print edition pages: pp.224-257

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00070.012

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-16628

Chapter subject tags:Landscape architectureCorporations--HeadquartersGardensPublic spacesArchitecture, Modern

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Chapter 9: The Environment: Science Overshadows Art

Invisible Gardens: The Search for Modernism in the American Landscape

The setting was one of California’s finest ecotones: the meeting of land and ocean at Monterey Bay, where dunes, rocks, low-growing plants, and wind-sculpted Monterey pines gave way to mixed woodlands of pines and coast live oak...

Author

PublisherMIT Press

Related print edition pages: pp.258-283

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00070.013

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-16629

Chapter subject tags:Landscape architectureEnvironmentalismPublic spacesCity planningNatural resources

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Chapter 10: The Corporate Office, Second Wave

Invisible Gardens: The Search for Modernism in the American Landscape

Every professional organization gains some self-awareness through the process of making annual awards, which serve as a mirror, reflecting the profession’s preferred image as well its main concerns and directions...

Author

PublisherMIT Press

Related print edition pages: pp.284-310

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00070.014

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-16630

Chapter subject tags:Landscape architectureCorporations--HeadquartersPublic spacesCity planningArchitecture, Modern

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Epilogue

Invisible Gardens: The Search for Modernism in the American Landscape

The growth and success of the landscape architectural profession in the past fifty years cannot eliminate the environmental impoverishment of America over the same period...

Author

PublisherMIT Press

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00070.015

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-16631

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Plates

Invisible Gardens: The Search for Modernism in the American Landscape

Plates

Author

PublisherMIT Press

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00070.016

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-16632