2 · hogarth’s studies of beauty and the line of grace 9

From the English Landscape Garden to the

urban park: common themes in a changing worldCatharine Ward Thompson Edinburgh College of Art Scotland, UK. www.eca.ac.uk

Director, OPENspace Research Centre www.openspace.eca.ac.uk

CIPUM PORTO 2006

eca

2 www.openspace.eca.ac.uk

Ancient Rome: Horace’s Farm at Licenza


Pliny the Younger“I enjoy here a cosier, more profound and undisturbed retirement than anywhere else, as I am at a greater distance from the busy town…All is calm and composed, which contribute no less than its clear air and unclouded sky to that health of body and mind I particularly enjoy in this place, both of which I maintain by study and hunting”.


Ancient Rome: Temple of Venus at

Hadrian’s Villa


Against clipped formalism, e.g. Dutch style


Castle Howard


Hogarth’s studies of Beauty and the Line of Grace


Kent at Rousham: leapt the fence to “call in” nature


The ha ha (Bramham)


The Line of Grace: Kent at Rousham


Kent at Stowe: Elysian Fields


Kent at Stowe: Temple of Ancient Virtue


Brown at Stowe: Grecian Valley


Brown at Stowe: South Lake


Brown at Stowe: South Vista


Price: picturesque landscapes would correct “the langour of beauty…and the horror of sublimity”


The Picturesque “excites the active curiosity which gives play to the mind” Uvedale Price 1794


Urban parks as the “lungs of the city”Birkenhead Park, Joseph Paxton, 1843


An existing style or a new protoype?Birkenhead Park, Joseph Paxton, 1843


The Parks Movement in Britain

A turning away from psychological and emotional benefits of landscape Physical health and prevention of disease are the primary aim

Public parks might be the only places where “the pale mechanic and the exhausted factory operative might inhale the freshening breeze and some portion of recovered health” (1852)


F L Olmsted’s vision of the parkCombines 18th Century ideas of mental relief with a more pragmatic desire to counter disease and ill-healthOlmsted and Vaux’s plan for Central Park -“the antithesis to the confined spaces of the town”. The artificial conditions of the town would produce “a harmful effect”, on a man’s “entire mental and nervous system”

Pastoral scenery was the antidote


Pastoral Scenery: Brown’s Grecian Valley, c.1747


Pastoral scenery: Paxton’s Birkenhead Park,1843



Pastoral scenery: Olmsted and Vaux’sLong Meadow, Prospect Park 1865

Overexposure to the artificial sights of the city would lead to excessive nervous tension, over anxiety,

hasteful disposition, impatience and irritability” - the antidote is pleasing, rural scenery Olmsted 1886


Olmsted and the KaplansOlmsted on parks: “leading visitors away from the the mental contemplation of objects associated with conditions which have produced previous strain or fatigue.” (1871)

Kaplan and Kaplan: “the struggle to pay attention in cluttered and confusing environments (such as crowded urban ones) turns out to be what is central to what is experienced as mental fatigue […] The natural environment seems to have some special relationship to each of the factors important to a restorative environment” (1989)



R&S Kaplan: Restorative Nature - being ‘away’; extent (of conceptual exploration); fascination; compatibility

Department of Health (England) - importance of people ‘engaging’ in their own health = 44 billion Euros by 2022/23 - the gap between best and worst scenarios

There is a growing body of evidence on the benefits of access to good quality parks and green spaces


Conclusions• The English Landscape Garden has proved

remarkably resilient as a style that addresses people’s needs for contact with nature

• Evidence for the importance of good landscape planning and design is beginning to be produced to address 21st C. demands and standards of evidence for policy and practice

• c. 180 years ago, the public park movement argued for much the same thing

• We still need to underline the consequences (risks) of failing to take health implications of good landscape architecture seriously


2 · hogarth’s studies of beauty and the line of grace 9

Documents