Of gardens : selected essays

Author(s)

• Deitz, Paula
• Hunt, John Dixon

Bibliographic Information

Of gardens : selected essays

Paula Deitz ; afterword by John Dixon Hunt

（Penn studies in landscape architecture）

University of Pennsylvania Press, c2011

• : hardcover

Note

Includes index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Paula Deitz has delighted readers for more than thirty years with her vivid descriptions of both famous and hidden landscapes. Her writings allow readers to share in the experience of her extensive travels, from the waterways of Britain's Castle Howard to the Japanese gardens of Kyoto, and home again to New York City's Central Park. Collected for the first time, the essays in Of Gardens record her great adventure of continual discovery, not only of the artful beauty of individual gardens but also of the intellectual and historical threads that weave them into patterns of civilization, from the modest garden for family subsistence to major urban developments. Deitz's essays describe how people, over many centuries and in many lands, have expressed their originality by devoting themselves to cultivation and conservation. During a visit to the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden in Seal Harbor, Maine, Deitz first came to appreciate the notion that landscape architecture can be as intricately conceived as any major structure and is, indeed, the means by which we redeem the natural environment through design. Years later, as she wandered through the gardens of Versailles, she realized that because gardens give structure without confinement, they encourage a liberation of movement and thought. In Of Gardens, we follow Deitz down paths of revelation, viewing "A Bouquet of British Parks: Liverpool, Edinburgh, and London"; the parks and promenades of Jerusalem; the Moonlight Garden of the Taj Mahal; a Tuscan-style villa in southern California; and the rooftop garden at Tokyo's Mori Center, among many other sites. Deitz covers individual landscape architects and designers, including Andre Le Notre, Frederick Law Olmsted, Beatrix Farrand, Russell Page, and Michael Van Valkenburgh. She then features an array of parks, public places, and gardens before turning her attention to the burgeoning business of flower shows. The volume concludes with a memorable poetic epilogue entitled "A Winter Garden of Yellow."

Table of Contents

Introduction Prologue. The Lure of the Porch in Summer: Privacy and Pleasure CHAPTER ONE. LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS AND DESIGNERS Designing Women: In-Depth View of Twentieth-Century Women Landscape Designers Beatrix Farrand and The Bulletins of Reef Point Gardens The Private World of a Great Gardener: Rachel Lambert Mellon "Make the Land Work for You": Russell Page in America Profile of Dan Kiley Grounded in History: Deborah Nevins's Landscapes Private Visions: The Gardens of Michael Van Valkenburgh A Cultivated Civilization: Barbara Stauffacher Solomon's Drawings of Classical Gardens Planting Plastic: Martha Schwartz Looks to Art for Inspiration Resurrection: The Built Landscapes of George Hargreaves A Twinkling Terrace that Reaches for the Stars: Kathryn Gustafson in New York and France Landform Future: Laurie Olin and the Integration of Architecture and Landscape A Feminist View of Landscapes: A Partnership with Nature CHAPTER TWO. PARKS AND PUBLIC PLACES A Bouquet of British Parks: Liverpool, Edinburgh, and London Central Park's Bethesda Terrace and Its Restoration Summer in Central Park For This Movie, Step into the Garden Rooftop Formal Gardens at Rockefeller Center Hortus Conclusus: The Gardens at the Cloisters The IBM Garden Plaza A Crystal Palace: Final Portrait of the Palm House Gardens Fit for a Queen Hartford's 1896 Rose Garden, Whose Ancestors Were Born in France 2,700 Roses Re-create Old Garden: The Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden A Victorian Gem Restored: The Enid A. Haupt Conservatory A Centennial Bouquet: The Botanic Garden of Smith College, 1895-1995 The Rose Garden at the White House A New Memorial Squanders a Sparkling Opportunity The Green Gardens of Jerusalem: Parks, Squares, and Promenades Garden Letter from Greece: The Agora The Moonlight Garden at the Taj Mahal A Rare Garden in Barbados: Andromeda Gardens Along a Nature and Garden Trail in Bermuda A Walk in the Park Around Jinji Lake CHAPTER THREE. AMERICAN The Poetics of the American Garden 1680 Formal Garden Discovered in the South A Historic Colonial Plantation Recovered from the Rough Fairsted: At Home with Frederick Law Olmsted At Old Westbury, Gracious Gardens Stately Views: A 1920s Garden Inspired by the Villa d'Este Mediterranean Light: A Classic Italian Garden in California Wethersfield: In the Style of an Italian Villa Garden The American Academy in Rome The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden: A Blend of Far Eastern and English Inspiration Far East, Down East: A Classic Asian Landscape A Cultivated Coast: The Garden at Somes Meadow On Maine's Coast, Vistas Are Cast in Stone Autumn in New England CHAPTER FOUR. BRITISH The Painted Garden: William Kent's Rousham Painshill Park: Charles Hamilton's Folly Garden The Waterways of Castle Howard Reclaiming Noble Gardens of the Towy Valley Classic Garden Tames a Fierce Welsh Crag: Powis Castle Buckhurst Park: From Humphry Repton to Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll Lanning Roper's English Gardens with a U.S. Flavor Machine in the Garden: Charles Jencks's Garden of Scottish Worthies Sitting in the Garden: A History CHAPTER FIVE. FRENCH The Gardens of Versailles An Echo of a Memory: Recultivating the Tuileries The Formal Farm: Pascal Cribier's Vision of Rural Geometry The Desert de Retz: Cultural History Through Architecture CHAPTER SIX. JAPANESE Autumn in Japan Japanese Screens and the Gardens of Kyoto Balancing Act: A Contemporary Garden for Kyoto's Oldest House Tea and Empathy: The Japanese House, Shofuso, in Fairmount Park Rice Paddy in the Sky: Rooftop Garden at the Mori Center Plum Blossoms: The Third Friend of Winter CHAPTER SEVEN. FLOWER SHOWS Courson: French International Flower Sale At Chelsea Flower Show: Gardens in Romantic Ruins Free to Grow Bluebells in England: British Prisoners Win Gold Medal A Garden Festival in Lausanne Epilogue. A Winter Garden of Yellow Afterword -John Dixon Hunt Acknowledgments Index Photography Credits

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Details

• NCID: BB13183695
• ISBN:
  • 9780812242669
• LCCN: 2010021357
• Country Code: us
• Title Language Code: eng
• Text Language Code: eng
• Place of Publication: Philadelphia
• Pages/Volumes: xvii, 363 p.
• Size: 25 cm
• Classification:
  • LCC : SB465
  • DC22 : 635
• Subject Headings:
  • LCSH : Gardens
  • LCSH : Gardens -- History
  • LCSH : Gardens -- Design -- History
  • LCSH : Landscape architecture -- History
• Parent Bibliography ID:
  • BA44435321