Historical Gardens » Fieldwork

An inspirational garden in Paris

HvdE — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 20:17:19 +0000

Because The Netherlands currently experiences the lowest temperatures in decades (-15 to -20), my thoughts automatically went to a warmer time: last summer. I visited Paris and some parks there in september. Only later I connected a garden feature I saw there, with a new Dutch garden design presented earlier in the year.

The garden feature can be seen in the westernmost corner of Parc André Citroën: a long wedge-shaped parterre (if one can make that reference) filled with box, clipped in the shape of blocks of irregular height and size. It is one of the more interesting modern features of the Parisian park. It is a strong visual element, in part because of its size and shape, in part because it is still a playful feature despite of the sharply defined shapes.
This part of the park, designed in the early 1990s, must have been inspirational for a design of a ‘keurtuin’ by Michael van Gessel. In old Dutch, the word ‘keur’ refers to a certain set of ‘regulations’ imposed by the local government. A ‘keur’ typically specified the maximum height of fences between gardens, where the supports should be placed, how far from the fence a building could be situated, which maximum height that building could have, etc. In this case it refers to the regulations drafted for the areas enclosed by blocks of houses in Amsterdam’s inner city canal area. ‘Keurtuin’ seems to be a relatively new term for the gardens (I can’t find historical references calling them this way).

Presented with the task to create a new design for one of the gardens in such a block (Het Grachtenhuis), Van Gessel decided to recreate the surrounding housing block, using a combination of corten steel and box for the houses, and flowering plants that represent the gardens within them. The work was presented on the Cascade weblog in 2011.¹ The result is a rectangular area with irregular blocks of clipped box, with an open area in the middle where the flowering plants go.

The photo by Lonneke Stulen, compared with my own photo made in Paris, shows the similarities between the two. And although there are many differences, I cannot imagine that Michael van Gessel never visited Parc André Citroën or saw pictures of it. The image must have stuck in the mind and -probably subconsciensly- influenced the designer.

An inspirational garden indeed
And while I was thinking about the subject, I realised that a very different design in another European capital may also be indebted to this relatively simple garden feature. From a formal perspective, the Memorial for the murdered Jews of Europe (Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas) in Berlin bears remarkable resemblances with the blocks of box. Peter Eisenman won the design competition in 1997 (after a long selection process that had started in 1994), only five years after the completion of Parc André Citroën in 1992. The similarity lies not only in the use of blocks placed closely together, but also in the undulating surface area of the total element -the result of using blocks with a height difference.
Scale, meaning, impact and materials used are quite different of course, and architect Peter Eisenman may not have been familiar with the relatively isolated part of Parc André Citroën where the box blocks are. But the landscaping in Berlin was supervised by landscape architect Laurie Olin.² I do not know how the artistic process evolved, but somewhere in the process Olin must have realised he had seen something like this before, in a relatively new park that received much attention from landscape architects in the first years after its completion. If not, he may do so now, together with the rest of us.

The blog post is currently only available ‘in cache’ as the website itself experienced hosting problems in the autumn of 2011 and started anew. Therefore, it may not be accessible after a while. [back]
A less mentioned fact, but it is mentioned in the margin of the rerelease of one of his essays on landscape architecture: Laurie Olin; ‘Form, Meaning and expression in Landscape Architecture’, in: Marc Treib [ed], Meaning in Landscape Architecture & Gardens. Four Essays, Four Commentaries (Abingdon/New York 2011), pages 70 and 80, image 1.10. [back]

Parc Monceau, Atget and me

HvdE — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 09:37:04 +0000

The Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam hosted a big Eugene Atget exhibition, which I visited on the last day it showed here, before it ships to Paris. That is of course the city that inspired Atget to make an enormous amount of photos. He avoided the new Paris, with its grand avenues, and focussed on the Paris he saw disappearing rapidly.
But some things have survived over the course of the 20th century and into ours. Like this plane tree he photographed in Parc Monceau in 1901:

Parc Monceau (8e arr), originally uploaded by George Eastman House.

This photo is not in the exhibition, it is in the collection of the George Eastman House. When I saw this in their photostream on flickr, I immediately knew I had seen this tree earlier this year. I took my photo from the opposite side, where on Atget’s photo the path runs into a group of trees and shrubs. Needless to say the tree is enormous now, after 110 years of additional growth.
Enjoy the combination of then and now, with the link above, and the following photos taken in September 2011:

19th century renovations at Saint-Cloud

HvdE — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 00:12:55 +0000

A visit to Saint-Cloud is a visit to a heavily restored and renovated garden. Even before one sets foot in the garden, attention is drawn to a board explaining that a storm in 1999 caused so much damage, that extensive restoration was necessary. In normal circumstances, the results of this work would really show. It does, but in a good way. Many avenues consist of younger specimens, but as they all are the same age, a sense of consistency throughout the garden prevails.
André Le Notre’s design for Louis XIV’s younger brother is still maintained and rejuvenated.

This consistency might have its roots in the history of the garden itself: in 1870, a fire destroyed the castle, leaving only the garden to focus on in terms of monumentality and maintenance. But that explanation is too easy, there is more.¹

All photos by HvdE 2011.
Mind: this slideshow may not work well on iPad.
Fact: clicking any separate picture in the slideshow opens the original image.

One of the central parts of the garden still leans heavily on the original Le Notre design. Slightly west of where the castle used to be it has retained the terraced layout, the ponds with their many fountains and the avenues radiating from (or towards) one central point of focus. The statues dotted along the side of the paths that enclose the ponds, are consistent with an original 17th century layout. But the statues all seem to be 19th century productions. More than one have the date 1866 chisseled in their bases. Nearby an elegant but weird pond-cascade-statue combo displayes clear late 19th century features (this may be dating from a bit later, 1890s or something). What happened in this section the garden?

It seems these 19th century features are not directly connected with the 1870 fire, as the statues are from around 1866 and I do not want to presume the fire was premeditated.² A plaquette in the garden points out that there used to be an orangery placed near the west facade of the castle. The orangery formed part of the original 17th century garden, but it was demolished in 1863. That destruction might have been part of a larger plan to restore or renovate the garden near the west facade, including fixing the pond area. But there is no sign in the garden that could tell me anything about this part of its history. I could be wrong, you know…

At the moment, only the plaquette and the dates on the statues’ bases testify to what might have happened during that period. Restoration work still continues in other parts of the garden, and one avenue that borders directly to this part of the garden wil be restored or renovated in the next years. It would be great when the domain’s owner, Le Centre des monuments nationaux, could set up one of their famous signs to further detail this otherwise forgotten part of Saint-Cloud’s history.

After all, it is often hard enough to reconstruct the development of a garden when no restoration or renovation has taken place. It is so much more difficult when these have occured, but are not identified as such. Though I do like the puzzles they offer, too…

Great pictures of the castle when intact, a depiction of the fire, and photos of the castle after the fire can be found following the links. [back]
A canon ball used in the war between France and the Prussians set fire to the castle on October 13, 1870 -the Prussians had sieged the castle just three weeks earlier. [back]

Wörlitz, Borghese and a Selene altar

HvdE — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 17:34:30 +0000

There is a peculiar stand-alone altar in the gardens of Wörlitz, the famous early landscape garden laid out by the Von Anhalt-Dessau family from 1767 onwards. Standing near the kitchen building, close to the palace, it caught my eye when I visited the garden in 2009. The sides of the circular altar are dotted with reliefs of isolated figures, denoting the moon goddess Selene, Oceanos, some other figures and a few downward facing torches. It just seems a perfectly strange iconographic mix.

An altar as a weird conundrum, and as I thought at the time, quite unique.
An altar similar to this takes a prominent place in a portrait of Louise Henriette Wilhelmine von Anhalt-Dessau, painted in 1799 (picture obviously taken from a book cover). But the proportions do not match – the real one is thicker and lower- and the figures on the painted altar are closer to each other. Also, the Selene that is visible on the painting is in a slightly different angle in comparison with the real altar I saw at Wörlitz.

We could file those differences as the result of the artist’s freedom. But there are at least two of these altars, I found out during a visit to the Louvre earlier this year. In a statue gallery in the Roman sculpture section I saw the altar pictured below (with apologies for the image quality, there was not much light and I only had a phone at my disposal).¹

The Louvre altar shows more figures and in general has more in common with the painted Selene altar on Louise’s portrait. According to the museum’s information, the altar used to stand in the Diana Temple in the Villa Borghese gardens and there is a Ch. Percier drawing from 1790 mounted to the wall to prove that. The moon goddess Luna (Selene in Greek) and Diana were ultimately seen as similar figures, so the appearance of a 2nd century altar depicting Selene in a temple dedicated to Diana in a Renaissance garden is not particularly strange.²
The altar at Wörlitz does not look like a roman example. More likely it is a neoclassical remake or pastiche of known examples such as the Borghese altar. It is hihgly likely that the owners of Wörlitz either visited the Borghese garden, or knew drawings or prints of the Temple of Diana.
It is obvious from the painting that the iconography was important for the family. But it would be nice to know for certain how this altar with this particular iconography came to adorn the majestic gardens of Wörlitz.

Musee du Louvre (Inventaire MR 952, Nro usuel Ma 508); purchased by the museum in 1807. The museum is also in doubt with respect to the identity of the two young men. [back]
The altar was purchased 17 years after the Percier drawing. At this moment a new Empire-style altar occupies the temple in Villa Borghese. [back]

On gradual loss

HvdE — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 14:02:42 +0000

Yesterday I made a flash visit to the Koepel van Stoop.¹ Having been there over a year ago, I thought I’d look how the then heavily pruned trees were holding up. I say heavily pruned, but I mean prepared for removal.

Photos HvdE 2010 and 2011.
Mind: this slideshow may not work well on iPad.
Fact: clicking any separate picture in the slideshow opens the original image.

I don’t know why I thought the trees were just heavily pruned, I probably did not want to think of the more rigorous option, which also resulted in cutting down a horse chestnut just north of the building. A little bit of reading could have pointed me in the right direction.
The building is in use as a studio for the artist Mijpe since 2005. Her website shows the reason for the removal of these trees: a storm in May 2009 damaged a number of beech trees near the building. To avoid damage to the cupola -which was restored in 2003- by the remainder of the trees, these have been removed from March 2010 onwards.

My only question is: is there any plan to replant the group of trees on this location? A photo in the archive of the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (RCE) shows what a background they offer, a magnificent view that is now lost. I’m guessing the trees dated back to the 1840s, and as such are part of either that design by Zocher, or of the initial plans for the establishment of an estate on this location by Stoop. Both arguments speak for a completion of the 2003 cupola restoration in its original context (i.e. cupola complete with group of trees).
Or do we accept the gradual loss of quality and context between this building and its surroundings?

This building was built in 1840 for the Amsterdam banker J.B. Stoop, who intended to create an estate on this location. It was designed by architect J.D. Zocher jr. Problems with watermanagement on this location caused Stoop to choose an alternative location. In nearby Zeist he built Molenbosch, also a design by J.D. Zocher jr. [back]

Lion statues cross the Atlantic

HvdE — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 22:06:11 +0000

Previously on this blog:
1. I discovered a striking similarity between lion statues placed at De Paauw (ca. 1855, Wassenaar, The Netherlands) and at Drottningholm (ca. 1865, Stockholm, Sweden).
2. Before I came round to explaining how these estates, and therefore the statues, were related through the Dutch Royal family at the time, I found more similar lion statues in the garden of Powerscourt (1850-1867, Wiclow, Ireland), whose owner does not seem to have had any relationship at all with that Royal family.
3. A description of that garden gave us the source for all of these lion statues: the Egyptian statues situated at the bottom of the stairs to the Palatine mountain in Rome.

So we have three instances where similar lion statues appear in gardens across Northern Europe, in a very limited period: between 1850 and 1867. And their inspiration, which is much older, originated far more south and travelled across the Mediterranean from Egypt to Rome.
This all suggests a sculptor’s studio produced copies of the original in small numbers, during a short period in the third quarter of the 19th century.

And then photo’s of Scott fountain at Belle Isle Park started to appear in the photo group on Flickr. This fountain was started in 1919, finished in 1925 and created by architect Cass Gilbert and sculptor Herbert Adams. Around the base four lions play a role in the elaborate waterworks of the fountain.

The similarities with the 19th century statues are obvious. Compared to the ones at De Paauw (above) the Detroit statues (right) show the details in more relief, but the lions in Wassenaar seem to have the smoothest finish of them all. Seen from the side the Belle Isle Park lions look very much like the originals in Rome (see the HGimages link below this post for more photos).

But the gap between the occurance of these statues is over half a century.

Why Herbert Adams (1858-1945) used these lions, and where he got his inspiration from, is material for further research. He went to Europe in the 1880s, where he worked for French sculptor Antonin Mercié, who consequently created two statues in the US in 1890 and 1891.
Adams’ work consists mainly of busts and statues of people, he may even have only sculpted the Scott-statue situated near the fountain. In that case Cass Gilbert (1859-1934) could have chosen to install exactly these four lion statues on the fountain.

Amidst all the uncertainties, it is clear that the Palatine lions remained an inspiration for sculptors far into the 20th century, even outside Europe. Whether they were mass produced as copies since the 1850s, or whether they kept inspiring individual artists over and over again, remains to be seen.

Garden bunkers unearthed

HvdE — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 20:19:24 +0000

In my previous post I mentioned the WW II bunkers in the garden of Beeckestijn. I had not planned it this way, but this weekend I visited the garden of Toorenvliedt (Middelburg) and noticed several bunkers from the same era there.¹ Like at Beeckestijn, the Toorenvliedt bunkers were covered with a layer of soil after the war, with plantations on them.

But where Beeckestijn seems to have buried the bunkers for good, another approach is taken in recent years at Toorenvliedt. A small foundation successfully urged the Middelburg council to revive this part of the cities’ history.² It was decided to unearth one of the bunkers completely, and install an information center in it. In 2008 the bunker resurfaced, was connected to the electricity grid and the interior was adapted to its modern purpose. Now it is open at least once a year, but I’m sure the foundation wants it to be open more frequently.

Photos HvdE 2011; map and RAF photo courtesy of watwaswaar.nl; aereal photo of new layout and photo of destruction courtesy of Zeeuws achief.
Mind: this slideshow may not work well on iPad.
Fact: clicking any separate picture in the slideshow opens the original image.

Toorenvliedt is an 18th century garden with 19th century alterations to house and garden. It was completely destroyed in 1944, when this part of Zeeland was inundated after the allied forces caused the sea dykes to break -in order to get the German forces to leave. The Germans left fairly quickly, the water stayed for over a year. Apart from all kinds of major damage to cities and human suffering, it also left an arid plain where once the almost 200 year old garden of Toorenvliedt had been. Only the ponds seem to have survived the flood.

That garden was redesigned and replanted shortly after the war, basically swiping its concequences under the rug.³ But the design and the trees were new and the park has now matured into a public park for the surrounding residential areas.

Knowing that, it makes sense to attempt to revive the memory of the devastation of those last war years by opening this bunker. Some of the other bunkers in the garden are also (partly) visible for the public. This way they present a more vivid reminder of the war period than the artifical hills at Beeckestijn now do. In January the Middelburg council decided to embed the work that needs to be done in and around the park in a participation in the European project “World War II Heritage”.

And then I thought: why not do the same at Beeckestijn? Beeckestijn yearns back to its 18th century splendour, but never seems to get it right, because there is no money or because there is no coherent plan (or both).
WW II was as instrumental for Beeckestijn as it was for Toorenvliedt: it meant a new beginning for both gardens. Maybe even more so for Beeckestijn, where the devastations of the war meant the end of a long period of neglect and the start of a new period of bloom.⁴
I don’t see why this part of the estate’s past should remain buried.

The bunkers formed part of a defense unit built by German soldiers as part of the Atlantik Wall, called Stützpunkt Brünhild. [back]
The foundation is called Stichting Bunkerbehoud. [back]
The garden was designed by C.P. Broerse in 1948. [back]
I make it sound more easy here than it actually was: the life of the garden was in danger for over a decade after the war before the decision to restore it was made. [back]

Representing the unknown

HvdE — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 15:21:11 +0000

The find of a 2700 year old garden in Ramat Rachel just south of Jerusalem is spectacular enough to get the imagination going. Luckily for us the garden was well preserved, that is: the irrigation canals and foundations of buildings surrounding the garden. Scientists will do various soil and pollen research in order to find out which plants grew here.
The result of their ongoing research might tell us more about the similarities and differences between this garden in modern day Israel and Mesopotamian gardens from around the same date. Mesopotamian gardens from the Assyrian kings Sargon II (721-705 BC) and Sennacherib (704-681 BC) in and near Nineveh (near modern day Mosul, Iraq) could have greatly influenced the layout of this Ramat Rachel garden. Lying in Judah, Ramat Rachel became part of a vassal kingdom of Assyriah in the 7th century BC, around the time these Mesopotamian gardens were at their prime. But the differences must have been large as well, knowing that both places lie some 900 kilometers apart. I’m very curious what the archaeologists will find.

The Unknown

An intriguing insight into the way the garden looks to the archaeologists is presented by Boaz Gross from Tel Aviv university, as presented on the LiveScience.com website (click image to enlarge). We see different kinds of trees within an enclosed space. There is water supply by what seems to be some sort of aqueduct supported by arches, letting the water run into and through the garden through irrigation channels.
But this drawing is intriguing not because what it tells us about the garden. For instance, it doesn’t give any information about dimensions, territory, about the organisation of plants, nor does it tell us what the paths looked like or -bar one- where they were.
It intrigues because of the way it looks.

The Representation

Neo-Assyrian bas relief in the British Museum (645-635 BC, reg.nr. 1856,0909.36). probably Possibly a representation of the Hanging Gardens.

The drawing immediately sprung out because it does not show what the garden looks like, it shows how a garden would have been represented in ancient times. And I was impressed. Because it is very difficult to draw something you have no first hand impression of, and not make it look like something produced in your own day, like something remotely familiar to you.¹
And then I found it: the drawing of what the Ramat Rachel garden may have looked like, is an almost exact copy of a bas relief now kept in the British Museum (including the man standing in a doorway, wearing a pointy hat). The relief is believed to be a representation of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, or of gardens similar to these. Researchers now believe these hanging gardens were located in Nineveh.

Which makes it a very appropiate illustration, given the ties between the regions, but not a representation of what the Ramat Rachel garden may have looked like (let alone an ‘artistic impression‘). The archaeologist knew that, the science websites missed it.
Like I said: I’m very curious to see what the archaeologists will find.

The quite detailed description of Pliny’s garden near Rome has inspired artists in the 17th and 18th century to draw plans of that garden, based on the description alone; and every plan is more telling of the garden style in the artists time than of Pliny’s garden. [back]

A hidden hill near Wegdam

HvdE — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 20:38:03 +0000

Three weeks ago I visited the marvelous garden of Weldam, which I’ll discuss another time. After that I revisited a small wooded area nearby, where I had seen something interesting earlier. In October 2008 I stumbled upon a small elevation or hill at the edge of the woods. I immediately recognised it as man-made and probably part of a park layout, but couldn’t link it to an estate or garden. Somewhat later on that trip I passed the house of Wegdam, but couldn’t piece the two together.

Photos by HvdE. Maps from watwaswaar.nl, with adaptations by HvdE. The layout of Wegdam was right on the edge of many older maps, that is the reason why some of the maps above show only part of that layout.

My recent visit taught me why: a visual relation between hill and house is only possible when the trees have no leaves. Trees were just budding in the beginning of April, and I could now spot Wegdam‘s front door from the top of the hill (see my badly focussed photo).

The difficult part in linking both was that the landscape garden at Wegdam has a visual axis that slightly bends to the right. I took a photo from in front of the house and completely mistook the visual axis for the central axis, although I tried to compensate. The elevation is hidden in the woods to the left of this visual axis. But it appears to be exactly at the end of the central axis starting from the front door. This view is supported by careful examination of the maps, although they have not shown this feature until very recently.¹
Having established that Wegdam and the elavation belong to each other, the questions “what was it for?” and “how old is it?” immediately popped up. Without exhaustive research the answer to both questions must be: not certain, but I’ll give it a shot.

Use.
The elevation must have been visible from the main house, but would certainly have been more noticeable with an eye-catcher placed on it. Far from the house, seen from the Oude Needseweg, the hill (and anything adorning it) is reflected in the still water surface of a rectangular ditch or pond.² The hill must have had some kind of pavilion on it from which the surrounding landscape could be seen. It could have served as a resting place as well: halfway a walk over the winding paths in the park a short climb opened a vista towards the house where the walk had begun. A belvedere is the most logical use this feature could have had.

Age.
If we take the maps at face value, the hill must have been created between 1846 and 1889, together with the layout of the winding paths on what in 1832 was heathland alongside the Oude Needseweg. The ditch / pond between that road and the hill probably dates from the same period, although it was initially drawn as a road. During this period the small circular pond in the central axis near the house was also created.³
A change in ownership -albeit by marriage of the last heiress- might have inspired a new layout. Wegdam had been in hands of the Van Coeverden family for centuries, but was owned by members of the Amsterdam family Meyjes between 1849 and 1897. It is possible they decided to make a more elaborate layout around what up till then seems to have been a luxury farm.

This small hill and pond seem to be the only relics of the layout in the woods. The paths have disappeared under a thick layer of leaves. But it would be great to find out more about this place. If only because creating such a belvedere and mirror pond seems rather old fashioned for the period…
To be continued, I am sure.

The (1 : 25.000) topographical map of 1989 is the first map I have seen on which the small elevation is indicated. [back]
If common practise is followed here, the elevation was made with the soil dug out to create the pond. [back]
These ‘waterworks’ were probably necessary to improve the soil of the heathland, and make a garden layout possible. [back]

Historical Gardens » Fieldwork

An inspirational garden in Paris

Parc Monceau, Atget and me

Platanus at Monceau - side view

Platanus at Monceau - look at the size of the people

19th century renovations at Saint-Cloud

Rejuvenated avenues and the pond area.

Saint-Cloud in 1811.

Site of the old castle.

Saint-Cloud pond area.

Looking towards the location of the former orangery and castle.

Plaquette.

Dated statue in the pond area.

19th century addition to the garden.

Saint-Cloud - click to see the texts and lines.

Wörlitz, Borghese and a Selene altar

On gradual loss

Koepel van Stoop

View from the Koepel van Stoop

View from the north

Seen from the west

Almost removed beeches in May 2010

Beech trees removed (November 2011)

This horse chestnut is also cut down

Lion statues cross the Atlantic

Garden bunkers unearthed

Toorenvliedt

Partly_covered_bunker

The_unearthed_bunker

Toorenvliedt 1832

Toorenvliedt 1944

Toorenvliedt 1945

Toorenvliedt 1956

Representing the unknown

The Unknown

The Representation

A hidden hill near Wegdam

Wegdam through branches.

Wegdam with added central axis.

Wegdam survey 1832.

Wegdam in 1889 with park layout.

Wegdam in 1929.

Wegdam 2010 ditch and elevation.