Topic #4: Landscape- Additional quick research to accompany your reading of Eccentric Spaces

Topic #4: Landscape- Additional quick research to accompany your reading of Eccentric Spaces

• Ha-has (recessed walls)

A ha-ha is a recessed landscape design element that creates a vertical barrier while preserving an uninterrupted view of the landscape beyond. Ha-has are used in landscape design to prevent access to a garden, for example by grazing livestock, without obstructing views. The name "ha-ha" may derive from the unexpected (i.e., amusing) moment of discovery when, on approach, the vertical drop suddenly becomes visible.In security design, the element is used to deter vehicular access to a site while minimizing visual obstruction.Most typically, ha-has are still found in the grounds of grand country houses and estates and act as a means of keeping the cattle and sheep out of the formal gardens, without the need for obtrusive fencing.

• Parco del Mostri

The Sacro Bosco ("Sacred Grove"), colloquially called Park of the Monsters(Parco dei Mostri in Italian), also named Garden of Bomarzo, is a Manieristic monumental complex located in Bomarzo, in the province of Viterbo, in northern Lazio, Italy. The garden was created during the 16th century, when Orsini's wife died, he created the gardens to cope with his grief. The design is attributed to Pirro Ligorio, and the sculptures to Simone Moschino. Situated in a wooded valley bottom beneath the castle of Orsini, it is populated by grotesque sculptures and small buildings located among the natural vegetation.The park of Bomarzo was intended not to please, but to astonish, and like many Mannerist works of art, its symbolism is arcane: examples are a large sculpture of one of Hannibal's war elephants, which mangles a Roman legionary, or the statue of Ceres lounging on the bare ground, with a vase of verdure perched on her head.

• Roman Forum

The Roman Forum, also known by its Latin name Forum Romanum (Italian: Foro Romano), is a rectangular forum (plaza) surrounded by the ruins of several important ancient government buildings at the center of the city of Rome. Citizens of the ancient city referred to this space, originally a marketplace, as the Forum Magnum, or simply the Forum.For centuries the Forum was the center of day-to-day life in Rome: the site of triumphal processions and elections; the venue for public speeches, criminal trials, and gladiatorial matches; and the nucleus of commercial affairs. Here statues and monuments commemorated the city's great men. The teeming heart of ancient Rome, it has been called the most celebrated meeting place in the world, and in all history. Located in the small valley between the Palatine and Capitoline Hills, the Forum today is a sprawling ruin of architectural fragments and intermittent archaeological excavations attracting 4.5 million sightseers yearly. An important function of the Forum, during both Republican and Imperial times, was to serve as the culminating venue for the celebratory military processions known as Triumphs.

• Boboli Garden

The Boboli gardens are one of the greatest open-air museums in Florence that embraces another site of culture in Florence, the Pitti Palace. The park hosts centuries-old oak trees, sculptures, fountains and offers peaceful shelter from the warm Florentine sun in summer, the beautiful colors of the changing foliage in the fall and smells of blooming flowers in the spring. The Boboli gardens are a spectacular example of "green architecture" decorated with sculptures and the prototype which inspired many European Royal gardens, in particular, Versailles. The name from which Boboli is thought to derive, and were bought in 1418 by Messer Luca Pitti. In 1549, the property was purchased by Cosimo I's wife Eleonora di Toledo, and was greatly enlarged to became the Medici family's new city residence.

• Jardin du Luxembourg

Le Jardin du Luxembourg, or the Luxembourg Garden, located in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, was created beginning in 1612 by Marie de' Medici, the widow of King Henry IV of France, for a new residence she constructed, the Luxembourg Palace. The garden today is owned by the French Senate, which meets in the Palace. It covers 23 hectares and is known for its lawns, tree-lined promenades, flowerbeds, model sailboats on its circular basin, and picturesque Medici Fountain, built in 1620. She commissioned Salomon de Brosse to build the palace and a fountain, which still exists. In 1612 she planted 2,000 elm trees, and directed a series of gardeners, most notably Tommaso Francini, to build a park in the style she had known as a child in Florence. The garden is largely devoted to a green parterre of gravel and lawn populated with statues and centred on a large octagonal basin of water, with a central jet of water; in it children sail model boats. The garden is famed for its calm atmosphere.

• Tivoli Garden

The Villa d'Este is a 16th-century villa in Tivoli, near Rome, famous for its terraced hillside Italian Renaissance garden and especially for its profusion of fountains. Villa d’Este, masterpiece of the Italian Garden, is included in the UNESCO world heritage list. With its impressive concentration of fountains, nymphs, grottoes, plays of water, and music, it constitutes a much-copied model for European gardens in the mannerist and baroque styles.The garden is generally considered within the larger –and altogether extraordinary-- context of Tivoli itself: its landscape, art and history which includes the important ruins of ancient villas such as the Villa Adriana, as well as a zone rich in caves and waterfalls displaying the unending battle between water and stone. The imposing constructions and the series of terraces above terraces bring to mind the hanging gardens of Babylon, one of the wonders of the ancient world.

• Bernini's Four Rivers

Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fountain of the Four Rivers) is a fountain in the Piazza Navona in Rome, Italy. It was designed in 1651 by Gian Lorenzo Bernini for Pope Innocent X whose family palace, the Palazzo Pamphili, faced onto the piazza as did the church of Sant'Agnese in Agone of which Innocent was the sponsor. The base of the fountain is a basin from the centre of which travertine rocks rise to support four river gods and above them, an ancient Egyptian obelisk surmounted with the Pamphili family emblem of a dove with an olive twig. Collectively, they represent four major rivers of the four continents through which papal authority had spread: the Nile representing Africa, the Danube representing Europe, the Ganges representing Asia, and the Río de la Plata representing the Americas. Bernini's design was selected in competition. Public fountains in Rome served multiple purposes: first, they were highly needed sources of water for neighbors in the centuries prior to home plumbing. Second, they were monuments to the papal patrons.

• Jean Dubuffet’s Jardin d'Emaille

Jardin d'Emaille 1974, a work of art that you can touch, that you can walk through, in which you are even allowed to play*! The world-renowned Jardin d’émail by Jean Dubuffet leaves an indelible impression on many visitors, young and old. The artificial, walled ‘garden’ was designed specifically for the Kröller-Müller Museum. The contrast between the bright white with jagged black lines and the natural surroundings is particularly stark. Once inside this art garden, the visitors can imagine themselves in a completely different world.

• Stowe Garden

Stowe House is a Grade I listed country house located in Stowe, Buckinghamshire, England. It is the home of Stowe School, an independent school and is owned by the Stowe House Preservation Trust. The gardens (known as Stowe Landscape Gardens), a significant example of the English garden style, along with part of the Park, passed into the ownership of The National Trust in 1989 and are open to the public. Stowe became widely renowned for its magnificent gardens created by Lord Cobham. The Landscape Garden was created in three main phases, showing the development of garden design in 18th-century England.

• Stourhead Garden

Stourhead is a 1,072-hectare (2,650-acre) estate at the source of the River Stour near Mere, Wiltshire, England. The estate includes a Palladian mansion, the village of Stourton, gardens, farmland, and woodland. Stourhead is part owned by the National Trust since 1946. The lake at Stourhead is artificially created. Following a path around the lake is meant to evoke a journey similar to that of Aeneas's descent into the underworld.  In addition to Greek mythology, the layout is evocative of the "genius of the place", a concept made famous by Alexander Pope. Buildings and monuments are erected in remembrance of family and local history.

Hillwood Mansion, Museum & Gardens Washington DC

Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens is a decorative arts museum in Washington, D.C., United States. The magnificent Hillwood Mansion, Museum & Gardens was established by heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post. Built in the 1950s, Hillwood’s thirteen acres are separated into garden rooms -- the Four Seasons Overlook, Rose Garden, French Parterre, Japanese Garden, Pet Cemetery, Friendship Garden, Lunar Lawn and Greenhouse.

• Viscaya Museum

International Harvester Vice President James Deering was not unusual in building a Florida winter home in the early 1900s.Deering’s choice of Miami—rather than the more established Palm Beach—was, however, uncommon and based in part on the fact that his father had already built a house in Coconut Grove.The planning and construction of Vizcaya lasted over a decade, from 1910 to 1922. James Deering wanted to create the myth that his Miami home was named after an explorer. In doing so, he lent to Vizcaya an air of foreign discovery and adventure, entirely appropriate for an estate that relied extensively on ideas and artifacts from across the Atlantic Ocean. He explained that he found the name Vizcaya to be “pretty in itself,” easily pronounced and evocative both of Spain and the Biscayne Bay location of his winter home. James Deering (1859–1925) was a retired millionaire who undertook the challenge to build an elaborate estate in South Florida.The early 20th century Vizcaya estate also includes: extensive Italian Renaissance gardens; native woodland landscape; and a historic village outbuildings compound. The landscape and architecture were influenced by Veneto and Tuscan Italian Renaissance models and designed in the Mediterranean Revival architecture style, with Baroque elements. Paul Chalfin was the design director.The villa was built primarily between 1914 and 1922, while the construction of the extensive elaborate Italian Renaissance gardens and the village continued into 1923. During the World War I years building trades and supplies were difficult to acquire in Florida. Vizcaya is noteworthy for adapting historical European aesthetic traditions to South Florida's subtropical ecoregion.

• Fairchild Tropical Garden

Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden is an 83-acre (34 ha) botanic garden, with extensive collections of rare tropical plants including palms, cycads, flowering trees and vines. It is located in the city of Coral Gables, Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States, just south of Miami, surrounded at the south and west by Matheson Hammock Park.The garden was established in 1936 by Robert H. Montgomery (1872–1953), an accountant, attorney, and businessman with a passion for plant-collecting.The garden opened to the public in 1938. It was named after his good friend David Fairchild (1869–1954), one of the great plant explorers. Dr. Fairchild's extensive travels brought more than 20,000 important plants to the United States, including mangos, alfalfa, nectarines, dates, horseradish, bamboos and flowering cherries.With the guidance of an influential circle of friends, Montgomery pursued the dream of creating a botanical garden in Miami. He purchased the site, named it after Dr. Fairchild, and later deeded it in large part to Miami-Dade County.