The exercise at your request of making a list of my most admired gardens was valuable, even if I am not sure where it leads for our project. In the first place, the diversity of scale, type, period, cultural origin, must be a clue of sorts. The question for me is whether this has to do with simple idiosyncrasy of taste, or with shared characteristics that it is useful to identify. The questions for you (or the project) are more complicated, and I have tried to answer them in one way at the end of this commentary.

My observations of my own preference in designed landscapes are as follows. They may all be different ways of saying the same thing.

1. Departures from the norms of practice that are calculated, rather than designs that in themselves represent the new departures; and never the classic set pieces like Stowe or Versailles.

2. Integration of the possibilities of site into the process of design:- climate, soil, pre-existing intervention, above all topography. An opportunistic economy in the engineering and technical expedients adopted as a response to these characteristics. Never impositions, or not grand ones anyway (again, no Stowe or Versailles).

3. A dislike of representation or imposed narratives. Again I’m equivocal about Stowe or Versailles (or Munsted Wood for that matter), because they are so clearly saying something; most disturbingly for me, saying something about their owners. Put another way, I am interested only in landscape design that questions the boundary between what is natural, or ‘natural’, and what is designed. This is fiendishly difficult because it involves a different and changing perception of nature, and questions of scale: A tree, even a ‘native’ one, is natural enough, but it becomes a designed artefact the moment it is intentionally planted. And then a wild landscape, even an ungardened one, itself becomes an artefact when the tree is planted, and a different sort of artefact if the tree is ‘native’, naturalized or ‘exotic’.

It is the same with what one removes -what really is being made when a vista is cut through an old wood? In time, any of these gestures are themselves distorted by growth, neglect and decay - of the plants, and of the original intent of the designer. The great landscape somehow survives this process, often only by accident.

Of course I see the Hadspen project as trying to find the magic formula that can guarantee survival.

4. (and most problematic for modernists). Any garden or landscape plays on expectation:- of what’s near or far, large or small, flat or inclined, open or closed, empty or dense, simple or contrived, a compression or an escape. I particularly like the ones that do this just for it’s own sake- not, as at Stowe or Versailles, towards a single grandiose effect, or, as at Munsted, towards a (literal) extension of domesticity.

For me the key words are delight, surprise, mystery. But modernist principle requires that technique should always be legible, which is one reason I like the old gardens I do. So one has to think, say, of really sophisticated conjuring, or conjuring to a really sophisticated audience; or even (remember this one?) of baroque stage design. ……..after such knowledge, what forgiveness?…….. As yet we have not had the moment of visceral certainty that is needed to recognize that you have succeeded. I am not really bothered by this (if a little by the weight that Emory feels on his shoulders) and am quite content to battle on the way we are going. Below are two possible new lines of approach that you might adopt (not necessarily mutually exclusive, or indeed alternatives to what has been done already):

Firstly- and obviously- to relentlessly follow the line of intellectual argument, putting the analysis of the nature of artificiality (as 3.above) and the mechanics of illusion (as 4.) at the centre of the functional brief. Interesting and scary; I can think of plenty of reasons why we might not succeed, not least that we would have to build all the possible ideal gardens on the Hadspen site in an effort to understand what their foundations had in common.

Secondly, we might argue as follows: the project to date has been congested because we have excluded a requirement for it to be beautiful in itself, rather than become beautiful when the gardeners have done their stuff. In fact, the gridded terrain ought to be the first incarnation of the new garden landscape, and be seen to be good in its own right.

Also, because the detailed planting remains an unknown, the planting areas are awkward voids that leave you wrestling with paths, circulation, and terracing as the drivers of the scheme. I think this is wrong. The visitor should walk on the grass, and from one grass area to another; the grid is demarcated by its edges, not as paths. The edging can be combined with the service ducting we need, and the water and soil retention barriers as required.

a. You have said that the inherent character of the topography inside the ‘D’ wall is a given that should not be obscured (even if it might be reinforced).I agree. So why play with the ground plane at all? None of the gradients are too extreme for plants to grow, or people to move.

b. We remove all paths and vegetation from the site, and sow grass (as the most neutral surface available in the context).

c. FOA determines just the logic, form and scale of the grid to be imposed on the grass surface, and the nature of the material we use to define it. This is certainly simpler; I am not saying it is easy. There are ideas that we can take from the ‘formal’ discourse above, and others to be developed from the analysis of function and functionality already completed.

d. Everything else- plants, voids, lawns, ponds, circulation, enclosure- is left for the gardeners to elaborate, both in competition and over successive generations. Do you remember Ricky’s observation- that if you make the brief complicated enough then Alejandro and his team will feel able to propose something really simple?

here’s a list as promised. It takes no account of scales or typologies (ie landscape and garden are interchangeable concepts.)

To make your researches easier I have used the Birkhauser book for examples as far as is possible. Loose groupings, no significant order.

The principle for inclusion is simple- a clear memory of being thrilled.

Chantilly (alone in France); Gamberaia, Cetinale, Caprarola; Villa Giulia (or better, the Villa Imperiale, Pesaro); The Shalimar and Nishat Baghs (both Kashmir, each different),Itimad-ud-Daula at Agra; Levens (topiary garden); Hestercombe( Lutyens bit only); Sissinghurst (garden room sequences, and the colonization of older structures),Hidcote; Buscot, Runnymede, and Shute (particularly)-all G. Jellicoe; Castle Drogo (partic. arrival sequence and croquet lawn); C.Sorensen:- Allotments at Mearum(?sp) (in the original file for Alejandro I think),Lewerens:-Eastern Cemetery in Malmo, Southern Cemetery in Stockholm-both the Asplund and Lewerens bits; Rousham and Studley Royal (the UK greats); Taliesin East (whole landscape as well as area around the house, and the ‘agricultural’ terracing, now gone; Mies:-the Wolf House terracing, if I understand how it was; Central Park (maybe- but south of Met); and a rococo flourish:- Veitshochheim, Marlia, Villa Garzoni at Collodi, Queluz (or better, Fronteira).

Am uneasy with all continental iterations of English landscape gardens except, perhaps, Worlitz; and with most English imitations of European formal ones, except perhaps by Blomfield.

I think I dislike Chinese gardens, and I haven’t been to Iran or Lahore, or to Japan for long enough.

I notice that there is, curiously, no Capability Brown on the list. Also, its thin on English arts and crafts gardens-not because I don’t like them but the individual ones don’t stand out, and they are too much at the whim of whoever is trying to manage them today. (This last point perhaps interesting in our context- flower and shrub planting seems too ephemeral to qualify without powerful ‘structure’ to go with it.)

For me, there is a clear problem with high Modernism and the outdoors; perhaps this is the one we are trying to solve at Hadspen? You may see something in this that I don’t, but I’m not convinced it’s a useful direction. I will write a separate note as to why this is or might be, and at the same time try to identify the common factors; will let you both have it early next week.

Thinking about alternatives for the garden next year.

Option 1.

- As discussed previously, so as not to lose momentum, we keep the garden and teahouse open.

- This would involve management ( taking bookings, payroll, book keeping, banking, etc.) and financing, but also a virtually guaranteed income.

- Expenses would include wages for a part time ( 2-3 full days each week of opening) gardener, grass & hedge contractor, rent, services ( telephone, card machine, water, business rates, septic cleaning ) printing, advertising, public liability insurance, accounting fees, bank charges, and probably more, about £15,000.

- Income based on an average of the last 4 years less 20%, which reflects this years downturn, is about £28,000 but of course this will alter with the loss of the nursery..

- As we have said we are committed to giving 3 months( March,April,May ) to make a smooth transition and to organize bookings now for you but we cannot finance the year or be responsible for the management when we are not there.

- Sarah and Rosy are willing to work during this time but are actively seeking full time employment which of course they will accept if Hadspen does not have anything to offer. Sarah in fact is off to South Africa in the autumn but will hopefully return.

- During this time we would be looking for a nurseryman and exploring nursery options.

Option 2.

- With this option the loss of momentum would occur but could be overcome.

- We close everything at the end of September and put all energies into the new project with press releases to the Tour Companies, magazines, maybe a series on the development, a chance to issue the competition and really push the project for a Grand opening in 2007.

- Lost revenue would be offset by lowered operating costs, an opportunity to get on with some preliminary preparations, and the issues of management and day to day running of the garden would be minimized.