Niall Hobhouse to FOA on Garden and Landscape research
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.