History
Landscape architecture as a profession dates from the mid-1800’s. But as an art, it has been practiced for thousands of years. For example, many homes in ancient Rome had elaborate courtyards. Other early examples include the gardens of ancient Persia and Japan. The Italians designed and built beautiful hillside estates and civic plazas during the 1400’s and 1500’s. France in the 1600’s and 1700’s was noted for its magnificent palaces and its city gardens. English designers planned natural-looking country estates during the 1800’s. Many of these early projects were gardens and country estates, and the designers were often called landscape gardeners. Frederick Law Olmsted, an American, was the first person to call himself a landscape architect. In the 1850’s, Olmsted and Calvert Vaux designed New York City’s Central Park. When Olmsted signed these plans, he placed the words landscape architect under his name. He saw his job as creating outdoor environments much as architects plan buildings. In 1899, his followers formed the American Society of Landscape Architects, the profession’s national organization. The Italian and French Baroque Garden. André Le Nôtre (1613-1700), who for over twenty years had held the office of Director-General of Royal Buildings in France, was known in all the countries of Europe as the most significant garden architect. During the reign of Louis XIV (1661-1715), the French garden, on which he had decisively set his stamp, developed into an imposing work of art, of a brilliance which outshone all other gardens in Europe. The incomparable gardens of Vaux-le-Vicomte, the Tuileries in Paris, and finally – as undisputed crown – Versailles, were at least predominantly created by Le Notre.
Sebastiano Serlio (1475-1554) was the Italian master architect and theoretician of architecture. His knot and spiral ornaments laid out with symmetrical axes influenced parterre design not only of the Renaissance but also, and especially, of the French Barouque. Ground plans for beds Engraving from the 4th book of S.Serlio’s tract, 1537. Villa Lante, Parterre.
Hampton Court is a good example of how French concepts were taken up and put into practice. The alleys leading outward from a rondel in the shape of a star to structure the park or garden site were popular and easy to lay out. The pathways often provided interesting views of distant church steeples or of fountains installed within the garden area. The golden age of Hampton Court falls in the reign of King William. Christopher Wren, the most famous architect in Europe at that time, was commissioned in 1689 to extend the palace, following the model of Versailles. A semicircular ornamental garden was created in front of the east wing of the palace. The alleys and the canal were pushed back. Gravel paths interspersed with rondels and fountains, as extensions of the alleys and the canal, now cut through the semicircular main parterre as far as the garden frontage of the palace. This area was adorned with thirteen larger and smaller fountains along with numerous sculptures, so that even then people spoke of the Great Fountain Garden.
Russia. It is not until the 18th century that it is possible to speak of a specifically Russian garden culture. Peter the Great studied architecture and garden design on his extended journeys through Europe. He drew much inspiration from Holland, England, and Germany. In 1715 the czar decided to have a summer residence built facing St. Petersburg on the south coast of the Gulf of Finland. The location was favorable, as the terrace for the palace rises some 12 m above sea level at this point, and slopes quietly down to the sea. Petrodvorets, named after the czar, was to be built in the style of French Baroque residences with their adjoining gardens.
The entire layout is still there to be admired today: the double cascade on the two sides of a grotto, which descends via seven steps made of colored marble, edged with gilded figures into a pool. There an artificial cliff towers up, with a mighty Samson forcing open the lion’s mouth to allow a jet of water to spurt out of it. From the pool a canal edged with water jets flows quietly toward the sea. 2 Reading 2.1 Scanning. Look through the text and define whether your hypothesis is right. Compare the information from the text with your notes (1.1).
2.2 Skimming. Find in the text the answers to the questions you failed to respond before reading. Add the missing answers to the table (1.3).
2.3 Grammar. State the sense relations between words of the marked sentences by using the proposed algorithm in the Tips.
2.4 Lexis 2.4.1 Tick in the list (1.4) the words and expressions you realized after reading the text without dictionary. Write down their translation in the table and calculate the percentage of your ability to guess the meaning of the words from the context. 2.4.2 Find in the dictionary the words you could not translate. Write down their translation in the table (1.4) and calculate the percentage of new words you should learn. 2.5 Abstracting. Write an abstract using the algorithm proposed in the Tips. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………
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In 1679 André Le Nôtre set off on his long desired journey to Italy. During a visit to the gardens that were so celebrated in Europe, he was moved to comment that in matters of garden design the Italians were absolutely inexperienced. How could such a verdict be uttered, when the art of Italian architects, sculptors, and painters was regarded throughout Europe as the crowning glory of artistic skill?
Le Nôtre’s reasons were purely objective. The wonderful gardens of Italy were conceived in terms of space, and hence also of height, and not merely in terms of surface and size, as was the French approach. There, Le Nôtre tried to design something like a monumental natural painting, with at most some relief features. In Italy, sculpture, architecture, box tree, and bosket, all came together, concentrated in space. As regards plant bed ornamentation, Serlio’s patterns were still of central importance, whereas in France new and unusual kinds of planting were being carried out, as in the patterns composed of flower beds in conjunction with small ornamental trees and shrubs. France had moved to the forefront of Europe in garden design.
England. It cannot really be said that the English garden evolved entirely independently of continental developments, although English Baroque gardens differ in many details from French gardens.
In 1716 a pupil of Le Notre, Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond was brought to St. Petersburg to plan and build the palace and gardens. The garden extended from the palace terrace down to the sea. The czar had trees and plants brought in from all over Europe. Over 40,000 elms and maple trees from Russia, fruit trees from Italy, and many other exotic plants from the Near East were transported to St. Petersburg. The new plants thrived, despite the long and severe Russian winter.
