LARCH 060

Tuesday, March 2nd, 1999
Announcements: none

Lecture notes:

ENGLISH LANDSCAPE SCHOOL IN THE EARLY US. (C. 1800):

Land/environment:

• All of American Landscape
• Bountiful/ seemingly boundless
• Desire to preserve and conquer

Socio-cultural milieu:

• Independent- but still tied with England
• Classical influence in arts and learning
• Yeoman Farmer--educated farmer, Jefferson though they were able to be closer to god through farming

Design Expression:

• Classical Architecture
• Dependencies--hid working parts of estate and villages
• 
• ELS elements---serpentine roads, paths: tree clusters, large lawns, views were important
• Monticello: Italian meaning :"small mountain", hillside location, ongoing project, concept of planned villas. Villas suggest a head (mind) with appendages, related to a human body. Example of the utilization of ELS in the US.
• Thomas Jefferson: took ideas from other time periods, thought about new expression for American design. He wanted to incorporate boundless landscape in designs. Didn't approve of the Federalist style (using wood). Needed to establish a bold/powerful design. Looked to early Roman Republic, which really worked with views. He was interested in agriculture, resources from land, spiritual bounty from natural scenery. He went to England to visit the Brown estates and was persuaded to interpret them in his own.
• Villa Rotunda: Compared to Monticello, bold/powerful appearance, dome as a symbol, smaller than Monticello, express timeless concepts of new US Republic
• University of Virginia: Jefferson came up with concept of main campus, rejected disattatched buildings with vertical qualities. Jefferson thought this didn't reflect learning environment. He wanted something more open and embracing, similar to the idea of Monticello. head=library, dependencies=where living, classes, "academic villages", connected with collonades. Used Classical architecture as a learning device
• Very large lawns, strong statements of Southern architecture
• Terracing to enable elevation changes
• Jefferson felt that public design should not only be beautiful, but also represent something
• Used grid (survey) as a democratic ideal, no one person had more than another. This suggested control which contradicted Jefferson's thoughts
• FROM THE FILM: Arcadia concept: Rome connection, harmony of man with nature, and idea having to do with disenchantment of technology in cities. A state of being where you achieve balance between nature and technology