The Owner Built Home & Homestead
(Page 14 of 23)
I have great respect for one architect, however, who has
successfully expressed the Spieltrieb concept in a garden
plan for a modern Italian muralist. Bernard Rodofsky speaks
of his design in these terms:
RELATED CONTENT
What you need to know about locating your rural water supply, from the Have-More Plan....
One of the most overlooked sources of shop project raw material here in the U.S. and Canada is the ...
A barrel and sink make an excellent place to wash tools and work materials, includes materials list...
You can construct the home built cistern for relatively little expense and with a weekend's work....
How to build this accurate, helpful gauge, including diagrams, blueprints, instructions....
A free-standing wall, plain and simple, with no special
task assigned, today is unheard of. In a garden, such a
wall assumes the character of sculpture. Moreover, if it is
of the utmost precision and of a brilliant whiteness, it
clashes—as it should—with the natural forms of
the vegetation, and engenders a gratuitous and continuously
changing spectacle of shadows and reflections. And aside
from serving as the protection screen for the surrounding
plants, the wall creates a sense of order. Three abstract
murals compete with the umbrageous phantasmagories.
An old apple tree pierces one of the walls, lending it
(methinks) a peculiar monumental quality. The pergola is
reduced to almost linear design, and does not intend to
more than assist and coordinate. A wisteria has taken
possession of it in the space of a few months; bamboo
shades are hung from it in summer. The wiry appearance of
the poles is accentuated by bright colors. The solarium is
an ample room with immaculately white walls, a floor of red
brick set in sand and a diminutive lawn. Wall openings were
omitted to avoid drafts; the solarium is accessible by
stairs only.
Another exceptional landscape architect, Roberto Butte
Marx, expresses the Spieltrieb element in bold and positive
terms. His designs are curving freeform reactions
against symmetry and rectangularity. One of the more
interesting things about Burle Marx's gardens is his
attractive use of native plants—plants considered to
be mere weeds among other gardeners. He searches his native
(Brazil) jungles for indigenous plants and combines their
placement with a skillful use of stone mosaic and
waterpools.
The central purpose of this chapter is to offer the
home-builder a working outline for landscaping his new
home. For many years I have been collecting data which can
be used as a basis for good planting-design procedure. My
approach has not been along "modernistic" landscaping
lines—nor have I tried to analyze the even more
subjective and symbolic forms of traditional Chinese and
Japanese gardens. Rather, I have attempted to organize a
planting-design procedure which is based entirely on the
ecology of natural vegetation; the relationship, that is,
between plants, climate and soil as well as between one
type of plant and another. My theory is that, once this
harmony is created, the garden-beauty and comfort-producing
factors for man's garden enjoyment will be automatically
forthcoming. Then whatever else happens in the garden
landscape—in terms of the Spieltrieb element, for
instance—will be entirely up to the home-owner, his
personality and likes and dislikes. I would hope that this
latter aspect, too, will be automatically
forthcoming—once the landscape retains natural
balance.
Page:
<< Previous 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 | 14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
22 |
23 |
Next >>
