Quotable Jens Jensen

5/2/2008

In 1939 Jens Jensen, the first "prairie style" landscape architect, published "Siftings."  This little book was a compilation of his musings throughout his years and is an easy, lilting read.  For this Friday's Good Things, I have grabbed a few of Jensen's more evocative quotes.  Enjoy.  (But be warned: the man had no love of politics, or engineers....)

 

The art of landscaping, like all other arts, is that of a fleeting thought that must be caught on the wing.

 

The study of curves is the study of life itself.  Curves represent the unchained mind full of mystery and beauty.  Straight lines belong to the militant thought.

 

Woodlands do not sing with the same rhythm as peaceful meadows and babbling brooks.  It is folly for the landscaper to think that one type of composition will fit them all.  Each problem has a different answer.

It is often stated, "the art of making landscapes is just a branch of architecture."  What comparison is there between the creating of a building, which fits into a narrow and limited space, and the creating of large pastoral meadows where the horizon is the boundary, ever changing in light and shadow with the clouds above, with the light of early morn, at eve when the rays of the setting sun cast their reflection upon the earth, in the silverly moonlight, and in the changing colors of spring and summer and fall and winter?

 

When the city engineer lays out a new highway, he destroys the romance, the daring, and the excitement of strong contours.  He is apt to make a toboggan-slide out of a concave curve by cutting too much at the top and filling too much in the middle.

 

Plants, like human beings, have their own individuality.  Some plants to be at their best need association in a small colony or group; others love the company of multitudes, forming a carpet on the forest floor or in the open.  Some speak much more forcefully alone, as, for instance, the cottonwood with its gray branches stretching up into the heavens as a landmark on the plains.

 

Most of our large cities have grown under the supervision of the politician or the speculator, and neither has the ability to know what makes a livable city.  To guide the city so that it will retain a livable atmosphere is the real purpose of town planning.

 

Once I suggested that the school board of the city of Chicago procure ten to fifteen acres around every school so that all schools would lie in parks....  I suggested that the park board and the school board unite in this very important task.  But my plan was met with defeat because one was Democratic and the other Republican.  What has politics to do with the best interests of our children?

 

And it will not be at all surprising if the city of tomorrow excludes the automobile.  Urban travel to the downtown areas of the large metropolis will be taken care of by public conveyance, and the art of walking will come back as a healthy necessity. 

Mies Re-re-thought

5/1/2008

In a recent Travelogue post I raved about the Farnsworth House.  I specifically noted my epiphany that International Style purveyor Mies van der Rohe was actually considering the landscape; that he built a home especially for the floodplain site.  Yesterday I wandered around the campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology and stopped at Crown Hall.

Same post detail, same travertine, same "float."  No floodplain in sight.  Yes, still a nice detail, but not a reaction to site.  Maybe his stuff really is just plop-architecture.

 

Council Rings

4/30/2008

Because I am writing an article on Jens Jensen, I have been visiting a lot of council rings.  Jensen was a landscape architect that practiced in the midwest throughout the first half of the last century.  He is known as the originator of the "prairie school" of landscape architecture, and the best-known purveyor of the style.   His portfolio includes several of Chicago's major parks, as well as private estates in Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. 

 

Jensen designed council rings for many of his landscapes.  He saw them as an expression of democracy, as well as touchstones (pardon the pun) of the prairie aesthetic.  Here are a few examples of council rings by (and inspired by) Jensen.

 

This one is at the respectfully named Jens Jensen Park in Highland Park, Illinois. 

This small triangle of open space is located near where Jensen had his private office.  An etched stone at the site says the park was renovated in 2007 by landscape architects Amy and Nick Patera.  Judging by the large number of etched stones, there was also (literal) buy-in by plenty of community members.  I like how the circle is interrupted by the tree, and the varied face of the wall is quite interesting.

 

At Techny Prairie Park in Northbrook, a portion of an interpretive trail discusses Jensen's career in the area.  The park's landscape architect, Hitchcock Design Group, included this council ring, with a fire circle in the middle.

Jensen mixed up what he populated his circles with.  Some have fire pits, some stone hearths, some nothing at all.  This project is pretty new.  Some age might soften it a bit.

 

Kenilworth's Mahoney Farm Bird Sanctuary, occupying a few acres on the Lake Michigan shore a few towns north of Chicago, has a large collection of council rings.

The whole site is on the National Register of Historic Places, and these rings are quintessentially Jensen: nestled in the woods, thin-lift outcropping limestone, and well-planned views.

(save the condo project in the background).  The several rings at Mahoney are about 20 feet across. 

 

Jensen's only council ring within Chicago is at Columbus Park, on the city's far west side.  It is about 40 feet across.

It was restored in 2003 by Wolff Landscape Architecture.  When they got a hold of it, the stone columns were mostly toppled, and the seats were half-buried, cracked, and scattered about.  Image courtesy Wolff Landscape Architecture.

This is an excellent example of a different type of ring, with piers instead of a continuous wall.  It makes for a different look, but is less structurally sound.  Wolff re-engineered the council ring by putting steel brackets below the stone seats to bear the weight.

It's pretty inconspicuous.  What makes this sing, though (as with most of Jensen's stone work, according to several landscape architects and a historian I have met with), is the stone itself.  That narrow, weathered face limestone is tough to find, so restoration with original stone makes a big difference. 

 

The Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool, designed in the 1930s by its namesake landscape architect, is considered by some to be the best surviving example of a prairie style landscape.  It is surviving because of an extensive restoration executed in the early 2000s by the Chicago Park District, Lincoln Park Conservancy, and Wolff Landscape Architecture (then Wolff Clements & Associates). 

This ring is located atop a hill overlooking the pool and its two wood pavilions.  It has a very formal (by prairie style standards) walkway leading to it, and the walls have some of the thinnest lifts of stone I've seen, and also the most "jagged."

Though this ring occupies a commanding position, it is still intimate, nestled into a small grove of trees.  This is key to prairie style design: seclusion simultaneous with well-calculated vantage points.  Picture a little woodlot at the edge of an open grassland and you'll see what these landscape architects were going for.

 

For the next month or so, I'll be looking at some of these and other "nouveau-Jensen" projects, considering the man's pertinence to designers today.  My best guess will appear this summer/fall in Landscape Architecture Magazine.  Stay tuned....

 

The Farnsworth House

4/28/2008

Humble Plano, Illinois, a small farmtown about 2 hours southwest of downtown Chicago, is, unexpectedly, home to one of the defining works of architecture in the United States.  The Farnsworth House, Mies van der Rohe's glass box on stilts, was an early attempt at applying the International School to residential architecture.  It inspired Philip Johnson's somewhat even more famous Glass House in New Canaan Connecticut (even though it was completed later). 

 

I visited Farnsworth last Sunday.  Spring was just poking its green fingers through the soil and the Fox River was full.  The floodplain in which the house sits was still raw from winter, seemingly fresh-mown.  Clutches of Virginia bluebells and early meadow rue colored the earth.  The house itself was hard-edged in contrast, and startlingly bright amidst the patterned grey tree trunks. 

I always thought the International Style was about being apart form the landscape, about creating an unornamented space that could, theoretically, be plunked anywhere.  I now have a new perspective.

 

When Mies began work on the house in the late 1940s, Dr. Edith Farnsworth had already purchased the Fox River Valley acreage, which included both upland and lowland areas.  Mies chose the floodplain.  Our tour guide (who, lucky for us, happened to be the site director) said she believed Mies picked that location so that he could make a house that could only be built in the floodplain.  The critical proof of that (and evidence, to me, of the skill of the designer) is how the house floats.

Yes, it's on stilts, but that's not why it seems to float.  The entire structure is designed so that there is no place within the house that you can see those support posts touch the ground.  The stairs that ascend to the lower terrace and the posts that support that terrace are likewise invisible. 

How?  An extremely simple detail: The posts end below the level of the terrace, and are out of the signt line of the home's windows. 

And the main living "box" is elevated just enough to make it impossible to see its own posts touch the ground.  This is an exercise in sight lines and geometry skillfully executed.  Though totally without ornament, the Farnsworth House is highly detailed.  Inches matter here, more so than immediately apparent.  The corners of the home and terrace, for instance, sport coped C-channels, so that they can appear perfectly smooth, without apparent joints.

By many accounts (even our tour guide's) Mies was a bit of a tyrant (she shared the story of Mies sitting on site, cigar and martini at the ready, watching workers parade slabs of travertine in front of him and passing judgement on their quality), but he was certainly meticulous -- and it shows in this house.

 

The building has a fascinating history (which you can read here), but, in a nutshell, Dr. Farnsworth sold it to Lord Palumbo (a collector of celebrity houses), who restored it twice -- in 1972 and again after a major flood in 1996.  It was bought in 2003 at auction by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Landmarks Illinois. 

 

According to the site director, they're still discovering and debating all the little things Mies did inside and outside the house.  Case in point: I happened to ask which way the river flowed, then commented that it was certainly important that the terrace is offset from the house in the downstream direction, as if it were flowing with the river.  That, apparently, hasn't been considered before.  Which proves a good design, like this one, will reveal itself gradually over time.

 

 

I'd consider the Farnsworth House an architectural history pilgrimage site, along with others like Fallingwater, the Glass House, and Columbus, Indiana.  They say it's great in any weather, any season.  All the pertinent info is available here (reservations are required).  If you're in Chicago, it is definitely worth the sidetrip. 

 

Details, Details

4/18/2008

I was going through my image bank the other day and decided I would just grab a few good images of good design.  These are excellent details I have documented throughout the years, presented in no particular order and without  commercial interruption (as in: no links, designers, etc.).  I tend to believe that good planning makes a space or building work, and good detailing makes a space or bulding sing.   If you've seen these (or just need to know more about them) respond to this post or e-mail me.  Enjoy!

The skin of the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco

 

The walls and roof of the Crystal Court in Minneapolis

 

A bench at the Japanese Garden in Portland, Oregon

 

A post embedment at the Cancer Survivors Park in Minneapolis

 

A bench near Battery Park City in New York

 

A stairway and water feature at the InkaTerra Resort in Aquas Calientes, Peru

 

A wall at a home in Oakland, California

 

 

The facade of the 1960s-era Toronto Science Center

 

Pavement and pool edge near Battery Park City in New York

 

A building wall and downspout at a visitor center in the Columbia Gorge, Oregon

 

A transition between deck and a Zen garden at a home in Oakland, California