building the american landscape - Univerza v Novi Gorici

discern a careful study of the landscape and of the surrounding topography in
relation to the planned cottages. The large open space at the centre of the layout
consists of a rectangular Lawn on slightly sloping ground, edged along its long sides
by ten small pavilions, as in Jefferson’s project. A club house acts as a communal
building for the colony. Since it is in a central position and extends in various
directions into the surrounding space, it allows the master plan to develop
according to the typical organic principles of Wright’s architecture.
From Jefferson’s project onwards, the lawn, as Therese O’Malley wrote, came to
play the role of “convention in the visual representation of prestigious or prominent
institutions, whether they were private, religious, academic, or cultural” 211 .
Washington and Jefferson’s projects represent the most obvious archetypes in the
use of the lawn, but the fascination played by the use of grassy surfaces also goes
back to the pastoral ideas which were becoming common in those years. Important
for American landscape gardening was the development of the first public green
spaces, in which the designers could best experiment their picturesque theories,
without following the architectural fashions or the utilitarian needs imposed by
agriculture. As Norman T. Newton sustains, as regards the landscape and Early
American Backgrounds
In contrast to the dearth of reliable information about the form of the
private gardens, examples of typical New England public open spaces
can still be seen in such village greens as those of Ipswich and Lexington
and in Commons like those of Boston and Cambridge. Of course these
public green spaces offered no signs of design intent, nor could they
accurately be called parks. They were originally intended as common
cow‐pastures (hence the name) and for drilling the local militia, but they
provided a strong background of tradition when the time came for
fostering the new notion of 212 .
Furthermore, the most interesting aspect of the first green spaces designed as parks
within the towns is that they were designed specifically for public use. This purpose
211 O’ MALLEY, Therese, “The Lawn in Early American Landscape and Garden Design” published in
TEYSSOT, George (ed.), The American lawn, New York, Princeton Architectural press; Montreal,
Canadian Centre for Architecture, 1999, p. 75
212 NEWTON, Norman T., Design on the Land. The Development of Landscape Architecture,
Cambridge, Massachusetts, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971, p. 249
131