building the american landscape - Univerza v Novi Gorici

home; not through plots of fruit trees, and beds of choice flowers, though these
have their place, but by collecting and combining beautiful forms in trees, surfaces
of ground, buildings, and walks, in the landscape surrounding us. It is, in short, the
Beautiful, embodied in a home scene” 249 .
Downing’s intellectual efforts focused on the rural landscape as an escape from
metropolitan life. According to Downing, the town was incapable of offering real
opportunities to develop the landscape. “In a city or town, or its immediate vicinity,
where space is limited, where buildings stand crowded together, and depends for
their attractions entirely upon the style and manner of their construction, mere
architectural effect […] is of course the only point to be kept in view” 250 . The
country house is, therefore, an experience which is in complete antithesis to the
town, and yet somehow is part of it, even though it sets out to be a refuge from the
crowd and confusion. Downing’s innovation was to imagine architecture could be
part of the landscape and at the same time it could speak the language of nature.
The country house is:
a dwelling, as from its various accommodations, not only gives ample
space for all the comforts and conveniences of a country life, but by its
varied and picturesque form and outline, its porches, verandas, etc., also
appears to have some reasonable connexion, or be in perfect keeping,
with surrounding nature. Architectural beauty must be considered
conjointly with the beauty of the landscape or situation. Buildings of
almost every description, and particularly those for the habitation of
man, will be considered by the mind of taste, not only as architectural
objects of greater or less merit, but as component parts of the general
scene; united with the surrounding lawn, embosomed in tufts of trees
and shrubs, if properly designed and constructed, they will even serve to
impress a character upon the surrounding landscape 251 .
In other words, Downing believed that improvements, that is to say rural
embellishment, fall into the field of architecture and include notions of gardening.
This was undoubtedly a complex, innovative vision, partly of Anglo‐Saxon origin, but
which enabled the United States to take the first step along the road to using the
term landscape architect and to the legal recognition of the profession. His books
249 Ibid., p. 18
250 Ibid., p. 319
251 Ibid., p. 320
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