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building the american landscape - Univerza v Novi Gorici

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a tree, and each "leaf" encloses dozens of lots intended to encourage <strong>the</strong> rich<br />

bourgeoisie and <strong>the</strong> American middle‐class to settle <strong>the</strong>re. However, <strong>the</strong> project<br />

was not limited to <strong>the</strong> identification of <strong>the</strong> <strong>building</strong> lots organized in a functional<br />

plan. The intricate interweaving of winding road created numerous oblong or<br />

triangular areas, which were intended as communal green spaces.<br />

This simple expedient, toge<strong>the</strong>r with <strong>the</strong> fact that <strong>the</strong> <strong>building</strong>s were never built on<br />

<strong>the</strong> edge of <strong>the</strong> road, but were set back a few dozen metres to create varying<br />

alignments which would give <strong>the</strong> built‐up area a rural aspect and hide <strong>the</strong> presence<br />

of <strong>the</strong> <strong>building</strong>s. The Des Plains River, which bordered <strong>the</strong> project to <strong>the</strong> South,<br />

fuelled this sensation of immersion in a “natural” habitat stretching over an<br />

approximately 3x2‐km perimeter. The total project area included 1,600 acres<br />

divided slantwise by <strong>the</strong> railroad. The various private lots wove deep within <strong>the</strong><br />

“leaves”, and created an apparently homogeneous green lung free of divisions at<br />

<strong>the</strong> centre of <strong>the</strong> “block”. Thus, <strong>the</strong> homes at <strong>the</strong> back had plenty of space and<br />

privacy.<br />

The design choices adopted show <strong>the</strong> importance and <strong>the</strong> uniqueness of this<br />

project, in which <strong>the</strong> planners had conceived not only unbuilt areas, as in <strong>the</strong> urban<br />

park project, but had also indicated <strong>the</strong> use and <strong>the</strong> development of <strong>the</strong> areas<br />

intended for <strong>building</strong>s. The urban and <strong>landscape</strong> project was nearly entirely<br />

completed and in <strong>the</strong> following years, <strong>building</strong>s were added by numerous<br />

architects, such as Daniel Burnham, Louis Sullivan, William Le Baron Jenney and by<br />

Calvert Vaux himself.<br />

However, as we said previously, <strong>the</strong> “American layout” began to be undermined by<br />

<strong>the</strong> picturesque English garden. Somehow, <strong>the</strong> Riverside project refers to a specific<br />

precedent: <strong>the</strong> design for a park by Alexander Jackson Davis (1803‐1892) and<br />

Calvert Vaux, which contained a series of dwellings. Conceived in 1857 and<br />

implemented two years later, this project was called Llewellyn Park [Figure 55]and<br />

was constructed on <strong>the</strong> outskirts of West Orange, New Jersey. The trend for<br />

picturesque planning, begun by Llewellyn Park, <strong>the</strong> influence of which can be<br />

probably traced back to Andrew Jackson Downing, exercised its charm on various<br />

constructions in <strong>the</strong> following decades.<br />

57

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