Home > Courses > LANDSCAPE ARCHAEOLOGY | Elizabeth Kryder-Reid

Modules: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | Exercises: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | Handouts: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | Assignments: | 1 | 2 | 3 | PowerPoints: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
Resources: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |    Syllabus

American Landscape History

Garden Archaeology: Research Strategies

READING ASSIGNMENT

Karen Bescherer Metheny et al., "Method in Landscape Archaeology: Research Strategies in a Historic New Jersey Garden." In Landscape Archaeology: Reading and Interpreting the American Historical Landscape, edited by Rebecca Yamin and Karen Bescherer Metheny. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1996), pp.6-31, on reserve

LECTURE NOTES

1. Introduction
   1. Mr. Brooks provided historical context for Country House era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries
   2. today's lecture will provide a broader history of American landscape design, but with a focus on themes that may be relevant for the Oldfields research design and for the campus landscape history interpretive panels
2. Themes in American landscape history
   1. "colonial landscape"—from colonial times on, American landscape design was not in a vacuum, but with strong reference to traditions in other parts of the world
      1. stylistic traditions
         1. traditions of colonial origins
            1. Spanish town plans with plazas
            2. English commons
            3. designers' influences
               • Joseph Bonaparte's estate in New Jersey
               • Ramee's designs for Union College, etc.
               • Francis Nicholson's Baroque town plans
         2. colonial revivals (ex. in country house plans shown in Brooks' lecture)
      2. plant trade and exchange—collections that went both ways (i.e. introduced "Old World" species in North America and "New World" species to Europe)
      3. philosophies
         1. ferme ornee
      4. self-conscious regard for the borrowed and the "uniquely American"
         1. ex. Jefferson at Monticello—the villa of the Roman Republic statesman and the Physiocratic philosopher arguing the pure escape of venal luxury
   2. gardens as social identity
      1. colonial contexts
         1. knowledge of horticulture as part of the allied sciences of the Renaissance: links among botany, architecture, astronomy, music, mathematics/geometry
      2. displays of knowledge (garden as one expression of identity and status along with architecture, collections, clothes, music, art, literature, etc.)
      3. displays of wealth and status
         1. not just the ability to devote land and labor to largely ornamental purposes
         2. but also access to resources (scare plants, gardeners, surveying, statuary)
      4. display of moral fitness and civic worthiness (slovenly yard equated with questionable residents and neat yard sign of upstanding citizenship)
      5. displays of community
         1. suburbias and the common front yard/lawn
         2. role of fences (symbolic import)
   3. landscapes as social spaces
      1. public spaces
         1. town plans
         2. commons
         3. parks
            • promenades (see and be seen)
            • public spaces for recreation and fresh air as part of the moral reform agenda (1840s)
            • democracy / class relations (note bridge height in Central Park)
            • waterworks
              • civic celebrations
              • fire suppression
              • temperance
      2. private residences
         1. work: labor/leisure and the machine in the garden
            • slaves, indentured servants, laborers
            • the introduction of technology (lawn mowers, sprinklers)
         2. landscapes as stages with multiple actors
            • Upton and terraced gardens in Virginia
              • social hierarchy
              • slaves and the subversion of plantation landscapes
            • gendered roles in the landscape
            • social spaces in residential design
              • recreation (bowling green, tennis court, swimming pool)
         3. vision as a social construct
            1. views out
               • the vista
               • the prospect
            2. views in (screened or framed?)
            3. views within
               • the approach
               • the proccessual landscape (surprises made possible because of the promenade or the walks or the drive down the avenue)
      3. landscapes and the traveler
         1. the travel account
         2. tropes of description
         3. the creation of iconic landscapes (the "must sees")
         4. transportation and its impact on landscape design
         5. the car and residential design
   4. humans and the environment
      1. observations, experimentation; "appropriation and adaptation;" John Bartram's microclimate garden experiments and William Bartram's travels
      2. habitat and climate as constraints; decisions framed by physical conditions (rainfall, soil type, topography, available materials)
         1. expression through vernacular architecture and garden traditions (ex. fence types)
         2. ecologically appropriate (or inappropriate) choices
         3. lawns in the desert vs. xeriscaping
      3. plant propagation
         1. early breeding and grafting experiments
         2. introduction of machine-made glass and relatively inexpensive iron in mid-19th century and corresponding boom in greenhouses
            • specialized plant raising in elite residences (roses, camellias)
            • small greenhouses for more modest homes (cottage industry and ornamental uses)
            • availability of annuals—bedding out styles of the second half of the 19th century
         3. native plants movements

POWERPOINT

American Landscape Design

---

© 2003-04 MATRIX
Project Director: Anne Pyburn
Indiana University Bloomington