Garden history : philosophy and design, 2000 BC--2000 AD

474 Pages·2005·17.02 MB·English

by  Tom Turner

Garden History

Garden History
Philosophy and Design 2000 BC–2000 AD
Tom Turner

LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 2005 by Spon Press 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Spon Press 270 Madison Ave, New York,
NY 10016
Spon Press is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of
thousands of eBooks please go to http://www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk/.
© 2005 Tom Turner
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or
by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from
the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Turner, Tom. Garden History: philosophy
and design 2000 BC–2000 AD/ Tom Turner.—1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references
and index. 1. Gardens—History. 2. Gardens—Philosophy—History. 3. Gardens—Design—
History. I. Title. SB451. T87 2004 712′.09–dc22 2004000896
ISBN 0-203-58933-5 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-415-31748-7 (Print Edition) HB
ISBN 0-415-31749-5 (Print Edition) PB
Contents

Preface vii

1 Design philosophy 2000 BC–2000 AD 1
2 Ancient gardens 2000 BC–1000 BC 34
3 Classical gardens 1400 BC–500 AD 71
4 West Asian and Islamic gardens 500 BC–1700 AD 120
5 Medieval gardens 600 AD–1500 AD 170
6 Renaissance gardens 1350–1650 217
7 Baroque gardens 1600–1750 263
8 Neoclassical and Romantic gardens 1700–1810 298
9 Eclectic gardens 1800–1900 353
10 Abstract and post-abstract gardens 1900–2000 394

Maps of garden locations 440

Illustration credits 444
Index 445
Madrasah-ye Chahar Bagh, Isfahan
Preface
My interest in garden history began with the lectures Frank Clark gave to his last student
group at Edinburgh University in 1969.1 It continued to grow after I moved to
Birmingham in 1971. Since I disliked my lodgings, my car—a VW beetle stocked with
camping equipment—became a mobile home for weekend trips, which often included
visits to gardens.
In 1974 Hal Moggridge asked me to prepare a guidebook for international visitors to
Britain, and I drew six garden style diagrams as part of a historical introduction. It is
possible that I had seen John Claudius Loudon’s diagrams (Figure 8.19) but I do not think
so. I was then working in Sylvia Crowe’s London office, for Bill Gillespie, and Susan
Jellicoe often came for coffee. I asked if she thought my diagrams would be a useful
component of the visitors’ guide. She looked for a while and said, ‘Tom, they’re
marvellous.’ Without this encouragement, the diagrams would surely have been forgotten
when the prospective publisher of the guidebook withdrew.
They were resurrected when my wife kindly drew a set of 12 style diagrams for my
book, English Garden Design: History and Styles Since 1650, which was published in
1986. They were then revised (usually for a lecture to Ted Fawcett’s students at the
Architectural Association) approximately once every five years. Like the cambium in a
tree, the diagrams laid down woody tissue (text) inside and bark (examples) outside. The
lecture expanded in a similar fashion: it was supposed to be on Loudon but I soon found
it necessary to describe the origins of gardening in Ancient Egypt—‘to set Loudon’s
views in context’.
Researching the text in libraries was a joy, but not a substitute for following the
example—and the itineraries—s et by Loudon and later garden history tourists. Robert
Holden always said I should travel more, and he was right. The garden visits became a
logistical challenge and an adventure. Relating my visits to Susan Jellicoe’s photographs,
Geoffrey Jellicoe’s acute observations and Marie-Luise Gothein’s narrative became an
absorbing occupation, with Loudon often in my thoughts. His sparkling prose and utter
freedom from prejudice were examples I should like to have followed.
In thanking the four for their company, I am aware of how much easier my journeys
have been. Loudon’s wife relates that:
He proceeded by Grodno to Wilna, through a country covered with the
remains of the French army, horses and men lying dead by the roadside,
and bands of wild-looking Cossacks scouring the country. On entering
Kosnow three Cossacks attacked his carriage, and endeavoured to carry
off the horses, but they were beaten back by the whips of the driver and
servants … He proceeded to Moscow, where he arrived on the 4th of
March, 1814, after having encountered various difficulties on the road.
Once, in particular, the horses in his carriage being unable to drag it
through a snow-drift, the postilions very coolly un-harnessed them and
trotted off, telling him that they would bring fresh horses in the morning,
and that he would be in no danger from the wolves, if he would keep the
windows of his carriage close, and the leather curtains down.2
I have not found records of how Gothein travelled between 1900 and 1914 but she must
have used steamers, trains, trams and cabs. Jellicoe used trains and ships before the
Second World War and added planes and cars afterwards. Having slept through a rail
journey he made, some 70 years later, I laughed to read his advice that ‘if taking the early
train from Innsbruck to Salzburg one should stay awake to see the wonderful view of
Melk’.3 I used modes of transport similar to the Jellicoes’, with the addition of a folding
bicycle. Except for the occasional mechanical problem it was, for example, great fun to
cycle from my home to a London station and then, four hours later, to bump along the
Via Appia Antica from Ciampino Airport into Rome. For a cyclist, the best European
capitals are Amsterdam and Copenhagen. The worst is Athens. It has smoother roads than
Lisbon and Prague (its nearest rivals for the lowest place in my personal list of European
capitals ranked for their friendliness to cyclists) but suffers from greater heat, choking
fumes, aggressively undisciplined motorists and dogs which rush you with the apparent
hope of transmitting rabies.
The other group of people I wish to thank are the students who have studied the
subject with me since 1995 and their programme leader, Kemal Mehdi, who bribed my
wife with hellebore splits to persuade her to persuade me to teach the course in garden
history (which I had, admittedly, planned). I have leaned a great deal from the students,
while always enjoying the classes. I also thank Caroline Mallinder for encouraging the
project at the time of its late-mid-life crisis, in 1996, and for bringing it to press in 2004.
It has taken 30 years, though the work has often headed in different directions or been
laid aside. A further delay resulted from the compilation of a Garden History Reference
Encyclopedia CD (published by Gardenvisit.com in 2002), which contains the text of
Marie-Luise Gothein’s History of Garden Art (1928 edn), my 1986 book, English Garden
Design, some 100 other e-Texts a nd additional examples linked to the diagrams. Readers
of this book can use the CD, from which it derives, to follow up points and find
additional examples.
I also thank my colleagues Professor Mehrdad Shokoohy, for advice on Chapter 4, and
Michael Lancaster for help over many years and his advice on the drawings and jacket
design in the weeks before he died.
Readers of this book can use the website (www.gardenvisit.com) and the CD to
discover more about the history of garden design and landscape architecture.
Notes
1 Clark, H.F., The English Landscape Garden, London: Pleiades Books, 1948. I think Clark
hoped to revise this book in the light of Lovejoy, A.O., The Great Chain of Being: A study of
the history of an idea, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1936, which he kindly
lent me.
2 Loudon J.C., Self Instruction for Young Gardeners, London: Longman, 1845, p. 23.
3 Jellicoe, G.A., Gardens of Europe, London: Blackie & Son, 1937, p. 83.
A garden historian’s travelling kit at Mycenae, with the probable
site of Homeric gardens in the valley below