of the older allied professions of architecture and engineering, and are quite as difficult to master within an ordinary lifetime. And in no field is it possible to design effectively "on general principles" without a detailed personal knowledge of the materials and technique.

Like Architecture, its sister profession in the Fine Arts, Landscape Requirements Architecture requires of its practitioner diverse abilities not often of the Profession found in the same person: the esthetic appreciation and creative power of the artist, together with the executive skill of the business The landscape architect should know the materials of his art: ground forms, vegetation, and structures in their relation to landscape. He should know on the one hand what results are physically possible of accomplishment with these materials, and on the other hand what kinds of beauty these materials can best produce, and what kinds of beauty were better attained in the materials of some other art. Since, for the most part, the landscape architect cannot produce at will in his design all the forms which he might desire, but must choose from among the forms offered by nature those which will suit his purpose, he cannot be confident that his design is possible of execution unless he possesses an accurate first-hand knowledge of the plant materials and of the ground forms from which he must choose the elements of his composition. Since the beauty of vegetation is that of intricacy, of multiplicity, of growth and change, the landscape architect's experience and power in design will come to be quite different from that of the architect, who deals with definite, rigid forms and balanced masses. Since the fundamental organization of his naturalistic designs, of his preservation and enhancement of natural scenery, will be the real or apparent manifestation of the untrammeled forces of nature, the landscape architect must have humbly studied the forces which carve the valleys, and which direct the flow of the streams, and he must be keenly sensitive to the esthetic unity of a mountain or the perfect growth of a ground-covering fern, which may dominate or decorate his nature-inspired work.

The landscape architect cannot carry out his designs with his own hand; so he must use some means of conveying his ideas to those who are to execute the work. As this work usually extends over a considerable period of time, it is necessary that the landscape archi

Preparation for the Profession

tect's design be recorded in some fairly permanent form. He should therefore acquire not only facility in oral statement, but also ability in the expression of his ideas by drawings, in plan, elevation, and perspective, and in written reports to his clients, and detailed specifications for the execution of the work.

To carry his design into actual construction, the landscape architect must deal with men as a business man. He must be able to impress the desirability of his designs on his clients, to organize his own office and field assistants, and to handle the contractors with whom he deals. This ability must be plainly more the result of innate force and practical experience than of any theoretical instruction.

Any one who endeavors to make himself an efficient landscape architect will have to acquire creative power in two ways: he must accumulate a store of facts and he must develop an ability to organize this experience, to analyze his individual problems, and to attack the solutions of these problems in such a logical way that at the end he may be convinced that he has arrived at the best solution possible for him under the given conditions. While practical experience will provide a man with a store of facts, only long practical experience can tell him what facts are most significant and how they may be best related. Here lies the greatest value of systematic instruction in a school. A man may thus learn, from the experience of others, a system of organization which may greatly help him in evaluating and interpreting his own experience, and he may learn at the same time a method of approaching his problems which will save him from a considerable number of the wasteful mistakes inevitably made by any undirected beginner. Doubtless when he is finally settled in his professional life his methods will be his own, but good schooling should save him years of experiment and should give him a broader outlook on his work than he would be at all likely ever to acquire, without schooling, in the pressure of professional activity. But instruction in a school alone will not fit a man for independent practice. It is almost always desirable that he should serve an apprenticeship under some established practitioner, so that his ideas may be first put to the test of actuality under the guidance of practical experience.

Throughout his life the landscape architect must be a student of

X

natural compositions, and of the work of his fellow artists, in his own field and also in architecture, painting, and the kindred arts. It is plainly important that his observations should cover as great a range of character and effect as possible-different countries, different periods, and widely varying types of natural scenery - for these observations are the raw materials from which all his designs must be made. But here again, the value of his observations in his future designs will depend almost wholly on the keenness of his analysis, and on the certainty with which he determines in each case the source from which his pleasure in the composition is derived.

ded

Rewards

A landscape architect adopts his profession for two reasons: he Opportunities wants to earn a living, and, properly more important, he expects to enjoy doing his work. Now part of this enjoyment will be in a way incidental: he will enjoy the outdoor life, the familiarity with plants. and other outdoor objects, the intercourse with many different people; if he has executive ability, he will enjoy getting things organized and accomplished, but if he is, as he should be, an artist, he will most enjoy producing original and beautiful things expressing himself by means of arrangements of forms and colors in outdoor objects as the painter does with oils and canvas, as the sculptor does with marble, as the writer does with language.

Another of the rewards of the landscape architect is his knowledge of the pleasure and well-being which his work may bring to others.* The designer of a private place, large or small, may take real satisfaction in the outdoor relaxation and pleasure which he has made possible for his client. The designer of a park may feel well repaid by the knowledge that thousands of people are offered a means of innocent recreation and a source of refreshment from the insistency of the crowded town. The man who contributes his skill to the design of a new city may properly feel that he has acquitted himself well in the world, if through his efforts the life of many future generations of his kind is made more healthful, more efficient, and more enjoyable.

* Cf. the remarks on the opportunities and rewards of the profession made before the American Society of Landscape Architects, by President Emeritus Charles W. Eliot, published in Landscape Architecture, Apr. 1911, v. 1, pp. 145-153, and entitled Welfare and Happiness in Works of Landscape Architecture.

CHAPTER II

THEORY OF LANDSCAPE DESIGN

LANDSCAPE DESIGN DEFINED Esthetic and economic aspects

PSYCHOLOGICAL

BASIS OF ESTHETIC THEORY OF DESIGN Sensation, perception, intellection Pleasure Sources of pleasure in sensation - In perception and imagination In intellection - Experience, emotion, and association - Esthetic analysis in design - UNITY- Logical - Ethical - Economic - Esthetic - Esthetic expression and impression - DEFINITION OF BEAUTY-TYPES - IDEALS - TASTE AND STYLE LANDSCAPE CHARACTER - LANDSCAPE EFFECT.

The word "design" is commonly used in two different ways. We say "design and construction" when we mean to differentiate the decision as to what is to be done, and the record of this decision, from the actual doing of the work. We say "good practically but bad in design" when we mean, for instance, that a building serves its purpose as shelter, but does not serve its purpose of giving visual pleasure. This use of design as meaning only esthetic design is confusing, for, as we shall see later, no sharp line can be drawn in most actual work between esthetic and economic design. In this book the word "design" will be used as meaning the art or act of determining the character of an object so that it shall serve any predetermined purpose or purposes, and the term "landscape design" will be used simply as meaning design in landscape materials.

As landscape architecture is a fine art, all of its works must be designed to some extent to be pleasing in appearance; but the great majority of such works are intended to serve also some other purpose of the user. Landscape design has, almost always, an economic as well as an esthetic aspect. The economic considerations affecting the design of landscape are best set forth by discussing the important types of designed areas organized according to use, such as the garden, the private estate, the park. These we take up later in Chapter XI. The general esthetic principles underlying landscape design we will dis

cuss now, however, as far as is necessary for our purpose. These principles are fundamentally the same as those of design in all the fine arts, but they differ in application just as landscape architecture differs from the other fine arts, in that they are applied to the particular materials or elements of design with which landscape architecture deals: namely, ground forms, vegetation, and structures in their relation to landscape.

In esthetic design, the fundamental thing which the artist is trying Psychological Basis of to produce is an effect of pleasure in the mind of the beholder. All his Esthetic modifications of the form, color, and texture of his work are only means Theory of to the end of this mental effect. Plainly, then, the principles of such Design design must be the principles of the production of effects on the mind by external objects; in other words the principles are certain principles of human psychology. From a consideration of these principles, therefore, we should be able to see more clearly by what mental processes pleasure arises from external objects, and what characteristics of the objects cause the pleasure. We should thus be able to go more directly to work to bring about pleasure by proper use and modification of the characteristics of the objects in our designs.

In landscape architecture we are concerned almost exclusively with those effects which are made on the mind through our sense of sight, and indirectly through its coöperating sense, touch, including feelings of muscular activity, which does so much to interpret our visual impressions. The sensations received through taste, smell, and hearing, though also to be considered, are not often so important in landscape design.

and

Our senses, acted upon by the world about us, give us various sen- Sensation, sations. From these sensations we come to be able, by experience and Perception, habit, to perceive the existence of objects in the world, and to attribute Intellection to them the characteristics which our senses discover to us; and also, building from our memories of real objects, we may imagine objects which have their characteristics related differently from any which we have actually known. We may then proceed to think about these objects, real or imagined, and about their relations in the world, and to come to conclusions as to their usefulness, or whatever else about them we wish to consider. These three processes, by which we gain all our