the appropriate tree to form a part of a setting of a low building of level skyline; there are also cases, however, where a group of Lombardy poplars would better serve this purpose in the composition. The span of a bridge is necessarily somewhat bounded and enframed by its abutments when it is looked at along the reach of water which it crosses, but the compositional strength of the masses on each side between which the bridge springs can be much increased by planting which rises well above the level of the bridge. (See Plate 32.) Such planting serves also, of course, as pictorial enframement for the bridge itself. The best outlook from the bridge is presumably up or down the stream from well out upon the bridge-span, and these same plantations will give some sense of enframement to this view as well. Planting may concentrate the attention upon a structure by converging lines in perspective, as where an allée of trees leads to a building or to its entrance; in this case there is also enframement of the principal object in the view. (See Drawing XI, opp. p. 82.) In the relation of minor planting masses to a building, two effects are commonly sought: first, to fix the attention upon some important part of the building, as where a shrub mass is placed on each side of and leading up to a door, a French window, or perhaps a gabled end or pavilion of the house; and second, to make a sequential connection between the horizontal lines of the ground and the vertical surface of the building. (See Drawing XXIII, opp. p. 190, and Drawing XXVI, opp. p. 198.) Where planting is carried out from the corners of a house, such an arrangement serves also in a way as enframement and foreground for the façade of the house between the two corner plantings. The appearance of the house may be greatly improved by a simple shrub planting, but in modern American practice, particularly on smaller places where often little skill is employed in the design, the planting of shrubs about the bases of buildings, for these purposes, for decoration, or merely from a restless desire to take away every effect of bareness, has been considerably overdone. Some buildings, notably perhaps the Tudor country houses, are at their best when their walls rise clear from the clipped turf or the paved terrace. (See Drawing VI, opp. p. 48.) A woodland cottage might look well if * Cf. Chapter X, p. 216. Planting as Transition between Ground and Structure Planting as Structure entirely surrounded by small planting, but with the ordinary dwellinghouse it is usually a mistake completely to surround its base with an indiscriminate garniture of shrubbery. Planting may be used purely for the decoration of the façade of a building, as, for instance, where vine-covered lattices of definite shapes are used as a part of its architectural design. To some extent this is the effect of specimen evergreens placed close to the building on each side of an entrance. Formal rows of evergreens or architecturally-clipped plants may be set out in the ground or placed in tubs and may, at least in certain views, serve as a paneling and decoration of the lower part of a building façade. Similarly, vines or flowering plants in window-boxes may add a note of color or an area of green to the architectural composition; or vines may actually be grown over the surface of the building, perhaps to relieve some harshness of form, perhaps to give panels of green, perhaps even completely to change the texture of the building to that created by the leafage of the vine, and to throw a charitable mantle of vegetation over a multitude of architectural sins. It is to be noticed that the texture of the leafage of any vine is more diffuse and weak than the texture of any material used in architectural construction, and that therefore if this vine-texture is to cover considerable areas of a house or of a wall, these vine-covered areas would better be wall rather than post, curtain rather than pavilion. That is, the areas which are less important, less functional architecturally, as it were, should be given the softer texture. (See again Drawing VI.) Another decoration of architectural façade by planting which is well worthy of the designer's serious attention is the falling of the shadows of trees on the sides of a building. An otherwise monotonous expanse may be redeemed by the shadow tracery of winter branches or the dappling of summer shade; the main entrance of a building may be made more important by the shadows of two trees which subdue the walls on each side of it. CHAPTER X DESIGN OF STRUCTURES IN RELATION TO LANDSCAPE -- BUILDINGS IN RELATION TO LANDSCAPE- Buildings subordinate to natural character In determining the esthetic relation of a building to the landscape of which it forms a part, the designer must first decide whether as a whole the particular scene is to be considered as expressing the character of a natural landscape, or whether, on the other hand, it should express by its style the dominance and the directing will of man. Buildings in Relation to to Natural If a landscape character is to be dominant in the scene, then the Buildings Subordinate building must be in some way subordinated. It may still be the center of the composition, indeed it may still be more interesting than any Character other one thing in the composition, but the scene should give the effect that the building is related harmoniously to a landscape which as a whole expresses its own natural character. The building may exceptionally be made harmonious with the landscape in form; it may have an irregular shape, perhaps a rounded thatched roof (see Drawing VII, opp. p. 50), and it may be closely fitted to irregularities of the ground. (See Drawing XXIV, opp. p. 192, and also Plate 36, for adaptation of Buildings building arrangement to topography.) More frequently it is harmonious with the landscape in texture and color: the gray green of its painted woodwork may harmonize with the color of the surrounding foliage; the texture and tone of its stonework, taken from a local quarry, may match the outcrop of the same stone appearing near it; its thatched roof and lichen-covered walls may be quite similar to the tree-trunks behind it and to the dead grasses before its door. Then too a building may be effectively harmonized with the landscape, or at least prevented from appearing incongruous with it, by being very largely screened from sight by mantling vines and surrounding or overhanging trees. (See Drawing XXVI, opp. p. 198.) We should bear in mind, however, in our endeavors to subordinate a building to a natural or naturalistic landscape, the fact that it is not essential for harmony that the shape of the building should resemble any natural form. (See Plate 35.) The building need not be rounded like a great tree, or jagged like a cliff, or irregular or flowing in outline like the surface of a mass of shrubbery; indeed an attempt to do any of these things, however successful it might be in subordinating the building to the rest of the scene, would inevitably, if carried to any length, result in architectural ugliness. The building should be beautiful, convenient, efficient after its own kind. In fact, fitness to local conditions, and simple form obviously expressing a practical need in construction or in use, tend of themselves to make the building less expressive of man's will, more expressive of man's necessity, and so less incongruous with natural expression. A building usually assumes greater harmony with the landscape as it grows old, that is, as it is subjected for a longer and longer time to the natural forces of rain and wind and weather which are operating also on all the other objects of the scene. This is noticeably true, even with the old wooden New England farmhouse. (See Drawing XXIII, opposite.) In the case of a masonry structure, it is of course more marked. The ivy clad ruins of a castle may form quite as restful and integral a portion of the scene as would a natural cliff in the same place. If the scene of which the building is a part expresses primarily human ideals and is arranged obviously in relation to man's use, then |