Almost within the memory of living men has come the effective National conception of the city as a complete organism which must provide for Planning its inhabitants such things as they cannot provide for themselves for complete and efficient living; and with this conception has come the realization of the importance to the individual and so to the community of beauty, and especially of outdoor beauty, and the duty which the community has to provide it. We are now coming to see that this same conception of a complete functional organism applies as well to the state and to the nation; that the lands of the nation should be studied as to their various fitness to all the purposes which lands may serve, and then so regulated that each may best serve that purpose, economic or esthetic, to which in the general national scheme it is best fitted.*

The complete organization of the area of town and city and state and nation which shall bring this about, the wise administration which shall make it possible, in the face of the dangers of public incompetence and private greed, may be a thing of the distant future, but it is to come. And the greatest opportunity for public service which is before the landscape architect of to-day is that he may bear his share, by written and spoken word and by actually constructed example, in the public education and the molding of public opinion, through which alone this good thing may be brought about, and by which in the future it must be upheld.

* Cf. Le Problème National, beginning of Ch. X, in Louis van der Swaelmen's Préliminaires d'Art Civique, 1916. (See REFERENCES.)

APPENDIX

PART I

NOTES ON THE PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE IN AMERICA

PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT

COÖPERA

Professional charges -Professional reputation - Advertising and publicity Professional announcements - Public exhibitions Competitions LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT, CLIENT, AND CONTRACTOR TION OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT WITH OTHER PRACTITIONERS Coöperation in city planning ORGANIZATION AND EQUIPMENT OF A LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT'S OFFICE Clerical force Technical office and field force Office reference material.

Only within recent years has there been in this country sufficient demand for the services of the trained landscape architect to make it possible for any considerable body of men to carry on the practice of this profession. The American Society of Landscape Architects was founded in 1899; the first degree for the accomplishment of a designated collegiate course in landscape architecture was granted in 1901. But now (1917) professional degrees are offered by at least six institutions in the United States, and the field and scope of the profession and the technical knowledge which its practitioners should possess being differentiated with considerable clearness from the tangent fields of other professions like architecture and engineering.

are

The general principles of the proper professional conduct of a land- Professional scape architect are in effect the same as those governing the action of Conduct the architect, and are not essentially different from those relating to the work of the engineer, because they are fundamentally the principles of common honesty applied to the relations of a man who sells

* Cf. Chapter I, p. 2.

Professional
Charges

skilled advice to a client, who directs for the client the carrying out of this advice, and who serves as arbiter as to the meaning of these directions between the client and the person who does the construction.*

According to the constitution of the American Society of Landscape Architects, "A landscape architect, a landscape gardener, or a landscape designer, in good standing is one who practices the art of arranging land and landscape for use and enjoyment, whose compensation is received directly from his client and not directly or indirectly from labor, plants, or other material used in fitting land for use, or from persons supplying the same." The reason that it is not advisable for the landscape architect to be financially interested in the sale of any materials used in the construction of his designs, or to take commissions from the seller on any materials which he orders, is of course that he would thereby be subjected to the temptation to choose his materials not for their greatest value in the design but for their greatest profit to him. Although any individual man might resist this temptation, all men would not, and every man would be open to suspicion. Moreover, it is much better that the client should know how much he pays the landscape architect for his advice, and so have some idea whether the service has been worth the payment, rather than know that an indeterminate part of the landscape architect's payment is concealed in a larger sum paid ostensibly for another thing.

There are various different ways, suited to different circumstances, in which the payment to the landscape architect may be determined. He may be paid, as the architect usually is, a certain per cent of the cost of the work constructed in accordance with his plans, this per cent being greater if the reputation of the designer is great, if the work is exceptionally difficult and calls for unusual skill or application, if the work is small in cost; the per cent being less if the advice or plans be not complete, or perhaps if the work be not completely carried out, so that detailed supervision for finished construction is not called for. It is true that this method of charge appears to put before the landscape architect the temptation to increase the cost of the work so that his own profits may be increased. It is a tribute to the profession of landscape architecture and especially to the professions of architecture

* Cf. p. 332.

and engineering, where this method of charge is more general, that on the whole this method has proved satisfactory, and that the professional adviser has been willing to spend much effort in reducing the cost of the construction although thereby his own remuneration is correspondingly reduced.

The landscape architect may be paid a lump sum, determined beforehand, for all his services and expenses in relation to a certain piece of work. From the point of view of the client this gives the advantage of certainty, but it is likely to result in the landscape architect being underpaid. It is uncertain just what plans and directions and investigations will be necessary, even when the work to be constructed is known in advance with some exactness. If the landscape architect estimates liberally on these uncertainties, the payment which he asks for may seem too high. Moreover, every private client, as the work goes on, is very likely to see more clearly what the effect of the completed design will be, to become more interested in it, and to wish it carried out more expensively, or added to in various ways, and the additional work thus required of the landscape architect cannot easily be estimated in advance, or later determined and covered by an additional charge.

The landscape architect may be paid a stated fee plus his expenses. The fee is his remuneration for his reputation and for his personal skill and time employed on the work in question. The expenses are those of the landscape architect and of the assistants employed on the work, in the office and in the field, the expenses for materials, prints, traveling, subsistence charges when traveling, etc., and the reasonable share which the work should bear of the general office expenses, like rent, light, heat, etc., which cannot be directly charged to a particular client. In some offices these general expenses are about equal to the expenses for assistants' pay; but this will depend of course on the efficiency of the office and on whether the landscape architect himself, if he does drafting, charges for his own time as a draftsman.

Some landscape architects make separate charges for their services during the successive stages of the work, for instance: for preliminary visit; preliminary and general plans; grading and construction plans, specifications and estimates; planting plans and planting lists; esti