Landscape Architecture

ARCH463 – Fall 2021

Gardens of Civilizations
I

Bachar El-Amine
1- The Garden
• Garden was synonym of Paradise, or of a place of
delights.
• In ancient times, the garden was more a sacred wood
or pristine parts of forests than a garden in the
meaning we understand today
• What is garden?
• The garden is a
composition, a piece
of art; it is a human
work. Its concern is
not to simulate the
fate of the natural
landscape, but to
stylize nature by
working with its
elements.
• The garden shows the re-creation of the nature from
artistic point of view.
Greece and Rome
 Greece

• Persian gardens had been a fundamental

influence for Greek gardens and
probably for European gardens in
classical and modern times. Their place
had been established in the intellectual
sphere when Plato starts teaching in the
planted gymnasium of the Academia.
Creating by that a partnership between
philosophy and the art of gardening, this
lived 1000 of years during the School of
Athens and reappears with the
humanists of the Italian Renaissance.
Plato and his Pupils
• The colonnaded palaestrae which had been originally designed as shelters
from the sun and rain where athletes could exercise became the accepted
places of philosophical instruction, surrounded by majestic avenues and
shady groves of trees.

Avenues of the Persian gardens

• Since that times, Gardens of philosophers contain principally shrines
dedicated to the Muses, which often took the form of a rocky grotto or
nympheum watered by a fountain or spring; shady porticos, built in
imitation of the palaestrae of the gymnasia but also used for the display of
sculpture, and tree-lined walks.

• The Academia, in the antique Greece, is a public garden outside of Athens, dedicated to divinities and containing a grove and
Gymnasium. In these gardens Plato had met and teaches his successors, this informal school became the Academia.

The Academia
The School of Athens
palaestrae
 Roman garden

• With Alexander conquests, Greek

culture has been spread in the
Mediterranean region. And the
religious associations were
overwhelmed by artistic and
social ones.
• Elements of gardens remain,
caves, nympheums which were
shrines became architectural
ornaments.
• In the Mediterranean world, the summer heat made shadow and Water the
favorite poetic themes, but especially themes that are fundamentally related
to the topic of pleasure, more specifically the pleasure in the garden.
• Of course the main reference for Romans was the oriental parks and
gardens. For that reason these big enclosures, with course of water,
aromatic bushes, fruit trees with animals and ornamental birds were often
divided to four parts, parts for hunting and other parts for pleasure gardens.
Water and Shade. Topic of pleasure
• However, an interesting innovation appears in that time – painting called
topia – representing architecture of garden in a picturesque framework. It is
Landscapes of mountains and cliffs or representing shores of lakes and
rivers.
• Topia is made to decorate porticos walls; the purpose is to bring gardens
inside buildings. This is a preliminary step in the interpenetration between
the house and the garden. This point became an important characteristic in
the Roman garden and the Renaissance one.

Topia
Topia
• Hellenistic heritage provides the link between Greece and Rome.
• Gardens of Pompeii were of two types: Peristyle Garden with colonnades
as the Case dei Vitti where plants surround a central basin; or houses with
central court leading to a rear garden Xystus.
Pompeii-Ruins-Pompeii-The House of Vetti
• There were two main characteristics of Pompeian gardens:
Interpenetration of the house and garden; second is the axial plan.
Renaissance had inspired those characteristics for its villas. The living area
is open towards the court and the center of the peristyle, allowing a big
perspective crossing the whole house and the garden.
• The intention to extend further the landscape is achieved by paint on the
back wall, showing trees, fountains, trellis. This type of painting called
trompe l'œil – according to Pliny – was invented by Ludius and made to
provide the impression of a big space.
• Other than paintings and reproduction of miniature landscape, the term
topia was utilized in its Latin form – topiarius – to indicate the gardener
who practices the art of cutting trees or topiary art for ornamentation.
• Xystus or the proper garden of the Pompeian garden had a specific feature
which is a watercourse in its center running along its length, with paved
alignment with marble or blue painted cement. This watercourse is flanked
by flower beds and geometric alignment of fruit trees, like cypress, bay
tree, oleander, almonds, peaches, pomegranates, pear, quince, apple and
cherries.
 Lucullus

• Lucullus was the important creator of roman gardens; he became a legend

due to his luxurious gardens. His gardens were located on top of hills,
conceived as a series of terraces and stairs. This type of composition with
the site became a powerful point in the Renaissance period which is the
architectural transformation of the site by terraces crossing the main axis of
the house which ends by a colonnade.
• Mountain became the preferred places for the construction of villas
because building is exposed to the healthy breeze in the summer heat and
having panoramic views towards the city.
• Romans attached a real importance for the site, not only for aesthetic
purposes but also comfort and healthy reasons. The orientation of south-
east was recommended by classical author like Varro and Palladius 4th AD.
and later adopted by authors like Leon Battista Albeti and Andrea Palladio.
• This orientation of south-east is chosen for the low level of the sun during
winter. Sun will hit the portico, providing shades and shelter in summer
(sun is high). Those colonnades called gymnasia or palaestrae like the
Greek ones are shelter for promenade. sometimes we can find 2 or 3 rows
of colonnades. They were located on terraces that allowing to change the
promenade location and the view.
• Aviaries are also provided in roman gardens for entertainment, we had
there animal shows, and they were constructed as a circular pavilions
surrounding a water basin.
• Vitruvius commented the intimate relation between theater and the
garden design, by describing the layering of trees, caves, mountains up to
the intimate landscapes. Fountains were monumental to a point to
constitute specific scenery in the landscape as theatrical setting.
• According to Vitrivius, Romans granted an important care to the
promenade in the garden. In the Laurentian villa of Pliny the Younger,
promenades conceived as a barefoot walk.
Medieval garden

"HERBULARIUS
- A MEDIEVAL
CLOISTER HERB
GARDEN".
The HORTULUS
(Veggie Garden)
the POMARIUM
(Fruit Garden)
the ROSARIUM
(Flower Roses
Garden) will follow
in the next years.
From the fall of the Roman Empire till the Renaissance, there are more than
10 centuries that we call Middle-Age.

there were some factors which hampered the expression towards the nature,
expression of Nature's sentiment.
Early Middle-Age.

-Barbarian invasions led the

western civilization to the fall
of population,

-to the loss of art treasures,

-and ruin of roads, of irrigation

systems and in the culture in
general.

In these conditions, man was

in the search of his material
life. The earth work is a
struggle against hunger.
• Adding to that, this civilization couldn't know the Greek heritage, due to
the Barbarian Invasions on one hand and the Islamic expansion on the other
hand.
• This decline started to be reversed with Carolingians (from 7th to the 10th
century), it is a dynasty of kings, and the most renowned member is
Charlemagne.
• This first renaissance showed the recovery of the economic activities. It is a
new political order, with which emerged an expansion of the cultural,
artistic and scientific life.
• The Abbey of Saint-Gall was first a retreat house. Gardening there was the
main activity of monks. In this setting, we don’t have decorative elements.
It is an orthogonal system intended for utilities.
• Here, we encountered the problem of representation of the relation between
man and nature.
• Actually, this relation didn't occur in the open space of the cloister, but thru
the closed space of the church. It is the church, with its wall paintings,
mosaics, sculptures and stained-glass windows which bring this relation to
a symbolic level. The religious requirements are behind this type of relation
which we can call Christian anthropomorphism.
• The problematic is that Europe
needed a "saint empire" in
order to provide Christianity a
powerful unity to contrast with
the Roman Empire which had
been a political project.
• In this ideology, Christianity
had abolished the direct
relation to nature, the church
had replaced this relation by a
symbolic expressions.
The garden became a literary theme, for knights and their
adventures, for magician and fairies; it is a garden with traps for the
hero to win his beloved or to attain glory.
The system of planted squares became like chessboard where we can
always add other modules for other purposes. This system, called
additive still in use in our time. Finally we have to say that the
medieval garden had played an important role to agriculture and
agronomy.
 The
Renaissance
• In the end of the 14th century Man started seeing the world with a new eye.
The world was like a huge site of exploration, where arts, thoughts and
sciences were re-examined.
• Man discovered Plato, Pythagoras, Ovid, and Hippocrates. It is in Italy,
more specifically in Florence where born this movement of spirit. The
incarnation of this intellectual sphere was Leonardo Da Vinci.
• The Magnificent, Laurenzo de Medici and his grand-father start
constructing in Florence gardens where expressed this new ideal. These
gardens intended to glorify the spirit of man.
• Architects were the designers of these gardens. The interests were the
connection between the garden and the house, the equilibrium between
constructed masses and green masses; they multiply forms, topiary arts,
mazes, basins and fountains and antique and modern sculptures.
 Villa Cafaggiolo
• North of Florence, build as
fortified castle in XIVe
century, developed by
Michelozzo di
Bartolomeo in 1451, the
villa is conceived in front
of a forest, which is
considered as background.
• The Villa and its gardens
are bordered by walls.
• On sides, spaces are
dedicated for farming
concern in a way that the
villa will be bordered by
vineyards, fields and
orchards.
 Villa Medici of Castello
• The discovery of the garden is prepared by the stroll in the grove of
cypresses and laurels. The intention is to create an effect of surprise for the
visitor. We can remark the specific treatment of hedges creating triangles
intersecting in circles punctuated by balls.
• The main path leads to a cave where animals are sculpted in marble.
• Behind, we find a wood land with a pond, in its middle stands the sculpture
of the God of river, Apennine, the work of Bartolomeo Ammannati 1565.
• Caves, mazes, small mountains, ponds, islands, fountains figures are the
elements of Renaissance gardens.
Medicis Castello-statue Apennin
Villa Medicis La Petraia
Villa Medicis
Villa d'Este in Tivoli
Bomarzo sacred grove
(Garden of Monsters)