100 20th-Century Gardens and Landscapes by Society Twentieth Century;

Author:Society, Twentieth Century;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pavilion Books

Gale Common, East Yorkshire

Ladybower Reservoir, Derbyshire

Kielder Water, Northumberland

The longest landscapes are those that follow roads. As early as 1939 Brenda Colvin attacked the Roads Beautifying Association, whose planting of flowering trees and shrubs along the carriageways of Britain’s new trunk roads she thought too pretty. The government encouraged county councils to build more roads after 1945. Colvin was the first to complain about widening minor roads and the imposition of standardised solutions by traffic engineers, and was among many who criticised the hard, sharp lines and clumsy angles of the first phase of the MI, as well as the fussy planting selected by foresters. Though originally planned for fast cars, container lorries had the greatest impact on motorway design, because they needed gentle curves and shallow gradients. Colvin emphasised the importance of shaping a road to the contours and creating landscapes to be seen at speed, while Sylvia Crowe complained about the hard edge created by continuous fencing and the heavy lines of the early bridges. Both favoured the split of carriageways, with central reservations of varying widths, particularly on open, hilly ground. Following so much criticism, the Ministry of Transport appointed its own landscape architect, Michael Porter, in 1961, and considered the aesthetics of alignment, bridges and landscaping, planting boldly using mainly native species.

Ecological concerns were aroused in the United States with the publication in 1962 of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, and in 1969 by Ian McHarg’s polemical Design with Nature. They were followed in Britain by Nan Fairbrother’s wide-ranging New Lives New Landscapes, published in 1970, coinciding with European Conservation Year, and its very title redolent of the new perception of landscape as encompassing the whole environment. Landscape architects turned to the reclamation of derelict land, with Clifford Tandy producing trails and sporting facilities at Stoke-on-Trent, Brian Clouston designing recreational land at Tow Law and the Centre for Alternative Technology reclaiming 40 acres (16.18ha) of a disused quarry at Machynlleth in Wales, opened in 1975.

When Crowe asked friends for their thoughts on Rutland Water, they replied ‘we thought it was all natural!’ Her delight in recounting the tale sums up the nebulous nature of broader landscape design – and why it needs to be better understood.

Elain Harwood

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