Manning's Design Legacy: Coming into Focus

For the past two years, photographer Carol Betsch has been on the trail of noted landscape architect Warren H. Manning, making images of work he designed over the course of his fifty-year career—from town and state parks, cemeteries, country estates, planned communities, and suburbs to one of the nation’s earliest golf courses (in Rockport, Maine). They will be used to illustrate the forthcoming LALH book about Manning. A sampling of the new Manning images now makes up the banner on the opening page of the LALH website. This growing body of photographs will eventually be placed in a digital archive accessible to the public. 

In aiming her camera, Betsch has relied on the research and recommendations of a broad network of associates who are contributing essays to the forthcoming book. In some cases, she has discovered that Manning’s work remains remarkably intact. Exact layouts of streets and walks, stone walls and manmade ponds, and even successional meadow plantings bear evidence of Manning’s methods—shaped, in part, by his mentors Frederick Law Olmsted and Charles Eliot, who also worked with great respect for existing conditions and the laws of nature. This photographic project is funded by a generous grant from the International Music and Art Foundation.

More Praise for the Queen of Green

Amid the buzz about the environmental benefits of green roofs, honors continue to shower landscape architect and LALH advisor Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, FASLA, for her pioneering sky-high landscapes and other eco-minded designs. Decades before green roofs got trendy, Oberlander created the 1974 rooftop park on Robson Square, a government complex in Vancouver, British Columbia. This past summer, Oberlander, a Canadian citizen, was invested as an Officer of the Order of Canada, which recognizes “a lifetime of achievement and merit of a high degree, especially in service to Canada or to humanity at large.” This is a promotion from Member of the Order, a standing Oberlander has held since 1990. In the words of the Governor General of Canada: “Canada’s premier landscape architect, she is known for integrating her designs in the overall architectural project with the natural environment, yet always adding a unique new vision and dimension. Her expert technical knowledge is coupled with her concern for expressing cultural, social and environmental concepts in her work and is reflected in her many projects for the young, the old, and for the public at large.” To date, Oberlander is the only landscape architect in Canada to receive this honor.

Nina Antonetti, author of a forthcoming LALH book about Oberlander, recently shared the news that Oberlander will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the next Cities Alive green roof and green walls conference, in Vancouver, Nov. 30–Dec. 3, 2010.

Farewell to Ed Blake (1947-2010)

“They called him ‘The Dirt Whisperer,’” said Marilyn Blake, the wife of the landscape architect Edward L. Blake Jr., who died unexpectedly in September. Blake, who, at over six and a half feet tall, was destined to stand out in a crowd, created a professional reputation to match. The firm he founded, The Landscape Studio, in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, focused on ecological planning and environmentally sustainable design. In his home state he was renowned for his sensitive design, with Andropogon Associates, of the Crosby Arboretum, in Picayune, where he also served as director. The arboretum received the Centennial Medallion Award from the American Society of Landscape Architects. In 1994 the ASLA awarded Blake the Alfred B. LaGasse Medal for his notable contributions to the management of natural resources and public lands. A beloved teacher and mentor at Mississippi State University, Blake was recently named Most Outstanding Alumnus. (Click here to view a special tribute composed by his colleagues there.) He also taught as a visiting critic at Harvard University Graduate School of Design and several other institutions.

Among the recent projects he left behind is the innovative design for 100 Acres: The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Mark Zelonis, the museum’s Ruth Lilly Deputy Director of Environmental & Historic Preservation and an LALH trustee, knew Blake for thirty years. Zelonis writes, “Rather than impose new artificial structure upon the landscape, Ed preferred the site to subtly but poignantly reveal its history, both ancient and recent, to tell the story of its use, misuse, and finally enjoyment, by the many thousands of park visitors who have already heralded its delights.” Blake honored LALH by serving as an advisor.

For Sale: Ohio Property Designed by Manning and Shipman

In the early twentieth century the lush, rolling countryside of Ohio’s Hunting Valley became a favorite place for Cleveland’s wealthy industrialists to build their country estates. One such historic property, Halfred Farm, now occupies seventeen acres of a landscape originally laid out for Windsor White by Warren Manning, with a well-preserved garden designed by Ellen Shipman, in 1921. A garden guest house looks out into this intimate space, where several of the original plants still thrive. The current owner, only the second since White died, in the 1950s, has cared for the property since then and is now seeking a buyer who will preserve the garden. Buildings are included too. The main house has two enclosed porches, teak floors, a library paneled in English pine, and four bedrooms, each with a full bath. Two or more mothers-in-law could live in harmony adjacent to a six-car garage, which sports an attached cottage at each end. More land on the property is available for sale. Conservation land abuts the north boundary. For details, contact Linda Middleton: 440-449-9652, Mon.­–Fri.

Storm King: Aging Gracefully, with Meadows

Storm King Art Center, a five-hundred-acre sculpture park in New York’s Hudson Valley, celebrated its fiftieth anniversary this year. The collection is anchored by monumental, postwar modernist sculpture by the likes of David Smith, Alexander Calder, and Mark di Suvero. Interestingly, several anniversary articles feature the expansive meadows in which many of these large-scale pieces stand. Credit landscape architect Darrel Morrison, FASLA, of New York City, for planting these beautiful, sustainable landscapes with a wide variety of native grasses.

Morrison, who is an LALH trustee, has devoted his career to designing with native plants. Having taught at the University of Wisconsin, University of Georgia, and now, Columbia University, he has also figuratively sown the seeds of ecological design among hundreds of current practitioners and teachers. These include Bob Grese, a professor of landscape architecture at the University of Michigan (profiled in this year’s VIEW) who is the editor of the forthcoming LALH anthology The Native Landscape Reader.

At Storm King, Morrison has spent more than fifteen years transforming acres of mowed lawn—ecologically speaking, a desert or worse, depending on the amounts of water and chemicals applied—into seas of native grasses. He was guided, initially, by the late landscape architect William Rutherford, who designed the sculpture parks’ first landscape in the early 1960s. Morrison observes that the grasses work aesthetically because of their fine, relatively uniform texture, which does not compete with the sculpture. The grasses also have brought the artworks into a human scale and transformed the static setting into fields of motion that interact with the gigantic forms. The species he has selected—including switch grass (Panicum virgatum), little bluestem (Schizachynium scoparium) and Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans)—require no irrigation or fertilizer because they are adapted for the conditions in which they are planted. Each spring, the meadows are burned to return nutrients to the soil and quell the spread of invasive species.

Choosing such site-specific grasses has been especially challenging in the case of Maya Lin’s Storm King Wave Field (2009), which re-creates the dynamic movement of ocean waves in curving, grass-covered berms. Morrison has had to experiment to find a mix of species that will thrive on both the landforms’ wet swales and arid slopes.

In an exciting postscript, we are pleased to announce Large Scale: Fabricating Sculpture in the 1960s and 1970s (Princeton Architectural Press), a new book that reveals the fascinating story of the process by which the era’s monumental sculptures emerged from concept to form. Author Jonathan D. Lippincott (designer of many LALH books) describes how his father, the Connecticut art fabricator Don Lippincott, realized the vision of some of the late-twentieth century’s best-known sculptors. Several of these—including Louise Nevelson, David von Schlegell, and Robert Murray—are represented in the collection at Storm King. Kudos, Lippincotts!

Restored Gardens Reopen at Stan Hywet Hall

Mark Gilles, staff architect and director of historic structures at Stan Hywet Hall, in Akron, reports that this past summer his team wrapped up Phase III of a ten-year stormwater management program, which included restoring the historic estate’s buildings and gardens. The estate, built for Frank and Gertrude Seiberling on a former stone quarry in 1915, is known for its dramatic landscape by Warren Manning, with additional garden design by Ellen Shipman and Taro Otsuka.

For decades, the property, which has been a public museum since 1957, had sustained significant water damage to buildings and gardens caused by the site’s underlying geology, which made drainage problematic. The final phase of the work included restoring the last three of Manning’s gardens west of the Manor House—the West Terrace, the Perennial Garden, and the Japanese Garden, which Manning designed with Otsuka’s assistance. “The restoration returned the waterways, pathways, and garden entry to Manning’s original concept,” Gilles says of the Japanese Garden. Guided by historical photographs taken by Willard Seiberling, one of Frank and Gertrude Seiberling’s children, the project has brought a total of eight gardens back to their original 1916­–17 appearance.

Here's to Ochsner, Hare & Hare!

This year, the country’s oldest continuously operating firm focusing solely on landscape architecture and planning celebrated one hundred years of practice. Ochsner Hare & Hare, based in Kansas City, Missouri, marked the occasion with a regional symposium, “Legendary Places,” at the city’s Liberty Memorial, an early Hare & Hare project. Among those on hand to ring in OHH’s new century were Fred Kent, president of Projects for Public Spaces; Gary Scott, FASLA, president of the American Society of Landscape Architects; and Bruce Knight, FAICP, president of the American Planning Association.

Landscape architect Sidney J. Hare (1860–1938) and his son Herbert (1888–1960)—one of Frederick Law Olmsted Jr.’s first students at Harvard—worked at all scales but specialized in city planning. Between 1920 and 1970, the firm completed more that sixty comprehensive plans and, with city planner and landscape architect George Kessler (1862–1923), created the town of Longview, Washington. Locally, Hare & Hare are best known for Country Club Plaza, the Rose Garden in Loose Park, the landscape for the Nelson–Atkins Gallery of Art, and the Country Club District. After Herbert Hare retired, Ralph Ochsner, the current CEO, bought the firm.

Ken Boone, OHH director of design, says the practice remains focused on large-scale design and planning—from parks and neighborhoods to cities and transportation corridors. Still, he looks back with humility: “The creative energy, thoughtfulness, and beauty of the Hares’ work set a very high bar for us.”

Autumn Recipes from LALH: Spanish Tomato Bread and Late-summer Tomato Sauce

Spanish Tomato Bread
This recipe is based on a tapas dish recently enjoyed at a Spanish restaurant. Traditionally, it is made by rubbing half of a ripe tomato over toasted bread and seasoning the smeared toast with salt and olive oil. But this method does not deliver the zesty flavor of the restaurant version; here is a better alternative:

Ingredients:
Makes enough for six–eight slices of bread
2  ripe, medium tomatoes
1 ½ tsps extra-virgin olive oil
a pinch or two of sea salt
Fresh bread, sliced and toasted
Menchego cheese and/or anchovies (optional)

Directions:
Boil enough water to cover the tomatoes in a pot. Place the tomatoes in the boiling water and let them sit for no more than 30 seconds. Remove from the water and allow to cool slightly before peeling. Core the tomatoes, put them into a bowl, and mash with a potato masher. Pour the pulp into a sieve and let the juices drain for about five minutes. Put the pulp back into the bowl and add the olive oil and salt to taste. Mix the ingredients together and spread on toast. To dress up the dish, top with shaved Manchego cheese and/or a couple of anchovies.

Late-summer Tomato Sauce
This classic, savory tomato sauce brims with flavor.

Ingredients:
Makes enough for 4 servings over pasta
14 large tomatoes (the riper the tomatoes, the better the flavor)
1 large onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, diced
1 tbsp fresh, chopped oregano
2 tbsps fresh, chopped basil
2 tbsps olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Sugar to taste (optional)

Directions:
In a large pot, boil enough water to cover the tops of the tomatoes. Once boiling, add the tomatoes in batches and blanch them for no more than 30 seconds. Allow them to cool enough to peel. Cut peeled tomatoes into quarters, remove seeds, and set aside. Add olive oil to a heavy-bottomed pot and set burner on medium heat. Add the onions and sautée for about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook until tender and fragrant, about 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and cook down for 30 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes or so. Add the basil and oregano and continue to cook for another 15 minutes, or until the tomatoes have broken down. For best results, blend the sauce in the pot with a hand blender; or, blend in a power blender in batches and return to pot. Reduce heat and simmer for two to three hours, or until sauce is thick and no longer separates when sitting. For a sweeter sauce, add sugar a little at a time until desired sweetness is attained. Serve over your favorite pasta or preserve for a future meal.

Recipe by Jessica Dawson

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