226 



LANDSCAPE DESIGN 



Paths in 



Formal 



Design 



fact that they were first made to be used. They must be and appear 

 to be suited to the traffic which passes over them, and they must lead 

 with reasonable directness along the lines over which this traffic might 

 be expected to pass. In a "greeting" in a park, in a tree-colonnaded 

 vista of broad parkway, in a straight stretch of driveway commanding 

 a view from a river bluff, the designer may express the uses of his road 

 in an effective formal composition. Similarly, a drive may approach 

 a building axially, terminating in an axial circle or a forecourt, or per- 

 haps there may be two drives defining a central grass panel, or a semi- 

 circular drive swinging in from the street, passing the door, and swinging 

 out again on the same curve. In any of these cases the road is forming 

 or defining a definite and balanced composition. 



In the larger formal schemes, such as a great formal park like the 

 Mariannenpark at Leipzig,* or in this country in connection with 

 building groups, like college buildings, the roads may be used as part 

 of the formal pattern of the ground. At a smaller scale this is difficult 

 if the roads are to remain otherwise useful, since the necessary width 

 of the roads and the necessary radius for the turning of vehicles tend to 

 make the roads out of scale with the other units of surface decoration. 



Since foot traffic can turn at a sharp angle and can occupy more or 

 less width of path according to circumstances, paths are much more 

 easily handled as formal ground-surface decoration than roads are. 

 How far they may be subjected entirely to the decorative needs of the 

 scheme will be determined largely by the amount and kind of traffic 

 which they are to bear. In the Harvard College "Yard," for instance, 

 though the roads bear some slight formal relation to the buildings, most 

 of the paths are purely utilitarian, laid out where the traffic tensions 

 require them, and made inconspicuous simply by being no wider than 

 necessary to accommodate those who walk upon them. This is an ex- 

 treme case, of course, because the student going to a recitation is 

 probably the man of all men the most impatient of circuities. In a 

 garden f on the other hand, which is or ought to be a place of leisure, 



* Illustrated with other modern German parks in an article in Gartenkunst, June 

 1914, vol. 16, p. 181-195. 



t For an example of how paths may be used as surface decoration in formal design, 

 see discussion under the Garden, Chapter XI, p. 243. 



