"PASSING-THROUGH" PARKS 



display of water essential to those holding focal positions in a city 

 plan, but they should be next of kin in character and force of water 

 treatment. 



ARCHITECTURAL PLANTING DESIGN 



In the planting of passing-through parks, the fundamental 

 purpose of distributing light and air in the congested district of the 

 city should be recognised. There should not be such density of shade 

 as to give an effect of sombreness during the day or to interfere with 

 adequate illumination of the park at night. The planting should not 

 be such as to enclose the park, which arrangement would interrupt 

 air currents and — a matter of great moment — would give the park the 

 appearance of isolation, an attribute of a neighbourhood or rest park. 

 Parks completely surrounded by high buildings might be styled civic 

 air wells, and in that sense the landscape planting of such parks should 

 not be crowded so as to exclude or to disturb the free circulation of air. 



The planting of this style of park should always be kept distinctly 

 subordinate to the architectural plan and to the architecture of the 

 adjacent buildings. It should aspire to a certain regularity and 

 formal character. Rural scenery injected into congested business 

 districts always seems out of place and ill at ease; if by rare chance 

 it appears to be prosperous and thriving, there is a cocky braggadocio 

 about it as though it were saying, " Well, here I am — what do you 

 make of it? "^ — like the oak tree in the masonry wall at Windsor Castle. 



A point of park design rarely considered is that planting should 

 be studied in regard to its vertical aspect, to provide such elevation as 

 may bring it in scale and character with the adjoining architecture. 

 There should be a regularity of skyline, with avoidance of snaggle- 

 toothed picturesqueness. Uvedale Price points out that " irritation or 

 stimulus is necessary to the picturesque: in the act of speaking, for 

 example, a smooth and even tone of voice indicates calm and rej^ose, 

 and broken, irregular accents, irritation; if buildings were to be cov- 



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