LANDSCAPE DESIG 



* 



Buildings 

 Properly 

 Serving Park 

 Uses 



a country park. It is commonly best to have the scheme of circu- 

 lation of a landscape park consist of a road system of easy gradient 

 and ample curve, making a circuit or series of circuits in the park 

 displaying but not interrupting the larger landscape units ; a bridle 

 path system (if this is desired), making a number of interesting circuits 

 perhaps especially through the more rugged and wooded parts, but 

 not unduly cutting up the wilder portions of the park ; and a path 

 system, accommodating foot traffic throughout the park, but as it; 

 special function giving access to those areas of more sequestered efTec; 

 and smaller scale which would be particularly injured by the introduc j 

 tion of roads and bridle paths. 



In determining what buildings should be constructed in a landscape 

 park, the public should bear in mind the obvious and fundamenta 

 consideration : the purpose for which the park was created. Thougl 

 a park may look like wild land, it is not, for that, waste land to be de< 

 voted piecemeal to any use which is in itself desirable. Landscap< 

 parks have been set aside by our cities at great expense to serve a definit< 

 recreational purpose, and all the experience of our cities goes to shov 

 that the service of the parks is well worth this expense ; but this servic< 

 can be rendered only so long as they retain their character as landscap< 

 parks. The introduction of buildings into them, therefore, is undesir 

 able except such structures as shall serve the legitimate purposes o 

 the park, and which therefore must be built for the sake of the parl- 

 as a whole. The construction of a schoolhouse in a landscape park 

 on the ground that the park gives light, air, and opportunity for pla> 

 for the children, the construction of a public building in a park on th< 

 ground that the park makes an admirable setting for the architecture 

 is a piece of short-sighted folly in the utilization of public property.* 



There must be proper provision for the upkeep of the park, propei 

 place for the storage of tools and vehicles, and the housing of work 

 horses. It is usually desirable that some one in direct authority ovei 

 workmen should live near these service buildings, and often that some o\ 



* See the paper by Frank Miles Day, The Location of Public Buildings in Parks 

 and other Open Spaces, with discussion, in Proceedings of National Conference on City 

 Planning, 1911, p. 53~79. Also see the article by Robert Wheelwright referred to 

 in footnote on p. 308, and several chapters in Olmsted and Kimball, Central Park. 



