190 



LANDSCAPE DESIGN 



Buildings 



Dominating 



Landscape 



building arrangement to topography.) More frequently it is har- 

 monious with the landscape in texture and color : the gray green of 

 Its painted woodwork may harmonize with the color of the surrounding 

 foliage ; the texture and tone of its stonework, taken from a local quarry, 

 may match the outcrop of the same stone appearing near it ; its thatched 

 roof and lichen-covered walls may be quite similar to the tree-trunks 

 behind it and to the dead grasses before its door. Then too a build- 

 ing may be effectively harmonized with the landscape, or at least 

 prevented from appearing incongruous with it, by being very largely 

 screened from sight by mantling vines and surrounding or overhanging 

 trees. (See Drawing XXVI, opp. p. 198.) 



We should bear in mind, however, in our endeavors to subordinate 

 a building to a natural or naturalistic landscape, the fact that it is not 

 essential for harmony that the shape of the building should resemble 

 any natural form. (See Plate 35.) The building need not be rounded 

 like a great tree, or jagged like a cliff, or irregular or flowing in outline 

 like the surface of a mass of shrubbery ; indeed an attempt to do any 

 of these things, however successful it might be in subordinating the 

 building to the rest of the scene, would inevitably, if carried to any 

 length, result in architectural ugliness. The building should be beauti- 

 ful, convenient, efficient after its own kind. In fact, fitness to local 

 conditions, and simple form obviously expressing a practical need in 

 construction or in use, tend of themselves to make the building less 

 expressive of man's will, more expressive of man's necessity, and so 

 less incongruous with natural expression. 



A building usually assumes greater harmony with the landscape 

 as it grows old, that is, as it is subjected for a longer and longer time to 

 the natural forces of rain and wind and weather which are operating 

 also on all the other objects of the scene. This is noticeably true, 

 even with the old wooden New England farmhouse. (See Drawing 

 XXIII, opposite.) In the case of a masonry structure. It is of course 

 more marked. The ivy clad ruins of a castle may form quite as restful 

 and Integral a portion of the scene as would a natural cliff in the same 

 place. 



If the scene of which the building is a part expresses primarily 

 human ideals and Is arranged obviously In relation to man's use, then 



