ARCHITECTURE IN PARKS 



architecture which he creates must be to serve the interests of the park 

 and in that sense be subservient or incidental to the general aspect of 

 that park, will not find a great deal of liberty for dabbling in fantastic 

 styles: he will come to realise that there are principles in landscape 

 design, perhaps previously unfamiliar to him, holding him within sur- 

 prisingly definite limits. An entire park design may just as surely be 

 unbalanced or disrupted by irresponsible design of a component build- 

 ing as may an architectural f a9ade be destroyed by irresponsible design 

 of an entrance door or other unit of its composition. Architecture of 

 small parks should be entrusted only to architects of park experience 

 or in consultation with the landscape architect or park designer in 

 charge of the park development as a whole. 



EXPRESSIVE, NOT FANCIFUL 



More liberty may be granted in the architecture of large parks. 

 There the buildings are beyond the influence of street architecture, and 

 therefore may be designed as units in themselves, or as relating only 

 to other units of park architecture. In a formal landscape scheme the 

 character of the architecture component to it often will be arbitrarily 

 determined, but free standing buildings, such as pavilions, tea houses 

 and park restaurants, may be left quite to the will of the architect 

 provided, of course, that he is a designer of discretion. It should be 

 again emphasised, however, that a " playful " type of design com- 

 monly considered suitable for park work does not mean fantastic or 

 privileged architecture. Golf and tennis houses and the buildings 

 devoted to the conveniences of park sports should show special dignity 

 of design, thus visually controverting the old-fashioned idea of their 

 inconsequence and triviality. The large boat houses and buildings for 

 sports in the parks of Budapest are imposing stone structures. The 

 field houses of the recreation centres in the Chicago parks are examples 

 of well-expressed park architecture. It is disappointing that the 



194 



