362 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 288. 



strip of land between them now known as the Midway. The 

 fundamental idea of this design was to re-open the old 

 lagoons, to take the material lifted out to form the basis of 

 higher banks on the old sand-bars, then to move through 

 the Midway to the inland park, lifting out the material 

 needed to open a channel in which dredges could float, 

 and so shifting its material on the one side or the 

 other as to provide varying shores which were afterward 

 to be covered with soil and vegetation. When Jackson 

 Park was chosen as the site of the World's Fair, none of 

 this general landscape-design had been executed, but it 

 was thought that if the element of water-ways in the 

 original plan could be carried out, and retaining-walls 

 built for holding excavated material which was piled upon 

 the shores, terraces could be formed, and the buildings of 

 the Fair could be advantageously distributed upon the sur- 

 rounding ridges. The feasibility of this plan was con- 

 firmed by counsel with Messrs. Burnham & Root. Where 

 lagoons with shores of a natural character would be un- 

 suitable for boats, it was thought best to give them the 

 character of canals, that is, to make them formal and give 

 their banks, which would necessarily be walls, an archi- 

 tectural character in harmony with the buildings. With 

 these points established, the development of the leading 

 features of the design followed. First, the great architect- 

 ural court with its body of water, which should be a digni- 

 fied and impressive entrance-hall to the Exposition through 

 which all visitors were to pass ; then the canal extending 

 northward to the broader waters, giving a water-frontage as 

 well as a land-frontage to the principal buildings ; and, lastly, 

 the wooded island, with its natural sylvan aspect and its 

 shores bordered with plants, which would endure oc- 

 casional submergence and yet survive the withdrawal of 

 water from their roots. 



Even at this early period the result which has since 

 been attained was fully anticipated in a general way. The 

 effect of the boats and water-fowl as incidents of move- 

 ment and life on the waters, the bridges with their 

 shadows and reflections, their effect in extending perspec- 

 spectives and in tying together terraces and buildings, 

 thus increasing unity of composition — all this was fully 

 taken into account from the first, even the style of the boats 

 best adapted to the purpose becoming at once a topic of 

 study. When the Advisory Board of Architects, with Mr. 

 Hunt as chairman, met, the landscape-gardeners were 

 made members of the Board, and the plan came up for 

 critical review. Many suggestions and counter-sugges- 

 tions were made, and the balance of advantages weighed, 

 but the result was at last a cordial approval of the original 

 plaa. This was modified afterward, so far as the abandon- 

 ment of a proposed outer harbor was concerned, and, in 

 another particular, modified to its injury. The landscape- 

 gardeners all thought, and Mr. Codman was particularly 

 strong in the conviction, that it was an unfortunate circum- 

 stance that visitors so generally entered the Paris Exposition 

 at points not adapted to give them a grand impression, or 

 provide for a convenient point of dispersal. The first step, 

 therefore, in revising the old park-plan to the requirements 

 of the Fair was to fix upon a focal point of interest a centre 

 which should be so placed that conveyance by land and 

 water, by railway and boats, both within and without, 

 should conveniently discharge visitors into it and receive 

 them from it. That it should be a place of general ex- 

 change, and the source of information and guidance as well 

 as the point of departures and returns, a spacious court 

 was provided, the Administration Building was placed in 

 this court, the buildings likely to be most frequented 

 opened into it, the intramural railway had its principal 

 station in it, and the whole interior water-system was 

 planned with a view to easy connection with it by small 

 boats. All railways and steamboats were to receive and 

 discharge passengers through it, and a union station was 

 provided with this object in view. The failure to carry 

 out this plan completely has, in Mr. Olmsted's opinion, 

 cost the Exposition much, and deducted much from its 



value. The reason that this part of the scheme failed 

 seems to be due to a lack of co-operation on the part of 

 the Illinois Central Railway. 



When the general plan was formed space was reserved 

 for smaller buildings which it was supposed would be 

 needed, but many such structures which were not then con- 

 templated were ultimately scattered about between the main 

 buildings. It was the original intention to leave the wooded 

 island free from all objects that would prevent it from pre- 

 senting, in connection with the waters about it, a broad 

 space characterized by calmness and naturalness, to serve 

 as a foil to the artificial grandeur and sumptuousness 

 of the other parts of the scenery. Perhaps it is fortunate 

 that no more obtrusive and disquieting introductions than 

 the temple and garden of the Japanese and the horticul- 

 tural exhibits were admitted to the island ; nevertheless, 

 these have injured it for the purpose of the design, and if 

 they could have been avoided the Exposition would have 

 made a more agreeable general impression on visitors of 

 cultivated taste. Many of the smaller structures — pavilions 

 and buildings, inserted without consulting the landscape- 

 gardeners — are placed where they intercept vistas and dis- 

 turb spaces intended to relieve the eye from too constant 

 demands upon the attention made by the Exposition build- 

 ings. The effect of these little structures among the larger 

 ones has been bad. It was the original intention to use on 

 the grounds much more gardening decoration in various 

 forms than has been used. Materials were provided for 

 this purpose, at great expense, largely in the form of plants 

 propagated and kept through the winter under glass, but 

 when the time approached for using them the spaces in the 

 grounds not occupied by the larger buildings and trees, 

 appeared everywhere too much divided and disturbed by 

 little features which were intended to be more or less 

 decorative in their character, and, therefore, after consid- 

 eration, it was reluctantly concluded that the intended 

 floral decoration would add so much disquiet to the already 

 excessive disquiet of the scenery that they would detract 

 from the effect of the more massive elements, and had to 

 be abandoned. 



The administration at one time contemplated the intro- 

 duction of a branch railway by which Illinois Central trains 

 could be taken from the Midway station up on the main 

 court through the Fair-ground. To make room for this 

 road the position assigned to the Horticultural Building had 

 to be changed, the breadth of the lagoon was reduced and 

 the outline of the island modified. The railway project 

 was abandoned, but work had been done which compelled 

 adherence to the unfortunate revision of the shores. The 

 cramping of the water at this point has been a considera- 

 ble loss, and had the advances and recesses of the foliage 

 masses beside the Horticultural Building been much greater 

 than they are a more picturesque effect would have been 

 obtained. 



In measuring the work of the landscape-department we 

 should remember that, among various other considerations, 

 the resources available in any large capital of Europe were 

 not at command in Chicago, and the work had to be pushed 

 rapidly with unknown and untrained men. After all the 

 operations of grading, draining and top-soiling the land, 

 the great bulk of the planting operations had to be com- 

 pleted in one fall and spring, two years being the longest time 

 at command in any part of the grounds, and yet it was 

 necessary to avoid the weak and sickly appearance so often 

 seen in freshly made plantations. Besides this, unknown 

 conditions of climate had to be met, such as possible rains 

 and floods and frosts in the planting season ; there was no 

 certainty as to the behavior of the bottom and banks of 

 excavations, where there were slips and uprisings of the 

 sand from subterranean springs ; there were no data to es- 

 timate the amount of ice which put the life of water-plants 

 in peril along the shore. Several miles of raw, newly 

 made shore had to be covered with a graceful and intricate 

 green drapery of varied tints and pleasing in its shadows 

 and reflections, and yet no commercial agencies were 



