June, 1923 
45 
GARDEN SEATS and SHELTERS 
Make the Garden More Comfortable and Alluring by Offering 
Opportunities for Ease Which Will Also Be Decorative Accents 
RICHARD H. PRATT 
T he whole problem of garden seats, 
briefly stated, is to combine comfort 
with durability, to use materials and 
designs which will carry out the spirit of 
the garden, and then to place them where 
they will enhance the scheme and be, them¬ 
selves, spots from which it is pleasant to 
look and in which it is pleasant to linger. 
Bodily comfort in the garden has to be 
some sort of compromise between the desire 
for ease and the rather unyielding rugged¬ 
ness of things that have to withstand the 
elements. Stone, for instance, is not the 
softest material in the world; but it is diffi¬ 
cult for rain and snow and frost and heat 
to do anything to it but give it a lovelier, 
mellower texture. Therefore stone is a 
justly popular material for garden seats. 
In the sun-drenched gardens of Italy it 
was almost perfect. Even with the disad¬ 
vantages it offers here of being somewhat 
too cool for comfort, except in July and 
August, when it is apt to be too warm, its 
good points—its permanence and, properly 
handled, its beauty, outweigh its bad ones. 
The stone seat is particularly effective 
when it is built into its garden. Set in a 
niche or tied in with flanking walls, like 
the curious 17th century seat shown below 
it becomes as it should be—actually im¬ 
movable. It is susceptible to a wide vari¬ 
ety of designs, but it is loveliest when it is 
subdued in ornamentation. Ornate carv 
ing not only makes it restless in appear¬ 
ance but uncomfortable to sit upon 
In a built-up seat stone may be used very 
A curiously carved, and ornamented stone bench in an English garden, dating from 1700, in which 
the grotesque supports show the lingering Gothic influence and the scrolled and florid back the 
still unfamiliar Italian idea. Its setting of flanking walls and clipped yew background is superb 
