Thomas Church and his ‘Gardens for People’
Thomas Church - Donnell Residence, Sonoma, CA 1948 |
Thomas Church was one of the most influential
American landscape architects of the twentieth century. His ideas on the 'modern'
landscape revolutionized home landscaping and changed the look of the suburban
backyard. Born in Boston in 1902, he
attended college in California and came under the spell of its climate and
outdoor lifestyle. Church received his
landscape architecture degree from Berkeley in 1923 and his Masters in
Landscape Architecture from Harvard in 1926.
Church urged people to see residential property as a single living space with the house and garden directly connected. This was a dramatic notion for its day. His greatest influence was through his books and numerous articles. His popular book on home landscapes, 'Gardens are for People,' was published in 1955. Church advocated four basic landscape design principles:
• Unity - Consider the house and garden as a
whole
• Function - All areas in a property should
have a function
• Simplicity - a simple layout is more
beautiful and effective than a fussy one
• Scale - Each part of the garden should relate
to the other in a comfortable proportion of size
Above
all, Thomas Church urged people to work in collaboration with
the land. His advice, "Gentle be
the hand it lays upon the land," is a wise and timeless admonition.
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