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Gardeners:
Architects, Designers and Landscapers
This project is an extension of the Gardeners: Horticulturists, Nurserymen and Agriculturists project. Those listed here were people who were well known garden designers, architects and landscapers, although they may also have had other strings to their bows - gardeners, botanists etc.
The aim is to in time have all profiles listed below linked to a profile on Geni. If someone in your tree fits the bill please add them to the project - whether notable or not. This is a universal project..
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Names with Bold links are to Geni profiles. Non-bold links take you to other biographical web pages.
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Burle Marx
Brazilian landscape architect (as well as a painter, print maker, ecologist, naturalist, artist and musician) whose designs of parks and gardens made him world famous. He is accredited with having introduced modernist landscape architecture to Brazil. He was known as a modern nature artist and a public urban space designer. His work had a great influence on tropical garden design in the 20th century. Water gardens were a popular theme in his work. He was deftly able to transfer traditional artistic expressions such as graphic design, tapestry and folk art into his landscape designs. He also designed fabrics, jewellery and stage sets.===
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William Banks, later landscape gardener, land steward, and surveyor to the fourth duke of Beaufort at Badminton in Gloucestershire
Decimus Burton (1800-1881)
Architect involved in design of Kew Gardens from 1840 and lasted until 1870.
Charles Bridgeman (1690–1738)
English garden designer
Lancelot "Capability" Brown (1716 – 1783)
More commonly known as Capability Brown, English landscape architect.
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Sir Frances Carew (1530 - 1611)
of Beddington Park English Gardener/Garden designer
Salomon de Caus (1576 in Dieppe – 1626)
French engineer and Garden designer
He was once (falsely) credited with the development of the steam engine. Salomon was the elder brother of Isaac de Caus. Being a Huguenot, he spent his life moving across Europe. De Caus worked as an hydraulic engineer and architect under Louis XIII. He also designed gardens in England, the one of Somerset House among them; also, the Hortus Palatinus, the Garden of the Palatinate, in Heidelberg, Germany. In 1615, he published a book showing a steam-driven pump similar to one developed by Giovanni Battista della Porta fourteen years earlier. Nevertheless, François Arago called him the inventor of the steam engine as a result.
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Andrew Jackson Downing (1815 – 852)
American landscape designer, horticulturalist, and writer
Downing was a prominent advocate of the Gothic Revival style in the United States, and editor of The Horticulturist magazine (1846–52). Many scholars consider Downing to be "The Father of American Landscape Architecture."
Downing was born in Newburgh, New York, United States, to Samuel Downing (a nurseryman and wheelwright) and Becky Crandall. After finishing his schooling at 16, he worked in his father's nursery in the Town of Newburgh, and gradually became interested in landscape gardening and architecture. He began writing on botany and landscape gardening and then undertook to educate himself thoroughly in these subjects.
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William Sawrey Gilpin (1762-1843)
Gilpin came from a family of amateur artists. He became a drawing master in London, painting mainly in watercolours and concentrating on landscape scenes. After some time away from London, he returned there in 1804. He was elected the first president of the Society of Painters in Water Colours. He resigned in 1806 and took up a post as third drawing master at the Royal Military College in Marlow.
He was discharged from his post in 1820, at the age of nearly 60, at which point he turned to landscape gardening. He established himself in this field in the 1820s and 1830s, working mainly for the landed gentry. His work was endorsed by Sir Uvedale Price, who recommended Gilpin's services to many friends. He was also recommended by J.C. Loudon. Gilpin's approaches to landscape gardening were laid out in Practical hints upon landscape gardening: with some remarks on domestic architecture, as connected with scenery (1832). William Gilpin died at Sedbury Hall, the home of his cousin John Gilpin, in 1843.
Bibliography
Piebenga, S, 'Gilpin, William Sawrey (1761/2-1843)' Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Oct 2006) [ accessed 23 June 2009]
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Penelope Hobhouse
Garden writer, garden designer, garden historian, lecturer and gardener. Until 1993 with her husband, Professor John Malins, she was in charge of the National Trust Gardens at Tintinhull House in Somerset.
Sir Ebenezer Howard
(1850 – 1928) is known for his publication Garden Cities of To-morrow (1898), the description of a utopian city in which people live harmoniously together with nature. The publication resulted in the founding of the garden city movement, that realised several Garden Cities in Great Britain at the beginning of the 20th century.
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Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
Agriculturist, horticulturist, and landscape designer
In addition to the many hats he wore as architect, statesman, politician, and president, he was also an agriculturist, horticulturist, and landscape designer. After designing several estates for friends, he eventually designed his own.
In his designs, Jefferson fused the elements of neo-classicism, such as terraces and symmetrically curved paths, with elements he learned about from his tours of English landscapes--the natural vistas combined with informal shrub and flowers beds. A visit to his Monticello estate in Virginia reveals these elements of his style of landscaping. Throughout, and to the end of his life, Jefferson was a devoted gardener and landscaper. He once wrote, "Though an old man, I am but a young gardener." In 1811 he wrote, "No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden."
References and Links
Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932)
Garden Designer/writer
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William Kent (c. 1685 – 1748),
English architect, landscape architect and furniture designer born in Bridlington, Yorkshire. He was baptised (on 1 January 1686) as William Cant.
As a landscape designer, Kent was one of the originators of the English landscape garden, a style of 'natural' gardening that revolutionised the laying out of gardens and estates. His projects included Chiswick House, Stowe, Buckinghamshire, from about 1730 onwards, designs for Alexander Pope's villa garden at Twickenham, for Queen Caroline at Richmond and notably at Rousham House, Oxfordshire, where he created a sequence of Arcadian set-pieces punctuated with temples, cascades, grottoes, Palladian bridges and exedra, opening the field for the larger scale achievements of Capability Brown in the following generation. Smaller Kent works can be found at Shotover House, Oxfordshire, including a faux Gothic eyecatcher and a domed pavilion. His all-but-lost gardens at Claremont, Surrey, have recently been restored. It is often said that he was not above planting dead trees to create the mood he required. Kent's only real downfall was said to be his lack of horticultural knowledge and technical skill (which people like Charles Bridgeman possessed - whose impact on Kent is often underestimated), but his naturalistic style of design was his major contribution to the history of landscape design. Claremont, Stowe, and Rousham are places where their joint efforts can be viewed. Stowe and Rousham are Kent's most famous works. At the latter, Kent elaborated on Bridgeman's 1720s design for the property, adding walls and arches to catch the viewer's eye. At Stowe, Kent used his Italian experience, particularly with the Palladian Bridge. At both sites Kent incorporated his naturalistic approach.
Richard Payne Knight (1750 - 1824)
Connoisseur, author and owner/designer of Downton Castle, between 1774 and 1778.
Pevsner, in the Art Bulletin for December 1949, traces the origins of the Downton design to Vanburgh Castle and Strawberry Hill. Richard Payne Knight was the grandson of an ironmaster and the son of a clergyman. Pevsner believed he was more interested in sexual symbolism than anything else. This interest is revealed in Knight's book on The Worship of Priapus. Richard Payne Knight wrote a Poem, The Landscape (1794) in which he mocked the 'smooth' style of Lancelot Brown. This led to the 'picturesque controversy' between Knight, Price and Repton. Richard Payne Knight designed a castellated mansion with a picturesque garden at Downton. The architectural style was 'mixed', just as Humphry Repton was later to propose a 'mixed' approach to garden design. He also came to agree with Repton that a house should have a terrace in the foreground to frame the view of the landscape.
He was born at Wormesley Grange, five miles north west of Hereford in Herefordshire, UK, was the son of Rev. Thomas Knight (1697–1764) and nephew and heir of Richard Knight (1693–1765) of Croft Castle. They were two of the sons of Richard Knight, a wealthy Ironmaster of Bringewood Ironworks. He was educated at home, but toured Italy and the European continent from 1767 for several years. He was a collector of ancient bronzes and coins, a Member of Parliament from 1780 to 1806, and an author of numerous books and articles on ancient sculpture, coins and other artefacts. As a member of the Society of Dilettanti, Knight was widely considered to be an arbiter of taste. He bequeathed his collection of bronzes, coins, engraved gems, marbles, and drawings to the British Museum. He is buried in the churchyard of St Mary's Church, Wormsley, and his chest tomb has been designated as a Grade II listed building.
References and Links
Peter Joseph Lenné (the Younger) (1789 — 1866)
Prussian gardener and landscape architect from Bonn who worked in the German classicist style.
Lenné was the son of the royal court gardener, Peter Joseph Lenné the Elder, and his wife, Anna Catharina Potgieter (also Potgeter). After the Abitur, Lenné decided to work with gardens. He began his apprenticeship as a gardener in 1808 with his uncle, Josef Clemens Weyhe, the court gardener in Brühl. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Joseph_Lenné
Landschaftsgarten of Neuhardenberg Palace
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John Lindley FRS (8 February 1799 – 1 November 1865)
English botanist and author. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lindley
Lindley was born at Catton, near Norwich, England, where his father, George Lindley, author of A Guide to the Orchard and Kitchen Garden, owned a nursery garden. He was educated at what was then Norwich Grammar School. His first publication, in 1819, a translation of the Analyse du fruit of L. C. M. Richard, was followed in 1820 by an original Monographia Rosarum, with descriptions of new species, and drawings executed by himself, then in 1821 by Monographia Digitalium, and "Observations on Pomaceae", which were both contributed to the Linnean Society. [see note 2 below] Shortly afterwards he went to London where he was engaged by J. C. Loudon to write the descriptive portion of the Encyclopaedia of Plants.
Nathaniel Lloyd
English architectural historian and owner of Great Dixter, where he laid out the garden and commissioned Edwin Lutyens to make alterations to the house. Lloyd wrote books on English Brickwork and on Garden Craftsmanship in Yew and Box (1925).
Sir Edwin Lutyens OM KCIE
André Mollet ( ? - <16 June 1665)
French garden designer - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/André_Mollet
André Mollet was the son of Claude Mollet—gardener to three French kings—and the grandson of Jacques Mollet, gardener at the château d'Anet, where Italian formal gardening was introduced to France.
André Mollet was summoned to England in the 1620s to lay out gardens for Charles I of England and perhaps the parterres at Wilton House, but by 1633 he was in the service of Prince Frederick Henry of Orange, for whom he laid out parterres en broderie that included the lion rampant of the prince's coat-of-arms, in turf and clipped boxwood, set in colored gravels at Huis Honselaarsdijk, and at the prince's other main residence, Huis ter Nieuwburg near Rijswijk.
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André Le Nôtre (12 March 1613 – 15 September 1700)
(Sometimes André Le Nostre) French landscape architect and the principal gardener of King Louis XIV of France.
Most notably, he was responsible for the design and construction of the park of the Palace of Versailles, and his work represents the height of the French formal garden style, or jardin à la française.
André Le Nôtre was born in Paris, into a family of gardeners. Pierre Le Nôtre, who was in charge of the gardens of the Palais des Tuileries in 1572, may have been his grandfather. André's father Jean Le Nôtre was also responsible for sections of the Tuileries gardens, initially under Claude Mollet (father of André Mollet above), and later as head gardener, during the reign of Louis XIII.
André was born on 12 March 1613, and was baptised at the Église Saint-Roch. His godfather at the ceremony was an administrator of the royal gardens, and his godmother was the wife of Claude Mollet.
The family lived in a house within the Tuilieries, and André thus grew up surrounded by gardening, and quickly acquired both practical and theoretical knowledge. The location also allowed him to study in the nearby Palais du Louvre, part of which was then used as an academy of the arts. He learned mathematics, painting and architecture, and entered the atelier of Simon Vouet, painter to Louis XIII, where he met and befriended the painter Charles Le Brun. He learned classical art and perspective, and studied for several years under the architect François Mansart, a friend of Le Brun.
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Frederick Law Olmsted (1822 - 1903)
Landscape designer
Frederick Law Olmsted is famous as the designer of Central Park, New York, and as The Father of Landscape Architecture. He was born in Hartford, Connecticut and before taking up landscape architecture as a profession he worked as a farmer, a seaman, a journalist and a social reformer. Frederick Law Olmsted's winning design for the Central Park competition was done with Calvert Vaux, an English architect who had also been A J Downing's partner. Olmsted set up a prosperous firm which designed some 50 public parks and 550 other commissions, many of them gardens and residential projects. F L Olmsted's style drew from Downing, from natural scenery, from visits to European parks, and from reading landscape and garden theorists, including Gilpin, Price, Loudon and Repton. Uvedale Price and Humphry Repton were the most significant influences and Olmsted favoured the landscape style, with a transition from a regular terrace to a natural landscape. This is clearly seen at Biltmore. The firm, Olmsted Brothers, continued operation after Frederick's retirement and had a significant influence on American garden design and landscape architecture.
Central Park Biltmore Gardens were designed by Frederick Law Olmsted
References and Links
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Sir Joseph Paxton (3 August 1803 – 8 June 1865)
English gardener and architect, best known for designing The Crystal Palace.
Montague Russell Page (1906 – 1985)
British landscape architect and garden designer born in Lincolnshire.
Former partner of Geoffrey Jellicoe and author of The Education of a Gardener (1962). In this book he looks at the history of Islamic and Classical gardens. Page and Jellicoe designed the landscape and building for the splendidly named 'Caveman Restaurant' at Cheddar Gorge in Somerset.
Page went on to design gardens in Europe and the US. His clients included: Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor and Duchess of Windsor, King Léopold III of Belgium, Sir William Walton, Babe Paley and William S. Paley, Oscar de la Renta, Marcel Boussac, Olive, Lady Baillie, PepsiCo, Baron and Baroness Thierry Van Zuylen van Nijevelt and the Frick Museum.
He was married twice. Page's first wife was Lida Gurdjieff, a daughter of the spiritual teacher G. I. Gurdjieff, whom he married in 1947; they divorced in 1954 and had one son, David. His second wife, whom he married in 1954, was Vera Milanova Daumal, the former wife of the poet Hendrick Kramer and widow of the poet René Daumal; she died in 1962.
Charles Adams Platt (1861 – 1933)
was a prominent artist, landscape gardener, landscape designer, and architect of the "American Renaissance" movement. His garden designs complemented his domestic architecture.
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Humphry Repton (21 April 1752 – 24 March 1818)
His first name is often incorrectly given as "Humphrey". English author and landscape designer. Born Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk
Repton is often regarded as the successor to Capability Brown; he also sowed the seeds of the more intricate and eclectic styles of the nineteenth century.
Humphry Repton was a minor squire who had worked in business and as a farmer. In 1788, at the age of 36, he decided to take up the profession of landscape gardener. A series of commissions led Humphry Repton to publish a book of Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening in 1795. Like his later books, it drew upon the 'Red Books' he had produced for clients. These were bound volumes making recommendations for his client's estate and making ingenious use of Repton's 'before' and 'after' sketches. Humphry Repton hoped to follow in Brown's footsteps but much of his career was during the Napoleonic wars and he did not have the same opportunities as his predecessor. Repton believed in making a transition from a terrace near the house, through a serpentine park to a distant view. Owing to the less affluent times in which Humphry Repton worked, many of his commissions were for terraces or gardens near the house. Repton worked at Tatton Park, Woburn Abbey, West Wycombe, Harewood House, Bayham Abbey and many other places. Humphry Repton proposed his first terrace in 1791 and was to propose many thereafter. As he wrote in 1818, Humphry Repton might be accused "of often advising the same thing at different places".
http://www.gardenvisit.com/biography/humphry_repton#ixzz1IG9f3nY8
John Rose (1622-1677)
English gardener and Garden designer.
from the Garden and Landscape Guide
He studied under Le Notre and was appointed keeper of St James's Park in 1666. His designs have not survived but he is known to have helped introduce the French style of garden design to Britain. He wrote books on vineyards and fruit trees.
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Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962)
(Victoria Mary Sackville-West) Garden designer/creater, Gardener, a garden writer
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John Wolf (Jehen Le Leu) 1547
priest-gardener for HenryVIII
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