Yseult Ogilvie to Niall Hobhouse
In response to your letter of endorsement for the FOA proposal, you have tackled the defence head-on with the usual incisive appreciation. However the lack of visceral response when seeing the proposal on the ground remains an issue, and I remain convinced that the scheme was generated, primarily, by the confines of the shape of the parabola on a level ground.. It is clear that the way the garden rests within the folds of the landscape remains the pre-eminent condition of the defined space, a condition which seems obvious now that the site is cleared. Indeed it is curious how many avid ‘gardeners’ who claim know the garden well, and over time, are unable to position the original avenue on plan when asked. This is because the condition has changed. It appears to be a puzzle and there is an eerie beauty to the curvature of the ground set within the confines of the wall. Although there is a notional sense of ‘fall’ within the proposed lattice of paths, it is not sufficiently realised. Alessandro admits this in his missive, and there is ample opportunity to develop the scheme further. I disagree that, ‘…the idea of relating the garden to the outside is something that defeats the traditional preconception of the garden as a delimited domain detached from nature and heavily crafted…’ Where has that been fixed in aspic? However I do agree that the ‘dynamic structure’ of the paths suggest movement and does not exclude ‘areas of tranquillity and seclusion.’
As you know, historically there are two models of the ur-garden; one spawned in the harshness of the desert, walled and disposed around a water source, an attempt to impose order on such abstraction, an attempt to find meaning beneath the indifference of the stars. The other model developed in a more clement climate, and responded to the bounty of the natural world, an attempt at authorship, an endorsement of our own individual response to elements beneath the bald eye of nature. It is borne of ease, and a static society secure enough to apportion merit. Both are site specific, and both work when executed with conviction. Throughout history both responses have been combined and melded with varying degrees of success. Usually this success relies upon the calibre of the designer.
Within the heat of the moment, there can be no consensus to an original idea. Critical distance is achieved over time. But the course of history reveals that the projects that remain valuable are those that are considered, those where the extent of the thought stuck over the parapet and remained there, either to be shot off or to survive ‘in the valley of its saying…’ (to quote Auden)
Despite the rare beauty of the shape on the land I disagree, strongly, that it should be left vacant. This would work on one level only, as a conceptual piece, an amusing one-liner over time. The business of life is far more complicated. Thank gawd for that…