Additional information on the life work of Ralph Hancock can be found through a site was developed by his family www. ralphhancock.com.
And here's a podcast link off BBC radio...
Ralph Hancock - Dear Tempestuous Genius from Robin Hull on Vimeo.
KENSINGTON ROOF GARDENS
Created by Ralph Hancock in the 1930’s, it is still functioning as a public space after 75 years. Originally the Roof Garden above Derry +Tom’s department store, it is now owned by Sir Richard Branson and known simply as
.
A bit about Ralph Hancock…
Clarence Henry Ralph Hancock (known as Ralph) was born in Albany Road, Cardiff, in 1893. In 1926 he paid his membership fees and became a Fellow of the Royal Horticultural Society. The following year the family moved to Surrey. It was from here in 1927 that Ralph undertook the first of his more famous garden projects designing and constructing a rock and water garden and also an Iris garden for HRH Princess Victoria, (Edward VII’s daughter) at her home” in Buckinghamshire. Photographs of the garden show a naturalistic style with the use of huge rock outcrops. This fondness for the use of rock combined with the influence of the “arts and crafts” movement is not surprising given the time that Hancock was constructing gardens.
On May 31, 1930, Ralph, set sail for New York. In order to promote his work in the US, he published an illustrated booklet titled English Gardens in America and described himself as being “Landscape Gardener to HRH the Princess Victoria of England”.
The gardens show some of Hancock’s trends, the use of low Cotswold stone walls combined with wrought iron used to construct the gates. He comments that “Cotswold stone harmonizes perfectly and is difficult to beat for this purpose”.
The promotional booklet must have worked as Hancock went on to design an exhibition garden at Erie Station in New Jersey. He also staged exhibits at the Massachusetts Horticulture Show where he won several awards, including in 1933 the Presidents Cup. He was one of the designers of the Lydia Duff Gray Hubbard garden in New Jersey which now forms part of the Garden Club of America Collection. Between 1933 and 1935 Hancock was to embark on the construction of one of his most ambitious projects, a series of roof gardens called the “Gardens of Nations” on the 11th floor of the Rockefeller Centre in New York. The gardens at the Rockefeller Center were visited by Trevor Bowen, the managing director of Barkers who had taken over Derry and Toms in Kensington, London. Bowen liked what he saw and employed Hancock to create a similar effect in the heart of London. Again the logistics involved in the construction are impressive. On opening, the gardens contained over 500 different varieties of trees and shrubs.
I
n common with the gardens at the Rockefeller the gardens at Derry and Toms had an international flavor and featured Spanish, Tudor and English woodland gardens. The gardens were completed in 1938 at a cost of £25,000. In common with the Rockefeller there was an admission charge of a shilling (5p) but this time the money went to support local hospitals. Over the next 30 years it was to raise over £120,000.
This must have been a particularly busy time for Ralph as he was also winning Gold Medals for his display gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show. Ralph continued to be a very successful exhibitor at Chelsea, winning gold medals in 1936, ’37 and ’38. The gardens constructed at Chelsea had moved away from the naturalistic rock garden style towards the more arts and crafts style that we associated him with. One of Ralph specialities became the use of Moon Gates, which he used both at Chelsea and a number of other gardens.
Original illustrations of Derry + Tom's Roof Garden (courtesy Ralph Hancock archives)
Present day photographs I took earlier this month on a rainy day.
A thoroughly lovely video off of YouTube on this garden...
RILL
A rill is a narrow and shallow incision into soil resulting from erosion by overland flow that has been focused into a thin thread by soil surface roughness. A rill may also refer to narrow channels of water inset in the pavement of a garden, as a water feature. The precedents come from Persian Gardens and Moorish Spanish Gardens. One of the most historically significant is found at the Alhambra in Granada Spain. At the Court of the Lions (within the Alhambra) a central fountain links the surrounding buildings through a cruciform pattern of water channels or “rills”.
image from wallpapers.bassq.nl
More London is a new development on the south bank of the River Thames, immediately south-west of Tower Bridge in London. It includes the City Hall, a sunken amphitheatre called The Scoop, office blocks, shops, restaurants, cafes, and a pedestrianized area containing open-air sculptures and water features, including fountains lit by coloured lights. The Hilton London Tower Bridge hotel opened in September 2006. Set on 13 Acres, it uses water (The Thames, rills and fountains) as the backbone, the design gesture that links it from one end to the other.
image from morelondon.com
Beginning at London Bridge Station/Tooley Street a series of simple fountain pools evolve to a rill that runs diagonally (a thousand feet, approx) through the buildings at the center of a pedestrian esplanade to the River Thames with the Tower Bridge as it’s focal point. Before you arrive at the River Thames you are greeted at the Scoop, an open air ampitheatre with at grade fountains. A thoroughly engaging public space.
follow this onsite model--entrance is at bottom, photo tour following bring you to the top of model.
pools of water @ entrance w. rill on left/Tooley street to right
Master planning and design for the area was by Foster + Partners, while the water features (rill, pools and fountains) were developed with Robert Townshend Landscape Architects.
all imagery unless noted otherwise are ©Todd Haiman 2010
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With an eye toward sustainable solutions, Nigel Dunnett, Adrian Hallam and Chris Arrowsmith presented an atypical garden at Chelsea last year… one that is both educational and creative in it’s approach. The “Future Nature” garden looks to a future for landscapes and gardens in a changing and unpredictable climate. This garden presents a number of practical solutions that can be used to create a new type of drought-resistant urban garden especially suited to underutilized city spaces. Its central message is, that by using a combination of any of the garden’s features coupled with careful plant selection, anybody, using simple planting methods and avoiding irrigation except with stored rainwater, can create a colorful and naturalistic garden. It aims to both help alleviate pressure on the urban drainage infrastructure in wet weather and maximize the use of water during increasingly dry summer months.
The central idea to this garden is water.... In the northern hemisphere, due to the rotation of the earth about its polar axis water flows down holes n a clockwise direction. Check the sink or toilet, next time you go to the loo!! Henceforth this landscape design is expressed in a spiral, clockwise direction.
Green roof - The colorful flowering green roof acts like a sponge, absorbing half of all the rainfall that falls on it, reducing the rate of stormwater run-off after heavy rainfall. A mixture of sedums are chosen to withstand the harsh exposed conditions found on rooftops and provide a rich source of nectar for visiting insects on what would otherwise be a sterile and lifeless surface. Well known are the benefits of green roofs - in addition to stormwater retentions and providing wildlife habitats, they also provide social benefits, improve air quality, modify urban micro-climates, provide insulation against heat and sound within the building and increase the life expectancy of the roof, and in some municipalities provide property tax credits and assist toward leed certification.
Together with the stormwater planter this series of small pools collect any excess rainwater that leaves the green roof. The water passes thru a series of what is represented as small pools through upright growing aquatic plants that help to clean and purify the water before it spills into the rill (small channel). The rill is designed to be attractive when not filled with water.
The line of the green roof flows in a spiral round o the pools and then via the rill to the central pool and vertical garden tower.The spiral is found in many cultures as a symbol of life and eternity.... a fitting form for a garden that aims to prolong the life of plants and addresses the pathway to a sustainable future by managing water, the source of life.
Key features of the garden include: a green roof to help reduce surface water runoff as well as enhancing biodiversity; storm water planters and pools to retain water from the roof; a living tower holding drought-resistant plants; butterfly mounds and insect towers stocked with colorful but drought-resistant planting that provide wildlife habitats in a brownfield environment.
Vertical Garden Tower - Full of intricate detail, composed of stacked and reclaimed materials.
Space for plant material, insects and other wildlife to find shelter and homes.
Unlike many “living walls” this also encompasses which require large amounts of water, this vertical garden is not dependent upon continuous irrigation.
Wild Flower Meadow - a designed and stylized version of the cosmopolitan mix of native and non-native plants that colonize urban wasteland sites and can be hotspots for the wildlife that grazes on the native species.
Stormwater Basins - Excess rainwater that leaves the green roof either falls directly into the stormwater planter, which absorbs further waste or drains into the collecting pools. The planting will tolerate being inundated with water, but will also withstand long periods of drier conditions. Stormwater basins can be used where rains lack the capacity to deal with all the run-offs from private property.
Like many gardens at Chelsea this garden was relocated to Yorkshire after the show and through its use continues to promote the inventive use of small urban spaces and water management.
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Glitz in the Garden. Consider man’s attempt to conquer nature within the landscape as a symbol for wealth and power. Specific oppulent civilizations provide many examples throughout recorded history – as punctuated by Hadrian’s Villa, Versailles, and Hearst Castle.
Garrett Eckbo- “As social inequieties become more complex, those who have more than the average, and more than they need, tend to express or flaunt such surpluses…. For the common man, dish gardens, patios or suburban backyards may provide symbols of memories of the paradise of the rich.”
From the Telegraph, here is this morning’s article on this year's 20 million pound show garden, the most expensive in the history of “The Great Show”. (Interestingly, this comes after complaints at last years show that Chelsea had scaled back, reflective of the global recession.)
“David Domoney's design is the most expensive in the event's 97 year history.
The Ace of Diamonds garden will be littered with jewels loaned by Bond Street store Leviev. The garden celebrates the links between plants and precious stones and its centrepiece will be diamond jewellery worth millions that will require unprecedented security.
It will boast a £1 million peony-shaped ring with pink and green diamonds and a daisy-shaped ring set with a rare, flawless blue diamond worth £3.2 million.
Domoney, who formerly appeared on ITV's This Morning, also hopes to include an even more valuable uncut diamond in his elaborate, outdoor display.
The garden will be worth more than all Chelsea's other collections put together when the Royal Horticulture Society's annual showpiece begins on May 25.
Many of the plants being used by Domoney have gemstones in their names such as euonymous emerald gaiety, potentilla gold finger and hosta diamond tiara.
A looping path of stepping stones leads to a central, diamond-shaped patio. When viewed from above, it is said to look like a pendant necklace.
The garden will boast Chiltern marble, Roman plinths and backlit walls with semi-precious stones such as quartz and amethyst.
The gems will be on display for the gardens launch and the duration of the judging. Domoney, who has previously suggested using Viagra to perk up wilting plants, said: "I always endeavour to introduce something a little bit more entertaining and this garden is something really special.
"I am aiming to give the garden a real James Bond-style feel.
"There will be more bling on display than on Paris Hilton.
"But we will be asking the judges to think of Helen Mirren for a touch of class.
"It's high end and extreme but with a strong horticultural message. Its a jewellery box garden. "This garden will be the most expensive that Chelsea has ever had or is ever likely to have.”
"It will be more valuable than all the rest of Chelsea collections from this year and last year combined." RHS shows director Bob Sweet said: "We are all very excited that this very valuable diamond will be sat on a table in David's outdoor garden. "We have tight security at Chelsea anyway but something like this will require special attention, which it will definitely get."
Chelsea's world-famous show gardens typically cost no more than £250,000.
The Ace of Diamonds is the second of four Domoney gardens designed for airline sponsor BMI's Diamond Club, following on from last year's Ace of Spades.
For that, a Harley Davidson motorbike took pride of place in a large pit shaped like a giant ace of spades and lined with recycled garden spades.”
Last years Ace of Spades garden.
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Maquette of "I Dream, I Seek My Garden."
Here is the third in my presentation of gardens I've enjoyed at Chelsea past.
I Dream, I Seek My Garden
was brought to life by a Malaysian, Linda Davies
in 2008
, with the help of Chinese artist, Shao Fan.
Davies said her aim was to introduce modern Chinese gardens to the western world. Backed by KT Wong Charitable Trust, her father’s organization dedicated to promoting cultural understanding and Anglo-Chinese relations, Davies commissioned the acclaimed Shao F
an to make her vision a reality.
Designer Sarah Eberle assisted Shao Fan as project manager.
The garden they came up with was designed to seem like it was recently discovered, excavated from an abandoned archaeological site in modern England. The top level is an English meadow which opens out to a hidden Chinese temple garden below. Step into the multi-layered garden, and you are transported to the Song dynasty era where colors are cold and sober. The deliberate ruin is set in a sunken arena deep in the ground and is part landscape, part building and part garden. Within its weathered earthen walls are mossy rocks and venerable artifacts. A semi-dilapitated but magnificent Chinese pavilion stands as a centrepiece in the heart of the garden, the wooden pavilion sinking into the soil to represent the increasing disappearance of traditional Chinese culture. The cultural symbolism of the plants is of paramount importance, notably the pine, bamboo and plum. These are known as the “three friends of winter”, as the first two are evergreen, while the plum flowers bloom only at the end of winter. The garden is closed off from the outside world by very high walls, which in the traditional Chinese gardens serve the very practical purpose of conferring privacy.
“China’s oldest architecture has survived, but it has been far harder to preserve the gardens. This garden is a way to bridge the present with the China of hundreds of years ago. I’m trying to find a way back to our traditions of art and culture, and for the Western world to have a glimpse of it,” said
.
ALLÉE
As you enter the Conservatory Garden at 105th and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, NYC, through the Vanderbilt gates, the view you behold is of the Italian Garden. At the center of this spectacular view is a vast lawn bordered by clipped yews, a central fountain and tiered hedges incorporated into the natural hillside. Directly adjacent to the lawn on both the north and south sides, flanking the yews that border the lawn are two luxurious allées of crabapples.
An allée was a feature of the French formal garden (circa 1700’s). It is a walkway lined with trees or tall shrubs, sometimes considered a promenade or an extension of a view. It either ended in a terminal feature or seemingly continued to oblivion. However, it’s origin may be found in ancient Roman landscapes as it was commonplace to build a road or promenade lined on both sides with trees.
The crabapples in the Conservatory Garden flanking the lawn usually reach their peak bloom in late April, but due to the early warm weather, the blooms were forced this past week. One side is pink, the other white. These mature crabapples were transported down the Hudson River on barges for the original opening of the garden in 1937, rather than the renovation done in the mid eighties by Lynden Miller.
These mature crabapples have magnificent structure, their vase shape creates not only an allée, but also a canopy, a false ceiling as you walk or sit underneath it. The allée is dreamy, restful and engaging… and for a week when the crabapples are in bloom, the petals gently drop, dancing their way down, as snowflakes, down upon the yews and bluestone paving below… dappled spots of sunlight filter through the canopy and rest on the groundplane…an enchanting vision all told.
The nearby lilacs (also early in their bloom) in the adjoined English garden have added to this sensory delight and perfumed the air.
A magnificent garden, a “dessert” for the senses anytime of year that you visit. This is a public garden, which attracts visitors of all ages, in the tradition of the great European public spaces.
GARDENS AS SCULPTURE
On a trip to the New Museum several months back I encountered the sculpture of Urs Fisher.
The physicality of these pseudo-organic large objects and voids I passed thru evoked images of a surreal garden with these masses of space representing the hanging limbs of trees, shrubs, man-cured hedges or topiary as positive spaces to the negative i passed through.
One begins to notice that Installation art is going some way towards re-integrating sculpture with its surroundings as sculptors have for years taking an interest in garden design.
Perhaps this finds its suggestion in japanese garden design with an emphasis on abstract compositional harmonies, rusticity, borrowed views and assymetrical configuration of design elements. patterns and textures play their part as well.. a Shinto shrine exists as a space in nature.
However, It could be argued that "traditional" sculpture is considered three-dimensional, yet landscape design or gardens are more complex in that they have a fourth dimension... time.
Perhaps there is a category, somewhere in-between the two disciples, where you place installation art, experimental gardens, etc., where they truly merge?
was perhaps one of the first to merge multiple visual disciplines.
The Marble Garden, 1955. Slabs of unpolished white marble, found in a nearby quarry are arranged on a 38' square platform with interesting spacial relationships created due to shadows, shifting wind patterns and a fountain jet of water in the center.
Bayer's influence is evidenced in successive modernists such as Ernst Cramer's "Poet's Garden". Within a decade after this garden was exhibited at the 1959 garden Exposition in Zurich Switzerland it had a profound effect, maybe a "tipping point" on landscape designers and architects who then began incorporating landforms + earth sculptures into their body of work.
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This serene garden was designed by Tom Stuart-Smith for Laurent-perrier in 2008. Tom will be designing the 2010 show garden as well.
Designed as a contemplative space with a dreamy and slightly surreal character, it is a garden based on the idea of juxtaposing opposites. The layout of the garden is made by overlaying a number of separate patterns. A grove of 30-year-old hornbeams pruned to appear like rounded ‘clouds’ seem to float above a criss-crossing net of Flemish brick paths.
An undulating tapestry of predominantly green herbaceous plants including
Rodgersia
,
Molinia
,
Epimedium
,
Asarum
,
Hosta
‘Devon Green’ and
Astrantia
is designed to calm, with an emphasis on form and texture, rather than colour. Zinc tanks brimming with water (and appearing to overflow) are placed throughout the garden and offer a visual link to the large zinc-panelled rear wall. Its beautiful patina and cool blue-grey color providing the perfect backdrop to the contemplative setting.
The garden was in part a reaction against the traditional ‘Chelsea garden’ with its eye-catching features and assumptions about how people will experience a space. It was also about atmosphere and mood, setting an intentional contrast between the alluring beauty of the exterior with its white peonies, and the more melancholic middle part of the garden.
Tom Stuart-Smith on his garden....
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Created by one of my favorite designers, this show garden was exhibited at Chelsea in 2008. Enjoy!
With monastic simplicity as her theme, Arabella Lennox Boyd's design for The Daily Telegraph garden is a contrast of vertical and horizontal elements; of planting and water; of hard and soft. Quiet beauty and minimalism. Her inspiration came from the zen garden of raked gravel at the temple of
. There's also the echo of the traditional yin-yang symbol in the "s" shaped central pathway and balanced placement of rocks.
Dry Garden @ Roan-ji
Two thirds of the site has been flooded by water, The garden is dominated by a rectangular shallow, stone-edged, pool of water which fills the centre of the garden, and is softened by planting on two sides. The surface is broken by rocks and a serpentine path of slate paving. They are crossed by twisting ribbons of white waterlilies (Nymphaea alba), which links the front of the garden to the planting at the back, and leads the eye towards a bamboo thicket.
A narrow strip of tiered yew hedging runs alongside the pool. At the rear of the site, the garden diffuses into the green shade of a large Caucasion Wingnut tree. Pterocarya fraxinifolia. It's appreciates moisture, produces long green catkins and pendulous strings of fruit later in the season, has handsome pinnnated leaves.
Large green leaves (including Gunnera), grey leaves, vertical bamboo and iris, rounded shrubs and roses create a rhythm. At the rear of the garden, under the large Pterocarya fraxinifolia, Arabella has set a mirror behind a grove of bamboo (Phyllostachys aurea and P. sulphurea f. viridis) which provides a bright, flickery shimmer that echoes the play of light on water.
The pool is edged in loose slate chippings sandwiched beween 2 strips of purbec limestone, hand hammered to create a dimpled surface.
