Thomas church

landscape work of Thomas church

1. THOMAS CHURCH (LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT) Thomas Dolliver Church Thomas Dolliver Church  (April 27, 1902 – August 30, 1978), also known by  Tommy , was a renowned and innovative 20th century landscape architect based in  California.He is a nationally recognized as one of the pioneer landscape designers of Modernism in garden landscape design known as the 'California Style '.His design studio was in San Francisco from 1933 to 1977. History Thomas Church was born in Boston, and raised in California, in Ojai and Oakland . He received his B.A .  degree in Landscape Architecture from the College of Agriculture at the University of California, Berkeley in 1922 .  He then attended the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he received his Master’s degree in City Planning and Landscape Architecture in 1926 . After graduating Church spent six months at the American Academy in Rome on a Harvard awarded Sheldon Traveling Scholarship .  He also traveled throughout Europe, and while in France became friends with Catherine Bauer, with whom he would later teach at Berkeley .  He studied Italian Renaissance gardens, and Moorish and Iberian Renaissance Spanish gardens, observing their responses to a climate so similar the Mediterranean climate in California. On returning from Europe he worked in a city planning office on the East Coast (1927–1928), then he taught at Ohio State University (1928–1930 ). He returned to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1930, and was a Special Lecturer in the UC Berkeley Department of Landscape Architecture for the remainder of that year . He also went into private practice in 1930 to design the  Pasatiempo Estates  in the Santa Cruz area, with Second Bay Tradition style architect William Wurster .   A 1937 trip was made to Finland, where seeing new modernist works and site planning by  Alvar Aalto  was influential to his design evolution . He moved to San Francisco in 1932 and established his practice in The City. Church opened his own design studio in 1933, at 402 Jackson Street in San Francisco. He continued to practice there until his retirement in 1977. His own distinctive garden and residence were on Hyde Street, in the Russian Hill, San Francisco  district . In 1951 Church was awarded the Fine Arts Medal, for Landscape Architecture, by the American Institute of Architects .  In 1973, Church was elected to the National Academy of Design, as an Associate Academician. He was also awarded the Rome Prize for his work in landscape architecture by the American Academy in Rome.

2. Design innovation When Church started practicing, the Neoclassical style was still the predominant landscape design style. Thomas’s design education at UC Berkeley and Harvard, along with his travels to gardens in Europe, gave him ample training in Classical and Renaissance garden traditions. However, Church is renowned as a pioneer in American landscape architect for introducing the  Modernist architecture and art movements into landscape design. After WW II, other designers added to what later became to be known as the “California Style” of gardens. Some of them apprenticed in his design studio, including Robert Royston and Lawrence Halprin . Church outlined four principles for his design process in his 1955 book  Gardens Are For People ."  They are: Unity — the consideration of the design as a whole, integrating the house and its gardens with a free flow between them. Function — the relation of the outdoor recreational and social areas to their interior counterparts, and of the outdoor service areas to the household's needs, to please and serve the people who live in them. Simplicity — upon which rests the aesthetic and economic success of the design. Scale — relating the different design parts, features, and areas to one another, to create a whole an integrated landscape design. Church used the Modernist design principles for freedom of elements, such as the forms of spaces and features, and a sense of movement. When possible, he favored creating multiple viewpoints, instead of a traditional single axis. “A garden should have no beginning and no end,” he wrote in  Gardens Are for People , “and should be pleasing when seen from any angle, not only from the house .” He could also use historicist design principles when the site called for it, such as the formal lines of the Memorial Courtyard (1965) beside the San Francisco Opera House. Another design element Church is renowned for is the "outdoor room," creating sub-areas for outdoor living as distinct places within the whole landscape. They were different than those of Italian Renaissance gardens with a separation of house and garden, his outdoor rooms interacted with the house, with a free flow between the two “Tommy represented freedom from ‘decorating’ a house,” said former Sunset editor Walter Doty, shortly before Church’s death. “Landscaping had meant gussying up structures that weren’t worth it. Tommy was a ‘behavioral’ landscaper . . . gardens to live in were more important.

3. Though born in Boston, Church spent his childhood in southern California and began the study of garden design at the University of California, Berkeley, eventually graduating from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. He became involved in landscape architecture at a time of transition and experimentation. Travel through Italy and Spain exposed him to cultures in which outdoor living was similar to that of his native California, and this was a major influence on his design approach . Throughout 40 years of practice he experimented with modern forms and manipulated texture, color and space, all while attending to the practical necessities of site, architecture, and client. Creating nearly 2,000 gardens, in addition to several major large- scale public commissions, his voice was unique, distinct, and influential. His two books,  Gardens are for People  and  Your Private World , serve as easy to read manuals on modern residential garden design. The Donnell Garden in Sonoma, California remains his most famous design. Other notable projects include Parkmerced , Valencia Public Housing, both in San Francisco, and the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan. Notable employees included Garrett Eckbo , Lawrence Halprin , and Douglas Baylis .

4. Thomas Church’s Berrigan Garden/Fay Park in Jeopardy Fay Park sits on the northeast side of San Francisco’s Russian Hill, just a block from the base of winding Lombard Street. The park is the only publicly accessible formerly private residential garden in California designed by one of San Francisco’s pre-eminent landscape architects of the twentieth century, Thomas Church (1902-1978). Fay Park sits on the northeast side of San Francisco’s Russian Hill, just a block from the base of winding Lombard Street. The park is the only publicly accessible formerly private residential garden in California designed by one of San Francisco’s pre-eminent landscape architects of the twentieth century, Thomas Church (1902-1978 ). Fay Park - Photo by Charles Birnbaum, 2011

5. The property, which includes the original house and garden, occupies a prominent corner location and is integral to maintaining the character and scale of the neighborhood as larger scale developments have encroached upon the community. The house is also essential to the garden as an extension of Church’s trademark “outdoor living” concept. Unfortunately, the condition of the house has deteriorated dramatically in recent years, putting it, the garden and the community under threat. HISTORY The original Fay home, built in 1869 by soap baron David Fay, survived the 1906 earthquake and fire only to be demolished by Fay’s nephews Luke and John, Jr., who built a new house in 1912. Mary Eugenie Fay, Luke’s daughter, moved into the house with her husband Brigadier General Paul Berrigan in 1953 soon after inheriting it . . In 1957 the couple hired Thomas Church to design their garden. In his 1969 book,  Your Private World  and an article he wrote for the  San Francisco Chronicle  a decade earlier, Church, described the existing space as a large unwieldy garden with a specimen pepper tree ( Schinus molle ) at its center and exposure on three sides. Remarking on the steeply sloped hillside occupying a large portion of the property he said that the existing cobble-edged paths “plodded up the slope” but didn’t lead to anything ( upper ) Fay Park was featured in the  San Francisco Chronicle's "Sunday Bonanza" magazine; (lower) Fay Park from above, images courtesy Pam- Anela Messenger.

6. Church converted the large lot into an accessible and attractive garden. His symmetrical scheme included flowers and fruit trees in terraces that stepped up the hillside along with parterres and landings. He also established two lawn areas and several hard-surface areas for relaxation and entertaining, and he retained the pepper tree in its original location, slightly off-center, in the middle of the garden. The relationship of indoor-outdoor spaces, a signature design element in Church’s work, was addressed through redesigned decking off the kitchen and sunroom on the home’s main living level. The deck’s basket weave pattern is the same design used at the 1948 Dewey Donnell Garden in Sonoma. As the sunroom itself opens directly onto the main terrace of the garden, the deck became an extension of the interior living area. To integrate the Edwardian house with the more “modern” garden, he designed a classic balustrade, which is repeated at different levels, as the guard rail of the deck and the upstairs porch. Off the west end of the deck, exposed aggregate concrete walks with wood joints, a favorite paving choice of Church’s, define the flower and herb beds for the main level of the garden. The pattern is repeated in the upper level surrounds for the gazebos and lawn. The most striking feature of the garden is its twin latticed gazebos—a nod to the castle towers on the logo of the Army Corps of Engineers, the General’s alma mater. An early advocate of garden lighting to extend the livability of gardens, Church fitted the gazebos with starburst pendant fixtures with multi-colored glass panels. Church also installed two copper Copenhagen light standards at the base of the stairs on each side of the pepper tree to illuminate the garden’s main level. Church purchased these on a trip to Denmark and used them in selected gardens, including his own, over the latter half of his career.

7. The mainstream of his gardens which followed in the postwar years increased in sophistication. Curvilinear forms, texture, and color were manipulated in a manner reminiscent of the cubist painters. He designed many small, town gardens. In all cases, the gardens were reflections of the personality and preferences of the client, the features of the site, and the architecture of the house. Imbued with Tommy's unerring sense of scale and proportion, form and composition, the gardens were simple in upkeep, useful and beautiful all at the same time. Not only did they fall within the realm of fine art, but as a body of creative work they represented a milestone in the evolution of the modern garden and landscape architecture. Gardens Are For People Back in 1955 an American Landscape Architect called Thomas D. Church published a book called Gardens Are For People. He was one of the first modernist garden designers. He believed that gardens were for people to live and play in.  febuary 10, 2018 Thomas D. Church, 1975 Gardens Are For People

8. Thomas D. Church's view was different from one held by many garden designers in Europe, where the Arts and Crafts garden style was the preferred one. Arts and Crafts styled gardens were designed (by people of great taste and training) to be looked at and admired. Arts and Crafts style gardens with their herbaceous borders, hedged terraces, climbers, lawns, topiary, roses and woodland gardens were high maintenance gardens. Thomas D. Church's gardens were low maintenance comparatively.  'There are no mysterious "musts," no set of rules, no finger of shame pointed at the gardener who doesn't follow an accepted pattern,' says Thomas D. Church. 'Landscaping is not a complex and difficult art to be practiced only by high priests. It is logical, down-to-earth, and aimed at making your plot of ground produce exactly what you want and need from it.' His design always began with a conversation with the people who were going to use and look after the space. I read Gardens Are For People over a week in January, having borrowed it from my friend who read it when she trained as a landscape designer. It was a great summer read. Thomas D. Church is a friendly writer who really wants to show you how easy it is to design your perfect garden. Perfect for your needs, budget and available space. I read a review of him in a book called Lives of the Great Gardeners where he was described as dapper and affable. His writing style is dapper and affable too . Thomas D. Church begins his book by explaining that many ancient cultures (Egyptians, Romans and Greeks) already knew about indoor-outdoor-flow (he calls it indoor-outdoor living but it's the same thing). The Egyptians, Romans and Greeks all used a simple garden structure called 'the terrace', also known as an 'atrium, close, promenade or lanai,' to connect the garden with the house.' The terrace, Thomas D. Church tells us, 'is for outdoor living.' It's 'used to 'extend the architectural lines of the house and supplement the activities of the occupants'.  Gardens Are For People was written in order to demystify garden design and make it accessible for the ordinary, yet interested, suburban garden owner. It also serves as a kind of manifesto of his design style.

9. It's Thomas D. Church's attitude towards trees that made me sit up and take notice. It'd be fair to say I've become something of a Thomas D. Church disciple. Sometimes, it feels that in a country like New Zealand where trees are plentiful, people are all too ready to chop trees down. Thomas D. Church is a tree lover . 'In the intimate and humanised landscape, trees become the biggest single element linking us visually and emotionally with our surroundings,' so says Thomas D. Church.  'Other manifestations of Nature - great rocks, hurricanes - stir us, fill us with awe, make us afraid or humble, but a tree we understand and can allow to become part of us. It's no wonder that when we think of a garden we think of a tree . You should always make very sure that the tree you were thinking of removing cannot in fact be saved. After all, it took Nature anywhere from ten to three hundred years to get that tree in its current shape; you should carefully consider it before killing it in twenty minutes. Consider pruning before chopping down; it is possible to both keep the tree and the view it supposedly hides ... Because trees have such a feeling of permanence, such a natural stability, everything around them looks more natural, in tune with the landscape and the world. The right trees provide instant serenity - something, in this modern world, which cannot be cherished too highly.'  Most of Thomas D. Church's designs were for gardens in California, but his design principles (unity, function, simplicity and scale) could apply to anywhere in New Zealand. He favoured low maintenance and simple massed evergreen planting in tight-edged beds over annuals and high maintenance plants . Here are six photographs showing some of Thomas D. Church's gardens. It's easy to see why his gardens were so popular. They seem so deceptively simple.

10. Gardens Are For People images

11. You know when you watch a gardening show or read a piece invoking "outdoor rooms" for your garden? One of his ideas. These discrete sub-areas, habitable garden spaces,  feel  comforting and sheltering, yet nevertheless are designed specific visions for our outdoors, spaces otherwise previously cluttered in mismatched motifs, or devoid of intrigue with vast green rectangles and plants you'd see in a hospital hallway. Outdoor rooms were novel in the '40s, and have fortunately maintained their cool factor today. The spaces have a way about negotiating transitions between inside and outside like an extension of the home, not the yard. I personally enjoy the fruits of Church's design inspiration within my own backyard, where I've arranged sitting, cooking and lounging areas within defined zones purveying outdoor kitchen and dining room qualities. Church found that adding organic footpaths, usable in-a-practical-sense asphalt and simple stone features will frame perspectives and guide user behavior and interest.  Former Sunset editor Walter Doty said of Thomas "Tommy" Church, "[He] represented freedom from 'decorating' a house," adding, "Landscaping had meant gussying up structures that weren't worth it. Tommy was a 'behavioral' landscaper . . . gardens to live in were more important." I love that last statement, "gardens to live in," placing the design onus on  livable  as a characteristic for one's outdoor spaces.   Over a prolific thirty-year career, Church designed over four thousand private gardens and landscape areas. His legacy of back-of-the-envelope design articulated ideas into larger frameworks. For instance, Church jotted a simple design for the Stanford campus that banished vehicles to perimeter lots