1. No 1 Poultry. © John East
F E AT U R E By Susannah Charlton
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Bringing nature into the twentieth-century city A new book by the Twentieth Century Society charts the development of gardens and landscapes from 1914 to the present. It invites us to look afresh at 20th-century gardens and landscapes, setting some of that era’s most famous gardens alongside the less celebrated but arguably more important landscapes which shape our everyday lives. The book’s co-editor Susannah Charlton writes about how the visionaries, designers and landscape architects of the last century brought nature into the city.
The Garden Cities were set up as City Companies. Rental income from developed property was then available to the City Company to pay off interest and to plough back into the town for non-revenue community purposes, Howard intended this to replace Rates eventually. Land was s owned by a company to manage speculation and to direct the proceeds. 1
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he 20th century saw gardens break the boundaries of previous centuries. No longer the sole preserve of the privileged, gardens infiltrated the city as more people gained their own personal plot, tall buildings were topped with roof gardens and landscape designers applied their talents to landscaping new towns and housing estates rather than rural rolling acres. Over the century, ideals and strategies about how to combine buildings and the natural world have
evolved, from garden cities early in the century, through post-war new towns and landscaped housing estates, to the renaissance of urban parks in recent years. A century ago Ebenezer Howard founded Welwyn Garden City which embodies his concept of a ‘marriage of town and country’, with the land held in trust1 to avoid speculation. Although founded by Howard, the overall plan and landscaping were masterminded by Louis de Soissons. Welwyn Garden City Trust archivist Angela Eserin describes how he
retained existing trees and selected over 100 new species to put nature at the heart of the new city: Lombardy poplars, not buildings, provide height in the grand views afforded by the formal Beaux Arts town centre. The two wide central roads not only have double avenues of lime trees separating people from traffic, but also lawns and rose beds. The more intimate closes of housing have open front gardens, hedges and distinctive tree planting in each area, giving a countryside feel. Conceived as a ‘Forest City’, Otto Saumarez Smith sees Telford New 43
