1950s Hardscape Styles

In the 1950s, lines and rectangles dominated both architecture and landscaping.

Hardscape design in the 1950s was closely related to 1950s modernist architecture. The concrete beloved by modernist architects was also the perfect material for typical 1950s hardscaping features -- paving, pools and raised planters. Architects used expanses of glass to blur the division between internal space and external landscape. A post-war housing boom and the development of American suburbia saw increased demand for landscaping. Leading designers were Daniel Urban Kiley, Thomas Church and Garrett Eckbo.

Features

Typically, the grid plan design of the flat-roofed 1950s home extended out into the garden. Looking out through glass walls, rectangular forms within the home were echoed in geometric hardscaping beyond. There was an increased focus on "outdoor living" with patios, wood decks and swimming pools. Designers of higher-end developments provided more individualized homes that were better-blended with their landscape than typical post-war subdivisions. At Hollin Hills in Fairfax County, Virginia, driveways followed natural contour lines and each yard blended into the next without fences. Houses and gardens on split-levels hugged the hilly site, while providing visual interest.

Daniel Urban Kiley

Between 1953 and 1955, Daniel Urban Kiley designed landscaping for more than 90 homes in Hollin Hills. The clean, geometric forms of his hardscaping are today largely overgrown by plantings or buried under additions. Kiley's hardscape designs are better preserved in his public spaces: Capitol Park, Washington, D.C., or the grounds of the Art Institute of Chicago. These demonstrate grid design, the extensive use of concrete and stone, fountains, pools and long "allees" -- staight paths lined by trees. Kiley collaborated with Eero Saarenen -- architect of Dulles International Airport -- on projects including the Irwin-Miller Garden in Columbus, Indiana. Like many 1950s designs, the Irwin-Miller garden was subdivided into "outdoor rooms" furnished with sculpture and concrete benches.

Thomas Church

Thomas Church likewise collaborated with Saarenen. At the General Motors Technical Center in Michigan, Saarenen's glass walls look out onto Church's concrete allees and large, rectangular lake. In smaller-scale projects, Church has been designated the father of the California garden style. California was ideally suited to the modernist emphasis on outdoor living. Smaller lots meant the swimming pool dominated the garden, dictating the shape of surrounding hardscape features. Pools were shaded by pergolas that jutted out from the house. Church saw the pool as both striking visual focal point and functional family social center. While rectangular pools worked well with modernist geometry, Church also experimented with other forms. The Donnell Garden, Sonoma, California, features his influential kidney-shaped pool, with a central sculpture.

Garrett Eckbo

Garrett Eckbo felt the shape of the plot and the needs of the client should dictate the shape of the pool. Consequently, Eckbo's hardscaping is individualistic. His pools combine lines and curves. They may be long and snaking, amoeba shaped, or at Ocotillo Lodge in Palm Springs, California, keyhole-shaped. Eckbo's design for the Brody mansion in Los Angeles exemplifies how 1950s architecture and hardscaping combined to bring the outdoors in, and the indoors out. With the same forms and textures used indoors and out, the two elements work together in a style of functional simplicity.

References

• University of Pennsylvania Scholarly Commons; Hollin Hills, the Future that is Now the Past; Gabriela Gutowski; January 2007
• Indianapolis Museum of Art: Miller House
• The Cultural Landscape Foundation: Icons of Modernism: The Donnell and Miller and Gardens
• The Cultural Landscape Foundation: Capitol Park
• Michigan Modern: General Motors Technical Center
• "Garrett Eckbo: Modern Landscapes for Living"; Marc Treib, Dorothée Imbert; 1997

Resources

• Los Angeles Times; Garrett Eckbo and the Art of Landscape; Jeffrey Head;
• OldHouseOnline; The Modernist Enclave. . .; James Massey, Shirley Maxwell; December 2010
• "Gardens are for People"; Thomas Church, Grace Hall, Michael Laurie; 1955
• "Landscape for Living"; Garrett Eckbo; 1950
• "Daniel Urban Kiley: The Early Gardens"; William Saunders; 1999
• "Thomas Church, Landscape Architect: Designing a Modern California Landscape"; Marc Treib; 2004
• Curbed LA; Garrett Eckbo's Designs Around and Outside the Brody House; Adrian Kudler; October 2010
• The Cultural Landscape Foundation: The Eckbo Incident
• OldHouseOnline; Mid-century Modern...; James Massey, Shirley Maxwell; January 2009
• Landscape Design Advisor: Landscape Design History
• Flickr: 1950's Interior Design and Residential architecture
• Library of American Landscape History: Preservation Case Study: The Irwin Miller Garden