Mid- Century Modern Outdoor Living
Design, materials, and motifs of 20th-century landscaping.
The family backyard was born in mid- century suburbia. Play areas, patios, barbeques, and pools took the place of work areas and detached garages. At the same time, California architects were creating a new vocabulary of landscape design around modernist Contemporary houses. Some materials and motifs— raised planters, concrete- block screens, varied paving, strong geometry—were picked up nationwide, and something like a style emerged.
An Iconic LANDSCAPE
The 1908 E.E. Boynton house in Rochester, N.Y., is the furthest east of Wright’s Prairie homes. At first its property encompassed four city lots, with expansive gardens, a reflecting pool, and a tennis court part of the original design. When the property was subdivided in the 1920s, more than half of the landscape was lost and the relationship between house and site greatly affected. Successive owners over the next 80 years introduced garden revisions.
Private owners Jane Parker and Fran Cosentino bought the landmark in 2009, forming a trust to restore the house and rehabilitate the gardens in a manner true to Wright’s original vision. Adhering to the Secretary of the Interior Standards, the design team at Bayer Landscape Architecture did extensive primary research, all in consultation with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. Site features that had been lost, or those noted in original drawings but never fully realized, were then reinterpreted for the smaller site.
Mark Bayer simplified the landscaping to highlight the architecture. A driveway was removed in front, and distracting plantings replaced by a grass carpet. The pergola’s covered walkway leads to a new lily pool. House and site once again are unified.
MODERNIST DESIGN IS EVIDENT IN FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT’S EARLY GARDEN PLANS.
Afirst-time visitor to Palm Springs discovers an architectural dream world. Sprawling tracts of consistently Modern, one-storey houses are a singular vision taking us back to an optimistic time. At least as amazing are the small but very public front yards. Some are geometric carpets of varying colors and textures, obsessively manicured. With permeable gravel and varieties of succulents and cacti, others are perfect xeriscapes needing almost no watering.
It’s hard to reproduce the look elsewhere. Palm Springs and neighboring towns sit in a Sonoran Desert valley tightly ringed by mountains on all sides, screened only by tall, skinny palm trees. Cactus, agave, and bougainvillea won’t grow in Minnesota or New Jersey. Landscaping is by nature local. Some motifs, though, are recognizable. From coast to coast, you can find a slab porch on grade, pierced or dowel-like privacy screens, and patios.
Many houses built between 1940 and 1970 have lost their original hardscape, landscape, and gardens. Often the property is simply overgrown, bearing the additions of several generations of gardeners. Other houses lost elements during an ersatz “colonial” remodeling. How do we begin to design an appropriate landscape today?
Live in the house for at least a year before considering a makeover, noting changes in each season in sun exposure, wind direction, drainage patterns, and local annoyances. How did you end up using the existing space during that year? Take cues from the house: clean lines and a modern aesthetic suggest that hardscape and landscaping should follow suit. Other houses of this period tend toward cottage or a historical revival style. Consider the suitability of straight lines or curves, symmetry or asymmetry, strong silhouettes or a profusion of flowers, seasonal variations, and the color
palette or palettes.
Materials should be appropriate; using a lot of red brick in a neighborhood full of cedar shingles and granite may not be the best fit. Understand your growing zone and choose a sustainable plan. Do you need to address a steep drop-off, or screen a busy road? Solve any drainage problems before you start.
If you are truly starting from scratch, consider hiring a landscape designer. That way you get a master plan and avoid stop-and-start do-overs. The designer will help you refine your vision. A landscape professional will know how to address any site problems and what plants thrive in your micro-climate.
As an overall design, Mid-Century Modern works best with low-slung houses like ranches and Contemporaries. For other
house types, it’s best confined to, say, a patio or pool. Simple lines and lack of clutter define the look. Furniture and walls are low to the ground. Concrete, stone, or brick provide neutral color as a backdrop, punctuated by solid and often bright accents. Circles, squares, diamonds, and triangles show up in ornament and the shapes of planting beds. So too do amoeboid and kidney shapes, especially for pools. Surfacing materials are used in combinations of pea gravel, tumbled stone, pavers, concrete, recycled rubber, decomposed granite, and real or artificial turf. Walls and screens made of breeze blocks—those pierced concrete blocks with geometric designs—all but define the era. Allowing airflow and creating moving shadows throughout the day, breeze blocks belong in sunny California but create a mood wherever they are used. Screens and raised planters, backyard fences and hedges provide partial enclosure for a sense of privacy. Slatted overhangs and patio roofs or awnings mitigate direct sunlight.
The Southern California style is about concrete and cactus. But in most of the country, mid-century gardens were lush and green with a preponderance of wood elements. The hardscape and beds that contain plantings still can be tidily Modern.