The
evolution of English picturesque landscape gardens to urban parks
The English landscape garden style is a child of the
Enlightenment.
The genteel and natural spatial formation in gardens
and the liberation of nature from the restrictions of Baroque architectural
forms are the ideas of the highly educated liberal Whig society, while the
middle society with its growing economical strength owing to the industrial
revolution also vindicated the new lifestyle elements of the respected royal
court. On the other hand, the environmental and social problems that
accompanied strong urban development also needed a solution, occasionally in
the form of urban public parks. The social and economical development of the 18th
century made the classical picturesque landscape gardens of the wealthy high
society more popular and desired. Later, the ideas of classical forms and the
picturesque spatial formation would be associated with economical
sustainability in the rationally-cultivated landscape parks, while the recreation
and everyday use together with the picturesque appearance became the basic
philosophy of romantic picturesque gardens. The hallmarks of the 18th
century of English landscape garden movement came with William Kent, Lancelot
Brown and Humphry Repton who started the garden movement from the enlighten
aristocratic society to the royal court and the bourgeois, and even the urban
citizens. By the end of the 18th century the English industrial
cities offered pleasure gardens for the urban population and also the royal
gardens and parks were opened as public parks.
From the turn of the 17th-18th centuries to the 1830s
English culture was hallmarked with the new garden design style and the
landscape garden movement, which became an emblematic cultural influence on the
development of the continent, the art of spatial formation and even public
policy as the natural garden style remained the symbol of liberal philosophy
and the enlightened way of thinking. By the last third of the 18th century the
continent caught up with England?s
example. In 1779 Christian Cay Lorenz
Hirschfeld, in his famous Theory of Garden Art, wrote about the growing
necessity of urban parks and discussed,
for the first time, public parks in the context of being a tool for strengthening
national feeling and social coherence and ameliorating the social and
environmental problems of industrially developed cities. The opening of royal
gardens and hunting parks, like the Tuilleries in Paris,
the Tiergarten in Berlin or the Regents Park
in London
proved to be far from sufficient for social demands.
The
Hungarian Városliget (City grove) of Pest was the very first urban park
commissioned by the council of the city directly for the recreational purposes
of the citizens. The planner of the park was chosen on a competition in 1813
where the winner was Heinrich Nebbien, the landscape manager, German in origin
and well educated in landscape gardens of England. Nebbien developed his plan
between 1813 and 1816. Owing to the low budget of the council he offered his
honorary for the construction together with many citiziens who were
enthusiastic about the urban park. Unfortunately the funds collected were
insufficient and so the construction was not fully finished. In spite of this
fact the Városliget, with its grand classical and romantic picturesque
character was the very first urban public park, and will have its 200th
birthday in 2013.
Nebbien is well known also in Transylvania.
He worked for the Brunswick family and designed
the gardens in Martonvásár and in Alsókorompa, than owing to the direct
relationship between the Brunswick
and the Forray family he was asked to work on the development of the Soborsin
castle garden in the 1830s. The public park of Kolozsvár,
the Sétatér, was also built in romantic landscape style in this period, but was
used as pleasure garden from the early 19th century. In England, birthplace of the English landscape
garden movement, the first true urban public park was opened in Birkenhead near
Liverpool in 1843, designed by Paxton.
- Title Original : városi parkok születése
- Website : http://
- Project start : 2010
- Project end : 2013
- Contact Person : Kinga Szilágyi
- Funding Agency : TÁMOP4.2.1