Apr

Finding Olmsted at Cranbrook

George G. Booth didn’t just commission renowned architects in building Cranbrook, he also engaged well-respected landscape designers. Architecture and nature were equally considered. Booth’s own 1904 topographical map demonstrates his grandiose vision for reshaping what was then farmland. It is not surprising, therefore, that Cranbrook has a connection to the American “father of landscape architecture,” Frederick Law Olmsted.

Leading up to and following the Center’s most recent Bauder lecture, Experiencing Olmsted: The Enduring Legacy of Frederick Law Olmsted’s North American Landscapes, Olmsted-related materials in the Archives were revisited and new associations were made.

Photograph album page, circa 1930. Judson Bradway Office, photographer. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives.

It was Frederick Law Olmsted’s successor firm, the Olmsted Brothers, led by his sons, that worked on the landscape of Christ Church Cranbrook from 1926-1928. Simultaneous to the construction of the church by the architecture firm Bertram G. Goodhue Associates, the Olmsteds created plans for the surrounding land between Lone Pine, Cranbrook, and Church Roads.

Artistic rendering of Christ Church Cranbrook Rectory, 1924. Bertram G. Goodhue Associates. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives.

A few pieces of correspondence in the George Gough Booth Papers shed light on the close relationship between Booth, the chief architect Oscar H. Murray, and the Olmsted Brothers. But there are many more letters from Job 7754 (aka Christ Church Cranbrook) in the Frederick Law Olmsted Papers and Olmsted Associates Records held by the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., all of which can be read online.

Letter from Oscar H. Murray to George G. Booth relating a response from Olmsted Brothers, December 7, 1927. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives.

The Archives also holds two reproductions of Olmsted Brothers plans: the second and the tenth drawing revisions submitted in 1927 and 1928, respectively. In these, plants are clearly numbered, but the Archives does not hold the accompanying keys. At the suggestion of Bauder lecturer, Charles Birnbaum, President, CEO, and Founder of The Cultural Landscape Foundation in Washington, D.C., I reached out to the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site in Brookline, Massachusetts. They graciously shared scanned copies of both planting plans, for our reference.

Christ Church Cranbrook Planting Plan, March 11, 1927, revised October 1927. Blueprint for Revised Plan Number 2. Olmsted Brothers. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives.

We now know, for example, that the large evergreens that George Booth mentions in a letter to Oscar Murray likely refer to the Austrian Pine (10 and 82), Douglas Fir (83), and White Pine (90) enumerated in a November 4, 1927 plant list for Plan No. 2. And, we can see where on the blueprint those trees were proposed to be planted!

Excerpt from page two of George Booth’s letter to Oscar Murray, November 23, 1927. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives.

Many more discoveries are sure to come, now that we have a more complete picture of the original landscape design for Christ Church Cranbrook. I know that next time I drive or walk by the church, I will be taking a closer look at the vegetation.

—Deborah Rice, Head Archivist, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research

Editor’s note: To view the five drawings in the Olmsted Archives at Brookline, including originals of the Cranbrook copies, and eight scrapbook pages that include Goodhue Associates renderings, visit their Flickr albums.

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Author: Deborah Rice/bertram goodhue/Frederick Law Olmsted/landscape/Landscape Architecture/Oscar Murray

Sep

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Landscapes

While George Booth may have had carved “Nature I loved, and, next to Nature, Art” above the fireplace in his library, I’m not sure anyone adored nature as much as the inimitable Frank Lloyd Wright. Known for his organic architecture, his buildings are sited to be viewed as one with nature. Wright went so far as to say “I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.”

In the Fall of 1941, Richard Raseman (the Academy of Art’s Executive Secretary from 1932 to 1943) traveled to Wright’s winter home and studio, Taliesin West, in Scottsdale, Arizona. In beautiful photographs he captured the balance Wright achieved between the desert landscape and architecture. In Raseman’s many photographs, foregrounds of cacti and sand with backdrops of mountains and sky form a nest for the rambling estate. Water also plays a part in these compositions, as it often did in Wright’s work.

View of Taliesin West, Fall 1941. Richard P. Raseman, Photographer. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives.

No Wright project is as associated with water as the Kaufmann House, “Fallingwater“, of 1936 in Mill Run, Pennsylvania. Last week, I had the honor to meet with the head Horticulturalist from Fallingwater, Ann Talarek. She was in town on the invitation of our friends at Lawrence Technological University, to speak to architecture students there and assist in ideas for the historic landscape of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Affleck House, owned by LTU. (A mere mile north of Cranbrook’s Woodward Avenue entrance, the Affleck House was completed in 1941 and Affleck’s son, Gregor Affleck, studied Painting, Design and Modeling at Cranbrook from 1944-45.)

View of Affleck House, c. 1945. Harvy Croze, Cranbrook Staff Photographer. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives.

More than most historic house museums, for a Wright project the intimate association between site and structure means that maintaining the landscape is just as important as maintaining the building. When working on the landscape, you have to study both historic images and what you can see on the ground today. Ann let us know that one of the most important things you can do with a Wright landscape is to edit: “Keep the view sheds Wright would have been working with, editing out trees that may be pretty but block important views. It may be counter intuitive, but add by reducing.”

Today, the Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research serves as the educational steward of Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1950 Smith House, just a mile west of our campus. Ann also visited the Smith House, where she was impressed (as most visitors are) by the majestic canopy of oak trees surrounding the house and the dappled light they produce. Whereas the Affleck House has lost some of its view sheds, the Smith House still retains its open views toward the pond dredged by Melvyn Maxwell Smith. She also noted how architectural the landscape was: its perfectly placed pond, trees, and the arc of shrubs along the western end of the house.

Smith House, c. 1952. Courtesy of Melvyn Maxwell and Sara Stein Smith Family Albums.

What’s impressive about the Smith House is the stuff inside: the fine and decorative art collection of things acquired and displayed by Mr. and Mrs. Smith, much of it from Cranbrook Academy alumni. After meeting with Ann and then looking through family photo albums of the house’s landscape, I realized that the grounds too were a project of the Smiths: he was constantly adding, cutting back, and reshaping the landscape. It’s most famous iteration may be an impromptu plan developed by the landscape architecture celebrity Thomas Church (for that story, sign up for a Smith House Tour!), yet like any site, the landscape has changed over the years.

Smith House, c. 1975, with landscape attributed to Thomas Church. Courtesy of Melvyn Maxwell and Sara Stein Smith Family Albums.

Ann talked at the Affleck House about how they might eliminate certain invasive species (as she has done at Fallingwater) or how trees might be cut back. At Smith House, she helpfully noted some trees nearing the end of life, but suggested the historic photographs be studied to figure out what the Smith’s wanted. “Unlike Fallingwater or the Affleck House, the Smith House is ultimately suburban. What we now call invasive species would have been considered fashionable in the 1950s and 60s, and in a place as personal as the Smith House, you have to consider what Mr. Smith would have done as much as what Wright would have planned.” It’s an interesting idea. I think the most important goal is to make the architectural, landscape, and personal stories of the Smith House dynamic, relevant, and beautiful for visitors. That, and, as Ann said, “Don’t let anyone plant anything that’s going to overrun Bloomfield Hills.”

– Kevin Adkisson, Collections Fellow, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research