Landscape and Community Building at Hollin Hills
Bart Bickel AMST 6496
Prof. Richard Longstreth SPR 2013
Landscape forms a prominent feature in most first impressions of Hollin Hills, a planned community located immediately south of Washington, DC in Fairfax County, Virginia. Whether viewed from above in an aerial photograph (see Figure 1) or glanced at from a car traveling along Fort Hunt or Sherwood Hall Roads, the community seems to have grown from seeds sprinkled among native woods and ridges of a tiny patch of wilderness. Driving or better yet walking through the wooded neighborhood only confirms the impression of being in a place apart (see Figures 2 and 3). A closer look at individual properties reveals that little space is devoted to lawn and that mature plantings abound. Houses reach out to the surrounding woods via terraces or patios. Many houses are set into steep hillsides. There is little evidence of large-scale grading to place houses. Property lines are not demarcated as is typical in many post-War suburban subdivisions. Roads and right-of-ways in Hollin Hills do not include several typical elements such as sidewalks, utilities, street lights, curbs and gutters (see Figures 4 and 5). Although some privacy screens and fences have been built over time, property lines are often covered by dense plantings. Some back yards overlook stream valleys with commonly held and maintained footpaths. Over time the forested landscape has continued to form a living, unifying and central element of the community at Hollin Hills.
Designed and built between 1946 and 1971, Hollin Hills sits on land located between Mount Vernon and Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, less than ten miles from downtown Washington, DC. It sits on land considered undesirable for land development when first proposed, but which has come to form a significant part of the community’s character. The neighborhood came to include 450 houses on roughly 240 acres. When construction began the north-south arterial Fort Hunt Road ran through countryside largely covered in scattered farms, many that had been settled by the same families for centuries. By the time that Hollin Hills’ construction was completed in 1971, most of Fairfax County was covered in a pattern of suburban settlement characterized by small to medium-sized single-family homes. A similar pattern could be found in almost any part of this country. While landscape plantings in adjacent subdivisions have matured over time, softening the impacts of sprawl somewhat, Hollin Hills retains a significantly wilder look and feel to its landscape. This was the intent of its builders[1].
The topography of the regional landscape as shaped by hydrologic processes (streamcourses, creeks, bottom lands) reads through both the community-scale roads system as well as on individual properties. Perhaps the best historic precedent for the rationale for a circulation pattern responding to natural form can be found in the street and open space system at Frederick Law Olmsted’s Riverside (Illinois) or Radburn (New Jersey) (see Figures 6 and 7). Lot configurations at Hollin Hills also follow landform. Such a layout for roads, when combined with cul-de-sacs, creates a network of close-knit, interconnected dwelling spaces[2]. This allows houses to be linked to the landscape visually through their alignment with carefully identified or constructed views. Circulation systems such as footpaths and outdoor spaces structured by plantings serve to root many houses physically. As originally planned, individual properties included extra space in the backyards (the interior of blocks). These were intended to accommodate the shared open space, which has most often taken the form of forest or “commons”. In many ways it most resembles a resort community or campground in the way that priority is given to preserving landscape character. What is less apparent is the extent to which the community plan (see Figure 8) implemented drew from the discussion on modernist ideas about landscape taking place in the US, Europe (especially Scandinavia), Japan and Latin America[3]. The architecture and community plan for Hollin Hills represents an alternative vision for post-War suburban tract housing. The approach to landscape also serves as an alternative to both the older, more formal “Beaux Arts” aesthetic which formed the basis for practice until tradition as well as the “towers in a park” approach to community-scale planning, both of which largely treated landscape as scenery or background.
The forested landscape at the physical and conceptual center of Hollin Hills is a result of a combination of visions. Architect Charles Goodman (1906-92), working closely with developer Robert Davenport (1906-2002), emphasized the retention of the existing, natural landscape elements such as landform (topography, hydrology) and vegetation (native plants) at the community scale[4]. Goodman’s plans also often called for the use of native plant materials when preparing designs for individual site developments. As-built photographs of Hollin Hills taken by Robert Lautmann in 1949 as the first Hollin Hills houses were being completed and occupied show Goodman’s signature modernist dwellings amidst a mosaic of preserved forestlands, selectively cleared and graded land and newly replanted yards[5] (see Figure 9). Even today, heavily forested edges serve to delineate the community in aerial photos of the region. Goodman’s role in articulating an alternative vision of suburban living for the Washington, DC area has become better recognized in recent years. In the broadest terms he is recognized as an innovator in the design and construction of housing and of suburb master planning. He developed an approach that emphasized houses designed in a modernist idiom intended for a mass market. Based on modular plans and standardized components and utilizing an efficient on-site production process that came to include pre-fabrication, his proposed vernacular practice was intended to both enter and direct the mainstream of residential construction practice. His role in shaping the landscapes that supported this vision remains less examined. A closer look at how the landscape at Hollin Hills came into being offers a chance to link this signature project with concurrent approaches to landscape among modernist practitioners and theorists.
The developer Robert Davenport played an essential role in assembling the key players responsible for designing, planning and implementing the vision of Hollin Hills. Davenport had limited experience in house-building prior to his involvement with Hollin Hills. He was responsible for drawing Goodman to the project, having worked with him previously on another Fairfax County community, Tauxemont. Primarily involved as the developer, Davenport had first experimented with house and community building while employed by the US Department of Agriculture during the New Deal in the 1930s. At Tauxemont, Davenport both built houses and was involved in starting community organizations that functioned to supplement local government. Tauxemont, like Hollin Hills, was a community physically structured to retain both natural landform and its natural setting, a second-growth forested landscape. Also like Hollin Hills it tended to attract a self-selecting demographic, politically left-leaning, socially progressive, often having moved to the Washington area from other parts of the US or from abroad and involved in the arts. Discussions of Tauxemont’s development highlight the shared social and political vision of many of its residents. A speculative venture, Tauxemont also sought to build community. While its physical setting is similar to Hollin Hills, namely a wooded site, it is unclear how much the efforts at preserving and incorporating the natural landscape into the community’s identity were rooted in environmental awareness. By anchoring the first 100 houses to Fort Hunt Road (and thus maintaining a connection to the larger Washington, DC metropolitan area), Tauxemont sets an important precedent. It is clearly more than a weekend retreat. It was intended to function within the larger region as residential suburb, not necessarily as a self-sufficient or separate community. Davenport’s experiences at the nearby Tauxamont cooperative housing project helped convince him that a project with the scope of Hollin Hills was possible[6].
Prior to Hollin Hills, Goodman’s work in the Washington, DC area was a combination of federal projects, through the Procurement Division of the US Treasury, Public Buildings Branch and private practice focused on the Middle Atlantic region. After studying at the Lewis Institute in Chicago, Goodman went on to receive his bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois – Urbana, where he was a student from 1925 to 1928. He entered the Armour Institute of Technology (later the Illinois Institute of Technology) to study architecture. By the time he received his degree in architecture in 1931, Goodman was considered a modernist in his approach. This reflected a larger movement away from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts approach to education taking place in architecture and across the design curriculum[7].
Goodman began work in the federal government in 1934, first in Chicago and later in the Washington, DC area. He had been brought to Washington from Chicago by Henry Morgenthau, Jr. in 1936. Notable building designs from this period include the United States Building at the New York World’s Fair (1939) and designs for the new Washington National Airport (1939-41). Although neither project explicitly addressed landscape, his designs for National Airport did call for a curtain wall allowing visual access to the airfield, as a means of allaying waiting traveler’s anxiety. Unhappy with his experiences on the National Airport project, Goodman left government service in 1939. His office in downtown DC employed among others engineer Milton Gurewitz and site planner Maria Wayne, both of whom would later play important roles in laying out Hollin Hills[8]. During World War II Goodman served in the Army Air Force’s Air Transport Command (ATC) where he designed a wide variety of buildings and facilities with multiple functions and programs. Many of these buildings were constructed on module, making the ATC buildings expandable. This technique would resurface in Goodman’s designs for prefabricated housing during the 1950s[9]. Working on varied projects, many of which would have included site planning and ‘on-the-fly’ design and construction would serve Hollin Hills’ architect well, as he played many roles in the course of its creation.
While Goodman was known to have served as his own construction manager[10], he would also play the role of landscape architect at Hollin Hills, identifying natural, character-giving features for preservation, directing site-planning that worked with landform as well as preparing planting plans featuring native plants[11]. The rationale for road layout that Goodman followed combined preservation of existing features with the creation of new spaces.
Where possible, roads follow the contours of the land[12]. Individual houses were sited by Goodman’s staff to fit into existing topography wherever possible, minimizing disturbance to the ecology as well as lowering construction costs[13]. This differed dramatically from the more common practice of clearing land of forest cover and leveling it to create a flat surface for lawn and house in the typical American suburb (see Figure 9).
The landscape design of individual properties at Hollin Hills was not articulated as a part of Goodman’s overall community plan beyond the preservation of individual native trees and plantings and micro-grading around buildings, circulation systems and open spaces. Designs were offered to original homeowners from landscape architects Lou Bernard Voigt, Dan Kiley and Eric Paepcke. Significantly few of these landscape designs were implemented, despite being prepared as an integral part of the community planning process[14]. In Hollin Hills, home landscapes have tended to downplay the lawn in favor of larger scale plantings that shape the direct experience with nature on a larger scale. All three landscape architects worked in the modernist idiom, but with different approaches to form. In landscape this meant layouts that could be characterized as informal and often asymmetric. Outdoor rooms and planting beds were laid out to form free-flowing spaces, often across property lines. Materials used for constructed elements such as walkways, retaining walls, paths, patios were often the same used in the architecture for the building[15]. Overall the emphasis was on using materials such as plantings as natural forms, sculptural in their own right. Goodman’s input at the site scale included identifying native trees to be preserved and specifying native plants whenever possible.
In addition to selecting Charles Goodman based on experiences at Tauxemont Cooperative Davenport was also responsible for recruiting the landscape architect Lou Bernard Voight to the Hollin Hills project. Voight is also a key player, along with later landscape architects Dan Kiley and Eric Paepcke, in detailing the landscape for Hollin Hills. Voight, who died in 1953 at age 38, has been credited with preparing the master plan for the landscape at Hollin Hills as well as several individual landscape designs. Voight and Goodman conceived of the landscape at Hollin Hills as a communal park from which views were to be borrowed. This framing of the natural heart of the community plan was modeled after Japanese ideas as well as American historic precedents such as Radburn, New Jersey and Greenbelt, Maryland[16].
Voight had studied landscape architecture at the University of Illinois, graduating with a B.S. in 1939. He later attended Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, pursuing graduate study in landscape architecture. His early work experiences exposed him to important landscape practitioners of the time, including Christopher Tunnard and Dan Kiley, in whose office he worked during the early 1940s. He also taught botany and landscape architecture in 1942 and 1943 at Black Mountain College, in North Carolina. This was an experimental college that offered a Bauhaus-style curriculum across a broad range of disciplines. It was there that he and fellow faculty members Lawrence Kocher and Josef Albers prepared a master plan for the campus landscape. Voight worked with the firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill during World War II. While there he helped develop site plans for atomic plants in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Voight also worked for the Office of Strategic Services and the Department of State. After the war he went to work for the National Capital Parks Planning Division. In 1950, he joined the office of architect Charles Goodman in Alexandria, Virginia where he worked on the Washington area subdivisions of Hammond Wood and Hollin Hills. Davenport met Voight while both were employed with the federal government during World War II.
Voight’s designs for individual properties went the furthest in articulating the role of the “commons” at the center of many residential blocks in Hollin Hills. Known for designing sinuous, exploratory paths and interconnected open spaces, Voight’s designs complement Goodman’s designs for the houses. Just as the open plan characterized the typical Goodman house at Hollin Hills, the landscape plans worked from a system of zones based on anticipated usage. While the forest landscape at Hollin Hills is certainly intended as backdrop or setting, it is also there to be engaged. Circulation systems (paths, and at the larger, community scale, roads) were designed to encourage exploration of and direct experience and interaction with the landscape[17]. While modernist landscape architects like Garrett Eckbo, James Rose and Dan Kiley (who designed several gardens in Hollin Hills) sought to break with the more formal, axially symmetric conception of landscape most associated with the Beaux Arts[18], the emphasis on roads and circulation systems responding to natural, on-site form goes back to Olmsted[19].
Modernist landscape architecture has generated form based on both the response to individual sites as well as its relationship to developments in concurrent fields such as painting, architecture and sculpture. As student at the GSD modernist critics such as James Rose, Dan Kiley and Garrett Eckbo sought to both break with the Beaux Arts past (and its singular axes) and embrace the forms of cubism and surrealism in designing landscapes. The synchronization of indoor and outdoor spaces when designing buildings and site plans is among the important outcomes of this break. Soon after World War II a new vocabulary of form would appear first in California’s version of the modernist approach to landscape.[20]
But what were the sources of these forms? Abstraction or ecology? With Voight’s early death we are left with a missing link, a break in the conversation at least in regards to Hollin Hills. His time at the GSD might well have exposed him to the discussions among landscape’s modernists. The modernists idiom employed by Goodman at Hollin Hills would certainly have been familiar. While reverential towards especially existing natural pattern on site, Goodman’s approach to site planning is also quite practical. The landscape should be engaged and conserved in support of the plans for community. It’s hard to find abstracted form in Goodman’s plans for the landscape at Hollin Hills. Ecology, in the form of the existing forest community would seem to hold enough integrity to structure the landscape, to drive design decisions at the site and the community scales. Zigzags, kidney shapes, amoebas and other organic forms often associated with modernist landscape designs for suburban residential properties are nowhere to be found in Goodman’s plans for the landscape at Hollin Hills. Meandering lines of plantings or paths are based on a reading of the landscape prior to development, in other words its natural form. Design problems presented by difficult sites can be solved by an understanding of the site, not by imposing an abstracted form or by obliterating existing forms, or both. It follows then that slopes considered unworkable by other developers form the rationale for split-level houses or are seen to allow for views into conserved community open space.
In discussing some the significant landscape elements of the Hollin Hills community plan, it’s helpful to discuss the scales at which the landscape functions as a unifying element. The individual property, the community and the region are scales worth considering. Property scale includes the design of such elements as gardens, patios and terraces, interior-exterior rooms, driveways and path systems. Community scale includes elements like stream courses and hydrology, landform, road alignment, existing forest cover and biotic communities generally. Landscape’s connections to region include transportation networks, systems of open spaces and natural areas (such as county or national parks), as well as the materials chosen (especially by Goodman) to create a new regional design palette for the Mid-Atlantic. Many modernists working in a variety of media gave attention to the question of regionalism. While the materials may vary, the approach to exploration and articulation is often similar. While Goodman sought to create a new regional vocabulary in his designs, his links to modernism writ large have made whole-system designs like Hollin Hills significant at a national and even an international scale[21]. Building materials appropriate to the Southwest or to California are not employed while a Mid-Atlantic variant on what was known as ‘Contemporary’ architecture emerges, featuring some of its own signature materials. For the purposes of this study, which focuses on the preserved, designed, planted and maintained forest landscape at the center of Hollin Hills community, landscape elements articulated at these three scales will be briefly explored.
The most apparent scale where landscape plays a cohesive role is the community. Both Davenport and Goodman thought of Hollin Hills as first and foremost a social project, not just building houses but creating the setting for a type of community. While Goodman designed individual houses for private clients and Davenport went on to build smaller projects and individual houses, the vision from the outset at Hollin Hills was as a collection of dwellings sharing some spaces and unified through common cause. Most legible are the roads laid out to work with existing contours. Less visible, but just as important, is the understanding of the source of the landform. The landscape at Hollin Hills that so charmed and challenged Davenport and Goodman was the result of an interaction between water and rock (or more accurately soil as formed from the erosion and redistribution of rock over time). The forest and accompanying fauna that evolved also served to mark Hollin Hills and contribute to its character. Minimal disturbance of these systems, of the ecology called for targeted re-grading and minimal forest clearance in Goodman’s mind. It also justified Goodman’s insistence that the community’s roads be built without curbs or gutters and with sizable enough setbacks to accommodate open drainage and where possible, vegetated swales in lieu of enclosed storm sewers. The result is a landscape with a distinct look to it, an aesthetic. The road system of the community physically fits into landscape because it exhibits an understanding of the hydrologic cycle that both had a hand in creating the landscape at Hollin Hills and which will continue to shape its form and character whatever land use is undertaken. By coordinating this selected series of disturbances with the delineation of forested areas and individual trees to be preserved, landscape character prior to development is significantly preserved. This approach was also coordinated with the design and siting of individual houses, driving the tendency to frame views and to coordinate interior and exterior living spaces. It is intended as more than an aesthetic though. It is an extension of the idea of the landscape as a living system (ecology) applied to a system for living. Garrett Eckbo entitled his statement on modernism Landscapes for Living. It represents a rare moment of reflection that may well have struck a chord with Goodman and Associates. Beyond mere the merely functional, the landscape takes a form, not in response to abstraction, but from ecology as observed at the site scale, the regional scale[22]. The natural landscape has been preserved in part and at strategic locations. It then becomes the task of the designer of the dwelling or house to capture and humanize these relationships with the proximate landscape, to make them part of the everyday experience of the community. For Goodman it begins with how first to manipulate landform. Understanding the properties that form the proposed community from a physical standpoint then suggests how best to subdivide land, where to locate common and open spaces as well as roads and utilities. Design is rooted in an understanding of site at Hollin Hills. The property or site scale is the next scene for the expression of community vision at Hollin Hills. Individual, site-specific landscape plans typically address this scale and Hollin Hills follows suit. While Goodman employed site planners Milton Gurewitz and later Maria Wayne to specifically locate houses within the topography, the plantings associated with a given property were from different sources. Landscape architects prepared individual garden plans which were variously implemented over time. Goodman also prepared detailed plant lists featuring native plants and plants appropriate to the given sites[23]. Three example of planting plans will suffice to give an overview of the varied approaches taken by Voight, Kiley and Paepcke. These represent gardens that were implemented by their owners over time, somewhat exceptional within Hollin Hills. They also suggest the variety of possibility in articulating an outdoor extension of the dwelling place approach. All three landscape architects were considered committed modernists, although with different takes on what form that stance would take in the landscape. Paepcke’s plan shows an almost stratified version of laying out zones for living (see Figure 10). These presumably coordinate with interior spaces, especially the varied plantings visible from the back window wall of the house. Some outdoor spaces are designed to encourage interpretation by the owner while others are more defined, especially by views. Working with topography Paepcke is able to provide a sense of enclosure without the use of fencing or dense hedge plantings. The property lines are intentionally blurred towards the back of the site to create a backdrop for the outdoor living space focused closer to the house on patios and paths. These plantings also contribute to the naturalized plantings at the center of the block, the forest. The public landscape facing the street is connected to the more private backyard space by a series of paths, themselves alternatives to the house itself in the ongoing exploration of the site. The second plan, prepared in the 1950s by Dan Kiley and later altered by Paepcke (see Figure 11), is one he was able to revisit when the owner decided to build an addition to the house. It consists of a typically irregular lot, laid out to follow the logic of the terrain and to maximize design opportunities for the house. A corner of the house’s footprint faces the curved street front. Kiley has extended the rectilinear footprint of the building outward, using paths, terraces and patio spaces to reinforce the connections between indoor and outdoor space. A variety of outdoor living spaces are created by mass plantings in the back yard. A significant amount of the property is given over to forest cover, to common space. There are clearly defined planted zones associated with the house as well as views from the house. The geometry of hard surfaces (terraces and paths) extending from the house serves to reinforce the footprint of the dwelling in the landscape. The third plan is by Barney Voight, the initial landscape architect chosen to work with Goodman (see Figure 12). Most striking is his use of paths and edges of mass plantings and planting beds to create a web of sinuous lines defining open spaces, paths and background (forest edge). Just as Goodman’s interior spaces follow an open plan that allows or encourages multiples uses, so the outdoor zones are varied in size, sequence, material and relationship to the house. The property consists of both hillside and flat, wooded space and has been planted accordingly. While not a pure miniature version of the community plan, this landscape plan does draw from the same vocabulary. The emphasis on engaging the landscape through sometimes focused and other times diffuse circulation patterns is especially striking. Landscape functions at Hollin Hills on a regional scale as well, both in the ways that it ties into existing systems such as transportation or recreational open space and in its influence on the landscape through additional Goodman designs for projects located throughout the Washington area. Like its predecessor Tauxemont, Hollin Hills is linked to an arterial road allowing access to Alexandria and Washington, DC. It was conceived of as being a part of the larger region. While Davenport and Goodman developed plans for an elementary school and a shopping center, these were never built. Residents of Hollin Hills send their children to Fairfax County schools located nearby. Hollin Hills does have its own community swimming pool and tennis club as well as several recreation areas. Appropriately one of the trails that meanders through a stream valley park space is named for Charles Goodman. It is held and maintained through the Civic Association of Hollin Hills[24].
While Hollin Hills has an architectural design review process in place that guides residents through additions or changes to individual houses, no such process or committee has ever existed for changes to the landscape. Common spaces such as parkland and forested buffers are maintained by the Civic Association of Hollin Hills, not Fairfax County. Landscape remains a commons in the community, with the idea of stewardship an intangible governing principle[25]. Hollin Hills has been identified as having significance in the parlance of preservationists to the period following the second world war as an example of architecture and planning. It is considered to be significant nationally and internationally. Discussions of the role of the landscape take on a scholarly or even theoretical nature. Charles Goodman was not trained as a landscape architect. Perhaps because a modernist approach to the landscape was very much under development during his time in school, perhaps because of a practical bent, he served as his own landscape architect on many occasions including at Hollin Hills. His approach to landscape was notably pragmatic and rooted in an ecologically informed reading of it. Deriving landscape form from the site as opposed to imposing an abstraction (even if an organic abstraction such as an amoeba, a kidney bean or a sweeping curve) was more in keeping with the direction being explored by modernists such as James Rose or Garrett Eckbo[26]. Goodman’s landscape approach provided a basic understanding of local conditions, allowing for the establishment of parameters to disturbance associated with land development. This anticipates environmentally driven land development practices such as forest stand delineation, water or soil conservation measures at multiple scales now in place in many jurisdictions. While Goodman’s houses at Hollin Hills may look like they have derived form from a variety of sources, the landscape is formed from a desire to keep as much of the original character as possible. An important lesson from Goodman’s approach to landscape at Hollin Hills involves the question of source of form. Modernist landscape architecture during the 20th century began to draw form from both the scientific understanding of landscape and its components through ecology. It also drew from concurrent movements in the arts such as cubism (multiple perspectives) and surrealism (abstracted natural forms such as kidney-beans, piano curves, amoebas). Landscape theorists have acknowledged a time lag among landscape practitioners, with form in that field evolving or innovating at a rate of about twenty years behind other plastic arts such as architecture. Music, dance, painting and probably most closely sculpture seems to adopt at an even faster rate. The question of whether landscape should take its form from abstraction or from site was at the center of theoretical discussions for much of the twentieth century and may well remain unresolved[27]. Scholars of modernist landscape architecture consider its position to be still in formulation, under reconsideration, timely as many works from mid-century are in need of maintenance or repair if they are survive. People’s reactions to the landscape at Hollin Hills tend to fall into two categories. One group thinks “something’s missing here”. That something in the simplest expression of the typical post-War suburban context is the lawn. Because of the various visions, strategies, designs plans and now ongoing efforts of a host of players, the landscape at Hollin Hills contains substantially less lawn than it might. A second group thinks something like “this is great. It’s like a campground. What is this place?” Current shelter media has recently played a more active role in introducing the public to Mid-century Modern architecture and design. Not surprisingly Hollin Hills has figured in this process, perhaps because the houses themselves have held up so well over time[28].
When discussing the landscape of Post War housing in the United States, a few words about the lawn are in order. So much a part of the suburban American landscape is the lawn that even modernists such as Thomas Church felt compelled to feature it in residential designs along with expected features like hedges and fences to re-enforce the nature of private space. Such an approach has been linked to the production of an aesthetic for the garden of stasis, requiring little or no maintenance[29]. Subservience to the lawn and its maintenance (especially as a sink for resources) has figured prominently in critiques of suburban landscape design as well as forming the basis for extended efforts at developing an alternative landscape approach and aesthetic[30]. A visit to Hollin Hills, with or without a copy of the community plan, might serve to inspire such efforts as well.
Lacking significant documentation of the record of decision that built the landscape at Hollin Hills, I have resorted to attempting to read this designed landscape as a vernacular landscape (in the manner of J. B. Jackson, who has been likened to Garrett Eckbo and other modernist landscape practitioners in viewing landscapes as the products of multiple authors). This approach, rather than attempting to divine the intentions of a Barnie Voight or Eric Paepcke, instead draws from the theoretical perspective most frequently attributed to Jackson, cultural geography. According to this perspective landscapes, even apparently wilderness landscapes ought to be read for evidence of cultural pattern. Such patterns can then be mapped. Such patterns operate at varied scales and form networks. By identifying patterns in the landscape based on functionality, we then have a basis for asking as to design intent. Charles Goodman’s landscape at Hollin Hills is a community plan made up of many small plans, aggregated to form a social network, an ecology. It begins with a candid reading of the site and works with possibility. While the materials preserved and assembled on sites at Hollin Hills represent regional pattern, the approach can be applied at any scale, to any region.
Figures
Figure 1 : Hollin Hills community delineated, Fairfax County, Virginia 2012 (Google earth)
Figure 2 : View looking southwest from along trail through Charles Goodman Park (source : Author)
Figure 3 : View looking west along Paul Spring Road (source : Author)
Figure 4 : View looking west along Drury land (source : Author)
Figure 5 : View looking east along Popkins Lane(source : Author)
Figure 6 : Plan view of Riverside, Illinois, Frederick Law Olmsted (Library of Congress
Figure 7 : Plan for Radburn, New Jersey, Olmsted (Library of Congress)
Figure 7 : Topographical map of Hollins Hills, 1987 (Fairfax County Maps Division)
Figure 8 : Master Plan for Hollin Hills (ca. 1954) from Mark A Klopfer, “Theme and Variation at Hollin Hills,” in Daniel Urban Kiley: the Early Gardens (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999), 23.
Figure 9 : Aerial Photo of Hollin Hills showing development pattern, 1949 (Robert Lautmann Collection – National Building Museum)
Figure 10 : Landscape Plan for Collin Residence(ca. early 1960s) – Eric Paepcke, (source: Dennis Carmichael, 40)
Figure 11 : Landscape Plan for Risley Residence – Dan Kiley / Eric Paepcke (begun 1950s), (source: Dennis Carmichael, 42)
Figure 12 : Landscape Plan for Janson Residence, (ca. early 1950s) – Lou Bernard Voight, (source: Dennis Carmichael, 44)
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Obituary (uncredited) “Lou B. Voigt; Hollin Hills Landscaper,” Washington Post, 5 March, 1953, 26
Scot Wilson, et. al., “Hollin Hills: Community of Vision, a Semicentennial History 1949-1999”, Alexandria, VA: Civic Association of Hollin Hills, 2000
Library of Congress Charles Goodman Archive (Architectural drawings, prints supplemental documentation), Prints & Photographs Division, PR 13 CN 2001 : 115 (P&P)
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2010650159/
http://www.loc.gov/bicentennial/gifts/gift510.html
Websites:
http://moderncapitaldc.com/ Dan Kiley Hollin Hills, the Miller House and More Modern Capital.mht
The Cultural Landscape Foundation:
http://tclf.org/landscapes/hollin-hills
http://tclf.org/features/hollin-hills-architecture-and-landscape
http://tclf.org/pioneer/lou-bernard-voigt
Carderock Springs, Mont. Co., MD
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/24/AR2006032400951.html
Rock Creek Woods, Silver Spring, Mont. Co., MD
http://www.rockcreekwoods.org/rcw-history/charles-goodman
http://mht.maryland.gov/nr/NRDetail.aspx?HDID=1461&FROM=NRMapWA.html
Hickory Cluster, Reston, Fairfax Co., VA
http://hickorycluster.blogspot.com/p/architect-charles-goodman.html
Washington City Paper ‘Heart of Glass’
http://tmh.floonet.net/articles/heartofglass.html
Hammond Hills – Mont Co., MD
http://mht.maryland.gov/nr/NRDetail.aspx?HDID=1462&FROM=NRMapWA.html
Takoma Ave HD – Mont Co., MD
http://mht.maryland.gov/NR/NRDetail.aspx?HDID=1460&FROM=NRMapWA.html
Modern Capital – DC Real Estate listings / Mid-Centry Modern
http://moderncapitaldc.com/page/30/?s=goodman
Goodman and Alcoa
http://www.midcenturia.com/2012/08/in-january-of-1957-aluminum-company-of.html
VaModern
http://virginiamodern.wordpress.com/2011/02/25/charles-goodman-house/
[1] David Morton, “Heart of Glass : Charles Goodman’s modernist houses are prized period pieces. They were supposed to be the future.“, Washington CityPaper, September 5- 11, 2003, 2-3
[2] Trisechmann, Laura – phone conversation 25 April, 2013
[3] Marc Treib, ed., Introduction, The Architecture of Landscape, 1940 – 1960, (Philadelphia: The University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), viii - x
[4] Trieschmann, Lampl Elizabeth Jo, – e-mail / telephone correspondence (April 2 & May 1, 2013)
[5] Robert Lautmann Collection (photographs) – National Building Museum, Washington, DC
[6] Elizabeth Jo Lampl, “Chapter 11 - Charles M. Goodman and ‘Tomorrow’s Vernacular’,” in Richard Longstreth. ed., Housing Washington: Two Centuries of Residential Development and Planning in the National Capital Area, (Chicago: Center for American Places and University of Chicago Press, 2010) 235, Susan Escherich and Mary Thompson, “Registration Form – Tauxemont Historic District, Fairfax County”, Virginia, US Department of the Interior, National Register of Historic Places, Washington, DC, (no date)6-10
[7] Elizabeth Jo Lampl, “Multiple Property Documentation Form for Subdivisions and Architecture Planned and Designed by Charles M. Goodman Associates in Montgomery County, Maryland” (US Department of the Interior, National Register of Historic Places : Washington, DC, January 2004) Section ‘E’, Statement of Historic Contexts and Section ‘F’ Associated Property Types, E7-8
[8] Lampl in Housing, 232
[9] Lampl in Housing, 232-233
[10] Lampl phone conversation, Trieschmann
[11] Trieschmann
[12] Dennis Carmichael, ASLA “ A Home in the Woods – A Landscape Aesthetic for Hollin Hills”, (Alexandria, VA : The Civic Association of Hollin Hills, 1989), 1 – 4, Lampl Phone conversation
[13] Lampl, “Multiple Prpoerties..”, F4-5, Gabriela Amendola Gutowski, (A Thesis in Historic Preservation Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Historic Preservation 2007, 43-45
[14] Lampl in Housing, 248-250
[15] Carmichael, 24 – 26, Lampl “Multiple Properties…”, F5-6
[16] Lampl in Housing, 248
[17] Lampl,” Multiple Properties…”, E5, E8 – 9,
[18] Treib, Introduction, x
[19] Lampl,” Multiple Properties…”, F5
[20] Treib, Introduction, viii-x
[21] Treischmann, Lampl, phone conversations
[22] Lampl,” Multiple Properties…”, F6-7
[23] Carmichael, 3-12
[24] See John A. Burns, Hollin Hills, Community of Vision: A Semi-centennial History 1949-1999, (town: press, date), “10 Years of Hollin Hills” Civic Association of Hollin Hills, Scot Wilson, et. al., “Hollin Hills: Community of Vision, a Semicentennial History 1949-1999”, Alexandria, VA: Civic Association of Hollin Hills, 2000 for discussions of the role played by the various community groups in self-governing the designed community over time.
[25] Carmichael, 10-12
[26] Treib, Introduction, ix-x
[27] Theory or lack thereof for modernist landscape architecture is not a new issue. Early 20th century (Tunnard) and mid-century practitioners (such as Garrett Eckbo) have attempted to account for this and at least generate discussion. Tunnard goes so far as to suggest (in a 1943 piece in Landscape Architecture Magazine) that architects working in the modernist vein may are better served by acting as their own landscape architects. See Christopher Tunnard, “ Chapter 16 – Modern Gardens for Modern Houses : Reflections on Current Trends in Landscape Design”, in Marc Treib, ed., in Marc Treib, ed, Modern Landscape Architecture: A Critical Review, (Boston: The MIT Press, 1994) and Garret Eckbo, Landscape for Living, (Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press, 1950)
[28] Sam Grawe, “Community of Vision (Wilson residence)”, Dwell, October 2002 and Jennifer Kabat, with photographs by Juliana Sohn, “Head for the Hills”, Wallpaper*, March 2007, 150 – 156 are typical from national publications.
[29] Diane Harris, Chapter 7, “Making Your Private World : Modern Landscape Architecture and ‘House Beautiful’, 1945-1965”, in Marc Treib, ed., Introduction, The Architecture of Landscape, 1940 – 1960, (Philadelphia: The University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002) 180- 202
[30] See Paul Robbins, Lawn People : How Grasses, Weeds, and Chemicals Make Us Who We Are, (Philadelphia : Temple University Press, 2007) for a political ecologists take on the consumer-culture he dubs “Lawn People” and F. Herbery Bormann, Diana Balmori, Gordon T. Gebelle, Redesigning the American Lawn – A Search for Environmental Harmony, Secong Edition, (New Haven & London : Yale University Press, 2001) for an investigation of alternatives to the lawn-dominated landscape.