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a landscape of democracy
by dennis carmichael
The integration of the “cultural landscape” of architecture with the “natural landscape” of parks and gardens is one of the defining characteristics of Hollin Hills. In this insightful essay, landscape architect Dennis Carmichael explores how blurring the boundaries between the private and the public realm has created a social, aesthetic, and ecological “landscape of democracy.”
The landscape that we celebrate in Hollin Hills reflects the daring vision of a developer and the productive collaboration of his architect and landscape architects. The landscape is noteworthy both for what was added by man, and for what was left natural.
The grand experiment undertaken by developer Robert Davenport, architect Charles Goodman, and landscape architects Bernard Voigt, Dan Kiley and Eric Paepcke was to let the land shape the plan. This was true at both the macro and the micro level and is evidenced by such features as the common-area stream-valley parks, the positioning of the houses on the steep slopes, and the selection of naturalized plantings to create individual gardens.
This sensibility is the essence of the modern landscape, and while it seems like common sense today, in its time such an approach was radical. I call it a landscape of democracy because the intent of the landscape architects was to blur the boundaries between the private and the public realm, allowing the greenery to wash over the entire neighborhood, enveloping the houses in its embrace.
The unity of the man-made, or cultural, Iandscape and the natural landscape distinguishes Hollin Hills from most neighborhoods, historic or contemporary. That a landscape plan was a part of each house distinguishes Hollin Hills from other neighborhoods. It is value placed on landscape as the common element that is so uncommon.
photo: Stine Riis Svenningsen
One need only drive into the surrounding neighborhoods to see that difference so distinctly — the houses of Hollin Hills are in the Iandscape, not on the landscape. And this surrender of the architecture to the broad sweep of nature is unmatched anywhere. That Davenport and his collaborators dared to dream this environment is remarkable. That the dream endures is even more remarkable.
a natural and cultural landscape
It is important to recognize this unique place as both a natural and a cultural landscape. As a natural landscape, Hollin Hills is an eroded Piedmont Plateau articulated by minor tributaries of the Potomac River and featuring second-growth hardwood forest cover. It is home to countless plants and animals that thrive in its diverse topography and habitat.
Hollin Hills is also home to a recent inhabitant — man. Man has made cultural landscapes in our neighborhood for hundreds of years, and as he has evolved from native hunting settlements to European agricultural fields to postwar suburban housing estates, man has left an impression of his culture in nature.
While it is easy to recognize a historical cultural landscape such as Mount Vernon or a historic district such as Old Town Alexandria, it is more difficult to imagine the importance of a gathering of small houses in the woods. We should, however, celebrate this neighborhood as cultural intervention in the natural landscape in which the natural and cultural realms are made more visible — and more valuable — by the striking juxtaposition: glass boxes in the forest.
And as we zealously guard the integrity of the architecture as the neighborhood matures, so must we be vigilant about the landscape — both the natural forest and the created garden. Only if we collectively revere the landscape of Hollin Hills will it evolve gracefully, consistent with the original intent.
understanding the landscape
To celebrate the landscape of Hollin Hills, we first must understand it. It is a unique fusion of modern gardens nestled in the forest, and we must protect and enhance both. The forest is easily understood and valued as a diverse ecosystem of canopy trees, understory plantings, and fauna of varying types. We should also think of our neighborhood as a living system in which we are a recent guest, and respect that diversity and character so that the forest may sustain itself in the future.
In many cases, this means letting nature take its course. In some cases, this means having the wisdom to resist clearing the forest floor of a fallen tree, for example, as the act of dying is also the act of being born for a variety of bacteria, fungi, and insects so important to the food chain.
Restraint may also mean allowing the circle of life to perpetuate itself in its messy, chaotic way. But to restrain does not mean to ignore, and at times we must act as forest managers to rid areas of invasive vines, non-native plants, inorganic waste, or other foreign elements that put the forest at risk. We must also revitalize the forest by planting new trees and appropriate understory vegetation.
the role of the parks
No discussion of the forests of Hollin Hills would be complete without mentioning its common areas and parks. In old Hollin Hills, Paul Spring, Voigt, Goodman, McCalley, and Brickelmaier Parks constitute a web of stream-bank greenways that intersect in ways both physical and social.
Physically, the tributaries of Brickelmaier and Goodman trickle down forested ravines to empty into Paul Spring, which flows through Voigt Park on its journey to the Potomac. The intertwining of these parks offers two benefits: an enriched habitat and an enriched social setting. As habitat, these linear forests become wildlife corridors for birds, reptiles, and mammals. Who hasn't seen deer in these parks? Heard an owl? Even spotted a fox scampering across the road?
As a social setting, the parks offer a unique experience. Walkers, runners, and bicyclists all find solitude and beauty beneath the leafy arbor of these parks, just steps away from our houses and yet so far away. The interconnectedness of the parks makes for a variety of walking or running circuits of compelling beauty and infinite diversity. They are also terrific places to meet the neighbors.
Besides having biological value, the parks of Hollin Hills serve as our meeting grounds. Our major community events occur in the parks — the Fourth of July picnic in Voigt Park, the Christmas caroling in McCalley Park, and countless swim meets and pool parties at both Hollin Hills and Hollin Meadows pools. It is noteworthy that our community comes together in its green spaces.
It is also noteworthy that we are virtually self-sufficient in our maintenance of these parks. With modest annual dues and countless volunteer hours, the Parks Committee has maintained the character and quality of the forests and parks over the years as an asset that adds beauty and value.
That value is more precious than it may seem. One need only walk through the surrounding suburban neighborhoods of Northern Virginia to appreciate the preservation of open spaces, forest, and stream as a resource. Our children grow up in a place where they can ride bikes to play in the creek or build a tree house or catch salamanders. What Hollin Hills child does not know the flower of a dogwood, the seed of a sweet gum (gumballs) or the leaf of poison ivy?
The comfortable attachment to the natural environment makes us all aware of our need to act as stewards of the land. And in Hollin Hills, the environmental ethic starts in our backyards.
the gardens of hollin hills
But what about the gardens? How could a series of individual gardens, some significantly altered from their original intent, be important? There are probably only a few gardens in Hollin Hills that are historically important, just as there are only a few individual buildings in Old Town Alexandria that are historically important.
What is important is the whole— because the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The designing of 450 homes in the modern vernacular, each with a landscape plan in the modern language of landscape, is unprecedented. It is this audaciousness of quantity and density that is unique and, hence, of historic importance. We should, therefore, protect, enhance, restore, and perhaps even recreate these modern gardens as a cultural landscape.
This cultural landscape should speak to its time — primarily the 1950s — and recognize the values of the modern landscape as a historic type. One need travel only as far as Williamsburg to view the idea of a restored and re-created historic community — the buildings, streets, parks, and gardens — all speaking to a place in time.
the elements of modern landscaping
Several key elements of the modern landscape are embodied in Hollin Hills, including:
• Informal character: asymmetrical balance is favored over formal symmetry to achieve visual harmony.
• Free-flowing spaces: exterior "rooms" flow seamlessly together in a fluid dynamic, much like the fluidity of the rooms in a modern house. Especially significant in Hollin Hills is the flow of one garden into the next without a fence line to interrupt that flow.
• Hierarchy of spaces: as exterior rooms flow together, some are revealed as more significant than others through a dynamic of size.
• Architectural extension: the hard elements of garden architecture — walls, steps, ramps, decks, patios, etc. — are a seamless extension of the materials of the house, fusing together the architecture and the garden.
• Geometric patterns: old, simple patterns of paving, planting, and earth forms vary from orthogonal to organic, but they are abstract and clearly created by man, not by nature.
• Layering of plantings: sweeping masses of planting meet with well-defined edges and are ordered in a distinct hierarchy of scale, texture, and color.
• Landscape as background: the creation of outdoor rooms features the strong use of plantings as spatial definers, so that they recede to the background, rather than claim the viewer's attention.
• Specimen plants as sculpture: as a counterpoint to the background landscape, individual trees or plants with striking silhouette, form, or color are featured as objects of art. This appreciation for the fractal geometry of nature is consistent with the abstract patterning of the garden as a whole.
the landscape architects
These elements of the modern landscape were interpreted by three pioneering landscape architects in Hollin Hills — Bernard Voigt, Dan Kiley, and Eric Paepcke — each with his own signature. Voigt was the original collaborator with Goodman and sought to create gardens that flowed seamlessly from one yard to the next. His tenure was cut tragically short by his untimely death in 1953.
Bernard “Barney” Voigt
Kiley and Paepcke continued Voigt's work. Paepcke closely paralleled Voigt, with quiet, restrained sweeps of shrubs and trees arcing across the landscape in simple masses. Kiley, however, was interested in pure geometry, and his gardens featured striking circular forms, straight lines, and the strong collision of geometric planes.
Hollin Hills was a proving ground for the young landscape architect, and he was eager to experiment with variations on the theme of the geometric garden. His palette was not limited to plants, as he characteristically used landform (the grading in old Hollin Hills is a fundamental part of the garden), paving, fences, and walls to shape spaces in clearly man-made ways.
Dan Kiley
Kiley became one of the 20th century's preeminent landscape architects, with such commissions as IBM headquarters, Dulles International Airport, and the U.S. Air Force Academy. But it is in Hollin Hills that his landscapes have been the most altered over time, since the preciseness of the geometrics require rigorous maintenance. That his work has not been preserved as well as it might have been is an opportunity to revisit and recreate these gardens.
In fact, his archives have been donated to Harvard University, and serious scholarly work is being undertaken at this writing to inventory, assess, and critique Kiley's Hollin Hills designs. This is a significant body of work, as distinct and important as Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian houses, and it merits the full support of our neighborhood. That such a revered landscape architect had his formative years in Hollin Hills adds immensely to our landscape legacy.
the future
The spirit of the modern landscape as an historic type is alive and well in Hollin Hills. This spirit recognizes that while architecture is about the third dimension — built form — landscape architecture is about the fourth dimension — time. As time heals all wounds, it also clarifies, purifies, and distills the essence of landscape.
In Hollin Hills, the forest has been the great equalizer, expanding and enveloping the community under its green veil. An irony in the advance of the forest creeping into the gardens is that the forest epitomizes the tenets of a modern landscape — an informal, flowing mass of green that is an omnipresent background. Natural and cultural landscapes are united in a blur of vegetation over time.
This evolution should not devalue the modern gardens that exist — both realized and unrealized — but should cause us to recognize the unique contribution of landscape architects to our community and compel us to revisit their spirit and intention. That intention was a landscape of democracy — social, aesthetic, and ecological — that should, and does, Iive on in Hollin Hills. A walk in the woods is the privilege of our children. ln the future, we hope that they demand this as a fundamental right of a civilized community.
— Dennis Carmichael
more in landscape + gardens
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The early Hollin Hills pioneers implemented an experimental approach to landscaping that shaped the community.
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meet the landscape architects
Modernist designers Barney Voigt, Dan Kiley and Eric Paepcke each brought their own cutting-edge style to Hollin Hills — and transformed the landscape of the community.
how to get your original landscape plan
Professional landscape plans were prepared for each property in Hollin Hills in the community’s first decades — part of an effort to create a natural but very modern landscape that would knit the community together. Many of those original plans are available from the Library of Congress and Harvard University; here’s how to get yours.
a landscape esthetic for hollin hills
Award-winning landscape architect (and longtime Hollin Hills resident) Dennis Carmichael wrote this definitive, 60-page guide in 1989 to explain the key ideas behind modernist landscaping.
know your invasive plants
Invasive plants – non-natives that spread uncontrollably – can spread “like a vegetative army”, writes Andrew Keegan, who has provided this illustrated guide to some of the most dangerous plants, including lesser celandine, English ivy, and Japanese stiltgrass.
landscape and community-building in hollin hills
Bartlett Bickel argues that Hollin Hills can be viewed as a prototype for many sustainable community design practices.
the buzz about bees
There are more than 450 kinds of native bees in our area, according to wildlife biologist Sam Droege, and they are all beneficial pollinators. Droege gave a talk to Hollin Hillers in 2022 on how we can create an environment that supports them, reports Gretchen Spencer.