Millennium Park Water Feature/Canal/'Stream'

A wooden promenade and shallow canal bisect Lurie Gardens just south of the Gehry amphitheater (seen to the left). It runs at a diagonal, which presumably accommodates pedestrians passing through the park while walking through the city, as well as creating a quite open space to simply people watch or read a book. 

The ipe (FSC certified, of course) boardwalk runs at a pitch downhill, meeting the cross street to the south just a few steps above grade.  The canal achieves the drop in grade with the placement of weirs, allowing the water to step down in grade and be consistently shallow enough to rest your feet on the bottom.  The boardwalk steps down as well, creating a long bench which, as you can see, is well used by visitors.

 

Metal bridges traverse the canal and are composed of naval brass, bronze and powdercoated steel. 

Yikes

Wow, my last post was 11 days ago!  Shameful!

If you're reading this, well, thanks for coming over, even though I have been posting infrequently.  My own back-to-school resolution is to maintain 3-5 posts/week.  Wish me luck, things have been piling up lately!

Speaking of being of "piling up" (cheesy segueway alert!), here are some shots I took on a run yesterday near the Air Force Memorial in Arlington.

Locals probably recognize the memorial immediately, as it's visible from DC and the Potomac.  It's also within the first and last mile of most of my runs.  It's also - as you can see, at the crest of a very large hill.  A great spot for firework viewing, it's also a little brutal to climb after a long run, and there's a good chance I end up walking some of it.  In any case, I know this stretch of land quite well.

 
Which was why I was so fascinated with the recent storm damage that occurred there.  You see the way the ground sheared off in the top photo?  I'd say the ground dropped about 24-30" -- a very small landslide.  From there, the soil, beneath the turf, slowly migrated downhill, rippling the turf like a buckled carpet.

In the shot above, you can see how the guardrail bows out a little from the pressure of the soil.  It also reaches the top of the guardrail, piling up to a height of around 30".  We've all seen evidence of the power of water lately (I was on a site in Vermont last week doing damage assessment -- I wish I could share those pics), but I thought I'd share this small example.

More on the National Arboretum's 'Ruins'

A little over a week ago, I posted about the structure at the National Arboretum, which was built from unused columns from the Capitol.

Ladew Gardens,

Without a doubt, the Water Lily Gardens at Ladew were among my favorites.  But I am sadly a bit too busy to elaborate on why.  So I'm posting these shots without comment....

Ladew Topiary Gardens, Rose Garden

The Rose Garden at Ladew is an elliptical brick-walled garden. with grass and brick paths, festooned with climbing vines and roses. 

We were just a bit too early to enjoy the roses in full bloom, but it was still lovely to look at the design and some of the perennials in bloom.

 

Stachys byzantina and Clematis x jackmannii provide some variation from the climbing and bush roses. 

I really, really want to replace that piece of wood for something a touch nicer.  I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that way.

The brick and grass edge to the pond reads very well, and all of the water features have a touch of decay to them that I find appealing.  I like that it doesn't seem to be level anymore and water spills off the left side more heavily.  Makes it feel lived-in.

I also loved this fine, fine textured wrought iron gate and would love to know where to find something similar.  It's lightness is such a change from the brick.

Ladew Topiary Gardens, Victorian Garden

I loved, loved the effect from planting Cryptomeria japonica so close together that they formed a fairly rigid fence around the 'Victorian Garden'. 

 The Rhododendrons are thriving as well, so passing through the threshold feels pretty magical.

The Yards Park, Water Feature

The water feature at the Yards Park is one of the site's highlights.  It's a large pool recirculated by a waterfall that appears to feed the Anacostia River. 

The waterfall spills from a weir that doubles as a fountain. 

Walking behind the fall is lovely -- I can imagine how crowded this space will be in the summer.

 Below, the view of the weir. 

 

 The fountain is on a timed display -- a few minutes later the jets were quite tall.

Meridian Hill Park

So last week, I was teasing a post on Meridian Hill Park almost every day.  I kept threatening to post photos on Friday.  Sure enough, at around 7:30 Friday morning, blogger was shut down.  And by 9am that golden window for me to get a blog post done had closed.  So here, a few days later than planned, I'm finally making that post.

This shot above is the north entry of Meridian Hill Park -- at 15th and Euclid Streets.  It's a large mall space with the aforementioned Quercus macrocarpa aligning the walks.  It rises slightly uphill as one walks south.  To the right, the grade drops severely - two retaining walls, each 20'+ hold the park up.  On the left, the park is essentially at grade with 15th Street.

Evidently, this statue of Joan of Arc is the only statue of a woman on a horse.  Which is remarkable, since Washington DC could very well also be called "City of Many Equestrian Statues."  Joan looks south and beyond her the park drops in grade considerably.  One has a lovely lookout here of the main design gesture of the park -- the cascading water feature.

The park actually sits on the White House meridian line. L'Enfant planned Washington DC using triangles that connect various parts of DC.  The White House meridian is a line that connects the Jefferson Memorial, the Washington Monument, the White House and, further north, Meridian Hill Park.  The park itself is oriented almost exactly north-south.

Fountains at the head of the cascading pools fill a large upper pool then slowly descend through a series of smaller pools. 

As mentioned last week, Iris pseudacorus aligns the cascade.  Junipers are planted along the stepped walkway flanking the water.  A curious choice, though I suspect the absence of leaf litter was part of the reasoning.

The park was finished in 1936 though previously the site had been a bucolic campus for Columbian College, which was later renamed George Washington University.  At the time, the concrete aggregate forming all the structures was quite new.  Personally, I can't stand this look.  I would have much preferred all the walls to be stone, but it was pretty trendy at the moment and certainly less expensive than stone.

Paving "stones" were laid out with bluestone aggregate and larger pebble aggregate at the "joints."

The view back north at the cascade.  The park is having a series of renovations being performed -- right now the water cascade on the left is not functioning property and the large retaining walls on 16th Street are being repaired.  We were there on a Sunday morning and the park was pretty quiet, but it is a great landscape - a lovely beaux arts idyll, hidden in DC. 

Yellow Flags

I'm sort of teasing readers this week -- I made a mention of visiting Meridian Hill Park and have yet to share photos yet.  I haven't had a chance to really read up on the history of the park, but hope to have a post for that by Friday.

 

In the meantime, here's a glimpse of the water feature that is the key part of the park's design and, flanking the goblin's face, Iris pseudacorus or yellow flag iris.  Below, note how short the standards (upright petals) are, compared to the falls (the lower petals).

Yellow flags are European plants and are quite invasive in the United States -- they are very tough plants and are even used for treatment of sewage and for removing heavy metals from contaminated sites.  That said, in a site like this, it's a shame a native aquatic iris, such as Iris versicolor (purple flag iris) couldn't have been used.

The Moongate Garden, at the Enid Haupt Smithsonian Gardens, and the Number Four

Last Friday I was fortunate enough to have some downtime in my schedule for a walk through the Enid Haupt Gardens at the Smithsonian.  I'd say, as far as enjoying the blossoms of Magnolia x. soulangiana, my timing couldn't be more perfect.  I always love flowering trees most when half the petals are on the ground, and half still on the tree.

Strangely enough -- and I've never noticed this before with saucer magnolia -- but the landscape smelled a little like pizza.  Now then, maybe I was just hungry, but I think when the petals start to decay they have a slight aroma of parmesan.
 

I love the boldness of using so many of this tree, and against the brick, the petals weren't even that slippery (on smoother surfaces they can be like banana peels).   The shots above are at the entry to the Moongate Garden, which was part of the renovation of the Enid Haupt Gardens in 1987. 

In the photo above is the Moongate itself (there are actually two in the garden).  It's hard to read thsi time of year since the pink granite blends so well with the Magnolia petals.  Below is a more clear shot. 

Approaching the Moongate, the paving changes to granite with notches of Belgian block.  The Moongate Garden is inspired by the Temple of Heaven, built in Beijing during the Ming Dynasty (14-17C).

The round granite stone placed in a square pool represents heaven and earth.   The square is earth, heaven is the circle. Strangely enough, I can't find much written on the symbolism of the four pathways to "heaven."  Below, they are represented as stone bridges over the water.  At the actual temple, they are entry points to the circular landform.  

Perhaps the use of four here isn't as deliberate as the circle and square, but the concept of four being a symbolically rich number is prevalent.  The number four appears often in Hinduism and it's believed in that religion there are four paths to meet God.  The garden of Eden was believed to be accessed by four different rivers and, as such, many gardens mean to represent Eden have four waterways included in the design.  In Buddhism there are four noble truths.   In Islam, there are four sacred months and four archangels. In Judaism, during passover, there are four cups of wine to be drunk, four sons to be addressed and four questions to be asked.

Finally, perhaps most darkly -- there are four horsemen of the apocalypse...!

Museum of the American Indian, this time with water

This past weekend I had a friend in town who is an architect so before we finished our amble through the mall area on Sunday, we walked past the Museum of the American Indian, so I could pick his brain about the building's design, since I'm still on the fence about how much I do or don't like it.  

 

We both kinda like it, but kinda don't; it seems like a case of "too much, or not enough."  Regardless of my misgivings, the space did become much more lively when the water feature is running.  The reflections of the boulders are quite lovely and evoke a permanency in the face of erosion

 

...Though I'm still not sold on the materials, the paving and retaining wall materials feel like such a huge departure from the facade.