Formality is based on proportion and measurements that give order out of the unknown based on Geometric algebraic and mechanistic mathematical concepts. How do we create order out of the unknown by creating a vocabulary and library of concepts that replaces the natural world? Prehistoric man buried the dead which was the first sign that man had a sense of the other world or a world outside of the visible or knowable realm. To create a synthetic context for this relationship from the unknown to the known we created a world around ourselves. The Garden of Eden story is a part of the western humans understanding of his place in nature. The garden as unknown jungle and the garden as paradise we still can’t decide or haven’t resolved the idea of the garden as it fits into our life.
Formality in the modern western world is a reference to a past idea that had its root in spirituality which is no longer a part of our life as a public demonstation of our life. It is the rarest garden that has a spiritual vocabulary as it’s reference. These gardens are usually historical gardens like the Cloisters in New York City which make reference to a particular time period and its vision of that reality. If we go into a residential neighborhood it is very difficulty to find any meaningful arrangement of houses in regards to the natural environment such as where does the sunset where is the prevailing wind, where does the morning sun come up. The usual design is rows of houses in straight lines parallel or perpendicular to a major roadway. The house lots are subdivided in such a way so that everyone has relatively equal amounts of land. I recall seeing the PBS series on New York which told of how New york was leveled flat, all the creeks and streams where buried, all the hills where removed to create a uniform sense of equality. The commentator then stated that one couldn’t say that the streets weren’t interesting and that this destruction of the natural order of the landscape wasn’t a negative effective of the city planners. I disagree completely New York would have been a vastly more interesting city with creeks and streams and hills and cliffs and all the natural features that the island of New York originally had. The cloisters is actually located on the only distinct hill I know of in New York and it’s kind of neat. Fort Tryon Park is 250 feet above sea level and is a geat place to visit to get incredible views of the Hudson and surrounding views. The reason for the destruction of these natural features was to get more real estate, and nothing more, which coincidentally seems to be the same issue confronting the world trade center site dilemma, and pretty much every real estate project in the world. I digress. The placement of the house will determine the placement of the garden and its features if there are no more considerations of the placement of the house than a subdivided cow pasture then the formality of the garden will essentially be compromised. Incidentally the garden is always subservient to the house and its architecture. Since most suburban and residential houses have no architecture other than the 4x8 panel of sheetrock and plywood it is difficult to to tie the garden to the house. But it is essential.
The basic concept of a formality for a residential house is planting shrubs around the foundation to hide the ugly cement foundation, level the front yard and plant a lawn that is flat and extends the property line with two or one tree in the front yard. This is the beginning vocabulary which has its extended two foot wide flower bed in front of the shrub and maybe a kidney bean bed around the tree with some kind of edging of stone plastic or steel. Formality from an English perspective might be a framing of the house as it appears from the street which would usually involve long hedges and borders. In America the garden is basically a recapturing the poor layout of the property to something that ornaments the house so that it fits into the neighborhood and conforms.
How do we us a formal vocabulary in a contemporary landscape. First we need to expand formality to encompass what we know about the natural world and all the libraries and vocabularies of idea that help us understand. One, we live with the concept of the holographic universe and the idea that chaos includes order. Another important concept, fractal geometry allows for a new type of proportionality that goes beyond bisecting lines but instead uses a much more sophisticated on the surface and possibly profoundly simpler method of determining relationships between features and objects in the garden. What possible might happen is that the order of nature becomes the order of the garden and the distinction is somewhat blurred. In order to accomplish this new sense of formality we need to rethink our relationship to the earth and see things freshly and treat our plant material from a more organic way and not from a architectural way. It is interesting that Frank Gerry the great architect of our time is doing the same thing with architecture. As Phillip Johnson proclaimed “the line is dead”. I wouldn’t be that dramatic but I would say the line is much smaller and the perspective is beyond three dimensional. We supposedly live in a 4 dimensional universe with time as the 4th dimension. Some would argue that we live in a ten dimensional universe. I know it really gets in the way of planting trees. Since most neighborhoods are ill-conceived and a product of real estate this new formalism responds to this problem with a solution that is more based in art and less in construction square foot landscaping theory. The question is how does a square foot landscaper become a gardener. Hmmmm. That’s really an issue of desire and the ability to observe the natural world. Since the natural world is quickly vanishing and much of what is though of as natural is really worked over reclaimed pasture or farm land. It will probable be necessary to travel to obtain knowledge necessary to unravel the hidden possibilities

Formality in the garden