Jens Jensen (landscape architect)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jens Jensen (September 13, 1860 - October 1, 1951) was a Danish born American landscape architect.
Contents |
[edit] Early life
Jens Jensen was born near Dybbøl in Slesvig, Denmark in 1860, to a wealthy farming family. For the first nineteen years of his life he lived on his family's farm, which cultivated his love for the natural environment. When he was four years old, during the second war of Schleswig in 1864, Jensen watched the Prussians invade his town, and burn his family's farm buildings. This invasion, which annexed the land into Prussia, left a deep influence on how Jensen viewed the world of man. He attended the Tune Agricultural School in Jutland, afterwards undertaking mandatory service in the Prussian Army. During these three years he sketched parks in the English and French character in Berlin and other German cities. By 1884, his military service over, Jensen was engaged to Anne Marie Hansen. His choice of wife was apparently not approved of. Coupled with his wish to escape the family farm, this led to his decision to emigrate to the United States that year.
[edit] In the United States
Initially Jensen worked in Florida, and then Iowa, before moving to Chicago and taking a job as a laborer for the West Park Commission. He was soon promoted to a foreman. During this time he was allowed to design and plant a garden of exotic flowers. When the garden withered and died, he traveled into the surrounding prairie and transplanted native wildflowers. Jensen transplanted the wildflowers into a corner of Union Park, creating what became the American Garden in 1888.
Working his way through the park system, Jensen was appointed superintendent of the 200 acre (800,000 m²) Humboldt Park in 1895. By the late 1890s, the West Park Commission was entrenched in corruption. After refusing to participate in political graft, Jensen was ousted by a dishonest park board in 1900. He was eventually reinstated and by 1905 he was general superintendent of the entire West Park System in Chicago. His design work for the city can be seen at Lincoln Park, Douglas Park, and Columbus Park.
[edit] Private practice
In 1920 he retired from the park system and started his own landscape architecture practice. He worked on private estates and municipal parks throughout the US including four homes for Edsel Ford and projects for the Dearborn Inn, Henry Ford Hospital, Henry Ford Museum, and the Ford pavilion at the 1933 Chicago Century of Progress. In 1935 Jensen moved to Ellison Bay, Wisconsin where he established "The Clearing", which he called a "school of the soil" to train future landscape architects. In the course of his long career he worked with many well known architects including Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Albert Kahn. Jens died at his home in "The Clearing" on October 1, 1951, aged 91.
[edit] Design Philosophy
Jensen is known for his "prairie style" design work. This would often consist of open spaces and pathways, which allowed one to stay in the shade while viewing the light. Not only did he use native plants, but also materials too. Most of his water features use slabs of limestone stacked up to recreate the natural river systems of the Mid West. Much of his designs focused around views from certain places where he would leave openings in the dense under stories he was known for planting. Jens never created paths going in straight lines to their destinations; he disliked inorganic lines that connected places like they were nodes. He said of the vast formal gardens of France that "men with little intellect and plenty of money who, for the sake of popularity, will turn their gardens into museums of freaks where even the stalwart moonshiner would hesitate to pass through at the midnight hour."
At the Henry Ford Estate, instead of going straight to the house, the entrance route leads visitors through a densely wooded area. Bends in the road, planted on the inside with large trees to give a feeling of a natural reason for the turn, obscure the view. Suddenly, the driver is propelled out of the forest and in the open space where the residence is in front of them. This idea of wandering was one which Jens put forth in almost all of his designs.
Today his gardens are being restored due to resurrections of his plans. Jens Jensen was one of the most influential designers to popularise native gardens. He showed that not only could beautiful gardens have native species, but could have native species in their respective places as they would be without human integration or involvement. He taught us that beauty does not have to come from a Tulip from Holland or a Maple from Japan; it can come from the wild reaches of our backyards or state parks. He summed up his philosophy by saying: "Every Plant has fitness and must be placed in its proper surroundings so as to bring out its full beauty. Therein lies the art of landscaping".
[edit] References
- Grese, Robert E., Jens Jensen: Maker of Natural Parks and Gardens, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1998
- Telfer, Sid, The Jens Jensen I Knew
