OLLI Syllabus: World Gardens as an Art Form (Part I)

 

 

Rosemary Fair:  rrfair@aol.com  303-316-9606

Lorraine Sherry: lorraine.sherry@comcast.net  303-465-4361

 

 

 

The textbook for the course, The Garden: Visions of Paradise, has a vocabulary of garden terms.  The World Gardens Website has an extensive Vocabulary of Garden Terms.  There is also a List of References including books and websites that you may find useful for reports.  This list of references is constantly under construction as we find new books on garden design.  Ten-minute class reports are an integral part of the course.

 

Note: Our main channel of communication will be via e-mail and the website.  Most handouts, updated syllabus, reading assignments, and references for this course will be available at the World Gardens Website, so please check it weekly for updates.

  

http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~lsherry/gardens/index.htm

 

 

 

March 24.  Week 1

Introduction to garden design as an art form (Professor David Whiting, Colorado State University and State Coordinator of the Colorado Master Gardener Program)

The heritage of ancient Rome: The pastoral ideal (PowerPoint presentation)

Nature Perfected VHS (27 minutes): The Heritage of Rome (includes Egypt, also modern adaptations)

Assignment of class reports (class reports begin in two weeks)

Reading assignment in textbook: Chapter 1 and pages 129-137

World Gardens Website reading assignment:  Landscape Design as an Art Form

 

 

March 31.  Week 2

Walled medieval gardens: Cloisters and Castles (PowerPoint presentation)

Nature Perfected VHS (27 minutes): Garlands of Repose (Monasteries, castles, and Moorish Spain)

Persian, Islamic, and Mughal gardens: Man’s vision of paradise on earth (PowerPoint presentation)

Majorelle Gardens in Marrakesh, Morocco:  Pam Mathews (PowerPoint presentation)

Reading assignment in textbook: Chapters 2 and pages 138-139

World Gardens Website reading assignment:  The Garden as Idea, Place, and Action; The Spirit of the Times; and Philosophy of Garden Types and Styles

 

 

April 7.  Week 3

The villa gardens of Renaissance and Baroque Italy: Country estates, the Medici, and the Humanist movement—Horticulture and agriculture are again united and new art forms evolve. (PowerPoint presentation)

Nature Perfected VHS (27 minutes): New Perspectives and selections from World of Gardens VHS: Formal Gardens

Class reports

Reading assignment in textbook: Chapter 3 and pages 140-143

World Gardens Website reading assignment:  Summary of the Renaissance; Three Renaissance Gardens (virtual tour); Mythology in Renaissance Art

   

 

April 14.  Week 4

The Baroque French garden: Perfecting nature in man’s image; André Le Nôtre and Versailles – extolling the glory of Louis XIV (PowerPoint presentation).  The rest of Europe falls in step.

Nature Perfected VHS (27 minutes): Glory and Grandeur and selections from World of Gardens VHS: Formal Gardens

Class reports

Reading assignment in textbook: Chapter 4 and pages 144-145

 

 

April 21.  Week 5

The English Landscape Garden Movement (PowerPoint presentation)

Nature Perfected VHS (27 minutes): The Landscaping of England (Country estates)

World of Gardens VHS (27 minutes): Country Gardens (Romantic cottage gardens, with Audrey Hepburn)

Class reports

Reading assignment in textbook: Chapter 5 and pages 146-151

World Gardens Website reading assignment:  Revolutions in Garden Design (1690s and 1790s); History of Arcadia

 

 

April 28.  Week 6

The English Garden Revolution of 1870 and its impact on the American garden; History of the Denver Botanic Gardens (Panayoti Kelaidis, Director of Outreach, Denver Botanic Gardens)

Niki de Saint Phalle’s Tarot Garden (PowerPoint presentation)

World of Gardens VHS (27 minutes): Public Gardens and Trees (with Audrey Hepburn)

Class reports

Reading assignment in textbook: Chapter 6 and pages 152-160

World Gardens Website reading assignment:  Modernism; Revolutions in Garden Design (1890s); Philosophy of Garden Types and Styles (Abstract style)

Carpool arrangements for field trip

 

 

May 5.  Week 7

Modernism and beyond (Bradley Goetz, Colorado State University Associate Professor of landscape architecture)

Favorite Garden Designers of the 20th and 21st Century (PowerPoint presentation)

And/or Nature Perfected VHS (27 minutes): Grounds for Change

Class Reports

Evaluations due

World Gardens Website reading assignment:  Modernism (Postmodern section); Revolutions in Garden Design (1990s); Philosophy of Garden Types and Styles (Postmodern style); Modern gardens: Gaudi and Niki

Carpool arrangements for field trip

 

 

May 12.  Week 8                                                                                                                                                

Field trip to Denver Botanic Gardens’ (DBG) Centennial Gardens and Commons Park, a Denver City Park 

Guides will be Maria Bumgarner, Denver Botanic Gardens horticulturist, and Ruth Murayama, a Denver Parks and Recreation Department landscape architect.

Carpools will leave from the church at 12:30 and will return around 3 PM.

World Gardens Website reading assignment:  Denver Downtown Gardens

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A suburban garden

in Colorado