building the american landscape - Univerza v Novi Gorici

which recreated various formal situations influenced by the French, the English and
the Italian [Figure 20].
In his book Gardens and Historic Plants of the Antebellum South (2003), James
Cothran describes some elements of the landscape, common to various housing
complexes of the plantations: "during the antebellum period, with few exceptions,
southerners remained wedded to formality and the principles of geometric garden
design that had prevailed throughout the colonial period. Not only did geometric
elements fit within the context of a symmetrical house and garden plan, but
formalized landscape features […] reflected a control over nature and served as a
means of conveying wealth, taste and social prestige" 43 .
However, the unquestionable icon of all the landscapes of the Old South is Oak
Alley House (1837‐39) [Figure 26], designed in St. James Parish, Louisiana, by Gilbert
Joseph Pilie on behalf of Jacques Telesphore Roman, a sugar cane planter and
owner of the estate on the shore of the Mississippi River.
The ground of the plantation is a long rectangle in shape, placed perpendicular to
the river[Figures 22‐23]. This particular arrangement probably originated in the
“typical French pattern of long, narrow farms running back from the water’s
edge” 44 . A 1764 map of Detroit, reproduced by Reps 45 in Town planning in Frontier
America, shows the French system of subdivision of the land, as highlighted by
some plots aligned along the river outside the small town. It was Reps himself who
confirmed that the system was applied for the first time in Canada, to the
settlements along the Saint Lawrence River, and later around New Orleans, along
the Mississippi River.
In 1858, the use of this system to divide the land was verified by Norman’s Chart
Of The Lower Mississippi River [Figure 21‐22], which highlighted the designation of
the various plantations (usually cotton and sugar cane) and identified their
ownership.
43 FRICKER, and TURNER, “National Historic Landmark document”, p. 24: Link download:
http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NHLS/Text/01000765.pdf URL visited May 31, 2012
44 REPS, John William, Town Planning in Frontier America, Princeton, University Press, 1969 [first ed.
1965] p. 86 (Italian translation by M. Terni, S. Magistretti, La costruzione dell’America urbana;
introduction by Francesco Dal Co, Milano, Franco Angeli, 1976, p. 98)
45 Ibid. p. 97. This drawing of Detroit is the earliest printed map of the city.
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