building the american landscape - Univerza v Novi Gorici

The structure was the result of the settlers’ desire to have access to water, which
was used for practical purposes and for transportation, since the road
infrastructures were inadequate and entailed construction and maintenance costs.
The relationship with the river economy and transport along the river banks
determined the two landscapes being merged, and goes back to the original name
of the place, Bon Séjour, a place name which hinted at a hospitality‐hotel
destination of the installations which preceded the current building, or a simple,
good omen for the drained marshlands and swamps.
Whatever the case, the exceptionality of the place is created by the presence of
numerous oak trees, Live Oak, (Quercus Virginiana), a native evergreen tree of the
South‐East of the United States. Probably planted at the beginning of the
eighteenth century during the first colonial installations, the trees already appeared
as tall, luxurious plants at the time the main house was built. They were arranged
on both sides of the 240 metre‐long (800 feet) drive from the river bank to the
house entrance to provide a spectacular, monumental scene [Figure 24]. The house
was, therefore, built relatively close to the river, whereas the long strip of land
extended through many kilometres of sugar cane in the swamps and cotton fields in
the marsh‐free areas. The white neoclassical style building stands out against the
green landscape, among the lawns and the foliage of the trees covered with moss
and lichens. The tall Doric columns along the entire perimeter of the house support
a large hip roof and form a colonnade on the ground floor and a balcony, or gallery,
on the first floor. The result is a screen, which allows nature to be seen beyond and
creates an immediate relationship [Figure 25]. Enclosing a square‐shaped space, the
28 perimetral columns correlate directly with the oak trees encountered along the
drive, since they replicate their number: a transformation of nature into
architecture, “a momentary fusion of natural and tectonic orders” 46 .
The numerous openings of the cubic volume enclosed under the large, sloping
overhangs guarantee the continual and necessary change of air and the correct
amount of light in the hot, Southern climate, whereas the colour and the use of the
materials confer the house with a special luminosity to give it the appearance of a
46 PLUMMER, Henry, The Potential House, Tokyo, A+U publishing, 1989, p. 49
29