ABSTRACT
Inflected landscapes such as plants occupy that middle zone between the natural and the made, instigating a state of soft tension that evokes a perceptual ambiguity between the identities of both the natural and the constructed. The French formal garden, perfected in the seventeenth century by the landscape architect Andre le Notre, is the principal representative of the type. The treatment of the landscape became less mannered and more naturalistic as one moved away from the central line, eventually dissipating within the plantations of the surrounding woods. The pre-existing landscape of the site was covered with some stretches of pine forests, and a portion had been cleared and used as a gravel pit. Erik Gunnar Asplund’s own architectural contribution from this period, the tiny Woodland Chapel, exemplified an attitude toward building in the landscape characterized by an extreme sensitivity to both place and occasion.
