The Vertical Elements. Qualities of Enclosure

The vertical elements are the space dividers, screens, baffles, and backdrops. Of the three volumetric planes, the verticals are the most easy to control. Conversely, they have the most important function in the creation of outdoor spaces. They contain and articulate the use areas; and may tightly control and enclose such areas, as with masonry walls, or more loosely, as with a tracery of foliage.

By plan manipulation, the vertical elements may extend and expand the use-areas to apparent infinity, by screening out the near or obtrusive features of the landscape and revealing such receding or expansive features as the distant view, the horizon, or the limitless spaciousness of the open sky.

Enclosure for privacy. It can be seen that neither enclosure nor openness is of value in itself. The degree and quality of enclosure must be considered in relation to the function of a given area. Enclosure is desirable where privacy is desired. The orientals have a faculty for creating their own privacy by mentally blocking out those things or spaces they find to be distracting or disturbing. They seem able to bring into sensed focus a space or volume suited to their pleasure or their needs. This ability enables them to enjoy a degree of privacy even in a crowded market place. For the occidental mind this is more difficult, and such privacy as we may require must usually be sought out or achieved by planning.

The Garden of Perfect Brightness

It has been said that, in our modern civilization, privacy is at once one of the most valuable and one of the rarest of commodities. We may readily observe this lack of privacy by walking down almost any city street. Inexplicably, our contemporary homes have been oriented to the street and avenue — designed as showpieces and displayed for public approbation. Our gardens, our terraces, even our interior living areas, through the use of large glass window walls, have been opened to the public.

This bizarre compulsion to be seen at all times, and in most all situations, is unique to our times. If it be mistaken for an evidence of democratic freedom, we have perhaps overlooked the most significant freedom of all — the freedom of privacy. We may hope that this tendency toward public display is just a passing phase, for privacy has long been recognized as essential to human well-being and to the cultivation and appreciation of those things that are of highest human value.

We are only now beginning to realize again the advantages of private living and working areas that are screened from the street and oriented to the enclosed court or garden. In Egypt, Pompeii, Spain, Japan, and in all mature cultures, such walled residences, palace courts, and temple grounds were, and still are, the most functional and pleasurable of all planned spaces. Perhaps we, in our new and experimental culture are rediscovering the logic and charm of the walled or screened enclosure.

Enclosure for privacy need not be complete or rigid. It may be achieved by no more than a strategically placed screen. It may be attained by a loose arrangement of elements providing a screen in depth. Such a screen is the wall of woodland-trunk, twig, and foliage. Such a screen might also be effected by the dispersed arrangement of any standing elements.

A pleasant out-of-door volume that provides both shelter and privacy

Qualities of enclosure. Vertical enclosure may be as rugged as the rocky face of a cliff or a wall of piled-up fieldstone. It may be as sophisticated as a panel of carved or molded glass or rich ceramic mosaic.

The range of form and materials is limitless. But whether massive or delicate, crude or refined, simple or ornate, the essential business is to suit the enclosure to the use of the space or the use of the space to the predetermined enclosure. The nature of the vertical elements providing enclosure must be in keeping with the nature and use of the space enclosed. Usually, in fact, the verticals, more than any other design elements, develop and produce the character of a given volume.

If the space is to be gay, bright, or exciting, the “walls” of the space must be bright and light, and induce gaiety and excitement. If the space is to connote serenity, dignity, and order, so must the enframing vertical elements express and induce a sense of serenity, dignity, and order in their form, materials, color, and arrangement.

Visual control. All things seen from a space are a visual function of that space. Not only the extent and nature of the enclosure, but also the extent and nature of the revealment must be in keeping with the use of the space that is framed. For anything that can be seen from a space is visually in the space and must be taken into account. Often an object far removed may be introduced to the space by opening to, enframing, and focusing on the object.

A far off mountain peak or a nearby tree may thus be “brought into” a garden. The bustle and clamor of a sprawling city and its harbor may, for its therapeutic value, be “brought into” the convalescent spaces of a military hospital grounds. A distant cathedral campanile may thus he 'transported” to a church yard, or a quiet pond to the dormitory terrace of a girls’ academy.

The verticals may direct attention inward or outward. Enclosure is desirable for those areas where interest is to he centered upon an object or where detail is important. It is evident in such cases that distractions should he eliminated and that we must devise an enclosure to best display or complement the object or reveal the detail. It would be difficult, for instance, in viewing a piece of sculpture to appreciate those subtle nuances of light and shade that reveal the modelling of a torso, if the sculpture were seen against a moving stream of city traffic or a line of flapping laundry.

Even against a vista of great serenity much of the startling beauty of an individual rose, for instance, would be lost to the observer. For the backdrop of anything to be featured should rarely compete in interest. Spatial enclosure, when doubling as a backdrop, should be so devised as to bring out the highest qualities of the object to be seen against it.

In general it may be stated that, where interest is to be directed to an object within a given area, we must contain the area in such a way as to focus attention inward. Where the interest is to be directed outward to object or view we will pierce or open the enclosure in such a way as to best accentuate and frame that which is to hold our attention.