Viewshed Symposium

Viewshed \ˈvyü-shed\ n.: The natural environment that is visible from one or more viewing points. 

 

Symposium  |  100 Words  

Framing the Viewshed
The Transformative Power of Art and Landscape in the Hudson Valley
By Sarah Price, Landscape Curator

On April 16, 2011, The Olana Partnership celebrated the Hudson Valley's extraordinary natural and designed landscape with the symposium, Framing the Viewshed: The Transformative Power of Art and Landscape in the Hudson Valley. Over 200 attendees joined prominent speakers for an afternoon of lectures and conversations about art, advocacy and landscape.

The symposium began with remarks by Sara Griffen, president of The Olana Partnership, who pointed out the importance of viewsheds not only in the Hudson Valley but also nationally (for example, Monticello and Civil War battlefields) and internationally, as represented by the current threats to the city center of Seville, Spain.Joan Davidson, president of Furthermore, President Emeritus, JM Kaplan Fund and former New York State Parks commissioner, took the stand and said that viewsheds "conjure a vision of the world we hope to live in."She set forth the tantalizing prospect of the Hudson Valley as a national park. Ned Sullivan, president of Scenic Hudson, rounded out the remarks by discussing the extensive partnerships that are essential for Scenic Hudson to have preserved 28,000 acres in its 48 year history.

The lectures featured three leading experts in the fields of art history, conservation, and landscape design discussing the Hudson Valley's unparalleled viewsheds and their cultural context. Art historian Linda S. Ferber spoke on the four Hudsons of Wallace Bruce, the author of a 1901 travel guide: the Hudsons of Beauty, History, Literature and Commerce. Ms. Ferber's talk featured images by Hudson River School artists Frederic Church, Thomas Cole, and Jasper Cropsey.In focusing on these categories we could see how the painters built popular taste for scenic touring (what we would call today cultural tourism) through the dissemination of their images, both as prints and ceramic transferware.

Vassar Professor Emeritus Harvey K. Flad discussed the "Art of Protecting Scenic Views: Nineteenth-century Artists and the Preservation of Modern-day Landscapes." Professor Flad cited the preservation of the views of Niagara Falls as the first effort that engaged landscape preservation as a core value. In 1879, Frederic Law Olmsted wrote in a letter that Church had pointed out the problem to him ten years earlier. Church and Olmsted helped form the Niagara Reservation (the oldest park in America) in 1883-1886.Church's work was critical in a conservation effort over 100 years later when his paintings, The Hudson Valley in Winter from Olana (c.1871-2) and Clouds over Olana (1872), were used in testimony against a proposed nuclear power plant in the Olana viewshed.The Church paintings were a component of the compelling evidence. Flad concluded that the "views from Olana remain as the signal point in which the twentieth-century and twenty-first-century visual analysis and visual assessment can be traced."

Finally, landscape architect Laurie Olin, whose designs for public and private landscapes have won him international acclaim, spoke on the use of contemporary design in historic settings, using examples from his work. Olin's work in Philadelphia at Independence National Historical Park offered an interesting contrast to Olana. In Philadelphia he had the challenge that Independence Hall was dwarfed by the modern skyscrapers that back-dropped the building. He came to realize, through viewing colonial era prints, that Independence Hall was best viewed from an angle which would allow it to be seen against the sky and "regain its dignity."By siting a new pavilion for the Liberty Bell at an angle to the building, he was able to control the way Independence Hall was viewed and make it "grand again." As Mr. Olin pointed out in his talk, viewshed is about controlling views, something designers grapple with no matter what the context.

The symposium was moderated by David Schuyler, the Arthur and Katherine Shadek Professor of the Humanities and Professor of American Studies at Franklin & Marshall College, who brought his historical perspective to the symposium and, following the talks, led a lively panel discussion with the speakers.

More than twenty landscape architects received continuing education credits for their attendance. Conversations continued at a benefit reception and dinner held at the riverfront Livingston property, Oak Hill, thanks to the generosity of Susan and Henry Livingston.