Viewshed Symposium: 100 Words

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

 

Symposium  |  100 Words    

Views in Perspective
As part of the symposium held on April 16, 2011 entitled Framing the Viewshed: The Transformative Power of Art and Landscape in the Hudson Valley, a variety of people were invited to submit their thoughts, in 100 words or fewer, on the subject of views to be included in a journal, and on the website. We were gratified to receive many responses, too many in fact for all to be printed in the journal. However, this web page is devoted to this subject and all submissions have been posted here.  We encourage anyone who would like to write about their thoughts on views to record them on this web page by submitting to: Melanie Hasbrook or by posting to our Facebook page.

We welcome all thoughts, whether they address the particular views of the Hudson Valley or the broader significance of viewsheds. 

Frederic Edwin Church, Creator of Olana
Written to friend and sculptor Erastus Dow Palmer, October 14, 1884
I have made about 1 ¾ miles of road this season, opening entirely new and beautiful views. I can make more and better landscapes this way than by tampering with canvas and paint in the studio.

Thomas Cole, Founder of the Hudson River School
Excerpted from Essay on American Scenery, January 1836, American Monthly Magazine
The Hudson, for natural magnificence is unsurpassed. What can be more beautiful than the lake-like expanses of Tapaan and Haverstraw as seen from the rich orchards of the surrounding hills? What can be more imposing than the precipitous Highlands, whose dark foundations have been rent to make a passage for the deep-flowing river?

Andrew Jackson Downing, A Treatise on Landscape Gardening, 1844
There is no part of the Union where the taste in Landscape Gardening is so far advanced, as on the middle portion of the Hudson. The natural scenery is of the finest character, and places but a mile or two apart often possess, from the constantly varying forms of the water, shores, and distant hills, widely different kinds of home landscape and distant views.
Again and again has it been said, that Landscape Gardening and Painting are allied.

Calvert Vaux, Architect and co-designer of Central Park
Excerpted from Villas and Cottages, 1857
Woods, fields, mountains, and rivers will be more important than the houses that are built among them.

August Heckscher, NYC Parks Commissioner under Mayor John V. Lindsey and former special consultant on the arts to President Kennedy and supporter during the fight to save Olana, c. 1965
There must be some places, I believe, where the bulldozers must not advance.

CURRENT VOICES

Peter Aaron, Photographer  
Making photographs of Frederic Church's picturesque landscapes has been a challenge. Living just down the hill, I'm compelled to zip up the hill for every dramatic weather event be it rainbow, tulle fog, snow, or sunset. Often these conditions vanish in the 5 minutes it takes to get to the vantage point. Accustomed to shooting architecture, which also has its weather issues, I have a new appreciation for the trials of the landscape photographer.

Judy Abbott
Ms. Abbott, of Munsee heritage, is active in Hudson Valley Native American issues
The Hudson Valley was among the earliest places invaded by Europeans seeking resources during the 16 and 1700's. The Hudson River transported them where they found indigenous peoples living much the same way as they had for thousands of years.
Along the Mahicanituck, or River That Flows Both Ways, lived the Mahicans, the Munsee and the Mohawks. Archeological research has shown a human occupation here for more than 10,000 years, a testimony to long standing, abundant natural resources. Over the short span of the past several hundred years, these pristine lands have been diminished to but a portion of their original size.
In the spirit of those native people who came before us let us preserve and protect what remains of our extraordinary historic, prehistoric and natural inheritance.

Lisa Ackerman, Executive Vice President, World Monuments Fund 
People often associate preservation with specific buildings or think of land trusts and conserving open space. As the preservation field has evolved over the decades, we have increasingly realized that the experience of place is much more complex than saving one building or protecting one plot of land. There are sites that matter to us because of the combination of historic structures, natural beauty, and the vista associated with that particular ensemble of built heritage, landscape and view shed. In America, Olana made people in the region sit up and take notice that the legacy of the Hudson River School and Frederic Church would be diminished if the views from the house were reduced.

The experience of visiting Olana was so thoroughly integrated with the ability to see across those particular view sheds that it was unthinkable to contemplate the house without its view. This is not a local Hudson Valley issue. It is of national and international concern.

When WMF announced the 2010 Watch, several sites in Spain were grappling with these same issues. No one wishes to freeze places in a moment in time, but change needs to be managed in ways that protects certain iconic view sheds that have influenced and inspired generations of visitors, artists, students and others. One such site on the 2010 Watch is Toledo, Spain. As the city of Toledo has expanded and high speed trains make commuting between Toledo and Madrid ever simpler, developers have begun to think about building campaigns that would create much more housing in areas currently appreciated not only as open space, but exceptionally tied to the vision for many of Toledo as the City of El Greco. Those vistas are perhaps the first image travelers can conjure in the minds of this famous Spanish city. Similarly, Seville and Avila are other Spanish cities with significant and iconic historic urban centers trying to protect precious view sheds while accommodating necessary changes in the streetscape for continuing enjoyment of the city by those who live and work there. While protecting view sheds can seem unnecessary, on the contrary, it is the essence of preservation, which serves to identify and protect those places that speak to us across time and continue to inspire appreciation for natural and manmade beauty, as well as reminding us that just as there are alternatives to demolition, there are ways to achieve change while still honoring the past.

Wint Aldrich, Former N.Y.S. Deputy Commissioner for Historic Preservation
Across the decades of Frederic Church's life there was a prevailing assumption in civic thinking and public mores that to be exposed to Nature -- whether by means of an artfully designed and planted picturesque urban park or 'rural' cemetery, or a dramatic view of a waterfall, river or mountain wilderness -- was to become a better citizen, an uplifted, more sensitive, tranquil and moral being.

While this may have been merely an article of faith in 19th century America, it is today surely an unspoken fundamental in our national psyche. To experience the designed park landscape at Olana, steadily being restored, and the site's spectacular viewshed, with its protection steadily being advanced, demonstrates unambiguously that our Victorian forebears were right: to look out from Olana, to move through the grounds, is to be wondrously transformed.

Arthur Baker, Architect, The Olana Partnership Landscape/Viewshed Advisory Committee
Acknowledging the complex delicate balanced interrelationship between Olana's Historic Landscape and its magnificent Viewshed, I would like to pose the question as to whether there would be an advantage to considering formulating a series of broad based criteria against which any proposed project/structure could be analyzed to determined whether it would be acceptable or detrimental as it relates to the Viewshed goals. Or, whether it would be more appropriate to consider each potential issue on its own merits as it arises.

Peter Bienstock, Trustee and Vice-Chair, Open Space Institute
Hearts and lungs: grand viewsheds nourish our spirits and protect our air. Their beauty and the experience they afford us of nature provide a counterpoint to the pressures and routines of civilization. And by nature's healing arts they provide us with clean air, clean water and the modifying influence of trees and plants on climate. All this at modest cost to acquire and to manage. A glorious bargain.

Sarah S. Boasberg, Hon. ASLA
I grew up looking at Bear Mountain and the nearby mountains, so the Hudson Valley is an integral part of my life. Viewsheds like that provide a frame, a sense of scale, a location in space, a home. They provide continuity. They help you understand how landscapes looked in the past. So the physical frame becomes also a frame of reference. Olana's magnificent viewshed explains so much about Church's art and why it had such wide appeal.

Paul M. Bray
In the 20th century our landscape was called “God’s Own Junkyard” by Pete Blake and characterized as “a surfeit of sameness” by Christine Boyer. We lost touch with the Greek idea of earth being “the mother of All”.  Attention to “Framing the Viewshed” is a step back to attaching to and valuing the earth beginning with its most scenic and beautiful features.

Marlene Brody, Resident of Columbia County
The importance of protecting America's vital viewsheds has entailed epic battles, which Ken Burns eloquently captured in his documentary on the forming of America’s National Parks system. We are still captivated by the dramas that helped insure the legacy of these extraordinary natural resources -- essentially proclaiming our national birthright. Like the audience of the Hudson River School painters before them, modern day Americans remain entranced by the sweeping vistas offered by Yosemite, Maine’s Arcadia and indeed our own beloved Hudson Valley.

Unfortunately, the security of this birthright continues to evoke controversy and require advocacy. The damage done by man to nature is well documented. We are all familiar with instances of urban sprawl, and forests bulldozed to the ground —all in the name of false progress.

I do feel lucky to live in Columbia County, where quite a few people have protected their farm and forest lands through conservation… including Olana’s own worthwhile endeavors in this arena. "

John W. Caffry, New York attorney who has represented The Olana Partnership in the St. Lawrence Cement case and in other cases involving the protection of the Olana Viewshed
The Legal Importance of the Olana Viewshed
Due to its historic, artistic, and cultural significance and its remarkable intactness, the Olana viewshed has received protection under the New York State Coastal Zone Management Program and Open Space Plan, and many other legal designations. Its preservation has been an issue of paramount importance in some of the region’s largest environmental cases, including the battles over the Athens Generating and St. Lawrence Cement plants, resulting in precedent-setting decisions for the avoidance and mitigation of visual impacts from industrial facilities. Thus, among its many other benefits, it has helped to preserve the scenic beauty of all of New York.

Dr. Gerald L. Carr, Art Historian as written in Gerald L. Carr, Frederic Edwin Church:  Romantic Landscapes and Seascapes (New York: Adelson Galleries in association with Michael Altman Fine Art & Advisory Services and Meredith Long & Co., 2007), p. 111k.
Olana is the place where I spent much of the 1980s and early 1990s cataloguing those works of art by Church still sheltered there.  But Olana also attracted me for its visual poetry, as Church himself had been inspired on a daily basis for decades by the impressive hilltop topography of his estate, and by the concurrence of constancy and change in the landscape scenery encircling it.  Fortunately, that part of his legacy survives today largely intact.
 
Mark Castiglione, AICP, Acting Executive Director, Hudson River Valley Greenway
It’s no wonder that the National Park Service called the Hudson River Valley “the landscape that defined America!” The cultural landscape of the Hudson River Valley is a tapestry woven together with threads of its scenic, natural, historic, and cultural resources. America’s unique vision for itself is rooted here. Painters of the Hudson River School were inspired by the wild mountains, forests and untamed beauty that we can still see all around us today. Arguably, their paintings of our Valley’s scenic beauty did as much to shape our national identity as the political, social and commercial legacies that also have their roots in the Hudson River Valley.

Steve Comer, Mohican Nation
The viewshed of Olana is beautiful and more than worthy of preservation but that is not the only reason to preserve it. As many people instinctively realize, no entity is merely a thing unto itself but rather a part of a larger existence which provides an intimate connection within and among all its components. Thus Olana is not only a building but all that surrounds that building, creating a satisfying and harmonious whole. The Original People knew this; it is for us today to live that reality.

Betty Cuningham, Betty Cuningham Gallery
Olana, I recall some amazing details from my experience at Olana and all exclusively visual: Bright copper pipes which led Mrs. William H. Osborne to say in an interview in the New York Times" and, the plumbing is divine!”; David Huntington explaining that the “stained” glass windows which framed the amazing Hudson River views were really made of stenciled paper between sheets of glass: And even George Tatum calling to say that one of the tiles from the front of Olana had fallen on the ground and his visiting class mistook it as up for grabs but they were returning it.

We all fall in love with things we see. For Frederic Church it was the views: he framed them in the windows of Olana and captured them in his paintings. Through Olana in all its details, its landscape, its Calvert Vaux buildings, its collection and its views, Church returns to us the Hudson River, by acknowledging its history and beauty.

Joan K. Davidson, Germantown, New York;
President, Furthermore grants in publishing; President Emeritus, JM Kaplan Fund; Chair, Hudson Fulton Champlain Quadricentennial, 2009 
Landscape as an idea--in contrast to, say, real estate-- is expansive and grand--and hence powerful. It encompasses all the rich diversity of nature; implies permanence and the good life for future generations; and helps define and guard the health of human communities within its borders.

Owen Davidson, River School Farm
Putting land under a conservation easement as a means of viewshed protection creates a clear visual dialogue between landowners. When my partner and I protected our 150-acre orchard as part of the Olana Viewshed, we established a deeper connection between our farm and Olana itself, as well as with the other parcels which neighbors have willingly protected for this cause. To date, more than 2,000 acres have been protected in the Olana Viewshed. This is yet another definition of the word "community".

Frances F. Dunwell Hudson River Estuary Coordinator, NYSDEC
Scenery refreshes our spirits and deeply connects us to nature--earth, water and sky. It always amazes me that people from around the world come to the Hudson Valley to enjoy our amazing natural beauty, yet the residents of this region often seem to take it completely for granted. River scenery is an asset we must work together to conserve, and we should be promoting this asset as a centerpiece of our economic development strategy.

Linda S. Ferber, Vice President and Senior Art Historian, New-York Historical Society
"No other river approaches the Hudson in varied grandeur and sublimity,” wrote Wallace Bruce in 1907 in his famous guide. Hudson Valley views had by then long been celebrated in both word and image. Washington Irving had observed the Catskills from the river: “Every change of season, every change of weather, indeed every hour of the day, produces some change in the magic hues and shapes of these mountains.” Indeed, Cole, Durand, Bierstadt, Cropsey, and Church were inspired to reside along the river. Three of these sites are now national landmarks. Perhaps a returning expatriate best captured the significance of what we now call the “viewshed” when Henry James located the unique features of the river and the region in what he so evocatively called the “geography of the ideal.

Harvey Flad, Emeritus Professor of Geography, Vassar College 
An American national identity was forged in the Hudson River Valley by artistic and poetic representations of the area’s natural and cultural landscapes. Examples of nineteenth-century views by Hudson River School artists framed the landscape elements and scenic vistas that shaped the U. S. Congress’s declaration that the area was the “Landscape that Defines America.” Analysis of potential visual impacts on proposed development projects have led to efforts to preserve these important viewsheds for their aesthetic and historic significance that are integral to constructing the region’s character and sense of place.

Gloria and Bob Fox, Cook + Fox Architects
The act of preserving a landscape decentralizes privilege and equalizes access. It is an act which considers the imagination and dreams of everyone.

Lisa Fox Martin, Chairman, Board of Trustees, Thomas Cole National Historic Site
Thomas Cole was the first painter who idealized this landscape in his paintings as it was being pillaged by the railroad and the tanning industry. Today his fears would be dispelled because of the care and protection of these precious lands. The Olana Viewshed embodies the concerns that Cole surely conveyed to his student Frederic Church. Cole’s legacy obliges us to continue our stewardship of this landscape.

Congressman Chris Gibson (R-Kinderhook) 
Until last year, I spent 24 years traveling the world as a member of the United States Army. My family and I lived many different places, and I had the opportunity to see sites that you normally only get to read about in books. However, no matter how far my travels in the Army took me away from the Hudson Valley, and my hometown of Kinderhook, I always knew this was home. Like other native residents of the Hudson Valley, I grew up with a deep love and respect for the beauty of our landscape. This appreciation only deepened during the course of my travels, because each time I returned home, I was reminded how blessed we have been with our surroundings, and I support any attempt to celebrate this uniqueness.

Kirsten E. Gillibrand , United States Senator (NY)
The Hudson River Valley is one of the most significant river corridors in the country. The historical, natural, cultural, commercial, scenic, and recreational resources spread throughout the region are unparalleled. Our region is home to a wealth of history and beautiful landscapes that inspired a school of art and fostered innovation that drove our nation's early economy.
Whether it is connecting residents of the New York City metropolitan area to one of our country's greatest landscapes or working on regional-level through the Greenway to conserve our historic, cultural and natural resources in the face of persistent population growth, the Hudson River Valley has been at the forefront of promoting innovative and cooperative solutions to our challenges. 

Kate Gubelmann
Last August our family took a boat trip up the Hudson River.  Our only specific destination was OLANA to celebrate my birthday.  We snaked through their public rooms expecting the Churches to appear at any moment.  Seeing the great painter's studio still set for a session left me remorseful that he would not return to resume his work.  We wound our way to our ultimate destination of the tower and extraordinary views. Either over the rooftop looking west and to the rest of America or South to the magnificent Hudson, reflecting a setting sun and the luminosity that the 19 century painters sought to describe.  We were speechless with the beauty of it all.  How fortunate to be able to transcend time with a view to the past!!  A very special moment indeed.
 
Stephen Hannock, Artist
Williamstown, Massachusetts
Rather than a finite border for a given composition, the viewshed is a remarkably fluid detonator for ideas.  These ideas may range from a quixotic vision for a potential painting to a specific strategy for a community project.  In any case, a healthy and protected viewshed is an important indicator for the compassion and productivity of a given community.

Joan Henry, Tsalagi/Nde’ artist & singer
Our indigenous understanding of beauty as inherent in all things and essential to life means that even today, we look across the River That Flows Both Ways, and see what our ancestors saw before First Contact – the rising blue mists of the Catskills, the changes from greens to scarlet and gold that heralded hunting and harvest before the coming snows. From the vistas of the valley every sense is stirred in our visceral connection to all those hunting and fishing and holy places. The bends of the river, the curves & cliffs of the land – these are our relatives, where stories of every nation that has walked there wait to be uncovered by brush and song…

Dorothy Heyl, The Olana Partnership Landscape/Viewshed Advisory Committee
My own Hudson River viewshed was, for half a century, down the river a ways, where the banks widen just enough for the three-mile span of a spectacular serpentine bridge.  My father framed this view with a huge picture window in the small living room of our Upper Grandview house, the scene transformed into an ever-changing stage where we could see, perhaps, the mothball fleet headed up to Tomkins Cove or, in the early evening, the gleaming Twentieth Century Limited train as it snaked its way along the river's edge, under the bridge and past the Chevrolet plant. 

Tony Hiss, Author, In Motion: The Experience of Travel and The Experience of Place
In the early 21st century, viewshed protection has a new and urgent purpose: in giving permanence to long views across spectacular landscapes that have inspired minds for the past 200 years, we are creating anchors and beacons for a new time-sensitive geography of hope. The world will undergo countless changes by 2100, so it is essential – for the planet and for the steadying and uplifting of the human spirit – that we set aside corridors of unending continuity, so that we can attune ourselves to the succession of generations, facing different problems but united in cherishing the same unchanging views.

Congressman Maurice D. Hinchey
The Hudson River Valley's incredible scenery and natural beauty have inspired many generations of artists, conservationists, settlers and visitors. The picturesque views that define this region have played a vital role in the development of our Republic and continue to influence and delight current generations. These views are a valued part of our common heritage and deserve our appreciation and efforts to protect them for the future.

Elizabeth B. Jacks, Director, Thomas Cole National Historic Site
Embedded in Thomas Cole's paintings and writings is an emerging awareness of the beauty of the American landscape as a national treasure, as well as a defining feature of the new nation. Yet only a decade after Cole's first visit in 1825, the beloved landscapes around Cole's home were penetrated by railroads and the tanning industry, both of which brought rapid and dramatic alterations to what we would today call the viewshed. "Nature has spread for us a rich and delightful banquet," he writes in 1836. "Shall we turn from it? We are still in Eden..."

Robin Key, Landscape Architect, Trustee, The Olana Partnership Landscape/Viewshed Advisory Committee
We want to protect and preserve our historic viewsheds because of how they make us feel when we are experiencing their beauty.

Erik Kulleseid, Director, Alliance for New York State Parks
Olana and its viewshed capture the essence of our unbeatable state park system—protecting New York’s greatest cultural and scenic landscapes and working beyond property lines to integrate them into the fabric of our communities. It is a stunningly successful state historic site. And today, with the budgetary stresses that plague state parks, Olana and its supporting community symbolize the vital partnership between public institutions, private organizations and a shared vision for an extraordinary place.

Leonard Lauder
Viewsheds are forever. When preserved, they delight and inspire everyone. Once violated, they are gone forever, never to return. Let's protect them - they are our birthright.

Ellen McClelland Lesser, landscape designer who has done extensive research on Olana
Glorious views. We climb mountains, go miles out of our way, and pay dearly for them. River, mountains, night sky, an approaching storm; the combination of the permanent and the transient capture our hearts and minds as it did 19th century artists. The creation of views was a driving force in 19th century landscape design. It was the view from Red Hill that brought Frederic Church back to Hudson. The development of the views became his life’s work. Views are a precious commodity that we borrow, seldom own, and which can be taken away at any moment.

Isabel Church Livingston, great- great granddaughter of Frederic Edwin Church
The Transformative Power of Landscape:When I look at the pristine view from Olana, I feel a direct connection to my Creator, and my soul is nourished. If we want peace in this world, we must preserve our landscapes.

Susan Lowry and Nancy Berner, authors of Garden Guide: New York City and Gardens of the Hudson Valley
The common thread linking the historic gardens of the Hudson Valley is their relationship with the river view, which, in most cases, dwarfs all attempts to rival it. These gardens all wrestle with the relationship of the foreground with the larger dramatic background. The viewshed, for better or worse, is the heart of these river landscapes. Even when obscured, the river’s looming presence adds to the emotional intensity of smaller, sheltered garden gestures, and these gestures often act as a counterpoint in scale and feeling to the wider vista. The resulting tension is what gives many of these Hudson Valley gardens the emotional and visual power that is their hallmark.

Peter and Paula Lunder
The Hudson River Landscape paintings capture the beauty and special qualities of an area of our country that is quite wonderful. We appreciate Church and all the other artists who have shared their talents, their vision of the land they loved and have immortalized it in paintings for future generations. We now have the opportunity and responsibility to preserve and protect this precious land!

Justin Martin, author of Genius of Place: The Life of Frederick Law Olmsted
When Hudson River School painters included people in their works, they tended to render those people very small: Tiny figures in the foreground gazing across an awesome vista. It’s as if the painters were saying: “We are mere specks and our best selves are found in an outward-looking apprehension of nature’s grandeur.” In this same spirit, it’s vital to maintain unsullied views in the Hudson Valley and elsewhere. Such scenes urge contemplation, spark inspiration. And they are a powerful part of a democratic society, as they belong to everyone.

George W. McDaniel, Executive Director, Drayton Hall
Member of The Olana Partnership National Advisory Committee 
For historic sites across the nation, viewsheds connect visitors of today to the people and places of the past. As an example, imagine the experience of looking north east from Olana and seeing a 363 foot tall smokestack, serving a huge coal-fired cement plant and producing a plume perhaps 6 miles long. Fortunately, such a proposal was stopped in 2005. Now imagine looking south towards Blue Hill, a view Church often painted, and imagine a telephone "tower farm" atop the hill. Unless Olana and its partners are successful, this could become reality. Imagine the contrast in views! For more depth on the strategic convergence of environmental conservation and historic preservation, the fall issue of the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Forum Journal is an excellent resource.

Barney McHenry   
If you look south from the belvedere at Boscobel some folks can still hear the sound of Revolutionary musket fire on Constitution Island, and often glimpse the mustard mainsail of Benedict Arnold’s rescue sloop The Vulture. See the Hudson; see history. Forget art history – go for the real thing.

Linda McLean, Site Manager, Olana State Historic Site
“I have known the area so long, and so intimately, that every corner and every stretch of view is dear to me, and I am proud to consider myself a native and part owner of the whole. A large slice of my life has been spent there, and I shall always do battle in its praise.” Benjamin Champney, Sixty Years of Memories of Art and Artists 1899.

Champney is speaking of the North Conway area, but these words could as well be mine about the Hudson Valley, especially here where Columbia and Green counties meet the Hudson River. I am a native and with so many other natives of this valley, we, like Champney, consider ourselves owners and stewards of this amazing corner of the world. The value of our land, the views, the natural beauty increase daily, as the grand metropoli surge up and down the valley threatening to engulf all in their way. Buildings, factories, everything that speaks of modern man is fast consuming this charmed valley.
Bryant warned Cole “to keep that wilder image bright…” because he knew then what we need to learn again in each generation; deep within the human psyche we need, no, require, that wild natural beauty. We need to be transported from the mundane to a feeling of the sublime in a way only nature can do. These wild wonderful viewscapes around us refresh a parched soul as cool clear water does a parched body. Progress, mechanization, wealth, technology stall when the landscape is lost, when one can no longer find place to be transported by a brilliant sunset over ink blue mountains, be enveloped in the quiet mists of a pine glen or see a flaming grove of maples reach to a fall sky. If one takes time to reflect on the value of these intangibles, one realizes this thing called “landscape” is more precious than gold and as fragile as life itself.

Tom McWilliam, Photographer
For me it is very simple: Until the Nature Conservancy, Sierra Club and Greenpeace band together with regional preservation groups and present a factual report about viewsheds and the measurable mental and physical risks we expose ourselves to by enjoying them I think everyone should be constitutionally obligated to live with them, support them and nurture their future existence. When was the last time a viewshed caused anybody harm???

Sara Cedar Miller, Historian/Photographer, Central Park Conservancy
There is no better place to experience the nineteenth century celebration of the viewshed as an art form than at Olana. Frederic Church committed his entire personal and professional life to the importance of majestic views and their ensuing spiritual and aesthetic rewards. The central role that these viewsheds had in Church's life and art surely had an influence on his friends and colleagues, Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted, when they were designing Central Park.

David Munford, Artist
Viewsheds: A Painter's Perspective
As a landscape painter, I'm always on the lookout for new places to paint. For me, the best places for painting are locations that provide views of natural scenic beauty, cultural or historic interest, and accessibility. While it's relatively easy to find views of cityscapes, industrial and other modern, built environments, it's increasingly difficult to find views of unspoiled natural beauty, especially views that are historic in nature, and have inspired great artists of the past. Truly inspiring viewsheds are part of our national heritage and should be preserved for the benefit and enjoyment of all.

Joan Murray, Poet, Poet in Residence at Olana in 2006
HIS VIEW
(lines from “The Jungle,” The Olana Poems)

He loved nature
when it was “over there.” In the distance.
Or the jungle. Or the sky—
where he could watch it vanish every evening. . . . .

He liked to regard things at a distance,
which always made them smaller,
like the space between his thumb and finger,
or his own face in a mirror.
Wasn’t he the one
who’d contained the whole wide sprawling Hudson Valley
on a canvas narrower than his arms span?

Patricia M. O'Donnell, FASLA, AICP, Principal, Heritage Landscapes LLC, Preservation Landscapes Architects & Planners
Prospects where a broad view can be gained dot the Hudson River Valley. The value of this iconic, green valley landscape is inextricably linked with visual character of the river and valley as both a tangible value and an intangible experience. Powerful memory of the sweeping vistas have been the subject of art, literature and conservation battles over decades. Preservation of a vista or broader viewshed is a worthy endeavor that links us to generations past and future.

Laurie Olin, OLIN, Partner
There is more than one way to damage or destroy a work of art without touching it. One is destroying or negatively altering its context. A Rembrandt in a Laundromat or Beethoven sonata in a Soccer Stadium would be examples.

Views to distant landscape and its features are often integral in the composition of many historic structures and landscapes that are also great works of art. Today we call these 'borrowed' landscapes, exemplars of William Kent's dictum of "calling the country in" to the seminal masterpieces of 18th century English Landscape Parks and Estates that he designed. These cultural landscapes are characterized by inter-related visual compositions, which are known today as Viewsheds. Such Viewsheds constitute radiating fields of sight from particular places or routes, visual envelopes. In many instances of these are protected from unsightly or incongruous development. When they are shattered or intruded upon, the entire composition loses integrity and often its artistic value.

Frederick Osborn III, Garrison, NY
Thank you viewshed

Thank you, viewshed.

On a terrible no good very bad day,
anxious and anguished about decisions I don't want to make,
I long for my mountaintop Sunset Bench.

From its perch, over forests and fields barely touched by human hands,
I see Storm King and Breakneck framing the Catskills,
with the mighty Hudson coursing up and down between them.

The viewshed pulls the worry and distress out through my eyes into its vastness.
There, Nature pulsates with life that is not my responsibility.
I can marvel and appreciate once more.

The sweep of scenery sucks the so-silly sorrows skyward.

Ah - wildness.

Thank you, viewshed.

Peter R. Paden, Executive Director, Columbia Land Conservancy
You can’t travel around Columbia County and remain unaware of the power of viewsheds. The extraordinary variety of scenic landscapes is a defining factor of the area. They serve as a constant reminder of the miracle and fragility of the natural world, our place in it, and our responsibility for it. If we are to maintain the vitality of the great American conservation movement, which drew inspiration from Frederic Church’s vision, into future generations, we must work to ensure that people continue to develop active and compelling connections with the land.

Purcell Palmer, Catwalk, The Olana Partnership Landscape/Viewshed Advisory Committee
Divine intervention created this confluence of river and mountains, revealed and reflected in its radiant light. It is the perfect union for nature and humanity to respect and nurture their interdependence. The measure of time and place is the legacy of the Hudson River Valley, which has created a culture and responsibility for practices that respect and sustain the land as both a living museum and an environmental laboratory. As the landscape is the architecture of the Hudson Valley, it is very important that the viewshed continue to be its map.

Carl H. Petrich, Senior Environmental Scientist and author, 1979 study on aesthetic impacts of the proposed nuclear power plant in Cementon
Integrating Personal Viewsheds
Landscape preferences are not purely personal: commonalities exist. Can we similarly capture and communicate a collective, personal viewshed that injects meaning into mapped intervisibility of people, scenes, and objects? Memorable, seminal, childhood landscapes—tempered by years of enriched experiences, smells, tastes, and textures—shape our perceptual DNA, giving meaning to what we see and how we perceive or fail to perceive. Just as we become attached to and protect our favorite blue jeans, we cannot help but treasure and safeguard certain landscapes. With this awareness, can we map visibility at deeper, more meaningful levels that serve to effectively sustain valued landscapes?

Joseph Pierson, Cypress Films, Inc.
While the term has only been in use for a few decades, the viewshed has helped define many historic properties and has given each an enduring value beyond its borders. My great-grandfather, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., recognized the importance of preserving the views from the parks and land he donated for the benefit of the public. When he gave Fort Tryon Park to New York City in 1935, part of that gift was the view we still enjoy today of the undeveloped Palisades across the Hudson River. To survey a vast tract of land and recognize that it must be protected for its visual value from a particular vantage point requires great foresight and wisdom. For every example of such vision, we should be truly grateful.

Alice Platt, Trustee, The Olana Partnership
In recent years visitation to historic houses in the US has actually declined, leading some experts in the field to question whether there are too many houses. While this is a sad commentary on our society, at Olana we have experienced the opposite seeing a steady increase in visitors. Why? There are many reasons but undoubtedly the most important by far is the spectacular viewshed. Proof of this lies in the fact that two thirds of the visitors to Olana never go in the house but rather enjoy the views from the surrounding grounds. Obviously protecting this unique asset is paramount to the future of Olana.

Sarah F. Price, Landscape Curator, The Olana Partnership
Viewsheds were fundamental to Church’s vision of the landscape, inspiring both his landscape design and his painting. The unparalleled views of the Hudson Valley are inseparable from Frederic Church’s Olana and a treasure to us all.

David Redden, Trustee, The Olana Partnership
Viewshed: An Ugly Word with a Beautiful Meaning or What Church Surely Felt
My garden, my beautiful, beautiful garden, goes on forever. My garden plunges straight down to the mile-wide Hudson. It crosses the flatlands of Dutchess County, is unstopped by the abrupt precipices of the Shawangunks. My garden stretches 40, 50, 60 miles well into the faint Catskills, then lifts into clouds and sky, and, at nighttime, into the stars.

My garden lies on a grey granite outcropping of Storm King Mountain, 800 feet above the sky-blue Hudson. My garden is not only the geography of the Hudson Valley; it is the viewshed story of the Hudson Valley. Those hills across the river will remain forever green because of land conservation, although the faint scar of the long-gone Mount Beacon Incline Railway memorializes old-time view seekers. There, by the river on this side, where the infamous Storm King Pump Storage Plant had been sited, the base of our mountain will be green forever, thanks to that greatest of environmental court rulings, the Scenic Hudson Decision. And from here to Poughkeepsie the river banks, between the river towns, are green too, thanks to conservationists.

But the low land between my garden and 10-mile distant Newburgh, once fields and meadows, is now in-filled with housing. The spread of development intensifies each year. At night the carpet of artificial light is far brighter than the stars. There are days when the coal-fired Danskammer power plant, 14 miles up-river, contaminates my view with a long brown pennant reaching all the way to Connecticut.

But on a day like today, on a day like this, the hawks circle paradise. The sun on the snowscape is thrillingly bright. The air is an ocean embracing a perfect loveliness.

Just know this: my garden, my glorious garden is my viewshed.

Jeannette Redden, The Olana Partnership Landscape/Viewshed Advisory Committee
Olana is a beautiful place, an American landscape - picture perfect. This vista is in the eye of the beholder where placement of trees and meadows make for a balanced composition - an original American classic which is enhanced by the magical and ethereal light of the Hudson Valley. To the west - the Catskill Mountains, to the east - the Appalachians, north and southward the magnificent Hudson River flows wide and majestic.

Frederic Edwin Church was a gifted artist, landscape designer, farmer and businessman. His passionate vision is our cherished treasure. Olana is a precious American landscape. We must observe, preserve, and cherish this wonderful place for now and later.

Tracie Rozhon, President, Friends of Clermont
Last summer, I took a boat trip along the east bank of the Hudson, in order to photograph Clermont and other magnificent riverfront houses. I was completely enchanted by the charm of the architecture; the viewsheds as seen from the water, looking up, gave an alternate perspective to my more usual gazing down the slope. The houses and their landscapes -- suddenly smaller, of course, from the distance, and more linked with their neighbors -- were marvelously varied in design, framed by their grounds with the silvery water gliding by in front, setting them all off, perfection as the sun slowly set...and they disappeared into the dusk, with only the tiniest lights glowing.

Frederic C. Rich, Chair, Scenic Hudson Land Trust
A viewshed is a fragile thing. Intact, it has the power to transport you to another time, to tell a story, to inspire great works of art, to clear the mind and to heal the soul. And yet such a powerful thing can be shattered by a single act of human carelessness. One badly sited structure, one clear-cut hillside, a power-line or a road can shatter the illusion, destroy the moment and produce yet another landscape of suburban mediocrity.

James A. Ryan and David Seamon (updated in 2011 but originally written in 1992)
Designed in its entirety by one of America's greatest artists, Frederic Church’s Olana remains intact to inspire us today. It is, however, a fragile place, especially the relationship between the house and views. The one has no point of being without the other.

In 1977, an atomic energy plant was proposed to be sited in the center of Olana’s superlative southwestern view. This development was stopped as was, in 2005, a massive cement plant that would have desecrated the property’s northeastern and eastern views. New proposed project, however, remain as threats. Without continuous vigilance, Olana’s remarkable views will progressively deteriorate until they are gone.

The Rip Van Winkle Bridge will continue to direct traffic onto highways 9G and 23, which become more and more lined with fast food and shopping malls. Hundreds of acres on the boundaries of Olana are in the hands of developers. The Town of Greenport, where the property is situated, has no zoning ordinances. Subdivisions and big-box businesses can be erected anywhere. Industry situated across the Hudson in the center of Olana’s most exhilarating view may continue to proliferate unless positive steps are taken.

Do you enjoy Olana’s views? Do you believe they are worth preserving as you see them today?

Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, President, Foundation for Landscape Studies
In the nineteenth century Americans saw their country's sublime natural wonders, including the Hudson Valley, as sources of national pride. As editor of the beautiful two-volume Picturesque America (1875), William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) helped persuade his countrymen of the pleasures to be had touring their native land. Several of the beautiful engraved plates in this extraordinary work depict views of the Hudson River Valley where such establishments as the Catskill Mountain House had been built for the purpose of experiencing the region's spectacular views.

Elizabeth Jacks Scott, “The Hill,” Livingston, New York
Former Trustee, The Olana Partnership 
As I travel the world, I find that more and more of the beauty of the natural world has been marred by human sprawl and debris. Such scenes depress the human soul. It is the rare place that has a view that has been preserved and is still beautiful; such views raise the human spirit. The 19th century transcendentalists saw nature as a way to know God, but the sublime beauty needs to be maintained for this to happen. Thus, how crucial is the mission of Olana in conserving and restoring the beauty of its great site and preserving its view shed. It is so easily lost and really not recoverable once gone.

David Schuyler, Arthur and Katherine Shadek Professor of the Humanities and Professor of American Studies, Franklin & Marshall College
When Frederic and Isabel Church bought the property at the top of the hill and began making plans for a larger house, the site and the orientation of the building were consciously selected to take advantage of the viewshed. The planning appears to have revolved around two views, the lovely bend in the Hudson River to the south, which Church framed as if a painting by the architecture of the porches and loggias, and the Catskill high peaks to the west, which he painted at different times of the day and in different seasons to capture the caprices of nature. The viewshed is as important to Olana as a work of art as the architecture and decoration of the building and the designed landscape. This is a total composition, and the viewshed is essential to helping visitors in the twenty-first century understand and appreciate what is arguably Frederic Church’s greatest work of art. It is also essential to preserving the historic landscape of the Hudson Valley.

H. Peter Stern, Chairman, Storm King Art Center 
In the creation of the Storm King Art Center, it has always been our intention to protect the viewsheds. We established a harmony between the landscape and the sculpture as we took advantage of the opportunities we had – it started with the land. Our response to the beauty of the Hudson Valley combined with the drama of monumental sculpture challenged us over time to bring these two assets together. At Storm King, we have protected the scenic views as the majesty of the natural landscape embraces the art. The distant mountains as well as the nearby woods, streams and hills are considered and maintained as an essential part of the creative spirit.

Richard Sharp, Chairman, The Olana Partnership 
 
Ned Sullivan, President, Scenic Hudson
The Hudson Valley's magnificent vistas have inspired writers and artists for centuries. Now they're the foundation of the region's economy, sustaining tourism and an outstanding quality of life that attracts new business. Preserving the valley's viewsheds – one of Scenic Hudson's priorities – is essential for assuring our prosperity, our health and our spirit. We cannot deprive future generations of the opportunity to experience such soul-stirring grandeur. That's why Scenic Hudson and other conservation organizations and individuals have protected more than 2,000 acres—including farms and ecologically important lands—visible from Olana for all to enjoy, including the next generation of Hudson River painters.

Robert M. Toole, Landscape Architect
A preeminent example of landscape gardening in America, Olana’s 250-acre designed landscape was created within the long tradition of an art form initiated in England in the 18th century. Garden designers “leapt the fence and saw that all nature was a garden.” The guiding principle was reverence for the local spirit of a place – the genius loci. Frederic Church understood the Olana landscape as an artful composition of foreground and middle ground inexorably linked to a wider Hudson Valley setting – the background. Today we call this art-inspiring background Olana’s historic viewshed.

Mary Tracy, President, Scenic America
Americans are blessed with an abundance of natural beauty and distinctive communities. While scenery is important to the overall quality of our communities, scenic vistas and viewsheds are often destroyed during rapid change, both in the natural and built environments. Identification and protection of these assets is an important component of smart growth and scenic stewardship.
Scenic areas endow communities with substantial benefits, such as higher property values and increased tourism revenue. Protecting scenic vistas and viewsheds from the effects of haphazard development allows a community to preserve its unique charm, build civic pride, and attract positive growth to the area.

Kay Toll, Former Chairman, The Olana Partnership
A view is a gift from Nature to us. Frederic Edwin Church used the Asian concept of a 'borrowed view' in the composition of his final masterwork the integrated buildings, collections, landscapes and views of Olana. Defining these deliberately framed views as viewshed is our attempt to recognize, preserve and pass on this gift to others. When families such as the Brown Family of Cherry Ridge Farm put their land under protection, they help make this viewshed interactive, animated and three dimensional as the views from their land back to Olana then become a working part of the Olana masterwork.

Michael Van Valkenburgh, Founding Principal, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc., Landscape Architects
Any landscape experience is undeniably comprised of multiple scales of perception, ranging from something as immediate and ephemeral as a butterfly or a leaf to something as immense and seemingly permanent as a territorial view of the Hudson River. Capitalizing on a distant “borrowed landscape,” or viewshed, is a time-honored practice in landscape architecture. I can think of instances where a compromised viewshed has all but ruined the experience of a landscape that is otherwise intact.

Arete Warren, Chairman, Board of Trustees, Preservation league of New York State, President, Millbrook Garden Club
As a preservationist and a gardener I see how viewsheds enhance an historic site or complement a garden, protect the visual experience upon entering a village or be the sole reasons for the latter’s existence. A viewshed teaches us to understand historic structures and gardens in town or country as part of an overall design, not just an element to be considered. But when a viewshed is altered or interrupted, whether one is looking from the outside in or the inside looking out, the aesthetic and design ethic is challenged. A viewshed is a borrowed space, owned by a few, shared by many and needs to be respected and protected by all. It is a dividend!

Abby Adams Westlake, Writer, The Olana Partnership Landscape/Viewshed Advisory Committee
My first and indelible experience of Olana was in the winter of 1990. My husband and I were visiting the area, looking for a country house to buy, and our real estate agent – Tomm Eaton – said “We have a few minutes, I want to show you something.” He turned off the highway and drove up and up a winding road, with tantalizing vistas unfolding at every turn, up to the top where the view opened to an extraordinary display: rolling hills falling away in all directions, a lake reflecting the afternoon sun, and the great wide sweep of the Hudson River with snow-dusted Catskills in the background. Wow. I’ve driven up that hill many times since and it never fails to astonish me. What a priceless heritage Frederic Church has left us!

Marlene Wiedenbaum, PSA
We are all stewards of the land; benefitting visually, economically and often spiritually from the extraordinary landscapes of the Hudson River Valley. Our parks, preserves and viewsheds benefit residents, tourists and entire ecosystems. Artists like myself are drawn to the valley to find inspiration and a spiritual connectedness. I feel a profound sense of gratitude for their creation and to the organizations and individuals who have worked so hard to preserve them. By using my art to celebrate these natural resources I hope to raise public awareness of how precious they are, which is my way of being true to my muse while being a co-protector of the land. 

Thomas L. Woltz, ASLA, CLA, Principal
Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects
As a child growing up in Western North Carolina, where viewshed protection was seen as a threat and a compromise to land rights, I watched as the glorious Blue Ridge Mountains at the edge of my family’s farm were eviscerated for interstates, draped with golf holes on impossibly steep slopes and riddled with second homes fighting for the uninterrupted view. Witnessing this devastation sparked my commitment to land preservation and in great part, formed a vision for my professional career. The mirror of the cultural and natural history of the Blue Ridge in my region was forever cracked.

Karen Zukowski, Trustee, The Olana Partnership
The view from the hill at Olana was Church’s worldview, both literally and metaphorically. Church looked out over the fertile farmland and park he had created, over the Hudson River Valley and westward over the whole continent, and at the ever-changing skies and light. It was a worldview that was at once imperious, omniscient and pious, filled with wonder at God’s creation. That worldview, so typical of Church and his times, is retrievable today on the hill at Olana. The work to preserve Olana’s viewshed proceeds parcel by parcel, slowly, incrementally. Protecting the viewshed does more than keep fields and trees in place. Protecting the viewshed protects Church’s worldview, for all generations, as we inevitably change.

Essays on Viewsheds

Changing Lenses: Reconsidering Olana through its "Borrowed" Scenery
Charles A. Birnbaum, FASLA, FAAR
Founder + President, The Cultural Landscape Foundation
Objects of great natural beauty and grandeur are among the most valuable gifts which Providence has bestowed upon our race. The contemplation of them elevates and informs the human understanding. They are instruments of education. They conduce to the order of society. They address sentiments which are universal. They draw together men of all races, and thus contribute to the union and the peace of nations.

James C. Garner with Frederick Law Olmsted
Special Report of the New York State Survey of Niagara Falls, 1879

This sentiment inspired by the Niagara Falls vista can also be expressed about Olana's viewshed with its use of borrowed scenery. In fact, Frederic Church had broached the idea of preserving Niagara as early as 1869 and worked privately with Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. and architect H. H. Richardson to build public support. In the 1870s, along with the Niagara dialogue, Church served as a Parks Commissioner in New York City and, along with the building out of Central Park, had myriad professional and personal connections to both Olmsted and Calvert Vaux who also advocated for both designed and borrowed viewsheds in their own writings and built works. Therefore, it is no accident that Church applied and experimented with these overarching ideas in his own picturesque landscape, Olana, placing him squarely at the origins of the American scenic conservation movement. He expressed his own sensitivities about providing and designing democratic grounds, and orchestrated unique scenographic landscape experiences - complete with an unrivaled, "borrowed" panorama.

Church's sensibilities are clearly evident in his panoramic paintings and drawings, whether of South America or his home on the Hudson. Equally illustrative are the writings of his Olana protégé Calvert Vaux. In Concerning Lawn Planting[i] (1881), Vaux notes in the essay "Sky and Skyline":

The landscape painter is trained to see the color relations of each to the other, and pays habitual attention to such combinations. To him the sky is constantly visible, asserting itself as a fact more positive even than the subjects in front of it. The typical landscape painter may be said, indeed, to observe the aspects, rather than the forms of nature. He is fascinated by some effect of light and shade and color that depends on the particular season of the year, or the sunlight and atmosphere of some special hour of a day. To this he is attracted in connection with a group of harmonious lines; and he sees and paints his beautiful picture, which is, in fact, devoted to the illustration of a passing moment of time.

In every sensitive observer this co-ordinating faculty of the landscape painter is somewhat active, although it does not seek expression through the hand. The lover of pictures is properly complementary to the painter of pictures; and the art of lawn planting appeals directly to this delicate capacity in the human eye to blend foreground and middle distance, sky line and sky, into one harmonious optical impression. . .

It is evident therefore, that in laying out a country place, large or small, with reference to its landscape attractions, the present and prospective sky line is one element of design that needs very skillful attention.

With the conference "Framing the Viewshed," which recognizes the intrinsic role that borrowed scenery plays in nearly every nationally significant region, The Olana Partnership is placing the site's character-defining visual and spatial relationships first, while also advancing a deeper, more nuanced understanding of what the view from Olana means. First, through the lens of its historic origins (Church, Vaux and others); second, through its own place in the 1960s preservation movement; and lastly, as 21^st century stewards armed with preservation planning and design tools that will bring a balanced management perspective of Olana's viewshed – one that embraces myriad natural, scenic and cultural values.

It would appear the Olana Partnership is drawing a line in the sand (or perhaps metaphorically along its terrace and overlooks), suggesting the time has come to move beyond the earlier, limiting approach of structure as object — once cast and put into motion with the 1965 NHL designation and instead revisiting its own authenticity and significance by placing Olana's cultural landscape, and its own integral setting first.

Building on this concept, we can even reconsider Olana in a deeper, more holistic way by elevating the stature of its nature as the object – what Gina Crandall in her book Nature Pictorialized refers to as a way of seeing and, "whether we want to or not, [our] notions of value and form, which relate, not just to seeing the land, but to seeing it in a certain way – pictorially."[ii]The results of this expanded approach: Olana's overarching interpretation and stewardship goal is transformed to one that promotes and values seeing like Frederic Edwin Church – the landscape painter, landscape-maker and pioneering conservationist.

It seems fitting that Olana's unique and trailblazing story of its borrowed scenery and viewshed protection should be the subject of this conference. Embracing this broadened perspective would not only frame Olana's quest for World Heritage status, it can provide a powerful tool for how Olana presents itself and manages its own change. 

Many people stumble on the word "viewshed." It's a relatively uncommon word, so this confusion is understandable.  People occasionally ask where the "shed" is, visualizing a small rural building of some sort   Some might conjure watersheds or landscape architecture or conservation. Fortunately, there's a universal understanding of the word "view."

Every garden has a view.  It can be a brick wall, a suburban lawn, or the infinite depth of a woodland edge.  A view can be vast or narrow or framed.  Regardless of its shape or depth, every view is unique. It's the key ingredient of the requisite "sense of place" in all great gardens and landscapes.

Sometimes a view can take your breath away, what in aesthetics is called the sublime. Frederic Church and other Hudson River School painters had a strong response to a kind of American nature through oil and canvas.  Contemporary photographers often aim to capture this quality, too.  The results can range from beautiful to eerie to ecstatic: two-dimensional love-letters to a particular scene or a region.

Yet a third dimension is required in landscape design.  When Frederic Church migrated from canvas to earth, from iconic paintings to the creation of Olana's 250-acre designed landscape, he was certainly not alone.  His close friends and colleagues, Frederic Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, were also working in this medium.  They shared an almost-spiritual regard for this third dimension, and they sought to represent this in their art, regardless of its form.

Views in landscapes were extremely important to these landscape artists. They crafted scenes, integrated shadows, shaped naturalistic spaces against near and distant views.  Their design ingredients were meadows, orchards, brambles, and woodlands.  Water, always water, found its place in these scenes.  Natural backdrops were part of their set design.  Ravines, waterfalls, expansive fields, rivers, mountains, trees and rock were all factored in.  Day or night, the sky always mattered.

Olana remains a unique expression of this period in American landscape design.  Olana was also an artist-designed farm, and it was created in its entirety around its singular views.  In addition to siting structures, Frederic Church carefully threaded five miles of carriage drives through his hilltop creation, so that visitors might see. The effect was meant to be theatrical, recreational, suspenseful, sometimes prosaic.  Through motion and seasons, this large-scale design was ever changing. 

It makes sense that Frederic Church, who trained as a landscape painter under Thomas Cole, sought to integrate the background of the Hudson River Valley into his three-dimensional landscape composition.  At Olana, this is now called the Olana Viewshed.  Without a spectacular viewshed, Church probably wouldn't have created Olana the way he did, in the place he did, and visitors probably wouldn't visit Olana today in such great numbers.

The Olana Viewshed was Frederic Church's muse, and in the 21st century it remains a vital part of Olana's DNA.  That's why individuals and organizations have joined to protect over 2,000 acres in the Olana Viewshed.  It's the story behind the story.

Views as Big Business in the Hudson Valley
Sara Johns Griffen, The Washburn S. and Susan M. Oberwager President, The Olana Partnership

How important are these views to lives, and what would happen if they were gone – would we find other views to take their place, or would something be irreparably lost?

Many of us who spend a great deal of time thinking about views would say that they are crucially important, that they offer us moments of respite from the pace of our lives – the expansiveness of the view often allowing an expansiveness in thoughts, dreams and visions.

The Hudson Valley offers what many think are some of the most beautiful vistas anywhere in the world. They are so varied – sweeping panoramas of the Catskills, the Shawangunks and the Palisades and intimate views of woodland, pasture and farmland. The river provides the connecting thread that wends through the entire valley, offering exquisite juxtapositions between the dark blue of the water and the land forms behind it.

Since the time the Hudson River School painters first memorialized this scenery in the nineteenth century, many have worked hard to preserve the most cherished views. From the fight to safeguard the Palisades and the saving of Storm King Mountain, to the recent success in preventing a cement plant from being built three miles from Olana, many conservation heroes have emerged, including Scenic Hudson, the Open Space Institute and Clearwater, and the many land trusts in the Valley. Several state agencies have been deeply involved, including the Department of State, State Parks and the Department of Environmental Conservation.

To ensure that a balance is struck between preservation and development, over the years several initiatives have been undertaken to prioritize the aesthetics of these viewsheds. One of the most notable efforts was that of the New York Department of State in 1988, when it organized a team to engage the community in the evaluation of the views of the Hudson Valley. Out of this dialogue emerged what is known as Scenic Areas of Statewide Significance (SASS), identifying six areas that were deemed of particular significance and needed special protections.

Since then, the SASS program has helped preserve many significant views, such as the one threatened by the St. Lawrence Cement plant proposal. The SLC decision was also ground-breaking in that it changed the terms of the debate – rather than providing a choice between development and view preservation, it recognized that the preservation of views is a crucial piece of another model of economic growth, one that capitalizes on thriving tourism and innovative, sustainable industry, rather than outmoded heavy industry.

The Hudson River School painters understood the marketability of the great American landscape, their canvases often commanding large sums. They certainly had their pulse on something seminal to our culture – the viewshed of the Hudson Valley not only elicits joy and reverence; it was and is big business.