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One of the most famous of the Regency-era conservatories was built at Carlton House, the Prince of Wales' London residence, demolished in 1826-27, which had been redesigned for him by Henry Holland (1745-1806) in 1787. Over the years, the Prince worked hard, decorating and redecorating, to make it the most magnificent residence in Europe, and by some standards he succeeded, only to have it demolished when its position was judged obstructive to the grand design he and architect John Nash worked out to redesign large sections of London, which later were named Regent Street and Regent Park. The famous conservatory was added in 1807 of the newest construction techniques in cast iron columns and a fan vaulted ceiling supporting large glass spaces. The architect was Thomas Hopper (1776-1856) whose work was considered a tour de force. The conservatory opened into the gardens at one end. If one looked in the opposite direction, there was a clear view of the entire lower ground-floor range of rooms, at the mall level, opening into one another in this sequence from west to east: conservatory, ionic dining room, gothic dining room. As an aside, architect Hopper's subsequent commissions included the main dwellings at Gosford Castle, Northern Ireland, and Penrhyn Castle, Wales, among many others. He was particularly admired for his Normal Revival style. The Carlton House conservatory was intentionally theatrical, as some writers observed, over the top and bringing the term "elaborate" to a new level. The Prince Regency planned a great fete for 2,000 people on June 19, 1811,to celebrate his Regency. The supper table was 200 feet long, the entire length of the Ionic Dining Room and the Gothic conservatory. Men were dressed, according to J. B. Priestly in his The Prince of Pleasure and His Regency (1969), in their court dress or uniforms. Down the middle of the entire length of the table ran a curving stream of water from a silver fountain in front of the Prince. Its path was lined with flowers, mossy banks and crossed by miniature bridges. Goldfish swam up and down this tiny stream. Here is the account by John Ashton in Social England Under the Regency (1895) of the Prince Regent's conservatory and the party: "...the architecture of it is of the most delicate Gothic. The upper end was a kind of circular buffet surmounted by a Medallion, with the initials G.P.R. lined by festoons and antique draperies of pink and silver, and partly filled by mirrors, before which, on ornamented shelves, stood a variety of vases, candlesticks, &c. of the most gorgeous gold plate...In the front of the Regent's seat there was a circular basin of water, with an enriched Temple in the centre of it, from whence there was a meandering stream to the bottom of the table, bordered with green banks. Three or four fantastic bridges were thrown over it, one of them with a small tower upon it, which gave the little stream a picturesque appearance. It contained also a number of gold and silver fish. The excellence of design, and exquisiteness of workmanship could not be exceeded; it exhibited a grandeur beyond description; while the many and various purposes for which gold and silver materials were used were equally beautiful and superb in all their minute detail. Not long ago, the Garfield Park Conservatory (Ill.) seemed beyond salvaging--it was old, needed refurbishing and had few patrons. Enter the guys with white hats. First, the Chicago Park District launched an $8 million capital improvement campaign. Then a task force of 80 community groups convened and developed the Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance, a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing and funding programs, visitor service and community relations at the conservatory. The alliance received its funding from the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund, which seeks to rejuvenate urban parks through creative partnerships. The Oak Park Conservatory was started as a community effort ····in 1914 with plants from around the world, brought back by residents. (Customs inspections were different then!) Today, it has 8,000 square feet of growing areas, making it the third largest conservatory in the Chicago area! More than 16,000 people visit the Conservatory each year, and the number of educational programs continues to grow. It is often used as a meeting place for Chicago area plant enthusiasts, including the begonia, gesneriad, and cactus and succulent societies. The Conservatory offers many special exhibitions and programs. At Versailles, the orangerie is more than 500 feet in length, 42 feet wide and 45 feet high. The lovely fragrance of orange blossoms must have been a compelling attraction for special parties held by the French court in the orangerie. Orangeries can be seen at many English country houses (e.g. Saltram House (OR1), Plymouth, Hampshire; Sezincote (OR2), Gloucestershire) and on the grounds of several royal palaces (e.g. Kensington Palace, London, OR3), as well as throughout Europe. In Boston, Massachusetts, Andre Faneuil, a well-to-do businessman, built the first known American greenhouse about 1737 mainly to grow fruit. George Washington built a pinery at Mount Vernon in Virginia in which he raised pineapples. A regency-era garden in Washington, D. C., Tudor Place (1644 31st St. NW, Georgetown), survives from 1805, and can be visited today. In addition to the historic house with its fine federal-period furnishings, the garden reflects numerous features found in gardens of the day on both sides of the Atlantic. The Tudor Place conservatory dates from the late eighteenth century. In the style of orangeries, it has three huge windows, and naturally, faces south.Numerous flowering shrubs are kept there during the winter. Another resident of the conservatory at Tudor Place is a sago palm (Cycas revoluta), said to be the third generation descendent of a plant purchased in Philadelphia in 1813. A primary motivation for the improvement of greenhouse design was the English penchant for the collection and study of botanic material from all over the globe. The earliest explorers brought back seeds and exotic species. The damp, chill English climate needed some alteration if these new species were to survive and flourish. Kew Gardens (officially the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew) originally belonged to the royal family. Frederick, Prince of Wales, (son of George II and father of George III) and his wife, Princess Augusta, had a great interest in exotic plants. Their collection is the core of today's 40,000 varieties of plants at Kew. None of Kew's hothouses survive from the Georgian period. One regency-era building, which may have been partially an orangerie, was in a state of considerable disrepair when I last visited Kew. Resembling a Greek or Roman temple, it was slated for renovation, according to guides. Among the more familiar Kew buildings, the vast Palm House dates from 1844; one of the most recent additions to Kew is the Princess of Wales Conservatory, named in honor of Augusta, Princess of Wales, and Diana, Princess of Wales, who opened the new structure in 1987. By 1825, greenhouses were becoming increasingly common, many heated by furnaces. The purpose of the greenhouse is to extend the growing season or to replicate tropical growing conditions in colder northern climes. Central Park has been in the works for 150 years. How did 843 acres of swampy, muddy terrain become transformed into one of the world's premier public spaces? Over the past twenty years, the history of Central Park has been greatly affected by the history of the Central Park Conservancy, the private, not-for-profit organization that manages Central Park under a contract with the City of New York/Department of Parks and Recreation. Look for Conservancy History to learn of the myriad improvements made to the Park through the contributions and hard work of private citizens, corporations, and foundations. Thomas Albert Knight (1759-1838) published a paper in 1812, laying out his theories on the most efficient structure of glasshouses. Rather than designing them based on the style of existing orangeries, Knight proposed different arrangements with curving walls and roofs. His work supplemented the achievements of John Claudius Loudon (1782-1843), who studied growing techniques all over Europe and was an admirer of Thomas Jefferson. Elizabeth Rogers in her book Landscape Design, writes, "Experimenting with different shapes and structural techniques in his Bayswater garden, in 1816 Loudon invented a curvilinear sash bar of wrought iron. His experiments also led him to propose a 'ridge and furrow,' or double meridian, glazing system in which the glass panes of the conservatory were angled so as best to catch morning and afternoon light while preventing the scorching of leaves by the direct rays of the noondays sun ...and pulleys in the manner of Venetian blinds to gain a more desirable angle...or to let in fresh air and summer rain showers." (p.317) At Chatsworth, Paxton became chief gardener in 1826 at age 23. He built a great conservatory there, often considered as a prototype for the Crystal Palace. Devonshire wrote that when Paxton arrived at Chatsworth, he found, "...four pine-houses, bad; two vineries, which contained eight bunches of grapes; two good peach houses, and a few cucumber frames. There were no houses at all for plants..." All of this was to change in a very short time and gardens would never again be the same. By the early nineteenth century, tastes were evolving. In his outstanding work, Life in the English Country House, Mark Girouard writes, "The upper- and upper-middle classes had reached the stage of sophistication at which they could react against their own civilization and endeavour to go back to nature. They found nature both in the countryside, preferably in as wild a state as possible, and in man in the countryside, preferably in the supposedly unconstrained, passionate and pure state as presented in the myth or model for the Noble Savage....towards the end of the eighteenth century people began to feel that the main rooms of a house should be in touch with the outside world-not just by views through the windows, although increasing attention was paid to these, but also by means of having the rooms at ground level, with low-silled windows or actual French windows opening straight into the garden or on to the lawn. The rooms thus flowed out in the garden and correspondingly the garden made inroads into the house, in the form of vases and pots of flowers or occupied an entire room in the form of a conservatory attached to the home." (214) The regency era was truly the cusp of dramatic changes in science, technology, manufacture and democratic values. All of these changes can be seen in the very interesting and significant developments in conservatories and greenhouses. Almost twenty years ago, The French government unveiled a plan to replace the aging Conservatory building on the Rue de Madrid with a new jewel in its diadem of arts buildings. The result is the Conservatoire de Paris, a complex at the Porte de la Villette. In addition to several theaters in the former marketplace building (Les Halles), the complex houses a "cite de la musique" containing a music museum, shops, a place for recitals and lectures, a "mediatheque" (the newest form of library), an audiovisual center, and an extraordinary training facility for music and dance. As the popularity of greenhouses spread, the French developed orangeries for citrus fruit trees. Some of these were quite large, holding up to 300 trees. Many had removable roofs for frost protection.
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