Capability Brown: An Ornament to Nature

Greenwood Gardens

Mon, Jun 5, 2017
7:00 PM

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED FROM MAY 11

Last year marked 300 years since the birth of Lancelot "Capability" Brown, arguably one of the greatest and most complete landscape architects the planet has ever known. A self-taught architect, engineer, drainer, horticulturist, arborist—you name it, he did it. Brown was one of the great men of the eighteenth century and there is hardly an English country house worthy the name that does not boast one of his landscapes. It is not too much to say that Central Park in New York would not be what it is were it not for Brown's influence on Frederick Law Olmsted.

This talk by John Phibbs—landscape architect, author, and preeminent authority on Capability Brown—will address the great challenge that Brown set himself: to fuse human interventions and natural forms in such a way as to create splendor and magic without any sign of artifice or effort. It is still a challenge in our century, and it will continue to remain so for those who come after us, but no one has ever brought the trick off better than Capability Brown.

Location
Greenwood Gardens
274 Old Short Hills Road
Short Hills, NJ

Date and Time
Monday, June 5
7:00 p.m., with reception following

Registration
$30 Garden Conservancy and Greenwood Gardens members
$35 General admission
$95 Garden Conservancy and Greenwood Gardens members - includes signed copy of John Phibbs's book, Capability Brown: Designing the English Landscape, a $65 value
$100 General admission - includes signed copy of book

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN ATTENDING THIS EVENT, PLEASE CALL THE GARDEN CONSERVANCY AT 845.424.6500.

About the speaker
John Phibbs is the principal of Debois Landscape Survey Group, a consultancy with a particular interest in the management of historic landscapes, based in the United Kingdom and founded in 1978. He introduced the idea of conservation management for parkland in the 1970s and has worked professionally on plans for more than forty landscapes by Capability Brown. Given his position, it was inevitable that he would be the architect of plans to celebrate the tercentenary of Brown's birth.

Phibbs has written two books on Brown: Capability Brown: Designing the English Landscape (Rizzoli, October 2016) and Place-making: The Art of Capability Brown (Historic England, June 2017). He has also appeared in several television documentaries on his subject, broadcast in the United Kingdom and Europe.