DANIEL Urban Kiley (1912 - 2004)
Dan Kiley developed a successful career for over sixty years. was hailed as the dean of architecture American landscape. A pioneer in the modern combined the modern movement functionalism with classical design principles (1). His work sought to introduce a new human order on earth, but leaving that part to be expressed through natural forms, theirs was not a decorative work. He was a teacher who solved their designs with unique geometric patterns, while he had the firm belief of a human being as part of nature. Kiley's art conceptualized as an adjunct to architecture. "Light, space and flora are the components of the context of a building which built its landscape." (2)
is said that the best of his works are deceptively simple, you may well be because the proposed spaces are displayed as if they were a "nature walk" . So much so that many of his landscapes proposed are not treated as the masterpieces they are. Garrett Eckbo said "The impact of Kiley in the global landscape is substantial and memorable ... to quietly is a true leader."
Dan Kiley - Washington DC
Unfortunately some of his designs have been both changed their criteria and their initial concept has been lost. However, his work is very consistent and the result that today we can see, after decades of maturity, may be undervalued because it is not the type that requires the devices on the landscape design, but the imprint of his hand is invisible to who know that there is a preconceived idea. Anne Raver said Kiley revealed designs in the spiritual sense of the land and moved the viewer through space, creating a sense of Infinity.'' It is best known for the proposals made in the war, because of this the work of the first two decades of his career are little known.
worked in some of the most important committees in the United States, helping to raise the level of the design profession landscape.
Kiley was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1912 . In 1932, began a four-year apprenticeship with landscape architect Warren Manning , who had been a partner of Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of Central Park . During this period he learned the fundamentals of professional practice in office and developed a special interest in the role of vegetation in the design, which led him later use, creative and innovative plants in the landscape. In 1936 Kiley went into the design program at Harvard University . Among his classmates and friends were Garrett Eckbo and James C. Rose, who also became influential landscape architects. During his stay in Harvard , Kiley and classmates, Eckbo and Rose , explored modern landscape design. Kiley innovations applied to the design, leaving the controversial theoretical Rose and Eckbo. These approaches developed together raised in three articles published in Architectural Record between 1939 and 1940. Kiley left Harvard without graduating 1938.
In 1947, Kiley and Eero Saarinen won the design competition for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial , known as the Arch of St. Louis, a high-profile project launched her career as a landscape architect.
In 1955, again with Saarinen, designed the acclaimed garden Miller in Columbus, Indiana. The first of its essentially modern landscape designs. Among his other works are the Fountain Plaza in Dallas, Texas, Nations Bank Plaza in Tampa, Florida, Air Force Academy, the Oakland Museum, the Independence Mall in Philadelphia and the Museum of Art Dallas. Some of the best known works include Lincoln Center Kiley in New York, John F. Library Kennedy in Boston, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and Dallas Museum of Art.
Kiley are recognized as both the domain and the clarity of the monumental scale (as found in French baroque gardens) and the spatial sensitivity that showed the first architects in the post-war America.
Among his innovations are necessary to describe the use of hedges and walls that was influenced by the work of modern architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and the rhythmic geometric structure or tree grid , more like the use of columns in architecture. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Kiley never wrote, also spent time teaching. Completed over 900 projects and received numerous awards.
The Miller Estate and Gardens in Columbus, Indiana is one of his works left to posterity as a landmark of the era. The Miller House was designed by Eero Saarinen , interiors Alexander Girard, and landscape design for the above named Daniel Kiley . are "classic modern horticulture, unsurpassed in the United States ..." by journal The Magazine Antiques. Internal Miller is one of the most recognized of the United States of architecture and landscaping modernist mid-century. This was a private home from 1955 to 2008. Was performed for industrial J. Irwin Miller (1909-2004), famous for being one of the most important patron of the twentieth century modern architecture and a model of corporate citizenship. "There is no precedent in which a single philanthropist has placed so much faith in architecture as a means to civic improvement." ( 3) The IMA (Indianapolis Museum of Art), with financial support from the Foundation -Irwin Sweeney-Miller, and members of the Miller family acquired the property in 2009 to preserve and eventually opened to the public, probably in 2012. He is currently part of the Museum, who cares the assets donated by the Miller family members, and include the house and gardens, along with many of its original furnishings.
Some of the "rooms" Garden serve as famous sculpture galleries, a "allée" ( avenue trees on the side) acacia tree, the visual channel towards a sculpture by Henry Moore, draped woman reclining, facing a dark green hedge. These mounds also were intended to contain the views within the boundaries of the property and avoid lines of sight to the yards of neighbors. "This is a site that lives inland. Instead of capturing a view of distant mountains or water, the views here are a lower horizontal plane, usually under the branches of trees, and grazing tops of low bushes or along the tree-lined avenue. "
"The Miller family sold most of the art collection in 2008, including the sculpture of Moore serving as the focal point, leaving a vacancy impressive. But they found photographs showing that a simple travertine bench originally here. The bank, he said, again. " (4)
