"The Neo-Classical Design of Stowe House and Gardens"
Stowe House and Grounds, outside Oxford, Great Britain
David Hansen '06
Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (CMRS) in Oxford, Great Britain
(Un) Natural Beauty - This picturesque landscape, dotted with temples and gothic structures, is a hodgepodge of English landscape gardening. Built in the eighteenth century, gardens such as this at Stowe House were constructed to demonstrate the wealth and knowledge of the manor's owners. As they fashioned a garden to their liking, they destroyed the native English countryside that truly made the area uniquely beautiful. The variety of buildings represents the shifting tastes from classical to romantic and gothic structures. The idea of reconstructing nature, played out by the wealthy family in Britain, is still thriving to this day as people everywhere take true nature for granted and substitute real outdoor experiences with visits to indoor climbing walls and rainforest themed restaurants - replicas of nature whose construction is destructive to the very aspects of natural beauty it tries to capture.
