Adolph Strauch (August 30, 1822 – April 25, 1883) was a Prussian American landscape architect who conceived the "landscape lawn" design. He applied his thinking to the layout of Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio, which won him international acclaim. Strauch also advised and helped design several other parks and cemeteries, and laid out Eden Park, Burnet Woods, and Lincoln Park in Cincinnati.
Biography Strauch was born August 30, 1822, in the town of Eckersdorf in Lower Silesia, which was then part of the Kingdom of Prussia. His father managed , the estate of Count Anthony Alexander von Magnis, and Strauch grew up on the estate. Adolph attended the local high school, where he studied botany.
In 1838, Count Magnis obtained an apprenticeship for the young Strauch at the Imperial Gardens at Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, Austria. He studied landscaping and gardening under Prince Herman von Pückler-Muskau, The prince was highly regarded for his work on Muskau Park, the family estate in Upper Lusatia, and had published a well-regarded book on landscaping, Hints on Landscape Gardening.
Schönbrunn Palace had formal, geometric gardens rivaling the gardens of Versailles. Pückler-Muskau, however, was much more interested in the Picturesque landscape theories of Sir Humphry Repton and John Nash. Strauch apprenticed under the prince for six years.
At the prince's urging, Strauch left Vienna in January 1845 and traveled through Germany, The Netherlands, and Belgium, studying the landscaping of estates and gardens. He carried letters of reference from the prince, which allowed him to not only study landscape design but the gardening operations of these establishments. He spent longer periods at large estates in Berlin, Hamburg, The Hague, and Amsterdam. At the beginning of 1846, Strauch spent three months working for Belgian horticulturist Louis van Houtte at his vast nursery near Ghent.
Leaving Ghent, Strauch moved to Paris, France. He worked as a gardener there, and studied the great gardens of the city and surrounding area. Several times he visited Père Lachaise Cemetery, which at that time was one of the very few garden cemeteries in Europe.
The French Revolution of 1848 broke out in February of that year, and soon much of Europe was engulfed in the Revolutions of 1848. A supporter of German unification and democracy, it was unsafe for Strauch to return to Germany, so he relocated to London, England, where he began working for the Royal Botanic Society at Regent's Park.
When the Great Exhibition opened in Hyde Park on May 1, 1851, Strauch — who could speak German, English, French, Polish, and Czech — found work there as a guide for distinguished visitors. When wealthy Cincinnati dry goods merchant Robert Bonner Bowler visited the Great Exhibition, he had trouble gaining entry. Strauch spotted him and helped him win admittance. Grateful for Strauch's help and impressed with how polite he was, Bowler invited him to visit Cincinnati should he ever find himself in the United States.
American sojourn There was extensive press coverage of Texas and the American Southwest at the time in British newspapers, and many people were enthralled by what was described as a near-paradise. The Great Exhibition closed on October 15, 1851, and Strauch did not want to return to Regent's Park. Anatoly Demidov, Prince of San Donato, had asked Strauch to take charge of the grounds at Villa San Donato in Florence, Italy. Strauch turned him down.
Strauch sailed to the United States, arriving in Galveston, Texas, on November 5, 1851. He intended to earn his way across America by writing newspaper articles for publication in Britain and Germany. Strauch was disappointed to find the Texas shore to be mostly marshes, and he disliked the hot, humid inland climate. Strauch decided to make the trek west to San Antonio. He intended to proceed northwest into the New Mexico Territory, but discovered that the Comanche in the area were extremely unfriendly to visitors and that he would need an armed force to accompany him.
After spending the winter among German expatriates in San Antonio and nearby towns, Strauch decided to return to Britain. In the late spring of 1852, however, he learned that a member of the wealthy Cushing family of Boston, Massachusetts, was looking for a new head landscape gardener. The position appealed to him, as Boston's parks and gardens were much talked about in horticultural circles.
Intending to see more of the United States, Strauch took a steamer from New Orleans, Louisiana, up the Mississippi River to Cincinnati. He intended to catch a train at Cincinnati that would take him through Ohio and along the St. Lawrence River to Niagara Falls and then east to Boston. His steamer was slow to arrive in Cincinnati, however, and he missed his train.
Stuck in Cincinnati overnight, Strauch decided to seek out Robert Bowler. Strauch discovered that Cincinnati had a flourishing horticultural community: It was home to important journal The Western Horticultural Review, the Ernst family owned the immense Spring Garden nursery, and Bowler turned out to be strongly interested in promoting landscape gardening and horticulture. The city also had a well-established German-American community.
Early career
Bowler asked Strauch to become head gardener at his Mount Storm estate. Strauch agreed, and stayed for the next two years. Having read and been deeply impressed by the first three volumes of Alexander von Humboldt's Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe, The estate's landscaping design and plantings were incomplete, and Strauch began to implement his ideas for a "lawn landscape system" at Mount Storm. He already had well-defined ideas for what landscape design should encompass: Space unified by panoramas and vistas; no enclosures, hedges, or fences; small lakes; well-placed statuary framed by suitable trees; lawns and flowers; and tasteful service buildings.
His work for Bowler earned him much local notice, and he was also hired to landscape Henry Probasco's Oakwood, George K. Schoenberger's Scarlet Oaks, William Neff's The Windings, the Robert Buchanan House, and the William Resor House. All these designs were in the English landscape garden tradition.
After leaving Mount Storm, Strauch toured the U.S. and Canada, observing the landscape and native plants.
Spring Grove After his return to Cincinnati, Strauch was hired by the trustees of Spring Grove Cemetery on October 8, 1854, to be their head gardener.
The state of Spring Grove in 1854 Organized in February 1845, Spring Grove Cemetery lay in a valley surrounded by hills. Within the valley were several areas of taller, flat terrain; a number of ravines and swales; and wetlands. At the time of Strauch's hire, the cemetery had , of which were surveyed and laid out.
The organizers of Spring Grove traveled to see the famed cemeteries of the East Coast: Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York City, New York; Laurel Hill Cemetery near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They hired John Notman, the designer of Laurel Hill, to develop Spring Grove's first master plan. Notman's proposed geometric design was impractical for the highly varied geography and lacked the naturalism which had so impressed them at Mount Auburn.
Declining to implement Notman's design, the cemetery trustees hired local architect and landscape designer Howard Daniels. He was toured the rural cemeteries of the east, and returned to Cincinnati to design a burial ground in the Picturesque style. With the assistance of local surveyor and civil engineer Thomas Earnshaw, Daniels put roads in low-lying areas and reserved higher ground for burials. Daniels believed every lot should face a road or footpath, and laid out a labyrinth of wide footpaths between roads. Grading of land was not done until a lot was sold. Daniels lacked the funds to reclaim the of swamp at the front of the cemetery along Hamilton Road, so the trustees leased this land to farmers for use as pasture.
Daniels served two years at Spring Grove, implementing his plan with the help of his assistant, Dennis Delaney. By 1847, had been surveyed and laid out. Delaney was appointed the new superintendent. Cemetery improvements were planned and made by Delaney in cooperation with a committee appointed by the board of trustees which included director Robert Buchanan and Thomas Earnshaw. Earnshaw died in August 1850. Delaney served as superintendent until fall 1856 or 1857. Until the employment of Strauch, landscaping decisions during Delaney's superintendency were made monthly by a committee of cemetery leaders.
Until lot sales brought in cash, the trustees lacked the money to landscape Spring Grove, so they encouraged lot owners to improve lots on their own. Lot owners soon planted an enormous variety of decorative grasses, vines, shrubs, flowers, and weeping trees. Fearing trespassers would harm these plantings, they erected enclosures around their lots. Soon, 75 percent of all lots at Spring Grove were surrounded by hedges or cast iron, wrought iron, or post-and-chain fences. Enclosures were only supposed to be high, but enforcement was lax and most were much higher. Some lots were so full of burials that a dozen headstones crowded onto them.
A portion of the cemetery was cut off when the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railway was built. The railway was chartered by the state of Ohio in March 1846. The state granted the railroad the right to appropriate land, at a fair market price, for its route. By October 1849, the railroad had determine that its line should cross Spring Grove Cemetery.; Cemetery trustees sued to block the railroad, but their request was denied by a court on December 28, 1849.; To protect lot holders and visitors from rail cars crossing the cemetery grounds, Spring Grove Cemetery, at its own expense, built a viaduct which elevated trains over its land. The cost was $9,000 (). The first trains ran on September 18, 1851. The viaduct cut off , which were used only by workmen.
Strauch's "lawn landscape" theory
Strauch's vision for any cemetery, estate, or park was for a unified landscape. Strauch was not only deeply influenced by Humphry Repton's theories of English landscaping and Pückler-Muskau's emphasis on maintaining the appearance of nature without human interference, but by the European interpretation of traditional Chinese park design. Strauch believed in landscaping that did more than merely imitate nature; the landscape designer should embellish nature with art. Visual unity was all-important, especially when complex elements were present. Enhancing nature meant creating dramatic visuals, and the massing of elements was key to this.
To ensure visual unity, Strauch banned the use of fences and hedges around plots, and forbade the use of private plantings, no matter how large or small, on plots. All grading of a section was done prior to sale of lots, to ensure visual connectivity and an appropriate transition to the next landform or feature. The overall planting scheme of the section was also pre-determined by the cemetery landscape gardener. Groupings of trees were juxtaposed against well-mowed meadows, creating areas of light and dark which created dramatic visuals for the visitor.