Park, large area of ground set aside for recreation. The earliest parks were those of the Persian kings, who dedicated many square miles to the sport of hunting; by natural progression such reserves became artificially shaped by the creation of riding paths and shelters until the decorative possibilities became an inherent part of their character. A second type of park derived from such open-air public meeting places as those in ancient Athens, where the functions of an exercising ground, a social concourse, and an athletes’ training ground were combined with elements of a sculpture gallery and religious centre.
In the parks of post-Renaissance times, there were extensive woods, rectilinear allées stretching between one vantage point and another, raised galleries, and, in many cases, elaborate aviaries and cages for wild beasts, attesting to the hunting proclivities of the lords. Later the concept of the public park was somewhat domesticated. An area devoted simply to green landscape, a salubrious and attractive breathing space as a relief from the densely populated and industrialized city of the mid-19th century, became important. Examples of this type of park include Birkenhead Park in England, designed by Sir Joseph Paxton; Jean Charles Alphand’s Bois de Boulogne, outside Paris; Central Park in New York City, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux; the Botanic Gardens in Melbourne, Australia; and Akashi Park in Kōbe, Japan. The design was generally romantic in character. The primary purpose was to provide for passive recreation—walking and taking the air in agreeable surroundings reminiscent of the unspoiled country.
What primarily differentiates modern parks is their accommodation for active recreation. Park areas differ considerably from country to country, and their designs reflect differences in climate, cultural attitudes, social habits, and pastimes. In the gardens of the Generalife, a Spanish family may enjoy its holiday outing in a shaded bosque near a cool fountain. On an evening in Venice, a procession with banners and torches may sweep into one of the little piazzas. In the Buttes-Chaumont in Paris, children may reach out from wooden horses on the merry-go-round to seize a brass ring. During the bright summer weekends in Stockholm, residents cultivate vegetables in allotment gardens that are leased to them by the park department. In Israel, Iran, and Pakistan, basketball, football (soccer), and kabadei (a game like rugby) are played in parks; in Japan, volleyball, tennis, and sumo (wrestling) may be seen. Almost universally, there is recognition of the creative possibilities of leisure and of community responsibility to provide space and facilities for recreation.
The facilities include outdoor theatres, zoos, concert shells, historical exhibits, concessions for dining and dancing, amusement areas, boating, and areas for sports of all kinds, such as fly-casting pools and skating rinks. There is always the danger that the original reason for creating the park—i.e., to bring a part of nature within reach of the city dweller—will be sacrificed to its specific recreational functions. It is difficult to keep the balance, because the tempo of urban life has mounted and with it the requirements for intensive use.
Another danger to the public park is the automobile. With the tremendous growth in automobile traffic and, consequently, increasing pressure from traffic authorities for more land, there has been hardly a major city that has not lost sections of its parks to highways. There has been a growing awareness, particularly in Europe, that large-scale urban planning should be carried out in such a way that traffic functions are clearly separate and do not encroach on other spheres. In the United States, there have been victories for the park user against the automobile; in San Francisco, the state freeway was halted at the city limits, and, in New York City, Washington Square was closed to traffic.
It is unfortunate that the word park has come to connote almost exclusively the “romantic” style park or English garden of the 19th century. In truth, there are other traditions whose influence has been equally vital. How different from the Parisian Buttes-Chaumont, for instance, are the Tuileries across the river. These were laid out under the supervision of Marie de Médicis in the style of the Boboli Gardens in Florence. Also the parks of Versailles, the Belvedere Park in Vienna, the Vatican Gardens in Rome, Hellbrun in Salzburg, Blenheim in England, Drottningsholm in Sweden, and Peterhof (Petrodvorets) in Russia are all parks that were planned in the Italian Baroque tradition. They were intended not to be a foil or escape from the oppressive city but rather to be its central dramatic focus—a display for the opulence of rulers, a piazza for the moving of great crowds, from the tournament and guild ceremonies of Florence in the 17th century to the formal pageantry of the court. It was in the Baroque park that the handling, control, and stimulation of crowds in the open air developed as one of the great arts of the urban designer.
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Another park tradition that has had worldwide influence is that of Islam. In Tehran, Marrakech, Sevilla (Seville), Lahore, and Delhi, this tradition is the dominant one and, as with all parks, developed according to the climate, social custom, and religious ethos. The original Muslim idea was to think of the garden as a paradise, a symbol of the afterlife as an oasis of beauty blooming in the earthly desert. Water and the cypress are the two main elements. Within the park, then, are water, the symbol of purity, in the four-way river of paradise, and trees (above all the cypress, symbolizing life), surrounded by high walls to keep out the dry wind. Everywhere, in keeping with Muslim belief, the design pattern is abstract rather than figurative. The fundamental idea creates its own specific technical skills; nowhere is there more artful use of irrigation for plants, of jets of water to cool the air, of orchards for shade, of colour to break up the sun’s glare, or of the use of masonry patterns than in these Islamic gardens.
The Taj Mahal in India dates from the 17th century, when by the testament of Shah Jahan this area of 20 acres (8 hectares) was to be maintained as a public grounds in perpetuity, where the poor could walk and pick fruit. In China and Japan, a similar opening of the royal precinct for public enjoyment, as with the Winter Palace or the Katsura Imperial Villa Gardens in Kyōto, has been a more recent development. The great religious shrines, however, have always resembled Western parks. The Horimonji temple in Tokyo, the Mimeguri shrine, the great Buddhist temple at Ise, and the Inner (Shintō) shrine at Mieshima are examples of an age-old garden tradition in which humanity is but “one of a thousand things” and where nature is presented in an idealized and symbolic way as an object for contemplation and spiritual enjoyment. In their techniques of horticulture and in their use of stones, water, and surface textures, the gardens of East Asia are of a high level. This Eastern tradition had its effect on European park design in the 18th century and again in the 20th century, as in the grounds for the UNESCO building in Paris, designed by Isamu Noguchi. See also national park.