The Lily Pond's limestone strata with flowering crab (Bartholomew Photo)
Then the glaciers came and went, scouring the landscape, piling rock upon rock, their meltwaters cutting through the limestone and forming pools. The "river" that flows through the garden mimics the glacial waters that cut their way through the limestone remnants of the ancient seas. A "waterfall" on the northwestern end of the site serves as the river's source.
The headwaters (Bartholomew Photo)
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in Self-Reliance, "It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude." The Prairie style pavilion reminds me of that observation.
The pavilion is both apart and a part of its surroundings. A city of nearly three million people lies only yards away. Yet, here, in a natural environment that denies that fact, civilization exists in the form of the low pavilion which hugs the limestone outcropping on which it stands and makes the tall birch tree behind it seem even more grand.
Alfred Caldwell's pavilion with white birch (Bartholomew Photo)
In the midst of the crowded city the pavilion allows the individual to become a part of nature and keep the independence of solitude.
Toward the south end of the Lily Pool, there is the council ring, homage to Caldwell's mentor, Jens Jensen, one of those larger-than-life figures who designed Lincoln, Columbus and Douglas Parks in Chicago, helped to preserve the Indiana Dunes and almost single-handedly changed the focus of landscape design in the United States to a more naturalistic approach.
In his interview as part of the Oral Histories Project at the Art Institute of Chicago, Caldwell told of the origin of the council ring. "Jensen invented it," Caldwell said. "This is how. He stayed over in one of his very wealthy client’s mansions. In the morning the servants led him to a table and he had his breakfast. He looked and he said they had wine glasses and a tray up above. It was part of the equipment at the dining room table. He looked at them, and the wine glasses were arranged around in a circle. He thought that was a fantastic form, the circle of water glasses. You’d see the bottom of it and then the top like this. He said, 'That goes around, and around, and around like that. I thought we could make that in a garden, that would be a wonderful place for people to gather, sit around and have a fire in the middle. Finally I got firmly in my mind the idea of making the council rings. I just loved it, I love to make them.'"
Alfred Caldwell's tribute to Jens Jensen, the council ring (Bartholomew Photo)
At various times in his long career Alfred Caldwell worked with and for the great names in twentieth century architecture and design -- Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe, Jens Jensen, Ludwig Hilberseimer, and Craig Ellwood.
Dennis Domer in Alfred Caldwell: The Life and Work of a Prairie School Landscape Architect has appraised these relationships, both personal and professional, writing, ". . . all of them recognized his great understanding of nature, his superb drawing ability, knowledge of construction, experience in building, and capacity to envision vast open spaces. At one time or another, they all sought to bring him into their employ or under their influence, and they fought to keep him. . . Caldwell was the hidden glue that sustained modern design, and he has never gotten his due."
The Pavilion, Looking North (Bartholomew Photo)
Head on over to the Alfred Caldwell Lily Pond sometime soon. Leave the city behind. And find one of those rare places that contains the hidden glue that will ultimately sustain us.
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