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Olana Summerhouse : The Journey is the Destination
Follies, Function & Form - Imagining Olana's Summerhouse, Olana, Hudson, NY
Frederic Church built Olana, his estate on the Hudson River, in the mid-19th century. Early in 2016, the Olana Partnership invited landscape architects and architects to submit ideas for the summerhouse, seemingly never built, yet shown on the eminent landscape painter’s original plans of the estate.
Judith Heintz’s scheme, developed in collaboration with Napat Sitisara and Diana Drake, became “The Journey is the Destination.”
Having sensed Frederick Law Olmsted’s presence and influence throughout the 250-acre estate of his friend, Frederic Church, their concept focuses on the experience of moving through the landscape to the summerhouse, rather than on the summerhouse itself. In Olmsted’s sensibility, objects placed in the landscape become the reason for a journey. In this spirit we suggest a destination that, when reached, reveals yet a further destination. Two narrow paths, glimpsed from the existing path to the house, bring the explorer into more intimate connection with the landscape. The sense of mystery enhanced by the shrub and tree masses that conceal, then reveal, prompts the viewer to wonder what lies beyond each bend; the sequences provoke anticipation and ceremony.