The Stilt Garden at Hidcote Manor in Gloucestershire is shown at its most architectural in Martin Charles’ winter photograph, which flattens the snowy scene into geometric patterns
Influenced by the landscape architect Thomas Mawson, the gardens at Hidcote were laid out between 1907 and 1930 by the amateur designer Lawrence Johnston. Constructed as a series of outdoor rooms, combined with framing vistas, they became a landmark in garden design. The Stilt Garden, planted in 1915, comprises two cubed blocks of tall, clipped hornbeams, enclosed by box hedges of yew, framed by a pair of gazebos at one end. This is landscape as architectural form, seen through the eyes of the architectural photographer Martin Charles – one of his best images, taken in deep snow. In full leaf the trees would appear as solid geometric form, but photographing them leafless in a wintry landscape changes this. Focussing on one corner of the cube they appear as an almost transparent plane. Charles described his approach to architectural photography in the Architects’ Journal in 1979, noting how his ‘eye has developed towards patterns’. The leafless triangle silhouetted against the sky, the regularly spaced tree trunks, falling shadows and footprints criss-crossing the snow encapsulate this concept.
An Architect’s Eye, an exhibition of the work of the architectural photographer Martin Charles (1941–2012), is at the RIBA Library until 19 December