The Landscape Architecture Legacy of Dan Kiley... Introduction, Important works, Miller House and Garden in Columbus...

1. DAN KILEY

2. Dan Kiley was one of the most important
and visionary Modernist landscape
architects, acclaimed for more than 1,000
designs worldwide. In 2013 TCLF presents a
RETROSPECTIVE of Kiley’s life and prolific
body of work, a special edition of the
annual Landslide® compendium.
Introduction
Dan Kiley (1912-2004) was one of the most
important and influential Modernist landscape
architects of the 20th century.

3. Grounds of the Jefferson National
Expansion Memorial in St. Louis,
Missouri
South end of the Air Gardens at the
United States Air Force
Academy, Colorado
Dan Kiley's Benjamin Banneker Park in Washington,
D.C.(2011)
IMPORTANT
WORKS

4. ‘The Landscape Architecture Legacy of Dan Kiley’
Dan Kiley’s modern landscapes provide welcome relief from
the city while also complementing modernist architecture.
Miller House and Garden in Columbus
Considered to be his residential masterpiece and an iconic
Modernist garden, this thirteen-acre property was developed
as a unified design through the close teamwork of Dan Kiley,
architects Eero Saarinen and Kevin Roche, and interior designer
Alexander Girard. It was designed and constructed between
1953 and 1957 for the family of J. Irwin and Xenia Miller of
Columbus, IN, who were active in the design collaboration.
When Saarinen enlisted Kiley in 1955 to develop the landscape,
plans for the house were already complete. The site, however,
was a blank slate, which gave Kiley free rein. The result was a
design that balanced Modern and classical elements and
marked the onset of his mature design vocabulary.

5.  “The Miller House is one of America’s first truly
contemporary residential landscape designs to reject the
revival solutions or the eclecticism that had dominated
American estates in the first half of the twentieth
century.”Peter Walker said: ''For many of us, that was where
modernism began.”
 The house’s interior is arranged around a cruciform grid of steel
columns. Kiley worked with the architects to create a seamless
connection between the interior and the landscape, setting
thehome atop a twenty-five foot wide platform on which sits a
ten-foot wide terrazzo terrace. The terrace acts as a physical
bridge between the interior of Saarinen’s rectilinear structure
and the garden, providing a setting for outdoor gatherings and
dining. Extending from the patio to the edge of the platform are
beds of ivy groundcover, periodically broken through by pavers
set in gravel. Two weeping beeches are planted at the edge of
the patio to the west of the house, adding height and
movement to the space.

6.  The garden contains three distinct sections – to the east, the most formal section of the landscape consisting of
the house and gardens; at the center, a transitional area created by an open meadow – a mown lawn edged by
red maples twenty-seven feet on center (originally proposed as an allée of sycamores, three rows deep and
twenty-feet on center); and to the west woodlands bisected by a creek.

7. The landscape’s geometric design reflects the
home’s interior geometry.The formal garden spreads
out to the north, south and east of the house, along
a low bluff at the eastern end of the site. The space
includes bosques of apple trees and a pool area
(constructed in 1963 after completion of the house),
and the home’s formal entry drive which is lined
with horse chestnuts under-planted with yew
hedges that further emphasize the structural
qualities of Kiley’s design. A series of arborvitae
hedges in twenty-foot lengths are staggered along
the perimeter of this section of the landscape,
providing a loose barrier between the estate and
neighboring properties. The hedges provide a false
sense of enclosure while in actuality still leaving the
borders of the property open.

8.  In 2000 the Miller property was designated a National Historic Landmark. The property was the home of Mrs. Miller
until her death in February 2008. The Moore sculpture and other artwork from the estate were sold at auction in
the summer of 2008, and the following year the Miller family donated the property to the Indianapolis Museum of
Art. The Museum then opened the property to the public in 2011.
 The museum has established itself as an excellent steward of the site, setting a high standard for the curatorial
treatment and management of Modernist landscape architecture. Their example is worthy of study, praise, and
emulation by other stewards.

9. THANK YOU