Solving the Front Door Problem

with John Phibbs

On Thursday, November 7, 2019 the ICAA hosted John Phibbs, noted author and principal of Debois Landscape Survey Group, for a lecture exploring the accomplishments of English landscapers Lancelot "Capability" Brown and Humphry Repton, and in particular their solutions to what has been termed "the front door problem."

John has been advising on historic landscapes since 1978. He has worked on a broad range of parks and gardens (over 600 sites), the greatest concentration being in the south of England, where the storms of 1987 and 1991 had their biggest impact. His work has covered a wide range of dates and styles, but he is an acknowledged authority on Georgian landscapes, especially those by Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown and Humphry Repton. John has done his time on the National Trust’s Gardens Panel, which guides overall policy on gardens in the Trust’s ownership, and he serves on the Design Review Panel of the Georgian Group, which has a statutory role concerned with the conservation of Georgian buildings and landscapes. In 2018, he was awarded an MBE by the Queen for his services to Landscape Architecture and his work on Capability Brown.

Presented as part of the Bunny Mellon Curricula at the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art. The ICAA is very grateful to the Gerard B. Lambert Foundation for its generous support of this program.

Tags: video, lecture, education, capability brown, humphry repton, landscape, bunnymellon