ARCHITECTURE, LANDSCAPE GARDENING, AND ENGINEERING
(FIGS. 5 TO 14)
Only a few photographs are necessary to show how valuable to the
architect, the construction engineer, the city planner, or the landscape
gardener the air photograph, both vertical and oblique, is destined to
become. Pictorial records of progress in the construction of buildings,
bridges, ships, canals, reservoirs, etc., that partake also of the
nature of ground plans, as do air photographs, furnish an admirable
means of study and comparison. No photograph of the great shipyards at
Newport News taken from the ground would show the relation of the shops
and drydocks to the deep-water approaches as does Figure 7. Figure 8
gives an unusually comprehensive idea of the location, magnitude, and
construction of Hell Gate Bridge; and Figure 10, Rockaway Beach, now a
densely populated town where a few years ago was a barren strip of sand,
suggests that photographic records of construction in rapidly growing
communities where changes are being made in streets, railroads, and
buildings, will come to be a part of the equipment of the city engineer
and architect.
ARCHITECTURE AND LANDSCAPE GARDENING
Equally useful will the air photograph become to the landscape gardener
and architect. Heretofore, in order to get a comprehensive conception of
his task and a definite picture of its completion, the landscape
gardener has had to depend upon the use of maps and such views as could
be made by the sketch artist or the ordinary lateral photograph. In the
future, from vertical and oblique photographs of the area to be
developed, he will have the means of studying its features in their
correct proportions and relationship. By means of similar photographs of
completed projects he can choose and combine until he has developed the
plans best suited to his purpose. He can bring to his aid first-hand
studies of gardens and grounds the world over whose beauties have made
them famous.
[Illustration: FIG. 5--Monument Avenue, Richmond, Va., and the statue of
Robert E. Lee. An oblique photograph illustrating the use of aerial
photography in landscape gardening and street planning.]
ENGINEERING PROJECTS COVERING LARGE AREAS
Where the project covers large areas, the “mosaic,” or group of matched
photographs, can be used in the study of problems of construction or
improvement. Figure 13, a mosaic of the Anacostia flats, the site of
improvements under way in the District
[Illustration: FIG. 6--The United States Naval Observatory and grounds,
Washington, D.C., as seen from an airplane at a height of a few hundred
feet above the ground, showing an unusually attractive arrangement of
shrubbery and trees.]
of Columbia, shows the Anacostia marshes as they appeared in the autumn
of 1920, after the changes effected since 1915, as can be seen by
comparison with Figure 14, the topographic map of the same area. To the
right is the terraced slope rising to a height of about 150 feet above
the river--an elevation so low that the air photograph does not properly
reproduce it. Near the foot of the principal terrace lie the tracks of
the Pennsylvania Railroad, on which can be seen Benning, Deanewood, and
Kenilworth. Between the railroad and the Anacostia River are the Benning
race track and the swampy lowland and tidal marshes of the Anacostia
flats. The river and the marshland on either side of it from the
Pennsylvania Avenue Bridge to Benning Road have been modified by
dredging, but north of
[Illustration: FIG. 7--Shipyards at Newport News, Va., showing docks and
deep-water approaches, steamships, and drydocks, in one of which is a
vessel for repairs.]
[Illustration: FIG. 8--The New York Connecting Railroad Bridge, which
affords an all-rail passenger and freight route between Boston and
Washington. The bridge, which was completed in 1917, starts on the
mainland in the Port Morris section of southern Bronx Borough, New York
City, seen in the background, then crosses Bronx Kill, Randalls Island,
Little Hell Gate, Wards Island, and Hell Gate to reach the Long Island
shore, seen in the extreme lower right corner, at Long Island City,
Queens Borough. The tracks continue towards Washington by way of tunnels
under the East River and the Hudson.]
[Illustration: FIG. 9--A part of Washington, D.C., showing the White
House, Treasury, State-War-Navy, and other public buildings in the
foreground; the Ellipse, Washington Monument, and new War and Navy
offices in the middle ground; and the Tidal Basin, Potomac Park, and the
Potomac River in the distance. By no other means could so informative a
glimpse be given of a spot of such wide interest. Every feature in the
picture is more or less familiar to a large number of Americans, but
their familiarity is with the individual features rather than with their
situation and relation to one another as shown here.]
[Illustration: FIG. 10--Part of Rockaway Beach, Long Island, N.Y.,
showing city blocks, streets, and buildings covering the sand which a
few years ago was barren and unoccupied. Scale, about 1: 6,700.]
[Illustration: FIG. 11--Landscape gardening. An airplane view of a part
of Long Branch, N.J., taken from a height of 10,000 feet, showing the
beach and surf at the right, and the streets, mansions, driveways, and
lawns in the body of the picture--an example of the development of a
barrier beach of little value before the exploitation for summer homes.
Scale, about 1: 15,000.]
this road the surface appears in its natural state. In the mosaic are
shown at the left the highlands west of the marshes, wooded in some
places but cleared and improved in others. In the northern part can be
seen land wooded north of the District line but cleared south of it. So
comprehensive a view of the field of the project and of the progress to
date should be of great service to the engineers and promoters.