Wellesley College :
Embracing Wilderness
LAURA SOLANO , ASLA
Photo | John Mottern Photography
In 1960 , novelist Wallace Stegner wrote an impassioned ( and now famous ) “ wilderness ” letter to the head of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission , who was preparing a federal report on how much public wilderness to preserve in the United States based on recreational uses . Stegner pleaded for preserving wilderness purely for its value as a “ wilderness idea , which is a resource in itself .” He said ,
“ We simply need that wild country available to us , even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in . For it can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures , a part of the geography of hope .”
As landscape architects , hired to reshape the land for human use , it seems important to remind ourselves that every site began as wilderness , with its own sense of mystery and awe , spiritual refreshment , and identity . These are the qualities that draw people to landscapes and hold their interest , regardless of context . The Wellesley College campus in Wellesley , Massachusetts is a fascinating study of how a singular vision of preserving , revealing , or imbuing wilderness qualities made it into one of the most beautiful campus landscapes in North America . This still-active journey has been circuitous , sometimes taking very wrong turns , during its 140 years of history .
When Frederick Law Olmsted , Jr . was asked to look at the Wellesley campus in 1902 , it was already several steps removed from wilderness , but nevertheless he immediately saw soundness and beauty in its natural geology . The former farmland , with its broad hills and valleys , inspired Olmsted ’ s seemingly simple but deeply strategic recommendation to then President Carolyn Hazard : Preserve the natural structure of the campus by placing buildings on high ground and reserving the valleys for circulation and outdoor enjoyment . With a few exceptions , this advice still shapes the campus today , with an interconnected valley system that wends around buildings on high and makes the landscape ever-present from inside or out .
A Different Vision
Olmsted Jr . might not have recognized the sublime yet subtle structure of this landscape had it not been for College founders , Henry Fowle and Pauline Durant . In the twenty years before Wellesley College welcomed its first all-female student body in 1875 , the Durants assembled twenty-one subsistence farming plots of glaciated
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