Rear Garden Wall and Stair at the Eliel Saarinen House
Villa Hvitträsk near Luoma, Finland

Extensive gardens and garden structures surround Hvitträsk, the enclave that the young architects Eliel Saarinen, Herman Gesellius, and Armas Lindgren built for themselves between 1901 and 1904.  The landscape is entirely in keeping with the Arts and Crafts Movement, which sought a beautiful and romantic connection between architecture and nature.  The classic Arts and Crafts house is meant to appear as a picturesque outgrowth of the surrounding landscape, or at the very least, to achieve a harmonious balance with it.  The designers of Hvitträsk did so with incredible panache.  Photograph taken in 1982 by Howard J. Partridge.

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