The Architects of our City
Howard Dunington-Grubb
Contribution: Italian Garden,
Sunken Garden, Parkwoood Estate
Howard Dunington-Grubb, was often called the father of landscape architecture in Canada.
In 1911 Howard Grubb married Lorrie Dunington an English landscape architect, adopting the surname Dunington-Grubb. They emigrated to Canada and opened an office in Toronto as H.B. & L.A. Dunington-Grubb, Landscape Architects. The Dunington-Grubb office in Toronto produced hundreds of designs and masterplans over the years. Approximately two-thirds of the work was private residential gardens for wealthy clients. The rest covered an extremely wide range of business and government projects, including town planning and civic beautification.
Although Dunington-Grubb was contemporary with the Modern movement, he designed in the older Beaux Arts tradition, emphasizing architectural influence on the landscape, to provide a controlled, ornamental backdrop to human use.
Howard Dunington-Grubb received numerous awards and honours, including the Ontario Association of Architects (OAA) Allied Arts Medal and the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) Medal in 1954, and was made a Fellow of the CSLA in 1964. In 1934 he was one of the nine founding members of the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects and Town Planners serving as president in 1934-35 and 1944-45.
Lorrie Dunington-Grubb
Contribution: Italian Garden,
Sunken Garden, Parkwoood Estate
Lorrie Dunington grew up in India, South Africa and Australia. She studied garden design at Swanley Horticultural College in England before opening an office in London and practicing “throughout the British Isles”.
In 1911 she married Howard Grubb adopting the surname Dunington-Grubb, and emigrated to Canada. In Toronto she worked on her own, and in partnership with her husband, on private and public garden designs, town planning projects and design of garden suburbs, and helped to start Sheridan Nurseries.
She lectured at the University of Toronto's Department of Social Service on the subject of housing and town planning and for the Ontario Department of Agriculture on the subject of city beautification. She wrote prolifically on garden design for magazines as Canadian Homes and Gardens, Maclean's and Woman's Century, was active in Toronto arts and letters society, and volunteered time and expertise to a number of organizations.
Lorrie Dunington-Grubb was one of the first women in Canada to practice professionally as a landscape architect.
The Italian Garden (Parkwood Estate) was designed by the Dunington-Grubbs in 1925, replacing an earlier less elaborate rose garden. The Italian Garden provided seclusion and tranquility for the family.
Parkwood - Italian Garden
72 Simcoe St N, Oshawa
click photo for Parkwood slideshow
The garden is characterized by a framework of clipped hedges, wooden lattice, a large lily pool with a fountain of the Three Graces, flagstone paving punctuated by symmetrical garden beds and is adorned by white marble urns and benches. These elements are interpretive borrowings from the formal gardens of Italy.
Dunington-Grubb commissioned and actively promoted many artistic and sculptural works in their designs. Artists J.E.H. MacDonald and Arthur Lismer, and sculptors Fritz Winkler, Francis Loring, and Florence Wyle were commissioned by the firm. In fact, their Parkwood designs incorporate sculptures by Winkler (the Boy with a Goose), Loring (the Girl with the Squirrel), Wyle (the Boy with Dolphin) (Lady and the Shell) and Cleeve Horne (The Boy on a Dolphin).
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