Jens Jensen (September 13, 1860 – October 1, 1951) was a

Danish-American Danish Americans ( da, Dansk-amerikanere) are Americans who have ancestral roots originated fully or partially from Denmark. There are approximately 1,300,000 Americans of Danish origin or descent. History The first Dane known to have arri ...

Biography

Jens Julius Jensen (10453818414) (cropped2)

Jens Jensen was born near

Dybbøl Dybbøl is a small town with a population of 2,339 (1 January 2022)Second War of Schleswig in 1864, Jensen watched the Prussians invade his town, and burn his family's farm buildings. This invasion, which annexed the land into

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an ...

, left a deep influence on how Jensen viewed the world of man. He attended the Tune Agricultural School outside

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

, afterwards undertaking mandatory service in the Prussian Army. During those three years, he sketched parks in the English and French character in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

and other German cities. By 1884, his military service over, Jensen was engaged to Anne Marie Hansen. Coupled with his wish to escape the family farm, this led to his decision to immigrate to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

that year.

United States

Jens Jensen Befaring ved Øvre Leirfoss Kraftverk (1901) (8056686255) (2)

Initially Jensen worked in

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

, and then at Luther College in

Decorah, Iowa Decorah is a city in and the county seat of Winneshiek County, Iowa, United States. The population was 7,587 at the time of the 2020 census. Decorah is located at the intersection of State Highway 9 and U.S. Route 52, and is the largest commun ...

, before moving to

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and taking a job as a laborer for the West Park Commission. He was soon promoted to a foreman. During this time he was allowed to design and plant a garden of exotic flowers. When the garden withered and died, he traveled into the surrounding prairie and transplanted native wildflowers. Jensen transplanted the wildflowers into a corner of Union Park, creating what became the American Garden in 1888. Working his way through the park system, Jensen was appointed superintendent of the 200 acre (800,000 m²) Humboldt Park in 1895. By the late 1890s, the West Park Commission was entrenched in corruption. After refusing to participate in political graft, Jensen was ousted by a dishonest park board in 1900. He was eventually reinstated and by 1905 he was general superintendent of the entire West Park System in Chicago. His design work for the city can be seen at Garfield Park, Humboldt Park, Douglass Park, Pulaski Park, Columbus Park, The North Park Village Nature Center water fall and pond. Jensen helped establish the

Forest Preserve District of Cook County The Forest Preserve District of Cook County is a governmental commission in Cook County, Illinois, that owns and manages a network of open spaces, containing forest, prairie, wetland, streams, and lakes, that are mostly set aside as natural areas ...

, and selected many of the sites eventually acquired by the Forest Preserve District. He also helped establish Jens Jensen Park near his home and the Ravinia Music Festival grounds, as well as the grounds of nearby Green Bay and Ravinia elementary schools. In the 1910s, Jensen played a role in building support for the preservation of part of the

Indiana Dunes Indiana Dunes National Park is a United States national park located in northwestern Indiana managed by the National Park Service. It was authorized by Congress in 1966 as the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore and was redesignated as the nation ...

sand dune ecosystem, also near Chicago, thwarting industrialization plans of

J. P. Morgan John Pierpont Morgan Sr. (April 17, 1837 – March 31, 1913) was an American financier and investment banker who dominated corporate finance on Wall Street throughout the Gilded Age. As the head of the banking firm that ultimately became known ...

and

Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie (, ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans i ...

."Reading 3: Beauty of the Wild", U.S. National Park Service, accessed April 6, 201

/ref>

Private practice

In 1920 he retired from the park system and started his own landscape architecture practice. He worked on private estates and municipal parks throughout the U.S. He was commissioned by Eleanor and

Edsel Ford Edsel Bryant Ford (November 6, 1893 – May 26, 1943) was an American business executive and philanthropist who was the son of pioneering industrialist Henry Ford and his wife, Clara Jane Bryant Ford. He was the president of Ford Motor Company f ...

for four residences, three in Michigan and one in Maine, between 1922 and 1935.Grese, Robert E., ''Jens Jensen, Maker of Natural Parks and Gardens''. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992. . pp. 102 Other projects included the

Morse Dell Plain House and Garden Morse Dell Plain House and Garden, also known as Woodmar, is a historic home located at 7109 Knickerbocker Parkway in Hammond, Lake County, Indiana. The house was designed by noted Chicago architect Howard Van Doren Shaw and built in 1923. It ...

(1926) at Hammond, Indiana and the William Whitaker Landscape and House (1929) at

Crown Point, Indiana Crown Point is a city in and the county seat of Lake County, Indiana, United States. The population was 33,899 at the 2020 census. The city was incorporated in 1868. On October 31, 1834, Solon Robinson and his family became the first settlers to ...

. A major landscape project, with

, was for 'Gaukler Point', the

Edsel and Eleanor Ford House The Edsel and Eleanor Ford House is a mansion located at 1100 Lake Shore Drive in Grosse Pointe Shores, Michigan, Grosse Pointe Shores, northeast of Detroit, Michigan; it stands on the site known as "Gaukler Point", on the shore of Lake St. Clair ...

Grosse Pointe Shores Grosse Pointe Shores is a city in Macomb and Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 3,008 at the 2010 census. Grosse Pointe Shores was incorporated as a village in 1911 and was part of Grosse Pointe Township in Wayne ...

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

for

and his wife. Jensen did the master plan and designed the estate's gardens. He employed his traditional 'long view,' giving visitors a glimpse of the residence down the long meadow after the passing the entry gates, then only brief partial views along the long drive, and only at the end revealing the entire house and another view back up the long meadow. The 'Gaukler Point' gardens and residence are now a public historical landscape and house

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...

and on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

. He also designed the gardens for Edsel and Eleanor's summer estate 'Skylands' in

Bar Harbor Bar Harbor is a resort town on Mount Desert Island in Hancock County, Maine, United States. As of the 2020 census, its population is 5,089. During the summer and fall seasons, it is a popular tourist destination and, until a catastrophic fire ...

Mount Desert Island Mount Desert Island (MDI; french: Île des Monts Déserts) in Hancock County, Maine, is the largest island off the coast of Maine. With an area of it is the 52nd-largest island in the United States, the sixth-largest island in the contiguous ...

Maine Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and ...

(1922). Jensen did design work for their two other Michigan residences, one being 'Haven Hill,' between 1922 and 1935. 'Haven Hill', now within the

Highland Recreation Area Highland State Recreation Area is a state recreation area in the southeast part of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is located in north Oakland County, west of Pontiac. ''Haven Hill Natural Area'', within the Highland State Recreation Area, was ...

near White Lake Township in southeastern Michigan, is designated as both a Michigan State Historical Landmark and State Natural Preserve. Jensen's landscape elements, with the diversity of tree, plant and animal life, combine aesthetics, history and nature. HenryFordEstateBurroughsGrotto

For Clara and

Henry Ford Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that ...

Jensen employed his 'delayed view' approach in designing the arrival at the

residence A residence is a place (normally a building) used as a home or dwelling, where people reside. Residence may more specifically refer to: * Domicile (law), a legal term for residence * Habitual residence, a civil law term dealing with the status ...

of their estate,

Fair Lane Fair Lane was the estate of Ford Motor Company founder Henry Ford and his wife, Clara Ford, in Dearborn, Michigan, in the United States. It was named after an area in Cork in Ireland where Ford's adoptive grandfather, Patrick Ahern, was born ...

, in Dearborn, Michigan. Instead of proceeding straight to the house or even seeing it, the entrance drive leads visitors through the estate's dense

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (se ...

areas. Bends in the drive, planted on the curves' inside arc with large trees give a feeling of a natural reason for the turn, and obscure any long view. Suddenly, the visitor is propelled out of the forest and in the open space where the residence is presented fully in view in front of them. This idea of wandering was one which Jens put forth in almost all of his designs. Expansive

meadows A meadow ( ) is an open habitat, or field, vegetated by grasses, herbs, and other non-woody plants. Trees or shrubs may sparsely populate meadows, as long as these areas maintain an open character. Meadows may be naturally occurring or artificia ...

and gardens make up the larger landscape, with naturalistic massings of

flowers A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism ...

surrounding the house. The largest axial meadow, the "Path of the Setting Sun" is aligned so that on the summer solstice the setting sun glows through a precise parting of the trees at meadow's end. The boathouse, with stonework cliffs designed by Jensen, allowed

to travel on the Rouge River in his electric boat. Currently 72 acres (290,000 m²) of the original estate are preserved as a historic landscape and with the house are a museum, and a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

. Jensen did other projects for Henry Ford including:

The Dearborn Inn The Dearborn Inn, A Marriott Hotel, is a luxurious historic hotel, conceived by Henry Ford, who saw a need for food and accommodations for visitors flying into the nearby Ford Airport, making it one of the first airport hotels. It is located in ...

, Dearborn, Michigan, in 1931 (architect Albert Kahn, the first airport hotel in the country and National Historic Landmark); the

Henry Ford Hospital Henry Ford Hospital (HFH) is an 877-bed tertiary care hospital, education and research complex at the western edge of the New Center area in Detroit, Michigan. The flagship facility for the Henry Ford Health System, it was one of the first hos ...

; the

Greenfield Village The Henry Ford (also known as the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation and Greenfield Village, and as the Edison Institute) is a history museum complex in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Michigan, United States. The museum collection conta ...

historic re-creation and its

Henry Ford Museum The Henry Ford (also known as the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation and Greenfield Village, and as the Edison Institute) is a history museum complex in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Michigan, United States. The museum collection contains ...

in Dearborn; and the 'Ford Pavilion' at the 1933 Chicago

Century of Progress A Century of Progress International Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair, was a world's fair held in the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States, from 1933 to 1934. The fair, registered under the Bureau International des Expositi ...

Exposition Exposition (also the French for exhibition) may refer to: *Universal exposition or World's Fair * Expository writing ** Exposition (narrative) * Exposition (music) *Trade fair A trade fair, also known as trade show, trade exhibition, or trade e ...

. In 1923 he designed Lincoln High School in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, on a area on Lake Michigan. A number of projects with Jensen designed landscapes are listed on the

including the Jens Jensen Summer House and Studio, Rosewood Park, the

May Theilgaard Watts May Petrea Theilgaard Watts (1 May 1893 – 20 August 1975) was an American naturalist, writer, poet, illustrator, and educator. She was a naturalist at The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois, and author of ''Reading the Landscape of America''. ...

House (architect;

John S. Van Bergen John Shellette Van Bergen (October 2, 1885 – December 20, 1969) was an American architect born in Oak Park, Illinois. Van Bergen started his architectural career as an apprentice draftsman in 1907. In 1909 he went to work for Frank Lloyd Wrigh ...

), The

A.G. Becker A. G. Becker & Co. was an investment bank based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Becker's history goes back to the 1880s when it was a commercial paper house. It evolved into a full line investment banking firm with offices in Chicago, New ...

Property (architect;

Howard Van Doren Shaw Howard Van Doren Shaw AIA (May 7, 1869 – May 7, 1926) was an architect in Chicago, Illinois. Shaw was a leader in the American Craftsman movement, best exemplified in his 1900 remodel of Second Presbyterian Church in Chicago. He designe ...

), The Samuel Holmes House (architect;

Robert Seyfarth Robert Seyfarth ( ) was an American architect based in Chicago, Illinois. He spent the formative years of his professional career working for the noted Prairie School architect George Washington Maher. A member of the influential Chicago Architec ...

) and the Harold Florshiem estate (architect; Ernest Grunsfeld), all of which are located in Highland Park, Illinois where Jensen lived. TheClearingEllisonBayWisconsin

In 1935, after the death of his wife, Jensen moved from Highland Park, Illinois to

Ellison Bay, Wisconsin Ellison Bay is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in northern Door County, Wisconsin, United States, within the town of Liberty Grove and is located on Highway 42 along the Green Bay. As of the 2020 census, its population i ...

where he established The Clearing Folk School, which he called a "school of the soil" to train future landscape architects. It is now preserved as open space and an education center in the folk school tradition. In his maturity, Jensen designed Lincoln Memorial Garden in Springfield, Illinois. This plan was completed in 1935 and planted from 1936 to 1939. Jens Jensen died at his home, now The Clearing Folk School on October 1, 1951, at the age of 91.

Collaborations

Jens Jensen partnered with architect

.Smith, S. & Mark, S. (2011). Marktown: Clayton Mark's Planned Worker Community in Northwest Indiana. South Shore Journal, 4. In the course of his long career he worked with many well known architects including

Louis Sullivan Louis Henry Sullivan (September 3, 1856 – April 14, 1924) was an American architect, and has been called a "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism". He was an influential architect of the Chicago School, a mentor to Frank Lloy ...

Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...

, George Maher and Albert Kahn.

References

External links

The Cultural Landscape Foundation, "It Takes One: Carey Lundin"

Official website of the film Jens Jensen The Living Green.

Jens Jensen Legacy Project

Official 'The Clearing' website

Official Edsel & Eleanor Ford 'Gaukler Point' website
– ''gardens and museum.''
Official Edsel & Eleanor Ford 'Haven Hill' museum website.

Official Henry Ford 'Fair Lane' website
– ''gardens and museum.''
Virtual tour of the Henry and Clara Ford 'Fair Lane' estate.

– ''Chicago Wilderness Magazine: "Jens Jensen" — Spring 2001 issue.''

– ''Highland park history: artists''
Sterling Morton Library
– ''Landscape drawings in the Suzette Morton Davidson Special Collections.''

– ''a National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) lesson plan.''
Designing in the Prairie Spirit
An online film that features Jensen's influences on landscape design today. {{DEFAULTSORT:Jensen, Jens American landscape and garden designers American conservationists American landscape architects Danish landscape architects 1860 births 1951 deaths People from Sønderborg Municipality Danish emigrants to the United States Artists from Chicago People from Door County, Wisconsin