South Carolina Memorial Garden
National Register Listing
Street Address:
1919 Lincoln Street, Columbia, SC (Richland County)
NRHP Nomination
Record Number:
S10817740153
Description and Narrative:
The South Carolina Memorial Garden, established in 1944 - 45 by the Garden Club of South Carolina, Inc., is historically significant for its landscape architecture, as a design of and for its association with Loutrel W. Briggs (1893-1977), one of the leading twentieth-century American landscape architects. Briggs is credited with establishing the nationally-recognized “Charleston Garden” as a garden type during his time in South Carolina’s port city from 1929 until 1977. The Memorial Garden is representative of Briggs’s influential designs, with its imaginative use of limited space by utilizing a variety of ornamental plants and complimentary design elements such as a gate house and tool house, walls, gates, walks, terraces, a fountain, sculpture, and garden furniture. Its plan and characteristics are similar to many of Briggs’s residential city gardens in Charleston and elsewhere, but this garden is distinctive among his designs as being designed for the Garden Club of South Carolina as a public space rather than a private one. It was envisioned by the club as the first memorial garden sponsored by a state garden club in the United States that recognized veterans of World War II for their military service. Listed in the National Register April 2, 2012.
Period of Significance:
1946 – 1957
Level of Significance:
State
Area of Significance:
Landscape Architecture
National Register Determination:
listed
Date of Certification:
April 2 2012
