The landscape architectural drawings series documents the sisters' Ann Arbor-based landscape design practice begun in the 1930s. This series begins with some of their student projects from graduate school at the University of Michigan followed by commissions in Ann Arbor (mainly in the 1930s and 1940s), several later design commissions from the 1940s after they had relocated to Lansing, and finally with a subseries of landscape projects undertaken for the Michigan Highway Department.
Pencil and watercolor on heavyweight paper were used for most of the Student Projects from the early 1930s. This subseries consists of plans and elevation drawings for public facilities, including a teahouse, an automobile club, a military entrance, and a roadside market. Also part of this subseries are two pencil-drawn plans for a residential district of a city and two colored drawings of a playground park plan. Some of the drawings are signed by Alice or Jessie; others are not, but are obviously by the same hand(s).
The bulk of the series is made up of two subseries of landscape project drawings for a number of Michigan clients in the 1930s and 1940s; one subseries documents commissions within Ann Arbor, the other covers Michigan Projects outside of the city. These drawings include general landscape plans, detailed planting plans, building elevation drawings, and some plans and sketches for garden structures such as rose arbors, summer houses, and pools. The formats include pencil drawings on tracing paper, photocopies of such drawings, and blueprints. There is some duplication of drawings in different formats.
Some projects are fully documented by several drawings, while others consist of only one plan. Most of the work is by Jessie Bourquin, who carried on the practice alone after Alice relocated to Lansing in 1935. The finely detailed plans and beautifully executed drawings attest to a high level of professional skill, as well as to the assiduous attention to detail for which the Bourquins became known. Intricate planting plans include dozens of varieties of flowers, trees, and shrubs arranged in multiple beds.
In addition to illustrating the sisters' professional capabilities, the Bourquins' drawings help to document the "end of an era" in Ann Arbor and other communities -- the decline of the leisured, aristocratic estate lifestyle of the well-to-do in early twentieth century America. The Bourquins ended their practice and sought new careers as the Depression dampened demand for luxuries like landscaping, and after World War II different, less elaborate architectural tastes came to the fore.
