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Library | Item Barcode | Call Number | Material Type | Item Category 1 | Status |
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Searching... | 30000003914425 | NA9063.U6 W34 1994 | Open Access Book | Book | Searching... |
Searching... | 30000010106759 | NA9063.U6 W34 1994 | Open Access Book | Book | Searching... |
Searching... | 30000010121124 | NA9063.U6 W34 1994 | Open Access Book | Book | Searching... |
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Summary
Summary
This work is a composite history of the individuals and firms that defined the field of landscape architecture in America from 1925 to 1975, a period that spawned a significant body of work combining social ideas of enduring value with landscapes and gardens that forged a modern aesthetic. The major protagonists include Thomas Church, Roberto Burle Marx, Isamu Noguchi, Luis Barrdgan, Daniel Urban Kiley, Stanley White, Hideo Sasaki, Ian McHarg, Lawrence Halprin, and Garrett Eckbo. They were the pioneers of a new profession in America, the first to offer alternatives to the historic landscape and the park tradition, as well as to the suburban sprawl and other unplanned developments of 20th century cities and institutions.
Summary
Invisible Gardens is a composite history of the individuals and firms that defined the field of landscape architecture in America from 1925 to 1975, a period that spawned a significant body of work combining social ideas of enduring value with landscapes and gardens that forged a modern aesthetic. The major protagonists include Thomas Church, Roberto Burle Marx, Isamu Noguchi, Luis Barragan, Daniel Urban Kiley, Stanley White, Hideo Sasaki, Ian McHarg, Lawrence Halprin, and Garrett Eckbo. They were the pioneers of a new profession in America, the first to offer alternatives to the historic landscape and the park tradition, as well as to the suburban sprawl and other unplanned developments of twentieth-century cities and institutions. The work is described against the backdrop of the Great Depression, the Second World War, the postwar recovery, American corporate expansion, and the environmental revolution. The authors look at unbuilt schemes as well as actual gardens, ranging from tiny backyards and play spaces to urban plazas and corporate villas. Some of the projects discussed already occupy a canonical position in modern landscape architecture; others deserve a similar place but are less well known. The result is a record of landscape architecture's cultural contribution - as distinctly different in history, intent, and procedure from its sister fields of architecture and planning - during the years when it was acquiring professional status and struggling to define a modernist aesthetic out of the startling changes in postwar America.
Reviews 4
Booklist Review
In an insightful, accessible study, Walker and Simo trace the evolution of landscape architecture in this country, highlighting the years from 1925 to 1975. The authors examine notable work by such seminal figures as Frederick Law Olmsted and by others like Hideo Sasaki, who continue to influence the field today. They also provide a lively account of the training and philosophical underpinnings motivating these artists for whom the landscape has often functioned as their canvas, albeit a spatial one. To identify and define modernism in American landscape architecture, Walker and Simo isolate formal elements that appear in outstanding examples of landscape art and which provide links with art movements of the period (such as surrealism and constructivism). Their search has led them to a very readable exploration of this modern period, with all its myriad forms of landscape design. ~--Alice Joyce
Choice Review
This book chronicles the history of landscape architecture in the US during the 20th century through the lives of its best known practitioners, the schools where they learned and taught, and the professional offices they established. It also explores, with varying degrees of success, the relationships between modernism in the garden and other disciplines within the fine arts. But as the title indicates, Walker, a landscape architect, is most concerned that too much of the really significant work done by his professional colleagues remains "invisible in the art world." Conceding that the landscape architecture has had little impact on the overall development of the US in the years since WW II, Walker and Simo, a talented historian, analyze the crisis of identity within landscape architecture and use the career of Frederick Law Olmsted as the basis for a new synthesis--for a profession that is concerned with aesthetics and with the social significance of landscape. Although celebratory rather than critical, this book is more successful than Modern Landscape Architecture, ed. by Marc Treib (CH,Feb'94) in delineating this important phase in landscape history. General; upper-division undergraduate through professional. D. Schuyler; Franklin and Marshall College
Booklist Review
In an insightful, accessible study, Walker and Simo trace the evolution of landscape architecture in this country, highlighting the years from 1925 to 1975. The authors examine notable work by such seminal figures as Frederick Law Olmsted and by others like Hideo Sasaki, who continue to influence the field today. They also provide a lively account of the training and philosophical underpinnings motivating these artists for whom the landscape has often functioned as their canvas, albeit a spatial one. To identify and define modernism in American landscape architecture, Walker and Simo isolate formal elements that appear in outstanding examples of landscape art and which provide links with art movements of the period (such as surrealism and constructivism). Their search has led them to a very readable exploration of this modern period, with all its myriad forms of landscape design. ~--Alice Joyce
Choice Review
This book chronicles the history of landscape architecture in the US during the 20th century through the lives of its best known practitioners, the schools where they learned and taught, and the professional offices they established. It also explores, with varying degrees of success, the relationships between modernism in the garden and other disciplines within the fine arts. But as the title indicates, Walker, a landscape architect, is most concerned that too much of the really significant work done by his professional colleagues remains "invisible in the art world." Conceding that the landscape architecture has had little impact on the overall development of the US in the years since WW II, Walker and Simo, a talented historian, analyze the crisis of identity within landscape architecture and use the career of Frederick Law Olmsted as the basis for a new synthesis--for a profession that is concerned with aesthetics and with the social significance of landscape. Although celebratory rather than critical, this book is more successful than Modern Landscape Architecture, ed. by Marc Treib (CH,Feb'94) in delineating this important phase in landscape history. General; upper-division undergraduate through professional. D. Schuyler; Franklin and Marshall College
