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Cover image for The poetics of gardens
Title:
The poetics of gardens
Publication Information:
Cambridge, Mass : MIT Press, 1988
ISBN:
9780262132312

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30000000150593 NA9064 M66 1988 f Open Access Book Book
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Summary

Summary

There is a universality about the creation of gardens across time and in diverse cultures that has inspired this entirely different garden book: a playful and affectionate typology of gardens; a pattern book in which a score of landscapes and gardens are drawn, described, and analyzed not just as a bouquet of pleasures but as sources, lodes to be mined for materials, shapes and relationships, and ideas for transforming our own backyards. The Poetics of Gardensis a celebration of places and the gardens they can become. Most of the 500 sketches, axonometric drawings, and photographs were created especially for this book. They explore the special qualities of places and the acts that can transform them into gardens. The authors discuss the qualities that create the promise of a garden the shapes of land and water, the established plants, the light and wind, the climate and show how these can be organized to give a place a special meaning. And they pay particular attention to the "rituals of habitation" by which we imaginatively take possession of places on the surface of the earth. The Poetics of Gardens examines great gardens made in other places, with other climates, at other times from ancient Rome to modem England, from Ball to Botany Bay, from the court of Ch'ien Lung to the magic kingdom of Walt Disney to explore their devices and record their images, scents, and sounds. The authors discuss the adaptation of the great garden traditions of the past to North American soil and call together the creators of these gardens to speculate about how their patterns and ideas can be appropriated, transformed, and composed into places that come alive for us. Charles W. Moore, one of America's best known architects, is O'Neil Ford Professor of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin. William J. Mitchell is Professor of Architecture at Harvard University. William Turnbull, Jr. is Principal of William Turnbull Associates, San Francisco.


Author Notes

Charles W. Moore, one of America's best-known architects, is O'Neil Ford Professor of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin
William J. Mitchell is Dean of the School of Architecture and Planning, and Professor of Architecture and Media Arts and Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
William Turnbull, Jr., is Principal of William Turnbull Associates, San Francisco


Reviews 2

Publisher's Weekly Review

An ambitious and highly idiosyncratic work, this offers an invaluable bird's- and worm's-eye view of gardensaround the world and over the span of human historyas highly-wrought artifacts and everyday dwelling-places. With erudition and uncommon imagination, the authors consider the history and anthropology of gardens, their evolving esthetic principles, their architecture, their place in philosophy and literature, and the purposes they have served in religion, deftly compressing encyclopedic findings in urbane prose. They discuss the raw materials of garden sites, provide a ``catalogue of compositional strategies'' for gardeners, define types of gardens in terms of form and function, offer a sweeping survey of cultivated landscapesfrom ancient Rome's to Walt Disney'sand conclude by summoning a pantheon of illustrious gardeners, thinkers and outspoken bystanders (Vita Sackville-West, Lucian, Frank Lloyd Wright, King Kong) to discuss, in a perceptive and madcap fantasy colloquy, some practical problems of design facing contemporary American gardeners. Moore, Mitchell and Turnbull view gardens as ``rhetorical landscapes'' to be ``read for content''; to them, ``A garden path can become the thread of a plot'' that leads us to the heart of a culture when the garden's ``devices of structure and figure and trope'' are analyzed. Yet their richly illustrated book is also a spirited travel guide, evoking the ``garden palace'' of the Alhambra and the ``anorexic palm trees of Beverly Hills, poking at a smog-bruised sky.'' They appraise horticultural marvels, but also those of civilization at large. Theirs is an exhilarating sourcebook, an exemplary refuge for the restless gardener's imaginationone to savor and ponder as an essential on the shelf. Moore is O'Neil Ford Professor of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin; Mitchell is a professor of architecture at Harvard; and Turnbull is a founder of William Turnbull Associates, San Francisco, an architectural firm. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved


Choice Review

This is an ambitious and timely book, given the renewed interest in landscape history and practice within the architectural profession, and the popular enthusiasm in the US for residential garden-making. The authors have chosen a typological rather than a chronological structure within which to analyze both the formal and experiential qualities of a series of designed landscapes, ranging from ancient to modern and representing diverse cultural traditions. They argue for the relevance of these historical prototypes, even those created in remote places and times and at extravagant scales, to issues in contemporary American design as modest as the layout of suburban back yards. Keyed plans, sections, and axonometric drawings commissioned for the work are excellent; small black-and-white photographic illustrations are less satisfactory. The writing is lively and personal, frequently citing passages in works of poetry and fiction that evoke the character or atmosphere of specific places under discussion. The bibliography is similarly personal in its selection of useful reading, most of it organized under the headings of 12 countries. The index is exceptionally thorough. All libraries. -C. M. Howett, University of Georgia


Table of Contents

Prefacep. vi
Acknowledgmentsp. ix
1 The Genius of the Place
Shan and Shuip. 2
God and Cainp. 6
Sunlight and Shadowp. 8
Memory and Expectationp. 10
2 The Designer's Place
Occupying the Sitep. 22
Establishing the Gamep. 23
Shaping Spacesp. 26
Creating Climatesp. 36
Lending Lifep. 41
3 The Place of the Past
Settingsp. 51
Ulurup. 51
Ryoan-jip. 55
Capability Brown's Parksp. 58
Isola Bellap. 65
Balip. 69
Collectionsp. 79
Death Valleyp. 79
The Collections of Three Kingdomsp. 82
The Summer Palacep. 93
Katsura Imperial Villap. 97
Sissinghurstp. 103
Some Botanical Gardensp. 111
Pilgrimagesp. 117
Amarnathp. 118
Lamayurup. 122
Roushamp. 125
Stourheadp. 136
The Villa Lantep. 144
City Gardens: Isfahan and Beijingp. 148
Patternsp. 158
The Symmetries of the Ram Baghp. 158
The Waters of Kashmirp. 162
Shalamar Baghp. 170
Nishat Baghp. 174
Mughul Tomb Gardensp. 179
The Alhambrap. 190
The Generalifep. 195
Vaux-le-Vicomtep. 198
Studley Royalp. 203
4 Our Own Places
Paradise Replayedp. 207
Bigger Patternsp. 211
Swifter Pilgrimagesp. 212
Costlier Collectionsp. 213
Simpler Settingsp. 215
Edens to Orderp. 216
Amerikanergarten Chatsp. 218
Courtyardsp. 218
Front Yardsp. 222
Backyardsp. 226
Side Yardsp. 229
Graveyardsp. 235
Bibliographyp. 241
Indexp. 249
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