No comments about Landscape Design: Promenades.

1 comments about Peter Walker And Partners Landscape Architecture: Defining The Craft.

1. Peter Walker and Partners.
   Landscape Architecture: Defining the Craft.
   Thames and Hudson
   531 Illustrations and diagrams 431 in colour.
   2005 London
   ISBN-13 978-0-500-34207-7
   
   Based in Berkeley, Peter Walker and Partners (PWP) is, in conventional terms, a fantastically successful practice and this book documents their signature projects since 1997. Although with only three open competition wins to their name, the practice has received an extraordinary 110 industry awards since 1960. Not only that, everyone knows Peter Walker is a champion of quality, a leader who has bridged academic and professional spheres and networked the world to his practice. In Australia, as elsewhere, Walker is greatly admired; indeed, he is called upon to preface our books and help us design things like the Sydney Olympics. That we couldn't do this alone is not his problem. These are the halcyon days of Walker's career.
   
   As described in his first monograph "Minimalist Gardens" (1997), Walker somewhat unconvincingly indebts his work to the mid to late 20th century art movement, Minimalism. He also acknowledges the influence of Japanese gardens and (environmental) artists such as the late Isamu Noguchi as well as drawing a line between himself and the 17th century French master, Andre Le Notre but anyone buying this book out of interest in these connections or Walker's intellectual or creative maturation in general will be disappointed.
   
   Despite this being implicitly his book, Walker, insofar as one can tell, doesn't contribute a single reflective word. Like a corporate annual report, this book has no identifiable author except the generic entity, PWP. Perhaps, as an established figure, Walker feels he no longer has to speak too much about the work. Maybe he has nothing new to add to his well publicised views. Or perhaps, after years of arguing for landscape architecture to be appreciated as a meaningful art he's changed his mind and concluded that- as this book's title suggests -it is now craft that really matters; and craft, unlike art, speaks for itself. But he (i.e, PWP) couldn't have played into the old squabbles between art and craft unconsciously, and yet such things are not addressed. There is, in fact, only one theme in this book and that is that PWP delivers quality. Accordingly, this book looks and feels like an Expression of Interest, in other words- an ad, albeit one with the imprimatur of Thames and Hudson. Having said that, what text there is, is relatively lighter on spin than we have become accustomed to.
   
   There are 37 posh projects collected in this volume and they are categorised into: Recently Completed Projects; Projects in Progress; Site Planning and Urban Design; and Competitions. The projects are prestigious, big and lush, an extraordinary range of work amassed over just a few years. Accompanying each project is a straightforward (if not reductive) explanation of the brief and PWP's subsequent design strategy. This is where the consumer of this book, if he or she unpacks each design, stands to learn something of value because, irrespective of whether you like or dislike their styling, PWP projects are exemplary in terms of accurately responding to a project's priority needs.
   
   Typical to the corporate monograph there is a perfunctory essay up front by Jane Brown Gillette. Rather than engaging with Walker's oeuvre or matters aesthetic, her essay is essentially a cursory description of the mechanics of the practice. She toasts PWP's loyal workers (apparently the best students from the best universities) and lauds its diplomatic project managers. Her essay reads not as if written for the international landscape community that PWP has so effectively used as it's global conduit, rather, the essay seems directed at prospective clients. She forewarns but also allures them to the culture of excellence that is PWP and makes that excellence seem user friendly. Apart from a brief notation of the firm's position in North American landscape architecture and the occasional but typical landscape architectural inanity such as telling us that PWP can make "nature visible and meaningful" there is nothing critical, analytical, theoretical, insightful or even polemical in this book. In this regard, academics or anyone interested in the intellectual "craft" of landscape architecture will have no use for this book.
   
   In Gillette's essay there are references to, and quotes referring to "ideas" in the designs, but for mine they are not actually ideas; they are solutions. More often than not these solutions rely on a somewhat formulaic geometric elegance which creates structure, followed by superimpositions of pattern to form surface. To be "ideas" they need to have meaning, not just efficacy, and meaning is a question this book ignores. For Walker, minimalism has been a way around the problem of representation, but, at some level, there is no way around representation, no way around meaning. Since the text in this book is so lazy, the images of the PWP craft have to do most of the talking. Hence, the book is literally stuffed full of super gloss photos, 531 to be exact. But many are cliché's, relatively vacuous images of greener-than-green trees, sparkling water, and an awful lot of nice people generally looking content in PWP's sanitised, high-resolution Arcadia.
   
   Although they have reason to be, PWP doesn't come across as smug. As Gillette says, if there is one word that describes the practice its "earnest". Be that as it may, one also gets the feeling that despite having a studio full of the best people the office culture of PWP might lack internal critique. Of course, it is an exceptional achievement to have created a global practice and maintained such high standards; but, the book, in failing to offer anything but promotional material, feels disingenuous. Apart from an excess of photos the book doesn't really explore or zoom in on the details of construction and project management that PWP are so good at. In other words it doesn't deliver what it promised - a `definition of the craft". So, whilst it will no doubt bring in more work, it wont go down well in history and therefore I think we can expect a third monograph on Mr Peter Walker et al.

5 comments about The Greater Perfection: The Story of the Gardens at Les Quatre Vents.

1. I read LOTS of garden books, a this is one of the best
   in a long time.



2. The joy of this book is that Francis Cabot writes marvelously about a landscape he has loved from childhood -- and, although his garden is rarified, he remains at heart a hands-on dirt gardener, spending hours dividing and transplanting perennials, weeding, replanting, mulling over how a planting could be improved, and all the other tasks that keep gardeners occupied through the growing season and beyond.

   It seems to me that people who make great gardens rarely do it just for themselves, but because they can't help but share their passion with other garden lovers. Francis Cabot has created and nurtured a brilliant garden, and now in this very personal book, he lets us in on its joys and its challenges.

   The photography is exquisite. A great gift for your favorite gardener.




3. This is one of the most beautiful and inspiring books about the creation and restoration a garden that I have ever seen. The Greater Perfection shows what someone with great taste, imagination, skill and yes, resources can accomplish. What is especially impressive for me as a gardening professional is that all this has been accomplished in a zone 3/4 garden in the Canadian Maritimes. A great book for browsing and reading. Absolutely stunning - the garden we wish we all had.



4. Join Mr. Cabot in a personal tour of his garden, as he brings the reader from place to place, stopping to admire his favorite things in each of his gardens. If you listen, he'll share some advice on how he solved some of his gardening problems, and introduce you to some friends that stop by. The book is quite pricey (I'll admit, I borrowed it), but the photos are so outstanding, and the writing so entertaining, it is definately worth the money. By the end, you'll feel as if you've made a new friend.



5. This is a man's true odyssey, making Ulysses look short on imagination. Mr. Cabot along with some of the most talented and imaginative landscapers around turned his place into a true dream of beautiful garden after garden. But his personality and what he loves really comes through. Lots of imagination went into different alles and infinite dream-like entries and exits. He worked with all the best people. Hobhouse is one of my favorites not to mention a few others. I could be very jealous but I am simply thrilled to be able to read it. It is long and full of superb photos and good writing. Makes other books that I love seem not quite as fabulous. Some of Cabot's friends look as though they would be a lot of fun at a cocktail party. Makes me want to buy a lot more land and keep going with determination to create a real series of outdoor Valhalas from France, Italy and England. Bravo, Mr. Cabot and all who helped!

2 comments about Pebble Mosaics: 25 Original Step-by-Step Projects for the Home and Garden.

1. Nice book with a variety of projects for those who have intermediate level experience doing mosaics.



2. This is a good source of pebble mosaic ideas. There is the occassional use of non-conventional substrates (old galvanized greenhouse trays) and "pebbles" (slices of slate), which I like because it adds a lot of interest and makes me think outside the box. Although I haven't made any of the projects, the authors seems to do a very good job of listing all the items needed, and they give clear, detailed directions.
   
   There are a few projects that mix pebbles with china and tiles, and those were my favorite (aside from the candle holder shown on the cover). I felt that there should be MORE of something, but I think that is because I love color, and these projects, for the most part, use a very natural selectional of pebbles. The book gives you exactly what it says it will.

4 comments about Gardens for the New Country Place: The Landscape Architecture of Ed Hollander and Maryanne Connelly.

1. this book has beautiful photos but is not for someone who has a normal country place. it doesn't have ideas that working class america can afford. lots of swimming pools,golfing greens, and tennis courts.



2. Paul Bennett's book of Edmund Hollander Landscape design has been an important resource to us as we plan the renovation of our property. The diversity of designs presented from a variety of perspectives have given us a wealth of ideas. Most unusual is the quality of photographs which sadly, in most of the other landscape books we have looked at, don't seem to do their subject justice. The photographs alone make this book well worth the price.



3. This is a visually appealing and instructive book. Like the gardens themselves, the photography of Betsy Pinover Schiff is strong, luxuriant, and imaginative. Whether a sweeping panorama or a featured detailed, she reveals the abundance of architectural elements and vistas in beautiful light. A "must have" book for anyone contemplating gardens on a grand scale, or for anyone who simply desires the pleasure of viewing country landscaping photographed at its best.



4. This is a beautifully photographed and well laid out book. It is somewhat repeative. However, the subject is focused and it is interesting to see how different sites were designed - or how the nuances varied to suit different sites.
   A good, but short, element specific reference guide follows the details of 11 sites. Most helpful is that the sites are in the general geographic and zone area in which I work.
   I am sure I will use it as a design reference.

5 comments about Key West Gardens and Their Stories.

1. Beautiful photos, well-researched text. Would have liked more photos of plant specimens mentioned in text. Great for the botanist and home gardener alike.



2. I keep this book in my file cabinet at work...when I just need five minutes to unwind and think of something wonderful, this book it just like a mini-vacation for the brain. The pictures are wonderful!



3. Stuck living in the arid southwest, I got an idea. (It's 100 degrees here and I just turn off the inadequate AC and open the windows - no difference.) If I can't actually reach out and touch some of them there tropicle fercundities, well, dag nab it, I can at least shell out $14 on Amazon and get me some damn pictures. (It's 100 degrees, remember.) Anywho, this away I get to forgo the 100% humidity and the Ernest Hemingway lookalikes, not to mention the occasional hurricane.
   
   It is an amazing place though and the compression of the real estate contrasts sharply with where I live. It's more like the Carribean than the rest of Florida. (It looks like you'd need a machete just to get to the bathroom.) And no cheesy Mardi Gras photos to mar the beauty of these images. During my brief visit to Key West in 1985, I was struck by the beauty of the place, but then concluded that it was basically an isolated, tourist trap that would not work for me as a place to live. But, when I look at the pictures in this book, the illusion returns, along with my desire to go there. But, then I visit a Key West website and the pictures of some sleazy bathing suit contest bring me to my senses. (Maybe I need to go back and visit the Medicine Garden and have a talk with Pejuta.) Key West is a study in contrasts, and this book captures it's classy, restful qualities.
   
   I stayed at Key Lime Village, where a bunch of domesticated rabbits traversed silently around the grounds, while a reposing, stony-eyed Mayan kept me company by the pool. Something like Tangier, it is a dream at the end of the world. I think you need all of the humidity and water and I don't think the western United States, including California, has such a place - you'd have to go to Mexico. But, what do I know?
   
   The only thing that would improve this book would be if the scope had been extended somewhat to show the beautiful streets off of Duval, along with some of the less affluent, but, in some ways, more highly colorful, architecture that makes walking or biking around the Old Town so pleasurable. But, for that, you might really just need to go there.



4. Key West is a tropical plant lovers paradise and this book is choke full of color photographs of some of the most fascinating gardens there. Not only is this book full of great photographs but there are many fascinating stories concerning the histories of the ground where the gardens now grow.
   If you like history and you like tropical plants this is the book for you. I also found many inspiring ideas for future landscaping and greenhouse design and I am sure you will too.



5. Key West Gardens And Their Stories will appeal to any with a special interest in Key West gardens and their histories. Enjoy full-page color photos of garden settings accompanying descriptions of the gardens and their histories. The result is a fine local history Florida residents will love.

1 comments about Mirrors of Paradise: The Gardens of Fernando Caruncho.

1. Mirrors of Paradise is a truly inspired presentation of a diverse sampling of Fernando Caruncho's architectural genius writ large on the landscape. A highly imaginative gardener by disposition, Caruncho possesses an idiosyncratic eye for wrinkles in the formal geometry of what is usually mundane. And the capacity to ingeniously comment on what he observes through design innovations which exhibit both wit and poignancy. To take but one example of this phenomena, in the Ollauri Garden which was designed in the mid nineteen-eighties, where a traditional water jet might be placed in the middle of numerous individual fountains making up a large flat reflecting pool, Caruncho plants single tall cypress trees in stone troughs. What a revelation this transformation of the ordinary creates! Such touches of imaginative whimsy permeate this man's work. But it is not caprice for its own sake. Every action is deliberate and conveys meaning. Every formal element tells a story. Mirrors Of Paradise is exceptionally well-designed, well-written, and contains a wealth of photographic images that do great justice to a man's work which is visually stunning, intellectually sophisticated and imaginatively pure.

1 comments about The Middle East Garden Traditions: Unity and Diversity; Questions, Methods, and Resources in a Multicultural Perspective (Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium Series in the History of Landscape Architecture).

1. It is not by chance that this book provides an innovative themes on landscape of this part of the world, for long ago, perhaps during the rein of Andalus by the Arabs Umyyad dynasties that gardening emerged as science as well as art then reached Europe and this could be traced in the royal palaces in the current Spain. Though the book is not concerned with covering such historic period, but it is considered to be a fundamental source for every library to hold in its collection.

2 comments about Everyday America: Cultural Landscape Studies after J. B. Jackson.

1. J. B. Jackson's legacy lives on in geographers, historic preservationists and others, and is alive and well. This book is a great introduction to Jackson's lifelong study of the American landscape, including the modern, vernacular everyday things that many scholars ignore or criticize.
   
   A variety of authors tell Jackson's story, and about how his influence has impacted their lives and careers. A must-read for cultural landscape students, historic preservationists, architectural historians, or anyone who appreciates a good road trip on the roads of the U.S... the ones travelled before the construction of the interstate highway system...



2. A collection of reflections on how to see, interpret, and appreciate the American cultural landscape. After reading this book the term "the middle of nowhere" will never leave your mouth or enter your thoughts. The front porch of the local house will be as interesting as Time's Square. Read this book and understand your ordinary environment. Not just for cultural geographers, but everyone with eyes or a heart for how we live and organize our spaces and places.

5 comments about MARY ENGELBREIT'S OUTDOOR COMPANION (Mary Engelbreit's Companion).

1. If you love the plantings and gracious, homey scenes in Mary Engelbreit's cards and art work, then you will love this book. The photos show steppingstones, garden archways, window boxes bursting with flowers, idylic porches and quaint potting sheds. This idea book helps you picture how to transform your outdoor space with the Engelbreit look.
   There are some projects telling how to make a birdbath, wind chimes from a sand pail and sand shovels, a planter box, a painted deck chair, a gardening tote, and to make a garden jacket from vintage tablecloths. The instructions are fairly skimpy, but will get you going if you're handy.
   The book is a visual feast with the color photos interspersed with her art.



2. THIS IS A DELIGHTFUL BOOK. I HAVE GOTTEN GREAT IDEAS TO COPY. I AM USING THESE IDEAS FOR CHURCH AND HOME PROJECTS. I WISH I COULD AFFORD TO BUY ALL OF MARY ENGELBREIT'S BOOKS. THEY BRIGHTEN UP MY DAYS.



3. ME has taken her indoor style outdoors. It's an imaginative source for decorating the garden with whimsy. If you are looking for ideas on what to plant and how to keep it alive, this is not the book for you, go directly to Better Homes and Gardens!



4. This book is as wonderful as I had expected it to be ! I am truly inspired to create in my "outdoor rooms" now and I now realize just how much work I have ahead of me as well ! The projects are extremely do-able and will make terrific mother's and father's day gifts as well as welcome additions to my own sad little garden. After doing several of the projects in ME's Children's Companion, I can share that her ideas are easily adapted to your own tastes and needs and you don't need to feel obligated to exactly duplicate her wonderful ideas... they're a fantastic spring board for your own creations.



5. Mary Englebreit has a very definitive look, and the pages of this book are filled with lovely photos that embody her style perfectly. Pictures aside, this book is not a very helpful gardening tool, since the captions do not indicate what types of flowers or plants have been used to make up the great settings pictured. The book's cover states that the reader will be shown how to obtain "the look", but one can't very well do that if no where does it say what flowers are used, can they? Over all, nice to look at, but not a big help .