This richly detailed biography of Charles Eliot (1859-1897), one of the most important figures in American landscape history, was written by his father, president of Harvard College, in 1902, shortly after Eliot's death. Like his colleague and partner Frederick Law Olmsted, the younger Eliot was a brilliant innovator. Keith N. Morgan's introduction offers a critical reading of Eliot's life and new insights into an important chapter in American landscape history.
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1902 edition. Excerpt: ...pictures here in Massachusetts to be thus destroyed or enclosed? Without stopping to consider the evil effects upon civilization, the wounds, as I may say, to art, and morals, and religion, which must follow this blotting out of beauty from the surroundings of life, let me, since I am speaking to business men, call your attention to the business aspect of this question. In the country and seaside districts of Massachusetts, the summer resort business is the best business of the year. Now the history of our summer resorts has been decidedly peculiar. Nahant over here once possessed large hotels. Newport was also a hotel town. Bar Harbor, in Maine, filled many huge hotels every year for a considerable period of years; but last year and this year the large hotels of that town have been entirely closed, and I very much doubt if they ever open again. Who wants to visit any resort where the seashore, or such other scenery as there may be in the neighborhood, is owned and occupied by private citizens who, if they admit you to their lands, do so grum-blingly, or for a fee? It is evident that our hotel men, and all people interested in the development of this great business of the summer resort, must go to work to preserve their goose of the golden egg, that is to say, the fine scenery in their neighborhood. Even in the case of towns of cottages, would not every estate owner be the richer, if it were possible for him to have access at any time to every finest spot within his neighborhood? As a matter of business, the proprietors and projectors of summer colonies ought to take account of this. The bookstores are filled with books in praise of the beauty of nature, and the picture galleries are full of pictures thereof. Meanwhile we are destroying...
The intimate Monk's Garden at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston embodies the design principles that inform the work of noted landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh. In Designing a Garden, Van Valkenburgh presents the design of the Monk's Garden at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, an intimate, walled garden that Laurie Olin has described as "a masterpiece, and not a minor one." The book documents the evolution of the garden's design, which is based on the concept of meandering paths through a dreamlike woodland to create a contemplative space. Sketches and models show how the idea was worked out, and lush photographs reveal the completed garden through the seasons. Van Valkenburgh's text explores the origins of his love of landscape and plants in his family farm in Upstate New York and how this has influenced his intuitions as a designer. He shares the full background story of the Monk's Garden, focusing on the experimental nature of design work as well as the challenges and satisfactions of the small scale and the historic and cultural context. Designing a Garden provides a unique first-person account of the design process from the most prominent landscape architects in the country.
In 1928, Arthur A. Shurcliff (1870-1957) began what became one of the most important examples of the American Colonial Revival landscape--Colonial Williamsburg, a project that stretched into the 1940s and included town and highway planning as well as residential and institutional gardens. Elizabeth Hope Cushing, in this richly illustrated biography, traces Shurcliff's route from early years and planning work in Boston to his largest and most significant contribution to American landscape architecture.
Profiled are 21 landscape architects, from Frederick Law Olmsted to Beatrix Jones Farrand who have had a significant impact on how our country looks. These profiles are paired with descriptions of 21 types of landscape design, from urban parks to country estates.