Landscape Design: A Cultural and Architectural History

The book is text driven, so provides a great deal of information about landscaping themes and styles. I purchased this book for a university class I am taking, and it has proven to be a valuable resource.

This book is long and overly verbose, but an excellent resource. As a text in a landscape architecture history class it was a strong foundation.

As the founding president of the famous Central Park Conservancy and of Cityscape Institute, Elizabeth Barlow Rogers summarized her experience, research and observations and her extensive training in art history and city planning in "Landscape Design: A Cultural and Architectural History." "Landscape Design: A Cultural and Architectural History" covers architecture, landscape architecture, conservation, city planning, earthworks, and other landscape designs in many different cultures from dawn of humanity to present, such as Stonehenge, ancient Egyptian royal cemeteries, gardens of Renaissance, Baroque Europe, English naturalistic Landscape, the Forbidden City of Beijing, Versailles, and New York's Central Park, etc. For many years, "The Landscape of Man: Shaping the Environment from Prehistory to the Present Day" used to be the only comprehensive book covering landscape architecture at a grand scale, with striking bird's eye view photos showing how brilliant human beings can be. "Landscape Design: A Cultural and Architectural History" can supplement "The Landscape of Man: Shaping the Environment from Prehistory to the Present Day" since it provides more in-depth discussions. "Landscape Design: A Cultural and Architectural History" has 544 pages and 633 line drawings and dazzling interior photographs (many of them are color). It is a valuable landscape design history book for landscape architecture students, seasoned design professionals and ordinary garden lovers! Gang Chen, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, Author of "LEED GA Exam Guide," "Architectural Practice Simplified," "Planting Design Illustrated," and other books on various LEED exams, architecture, and landscape architecture

From Nineveh to a mobile home in Pecos, NM, Rogers casts a wide net, exploring the evolution of formal landscaping in parallel to humansÕ urge to put their mark on the earth. A scholar, who administered New YorkÕs Central Park for two decades, she provides a compelling account of the cultural roots that underly the plantings, explaining the ideas inherent in unfamiliar and classic gardens. Every page contains sharp insightsÑfor example, her suggestion that the broken column that the Baron de Monville built as his house at the Desert de Retz outside Paris in the 1780s portended the revolution that would sweep away the civilization he cherished. The abundance of plans and illustrations do ample justice to the text. (Michael Webb is the book reviewer for LA Architect magazine.)

With 630 illustrations, many created just for this book (430 of which are in full color), Elizabeth Barlow Rogers' Landscape Design: A Cultural And Architectural History offers dazzling, panoramic beauty to complement its extensive commentary on landscapes throughout history, ranging from Stonehenge and the Forbidden City of Beijing to Versailles and New York's Central Park. This comprehensive survey, with its intelligent text and breathtaking photographs, is highly recommended to anyone interested in the history of landscaping since the dawn of humanity.