Modern Garden Design: Innovation Since 1900

by Janet Waymark

Garden design in the twentieth century ranges from Victorian-era examples to the age of Land Art. This span results in an extraordinarily varied surveyfrom Europe to South America, from Japan to the United Statesincluding work by garden and landscape designers whose names are familiar to both lovers and scholars of the modern Robinson, Jekyll, Jensen, Farrand, Sessions, Mawson, Church, S„rensen, and Jellicoe. Janet Waymark traces the revolutionary changes brought about in the postwar period by the Harvard RebelsEckbo, Rose, and Kileyand examines the impact of Noguchi, Burle Marx, Barragan, and others, as well as the powerful international influence of Scandinavian landscape architects and designers. The garden city is also given close attention, from its beginnings in late Victorian Britain, through the Greenbelt Towns in the American Midwest, to the latest regeneration of urban centers worldwide. A long line of artists and architects of international renown have earned a place in the history of the modern Monet, Le Corbusier, Mondrian, Wright, Mies van der Rohe, and Gaudi, among others. Land artists, such as Michael Heizer, Robert Smithson, Patricia Johanson, and Kathryn Gustafson in America and Richard Long, Andy Goldsworthy, and Ian Hamilton Finlay in the UK, have brought new ways of thinking about landscape and the garden into the twenty-first century. 209 illustrations, 120 in color.

Genres: Gardening

Hardcover

First published June 1, 2003

Reviews

[Pam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Modern Garden Design is basically a text book written by Judith Waymark, an instructor of garden history at several English universities. While it has some colored photographs, they do not nearly cover all the garden designers presented. Most of the gardens presented are commercial ones and not those of private homes. If you are interested in the history of garden design, this is the book for you, but it is not a coffee-table book nor a resource for homeowners looking for new ideas.