John Dixon Hunt Knihy

Exploring the intertwining of art and environment, this book delves into John Ruskin's profound influence on the perception of place and beauty. It examines how his writings and artistic philosophies shaped the understanding of nature and architecture, emphasizing the importance of context in artistic expression. Through a blend of critical analysis and historical context, the work reveals how Ruskin's ideas continue to resonate in contemporary discussions about art and the relationship between humanity and the natural world.

No city has played a more seminal role in the development of „landscape“ as a concept than has Venice. In a city where the land and gardens are reclaimed from a lagoon environment whose ecology is in jeopardy today, they are the very basis of life, dwelling, and culture. This book develops a typology of gardens distinguished by their predominantly small scale, all of which work with essential dimensions of landscape architecture: private and public space, usefulness and beauty, and open space in a densely built environment that is permeated with history. From nearly one hundred city gardens, squares, and courtyards, public parks and temporary gardens, this book identifies garden layout and design elements that involve both material factors – spatial and design-related features – as well as the social circumstances of their use. The areas presented include the Arsenale, where the Paradise Garden was created for the 2008 Biennale by Gustafson Porter, and the giardini and public gardens that – since their creation two hundred years ago – have served as a laboratory for making Venice into a modern city with a strong appeal to the „natural“.

Landscape architecture is a unique discipline where art, nature and the city converge and enter into an exciting dialogue. In the USA, the country of vast open plains and spacious towns, the great tradition of life in confrontation with nature plays an equally important role in landscape architecture as the acute problems of the built environment or social problems within the community. Design methods and practise in landscape architecture form the focus of this book, complemented by an analysis of the theoretical aspects of the subject. Perceptive portraits of 13 offices span the whole breadth of landscape design, from the post-ecological utopia of Michael Sorkin (New York/Vienna) to the urban pragmatism of the Roma Design group (San Francisco), from the ecological approach of the Philadelphia group Andropogon, also active in Japan, to the minimalist landscape art of Kathryn Gustafson (Seattle/London/Paris). The author is a freelance landscape architect in New York. His detailed knowledge of the contempo