Photo by Carol Betsch

Books

Improving the Village


The Laurel Hill Association, founded by Mary Hopkins Goodrich in 1853, transformed the Berkshires’ village of Stockbridge into a model American town. Improving the Village traces the evolution of the influential volunteer group that inspired like-minded citizens to establish hundreds of village improvement associations throughout the nation. Founded as a Christian mission by John Sargent in […]

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“Our Whole Country a Park”


The Boston-based landscape architect Warren H. Manning (1860–1938) forged an innovative approach to city, regional, and national planning that paired modern planning techniques with nineteenth-century ideals of rural life. Designing landscapes at every scale, Manning’s visionary goal was to make “our whole country a park.”  In designs throughout the eastern and southern United States and […]

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Rescue and Revival


By the late 1980s, the New York Botanical Garden was in serious trouble. The staff was poorly paid and balkanized, endowments were depleted, fundraising was inadequate, and visitation had dwindled to an embarrassing level. The grounds were seedy, many of the historic buildings decrepit, and the great conservatory in need of total rehabilitation. The fundamental […]

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Writing the City


The eminent preservationist, author, and landscape historian Elizabeth Barlow Rogers is also a committed New Yorker. Writing the City reveals the many facets of her passion as a citizen of the great metropolis and her lifelong efforts to protect and improve it. These include, most importantly, the creation of the Central Park Conservancy, the organization […]

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Olmsted and Yosemite


During the turbulent decade the United States engaged in a civil war, abolished slavery, and remade the government, the public park emerged as a product of these dramatic changes. New York’s Central Park and Yosemite in California both embodied the “new birth of freedom” that had inspired the Union during its greatest crisis, epitomizing the […]

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Midwestern Landscape Architecture


At the turn of the twentieth century, many landscape architects developed approaches to design that celebrated the native midwestern landscape. In this illustrated volume, thirteen historians have contributed essays that illuminate their biographies and the important design and conservation contributions made by these innovators. Parks, cemeteries, estates, and recreation areas throughout the region were created […]

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A Modern Arcadia


“Bright, cheerful houses, well arranged, well trimmed lawns, hedging carefully cut . . . distinctly joyous,” wrote architectural critic Herbert Croly in 1914 about the Forest Hills Gardens community in Queens, New York. The New York Tribune agreed, reporting that the place was a “modern Garden of Eden, a fairy tale too good to be […]

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A Genius for Place


A Genius for Place author […]

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Essays on Landscape


One of the most influential landscape architects in practice today, Laurie Olin has created designs for the Washington Monument grounds and the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., Bryant Park in New York City, Getty Center in Los Angeles, and many other iconic landscapes. More recent projects include the AIA award-winning Barnes Foundation in […]

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Marjorie Sewell Cautley


Marjorie Sewell Cautley (1891–1954) was the first woman landscape architect to design state parks, the first to plan the landscape of a federally funded housing project, and the first to lecture in a university city planning department. In her absorbing biography, Sarah Allaback illuminates the life and work of this remarkable practitioner. Delving into diaries, […]

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Beauty of the Wild


In Beauty of the Wild, Darrel Morrison tells stories of people and places that have nourished his career as a teacher and a designer of nature-inspired landscapes. Growing up on a small farm in southwestern Iowa, Morrison was transported by the subtle beauties of the native prairie landscape—the movement of grasses in the wind, clouds […]

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The Greatest Beach


A volume in the series Designing the American Park In the mid-nineteenth century, Thoreau recognized the importance of preserving the complex and fragile landscape of Cape Cod, with its weathered windmills, expansive beaches, dunes, wetlands, and harbors, and the lives that flourished here, supported by the maritime industries and saltworks. One hundred years later, the […]

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Robert Royston


A volume in the series Masters of Modern Landscape Design The first biography of the landscape architect Robert Royston (1918-2008) documents the life and work of a designer and teacher who shaped the postwar Bay Area landscape with  visionary designs for public spaces. Early in his career, Royston conceived of the “landscape matrix,” a system […]

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Hare & Hare, Landscape Architects and City Planners


When Sidney J. Hare (1860–1938) and S. Herbert Hare (1888–1960) launched their Kansas City firm in 1910, they founded what would become the most influential landscape architecture and planning practice in the Midwest. Over time, their work became increasingly far-ranging, both in its geographical scope and project types. Between 1924 and 1955, Hare & Hare […]

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Lawrence Halprin


A volume in the series Masters of Modern Landscape Design During a career spanning six decades, Lawrence Halprin (1916–2009) became one of the most prolific and outspoken landscape architects of his generation. He took on challenging new project types, developing a multidisciplinary practice that experimented with adaptive reuse and ecological design in relation to shopping […]

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James Rose


A volume in the series Masters of Modern Landscape Design James Rose, the first biography of this important landscape architect, examines the work of one of the most radical figures in the history of mid-century modernist American landscape design. An artist who explored his profession with words and built works, Rose fearlessly critiqued the developing […]

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Ruth Shellhorn


A volume in the series Masters of Modern Landscape Design Over the course of a nearly sixty-year career, Ruth Shellhorn (1909–2006) collaborated with some of the most celebrated architects and architectural firms in Southern California, including Welton Becket, A. Quincy Jones, and Wallace Neff. Finding her calling at age fifteen—inspired by her Pasadena neighbor Florence […]

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Apostle of Taste


The LALH edition of Apostle of Taste features a new preface by David Schuyler chronicling the history of scholarship on A. J. Downing—the horticulturalist, landscape gardener, and prolific writer who, more than any other individual, shaped middle-class taste in the United States in the two decades before the Civil War. Through his books and the […]

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Landscapes of Exclusion


A volume in the series Designing the American Park An outgrowth of earlier park movements, the state park movement in the twentieth century sought to expand public access to scenic places. But under severe Jim Crow restrictions in the South, access for Blacks was routinely and officially denied. The New Deal  brought a massive wave […]

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Warren H. Manning


A volume in the series Critical Perspectives in the History of Environmental Design Warren H. Manning’s (1860–1938) national practice comprised more than 1,600 landscape design and planning projects throughout North America, from small home grounds to estates, cemeteries, college campuses, parks and park systems, and new industrial towns. Manning approached his design and planning projects […]

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Community by Design


In 1883, Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. deserted New York City for Brookline, Massachusetts, a Boston suburb that anointed itself the “richest town in the world.” For the next half century, until Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. moved to California in 1936, the office received over 150 local commissions, serving as the dominant force in the planned development of […]

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John Nolen


John Nolen (1869–1937) studied economics, philosophy, and public administration at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where his keen intelligence and remarkable administrative abilities were immediately recognized. In 1903, at the age of thirty-four, Nolen enrolled in the new Harvard University program in landscape architecture, studying under Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. and Arthur […]

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Arthur A. Shurcliff


 A volume in the series Designing the American Park In 1928, the landscape architect 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. Shurcliff graduated from MIT with a degree in engineering in 1894 […]

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Landscape for Living


A volume in the ASLA Centennial Reprint Series Published in 1950, Garrett Eckbo’s Landscape for Living presents a synthesis of his thinking and professional work and sets forth his theoretical approach to achieving the “total landscape.” Illustrations throughout the book feature his own designs for gardens, parks, and institutional projects, group housing from his graduate years, work […]

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Country Life


A volume in the ASLA Centennial Reprint Series In 1859, Robert Morris Copeland published Country Life, which quickly became a bible of scientific farming and landscape gardening, as it incorporated the latest agricultural practices with new engineering methods. Handsomely illustrated with plates and woodcuts, the book sold through six editions. Copeland organized the book into an […]

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Book of Landscape Gardening


A volume in the ASLA Centennial Reprint Series The most comprehensive of Frank Albert Waugh’s several published books, and widely considered a classic in the field, Book of Landscape Gardening was first published in 1899 and revised several times. “Landscape gardening is eminently a fine art,” Waugh began each edition of the popular text that […]

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New Towns for Old


A volume in the ASLA Centennial Reprint Series Rare and long out of print, John Nolen’s New Towns for Old (1927) is still of great interest to planners and urban historians. The well-illustrated study contains an overview of the development of American urbanism and a concise discussion of Nolen’s ideas for the improvement of towns and […]

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Landscape Architecture, as Applied to the Wants of the West


A volume in the ASLA Centennial Reprint Series H. W. S. Cleveland’s Landscape Architecture, as Applied to the Wants of the West, published in 1873, summarizes Cleveland’s organic approach and its application at all scales of design and planning. The book is especially significant as the first attempt to define and develop a comprehensive scope for […]

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Charles Eliot, Landscape Architect


A volume in the ASLA Centennial Reprint Series The history of the profession of landscape architecture in the United States is still obscure to most people, even landscape practitioners. One of the most important figures in this field was Charles Eliot (1859–1897), whose story is told in this richly detailed biography. It was written by […]

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The Prairie Spirit in Landscape Gardening


A volume in the ASLA Centennial Reprint Series In 1915, Wilhelm Miller, an influential author and editor, published The Prairie Spirit in Landscape Gardening, a profusely illustrated book that championed the “prairie style” of landscape gardening. It was the first book to address the question of a truly American style of landscape design and remains one […]

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Landscape-Gardening


A volume in the ASLA Centennial Reprint Series First published in 1920, Ossian Cole Simonds’s Landscape-Gardening presents Simonds’s carefully conceived and still timely ideas about an approach to landscape design in which nature is both partner and model. In eighteen well-illustrated chapters, he addresses the design of many different types of landscapes—from residences to parks to […]

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The Spirit of the Garden


A volume in the ASLA Centennial Reprint Series Martha Brookes Hutcheson’s The Spirit of the Garden, published in 1923, was both a critical and a commercial success, widely praised for its articulation of the architectural principles of garden design. “Every garden lover,” advised one contemporary reviewer, “should have it on a most convenient table.” Hutcheson […]

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Pioneers of American Landscape Design


Pioneers of American Landscape Design is the first reference book of its kind. The encyclopedic survey presents engaging biographies of more than 160 prominent landscape architects, horticulturists, planners, and engineers who shaped cities, suburbs, parks and gardens across the United States. With 450 plans and photographs, Pioneers is providing valuable new information to landscape architects, historians, students, […]

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The Muses of Gwinn


Gwinn, one of the best-preserved estates of the Country Place Era, was originally the home of Cleveland industrialist William Mather. It has survived as an important American work of art that today tells a story about early twentieth-century landscape style, economics, and social history. Three innovative landscape architects collaborated on the project for more than […]

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Ellen Shipman and the American Garden


A revised edition of the LALH classic The Gardens of Ellen Biddle Shipman, published in 1996, introduced a generation of garden lovers to Ellen Shipman (1869–1950), a Philadelphian who discovered her remarkable talent for landscape design in the artists’ colony in Cornish, New Hampshire. Beginning her career as a hands-on gardener, Shipman received drafting instruction […]

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Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England


Before he ever dreamed of becoming a landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted (1822–1903) visited southern England and Wales during a month-long walking tour. A gifted writer, he recorded his impressions of the trip in this richly detailed volume, which has long been out of print. “In Walks and Talks,” writes Charles C. McLaughlin, author of […]

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Fletcher Steele, Landscape Architect


For sixty years, Fletcher Steele (1885–1971) practiced landscape architecture as a fine art, designing nearly seven hundred gardens, from Boston to Detroit, from North Carolina to New Brunswick, Canada. Often brilliant, always original, Steele was among the most influential landscape architects in the first half of the twentieth century, and the first to investigate modern […]

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Henry Shaw’s Victorian Landscapes


At the age of eighteen, Henry Shaw (1800–1889) left his home in Sheffield, England, to import manufactured goods from St. Louis on the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. Two decades of financial success allowed him to retire and take up more genteel pursuits. In 1840 he began nearly ten years of travel, which exposed him to […]

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A World of Her Own Making


Only a few years after marrying tobacco magnate R. J. Reynolds, young Katharine Smith Reynolds (1880–1924) began to plan a new home for her family. Not many young women of the day found themselves with almost unlimited wealth to construct their dream home, but Katharine’s sense of purpose for her vast resources was even more unusual. […]

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The Best Planned City in the World


A volume in the series Designing the American Park Beginning in 1868, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux created a series of parks and parkways for Buffalo, New York, that drew national and international attention. The improvements carefully augmented the city’s original plan with urban design features inspired by Second Empire Paris, including the first system […]

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The Art of Landscape Architecture


A volume in the ASLA Centennial Reprint Series Samuel Parsons Jr. (1844–1923) was one of the most well known names in the field of landscape design in the early twentieth century. A protégé of Calvert Vaux, Parsons worked with the architect until Vaux’s death in 1895. As superintendent of planting in Central Park and landscape […]

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The Native Landscape Reader


A volume in the series Critical Perspectives in the History of Environmental Design In this volume Robert E. Grese gathers together writings on nature-based landscape design and conservation by some of the country’s most significant practitioners, horticulturalists, botanists, and conservationists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Written with a strong conservation ethic, these […]

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Design in the Little Garden


Among the many books published about garden design, few manage to get at so many vital aspects of the topic so pungently as Fletcher Steele’s Design in the Little Garden. First published in 1924, and reissued here with a new introduction by Robin Karson, the book captures the sense of possibility that Steele and his landscape […]

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Mission 66


Mission 66 author […]

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Silent City on a Hill


Silent City on a Hill author […]

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Graceland Cemetery


Christopher Vernon […]

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