Books

Innocenti – Webel: Modern Landscape Classicism explores the work of the firm founded in 1930 by Umberto Innocenti, an exceptionally gifted plantsman, and Richard K. Webel, a superb designer of landscape space who was educated at Harvard and the American Academy in Rome. Initially specializing in private estates, the partners went on to apply their classically honed principles to an astonishing range of American landscape designs—from pavilion grounds in the 1939 New York World’s Fair to Reader’s Digest Headquarters in Pleasantville (NY), Frick Park in Pittsburgh, Keeneland in Lexington (KY), Belmont Race Course on Long Island, as well as several colleges and universities, Milliken textile headquarters, and the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport. 

Each of these designs was shaped by the same classical tenets that guided the design of Italian villas of the Renaissance and the same concern with connection to place and view that inspired Olmsted and Vaux, progenitors of the modern profession. The designers were propelled as well by a sense that designed landscapes could improve not only individual lives but American society as a whole. In its fluid range of scale, quality of execution, and horticultural sophistication, the firm’s body of work was singular for its day. This richly illustrated history features many black-and-white photos by Samuel H. Gottscho and the firm’s own plans and drawings. Projected publication, Fall 2027.

Robin Karson, Hon. ASLA, is the founder and executive director of LALH and the author of many articles and three books on American landscape history, including (as coeditor) Warren H. Manning, Landscape Architect and Environmental Planner; A Genius for Place: American Landscapes of the Country Place Era; Fletcher Steele, Landscape Architect; and The Muses of Gwinn. Her work has been recognized with awards from the American Society of Landscape Architects, Foundation for Landscape Studies, American Horticultural Society, Institute for Classical Architecture and Art, and the Garden Club of America. In 2004, Karson was named a distinguished member of the Honor Society of Sigma Lambda Alpha for her “continued high-quality contribution to the scholarship of landscape architecture and the literature of landscape architecture history.” In 2017 she was made an honorary member of the American Society of Landscape Architects, and in 2022 she received the Sara Chapman Francis Medal for Literary Achievement from the Garden Club of America.