Sculpting the Land: Landscape Design Influenced by Abstract Art

In Sculpting the Land, award-winning landscape architect Diana Armstrong Bell explores her unique interpretation of the possibilities of landscape design. Influenced by the work of the Russian avant-garde artists Kazimir Malevich and El Lissitzky, Bell’s distinctive approach to contemporary design is primarily informed by the abstract. Known for distinctive, innovative designs that are site-specific and sensitive to context, Bell has designed and built projects all over the world, and in Sculpting the Land she reveals the process and inspiration behind her work.
 
Drawn to earthworks, lines, and patterns, Bell gathers clues about a landscape’s past and lets them inform a new story in her work. Sculpting the Land explores many of Bell’s large-scale public landscapes in the urban realm, which are sculptural in their conception and modern in style, including Parco Franco Verga in Milan, Proche du Lac de Carré Sénart in France, Rochester Riverside Park in Kent, and Electra Park in London. With more than 150 color illustrations—including landscape plans, schemes, and hand-drawn pencil, ink, collage, and watercolor pieces—the book showcases a remarkable collection of art which is used to convey Bell’s design process and present her ideas.

Diana Armstrong Bell is a landscape architect and lecturer. She founded her award-winning practice, Armstrong Bell Landscape Design, in 1984 and she is a regular contributor to international publications on the subject.