The American Landscape - Softcover

Zapatka, Christian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1568980930 ISBN 13: 9781568980935

Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press, 1997

"The land has always been more important to the American than the city,"?begins Christian Zapatka in this sweeping overview of American landscape?painting, planning, and design. Focusing largely on the origins and?progress of city and national parks, The American Landscape examines the?history of the physical environment of the United States from the 1830's?to the present.?

?Broad in scope, this book covers a wide range of subjects, including the?paintings of the Hudson River School, which shaped America's image of?itself as a sublime wilderness; architect Frederick Law Olmsted's city?parks, planned to provide both literal and metaphorical oases in the?middle of dense urban zones; the creation of national parks such as?Yellowstone and Yosemite; the construction of the Lincoln Highway,?stretching from New York to San Francisco; Franklin D. Roosevelt''s New?Deal program for the city of Greenbelt, Maryland and other suburbs; Robert?Moses's Jones Beach State Park and Parkway, intended to bring nature?within the reach of an urban population; and the relationship of?contemporary artists and architects to today's landscape.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Language Notes:

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Italian

Review:

"Christian Zapatka, in 'The American Landscape,' uses maps to show the relationship of built-up areas to green-grass sections. The author's interest in this planned disposition of scenery came from an original question: Why were early high-speed roads called parkways? It was because Americans did not want to make an entire sacrifice of scenery to speed. There is a tension almost comic in the combination of a park, a place to rest, with restless motion that speeds us away from sites for sedate contemplation. No matter. We want it all-to eat out wilderness and have it, too. Zapatka goes on to study how bits of wilderness were embedded in our cities and how urbanites were embedded in green-belt suburbs, by planner like Daniel Burnham and Fredrick Law Olmsted." -- Preservation

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.