By Charles Waldheim. Princeton University Press, 2016.
?In a period of a cult to the individual and the genius, with all due respect to genius, it is not to them that we owe our best cities.? Josep Lluís Sert, 1956.
?The architectural revolution, like all revolutions, begins with enthusiasm and ends in some sort ?of dictatorship.? Alvar Aalto, on the International Style, RIBA Talk, 1957.
The 20th century modernist landscape architect Thomas Church once bemoaned his profession?s status in relation to architecture as ?parsley around the roast.? Fortunately, in the almost 40 years since Church?s death, much has changed. Concerns regarding resilience ?in light of climate change, the remediation ?of brownfield sites and failed industrial cities, the revitalization of waterfronts, and the overall concerns of hydrology, ecology and sustainability have elevated landscape architecture ?to a new and much more significant role. Charles Waldheim, a distinguished teacher, writer and theorist at Harvard, has been ?an advocate and champion of the welcome ?rebirth of landscape architecture under the moniker of ?Landscape Urbanism.? Waldheim?s very thorough and highly researched book Landscape as Urbanism: A General Theory examines the historical, theoretical and cultural ?conditions that have resulted in an array of impressive projects: including New York?s High Line, Brooklyn Bridge Park, and closer to home, the Toronto Waterfront and the proposed Lower Don Lands project. Waldheim sees ...