A lexicon and guide for discovering the essence of landscape. “Mr. Stilgoe does not ask that we take his book outdoors with us; he believes that reading and experiencing landscapes are activities that should be kept separate. But, as I learned in his book, the hollow storage area in a car driver's door was once a holster, the 'secure nesting place of a pistol.' I recommend you stow your copy there.” —The Wall Street Journal Landscape, John Stilgoe tells us, is a noun. From the old Frisian language (once spoken in coastal parts of the Netherlands and Germany), it meant shoveled land: landschop. Sixteenth-century Englishmen misheard or mispronounced this as landskep, which became landskip, then landscape, designating the surface of the earth shaped for human habitation. In What Is Landscape? Stilgoe maps the discovery of landscape by putting words to things, zeroing in on landscape's essence but also leading sideways expeditions through such sources as children's picture books, folklore, deeds, antique terminology, out-of-print dictionaries, and conversations with locals. (“What is that?” “Well, it's not really a slough, not really, it's a bayou...”) He offers a highly original, cogent, compact, gracefully written narrative lexicon of landscape as word, concept, and path to discoveries. What Is Landscape? is an invitation to walk, to notice, to ask: to see a sandcastle with a pinwheel at the beach and think of Dutch windmills—icons of triumph, markers of territory won from the sea; to walk in the woods and be amused by the Elizabethans' misuse of the Latin silvaticus (people of the woods) to coin the word savages; to see in a suburban front lawn a representation of the meadow of a medieval freehold. Discovering landscape is good exercise for body and for mind. This book is an essential guide and companion to that exercise—to understanding, literally and figuratively, what landscape is.

Paul Shepheard explains how every architectural move that man makes is set in a landscape. He draws on examples of fortified settlements in Norman England that reflect occupation and the New World's grid-layout cities reflecting reason.

Is Landscape . . . ? surveys multiple and myriad definitions of landscape. Rather than seeking a singular or essential understanding of the term, the collection postulates that landscape might be better read in relation to its cognate terms across expanded disciplinary and professional fields. The publication pursues the potential of multiple provisional working definitions of landscape to both disturb and develop received understandings of landscape architecture. These definitions distinguish between landscape as representational medium, academic discipline, and professional identity. Beginning with an inquiry into the origins of the term itself, Is Landscape . . . .? features essays by a dozen leading voices shaping the contemporary reading of landscape as architecture and beyond.

The American landscape is astonishing in its diversity--from great global cities to sparsely inhabited plains, from rich wetlands to huge deserts, from mountain peaks to rolling fields of grain, from ancient pueblos to suburbia, from famous river valleys to old industrial heartlands, from backyards to city streets. Americans have lived intimately with these landscapes since before recorded history, and we continue today to think about, and sometimes even struggle over, what the land means, to whom it belongs, and whose hands will shape its appearance in the future. In this collection of specially commissioned essays, nineteen of America's leading writers, artists, and scholars come together to ponder the question "What is landscape?" Recognizing that no one person or discipline can possibly provide the whole answer, George Thompson has chosen a range of viewpoints that, in his words, "attempts to make links between art and science, history and geography, photography and literature, a land ethic and environmental design, management, and planning." Landscape in America is the first book to explore the idea of landscape and place in such a broad-ranging way. Designed for the uncommon "common reader," it offers a distinctively American perspective on what landscape is, what it means, and what it represents that will be compelling to the widest possible audience.

First published in 1986, Landscape Meanings and Values presents a major contribution to the debate concerning the relationship between theory and practice in landscape analysis and planning. It brings together a number of the most eminent researchers, commentators and practitioners from both the United States of America and Britain to pursue the fundamental meanings and values in landscape. The insights into the theory behind landscape management will force a fundamental rethink of the role of landscape architect and land management. Academic researchers will find the feedback from eminent practitioners a stimulation for more practical research. The collection of ideas in the last chapter provides a unique synthesis of the need for an expansion of study into the fundamental significance of landscape today. This book will be of value to students of geography, environmental studies, landscape architecture and land management.

Compiling nine authoritative essays spanning an extensive academic career, author Kenneth R. Olwig presents explorations in landscape geography and architecture from an environmental humanities perspective. With influences from art, literature, theatre staging, architecture, and garden design, landscape has come to be viewed as a form of spatial scenery, but this reading captures only a narrow representation of landscape meaning today. This book positions landscape as a concept shaped through the centuries, evolving from place to place to provide nuanced interpretations of landscape meaning. The essays are woven together to gather an international approach to understanding the past and present importance of landscape as place and polity, as designed space, as nature, and as an influential factor in the shaping of ideas in a just social and physical environment. Aimed at students, scholars, and researchers in landscape and beyond, this illustrated volume traces the idea of landscape from the ancient polis and theatre through to the present day.

The contemporary debate on landscape is no longer an exclusive idiolect; it has expanded into a relentless babel. The field is glutted with an ever-increasing number of articles, collective works and conventions. Once marginal, landscape has now become central, even essential to philosophy and geography. Its significance within sociological, anthropological and archaeological theories has also strengthened exponentially, making it the rising star of academia. This book acknowledges the importance of eco-theory to contemporary thought, exploring the limits of its study as well as the new horizons it opens up.

Climb a mountain and experience the landscape. Try to grasp its holistic nature. Do not climb alone, but with others and share your experience. Be sure the ways of seeing the landscape will be very different. We experience the landscape with all senses as a complex, dynamic and hierarchically structured whole. The landscape is tangible out there and simultaneously a mental reality. Several perspectives are obvious because of language, culture and background. Many disciplines developed to study the landscape focussing on specific interest groups and applications. Gradually the holistic way of seeing became lost. This book explores the different perspectives on the landscape in relation to its holistic nature. We start from its multiple linguistic meanings and a comprehensive overview of the development of landscape research from its geographical origins to the wide variety of today’s specialised disciplines and interest groups. Understanding the different perspectives on the landscapes and bringing them together is essential in transdisciplinary approaches where the landscape is the integrating concept.

Inspiring deep emotion, landscape carries many meanings. This book follows the development of several threads of the concept of landscape as they have evolved across disciplines and across countries, leading to the European Landscape Convention and the designation of cultural landscapes as World Heritage Sites. The book introduces the key notions of landscape, such as landscape as meaning, as picture, as scale, as scenery and as place. It also considers the various factors which influence the way in which landscape is perceived now and in the past, with all of the senses. Finally, it looks of the various ways of protecting, managing and enhancing the landscape, taking into account a future of climate change. Beautifully illustrated and including 'capsules' in each section which provide fascinating insights into subjects from reading pictures, to mapping and GIS, through a discussion of the range of types of landscape to issues such as eco-museums, this book provides an excellent introductory overview for any students with an interest in the landscape around us.