Reading the American landscape

This book presents the personal views of 25 landscape architects, urban designers, visual artists, photographers and commentators on the American landscape. The Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture (Fonds BKVB) invited this creative group to join a journey through the USA entitled 'Power of Place', in order to study the history, development and transformations of the landscape there. This study involved three scales: the city park as a social and multicultural space in the densely developed city, the landscape on the periphery of advancing urbanization, and the large-scale rural environs as an exercise in conservation, stewardship and design. An important guideline for this expedition was a selective bibliography that unlocks many aspects of the American landscape in relation to complementary themes such as memory and identity, suburbia and wilderness, park and garden, and planning and design.