ISBN 9780500342978

Oprawa: PLC (no jacket), Format: 25x25 cm, Stron: 352, With over 670 illustrations in colour and black and white, 2016 r., 

A masterful and hugely ambitious new interpretation of human intervention on the landscape, from ancient times to the present

In many ways the history of civilization is a history of our relationship with nature and landscape. Christophe Girot chronicles this intimate connection, drawing on all aspects of mankind’s creativity and ingenuity, and bringing together the key stories that have shaped our manmade landscapes. 

Starting from the need to clear land for cultivation and to enclose space for protection – the forest clearing and the walled garden – there emerges a vital and multifaceted narrative that describes our cultural relationship to, and dependence on, the landscape, right up to the present day. 

Organized chronologically, each chapter includes a thematic essay that ties together the central developments and a case study illustrated with specially commissioned photographs and meticulously detailed 3D re-creations showing the featured site in its original context.

Christophe Girot is Professor and Chair of Landscape Architecture, Department of Architecture, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich. His work has been widely published and exhibited including in ‘Groundswell’ in 2005, the first exhibition on Landscape Architecture at MoMA in New York, and the 2007 exhibition on European Landscape at Harvard.

Full Contents:

Course of Landscape Architecture Contents

Introduction
Imagining Nature as Landscape

1. Roots
On the origins of landscapes
Case study: Avebury

2. Hydraulic Civilizations
The geometry of water in landscapes
Case study: The Faiyum oasis

3. From Temenos to Physis 
Sacred landscapes in Greece
Case study: Delphi

4. Of villas and woods 
Roman and barbarian landscapes
Case study: Hadrian’s Villa

5. The rule of faith
Case study: Santa Maria de Poblet

6. Gardens of perspective 
Architectural landscapes in the renaissance 
Case study: Villa Lante

7. The measure of reason 
Case study: Vaux le Vicomte

8. Gravity
The constant of nature
Case study: Rousham

9. Combustion and the exotic 
Romantic landscapes as escape
Case study: Parc des Buttes-Chaumont

10. Acceleration 
222 landscapes of the twentieth century
Case study: Parc de la Villette

11. Terrain Vague
Case study: Prospect Cottage

12. Topology 
Rediscovering meaning in the landscape
Case study: Sigirino Mound

Afterword
Towards a cultural revolution of nature

    Notes 
    Bibliography 
    Acknowledgments 
    Sources of illustrations 
    Index