On landscapes

Herrington (landscape architecture and environmental design, U. of British Columbia; she´s also a practitioner in the US) examines the ethical and esthetic values of societies that seek to alter the natural environment. She notes that many scholars of many disciplines have sought to explain the aesthetics behind painting or music but have largely ignored the planned landscape as an art form. She also reveals the enormous amount of thought, theoretical as well as practical, that has shaped our landscapes, and shows how newly-planned landscapes are addressing the challenges of our industrial past and post-industrial future. The gardens and landscapes serving as examples are well-chosen, and Herrington clearly and carefully represents the process of reflection it takes to combine memory, nature and art.