Lucius Burckhardt (1925-2003) taught architectural theory at Kassel University and, in the 1980s, coined the term "Promenadology" or the science of Strollology and developed this into a complex and far-sighted planning and design discipline. Given that "the landscape" as an idea only exists in our heads, Burckhardt's writings (and drawings) are not so much concerned with beautiful vistas, but focus instead on the multi-faceted interaction a simple walk-taker has with his environment. To those who observe the environment with their eyes wide open, interesting questions will arise again and again; for example, why "city" and "country" can no longer be separated so easily in the face of progressive urbanization. Or why we consider a viaduct to be beautiful, but a nuclear power station an intrusion. And also, why gardens are works of art and should therefore be appraised as such. This book contains 28 texts by the design and planning critic, for the first time in English, with the focus on landscapes, gardens as an art form and the science of strollology.

"Many painters enjoy working outdoors when the weather is good (and they need to know how to deal with it when the weather changes)! This book includes the best instruction on the special challenges of painting landscapes outdoors from a variety of the best plein-air artists working today in all major media-oil, pastel, watercolor, acrylic and gouache. - Materials, site selection and practical tips - Values, shapes, composition, color and elements of landscape painting - Bringing outdoor studies back into the studio - Complete start-to-finish demonstrations - Hundreds of gorgeous images"--

"A guide to designing and planting gardens comprising vegetables, fruits, edible flowers, and ornamentals. Illustrated with color photography"--Provided by publisher.

Growing a Beautiful Garden is a full-color gardening guide for the unique growing conditions found along the North and South Carolina coasts. This guidebook shows how to choose and grow plants that will not only survive the extreme summer heat and acidic soil of the coastal environment but thrive and remain attractive year-round. Noted plantsman Henry Rehder, Jr., begins with chapters on installation, fertilization, and weed and pest control, then offers a month-by-month maintenance guide for over 100 ornamental shrubs, trees, perennials, and lawn grasses.

Includes photographs by Annie Griffiths and other National Geographic photographers.

Plant selection and garden style are deeply influenced by where we are gardening. To successfully grow a range of beautiful ornamental plants, every gardener has to know the specifics of the region’s climate, soil, and geography. Growing the Southwest Garden, by New Mexico-based garden designer Judith Phillips, is a practical and beautiful handbook for ornamental gardening in a region known for its low rainfall and high temperatures. With more than thirty years of experience gardening in the Southwest, Phillips has created an essential guide, featuring regionally specific advice on zones, microclimates, soil, pests, and maintenance. Profiles of the best plants for the region include complete information on growth and care.

Beautiful China is the title of the Chinese government's broad policy to ensure the traditions and esthetics of Chinese culture not only survive as heritage but apply to contemporary society and to the future. Beautiful China is also nested within the larger policy concept of creating an "ecological civilization." Applied to a nation of over 1.3 billion people and the second most powerful economy in the world, these policies are arguably the most fascinating socio-political experiment taking place anywhere in the world today. This book is the first serious consideration of this policy and what it means for the design professions in contemporary China.

“Delve into this beautiful book. You’ll come away sharing his passion for the beauty that gardens bring into our lives.” —Sigourney Weaver, environmentalist, actor, trustee of New York Botanical Garden How does an individual garden relate to the larger landscape? How does it connect to the natural and cultural environment? Does it evoke a sense of place? In Spirit of Place, Bill Noble—a lifelong gardener, and the former director of preservation for the Garden Conservancy—helps gardeners answer these questions by sharing how they influenced the creation of his garden in Vermont. Throughout, Noble reveals that a garden is never created in a vacuum but is rather the outcome of an individual’s personal vision combined with historical and cultural forces. Sumptuously illustrated, this thoughtful look at the process of garden-making shares insights gleaned over a long career that will inspire you to create a garden rich in context, personal vision, and spirit.

An astounding novel from Argentina that is a meditation on the beautiful and the grotesque in nature, the art of landscape painting, and one experience in a man's life that became a lightning rod for inspiration. An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter is the story of a moment in the life of the German artist Johan Moritz Rugendas (1802-1858). Greatly admired as a master landscape painter, he was advised by Alexander von Humboldt to travel West from Europe to record the spectacular landscapes of Chile, Argentina, and Mexico. Rugendas did in fact become one of the best of the nineteenth-century European painters to venture into Latin America. However this is not a biography of Rugendas. This work of fiction weaves an almost surreal history around the secret objective behind Rugendas' trips to America: to visit Argentina in order to achieve in art the "physiognomic totality" of von Humboldt's scientific vision of the whole. Rugendas is convinced that only in the mysterious vastness of the immense plains will he find true inspiration. A brief and dramatic visit to Mendosa gives him the chance to fulfill his dream. From there he travels straight out onto the pampas, praying for that impossible moment, which would come only at an immense pricean almost monstrously exorbitant price that would ultimately challenge his drawing and force him to create a new way of making art. A strange episode that he could not avoid absorbing savagely into his own body interrupts the trip and irreversibly and explosively marks him for life.