Public Nature: Scenery, History, and Park Design
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Published: May 06, 2013
Language: eng
Number of pages: 320
ISBN-13: 9780813933436
Description: This diverse new collection of essays, written by scholars, practitioners, and public-land managers, considers the history of public park design, as well as the parks themselves as repositories of cultural values. In exploring the role design has played in these public spaces, the contributors look not only at noticeably planned, often urban, landscapes such as Central Park or Boston's Back Bay Fens but also at parks such as Yosemite with naturally occurring scenic qualities, which require less development. The essays present design as encompassing not simply a park's appearance--its buildings and landscape features--but also its functions, how it delivers a culturally significant experience to visitors. Much park design has been fed into or organized by systems promoting preservation (the National Park Service being only the most obvious example), and many of this book's contributors stress park design's relationship to preservation, as Americans have become aware of a natural heritage they identify with strongly and want to experience. Other essays treat such engaging topics as European influences on early American parks, the peculiar nature of U.S. regional parks, the effect of the automobile on the outdoor recreational experience, and--in an international context--parks and national identity.