Overlook
Subtitle: Exploring the Internal Fringes of America with the Center for Land Use Interpretation
Contributors: Ralph Rugoff (Foreword); Matthew Coolidge (Editor); Sarah Simons (Editor)
Publisher: Metropolis Books; Available through D.A.P.
Published: July 1, 2006
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 264
ISBN-13: 9781933045337
Subjects: The Arts: General Issues; Miscellanea; Description And Travel; Social Science; Architecture; Sociology; Public, Commercial, or Industrial Buildings; Landscape; Architecture / Planning; Human Geography; Land use; Landscape architecture; United States
Description: "A town at the bottom of a reservoir. A covert military installation. A downsized Olestra plant. Sites like these rarely appear on street maps. But they are windows into the American psyche, landmarks that manifest the rich ambiguities of the nation's cultural history." "The Center for Land Use Interpretation draws us into such places, serving as a kind of curator of the American landscape, and a tour guide, helping people understand this vast and complex country."

"Here, drawing on more than a decade of work, the Center for Land Use Interpretation reflects on how the nation's lands have been parceled out, put to use, and understood. Seeking out "the unusual and the exemplary," it takes us through ghost towns and show caves, past soap and shoelace factories, to open pit mines, casinos, landfills and art installations. We see the dry lakes where atomic bombs were tested and the ersatz villages where rescue workers train for toxic spills and other disasters."

"The Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore may loom large in the American imagination and draw the crowds. But the unsung places like those chronicled in Overlook have at least as much to say about American society, if not more. This, after all, is the America where we live."--Jacket.