Taking Measures Across the American Landscape - Softcover

Corner, James

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0300086962 ISBN 13: 9780300086966

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2000

Synopsis

Only in the past century have Americans been able to see their country from the air, to view its majestic natural and manmade topography and muse how it came to look the way it does. Landscape architect James Corner and aerial photographer Alex MacLean now present breathtaking photographs, exquisite map-drawings, and thoughtful essays that record their flights across the continental United States and express their growing understanding of the way the American landscape has been forged by various cultures in the past and what the possibilities are for its future design. The book traces the influence on the American landscape of the Anasazi and the Hopi in the southwest, the French along the Mississippi, the British in the east, the pioneer Americans across the plains, and the technological society across much of modern-day America. It investigates the ways in which landscape representation-particularly aerial vision-not only reflects a given reality but also constitutes a way of seeing and acting in the world. It discusses the many meanings of measure-from practical (such as solar furnaces in California) to poetic (such as raised tablets in Illinois that once formed the structure of an ancient city). And it suggests alternative possibilities for planning and taking future measures in our environment, building upon examples that range from the rectilinear survey landscape to the great transportation networks and such technological innovations as windmill fields, pivot-irrigation systems, and radio-telescope installations.

About this title

Review:

"A remarkable and beautiful album. Aerial photographs are hardly ever inspiring, but these sing. They illuminate the vastness of a continent and its different cultures. There's a thoughtful, politically important commentary by the landscape architect James Corner." -- Tim Hilton, Independent on Sunday

From the Publisher:

Winner of the 1997 American Institute of Architects Book of the Year Award Winner of the American Society of Landscape Architects Award in the Communications category

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0300086962
• ISBN 13: 9780300086966
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 185