Eden by Design: The 1930 Olmsted-Bartholomew Plan for the Los Angeles [Hardcover]

Greg Hise (Author), William Deverell (Author), Laurie Olin (Afterword)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0520224140 | ISBN-13: 978-0520224148 | Publication Date: February 28, 2000 | Edition: 1

In 1930 the Olmsted Brothers and Harland Bartholomew & Associates submitted a report, "Parks, Playgrounds, and Beaches for the Los Angeles Region," to the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. After a day or two of coverage in the newspapers, the report dropped from sight. The plan set out a system of parks and parkways, children's playgrounds, and public beaches. It is a model of ambitious, intelligent, sensitive planning commissioned at a time when land was available, if only the city planners had had the fortitude and vision to act on its recommendations.
"Parks, Playgrounds, and Beaches" has become a highly valued but difficult-to-find document. In this book, Greg Hise and William Deverell examine the reasons it was called for, analyze why it failed, and open a discussion about the future of urban public space. In addition to their introduction and a facsimile reproduction of the report, Eden by Design includes a dialogue between Hise, Deverell, and widely admired landscape architect Laurie Olin that illuminates the significance of the Olmsted-Bartholomew report and situates it in the history of American landscape planning.

Editorial Reviews

Review

" Magnificent in its breadth and daring, it is also bizarre and even worrisome in many of its details." -- LA Weekly

From the Inside Flap

"Eden by Design is a compelling and fascinating description of a possible Los Angeles that never came to be. Greg Hise and William Deverell have resurrected the Olmsted Brothers' 1930 plan for Los Angeles County, and then, in a wonderful introduction, put the plan in context so that to read it now is to see not only what seemed dangerous and possible in 1930 but also how and why one route to the present was chosen over others. In their hands, the plan acts like a ghost of Los Angeles, reminding us about a vanished past, lost possibilities, and the secrets that our present masks."--Richard White, author of The Organic Machine

"The Report is not only a vital document in the history of Los Angeles . . . but a lost classic of a neglected golden age of city planning and landscape architecture. . . . It embodies a truly regional perspective; an ecological perspective; a long-range vision; an integration of design with finance and administration; and a truly grand interpretation of public space. It deserves to be known to every serious student of the American planning tradition."--Robert Fishman, author of Bourgeois Utopias: The Rise and Fall of Suburbia

"An essential document for understanding the history of the West's largest city. Los Angeles had the opportunity to become an extraordinarily beautiful environment, a Paris in the desert. The editors make clear why, sadly, it did not; but also they hold out hope that portions of this brilliant but neglected plan might still be recovered."--Donald Worster, author of Nature's Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas

"A welcome addition to the literature of American urban planning history."--Roger Montgomery, Professor of Architecture Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 323 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (February 28, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520224140
• ISBN-13: 978-0520224148
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,791,245 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)