Ecological Aesthetics: Art in Environmental Design: Theory and Practice (Hardcover)

by Heike Strewlow (Editor), Herman Prigann (Editor), Vera David (Editor)
Key Phrases: landscape transformation, earth art, river ecosystem restoration, Herman Prigann, Integrative Landscape Art, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Ecological and artistic approaches to designing our environment raise important questions which have to be faced by all designers of urban spaces, gardens or landscape: whether to conserve or to intervene, to rely on natural order or apply man-made means and whether to lend nature a romantic or a technocratic appearance. Which approaches to design and artistic concepts are able to unite these seemingly contradictory poles to create sophisticated projects in harmony with nature? In this publication landscape architects, artists, philosophers, social scientists and natural scientists provide answers to these central questions in landscape design and environmental art. Amongst the 17 authors are Jacques Leenhardt (F), Massimo Venturi Ferriolo (I), Udo Weilacher (D), Malcom Miles (GB), Tim Collins (USA) and Jochen Boberg from the MD Berlin with whom this book is co-produced. This volume contains works by more than 50 international artists and landscape architects, among them the internationally renowned Herman Prigann, one of the most active landscape artists. His work is extensively presented here for the first time, and represents four decades of continuing commitment to artistic and ecologically oriented landscape design.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Birkhäuser Basel; 1 edition (March 19, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3764324244
• ISBN-13: 978-3764324247
• Product Dimensions: 12 x 9.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #468,454 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 30 years of ecological art with great essays & illustrations, May 2, 2005

By	Reader "Rufus" - See all my reviews

Landscapes leave their imprint on human beings. It's the basic intention of this book to make the reader understand landscape as a phenomenon situated between the two (seemingly) opposite poles of nature and culture and, to make us experience the necessity for a sustainable ecological preservation and development of nature through the intervention of art. This is evidenced by a multitude of examples with great illustrations, easy to grasp in the first chapters of the book and becoming increasingly complex and diverse thereafter, particularly in the last part which deals with integrative landscape art. As important and meaningful as the illustrations are the essays compiled in this book. In many respects they provide the fundament for understanding the various images and provide access to the ideas of ecological aesthetics. Although the book may primarily be directed towards artists, art and cultural scientists it is eventually a stimulus for reflexion and an aesthetic joy also for people who, like me, are not active in the art business.