Fletcher steele, landscape Architect: An account of the Gardenmaker’s life 1885-1971

Abstract

Our understanding of American landscape design in the modern era is curiously limited by a dearth ofserious and critical studies. Perhaps understandably, perhaps surprisingly, the primary texts which offer information about and insights into landscape architecture in this century have been written by the designers themselves. In contrast, the work of Frederick Law Olmsted has been abundantly documented and analysed in a continually evolving series of papers and volumes, and even his lesser near-contemporaries have started to receive scholarly attention. But to understand the first Modernist voices—Garrett Eckbo, Daniel Kiley and James C. Rose, and even the slightly senior Thomas D. Church—we must look to their own writings.