History of Gardens and Public Landscapes, 1600 to 1900

GSD 4317 covers the formal/cultural history and theoretical underpinnings of modern gardens and public landscapes. Beginning in early modern Europe, the course moves from English rural estates to nineteenth-century urban parks in Europe and North America. This private/public evolution involves shifts within amateur and professional \’landscape gardening\’ and the emergence of professional landscape architecture by 1900. The multi-disciplinary origins of modern landscape architecture — crossing borders with architecture and urban planning — are examined in a variety of contexts that include the following: – The rise of technology, social reform, and ecological concerns during industrialization and urbanization- The emergence of ideologies of nature, from the Picturesque to the \’Wild Garden\’ and \’Prairie Style\’ – The development of historicism, landscape preservation, and the National Parks as land conservation – The roots of professional practice and the increasing role of women in the landscape profession- The rise of modern planting design and color theory as challenges for Modernism- The new contexts for Modernism between WWI and WWII – The changing attitudes to modernity that came from increased mobility and international and regional agendas. Landscape design is analyzed through the methodologies of art history, geography, social and urban history, horticulture and ecology, and studies in land-management. As in GSD 4109, the new historiography presented is characterized by an increasing interest in interdisciplinary research. Professor Laird\’s involvement in multi-disciplinary books (from Empire\’s Nature, 1998, to Gardens in the Age of Empire: 1800-1920, 2009) makes his lectures rewarding for students from varied backgrounds.