Places

About
Foundation
Partner Schools
Print Archive
Peer Review
Submissions
Donate
Contact


Departments

Audio
Essays
Fiction
Gallery
Interviews
Opinions
Partner News
Peer Reviewed
Poetry
Projects
Reviews
Video


Topics

Architecture
Art
Books
Branding
Business
Cities / Places
Community
Craft
Culture
Design History
Design Practice
Development
Disaster Relief
Ecology
Economy
Education
Energy
Environment
Film / Video
Food/Agriculture
Geography
Global / Local
Graphic Design
Health / Safety
History
Ideas
Illustration
Industry
Infrastructure
Internet / Blogs
Journalism
Landscape
Literature
Magazines
Media
Motion Design
Museums
Nature
Peace
Photography
Planning
Poetry
Politics / Policy
Popular Culture
Poverty
Preservation
Product Design
Public / Private
Public Art
Religion
Reputations
Science
Shelter
Social Enterprise
Sports
Sustainability
Technology
Theory/Criticism
Transportation
Urbanism
Water



Design Observer

Archive
Books + Store
Job Board
Email Archive
Comments
About
Contact
Log In
Register


Landscape


01.26.12: Michael Lundgren, Aaron Rothman & Josh Wallaert

If There Be Such Space
On Places, a slideshow drawn from a collaborative exhibition by two photographers who share an interest in the perception and representation of natural landscapes.
READ MORE

01.03.12: Michael P. Branch

The Hills Are Alive
On Places, Michael Branch reflects on how deeply photography and film shape our landscape aesthetics (and how much he detests the Alpine-worshipping The Sound of Music).
READ MORE

12.15.11: Kathleen Robbins & Mary Carol Miller

Cotton Farmers
On Places, photographer Kathleen Robbins and writer Mary Carol Miller focus on the cotton farms of their native Mississippi — a changing landscape and vanishing livelihood.
READ MORE

12.12.11: David Heymann

The Evil, Evil Grain Elevator
On Places, David Heymann continues his exploration of buildings and landscapes — and shows how even a building form as familiar as a grain elevator can come to seem evil.
READ MORE

12.05.11: David Heymann

A Mound in the Wood
On Places, David Heymann continues his exploration of the charged relationship between architecture and landscape.
READ MORE

11.28.11: David Heymann

Landscape Is Our Sex
On Places, David Heymann analyzes the logics — and illogics — of the idea that the relationship of a building to its landscape is — or should be — a key element of its design..
READ MORE

11.01.11: Phillip Lopate

Above Grade: On the High Line
On Places, writer Phillip Lopate traces the pre-history of the High Line, and ponders whether New York City's elevated park will be a victim of its own success.
READ MORE

10.20.11: Jason Griffiths

Manifest Destiny: A Guide to the Essential Indifference of American Suburban Housing
On Places, British architect Jason Griffiths offers a close reading of modern American suburbia, where mass production meets the myth of the arcadian frontier.
READ MORE

09.22.11: Laura Tepper

Road Ecology: Wildlife Habitat and Highway Design
On Places, Laura Tepper looks at the emerging field of road ecology and its influence on a new generation of highway landscape design.
READ MORE

09.20.11: Quilian Riano

Landscape Optimism: An Interview with Chris Reed
On Places, Quilian Riano interviews landscape architect Chris Reed, who describes the rise of landscape urbanism from an academic movement in the 1990s to an increasingly influential set of ideas and practices.
READ MORE

07.14.11: David T. Hanson

Colstrip, Montana
On Places, a photo essay by David T. Hanson, focusing on the massive coal mine at Colstrip, Montana, and the complicated nexus of energy politics and land use in the American West.
READ MORE

07.11.11: Mark Klett & Aaron Rothman

Views Across Time
On Places, an interview with photographer Mark Klett and a slideshow from his ongoing rephotography project, with views across time of the American West.
READ MORE

07.07.11: David Heymann

The Eastward-Moving House
On Places, David Heymann's "The Eastward-Moving House" — a continuation of the imaginative history of American home-building begun in J.B. Jackson's "The Westward-Moving House."
READ MORE

07.05.11: J.B. Jackson

The Westward-Moving House: Three American Houses and the People Who Lived in Them
On Places, a republication of J.B. Jackson's classic essay "The Westward-Moving House," which traces the evolution of the American house — the American dream — over three centuries and across the continent.
READ MORE

06.30.11: Ken McCown

Point of Astonishment
On Places, architect Ken McCown's photographic record of a New Zealand  journey — where the panoramic vistas and unpolluted atmosphere recall what the Western U.S. was like decades ago.
READ MORE

05.31.11: Martin Hogue

A Short History of the Campsite
On Places, Martin Hogue traces a history of the campsite, from early 20th-century wilderness camps to today's domesticated campgrounds, where the amenities include day spas and wi-fi.
READ MORE

03.31.11: Anuradha Mathur

Visualizing Landscapes: In the Terrain of Water
On Places, an exhibition on the visualization of water and landscape, from the Beaux Arts to the digital, curated by Anuradha Mathur.
READ MORE

03.23.11: Anne Pierson Wiese

Sutliff Bridge
On Places, a poem by Anne Pierson Wiese, Sutliff Bridge, inspired by the dramatic destruction of an historic Iowa bridge in the floods of 2008.
READ MORE

03.21.11: Kristi Dykema Cheramie

The Scale of Nature: Modeling the Mississippi River
On Places, Kristi Dykema Cheramie explores the ruins of the abandoned Mississippi River Basin Model and ponders the decades-long battle to control the great river. 

READ MORE

02.10.11: Brian Rosa & Adam Ryder

The Edge of Light: Wendover
On Places, photographs by Brian Rosa and Adam Ryder document the nighttime mysteries of Wendover, where military history, land-speed racing and the casino industry make for unexpected juxtapositions.
READ MORE

02.07.11: Brian Davis

The New Public Landscapes of Governors Island: An Interview with Adriaan Geuze
On Places, Brian Davis interviews landscape architect Adriaan Geuze of West 8 about his design for a major new public park on Governors Island in New York Harbor.
READ MORE

12.28.10: Ken McCown

Full of Beauties
On Places, photographs by Ken McCown, focusing on fragments of contemporary buildings and public art and on natural landscapes from California to New Zealand to Korea.
READ MORE

12.23.10: Jesus de Francisco

The Rings of Saturn
On Places, a portfolio of photographs of neglected landscapes, from Los Angeles to Berlin, by art director and photographer Jesus de Francisco.
READ MORE

12.13.10: David Heymann

Site, Ascendant
On Places, the last installment of David Heymann's series on the rising importance of landscape to architecture, seen in works by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, Peter Zumthor, OMA, Zaha Hadid, and others.
READ MORE

12.06.10: David Heymann

Nature-ization Takes Command
On Places, the second in a series of essays by David Heymann exploring the dynamic relationship of landscape and architecture, evident in works ranging from big civic projects by Norman Foster to small rural houses by Glenn Murcutt.
READ MORE

11.29.10: David Heymann

A Cloud on a Lake
On Places, architect David Heymann explores the charged relationship between buildings and landscapes in works as diverse as Diller Scofidio + Renfro's notorious Blur Building and Hiroshi Sugimoto's minimalist seascapes.
READ MORE

11.15.10: Thomas Fisher

Frederick Law Olmsted and the Campaign for Public Health
On Places, Tom Fisher explores a forgotten chapter in the illustrious career of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted: his brief but exemplary period as head of the U.S. Sanitary Commission.
READ MORE

11.04.10: Charles Waldheim

Notes Toward a History of Agrarian Urbanism
On Places, Charles Waldheim sketches a history of agriculture in cities, from Frank Lloyd Wright to ecological urbanism.
READ MORE

11.01.10: Mason White

The Productive Surface
On Places, Mason White traces a line from the Cité Industrielle to Buckminster Fuller to contemporary designers exploring the potential for built surfaces to produce agriculture, renewable energy, water harvesting, and more.
READ MORE

09.09.10: Elizabeth Mossop and Jeffrey Carney

In the Mississippi Delta: Building with Water
On Places, Elizabeth Mossop and Jeffrey Carney report on the work of the Coastal Sustainability Studio at Louisiana State University, which is proposing long-range solutions to the environmental and social challenges of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.
READ MORE

08.18.10: Martin Hogue

Land, Speed and Bonneville
On Places — coinciding with Speed Week at Bonneville — a gallery created by architect Martin Hogue documents decades of land speed racing on the Bonneville Salt Flats of western Utah.
READ MORE

06.29.10: Nicholas Pevzner and Sanjukta Sen

Preparing Ground: An Interview with Anuradha Mathur + Dilip da Cunha
On Places, an interview with landscape architects Anuradha Mathur and Dilip da Cunha, focusing on projects from the Mississippi to Mumbai.
READ MORE

06.14.10: Brian Davis, Julienne Schaer

Building Brooklyn Bridge Park: An Interview with Matthew Urbanski
On Places, landscape designer Brian Davis interviews Matthew Urbanski, principal of Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, about Brooklyn Bridge Park, a major new public park in New York City.
READ MORE

04.13.10: Tim Love

Paper Architecture, Emerging Urbanism
On Places, Tim Love explores the latest generation of paper architecture being created by under-employed designers — and argues that the current recession offers a real chance to align progressive theory with urban practice.
READ MORE

03.15.10: Frank Gohlke

Grain Elevators
On Places, a slideshow of photographs from Frank Gohlke's series on grain elevators in the American Midwest and Great Plains.
READ MORE

03.05.10: Ken McCown

Designed Landscapes
A portfolio of photographs of designed structures and landscapes — from La Jolla to Marfa, from Hadrian's Villa to Storm King — by landscape architecture professor Ken McCown.
READ MORE

03.01.10: Brian Rosa

Frank Gohlke: Thoughts on Landscape
On Places, Brian Rosa reviews Frank Gohlke's Thoughts on Landscape, a volume of collected writings which shows that this leading American photographer is as eloquent with words as with images.
READ MORE

03.01.10: Shana Lopes

New (and Old) Topographics
On Places, New (and Old) Topographics — selected photographs from the Center for Creative Photography that comprise a complementary exhibition to the current restaging of the groundbreaking 1975 show New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape.
READ MORE

02.03.10: Aaron Rothman

This Place is a Message
On Places, a portfolio of recent photographs of natural and built landscapes by Arizona-based artist and photographer Aaron Rothman.  
READ MORE

01.20.10: Christine Macy

Dams Across America
A gallery of images showing the construction of some great U.S. hydroelectric dams of the 1930s and '40s, including Hoover and Grand Coulee — something to contemplate as the current administration struggles to stimulate the economy and smarten the power grid.
READ MORE

10.30.09: Donlyn Lyndon

Lawrence Halprin, 1916 – 2009
Lawrence Halprin, one of the leading landscape architects of the postwar era, remembered by his longtime friend and colleague Donlyn Lyndon.
READ MORE

10.18.09: Ken McCown

Found Landscapes
A portfolio of photographs, with images ranging from the American West to Vatican City, by landscape architect Ken McCown.
READ MORE

09.18.09: Ian Baldwin

The Past Is Promenade
Architect Ian Baldwin contemplates the High Line and sees in New York's newest park a rare and valuable form of urban place: a slow corridor.
READ MORE

09.08.09: Mark Klett

Placing Memory
Photographer Mark Klett reviews Placing Memory, which juxtaposes contemporary color photos of abandoned Japanese-American internment camps, by photographer Todd Stewart, with government-commissioned period images, to haunting effect.
READ MORE

09.04.09: Andrew Blum

Metaphor Remediation: A New Ecology for the City
Cities are the new frontiers green living, and Andrew Blum argues that we need to revise the old metaphors: will Half Dome give way to the high-rise as the new emblem of environmentalism?
READ MORE

08.05.09: Nina-Marie Lister

Water/Front
Ecological planner Nina-Marie Lister explores innovative ways to regenerate urban waterfronts.
READ MORE

05.19.09: Curtis Hamilton & Cervin Robinson

Showing Us the Way It Was

READ MORE

12.15.08: Frederick Steiner

Reading Landscapes

READ MORE

01.15.05: Daniel S. Friedman

Campus Design as Critical Practice
How to turn a lackluster midwestern campus into an international cultural destination. 
READ MORE

07.01.00: Elizabeth Felicella

Portfolio: Uneasy Spaces
New York City photographer Elizabeth Felicella focuses on what she calls "landscape of security."
READ MORE

07.15.95: Thomas J. Campanella

Splendid China
A tour of Splendid China, the "world's largest miniature scenic spot.
READ MORE

07.15.83: Kathy Halbreich, William Porter and Lois Craig

An Interview with James Turrell
A 1983 interview with James Turrell, then beginning his transformation of the Roden Crater. The monumental work is scheduled to open to the public in 2012.
READ MORE

DESIGN OBSERVER JOBS