Book description
Paula Deitz has delighted readers for more than thirty years with her
vivid descriptions of both famous and hidden landscapes. Her writings
allow readers to share in the experience of her extensive travels,
from the waterways of Britain's Castle Howard to the Japanese gardens
of Kyoto, and home again to New York City's Central Park. Collected
for the first time, the essays in Of Gardens record her great
adventure of continual discovery, not only of the artful beauty of
individual gardens but also of the intellectual and historical threads
that weave them into patterns of civilization, from the modest garden
for family subsistence to major urban developments. Deitz's essays
describe how people, over many centuries and in many lands, have
expressed their originality by devoting themselves to cultivation and conservation.
During a visit to the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden in Seal
Harbor, Maine, Deitz first came to appreciate the notion that
landscape architecture can be as intricately conceived as any major
structure and is, indeed, the means by which we redeem the natural
environment through design. Years later, as she wandered through the
gardens of Versailles, she realized that because gardens give
structure without confinement, they encourage a liberation of movement
and thought. In Of Gardens, we follow Deitz down paths of
revelation, viewing "A Bouquet of British Parks: Liverpool,
Edinburgh, and London"; the parks and promenades of Jerusalem;
the Moonlight Garden of the Taj Mahal; a Tuscan-style villa in
southern California; and the rooftop garden at Tokyo's Mori Center,
among many other sites.
Deitz covers individual landscape architects and designers,
including André Le Nôtre, Frederick Law Olmsted, Beatrix Farrand,
Russell Page, and Michael Van Valkenburgh. She then features an array
of parks, public places, and gardens before turning her attention to
the burgeoning business of flower shows. The volume concludes with a
memorable poetic epilogue entitled "A Winter Garden of Yellow."
"There aren't many garden books that can change your
perceptions so subtly but forcefully; this one belongs in the library
of every serious student of design"-New York Times
Paula Deitz is Editor of the Hudson Review. As a writer and cultural
critic in the fields of art, architecture, design, and landscape design,
she is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, The Architectural
Review, and Gardens Illustrated.
