Invisible Gardens: The Search for Modernism in the American Landscape

Book Description

Invisible Gardens is a composite history of the individuals and firms that defined the field of landscape architecture in America from 1925 to 1975, a period that spawned a significant body of work combining social ideas of enduring value with landscapes and gardens that forged a modern aesthetic. The major protagonists include Thomas Church, Roberto Burle Marx, Isamu Noguchi, Luis Barragan, Daniel Urban Kiley, Stanley White, Hideo Sasaki, Ian McHarg, Lawrence Halprin, and Garrett Eckbo.

They were the pioneers of a new profession in America, the first to offer alternatives to the historic landscape and the park tradition, as well as to the suburban sprawl and other unplanned developments of twentieth-century cities and institutions. The work is described against the backdrop of the Great Depression, the Second World War, the postwar recovery, American corporate expansion, and the environmental revolution.

The authors look at unbuilt schemes as well as actual gardens, ranging from tiny backyards and play spaces to urban plazas and corporate villas. Some of the projects discussed already occupy a canonical position in modern landscape architecture; others deserve a similar place but are less well known. The result is a record of landscape architecture's cultural contribution - as distinctly different in history, intent, and procedure from its sister fields of architecture and planning - during the years when it was acquiring professional status and struggling to define a modernist aesthetic out of the startling changes in postwar America.

Erik Dhont: Gardens, Invisible Landscapes

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Erik Dhont: Gardens, Invisible Landscapes
Jean-Pierre Gabriel
Manufacturer: Exhibitions International
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 9055443778

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Making the Invisible Garden of Life Visible
Autobiographical and interesting....
A meditative delight
The Invisible Garden
Garden Writing from the Heart; a classic

The Invisible Garden
Dorothy Sucher
Manufacturer: Counterpoint
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1582431272

Book Description

A longtime city dweller and expert storyteller takes a fresh look at gardening in Vermont, tapping the connection between the mysteries of the earth and those of the human spirit.

"Delightful...There is an irresistible charm about her forthright revelations of eager expectations, disappointments and frustrations and occasional triumphs, known to gardeners ever since Adam first tilled the ground east of Eden."-Lee Pennock Huntington, Vermont Sunday Magazine

"Few commune so keenly with their landscape as Sucher, whose sense of place is bona fide and imaginative."-Kirkus Reviews

"Sucher is a consummate storyteller whose lively essays burst with love of the land and delighted wonder at the resilient bonds between plants and folks, making this a most inviting collection."-Publishers Weekly

With vividness and humor, Dorothy Sucher explores both her corner of Vermont and the many aspects of gardening-the satisfaction of shaping a landscape, the spirit of generosity in a land-based community, and the individuality expressed in a neighbor's flowerbeds. Like Under the Tuscan Sun and Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, The Invisible Garden is a narrative celebrating the sublimity of nature and the soul's inner reach.

Customer Reviews:

Making the Invisible Garden of Life Visible.......2007-02-12

What delightful moments "The Invisible Garden" by Dorothy Sucher presents to the reader. It's a memoir of a garden, no less, presented through the perceptions of the gardener.

This is a book for both gardeners and non-gardeners. Ms. Sucher shares the joys and frustrations of tending people as well as plants. As she fights brambles and weeds in the land, she negotiates the intricacies of memory and a variety of human relationships. This is a series of essays, actually, so this is a book to be enjoyed a piece at a time or, if time permits, indulged in with abandon -- like gorging on a box of chocolates.

The treat here, though, is how she illuminates her own growth through sketches of individuals who come into her (and her garden's) life. Her explorations of herself and the world of her garden continuously touch tender buds of awareness in the reader. Her style is direct and honest as she explores her expectations, frustrations, and failures crowned by the occasional triumph. This book should become a classic -- it's bound to be loved by everyone who stops to smell the flowers on the way through life.

Autobiographical and interesting...........2000-06-29

Dorothy Sucher is a therapist by trade, and a gardener by avocation. As I read her book, "The Invisible Garden" I had a sense that she would make a good friend. She seems to have an appreciation of human limitations and frailties, and probably lives up to the old axiom "A friend is someone who forgets your shortcomings." Well, maybe not where her husband is concerned, but what can a gardener do with a guy whose allergic to the great out-of-doors and can't tell a Dandelion from a lily.

Ms. Sucher's book is not so much about gardening as it's about coming to terms with a yourself. Sure, she cultivates the garden, But she also understands it's existence is as ephemeral as the life of it's author.

Each of us carries our own memories of past gardens. I will always be reminded of my parents garden in North Carolina when I see daffodils blooming in the spring. My folks grew thousands of daffodils. I don't think my father ever met a daffodil he didn't try to grow. And everytime I see a Brunnera I think of my mother, standing over the little blue flowers and saying, "What are these things? I can never remember their name!" We all laughed because it's colloquial name is "forget-me-not."

The invisible garden consists of the cumulative memories of gardens past that you carry in your heart.

A meditative delight.......1999-12-15

My bookclub has just finished reading this wonderful book. We all loved it; one member compared it to "Gifts from the Sea" with its evocation of quietude and solace. This is a book for gardeners, who will delight in the delicious insights Dorothy has as she hacks her way through the brambles beside her stream, as well as nongardeners, who will finally gain some insight into why gardeners delight in working the earth and transforming the landscapes outside ourselves into things of beauty. I found reading the essays enjoyable, humorous, and deeply satisfying. Each essay is easily read on its own, but together the book becomes a gardener's journal, a transcription of what goes on in a gardener's mind as she designs and transforms the land around her.

The Invisible Garden.......1999-11-30

This is an enchanting book, subtle in working on many levels to capture and to hold your attention. The theme, intertwining the impact on her life of some family and friends with various aspects of gardening life, works surprisingly well. The workmanship is fine, in many senses of that word; as in grading gems, or in the weave of a great tapestry. It is something that her grandfather, or her neighbor Tom--both craftsmen in their own right, and important in her life--would recognize and admire. The style is somewhere between early John McPhee in The New Yorker, and Bill Bryson's latest book of essays, "I'm A Stranger..", between straight autobiographical and first-person commentary. It comes off very well, and you put down the book with some insight into a complex person still exploring herself and the world around her. The insight reflects into our own life, giving pause for reflection and reevaluation of important things we might have slighted in passing. Her sketches of the individuals she chooses to illuminate aspects of her own growth are simultaneously detached and loving. The chapter on her physicist husband's encounter with flowers shows the tender exasperation that any non-scientist wife of a scientist would instantly recognize. The vividness of a flashback to her grandfather's youth, spanning more than a century, pays a debt to his memory while showing us the unbroken chain of generations. So, too, the balance in "The Pond" chapter on her mother; and the nostalgia in the chapter on "Little Houses" grips each of us and thrusts us back to our childhood, where "-all the polyurethane of life-" can not intrude. A wonderful book, well worth reading.

November 29, 1999

Garden Writing from the Heart; a classic.......1999-11-09

It's not often that I read a book in one sitting, putting off the day's work until I absorbed every bit of the wisdom and truth in Sucher's book. Not a how-to, not a memoir, but a little of both. I recommend this little jewel to all who have gardened , who will garden or who are wondering "why start"?

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Daring writing sets this book apart
Killing the messenger doesn't help this book
Not Afraid of Choices
Beauty is as beauty does
As dull as watching paint dry

Invisible Gardens
Julie Shigekuni
Manufacturer: Thomas Dunne Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0312311834

Book Description

The long-awaited follow-up to the acclaimed A Bridge Between Us and a finely crafted novel for readers of Kathryn Harrison and Chang-rae Lee, Invisible Gardens is a beautiful, haunting story of a year in the life of Lily Soto, a young Japanese- American academic who finds herself in the throes of an early midlife crisis in suburban New Mexico, where she lives with her husband and two young children. An extended stay by Lily's aging father brings back painful memories of her mother-and amplifies how their strained relationship has become a legacy in Lily's perfectly constructed, but pain-fully flawed life. As Lily struggles, a male colleague asserts himself into her life and forces her to examine her most intimate relationships.

Customer Reviews:

Daring writing sets this book apart.......2004-03-05

I read this book as a member of a reading group and after taking a look at Amazon's website to see what other readers had to say, I have to say that I am shocked by some of the negative remarks. I think Invisible Gardens is the perfect title for this book. It's about the lives people live under the surface, in places you can't necessarily see, and I loved it for the author's willingness to steer away from stereotypes of Asian women, and also to throw some of those stereotypes right back in the face of people who'd like to make Asian women into compliant or unwitting objects. Clearly this book makes some people uncomfortable, but I'm glad that Julie Shigekuni takes risks in her portrayal of Lily as an Asian American woman. I think those risks pay off in some risky and very beautiful writing.

Killing the messenger doesn't help this book.......2004-02-28

The novel, on the surface, is just silly. An etherial, allegorical story begins this book; in a few italicized paragraphs a woman watches a coyote catch a swan, and drag the beautiful bird away, her neck clutched in his fierce jaws. In fact, it is the swan that is deadly and it is the coyote trickster that dies on page 2. The rest of the novel is the swan enumerating excuses for killing the coyote.

Human being (a term used loosely) Soto is not a model mother or lover in this novel, that meanders through the life of a straw woman, a fallacy constructed to distract the reader from what the swan is up to. Set in a university environment, the message appears to be "if the protagonist is smart enough, it's okay to behave this way." Avatars of the swan have submitted glowing reviews, and they attack nay-sayers at will but without accuracy.

This story is literally deadly dull to read.

Not Afraid of Choices.......2004-02-21

I'm surprised that none of the reviewers on this site have mentioned what is truly remarkable about this book, which is that the protagonist, Lily Soto is a full fledged character who makes her own reality. Unlike conventional heroines who you are asked to sympathize with because they are victims, Lily chooses her path. She's a successful woman with a career, a family and a marriage that many would see as enviable, yet she enters into an affair. Obviously, readers are threatened by this character and the author's bravado in creating her! But I think it's about time someone came up with a character you can sink your teeth into.

My guess from reading the angry reviews is that some people are too scared to really read this book and take it on for what it's doing, which is pretty brilliant when you think about it.

Beauty is as beauty does.......2004-02-19

Any beauty in this novel is only skin deep. It is disturbing, distorted, and decidedly disingenuous. Unhappy people make silly and/or stupid choices throughout. These things don't amount to an engaging story, they add up to an avatar protagonist with an agenda.

Put bluntly, the book stinks.

As dull as watching paint dry.......2004-01-30

I read this academic mumbo-jumbo passing as Literature, and thought it was awful. Leaves a bad taste in your mouth. "Epigone" comes to mind as a way to compare this work to the works of other contemporary Asian authors.

Invisible Marijuana and Psychedelic Mushroom Gardens

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Great bathroom reading
all in all, a worthwhile book
Excellent
This is the funniest underground book I've ever read!
Invisible Gardens is both scholarly and pugilistic!

Invisible Marijuana and Psychedelic Mushroom Gardens
Robert Bunch
Manufacturer: Loompanics Unlimited
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Customer Reviews:

Great bathroom reading.......2002-04-16

If you ever wanted to grow your own treez or mushrooms, this is the book for you. Put it in the bathroom and read it when you have some time - worked for me!

all in all, a worthwhile book.......2001-06-20

I only want to touch a little bit on what this fine book has to say about growing mushrooms, which is surprisingly little; out of 21 chapters, only one is about growing shrooms, the rest are for growing weed. The cultivation techniques are simple and effective, but taken nearly verbatim from...., which in turn was an adaptation of the techniques by Oss and Oeric in the Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide, I believe. Buy this book if growing shrooms is an afterthought to lessening your chances of being caught growing marijuana, for that is where the author earns your money. Mr. Bunch is obviously knowledgeable about growing high-quality, clandestine weed, and is also very fun to read, but unfortunately he is little more than a novice mycologist. I highly recommend this book to anyone intending to cultivate marijuana, but for those intending to grow psilocybe mushrooms, I must refer you to the Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide and the Mushroom Cultivator, by Stamets and Chilton.

Excellent.......1999-06-28

This is a brilliant very informative book ,it is set out in such a way that it is very easy to read and follow the techniques used.It explains how to grow marijuana and mushrooms and other more interesting information very well with everything you need to know.This is definately the best book i have read on how to grow mushrooms ever guarenteed, as all of the other books i have read on this subject have been to confusing to follow or not informative enough and therefore this is the only book on that subject alone with the marajuana growing also as good.

This is the funniest underground book I've ever read!.......1999-03-31

Many other pros in the marijuana horticulture writing field have described in detail the simplistics of growing, but Robert Bunch does so in a off-the-cuff fashion like I've never seen before.

The psychedelic-splashed book starts with a dedication that sent me to the floor in fits, "I would like to dedicate this book to Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey, Attorney General Janet Reno, Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, our lying President Willie Clinton, the DEA and all of the other pieces of sh*t hypocrites out there I might have missed. When one of your family members suffers needlessly because of the ludicrous laws you create and enforce, you will then know the pain that caused me to write this book."

It only gets better from this point. He finishes the tribute to all prohibitionists, "May your ignorance and intolerance be rewarded tenfold."

Borrow, buy, or steal this book! It's a funny look at a really serious topic.

Invisible Gardens is both scholarly and pugilistic!.......1999-03-29

"Marijuana prohibition has ruined countless productive lives, clogged our justice system, overcrowded prisons and wasted countless taxpayer dollars. The purpose of this book is to foil the efforts of the authorities by using my method of gardening," writes Robert Bunch.

And what a method it is. Whether or not you use the author's tips for keeping marijuana and mushrooms covert, this book is extremely entertaining. With wit and humor, Bunch relates where to put your stash in the backyard, treetops, house, auto, or airport, how to grow a mushroom garden, and even how to adopt a puppy and train him to be your drug-sniffing co-conspirator. The final chapter is a cookbook-Tres Trip Dip, Soup a la Psilocybin, and so on. Packed with anecdotes and hundreds of inventive tips, this oversized volume is the perfect gift for any friend who is sick and tired of the drug war.

Book Description

This volume of the Documentary History of the Jews in Italy is the first of the second series, illustrating the history of the Jews in Sicily based on notarial and court records. It is the sequel to the eight volumes of the first series. Notarial deeds drawn up by public notaries in Palermo and elsewhere and cases brought before the Pretorian Court in Palermo present a kaleidoscopic picture of the private lives of the Jews of Sicily during the last three centuries of their presence on the island. They illustrate the economic, social, and religious history of the Jewish minority and the relations with the Christian majority. Much information is provided on trade and commerce, crafts and professions, religious and family life. Some light is thrown also on the internal life of the communities, particularly the larger ones, including organization and institutions, the synagogue, education, customs and traditions.

Book Description

This volume in the series Documentary History of the Jews in Italy illustrates the history of the Jews in Sicily for most of the fourteenth century. It is the sequel to the first volume on the history of the Jews in Sicily, and illustrates the events of the first century of Aragonese rule over the island. During that period, often unsettled by political upheavals, the Jewish minority flourished economically, but suffered, along with the rest of the population, during civil war and uprisings of the barons. Some thousand documents, many of them published here for the first time, record the fortunes of the Jews and their relationships with the authorities and their Christian neighbours. Much new information has come to light, and many facets of Jewish life in Sicily have been uncovered.

The Jews in Sicily, 5: 1440-1457 (Studia Post-Biblica)

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The Jews in Sicily, 5: 1440-1457 (Studia Post-Biblica)
Shlomo Simonsogn
Manufacturer: Brill Academic Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 9004131302

Book Description

This volume in the series Documentary History of the Jews in Italy illustrates the history of the Jews in Sicily from 1440 to 1457. It is the sequel to the first four volumes and covers the events during the second half of the rule of King Alphonso the Magnanimous. The King continued to take a personal interest in the affairs of the Jewish communities, but abolished the office of dienchelele, chief justice. Instead, the Jewish communities were again governed by their local leaders, lay and spiritual. During that period the Jewish minority of Sicily continued to flourish economically and socially, although the first ominous signs of change began to appear. Some 800 documents, many of them published here for the first time, record the fortunes of the Jews and their relationships with the authorities and their Christian neighbours. Much new information has come to light, and many facets of Jewish life in Sicily have been uncovered.

Product Description

This volume in the series Documentary History of the Jews in Italy illustrates the history of the Jews in Sicily from 1478 to 1489. It is the sequel to the first six volumes and covers the events during the first years of the rule of King Ferdinand II. These include the prelude to the expulsion, which witnessed a further deterioration in the position of the Jews on the island. At the same time, the Jewish community on the island reached the points of its greatest expansion in population as well as economic prosperity. Some 900 documents--many of them published here for the first time--record the fortunes of the Jews and their relationship with the authorities and their Christian neighbours. Much new information has come to light, and many facets of Jewish life in Sicily have been uncovered.

The abundance of historical records in the archives of the Crown and of local authorities again compares favourably with the relative scarcity of surviving documentation in earlier centuries. Therefore, many documents had to be reported in summary form. The volume is provided with additional bibliography and indexes, while the introduction will appear at the end of the series on the history of the Jews of the island.

The Jews in Sicily, Vol. 8: 1490-1497 (Studia Post-Biblica)

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The Jews in Sicily, Vol. 8: 1490-1497 (Studia Post-Biblica)

Manufacturer: Brill Academic Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 9004152830

Product Description

This volume in the series Documentary History of the Jews in Italy illustrates the history of the Jews in Sicily from 1490 to 1497. It is the sequel to the first seven volumes and covers the events during the rule of the Catholic Kings Ferdinand and Isabella, following the unification of Spain. They cover the last years leading up to the expulsion, the expulsion itself, and a few events in its aftermath. A further deterioration in the position of the Jews took place in those last years of their presence on Sicily. Numerically the Jewish community on the island reached its zenith, accompanied by economic prosperity. Nearly a thousand documents, many of them published here for the first time, record the fortunes of the Jews. Again, much new information has come to light, and many facets of Jewish life in Sicily have been uncovered. The abundance of historical records in the archives of the Crown and of local authorities again compares favorably with the relative scarcity of surviving documentation in earlier centuries. Therefore, many documents had to be reported in summary form. The volume is provided with additional bibliography and indexes, while the introduction will appear at the end of the series.

This is the last volume of the The Jews in Sicily based mainly on governmental sources, to be followed by additional volumes containing records culled from notarial deeds.

The Jews in Sicily: 1392-1414 (Studia Post-Biblica)

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The Jews in Sicily: 1392-1414 (Studia Post-Biblica)
Shlomo Simonsohn
Manufacturer: Brill Academic Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 9004121684

Book Description

This volume in the series Documentary History of the Jews in Italy illustrates the history of the Jews in Sicily during the last decade of the fourteenth century and the first two of the fifteenth. It is the sequel to the first and second volumes on the history of the Jews in Sicily, and illustrates the events during the political upheavals which preceded the reunion of the island with Aragon. During that period the Jewish minority of flourished, although affected by unsettled political conditions, along with the rest of the population. Over 500 documents, many of them published here for the first time, record the fortunes of the Jews and their relationships with the authorities, especially the two Martins, and their Christian neighbours. Much new information has come to light, and many facets of Jewish life in Sicily have been uncovered.

Book Description

This volume in the series Documentary History of the Jews in Italy illustrates the history of the Jews in Sicily from 1415 to 1439. It is the sequel to the first three volumes and covers the events during the first half of the rule of King Alphonso the Magnanimous. The King took a personal interest in the affairs of the Jewish communities and exercised his authority through master Moyse Bonavogla, his personal physician, whom he appointed dienchelele, chief justice. During that period the Jewish minority of the island flourished economically and socially. Some 700 documents, many of them published here for the first time, record the fortunes of the Jews and their relationships with the authorities and their Christian neighbours. Much new information has come to light, and many facets of Jewish life in Sicily have been uncovered.

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