Landscape and Infrastructure

Landscape and Infrastructure examines the relationships between landscape painting and landscape design from the seventeenth century to the present, and contemporary infrastructure projects around the globe.

These seemingly disparate subjects are united by a shared concern for the pastoral middle ground; a traditionally productive landscape. By focusing an art-historical lens on pre-industrial productive systems and the effects of the Industrial Revolution on the pastoral landscape tradition, we can gain a better understanding of how to weave new approaches to productive infrastructure systems (such as power generation, water filtration and food production) into our contemporary landscapes. With rising demand for clean energy, clean water, and locally-grown food, this study offers a historical perspective on how such systems can be integrated into our suburban and urban areas. Vestigial elements of the pastoral tradition have long held aesthetic sway in our suburbs, cities and national parks, both in Britain and America. Now, as new energy and water related projects encroach on these spaces, remnants of the pastoral play a crucial role in convincing neighborhood residents, municipal leaders, and energy companies or water authorities of the benefits of a neighboring infrastructure.

This book investigates the history of that tradition and highlights the advantages it brings as we re-imagine infrastructure in the twenty-first century.

Autorentext

Margaret Birney Vickery is Lecturer in History of Art and Architecture at Amherst College, University of Massachusetts.

Inhalt

**Introduction

Part One*

• Chapter One
  Shifting Views of Infrastructure: Representations of Infrastructure from the 17th to the 19th Century

Chapter Two
Inspired Form or Degrading Blight: Infrastructure in the 20th Century
Part Two

Chapter Three
Questioning the Dichotomy: Michael Singer, William McDonough and a Re-examination of Infrastructure

Chapter Four
Infrastructure Transformed: Nature, Community and Infrastructure Systems in the 21st Century

Conclusion

Bibliography
Index