| A Quest for Life: An Autobiography Contributor(s): McHarg, Ian L. (Author) |
|
 |
ISBN: 0471086282 ISBN-13: 9780471086284 Publisher: Wiley OUR PRICE: $69.30 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: April 1996 Annotation: Early in A Quest for Life McHarg presents us with an arresting image. Describing the view from his boyhood home on the outskirts of Glasgow, he tells us that in one direction he could see the industrial miasma of smokestacks, tenements, and treeless streets, and, in another, the glories of the Scottish countryside. "I was born and bred", he writes, "on a fulcrum with two poles, city and countryside". Confronted with such a stark contrast, the man who was to become "the founder of ecological planning" began at an early age to turn literally from inhumane urban development and toward the beauty and power of Nature. Each chapter of this book illuminates key stages in McHarg's life and in the evolution of his environmental awareness. We see him as a youth standing on a hillside beside the impressive Donald Wintersgill who, with the wave of his cane, lays out an entire village complete with lakes and forests, and thus introduces the astonished McHarg to the profession of landscape architecture. In some of the bloodiest battles of the Second World War he witnesses the magnitude of human destructive capability. Later, when he faces a crisis of conscience over his religious training and its exhortation to gain dominion over life and subdue the earth, he begins to develop a deep spiritual appreciation for the sanctity of Nature itself. His training as a designer and planner in the Modernist Bauhaus tradition, with its neglect of the environment; his bouts with tuberculosis that showed him the link between public health and city planning; his famous "Man - The Planetary Disease" speech before powerful industrialists - all stand as emblematic of battles that are still being fought today. A Questfor Life also chronicles the many triumphs in McHarg's career. It offers fresh insight into the revolutionary design method behind his groundbreaking book, Design with Nature, and explores the development of geographical systems. We learn firsthand about his work on the celebrated regional plans for Denver and the Twin Cities, as well as the Woodlands new town project. His most enduring contribution, however, may prove to be his four decades of teaching at the University of Pennsylvania. Through the generations of landscape architects, designers, and planners he taught there, his influence has spread around the world and into the future. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Biography & Autobiography | Science & Technology |
| Dewey: B |
| LCCN: 95050489 |
| Series: Wiley Series in Sustainable Design |
| Physical Information: 0.96" H x 7.1" W x 10.06" (1.74 lbs) 448 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: "A fascinating account of the life and work of a visionary genius— the father of ecological planning" Ian McHarg has done more to advance the principles of environmentally responsible design and planning than anyone alive today. His landmark design and planning projects, including the Woodlands in Texas and regional plans for the Twin cities of Minnesota, Washington D.C., and Denver, set a high water mark for environmental planning yet to be surpassed. And, as chair of the University of Pennsylvania's world-renowned Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning for more than thirty years, he is responsible for producing many of the leading lights in landscape architecture and ecological planning. Now, in a book that will have broad appeal among landscape architects, architects, planners, and environmental scientists, as well as all readers interested in the history of environmentalism, Ian McHarg provides a fascinating insider's account of the development of the professions of landscape architecture and planning, and the growth of the environmental movement in America and around the world. Immensely readable— a lively, first-person account of McHarg's life and work, peppered with telling anecdotes about prominent figures in the design fields, business, and government Illustrates and explains the development of ecological planning— the revolutionary design method behind his bestselling book, "Design with Nature," and his award-winning projects IAN L. McHARG (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is the author of the international bestseller "Design With Nature" ("This century's most influential landscape architecture book." — Landscape Architecture). |