Urban Landscape Design
Published 1964
By Garrett Eckbo
McGraw Hill Book Company

About the Book

[from the book jacket] "Here is a stimulating analysis of what must be done to achieve sound and meaningful urban landscape design. This book defines landscape quality, the processes which produce it, and those which can be used to improve it. The book considers general design processes as they are applied today to specific projects. Combining enlightened imagination with down-to-earth practicality, the author demonstrates that the quality of the physical landscape need not be shoddy, mediocre, or sterile. With the aid of actual case studies, and abundant illustrations, he shows you how a beautiful and functional landscape can be achieved by artistic and timely design."

About the Author

A native of Alameda, California, Garrett Eckbo entered the Department of Landscape Architecture at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design in 1936. Eckbo pursued architecture classes with Walter Gropius and began to define his Modernist theory based on a multidisciplinary design approach, with landscape design as a vehicle for social change. Eckbo's significant design contributions include a prototypical housing project for the U.S. Housing Authority, migrant-worker camps for the Farm Security Administration, and the formation of Eckbo, Dean, Austin and Williams (EDAW). Eckbo served as the head of the Department of Landscape Architecture at Berkeley from 1969 to 1975 and received the Medal of Honor from the American Society of Landscape Architects in 1975.