Ian McHarg and the Search for Ideal Order

Ian McHarg and the Search for Ideal Order looks at the well-known and studied landscape architect, Ian McHarg, in a new light. The author explores McHarg’s formative years, and investigates how his ideas developed in both their complexity and scale. As a precursor to McHarg’s approach in hisinfluential book Design with Nature, this book offers new interpretations into his search for environmental order and outlines how his struggle to understand humanity’s relationship to the environment in an era of rapid social and technological change reflects an ongoing challenge that landscape design has yet to fully resolve. This book will be of great interest to academics and researchers in landscape architectural history.

Introduction Part 1: Early Affinities 1. Experience and Education 2. Housing and the Humane City Part 2: The Place of Nature 3. Space, Time, and Being 4. First Principles 5. The House We Live In 6. The Ecology of the City 7. Toward a New Landscape Part 3: Implementing Order 8. City and Countryside 9. Natural Beauty 10. Health and Pathology 11. Fit, Fitting and Most Fit Part 4: The Patterns of Paradise 12. Pardisan

Kathleen John–Alder is Associate Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture at Rutgers University. A practicing landscape architect with degrees from Oberlin College, Rutgers University, and Yale School of Architecture, her scholarly research bridges disciplinary boundaries in order to explore the transformative role of ecology and environmentalism in the discourse of mid-twentieth century landscape design, and its impact upon contemporary practice. Kathleen has published articles in Landscape Journal, The Journal of Planning History, JOLA, Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes, Site/Lines, and Manifest. Her work has also received design and research awards from the Van Alan Institute, the National Park Service, and the American Society of Landscape Architects.