Melodramatic Landscapes: Urban Parks in the Nineteenth Century

摘要

Heath Schenker's highly readable comparative study of nineteenth-century parks in Paris, Mexico City, and New York brings together a wealth of information concerning why and how these parks were created. Schenker finds that in all three cities, plans for massive new parks were informed by notions of melodrama, with the landscape designed to communicate clear moral messages about social harmony and the benefits of contact with nature for the edification of the lower classes. Drawing on primary sources such as contemporary guidebooks and published memoirs written by park planners, together with a range of secondary material, Schenker constructs a convincing case for the reformist intentions of park planners and government officials.