CONJECTURES

摘要

There is much talk about landscape-opinions about it are as ubiquitous as the medium that surrounds us. Less certain is the state of serious writing on its behalf. Landscape criticism is work. Its project is not a matter of effusive endorsement or dismissive judgment. Criticism takes into consideration both disciplinary and professional frameworks as well as larger cultural, political and aesthetic conditions of our time. Certainly landscape architecture has had its certain and confident voices. Frederick Law Olmsted is famous as a landscape architect, but was also a social critic. He was a keen observer and commentator on the land and the lifestyles it sponsored in books such as A Journey through Texas (1857) based on research commissioned by the New York Daily Times (now the New York Times).