Publisher: Architectura & Natura 2018 Author: Various ISBN: 9789461400611 Format: Paperback, 432pp, 240x170mm

Hidden Landscapes develops gardens into a new typology of metropolitan landscape architecture and shows how small scale public spaces become important alternatives in a worldwide process of urbanisation. The enclosed garden encloses the horizon.

Authored by Saskia de Wit, this book examines the enclosed garden as an expression of the ‘genius loci’. How can this can be made accessible in the contemporary metropolitan landscape? Included are analyses of the spatial, sensorial, and narrative craft patterns of metropolitan gardens ranging from traditional Japanese masterpieces to contemporary European landscape architecture.

The metropolitan garden, as a defined space in the continuous metropolitan field, provides an alternative way to access the landscape horizon, references to nature, and connections to the underlying landscape, providing a new perspective on two quintessential themes: nature and place.

This book offers possibilities to experience (smaller) rest spaces on the scale of human and physical perception. The garden is the classical example in making a landscape expressive and can structure urban conditions at the same time. With six prototypes: The Tofuku-ji Hojo gardens in Kyoto (1938), St. Catherine's College Quadrangle in Oxford (1959), Paley Park in Manhattan (1967), de Reflection Garden, Seattle (1979), the Jardin de Crazannes Garden and Jardin des Oiseaux, along the motorway in France (1993), and the Wasserkrater garden in Bad Oeynhausen in Germany (1997).

This book is the elaborated and edited version of Saskia de Wit's PhD thesis.