Greening the City: Urban Landscapes in the Twentieth Century

by Dorothee Brantz (Editor), Sonja Dümpelmann (Editor)

Overview

The modern city is not only pavement and concrete. Parks, gardens, trees, and other plants are an integral part of the urban environment. Often the focal points of social movements and political interests, green spaces represent far more than simply an effort to balance the man-made with the natural. A city’s history with—and approach to—its parks and gardens reveals much about its workings and the forces acting upon it. Our green spaces offer a unique and valuable window on the history of city life.

The essays in Greening the City span over a century of urban history, moving from fin-de-siècle Sofia to green efforts in urban Seattle. The authors present a wide array of cases that speak to global concerns through the local and specific, with topics that include green-space planning in Barcelona and Mexico City, the distinction between public and private nature in Los Angeles, the ecological diversity of West Berlin, and the historical and cultural significance of hybrid spaces designed for sports. The essays collected here will make us think differently about how we study cities, as well as how we live in them.

Contributors: Dorothee Brantz, Technische Universität Berlin * Peter Clark, University of Helsinki * Lawrence Culver, Utah State University * Konstanze Sylva Domhardt, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich * Sonja Dümpelmann, University of Maryland * Zachary J. S. Falck, Independent Scholar* Stefanie Hennecke, Technical University Munich * Sonia Hirt, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University * Salla Jokela, University of Helsinki * Jens Lachmund, Maastricht University * Gary McDonogh, Bryn Mawr College * Jarmo Saarikivi, University of Helsinki * Jeffrey Craig Sanders, Washington State University

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813931142
Publisher:	University of Virginia Press
Publication date:	07/01/2011
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Dorothee Brantz is Director of the Center for Metropolitan Studies at Technische Universität Berlin and the editor of Beastly Natures: Animals, Humans, and the Study of History (Virginia). Sonja Dümpelmann is Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the author of Flights of Imagination: Aviation, Landscape, Design (Virginia).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction Dorothee Brantz Sonja Dümpelmann 1

Part I Constructing Green Urban Spaces

Integrating City and Nature: Urban Planning Debates in Sofia, Bulgaria Sonia Hirt 17

Green and Modem: Planning Mexico City, 1900-1940 Alfonso Valenzuela Aguilera 37

Part II Nature and Urban Identity

Mediterranean Reflections: Reconstructing Nature in Modern Barcelona Gary McDonogh 57

German Ideologies of City and Nature: The Creation and Reception of Schiller Park in Berlin Stefanie Hennecke 75

Race, Recreation, and the Conflict between Public and Private Nature in Twentieth-Century Los Angeles Lawrence Culver 95

Part III The Function of Nature in the City

Nature, Sport, and the European City: London and Helsinki, 1880-2005 Peter Clark Salla Jokela Jarmo Saarikivi 115

From the "Functional City" to the "Heart of the City": Green Space and Public Space in the CIAM Debates of 1942-1952 Konstanze Sylva Domhardt 133

Part IV Ecology and the Urban Environment

Property Rights, Popular Ecology, and Problems with Wild Plants in Twentieth-Century American Cities Zachary J. S. Falck 159

Building an "Urban Homestead": Survival, Self-Sufficiency, and Nature in Seattle, 1970-1980 Jeffrey Craig Sanders 181

The making of an Urban Ecology: Biological Expertise and Wildlife Preservation in West Berlin Jens Lachmund 204

Notes on Contributors 229

Index 233

Editorial Reviews

"This collection brings a unified focus to new research that is expanding the boundaries of our understanding of people’s relationship to their built and ‘natural’ environments. In its own way, each essay raises the same question: What is the nature of nature in the city and how has it changed over the past century? Together, these essays open a new frontier of scholarship. Greening the City has the potential of rising to a level of seminal influence. "—Harold L. Platt, Loyola University Chicago, author of Shock Cities: The Environmental Transformation and Reform of Manchester and Chicagos

From the Publisher

This collection brings a unified focus to new research that is expanding the boundaries of our understanding of people’s relationship to their built and ‘natural’ environments. In its own way, each essay raises the same question: What is the nature of nature in the city and how has it changed over the past century? Together, these essays open a new frontier of scholarship. Greening the City has the potential of rising to a level of seminal influence.

Harold L. Platt