The Garden in the Machine: Planning and Democracy in the Tennessee Valley Authority

by Avigail Sachs

Overview

The Tennessee Valley Authority was the largest single agency created under the auspices of the New Deal legislation. Until 1933, when the project was initiated, the Tennessee Valley was known romantically as "a region of untapped potential" and, less romantically, as one of the most impoverished and isolated areas of the country. The TVA was responsible for three large-scale environmental projects–the river, land, and power machines–but the project also had social, even utopian, goals. In service to the latter, the TVA put together a cadre of regional planners, architects, and landscape architects that Avigail Sachs calls the "atelier TVA." These professionals contributed to the design of the system of multipurpose dams, arranged visitor centers and scenic routes, built housing and communities (although both were segregated), and instigated a regional recreation industry. In addition to its planning and design history audience, this volume will be of interest to environmental historians and historians of the Progressive Era.

Publication of this volume was assisted by a grant from Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813948966
Publisher:	University of Virginia Press
Publication date:	04/13/2023
Series:	Midcentury
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	300
File size:	14 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Avigail Sachs is Associate Professor of Architecture and Landscape History and Theory in the College of Architecture and Design at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and the author of Environmental Design: Architecture, Politics, and Science in Postwar America (Virginia).

Table of Contents

List of Acronyms and Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Regional Planning
2. A Planning Region
3. Public Architecture
4. Community Planning
5. Modern Houses
6. Regional Development
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Illustration Credits
Index

What People are Saying About This

Christine Macy

The Garden in the Machine promises to make a significant contribution to the scholarship of the Tennessee Valley Authority, particularly in terms of the landscape planning and the research agenda of the TVA 'atelier.'

Thaïsa Way

This book offers an intriguing framework for considering the history of the design and construction of the TVA through the praxis of architects, planners, engineers, and landscape architects. But The Garden in the Machine is equally engaged in the actual material manifestations of the design and construction of the dam itself, the landscape of recreation, and the housing and residential development. Sachs successfully merges the two–a narrative that has not been fully developed elsewhere.

Editorial Reviews

This book offers an intriguing framework for considering the history of the design and construction of the TVA through the praxis of architects, planners, engineers, and landscape architects. But The Garden in the Machine is equally engaged in the actual material manifestations of the design and construction of the dam itself, the landscape of recreation, and the housing and residential development. Sachs successfully merges the two–a narrative that has not been fully developed elsewhere.

Thaïsa Way

The Garden in the Machine promises to make a significant contribution to the scholarship of the Tennessee Valley Authority, particularly in terms of the landscape planning and the research agenda of the TVA 'atelier.'

Christine Macy