
Across the Open Field
Description
Alles über E-Books | Antworten auf Fragen rund um E-Books, Kopierschutz und Dateiformate finden Sie in unserem Info- & Hilfebereich.
So begins this memoir by one of America's best-known landscape architects, Laurie Olin. Raised in a frontier town in Alaska, trained in Seattle and New York, Olin found himself dissatisfied with his job as an urban architect and accepted an invitation to England to take a respite from work. What he found, in abundance, was the serendipity of a human environment built over time to respond to the land's own character and to the people who lived and worked there. For Olin, the English countryside was a palimpsest of the most eloquent and moving sort, yet whose manifestation was of ordinary buildings meant to shelter their inhabitants and further their work.
With evocative language and exquisite line drawings, the author takes us back to his introduction to the scenes of English country towns, their ancient universities, meandering waterways, and dramatic cloudscapes racing in from the Atlantic. He limns the geologic histories found within the rock, the near-forgotten histories of place-names, and the recent histories of train lines and auto routes. Comparing the growth of building in the English countryside, Olin draws some sobering conclusions about our modern lifestyle and its increasing separation from the landscape.
As much a plea for saving the modern American landscape as it is a passionate exploration of what makes the English landscape so characteristically English, Across the Open Field is "an affectionate ramble through real places of lasting worth."
Reviews / Votes
"Beautifully written and illustrated with intelligent charm . . . a quiet classic."-New York Times"Beautifully written and illustrated with intelligent charm, Across the Open Field may well turn out to be a quiet classic. . . . Its studies of the particular have a universal significance: this is a book about man as an animal-a part of the ecology-and about man as an artist, a being with a compelling need to create beauty and order."-Richard Jenkyns, New York Times
"These essays and the beautiful line drawings that illustrate this sumptuous work are a richly satisfying entity. . . . Across the open Field bids fair to become a classic."-Journal of the New England Garden History Society
More details
Other editions
Additional editions

Person
Content
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 As the Twig Is Bent
- 2 On Buckland and Drawing: First Impressions and Later Observations
- 3 Village and Farm: Longbridge Deverill, Wiltshire
- An Agricultural Landscape
- Bronze and Iron Age Developments
- Medieval Longbridge and the Emergence of Wessex
- Norman Prosperity
- Architecture in the Landscape: The Great Rebuilding
- Climate, Ecology, and the Landscape
- Longbridge at the Crossroads
- 4 Et in Arcadia Ego: Landscape Gardens and Parks
- Love at First Sight
- Habits of Mind
- Longleat
- Italian Moods, Palladians, and the Landscape
- Stourhead
- Lancelot "Capability" Brown
- The Landscape Movement Spreads
- Pusey House
- Buscot House
- Wardour Castle, Buckland House, and Richard Woods
- In Conclusion: Beauty Past Change
- Suggestions for Further Reading
- Acknowledgments
- Index
System requirements
File format: ePUB
Copy protection: Adobe-DRM (Digital Rights Management)
System requirements:
- Computer (Windows; MacOS X; Linux): Install the free reader Adobe Digital Editions prior to download (see eBook Help).
- Tablet/smartphone (Android; iOS): Install the free app Adobe Digital Editions or the app PocketBook before downloading (see eBook Help).
- E-reader: Bookeen, Kobo, Pocketbook, Sony, Tolino and many more (not Kindle).
The file format ePub works well for novels and non-fiction books – i.e., „flowing” text without complex layout. On an e-reader or smartphone, line and page breaks automatically adjust to fit the small displays.
This eBook uses Adobe-DRM, a „hard” copy protection. If the necessary requirements are not met, unfortunately you will not be able to open the eBook. You will therefore need to prepare your reading hardware before downloading.
Please note: We strongly recommend that you authorise using your personal Adobe ID after installation of any reading software.
For more information, see our ebook Help page.