Landscape London: A Guide to Gardens and Urban Spaces

Londonunlike other great European capitalswas never planned on a grand scale, but evolved as one village merged into its neighbors. The landscape character of the modern city is the sum of its parts: parks, public open spaces, squares and waterways. The last few years of the twentieth century saw a flurry of new landscape activity, due largely to National Lottery funding. Almost for the first time, designers from abroad, notably from the US and France, have been working here, bringing fresh ideas and new strategies. This book looks at almost 70 projects, from neighborhood parks and recreation grounds to piazzas in commercial developments (including what may be the world's largest patio), from linear parks designed to open up the banks of the Thames, to the Diana Memorial Playground in Hyde Park. All have been designed in the last ten years and together they are proof of an area of urban design that has discovered a new sense of experiment and purpose. Beautifully illustrated with 140 specially commissioned b/w photographs.