Landscape Architecture 171 - The American Designed Landscape Since 1850 - Research Guide

Landscape Architecture 171 - The American Designed Landscape Since 1850 is a strategic and bibliographic research guide to UC Berkeley library and web resources for UCB students taking LA 171. Here you'll find research techniques and sources for your site study. For additional assistance, please consult the Environmental Design Library reference staff, 210 Wurster Hall.

Deconstruct Your Topic

Fill-in the Blanks With Basic Facts

Find Images & Plans

Find Books -

Find Articles -

Archives

Campus Libraries

= recommended

Deconstruct

DECONSTRUCT your topic to uncover its complexities, to focus your research, and to increase your search vocabulary (for example, the more ways you have of describing and thinking about your site, the more likely you are to find a plan or section). Another term for deconstructing a research question is 'concept mapping;' see the Rhode Island School of Design Library's excellent slide show, Concept Mapping, for a visual tutorial.
Add to your 'deconstruction notes' as you learn more about your site.

Write down the name of your site.
Example: Golden Gate Park
Ask the 6 journalist's questions about your chosen site: Who?, What?, Where?, When?, Why?, How?
Example:
Who designed it? / Who built it? / Who paid for it? / Who were the intended users?
What kind of park is it? / What were the design constraints?
Where is it located? (city, state, neighborhood, country)
When was it built? (date completed, century)
Why was it designed?
How did the city approve the project?

Do your best to answer these questions. Remember to include alternative spellings.

Example: Olmsted or Olmstead; parc or park or parque; Nationsbank or Nations Bank or National Bank

Pay attention to the questions you can't answer about your site. Look for for the answers in the specialized reference sources in the following section.
For additional ways to explore the concepts and social factors influencing your site, see Finding Information on Buildings and Places http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/ENVI/research_buildings.html.

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Fill-In the Blanks Quick Facts | Bibliographies | Dictionaries | Landscape Architects | Histories & Surveys

FILL-IN THE BLANKS with basic facts. Search reference sources for an overview of your site. Note particular keywords, terms, authors, bibliographies, and footnotes. Learn specific project names, designers, locations, and dates designed and constructed. Add this information to your deconstruction notes.

Quick Facts

The Architecture handbook: a student guide to understanding buildings, by Jennifer Masengarb with Krisann Rehbein. Chicago: Chicago Architecture Foundation, 2007. See Chapter 7: Orientation of the building to the site and Chapter 8: Topography & Landscape.
EnvDesign NA2540.M37 2007
Clues to American garden styles, by David P. Fogle, Catherine Mahan, Christopher Weeks. Washington: Starrhill Press, 1988.

EnvDesign SB457.53 F641 1988 Reference Desk & circulating

Great city parks, by Alan Tate. NY: Spon Press, 2001. Covers 20 public parks in 14 American and Western European cities.

EnvDesign SB484 E8 T37 2001 Reference & circulating

Grove art online (now included in Oxford art online) - UCB Only Electronic version of The 34 vol. Dictionary of art, Jane Turner, ed. NY: Grove, 1996. Contains 45,000+ articles on the visual arts, including architecture, from prehistory to the present. Excellent bibliographies and links to images and related sites.
http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/

Print ed.: EnvDesign N31 D5 1996 Reference, Index: v.34
Guidebooks are great sources for basic facts about a site. Look for architectural and tourist guidebooks, as well as guides to the history of a place. In Melvyl, search for SUBJECT GUIDEBOOKS AND KEYWORD PLACE NAME. Here're a few examples:
- Berkeley landmarks: an illustrated guide to Berkeley, California's architectural heritage EnvDesign NA735.B38.C34 2001 Reference Desk
- A Guide to San Francisco and the Bay region EnvDesign F868 S156 B4 1966 Reference & circulating
- San Francisco architecture: an illustrated guide EnvDesign NA735 S35 W64 2005 Reference Desk & circulating
- San Francisco, the bay and its cities EnvDesign F869 S3 W951 1972 Reference Desk & circulating
- Silicon Valley handbook: including San Jose, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto and South Valley EnvDesign F868 S25 C46 2000 Reference
Encyclopedia of gardens: history and design, Chicago Botanic Garden. Candice A. Shoemaker, ed. 3 vols. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2001. Excellent source for landscape design history. Substantive signed articles are illustrated; each includes a brief bibliography. Chronologies of selected projects are given for landscape designers.
EnvDesign SB465 E63 2001 Reference Desk
The Oxford companion to the garden, Patrick Taylor, ed. NY: Oxford Univ. Pr., 2006. Table of contents. A one-volume encyclopedia of short authoritative articles on notable gardens, landscape designers, garden features, etc. New ed. of the classic The Oxford companion to gardens. Selectively illustrated. Bibliography: pp.531-538.

EnvDesign SB 469.25 O951 2006 Reference Desk & circulating

Site & insight: exploring notable Bay Area landscape architecture, by Students of LA298, Department of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning; Helaine Kaplan Prentice, ed. Berkeley: College of Environmental Design, Univ. of Calif., [2002] Describes 13 Bay Area sites; illustrated.

EnvDesign SB469.5 C2 S58 2002

Wikipedia Web-based, collaboratively-authored encyclopedia. Useful for confirming a research starting point. READER BEWARE: Content is non-authoritative, and in some instances has been demonstrated to be deliberately false.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Bibliographies are lists of writings or citations on a particular subject, time period, or author. Look at book chapters, textbooks, and articles for additional bibliographies and footnotes.

Environmental Design Library Research Guides for research in the history of the built environment. Guides include both print and web materials.

California Landscape Architecture & Gardens

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/ENVI/landscape_california.html

Finding Local Information

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/ENVI/research_local.html

History and Literature of Landscape Architecture

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/alacarte/course-guide/80

Social & Cultural Factors in Environmental Design

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/ENVI/research_socialfactors.html

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Dictionaries For basic landscape architecture dictionaries see Landscape Architecture Reference Sources.

Dictionary of landscape architecture and construction, by Alan Jay Christensen. NY: McGraw-Hill, 2005.
EnvDesign SB469.25 C48 2005 Reference Desk
Lexicon of garden and landscape architecture, by Meto J. Vroom. Boston: Birkhauser-Publishers for Architecture, 2006. Contains short illustrated articles on landscape architecture concepts and practices.

EnvDesign SB469.25 V76 2006 Reference Desk

Oxford reference online - art and architecture - UCB Only.
Search multiple online art and architecture dictionaries published by Oxford University Press.

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Landscape Architects See the bibliographic guide Biographical Information on Landscape Architects for a comprehensive listing of biographical resources

American landscape architecture: designers and places, William H. Tishler, ed. Washington, DC: Preservation Pr., 1989.

EnvDesign SB470.53 A441 1989 Reference Desk & circulating

California urban parks and open spaces: case studies of 35 parks, plazas, gardens and streets, Andrea Cochran, Mark Francis, Heath Schenker, eds. Davis: Center for Design Research, Univ. of California, Davis, 1998

EnvDesign SB482 C2 C432 1998 Reference

Dictionary of today's landscape designers, Pierluigi Nicolin, Francesco Repishti, eds. London: Thames & Hudson, 2003. For 86 international contemporary landscape architects and designers, engineers, artists, and more, provides a biographical note, a list of works and related bibliography, and color photographs of significant designs.
EnvDesign SB469.37 D53 2003 Reference
Influential gardeners: the designers who shaped 20th-century garden style, by Andrew Wilson. NY: Clarkson Potter/Publisher, 2002. Includes illustrated biographies of 57 international landscape architects and designers.

EnvDesign SB469.9 W55 2002

Pioneers of American landscape design, Charles A. Birnbaum, Robin Karson, eds. NY: McGraw-Hill, 2000. Contains excellent biographical essays about 160 American landscape architects and designers and their work. Each essay includes a brief bibliography. Illustrated.

EnvDesign SB469.9 P56 2000 Reference Desk

Shaping the American landscape: new profiles from the pioneers of American landscape design project, Charles A. Birnbaum, Stephanie S. Foell, eds. Charlottesville: Univ. of Virginia Pr., 2009. Contains excellent biographical essays about 160 American landscape architects and designers and their work. Each essay includes a brief bibliography. Illustrated.

EnvDesign SB469.9 S53 2009 Reference Desk

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General Histories & Surveys provide an overview and the context of a topic, with dates, locations, special sites, and the names of architects or designers. They usually include bibliographies. Here is a sample of the landscape architecture histories and surveys in the Environmental Design Library.

A Genius for place: American landscapes of the country place era, by Robin Karson. Amherst: Univ. of Massachusetts Pr.: In association with Library of American Landscape History, 2007.

EnvDesign SB469.9 K37 2007

The Golden age of American gardens: proud owners, private estates, 1890-1940, by Mac Griswold, Eleanor Weller. NY: H.N. Abrams, in association with the Garden Club of America, 1991. Includes extensive notes and bibliography.

EnvDesign SB466 U6 G75 1991

Grounds for change: major gardens of the twentieth century, by William Howard Adams. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1993.

EnvDesign SB465 A33 1993

Invisible gardens: the search for modernism in the American landscape, by Peter Walker and Melanie Simo. Cambridge, MA: MIT Pr., 1994.

EnvDesign SB470.5 W34 1994

Landscape design: a cultural and architectural history, by Elizabeth Barlow Rogers. NY: Harry N. Abrams, 2001.
EnvDesign SB470.5 R64 2001 Reserve & circulating
Modern garden design: innovation since 1900, by Janet Waymark. London: Thames & Hudson, 2003.

EnvDesign SB472.45 W39 2003

The Park and the town: public landscape in the 19th and 20th centuries, by George F. Chadwick. London: Architectural Pr., 1966. Covers the development of public parks in the U.S. and Europe. Includes illustrations and a bibliography.

EnvDesign SB481 C47

The Politics of park design: a history of urban parks in America, by Galen Cranz. Cambridge, MA: MIT Pr., 1982.

EnvDesign & Moffitt SB482 A4 C73 1982

Regional garden design in the United States, Therese O'Malley and Marc Treib, eds. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1995.

EnvDesign SB457.53 R44 1995

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Find Images & Plans

Also see landscape architecture histories and journal articles, as well as additional image databases.

Aerial photos: The Earth Sciences & Map Library (EART) has an excellent collection of aerial photos of California, 1939--present. A master index is available in EART.

Aerial photography and image interpretation, by David P. Paine, James D. Kiser. 2nd ed. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, 2003. Online table of contents .

Bioscience & Earth Sci TR810 P25 2003

Catalog of aerial photography--Non-California & International (Microsoft Co.) Site includes links to online aerial photo resources.

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/EART/other.html

Some digitized aerial photos of the San Francisco Bay Area are available on The Library's SunSite.

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/EART/aerial2.html

MSR maps (Microsoft Co.) Formerly TerrraServer-USA, the site offers free, public access to online maps and aerial photographs of the United States.

http://msrmaps.com/default.aspx

American designed landscapes: a photographic interpretation, by Alan Ward, Washington, DC: Spacemaker Pr., 1998--. Beautiful black and white photographs of 18 significant American designed landscapes, including Middleton Place, Biltmore, Mount Auburn cemetery, and Cranbrook. Includes plans for each landscape.

EnvDesign fSB457.53 W27 1998 v.1

American landscape and architectural design, 1850-1920, Harvard Univ. This collection of approximately 2,800 lantern slides offers views of cities, specific buildings, parks, estates and gardens, including a complete history of Boston's Park System. Views include photographs, plans, maps, & models. Private American estates are represented in the collection through contemporary views of their houses and gardens. Also indexed in the American Memory project.

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/award97/mhsdhtml/aladhome.html

American memory. U.S.Library of Congress. Multimedia collections of digitized documents, photographs, recorded sound, moving pictures, and text from the Library of Congress' Americana collections.

http://rs6.loc.gov/amhome.html

ArtStor - UCB Only - Digital library of more than 1 million images including architectural images.

http://www.artstor.org/
Image sources for the built environment - Environmental Design Library research guide.

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/ENVI/research_images.html
Plat maps, also called fire insurance maps, show a variety of details, including actual lot boundaries, special uses, building materials and building footprints.

-----. Digital Sanborn maps, 1867-1970 (UMI) - UCB Only Site provides digital access to more than 660,000 large-scale maps of more than 12,000 American towns and cities. The maps "are large-scale plans containing...information such as the outline of each building, the size, shape and construction materials, heights, and function of structures, location of windows and doors. The maps also give street names, street and sidewalk widths, property boundaries, building use, and house and block numbers."

http://sanborn.umi.com/

-----. Fire insurance maps (UC Berkeley, Library) Links to description of and indexes to fire insurance maps.

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/EART/sanborn.html

-----. Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, San Francisco, California, 1899/1900, courtesy of San Francisco Genealogy. The black and white maps presented here are from six volumes that covered San Francisco in 1899 and 1900. To locate a specific location, consult the various indexes to locate the correct Map Sheet. Then select the appropriate link.

http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sf/sanborn/sanborn.htm

-----. Insurance maps of Berkeley, California, Sanborn Map Company. NY: The Co., 1911. Includes Albany and parts of Emeryville and Oakland.

EnvDesign fffG1529 B6 S3Rare v.2 only, 1911 corrected to 1933

San Francisco Maps, courtesy of San Francisco Genealogy. Guide and links to historic, street and other maps.

http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sf/sfmaps.htm

SPIRO, UC Berkeley Architecture Department, Visual Resources Center (VRC). SPIRO is the public online image catalog of approximately 20% of the VRC's collection of over 200,000 35mm slides. The collection itself is available to UCB faculty and graduate students.
http://www.mip.berkeley.edu/spiro/
World architecture index: a guide to illustrations, Edward H. Teague, comp. NY: Greenwood Press, 1991. Indexes illustrations of 7,200+ architectural works in standard books on world architecture (UC Berkeley call numbers are annotated in the front of the book). Includes landscapes. Lists the type of illustration to be found, e.g., plans, sections, and elevations.
EnvDesign NA202 T4 1991 Reference Desk & Reference

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Find Books

FIND BOOKS for an in-depth discussion of your site. Note that for many sites you will not find an entire book; instead, you may find a chapter or an essay in a book focussed on a general aspect of your site (refer to your deconstruction list for ideas). Example: a book on urban parks might include information about Golden Gate Park.

In the Library's catalogs use keywords or subject headings to search for title, subject, author, or corporate author.

Search for a time period:
Architecture, Postmodern
Landscape Architecture, 20th century
Search for a type of landscape or site:
Cemeteries
Landscape gardening
Urban parks
Water in landscape architecture
Waterfronts
Search for a location: city, state, or country:
Gardens--Southern States
Landscape Architecture--New York
Plazas--Washington (D.C.)

Search for a specific landscape architect or designer:
Gustafson, Kathryn
Kiley, Dan
Search for a specific project or site:
Biltmore Estate--North Carolina
Golden Gate Park--San Francisco, California Search for firms or organizations using corporate authors such as:
Hargreaves Associates
American Society of Landscape Architects
Olmsted Brothers

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Find Articles

FIND ARTICLES for current and retrospective information.Search article indexes to find journal articles, conference papers and other documents. There are many more than listed here. For information for off-campus access to The Library's databases see Connecting from Off Campus. Most databases are available to only to UCB or UC faculty and students.

Tips:

Journals, Periodicals, Magazines, and Serials -- these terms refer to the same thing. Journal articles are generally NOT included in the Library Catalogs.
Use Environmental Design Library indexes and abstracts to expand your search on your topic.
Architecture Indexes | Landscape Architecture Indexes | City Planning Indexes
Use the UCB list of Electronic Resources: Article Databases to identify other related indexes.
Not all articles or journals are available electronically, full text. Some indexes use to look up call numbers and locations for print journals. Use Library's catalogs to look up journal call numbers in indexes that don't use UC e-links. Search under the title of the journal.

Here is a selection of indexes that are especially helpful for landscape architecture research. When searching for your site, remember to use truncation or wildcards (* or ?) for variations of words (e.g., park*)

Academic search complete - UC Only
Includes articles from popular and scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and general sciences. Citations, abstracts and some full text for nearly 11,000 journals; can limit to scholarly journals.
Coverage.: 1865--present
America: history and life - UCB Only
Citations, abstracts and some full text on the history and culture of the U.S. and Canada from prehistoric times to the present.
Online ed.: 1964-present
Print ed.: 1954--present; Main Stack E3 A43
Art full text- UC Only
Contains citations to items from over 300 international publications.
Online ed.: 1984--present
Print ed.: EnvDesign N18 A72 Index
Art index retrospective - UC Only
Bibliographic database that cumulates citations to Art Index, volumes 1-32.
Online ed.: 1929-1984;
Print ed.: 1929-1994; EnvDesign N18 A72 Index
Avery index to architectural periodicals - UCB Only | Video Tutorial
Indexes articles in 1,000+ periodicals in architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, & related disciplines.
Online ed.: 1890--present;
Print ed.: 1890-1995; EnvDesign fNA8 C64 1973 Index
Bibliography of the history of art (BHA) - UC Only
Online ed.: 1990-2009;
Print ed.: 1991--present; Main N1 B51
Business source complete via EBSCO - UCB Only
Includes full-text for more than 7,400 scholarly business journals and other sources.

Coverage: 1965--.

ERIC - Educational Resources Information Center via CSA - UCB Only | Educator's Reference Desk (public access)
The world's largest source of education information. The majority of titles indexed are available on campus in the ERIC microfiche collection; some titles are also available in paper copy.
Online coverage: 1966--. Microfiche: in the Education/Psychology Library.
JSTOR - UCB Only
Full text archive of interdisciplinary scholarly journal literature, including the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, except for the most recent five years.
Coverage varies
Periodicals index online - UC Only
Indexes the contents of thousands of periodicals in the humanities and social sciences, from their first issues. International scope. Titles indexed include Landscape Architecture and Landscape History.
Coverage: 1665-1995
Readers' guide to periodical literature. [cumulated] NY [etc.]
Indexes popular American magazines.

Online ed.: Readers Guide Retrospective 1890-1982 - UC Only

Print ed.: 1900--; Doe Refe AJ3 R4; Moffitt AI3 R4 Index

Sociological abstracts via CSA - UCB Only
Indexes journal articles, book chapters, & reviews from over 1,900 journals, books, book chapters, and reviews in the social sciences.

Online ed.: 1963-- Print ed.: 1952--; Main HM15.5 S6

Urban studies & planning - UCB Only
Provides indexing to and full text of 12 journals published by SAGE Publications and participating societies, some journals going back 37 years.

Coverage varies

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Campus Libraries

Here's a selection of UCB campus libraries with collections of interest to LA 171 students. Note that public libraries may also be helpful.

Art History/Classics Library 308 Doe Library

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/ARTH/

The Bancroft Library - Note: Noncirculating only. No photocopying allowed.

http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/

Doe Library Reference Center 2nd floor; stack portal, 1st floor

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/doemoff/reference.html

Earth Sciences & Map Library 50 McCone Hall

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/EART/

Environmental Design Library 210 Wurster Hall

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/ENVI/

Visual Resources Center 232 Wurster Hall - Note: Open to UCB faculty & graduate students for class-room presentations. An orientation is required before first use of the collection.

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/ARCH/

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