This book offers an in-depth look at how changing ideas of what nature is and what it means for the United States, have been represented in buildings and landscapes over the past century.

The word "nature" comes from natura, Latin for birth - as do the words nation, native and innate. But nature and nation share more than a common root, they share a common history where one term has been used to define the other. In the United States, the relationship between nation and nature has been central to its colonial and post-colonial history, from the idea of the noble savage to the myth of the frontier. Narrated, painted and filmed, American landscapes have been central to the construction of a national identity.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203402030

Studies of rituals in sacred gardens and landscapes offer tantalizing insights into the significance of gardens and landscapes in the societies of India, ancient Greece, Pre-Columbian Mexico, medieval Japan, post-Renaissance Europe, and America. Sacred gardens and landscapes engaged their visitors into three specific modes of agency: as anterooms spurring encounters with the netherworld; as journeys through mystical lands; and as a means of establishing a sense of locality, metaphorically rooting the dweller's own identity in a well-defined part of the material world. Each section of this book is devoted to one of these forms of agency. Together the essays reveal a profound cultural significance of gardens previously overlooked by studies of garden styles.

This book focuses on the ephemeral architecture built for festivals and shows how these constructions played a role in the development of Western architectural and urban theory. Festival architecture has allowed architects to experiment with new ideas, new forms and new spatial arrangements.
The book is arranged in historical periods from Antiquity to the modern era. The analyses of specific festivals are set in relation to contemporary ideas and theories in architecture and urban design and essays focus on either architecture or urban design. The wealth of illustrations depict many unusual and rarely seen images from European festival tradition. The contributors are well-known architectural historians and art historians.

With contributions from provocative art and architectural historians, this book is a unique exposition of the temporary architecture erected for festivals and the role it has played in developing Western architectural and urban theory. Festival Architecture is arranged in historical periods - from Antiquity to the modern era - and divided between analyses of specific festivals, set in relation to contemporary architecture and urban design ideas and theories. Illustrated with a wealth of unusual and rarely-seen images from the European festival tradition, this is a fascinating outline of the history of festival architecture ideal for postgraduate architecture and urban design students.

The Architextile Laboratory produces crafted textiles transformed with electronics to create spaces which respond to human inhabitation.Following the establishment of her company FILUM with Christine Macy, Sarah pursued her interest in the architecture of commemoration in the doctoral program in human geography at the University of British Columbia. She has taught lightweight structures and design at the University of British Columbia and the University of California, Los Angeles, and is currently an associate professor of architecture at Dalhousie University.