2024 the best tourist city in the world review
Price: $30.00 - $24.42
(as of Oct 18, 2024 14:05:13 UTC - Details)
Winner, J. B. Jackson Book Prize from the Foundation for Landscape Studies
This award-winning book is the definitive account of the creation and development of the country's first urban park system.
Beginning in 1868, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux created a series of parks and parkways for Buffalo, New York, that drew national and international attention. The improvements augmented the city's original plan with urban design features inspired by Second Empire Paris, including the first system of “parkways” to grace an American city. Displaying the plan at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, Olm-sted declared Buffalo “the best planned city, as to streets, public places, and grounds, in the United States, if not in the world.”
In this book Francis R. Kowsky illuminates this remarkable constellation of projects. Utilizing original plans, drawings, photographs, and copious numbers of reports and letters, he brings new perspective to this vast undertaking, analyzing it as an expression of the visionary landscape and planning principles that Olmsted and Vaux pioneered.
“In 1868, an invitation was made to Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, the men who had designed Central Park, to come upstate and pass their judgements on the opportunity for Buffalo to demonstrate its civic arrival with a grand new park. This is the story that Francis Kowsky tells, and he does so virtually to
perfection.” ―Landscape Journal
“Kowsky reminds us that parks are not open spaces awaiting development, and that people need trees, meadows, expanses of water, and walking paths, and biking trails. . . . [His} masterful book makes the visionary landscape and planning principles Olmsted and Vaux pioneered in Buffalo clear, with the hope that restoration efforts will once again allow it to become the best planned city in the world.” ―Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide
“In his magnificent new book, with its lucid prose and deft organization, Kowsky follows the evolution of Olmsted and Vaux's astonishing creations in Buffalo―those ‘landscapes of recreation, residence, memory, and healing,' as he so gracefully describes them. . . . An extraordinary variety and abundance of illustrations fill the book, including photographs new and old, maps, diagrams, paintings, and
lithographs.” ―Site/Lines
Publisher : Library Of American Landscape History (January 1, 2018)
Language : English
Paperback : 272 pages
ISBN-10 : 1952620279
ISBN-13 : 978-1952620270
Item Weight : 1.8 pounds
Dimensions : 8.5 x 0.5 x 10 inches
Reviewer: Wabisabi Workshop
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Interesting
Review: What great Buffalo history and thorough presentation of Olmsted and Buffalo's parks. It's a great coffee table book, but, moreso, it is easy and engaging reading, cover to cover. Not the dry book I feared it might be. I enjoyed it and will probably give it as a gift many times over.
Reviewer: tinacat
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: park books
Review: who knows? I gave to Dad, and as usual i never hear anything back, you give expensive great presents that are even thoughtful (did he give me anything?NO) and then i never hear anything - why do i do this to myself?
Reviewer: Paul Schilder
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A very nice collection of photographs and drawings that highlight and showcase ...
Review: A very nice collection of photographs and drawings that highlight and showcase the work of Olmsted and Vaux in Buffalo. It shows both the beginning and evolution of the park system, with wonderful pictures of the times.
Reviewer: Joan LoCurto
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: City of Buffalo Parks System
Review: Wonderful! I love my Buffao City!! This book highlights this wonderful park system we have. If you'd like to see how a great planning method can be realized read this book.
Reviewer: mark legeza
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Buffalo rocks!
Review: What a great story! The best landscape architect with all the great pictures to match! If you love Buffalo and parks, this one's for you!
Reviewer: Lowell Thing
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A Beautiful and Useful Book
Review: Having read the author's biography of Calvert Vaux, I looked forward to this book with its focus on Olmsted, the other half of the designers who collaborated on the invention of New York's Central Park and so many other parks across the nation (although it is Olmsted who must be given the most credit with convincing cities to plan beautiful parks that all their citizens could enjoy). My wife and I were also visiting Buffalo for the first time so that reading this book gave us the framework and history we needed in order to drive around the city and encounter the significant remains of Olmsted's great park system (and really city street design). This book is thorough in its recounting of how the system came to be and satisfyingly descriptive, both in text and visualization, of the park system as it evolved and remains today. The book is reflective itself of its subject, well-planned and executed with great attention to detail. The dust jacket with its sweeping wraparound photograph of one of the park landscapes is beautiful and also symbolic of Olmsted's own vision. The maps and historic photographs are well chosen. But it is the solid research and convincing writing that provides the satisfying foundation for this well-wrought work. .
Reviewer: Heather Browne
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Highly recommended
Review: Extremely well researched. Wonderful photographs and maps. Highly recommended.
Reviewer: Randall Reade
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: What is especially nice is that the author gives the full history
Review: What is especially nice is that the author gives the full history, and then tells us how the particular park is fairing today. Sometimes, not so well, other times, great. But as readers and citizens, we should know that.