Groundswell: Constructing the Contemporary Landscape presents twenty-three projects that reveal the surge of creativity and discussion surrounding the designed landscape in a broad, principally urban, international context. In the last twenty years, many significant new public spaces have been created for sites that have been reclaimed from conflict, environmental degradation and abandonment. The projects, found throughout North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, were selected for their outstanding design, and to demonstrate a variety of scales, contexts, materials and types of spaces. This fully illustrated volume includes an essay by Peter Reed, Curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at The Museum of Modern Art, that demonstrates how these innovative projects expand the definition of the modernist landscape while responding to a variety of conditions such as social function and the transformation and reclamation of formerly industrial areas. The essay is followed by a full-colour plate section featuring the selected projects.
Catalogue entries for each project provide a succinct description of the site, its transformation and design concepts illustrated by photographs, drawings and models.