"Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture XLI"--Page preceding title page. "Volume based on papers presented at the symposium "Landscapes of Pre-Industrial Cities," held at the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C., on May 5-6, 2017."--Title page verso. Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents:
Bridging remote sensing and worldviews: urban landscapes from a preindustrial perspective / Georges Farhat -- PART I. EARTHWORKS: Space and structure in early Mesopotamian cities / Jason A. Ur -- Landscape change and ceremonial praxis in medieval Rome -- from the Via Triumphalis to the Via Papalis / Hendrik W. Dey -- What constituted Cahokian urbanism? / Timothy R. Pauketat -- PART II. WATERSCAPES: Hydraulic landscapes of Roman and Byzantine cities / Jordan Pickett -- Monsoon landscapes and flexible provisioning in the preindustrial cities of the Indian subcontinent / Monica l. Smith -- The Phnom Kulen capital -- a singular and early case of landscape construction in ancient Cambodia / Jean-Baptiste Chevance -- The weave of natural and cultural ecology -- Ekamrakshetra, the historic temple town of Bhubaneswar, India / Priyaleen Singh -- PART III. FORESTRY: Xingu garden cities -- Amazonian urban landscapes, or what? / Michael Heckenberger -- "when the king breaks a town he builds another" -- politics, slavery, and constructed urban landscapes in tropical West Africa / J. Cameron Monroe.
Summary:
"The use of the word "landscape" to describe the formation and infrastructure of cities seems to express contemporary preoccupations with the postindustrial urban condition. The Industrial Revolution is often seen as a turning point in the emergence of the urban landscape of the modern metropolis, and the large city as commonly experienced today in the world is certainly dependent on a range of recent (or quite recent) breakthroughs in construction technology, climate control, communication, and transportation. In this view, urban landscapes are a historically late development and are, therefore, seen to embody an essentially modern and Western concept. But features associated with contemporary urban landscapes-most notably the forms of human adaptation to and reshaping of the sites where cities develop and expand-can also be found in preindustrial contexts in different time periods and geographical regions. Preindustrial urban settlements generally occupied land that had been used for other, mostly productive, purposes, and their development involved complex and dynamic relationships with the management of natural resources. Such cities are traditionally studied as the centers of commerce, trade, and artisan production as well as the seats of secular and religious authorities; the essays in this volume to examine how the original clusters of agrarian communities evolved into urban formations"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.