Landscape and Infrastructure

Landscape and Infrastructure examines the relationships between landscape painting and landscape design from the 17th century to the present, and contemporary infrastructure projects around the globe. These seemingly disparate subjects are united by a shared concern for the pastoral middle ground; a traditionally productive landscape. By focusing an art-historical lens on pre-industrial productive systems and the effects of the Industrial Revolution on the pastoral landscape tradition, we can gain a better understanding of how to weave new approaches to productive infrastructure systems (such as power generation, water filtration and food production) into our contemporary landscapes. With rising demand for clean energy, clean water, and locally-grown food, this study offers a historical perspective on how such systems can be integrated into our suburban and urban areas. Vestigial elements of the pastoral tradition have long held aesthetic sway in our suburbs, cities and national parks, both in Britain and America. Now, as new energy and water related projects encroach on these spaces, remnants of the pastoral play a crucial role in convincing neighborhood residents, municipal leaders, and energy companies or water authorities of the benefits of a neighboring infrastructure. This book investigates the history of that tradition and highlights the advantages it brings as we re-imagine infrastructure in the 21st century.

Margaret Birney Vickery is a lecturer in the History of Art and Architecture Department and the Department of Architecture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Buildings for Bluestockings: The Architecture and Social History of Women's Colleges in Late Victorian England, and (Translations) Architecture/Art Works of Sigrid Miller Pollin.

Introduction: Infrastructure, Landscape and the Pastoral Paradigm: A Tale of Two Projects 1. Landscape Painting and the Productive Pastoral Tradition 2. The Eighteenth-Century English Landscape: The Classic Pastoral and its Productivity 3. The Industrial Revolution and its Intrusion on the Landscape 4. A Growing Divide: Landscape and Infrastructure in Victorian Britain 5. Progress and Nature in the American Landscape 6. Infrastructure and Landscape in Early-Twentieth-Century England and America 7. Questioning the Infrastructural Paradigm in the late Twentieth Century 8. Twenty-First-Century Power Generation: An Invitation to the Public 9. Clean Water and Recreation: New Approaches to Water Treatment Plants 10. Food, Community, and the Productive Landscape Conclusion: Reimagining the Pastoral Paradigm for the Twenty-First Century Bibliography Index