Diversity in Design: Books on landscape architecture

This book looks closely at the work and influences of some of the least studied figures of the era: established and less well-known female landscape architects who pursued modernist ideals in their designs. The women discussed in this volume belong to the pioneering first two generations of professional landscape architects and were outstanding in the field.

While many fields struggle to specify feminine contributions, the work of women has always played a fundamental role in American landscape architecture. Women claim responsibility for many landscape types now taken for granted, including community gardens, playgrounds, and streetscapes. This collection of essays by leaders in the discipline addresses the ways that gender has influenced the history, design practice and perception of landscapes. It highlights women's relation to landscape architecture, presents the professional efforts of women in the landscape realm, examines both the perception and experience of landscapes by women, and speculates on ways to re-imagine gender and the landscape.

It is the aim of the research project to take in a gender-specific perspective in order to make women in engineering disciplines visible as well as position them stronger as characters of planning, design and construction. The 34 portrayed women come from Germany, Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Switzerland, Spain and out of Europe from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, India, and Iran, among them Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, known as inventor of the Frankfurt Kitchen.