The New American Garden Documents Sea Changes in Landscaping

For Pittsburgh, the connection is Parks Conservancy curator Susan Rademacher, who worked with the Cultural Landscape Foundation and the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust to bring the show here, and participated in an opening presentation with Oehme, van Sweden principal Eric Groft. (Both Wolfgang Oehme and James van Sweden passed away in recent years.) The former editor of Landscape Architecture magazine, Rademacher co-wrote Bold American Gardens in collaboration with the firm’s founding partners. This show has precious little text, but getting the book lets you benefit from Rademacher’s encyclopedic knowledge and truly superlative design writing.

The photos and projects are beautiful on their own, but also as an exhortation to examine the work in its various real and documentary manifestations.