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Ken Smith: Landscape Architects/Urban Projects,
edited by Jane Amidon.
This second part of the Source
Books on Landscape Architecture series features three
hometown projects for the New York City-based Ken Smith.
His background includes experience with both well-known
landscape architects Peter Walker and Martha Schwartz. In
the three projects presented here (his inaccessible MoMA
rooftop garden featured on the cover, his as-of-yet-unbuilt
East River pier project, and the P.S. 19 grounds) the influence
of Schwartz is more pervasive than Walker. Especially in
the school project, a pop-art sensibility prevails, but
its one that's balanced with a sensitivity to budget and
the creative means for working within a tight one. This
"popiness" is extended into the MoMA rooftop,
though that can be attributed as much to the museum's mandate
of zero maintenance or irrigation and other restrictions,
and its desire to view it as a piece of its permanent art
collection as much as Smith's response of using plastic
vegetation in a camouflage pattern. An introductory interview
with Smith and the editor gives us a glimpse into some of
the architect's numerous other projects, allowing us to
see the promising range beyond the few designs presented
in depth in the rest of the book's pages.
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