ABSTRACT
This chapter explores two well-documented places which can be directly attributed to the influence of the landscape view. The first, a handsome country house known as ‘Richmond Hill’ overlooking the Hudson River on Manhattan Island, New York, would serve not only as a base for George Washington but also as the first British ambassadorial residence and subsequently as the seat of vice presidents of the Union John Adams and Aaron Burr. The second, the city of Richmond, Virginia, prospered as a centre of the tobacco and cotton trades, whose extensive plantations orbited around great country houses set amid landscaped grounds leading down to the tidal rivers of Chesapeake Bay. The chapter examines the influence of the kinetic view from the motor car upon a growing heritage industry, and demonstrate that nostalgic picturesque vision was a central theme of modernist projects from parkways to interstate highways.
