ABSTRACT
The primary object of this book is to explain, for lay readers, gardeners, landscape architects and garden designers, but primarily for students, the work of landscape architect Ted Smyth. The text is roughly chronological in structure, but within this arrow of time approach, we have made room for links to broader rhythms – local, regional and international – that pulse in and out of the main story we wish to tell. While, therefore, Chapter 1, ‘The Base Line,’ explores Smyth’s evolution as a designer, the narrative opens up to cultural, environmental and urbanistic developments in the latter part of the twentieth century. This is the period when his distinctive design language was formed and articulated, and his authority as a designer became apparent. It is also the period when the profession of landscape architecture returned to prominence, and questions began to be asked about its relations with promiscuous ideas about the nature of the modern, of nationalism, and art. We treat Smyth’s work as a lens through which to refract some of the hard, bright rays that have shone so penetratingly on landscape practices. The idea of the modern is central to our discussion – a ray that attracts and brightens others.
