Great City Parks

Rating:
Summary: Invaluable reference
Review: An invaluable reference book for those interested in urban park design. Tate has surveyed 20 city parks in Western Europe and North America ranging from tiny Paley Park New York to the whole of the Minneaplois Park system. He has described each systematically under the heads of History, Development, Planning and Design, Management and Usage, and Plans for the future, and then drawn conclusions.

He knows his stuff; he sent out questionnaires to the parks managers in 1987 and 1998 and the book is generously illustated in colour with photographs by the late Martin Jones, again taken over two decades. This is a bit of a labour of love, Tate's magnus opus is a must for any academic landscape or planning library. It is not a light read, nor is it a historical account of park design (though the the page 1 thumbnail ouline of two centuires of park design on page 1 is a model of its kind). But it does give a fair and impartial landscape architect's critique.

Each park is accompanied by a line plan. It's a bit pricey and very Anglo-Saxon in world view, but if this is really your subject then do buy it or order a copy for your library. Pity to mix metric and imperial, and Richard Haag's Gasworks Park in Seattle (see p.114) was not the source of the Latzs' design for Duisburg Nord Landschaftspark (Latz's Hafeninsel Burgerpark, Saarbrucken from the 1980's was the source).