The essays in this volume explore the broad range of ideas about nature reflected in twentieth-century concepts of natural gardens and their ideological implications. They also investigate garden designers' use of earlier ideas of natural gardens and their relationship to the rich model that nature offers.

Built by industrialists whose early businesses contributed to the escalation of the Industrial Revolution, company towns flourished in countries that embraced capitalism and open-market trading. In many instances, the company town came to symbolize the wrecking of the environment, especially in places associated with extractive industries such as mining and lumber milling. Some resident industrialists, however, took a genuine interest in the welfare of their work forces, and in a number of instances hired architects to provide a model environment. Overtaken by time, these towns were either abandoned or caught up in suburban growth. The most thorough-going and only international assessment of the company town, this collection of essays by specialists and authorities of each region offers a balanced account of architectural and social history and provides a better understanding of the architectural and urban experiences of the early industrial age.

Warren H. Manning's (1860-1938) national practice comprised more than sixteen hundred landscape design and planning projects throughout North America, from small home grounds to estates, cemeteries, college campuses, parks and park systems, and new industrial towns. Manning approached his design and planning projects from an environmental perspective, conceptualizing projects as components of larger regional (in some cases, national) systems, a method that contrasted sharply with those of his stylistically oriented colleagues. In this regard, as in many others, Manning had been influenced by his years with the Olmsted firm, where the foundations of his resource-based approach to design were forged. Manning's overlay map methods, later adopted by the renowned landscape architect Ian McHarg, providedthe basis for computer mapping software in widespread use today. One of the eleven founders of the American Society of Landscape Architects, Manning also ran one of the nation's largest offices, where he trained several influential designers, including Fletcher Steele, A. D. Taylor, Charles Gillette, and Dan Kiley. After Manning's death, his reputation slipped into obscurity. Contributors to the Warren H. Manning Research Project have worked more than a decade to assess current conditions of his built projects and to compile a richly illustrated compendium of site essays that illuminate the range, scope, and significance of Manning's notable career with specially commissioned photographs by Carol Betsch.