Book Review: Ken Smith
Ken Smith: Landscape Architects/Urban Projects edited by Jane Amidon, published by Princeton Architectural Press, 2005. (Amazon)
This second installment in Princeton Architectural Press's Source Books in 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.
This second installment in Princeton Architectural Press's Source Books in 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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