Daniel Hudson Burnham and the American city imperial
TL;DR: Architecture, landscape architecture and urban design are seldom merely benign aesthetic propositions as mentioned in this paper, and with its victory in the Spanish-American War (1898), the United States unexpectedly found itse...
Abstract: Architecture, landscape architecture and urban design are seldom merely benign aesthetic propositions. With its victory in the Spanish-American War (1898), the United States unexpectedly found itse...
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29 Feb 2016
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the form and meaning of the first generation of Asian City Beautiful projects implemented prior to 1916 as part of America's early colonial administration of the Philippines.
Abstract: The importation of modern American urban design practices into East Asia during the opening decades of the twentieth century fundamentally redefined the environmental form of cities. Although it is acknowledged that the introduction of the City Beautiful led to the endorsement of spatial forms dissimilar to what had hitherto existed, not much is currently known about (a) why city planning became such a fundamental component of governance at that time and (b) what impact urban design had upon the local civilization and the construction of nationhood. Consequently this article investigates the form and meaning of the first generation of Asian City Beautiful projects implemented prior to 1916 as part of America’s early colonial administration of the Philippines.
16 citations
TL;DR: The authors provided a typology of capital cities and from this perspective explored the design of the newly created capital of Quezon City in the late 1930s, which embraced some design ideas from elsewhere, but it remained unique.
Abstract: Political leaders have always sought to build monumental capitals, with earlier designs influencing those of later cities. The Western design that revolved around a central axis of power became evident in some Asian capitals, although cities in the Chinese cultural realm differed in shape but nonetheless had its own axis of power. This article provides a typology of capital cities and from this perspective it explores the design of the newly created capital of Quezon City in the late 1930s. Quezon City’s design embraced some design ideas from elsewhere, but it remained unique. However, the design was not realized entirely.
14 citations
TL;DR: In recent decades, there has been a significant revival of interest and growth in numbers of public memorials as discussed by the authors, sculptures and structures in public spaces that convey information and social attitud...
Abstract: In recent decades, there has been a significant revival of interest and growth in numbers of public memorials – sculptures and structures in public spaces that convey information and social attitud...
14 citations
TL;DR: Forbes as mentioned in this paper examines the unrealized dream of US colonial officials to extend American empire through the production of space, particularly the aesthetic dimensions or what might be called a landscape vision of US empire.
Abstract: Taking Daniel Burnham’s 1904–1905 visit to the Philippines as a starting point, this article examines the unrealized dream of US colonial officials to extend American empire through the production of space, particularly the aesthetic dimensions or what might be called a landscape vision of US empire. It offers a brief but intimate history of the making of the Burnham plans for Manila and Baguio so as to better understand how the ideological contradictions of the imperial moment were built into American colonial spaces, sometimes brutally but sometimes through aesthetic means in the formation of setting and landscape. Keywords: landscape • urban planning • Daniel H. Burnham • W. Cameron Forbes • US Insular Government
9 citations
References
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TL;DR: The Machine in the Garden as mentioned in this paper examines the difference between the "pastoral" and "progressive" ideals which characterized early 19th-century American culture, and which ultimately evolved into the basis for much of the environmental and nuclear debates of contemporary society.
Abstract: For over four decades, Leo Marx's work has focused on the relationship between technology and culture in 19th- and 20th-century America. His research helped to define-and continues to give depth to-the area of American studies concerned with the links between scientific and technological advances, and the way society and culture both determine these links. The Machine in the Garden fully examines the difference between the "pastoral" and "progressive" ideals which characterized early 19th-century American culture, and which ultimately evolved into the basis for much of the environmental and nuclear debates of contemporary society. This new edition is appearing in celebration of the 35th anniversary of Marx's classic text. It features a new afterword by the author on the process of writing this pioneering book, a work that all but founded the discipline now called American Studies.
1,238 citations
TL;DR: Roderick Nash's classic study of changing attitudes toward wilderness during American history, as well as the origins of the environmental and conservation movements, has received wide acclaim since its initial publication in 1967.
Abstract: Roderick Nash's classic study of changing attitudes toward wilderness during American history, as well as the origins of the environmental and conservation movements, has received wide acclaim since its initial publication in 1967. The Los Angeles Times listed it among the one hundred most influential books published in the last quarter century, Outside Magazine included it in a survey of \"books that changed our world,\" and it has been called the \"Book of Genesis for environmentalists.\" For the fifth edition, Nash has written a new preface and epilogue that brings Wilderness and the American Mind into dialogue with contemporary debates about wilderness. Char Miller's foreword provides a twenty-first-century perspective on how the environmental movement has changed, including the ways in which contemporary scholars are reimagining the dynamic relationship between the natural world and the built environment.
426 citations
Book•
01 Jan 2001
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors reflect on the work of several 19th and 20th-century scientists and artists, including Alexander von Humboldt, Alfred Russel Wallace, Louis Agassiz, Sir Patrick Manson and Margaret Mee.
Abstract: Whether as sublime landscape, malignant wilderness or site for environmental conflicts and eco-tourism, tropical nature is to a great extent an American and European imaginative construct, conveyed in literature, travel writing, drawings, paintings, photographs and diagrams. These images are central to Nancy Leys Stepan's view that a critical examination of the "tropicalization of nature" can remedy some of the most persistent misrepresentations of the tropics and its peoples. This book reflects on the work of several 19th- and 20th-century scientists and artists, including Alexander von Humboldt, Alfred Russel Wallace, Louis Agassiz, Sir Patrick Manson and Margaret Mee. Their careers illuminate several aspects of tropicalization: science and art in the making of tropical pictures; the commercial and cultural boom in things tropical in the modern period; photographic attempts to represent tropical hybrid races; anti-tropicalism and its role in an emerging environmentalist sensibility; and visual depictions of disease in the new tropical medicine. Essential to Stepan's analysis are the responses to European projections of artists, scientists and intellectuals living in tropical regions.
145 citations
125 citations
31 Jul 2010
TL;DR: In this article, a comparative study of the symbolic representations, both textual and photographic, of Cuba, Guam, Hawaii, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico that appeared in popular and official publications in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War of 1898 is presented.
Abstract: `Imperial Archipelago' is a comparative study of the symbolic representations, both textual and photographic, of Cuba, Guam, Hawaii, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico that appeared in popular and official publications in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War of 1898. It examines the connections between these representations and the forms of rule established by the U.S. in each at the turn of the century-thus answering the question why different governments were set up in the five sites. Lanny Thompson critically engages and elaborates on the postcolonial thesis that symbolic representations are a means to conceive, mobilise, and justify colonial rule. Colonial discourses construe cultural differences among colonial subjects with the intent to rule them differently; in other words, representations are neither mere reflections of material interests nor inconsequential fantasies, rather they are fundamental to colonial practice. To demonstrate this, Thompson analyses, on the one hand, the differences among the representations of the islands in popular, illustrated books about the "new possessions" and the official reports produced by U.S. colonial administrators. On the other, he explicates the connections between these distinct representations and the governments actually established. A clear, comparative analysis is provided of the legal arguments that took place in the leading law journals of the day, the Congressional debates, the laws that established governments, and the decisions of the Supreme Court that validated these laws. Interweaving postcolonial studies, sociology, U.S. history, cultural studies, and critical legal theory, `Imperial Archipelago' offers a fresh, transdisciplinary perspective that will be welcomed especially by scholars and students of U.S. imperialism and its efforts to "extend democracy" overseas, both past and present.
88 citations