Garden History by Distance Learning
[See Garden History homepage and see History of Landscape Architecture]
The Garden History Reference Encyclopedia CD has a number of features which have been planned to help scholars and students and teachers involved with educational programmes and courses on garden history. It will be used in conjunction with the Distance Learning MA in Garden History which isoffered by the University of Greenwich.
Access to the features is by means of a top navigation bar with primary tabs for:
eBooks: The current list of electronic books on garden history on the CD is listed on our homepage. This is the featureof the CD which is most likely to be of use to scholars and academics. It is useful to have the texts in a searchable formatand many of them are not widely available in libraries.
Biography: This section contains short biographies of garden designers, of garden patrons and of writers, poets,artists, architects and other historical figures who have influenced the art of garden design. It is hyperlinked to the garden descriptions and to the electronic books on garden history.
Glossary: Every subject has a specialised vocabulary and students new to garden design may find that a lack of familiarity with this vocabulary hinders their appreciation of the subject. The glossary is hyperlinked to examples in the eBooks.
Styles: The style diagrams provide a convenient summary of 4,000 years of garden design history.
Timeline: The garden history timeline is a development of the style diagrams. It sets them beside plans of key examples and also provides links to the biographies of garden designers and other people of importance in the history of garden design.
Garden Finder: The garden finder, as on this website, provides access to details of over 1,000 gardens and parks open to the public in Europe and America.
One of the eBooks is a Garden History Guide. It is aimed at students and has sections on: Ancient Egyptian Gardens, Ancient Western Asia (Middle East), Ancient Greek Gardens, Ancient Roman Gardens , Byzantine Gardens, Persian and Islamic Gardens, Middle Ages - Medieval Gardens, Italian Renaissance Gardens (Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century), Renaissance Gardens in Spain and Portugal, Renaissance Gardens in France, Renaissance Gardens in England, Renaissance Gardens in Germany and Holland, Baroque Gardens in France (Seventeenth Century), Baroque Gardens outside France, Chinese and Japanese Gardens, English Landscape Garden (Eighteenth Century) , Nineteenth Century Gardens ('Victorian'), English Gardens in Early 20th Century, American Gardens in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Each of these sections provides a short summary of the subject and links to other resources on the CD.
The aim is to provide a comprehensive history of garden design from its origin in olden times (including primitive and prehistoric) to the modern period. This overlaps with the histories of private parks, public parks, estate grounds, and the precincts of churches and monasteries. Some reference is made to Chinese and Japanese gardens but the focus is the western garden design tradition, starting in Western Asia and developing through Europe (Greece-Italy-Spain-Portugal-France-Germany-Holland-England) and America. The history of horticulture, and gardening as a practical art, is included but the focus is on the garden design and layout. Relationships with art, architecture, literature and science are explored. Issues relating to the maintenance, management, conservation and restoration of historic gardens are discussed. The history of planting design is a major concern but the history of plants is less of a focus. There are many references to antique garden sculpture and garden ornaments in other time periods. The origins of landscape architecture, and its relationship to garden design, is reviewed. The theory of contemporary gardens is analysed, including a discussion of modernism and post-modernism as they relate to gardens. References are made to individual garden accounts, records, chronicles and visits by well-known garden travellers from the past.
See details of how to order a copy of the Garden History Reference Encyclopedia CD. Orders are normally despatched on the day they are received.