Dr Stephensen is an art historian by training and takes an art historian's approach to one of Denmark's leading garden designers. Brandt was born near Frederiksberg and lived from 1878-1945. He was a practicing designer with an interest in theory. His family were gardeners and he studied gardening as a young man, also taking a degree in philosophy. Brandt stayed in England for a time and came under the influence of Jekyll, Robinson and the Arts and Crafts Movement. Then he worked in several European countries before returning to Denmark to live and work from his father's nursery in Ordrup. As a practitioner, he was sceptical about the role of drawings in design. In 1921 he became the first lecturer in Landscape Gardening at the Acadamy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. While teaching the history of his subject he argued that the emphasis of gardening must shift from the purely asthetic to take on functional and social considerations. His students, who were often architects, also took a course in Town Planning with Steen Eiler Rasmussen.
Stephensen argues that 'The vital thing for Brandt was the understanding of integrating building, plants and terrain into a unified design'. Her book is an excellent analysis of Brandt's life and times, including his written and built work, but is less secure in placing him in the wider context of European garden design.
