Architecture and Nature: Creating the American Landscape

The word "nature" comes from natura, Latin for birth - as do the words nation, native and innate. But nature and nation share more than a common root, they share a common history where one term has been used to define the other. In the United States, the relationship between nation and nature has been central to its colonial and post-colonial history, from the idea of the noble savage to the myth of the frontier. Narrated, painted and filmed, American landscapes have been central to the construction of a national identity. This book offers an in-depth look at how changing ideas of what nature is and what it means for the country have been represented in buildings and landscapes over the past century.

Christine Macy is a professor of architecture and architectural history at Dalhousie University in Canada.