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Sylvia Crowe monograph
Product Description
Edited by Geoffrey Collens and Wendy Powell LDT Monographs, 1999, 191pp, p/b, ISBN: 0-9518377-4-5
Reviewer's opinion: Sylvia Crowe was once asked by a client whether she had been up the Amazon, "...and when she said 'no', he replied, 'clear your diary, we will go together'...".
It is anecdotes like this one that bring sparkle to this elegant production.
Sylvia Crowe is the latest in Landscape Design Trust's series on eminent practitioners in landscape architecture and a 'must have' for those interested in the development of landscape architecture in the British Isles.
A distinguished panel of contributing authors cover the major areas of work with which she is identified, including new towns, reservoirs, forestry and the power industry.
It is salutary to be reminded that she pioneered so many of the principles and techniques of landscape design in those areas that are now taken for granted Crowe's enormous contribution to the developing national and international professional institutions is also chronicled in this book, as is her professional work in Australia.
While a pictorial chapter allows a brief glimpse of some of her surviving smaller-scale projects, the bibliographies of her work, and that of others cited in the text, make this a valuable work of reference.
The most engaging aspects of the book, however, are those that reveal the person behind the professional. The forestry chapter brings together contributions from colleagues, friends and acquaintances, but there is anecdote throughout. Frank Layfield captures her brilliantly in his preface.
Describing his first encounter with Crowe at a planning inquiry, he writes, "She was such a fine expert witness, with a formidable grasp of her subject, I determined that, in future, she would always be on my side".
Duncan Campbell's chapter on Crowe's work for the Forestry Commission is particularly vivid, relying as it does extensively on personal reminiscence.
He paints some delightful vignettes of this physically slight, bespectacled, grey-haired lady tramping the hills with forestry staff in tow. A sad note in that chapter is its confirmation that most of Crowe's reports and sketches for the FC have been lost.
Therefore Campbell's proposal to mark the 40th anniversary of her consultancy in 2003, by compiling a list of the projects she was involved in and designating some as Crowe landscapes, is a good one and would go some way to mitigate that loss.
Reviewer's opinion: Sylvia Crowe was once asked by a client whether she had been up the Amazon, "...and when she said 'no', he replied, 'clear your diary, we will go together'...".
It is anecdotes like this one that bring sparkle to this elegant production.
Sylvia Crowe is the latest in Landscape Design Trust's series on eminent practitioners in landscape architecture and a 'must have' for those interested in the development of landscape architecture in the British Isles.
A distinguished panel of contributing authors cover the major areas of work with which she is identified, including new towns, reservoirs, forestry and the power industry.
It is salutary to be reminded that she pioneered so many of the principles and techniques of landscape design in those areas that are now taken for granted Crowe's enormous contribution to the developing national and international professional institutions is also chronicled in this book, as is her professional work in Australia.
While a pictorial chapter allows a brief glimpse of some of her surviving smaller-scale projects, the bibliographies of her work, and that of others cited in the text, make this a valuable work of reference.
The most engaging aspects of the book, however, are those that reveal the person behind the professional. The forestry chapter brings together contributions from colleagues, friends and acquaintances, but there is anecdote throughout. Frank Layfield captures her brilliantly in his preface.
Describing his first encounter with Crowe at a planning inquiry, he writes, "She was such a fine expert witness, with a formidable grasp of her subject, I determined that, in future, she would always be on my side".
Duncan Campbell's chapter on Crowe's work for the Forestry Commission is particularly vivid, relying as it does extensively on personal reminiscence.
He paints some delightful vignettes of this physically slight, bespectacled, grey-haired lady tramping the hills with forestry staff in tow. A sad note in that chapter is its confirmation that most of Crowe's reports and sketches for the FC have been lost.
Therefore Campbell's proposal to mark the 40th anniversary of her consultancy in 2003, by compiling a list of the projects she was involved in and designating some as Crowe landscapes, is a good one and would go some way to mitigate that loss.
