The advent of powered flight in the early part of the twentieth century brought profound changes to society and culture globally. In her work Flights of Imagination: Aviation, Landscape, Design, Sonja Dümpelmann explores how it influenced the perspective and work of architects, landscape architects, and urban planners and designers, primarily in the United States and Europe. Specifically, the book “deals with those moments during the twentieth- and early twenty-first centuries when these professionals developed an aerial imagination and an epistemology based upon aerial vision, and when they realized the opportunities that the new technology offered them in shaping the land” (1). In addition to airport design, Dümpelmann examines such topics as the impact of aerial photography on both urban and landscape design, the development of the art and science of camouflage, and the relationship between aerial views and environmental thought

Bednarek, Janet R.

English

University of Dayton

University of DaytoneCommonsHistory Faculty Publications Department of HistorySpring 2016Review: 'Flights of Imagination: Aviation,Landscape, Design'Janet R. BednarekUniversity of Dayton, jbednarek1@udayton.eduFollow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.udayton.edu/hst_fac_pubPart of the History CommonsThis Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of History at eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in HistoryFaculty Publications by an authorized administrator of eCommons. For more information, please contact frice1@udayton.edu,mschlangen1@udayton.edu.eCommons CitationBednarek, Janet R., "Review: 'Flights of Imagination: Aviation, Landscape, Design'" (2016). History Faculty Publications. 139.https://ecommons.udayton.edu/hst_fac_pub/139how the museum could have contributed enor-mously to the city’s social fabric and to expose howthe city government missed this opportunity. Hadthis institution been allowed to thrive, New York’smaritime history would today be far better recog-nized by the public through a museum with impor-tant collections surrounded by streets with restorednineteenth-century architecture and sailing shipsalong a crowded waterfront. In his analysis, theauthor sees through the self-promotional postur-ing of various parties to reveal the underlying flawsthat thwarted the chances for success from the verybeginning. His efforts unearthed a wide range ofsources that paint a well-balanced picture of this pri-vate institution.This book is an important addition to the grow-ing body of literature on American museologicalhistory, as well as preservation studies and publichistory. With this work, Lindgren has strengthenedhis professional credentials immeasurably. In con-trast with his previous books (Preserving the Old Do-minion and Preserving Historic New England), theSouth Street Seaport narrative has a fervor thatmakes it a veritable page-turner.1 Perhaps its mostinteresting contribution will be to a city-wide per-spective where the state of the city’s preservationand public history efforts can be contrasted withthe survival, advancement, and challenges of othernonprofit cultural institutions, such as the promi-nent art museums that control the city’s cultural nar-rative.Lindgren does not close the door on the muse-um’s future but seems to suggest avenues by whichit could still prosper. It’s a tale of woe, of intrigue, ofmanipulative power brokers and competing ideol-ogies, but it is definitely a necessary read for any-one interested in the complex cultural history andpolitics of New York.Daniel FinamorePeabody Essex MuseumSonja Du¨mpelmann. Flights of Imagination: Aviation,Landscape, Design.Charlottesville: University of Vir-ginia Press, 2014. x1304 pp.; 91 black-and-whiteimages, notes, bibliography, index. $60.The advent of powered flight in the early part ofthe twentieth century brought profound changesto society and culture globally. In her work Flights ofImagination: Aviation, Landscape, Design, Sonja Düm-pelmann explores how it influenced the perspectiveand work of architects, landscape architects, and ur-ban planners and designers, primarily in the UnitedStates and Europe. Specifically, the book “deals withthosemoments during the twentieth- and early twenty-first centuries when these professionals developedan aerial imagination and an epistemology basedupon aerial vision, and when they realized the op-portunities that the new technology offered themin shaping the land” (1). In addition to airport de-sign, Dümpelmann examines such topics as the im-pact of aerial photography on both urban and land-scape design, the development of the art and scienceof camouflage, and the relationship between aerialviews and environmental thought.Dümpelmann begins and ends the book withchapters focused on the design and redesign ofairports. She notes that the advent of the airplanechanged the way people viewed the world, especiallyin terms of the relationship between time and space.Flight also furthered globalization. And it provideddesigners withnew tools (the airplane andaerial pho-tography), which allowed them to develop an aerialperspective. Both architects and landscape architectscame to see airports as design challenges—placeswhere design needed to take into account the newtime-space relationship, globalization, and the aerialviewpoint. Importantly, though airports were nodesin an emerging global transportation network, de-signers also strove to provide them with a sense ofplace through the use of vernacular architecture andnative plantings. The author revisits her examina-tion of airport design in the book’s final chapter,which focuses on current projects aimed at trans-forming former airports into urban park space. Ashas been argued elsewhere, early airports—at leastin the United States—often had connections to de-partments of parks and recreation and inmany waysfunctioned as recreational areas. Therefore it is ofinterest that a number of localities—including Or-ange County, California, and Berlin—are transform-ing former airfields into new urban parks. The au-thor is less clear on how the design of these parksreflects their past as air fields or incorporates an ae-rial perspective.1 James M. Lindgren, Preserving the Old Dominion: Historic Pres-ervation and Virginia Traditionalism (Charlottesville: University Pressof Virginia, 1993); Preserving Historic New England: Preservation, Pro-gressivism, and the Remaking of Memory (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1995).Book Reviews 93This content downloaded from 131.238.109.027 on March 15, 2018 09:44:20 AMAll use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c).The intervening chapters that more directly ex-plore the impact of flight on design are the book’smost successful. In chapter 2, Dümpelmann arguesthat flight led to development of a new, distinctlymodern design epistemology, “the aerial view as away of knowing that is both abstract and experien-tial, rational and imaginary, factual and aesthetic,microscopic and macroscopic, detailed and con-textual, harmful and essential” (76). Aerial photog-raphy and mapping in particular gave designersa broader view and a new way of understanding therelationship between various landscape and archi-tectural elements. It helped city planners expandtheir view from the city to the region. In a chapterfocused on the impact of flight on urban design,the author explores how aerial vision influenced thework of such architects as Le Corbusier and land-scape architects Burle Marx and Alvar Aalto. Theaerial perspective also influenced military design,asDümpelmannexamines in another chapter.Dur-ing both world wars architects and landscape ar-chitects worked with other design professionals, suchas set designers, to apply their knowledge of formand patterns seen from the air to advance the artand science of camouflage. Finally, in chapter 5 shepresents aerial images, including those taken fromspace, that show environmental changes wrought byhumans on the planet, revealing the earth’s fragileenvironment.This book should be of interest to architects,landscape architects, and urban planners and de-signers. It also may appeal to scholars concernedwith the social and cultural history of flight. Militaryhistorians might find the chapter on camouflage ofvalue. And it complements other recent scholarshipon the aerial perspective, including AdnanMorshed’sImpossible Heights: Skyscrapers, Flight, and the MasterBuilder.1Janet BednarekUniversity of DaytonBOOKS RECEIVEDS. J. Bowe. Mulberry: The Material Culture of MulberryTrees. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2015.124 pp.; 84 color illustrations, bibliography, sur-vey list. $34.95 (paper).John Davis, Jennifer A. Greenhill, and Jason D.LaFountain, eds.ACompanion to American Art.Ox-ford: Wiley, 2015. xxii1653 pp.; 148 black-and-white illustrations, index. $195.00.Robert P. Emlen. Picturing the Shakers in the Era ofManifestations. Clinton, NY: Richard W. CouperPress, 2015. 69 pp.; 2 color and 42 black-and-white illustrations, notes. $25 (paper).Brian D. Gallagher, Barbara Stone Perry, LetitiaRoberts, Diana Edwards, Pat Halfpenny, MauriceHillis, and Margaret Ferris Zimmerman. BritishCeramics, 1675–1825. London: Giles, in associa-tion with the Mint Museum, 2015. 272 pp.; 230color illustrations, bibliography, index. $79.95.Curtis M. Hinsley and David R. Wilcox, eds. Comingof Age in Chicago: The 1893 World’s Fair and the Co-alescence of American Anthropology. Lincoln: Univer-sity of Nebraska Press, 2016. xliii1574 pp.; 18color and 54 black-and-white illustrations, 2 ta-bles, 2 appendixes, bibliography, index. $65.00.Stephen Knott. Amateur Craft: History and Theory. Lon-don: Bloomsbury, 2015. xviii1160 pp.; 14 colorand 41 black-and-white illustrations, notes, index.$29.99 (paper).Amy Kurlander, with essays by Joey Brackner andMichael K. Brown. Texas Clay: Nineteenth-CenturyStoneware Pottery from the Bayou Bend Collection. Hous-ton: Museum of Fine Arts Houston, 2015. xi199pp.; 263 color and 9 black-and-white illustrations,bibliography. $26.95 (paper).Robert Macieski. Picturing Class: Lewis W. Hine Pho-tographs Child Labor in New England. Amherst: Uni-versity of Massachusetts Press, 2015. xi1296 pp.;174 black-and-white photographs, notes, index.$29.95 (paper).Anna O. Marley, ed. The Artist’s Garden: AmericanImpressionism and the Garden Movement. Philadel-phia: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts andUniversity of Pennsylvania Press, 2014. xi1248 pp.;91 color illustrations, selected bibliography, index.$45.00.David McCarthy. American Artists Against War, 1935–2010. Oakland: University of California Press,2015. xiv1242 pp.; 12 color and 63 black-and-white illustrations, notes, index. $49.95.Charlotte Nicklas and Annebella Pollen, eds. DressHistory: New Directions in Theory and Practice. Lon-don: Bloomsbury, 2016. xvii1215 pp.; 24 colorand 30 black-and-white illustrations, notes, index.$25.99 (paper).Susan Rather. The American School: Artists and Statusin the Late Colonial and Early National Era. New Ha-ven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016. vii1308 pp.;1 Adnan Morshed, Impossible Heights: Skyscrapers, Flight, and theMaster Builder (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014).94 Winterthur Portfolio 50:1This content downloaded from 131.238.109.027 on March 15, 2018 09:44:20 AMAll use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c).

Review: \u27Flights of Imagination: Aviation, Landscape, Design\u27

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Review: \u27Flights of Imagination: Aviation, Landscape, Design\u27

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