Description: Artists and designers have recorded places, people, and life in drawings and sketchbooks for centuries.
Over the past fifty years, Laurie Olin, one of America's most distinguished landscape architects, has recorded aspects of life and the environment in Italy: its cities and countryside, streets and cafes, ancient ruins, art, architecture, people, villas, and gardens--civic and domestic, humble to grand, things of interest to his designer's eye-- taking the time to see carefully. Rome in its seasons, agriculture in Umbria and Tuscany, trees, food, and fountains, all are noted over the years in watercolor or pen and ink. Originally made in the personal pleasure of merely being there as well as self-education, this selection from many sketchbooks and drawings is accompanied with introductory notes and remarks for different regions including Rome, Turin, Venice, Tuscany, Umbria, Lazio, Campania, and Sicily.Brief description: Laurie Olin is one of America's most distinguished landscape architects. He is Practice Professor Emeritus of Landscape Architecture in the Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania and has guided the design and planning of many award winning signature projects of OLIN, including Bryant Park and Robert Wagner Jr. Park in New York, Mission Bay in San Francisco, the J. Paul Getty Foundation in Los Angeles, Simon and Helen Director Park in Portland Oregon, Hermann Park in Houston, The Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, the Washington Monument Grounds and National Gallery Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C., and numerous campus plans including the American Academy in Rome. He has written extensively about landscape design, history, and theory and is the author of Be Seated and France Sketchbooks, published by ORO Editions. A Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects and recipient of the Society's Medal, the highest achievement for a landscape architect, he is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and was awarded the National Medal of Arts, by President Obama the highest lifetime achievement award for artists and designers bestowed by the National Endowment for Arts.s
Review Quotes: Designers go to Italy and they draw. Landscape architects draw gardens. Architects draw buildings. But Laurie's drawings offer his warm and generous hand and invite you into his mind. He sees omnivorously - buildings, details, people, flowers, food - and that seeing produces thoughts and wonderment. How lucky we are that he has invited us in." -- Billie Tsien AIA, Architect and a founding partner with Tod Williams of the New York City-based studio Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects Partners