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Distributed for Reaktion Books

Genius Loci

An Essay on the Meanings of Place

Distributed for Reaktion Books

Genius Loci

An Essay on the Meanings of Place

From literature to landscape architecture, an expansive, contemplative exploration of the significance of place.
 
For ancient Romans, genius loci was literally “the genius of the place,” the presiding divinity who inhabited a site and gave it meaning. While we are less attuned to divinity today, we still sense that a place has significance. In this book, eminent garden historian John Dixon Hunt explores genius loci in many settings, including contemporary land art, the paintings of Paul and John Nash, travel writers such as Henry James, Paul Theroux, and Lawrence Durrell on Provence, Mexico, and Cyprus, and landscape architects who invent new meanings for a site. This book is a nuanced, thoughtful exploration of how places become more significant to us through the myriad ways we see, talk about, and remember them.

248 pages | 40 color plates, 27 halftones | 6 1/4 x 8 1/4 | © 2022

Art: Art Criticism

Geography: Cultural and Historical Geography


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Reviews

"A miscellany of thoughtful reflections . . . Among the book’s successes are treatments of the High Line in New York and the reimagining of dead industrial spaces in the architecture of Peter and Anneliese Latz.”

Times Literary Supplement

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