This is Kim Wilkie's first book, and will be a major contribution to the literature on landscape, sustainability, regeneration, and design. In Led by the Land he looks back at more than twenty years at the forefront of his profession, and forward to projects which are ongoing, or now in development, including Botanic Gardens in Moscow and Oxford, the redevelopment of Chelsea Barracks and a new cemetery for the City of London. In astonishingly vivid terms, Kim Wilkie explores how 'landscape is a kind of riddle: it changes with every cloud and mood, and yet it is timeless and stationary'. Drawing on a wide range of research, reference points, insights, conversations and practical experiences, he reveals that the key to his work is 'to listen to the stories and then continue the tale, allowing the memory and imagination of what has gone before to inspire fresh design in the evolving pattern.' With some 250 plans and colour photographs, including specially commissioned aerial photography of several major works, this an especially rich account of an unusual talent.
Wilkie is a tall, gentle figure with no obvious desire to impress, but he is the landscape architect most likely to become a household name. He’s behind the colossal redevelopment of Chelsea Barracks, with a plan that gives landscape precedence over buildings. The Prince of Wales has taken him to his environmental heart. The John Madejski courtyard at the V&A is his design.
- Daily Telegraph
A revelatory survey of how landscapes in human hands can become moving inhabited works of art, written by one of the most gifted of today's landscape architects
- Sir David Attenborough
If you want to make a landmark, do not grow gentians.
Get Wilkie to shape the myths of your dreams.
- Financial Times
Publication Details:
Binding: Hardback, 176 pages ISBN: 9780711233256 Format: 270mm x 230mm
250 colour photographs and plans
BIC Code:AMV BISAC Code:ARC008000 Imprint: Frances Lincoln
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