The Modern Landscapes of Ted Smyth: Landscape Modernism in the Asia-Pacific

The modern period in landscape architecture is enjoying the fascinated appreciation of scholars and historians in Europe and the Americas, and new themes, new subjects and new appraisals are appearing. This book contributes to the conversation by focusing on the work of a singular designer who spent his entire career in a province of the North Island of New Zealand. Ted Smyth practiced an assured landscape modernism without ever seeing the designs of his forebears or his contemporaries working in the UK, Europe and the United States. Designing in isolation from the mainstream of modernism, and a little after its high tide, Smyth produced a series of gardens that provoke a revaluation of the diffusionist model of influence.

The book explains and describes the evolution of Smyth's design vocabulary and relates it to the development of tropical landscape modernism in other Asia-Pacific sites. It shows how a culture of garden modernism can be generated from within a particular locale, and highlights Smyth's engagement with Māori design traditions in search of a specific expression of the high modern essentialism of place.

Rod Barnett is Chair of the Master of Landscape Architecture at Washington University in St Louis, USA. His research is in landscape emergence and nonlinear landscapes. He has written on historical themes developed from his work in nonlinear design, and has a particular interest in modern gardens.

Jacqueline Margetts is a Senior Lecturer in the Sam Fox School of Architecture, Design and Visual Arts at Washington University in St Louis, USA, teaching design studio and the history of landscape architecture. She researches Pacific landscapes and the role plants play in the design of garden space.