Under, over, in-between
Notes from Underground: Plato’s Cave, Piranesi’s Prison, and the Subway
by Marshal Berman
Before long, I realized that the system was a kind of theater — a theater of absurdity and cruelty, whose scenery seemed contrived to create anxiety. But I couldn’t deny it made me think…
Visible Cities
by David Lowenthal
Urban dwellers in the real world seldom enjoy the luxury of simple, unambiguous choices between past and present, memory and action, aesthetic and function, ideal and reality; they must instead negotiate tenuous compromises among competing but coexistent needs and values.
Beyond Wilderness and Lawn
by Michael Pollan
The idea of a “middle landscape” — of a place partaking equally of nature and culture, striking a compromise or balance between the two — has received too little attention, with the result that the garden in America has yet to come into its own.
See also:
Lawn and Order — NFB documentary
The American Lawn: Surface of Everyday Life exhibition and essay
The Lawn: North America’s magnificent obsession essay by Robert Fulford