An Art of Instrumentality

Through selected works this monograph showcases the design work and research of leading landscape architect Richard Weller, Chair of Landscape architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. The book documents the evolution of Weller’s practice from small scale artworks to planning megaregions, including his latest proposal for a World Park. With essays by Jillian Walliss and Dirk Sijmons as well as his own writing, the book explains Weller’s methods and motivations; a unique window on to the ways in which the discipline of landscape architecture has matured over the last 40 years. Through a carefully curated selection of work, the book makes the case that landscape architecture is at best “art of instrumentality.

The two essayists in the book are highly regarded. Jillian Walliss of Melbourne University is a contemporary landscape architectural critic and in 2017 Dirk Sijmons received the IFLA sir Geoffrey Jellicoe award, the highest international achievement in landscape architecture.