Drawn to Landscape: The Pioneering Work of J. B. Jackson

From 1951 to 1969, John Brinckerhoff (J. B.) Jackson founded, edited, and published Landscape, a magazine that changed the way scholars, writers, teachers, designers, planners, and artists came to understand the everyday places that surround us and influence us in fundamental ways. Then, as a lecturer at Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley, Jackson further pioneered
landscape studies,
a field through which he continues to inspire those who study and interpret landscapes, whether urban, rural, suburban, social, or wild.

Drawn to Landscape is the first book to present fully the many aspects of Jackson’s career. Including original essays by those who not only knew him best but who have carried his torch to new heights in their own respective work, the book sheds valuable light on Jackson’s life and oeuvre, from the time of his childhood to his death in 1996, as well as on his many legacies that remain today. Also included, some pieces reproduced for the first time, is a wide-ranging display of Jackson’s original drawings, watercolors, and teaching slides.

J. B. Jackson taught us to pay attention to the often overlooked but defining features of our landscapes, such as the road and commercial strip, the garage and backyard, and flea markets and borderlands, as well as changing recreational uses of the land, the necessity for ruins and the inherent artificiality of historic preservation, and the importance of the clock–as opposed to the geographical and spiritual grounding of indigenous cultures–in defining our communities, societies, and economies. The book will be a welcome addition to anyone seeking, as Jackson urged, to
read the landscape
in order to understand our everyday world in new and enlightened ways.