Moving chronologically from the Renaissance to the present day, the book charts their evolution and dissects the motives behind their construction, while providing practical advice on how to compose elucidatory and persuasive imagery.

In recent years, perspective views have swept into the foreground in the field of landscape architecture. They have become the showpiece of any new design project, frequently overshadowing the plan as the principal graphic mediator of ideas. This manual examines the history of these multifaceted images, their power to shape our expectations and thinking, and, naturally, how to create them. Perspectives communicate planned spaces quite unlike any other orthographic architectural projections, easily connecting with human modes of vision and perception. Yet we have become so accustomed to seeing them that we no longer examine their messages.