Faux Mountains

The book provides a contribution to both history in general and to the history of art, to aesthetics, to the history and theory of architecture and, last but not least, to the history and theory of landscape.

The history of landscape architecture is characterised by the construction of architectural mounds, often built by using local excavation material. The industrial revolution acted as another source for the rise of an anthropic topography, creating forms, which we do not recognise anymore as totally artificial. Architects have found in the form of mountains a model and a gestalt with which to play in an ironic way. In twentieth-century art, mountains are ubiquitous, culminating in Robert Smithson's masterful exploration of reversed, displaced, and rebuilt mountains. Michael Jakob's comparative study is the first one to address this fascinating phenomenon. Artificial mountains are a worldwide reality. Their presence influenced the history of urbanism, architecture, and landscape architecture. Michael Jakob's study is the first one to address this fascinating worldwide phenomenon stretching from Antiquity to our days.

About the Author

Michael Jakob teaches History and Theory of Landscape at hepia, Geneva, and aesthetics of design at HEAD, Geneva. He is a visiting professor at Politecnico di Milano, at the Accademia di Architettura in Mendrisio and at the GSD (Harvard). His teaching and research focus on landscape theory, aesthetics, the history of vertigo, contemporary theories of perception and the poetics of architecture.