Place-making for the Imagination

Prize: Winner of J.B. Jackson book prize by the Foundation for Landscape Studies, 2015 'Based on doctoral research, this well-illustrated book provides new analysis of Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill, encompassing his extraordinary mid-eighteenth century house, garden, and collection at Twickenham on London’s Thames River. Harney takes as her thesis the idea that Walpole was influenced by ideas of association and imagination, especially as earlier articulated in Joseph Addison’s celebrated Spectator articles ’The Pleasures of the Imagination’ (1712). Rather than seeing Strawberry Hill as some grotesque Gothick precursor to later, more strident and archaeologically correct Gothic Revival, Harney argues for a reappraisal of Walpole’s ensemble as a carefully integrated and philosophically cogent epresentation of his aesthetic beliefs.' Australian Garden History '... Marion Harney has given us much to ponder, particularly in the field of architecture. She explores the complex relationship between neo-Palladian Houghton (Sir Robert’s house) and Strawberry Hill, and presents an unusually fullaccount of Walpole’s antiquarianism and his travels in search of Gothic. Most importantly, she encourages us to see Walpole’s projects as an imaginative whole.' Garden History 'The subject of this attractive, splendidly illustrated book is Strawberry Hill, the Twickenham country house Walpole transformed into a little Gothic castle to indulge his antiquarian tastes.' Times Literary Supplement