Dancing with Nature

Dancing with Nature is a monograph of gardens and sculpture created by Morgan Dix Wheelock, landscape architect, during his forty-five years of professional practice as a landscape architect. He began his professional career as a three-year apprentice to Japan’s master architect and landscape architect Masao Kinoshita, at the time a principal of Sasaki Associates under the direction of the American landscape architect Hideo Sasaki. Wheelock’s intuitive method of design is clearly derived from these early days working closely with Kinoshita, who did not have a sufficient mastery at that time of the English language to verbalize his philosophy and technique. Rather, these essentials were taught telepathically and through visual observation. In the master’s mind, no task was too menial to be empty of meaning. “It all comes in time. Eat hamburger before you eat steak,” said Kinoshita. This book is based on several lectures given by Wheelock, in which he describes his philosophy using many of his projects to illustrate his method of design and the unique and surprising benefits his Clients have derived from their landscapes.