John Dixon Hunt is an Emeritus Professor of the History and Theory of Landscape at the University of Pennsylvania. He edits the journal, Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes, edits Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes, edits the Penn Studies in Landscape Architecture in which 27 volumes have so far appeared, and in the author, among ober a dozen books, of The Afterlife of Gardens, Nature over Again. The Art of Ian Hamilton Finlay, and The Venetian City Garden, Place, Typology & Perception, which has just been awarded the J.B.Jackson Prize by the Foundation for Landscape Studies.
Mark Laird is Senior Lecturer in the History of Landscape Architecture. He teaches courses and seminars in landscape architectural history, including: History of Modern Gardens and Public Landscapes:1700-1950 and The History of Horticulture in Landscape Architecture. Laird lives in Toronto, Canada. As a consultant in historic landscape preservation, he advises on sites in Europe and North America. Recent projects include: Hestercome and Gibside in England, Furst-Puckler Park in Germany, the Belvederegarten and SchlossHof in Austria, Rideau Hall, Parkwood, and the Halifax Public Gardens in Canada. For his replanting work at Painshill Park, where he is Associate Director, Laird was joint recipient of a 1998 Europa Nostra medal for exemplary restoration. Inspired by his practice, his research on eighteenth-century planting culminated in the publication of The Flowering of the Landscape Garden (1999). Using watercolor reconstructions to complement textual analysis, Laird has also published extensively in the Journal of Garden History and Die Gartenkunst. The essays span the history of horticulture from the Baroque to the Picturesque, as well as preservation philosophy and practice. Laird was educated at the Universities of Oxford, Edinburgh, and York. Twice a Fellow at Dumbarton Oaks, he has worked as a historian at the Chelsea Physic Garden in London and he has taught at the University of Toronto.
