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Cover image of John Nolen and Mariemont
Cover image of John Nolen and Mariemont
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John Nolen and Mariemont

Building a New Town in Ohio

Millard F. Rogers Jr.

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Winner of the Ohioana Library Association Award

To city planners, landscape architects, and historians, John Nolen is as important a figure in design and planning as was Frederick Law Olmsted, Jens Jensen, or Lewis Mumford. Scholars, however, have only recently begun to explore the extensive Nolen archives. Relying on rarely published materials from these archives and other sources, John Nolen and Mariemont: Building a New Town in Ohio details the planning and initial development of the community of Mariemont, outside Cincinnati. Hired by philanthropist Mary Emery, Nolen worked to transform...

Winner of the Ohioana Library Association Award

To city planners, landscape architects, and historians, John Nolen is as important a figure in design and planning as was Frederick Law Olmsted, Jens Jensen, or Lewis Mumford. Scholars, however, have only recently begun to explore the extensive Nolen archives. Relying on rarely published materials from these archives and other sources, John Nolen and Mariemont: Building a New Town in Ohio details the planning and initial development of the community of Mariemont, outside Cincinnati. Hired by philanthropist Mary Emery, Nolen worked to transform farmland into a community of mixed-income housing complete with commercial space, playgrounds, and a village green.

This is the first book to examine the planning and building of Mariemont and one of the few books to focus on the process of American town planning in the early twentieth century. Regarded in the 1920s as an exemplar of planned communities, Mariemont remains one of America's most livable suburbs and has drawn great interest from the New Urbanism movement.

Reviews

Reviews

Obligatory reading for residents past and present.

Rogers delved into the rich cache of materials found in the John Nolen Papers to produce the definitive history of an American new town... An exemplary book that will appeal to practictioners as well as historians.

For many practicing planners and academics, planning history may seem distant from current challenges and an unlikely source for workable planning concepts. In fact, we can learn much from studying important exemplars from the past. Nolen's work has been overdue for reexamination. John Nolen and Mariemont deserves a wide audience because it offers insights about the difficulty of creating a well-designed mixed-use community from scratch.

I consider Rogers's well-written and usefully illustrated book the best assessment so far of the development of any American planned new town in the twentieth century. Anyone interested in community development will want to read this book.

Rogers reconstructs Mariemont's planning and construction from 1920 to 1925... The value of this study to architectural and planning historians lies in the precision of the chronology.

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About

Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6.125
x
9.25
Pages
280
ISBN
9780801866197
Illustration Description
62 halftones
Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments
Chapter 1. New Town, New Concept
Chapter 2. Nolen's Town Plan Unfolds
Chapter 3. This Is to Be a Model Town
Chapter 4. Work Begins
Chapter 5. Architects and Buildings
Chapter 6

Preface and Acknowledgments
Chapter 1. New Town, New Concept
Chapter 2. Nolen's Town Plan Unfolds
Chapter 3. This Is to Be a Model Town
Chapter 4. Work Begins
Chapter 5. Architects and Buildings
Chapter 6. Year of Progress
Chapter 7. The Curtain Drops
Chapter 8. Emery, Nolen, and Livingood
Chapter 9. Was Mariemont the National Exemplar?
Appendix. Mariemont Site Landowners and Acreage in 1924
Notes
Bibliography
Photograph Credits
Index

Author Bio