This first English biography of Hermann Mattern (1902-1971) one of Germany's principal
twentieth-century landscape architects critically assesses the idiosyncrasies of his
organic-functionalist position while offering a new reading of German garden culture of his
time. Mattern's work embodies several themes of the German landscape discourse as well as the
central ambivalence of his generation: a life spanning the artistic avant-garde of the 1920s
and an apparently apolitical career under the Nazi regime and in the postwar period. Based on
comprehensive archival research Hopstock's richly illustrated study uncovers the professional
networks debates and rivalries that shaped the profession of landscape architecture in
Germany during its formative decades.
