Lawrence Halprin’s now defunct Skyline Park in Denver gets the full treatment in a new book by Ann Komara, ASLA, a professor of landscape architecture at the University of Colorado, Denver. In more than 140 pages filled with beautiful drawings and photographs, Komara delves into the economic and social trends that spurred the creation of Halprin’s park and led to its eventual decline.

Komara writes that Halprin, who recently died, is one of the most substantial and influential landscape architect of the second half of the twentieth century. His Sea Ranch in Sonoma, California is rightly famous in the design world, while millions of visitors love the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D.C. Halprin, who won innumerable design awards and the highest American presidential medals, also designed the landscape approach to Yosemite National Park.

In this book, it’s his designs and design process for the park, more than his design theories, that we see and understand most vividly. Komara…