Compassionate Landscape

From the top of the Clent Hills in England, one can look out over

the Black Country to the north and the Forest of Arden to the south. As a boy

Humphrey Carver looked at these two landscapes – one synonymous with the harsh

ugliness and dehumanization brought by industry, the other with idyllic harmony

between man and land. At the start of the depression Carver came to Canada where, in

many and varied ways, he has tried to bring the qualities of humanity and compassion

to the landscape shaped by the man. His career has involved him in the initiation

of, and contact with, almost everything that has happened in the last forty years in

the field of housing, planning, design, and urban and community action. This book is

a history of the development of an awareness, of institutions, and of policies on

the shaping of the man-made environment. It is however more than that. Mr Carver

describes his own life and sensibilities, his family and his colleagues, with a

trained and compassionate eye and a taut and careful prose. Rarely does one

encounter an autobiography of such perceptive and satisfying craftsmanship. Those

who know him will not be surprised; those who do not will be delighted to discover a

work of such a warm and sympathetic humanity. Humphrey Carver has a message for us

all.