Discovering the landscape: lost landscapes of Michael Brown
In this post Amber Roberts, recipient of MERL’s landscape academic engagement bursary talks about her work on our Michael Brown collection (Landscape Institute collections). Michael Brown’s work is unfortunately little known to today’s landscape architects. Thanks to a generous research bursary from MERL I have been able to delve into his archive and begin to uncover Brown’s idiosyncratic approach, his lost landscapes and […]
Access to the MERL and Special Collections Library: May 2017
Due to essential maintenance work, we regret to inform you that access to the MERL and Special Collections open access library corridor will be restricted or unavailable on the following dates: Tuesday 16 May – Thursday 18 May Tuesday 23 May – Friday 26 May This will affect access to Special Collections and MERL open […]
Landscape Education in the UK: past present and future
On Saturday 1 April 2017 MERL hosted a FOLAR (Friends of the Landscape Library and Archive at Reading) study day on the topic of: ‘Landscape Architecture and Management Education in the UK: past present and future’. The day included talks and a pop up display of archive and library material from our Landscape Institute collections. FOLAR […]
Discovering the Landscape: Student bursary winners announced
We are delighted to announce that Moa Carlsson and Tianyi Jiang have been awarded Landscape Student Travel Bursaries. The purpose of the two student travel bursaries is to enable students to access collections held at Reading related to landscape, including landscape design, management and architecture. Moa is a doctoral student at the Department of Architecture […]
Students: apply for a landscape research bursary before the end of February
Why should I apply? Our landscape collections are pretty special. Read this overview of our landscape collections or search our combined library, archive and object catalogue. Take a look at reasons to use our landscape collections in your research and topic and resource ideas. But could I apply? Are you: A) A taught undergraduate or postgraduate student? B) […]
Discovering the Landscape: Post-War Landscape Architecture project awarded Academic Engagement Bursary
We are delighted to announce that Amber Roberts has been awarded our Landscape Academic Engagement Bursary. Amber will be using our Michael Brown Collection to analyse key design theories and projects in the development of the profession of landscape architecture, 1945-1975. The project will focus on post-war modernist Britain and the international outreach of British landscape […]
Poultry Show, Telford
Written by Caroline Gould, Deputy University Archivist The MERL attended the Poultry Club of Great Britain National Show at the weekend (19-20 November 2016). It was held at the International Centre, Telford. The MERL took a display of items from the David Scrivener Collection, an expert on poultry. It was the first time The MERL […]
Discovering the Landscape: how to use our collections in your research
Are you an undergraduate, postgraduate, independent researcher or at school? Are you studying history, geography, architecture, environmental science, ecology or design? Then come and use our landscape collections in your research (if you’re an undergraduate apply for one of our landscape student bursaries). We’ve even got topic and resource ideas listed here. So why use […]
Archives featured in the Galleries
Written by Caroline Gould, Deputy University Archivist The new galleries were opened on 19 October 2016, after a £3million redevelopment programme with £1.8 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). Prior to the redevelopment, the galleries contained a large number of objects with little interpretation. We were keen to include archives, archival film and photographs […]
Shaping the Land – why is the first of our new galleries all about trees?
Written by Guy Baxter, Archivist The first space that visitors to the new MERL galleries enter is deceptively simple. It contains one object (a timber carriage), one large picture (an oak tree) and one literary quotation. Thanks to the projected animation and immersive soundscape, visitors can also see and hear the seasons change in the […]