Sense of Place
A response to an environment: The Swan River Coastal Plain, Western Australia
In 1972, George Seddon wrote Sense of Place, documenting his experience and research into the Swan Coastal Plain, which has since become a landmark Australian environmental publication. Among its claims to influence is having given modern currency to the term sense of place. Although Seddon did not coin the phrase, it was this book that introduced the phrase into the fields of landscape and environmental design. The book includes information on landforms, climate, geology, soils, flora, the Swan River, the coast, offshore islands, wetlands, and urban areas.
Mr. Warner in his Adirondack story, shot a bear by aiming, not at his eye or heart, but at him ‘generally’. But we cannot aim ‘generally’ at the universe, or if we do, we will miss our game.
So said William James, the philosopher, and it is good advice on how to take aim at environmental problems. Sense of Place is a topographic essay, not on the universe, but the environs of Perth, Western Australia.
It is in three parts: The Land - The Plants - Man.
The landforms, climate, drainage geology and plant-cover are discussed in detail, to construct a picture of the region before European settlement. The last third deals with the land use by Aboriginal and European, and the major environmental resources of the region.
George Seddon AM (1927 – 2007) was an Australian academic who held university chairs in a range of subjects. He wrote popular books on the Australian landscape embracing diverse points of view. At the time of his death, he was Senior Honorary Research Fellow English, Communication and Cultural Studies at the University of Western Australia Perth, Western Australia and Emeritus Professor of Environmental Science at the University of Melbourne.
George Seddon was renowned for championing a ‘sense of place’, giving that phrase a uniquely Australian substance. He was a connoisseur of landscapes, from the rugged Snowy Mountains to the humble domestic backyard. He broke new ground in urban planning, landscape architecture and environmental conservation.
