"This book will come in handy to learn about, develop, compare, and apply the different methods and philosophies. It is a pleasure to read, and an inspiration for the interpreter who too often has doubts about the powers of his or her trade! ...One would have a hard time finding anyone better prepared than Robert Mugerauer to address the topic of this book." -- Anne Vernez Moudon, University of Washington

In this pioneering book, Robert Mugerauer seeks to make deconstruction and hermeneutics accessible to people in the environmental disciplines, including architecture, planning, urban studies, environmental studies, and cultural geography.

Mugerauer demonstrates each methodology through a case study. The first study uses the traditional approach to recover the meaning of Jung's and Wittgenstein's houses by analyzing their historical, intentional contexts. The second case study utilizes deconstruction to explore Egyptian, French neoclassical, and postmodern attempts to use pyramids to constitute a sense of lasting presence. And the third case study employs hermeneutics to reveal how the American understanding of the natural landscape has evolved from religious to secular to ecological since the nineteenth century.