Todd Longstaffe-Gowan is a landscape architect, historian, author and collector with an international design practice based in London. Many of his projects have included an element of conservation. He brings to his garden design a sense of the complexities of our relation to the past that is informed by his training and experience as an architect, landscape architect, cultural geographer and historian. He has a strong interest in the sculptural and dramatic potential of landscapes, and in the ways in which their aesthetic possibilities relate to the uses, activities and symbolic functions for which they are destined. He is Gardens Adviser to Historic Royal Palaces, Landscape Adviser to the Crown Estate Paving Commission in Regent’s Park, and founding member and President of the London Parks and Gardens Trust. He teaches part-time at NYU (London), and is the author of several books, including The London Town Garden: 1700-1840 (Yale, 2001) and The London Square: gardening in the midst of town (Yale, 2012).