After an introduction addressing the importance and role of art in public places and the need for good design, 47 projects are profiled. Each profile includes background, description, and design impact of the project.

Place makers are works of public art and design which capture or reinforce the unique character of a site or space. They share a common sensibility by incorporating historical or geographical references. This richly illustrated publication is comprised of case studies from across the - sculptures, murals, fountains, pavement inserts, and street furniture.

Place makers serves as a reference catalogue [catalog] of project ideas and also outlines a method of implementing place responsive public art. Its vivid, sometimes eccentric stories of struggle and perseverance, of ingenuity and happy effect, should inform and hopefully inspire those who are interested in the meaningful enhancement of city centers, neighborhood or single buildings. Place makers should be perused by architects, artists, arts administrators, planners, and preservationists. It should be useful as well to the intelligent layman who commissions design professionals and then has to live with the results. (Book cover).

CONTENTS
About the Townscape Institute.

1. Introduction - Why we need place makers. 
    A past for the future. 
    The different effects of place makers. 
    The landscape of the mind. 
    Place makers and the Modern Movement. 
    Some perils of place makers. 
    Place making as part of a design process. 
    Toward an ethic for the built environment.

2. Individual profiles section.

3. The environmental profile - Designing a process for encouraging Place-responsive
    public art-- Need for Federal support for place making public art.
    Some policy directions.
    Encouraging place making art.
    A modest proposal: developing the environmental profile.
    The New Orleans R/UDAT: the peril of competitions without place making
    properties.
    The next step: creating an environmental arts plan.

4. Glossary.
    Selected bibliography.
    Index.

After an introduction addressing the importance and role of art in public places and the need for good design, 47 projects are profiled. Each profile includes background, description, and design impact of the project.