In the late 1960s and early 1970s Lewis Baltz became fascinated by the stark, repellent, man-made landscape that was rolling over California"s then still-agrarian terrain. Baltz made a number of projects on this subject, the best known, The new Industrial Parks near Irvine, California was published as a limited edition book by Leo Castelli in 1974. With this book Baltz took his place near the centre of the New Topographic movement, a newly coined term emblematic of a cool, distanced, yet critical view of the emerging man-altered landscape. The Topographic position, detached and glacial, has influenced photographic practice in the United States, Germany and Japan for the past 25 years. Out of print since 1980, The new Industrial Parks near Irvine, California is once again available in a facsimile edition of the original publication.