Landscape – Great Idea! X-LArch III - Department für Raum ...

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horizons of practice and theory, beginning with the dissection
and analysis of large scale landscape processes
and conditions.
The change in landscape architecture’s theoretical
bases, underlying values and practices outlined above
delineate a direction for the field. Change needs
to happen incrementally, in research, education and
practice, and depends first and foremost on landscape
architecture’s ability to insert itself into the political
processes it has avoided so long. As an applied discipline
landscape architecture depends on a rigorous,
research-based evaluation of the successes and failures
of projects and practice has to outline and contribute to
research. Both must inform education. Large-scale landscapes,
because of their complexity, contestation and
inherent processual character, are the most promising
objects of study – much is to be gained from thorough
practice and research into interrelated ecological, sociocultural
and economic processes and their expressions in
the landscape.
Endotes:
[1] For example, in the United States, landscape architects,
pioneers of modern parkways in the 1930s, relinquished road
design to engineers in the 1950s, relegating themselves to highway
planting design. Its very limited involvement in agriculture or other
significant land uses is mostly within environmental impact assessments.
[2] In ecological terms those inputs present nothing but a disturbance
regime (see e.g. Lister 2007)
[3] Anita Berrizbeitia describes this as “precisely open-ended”
versus being “vaguely loose” (Berrizbeita 2001).
[4] For an overview of underlying concepts, such as prospect-refuge
and habitat-preference theory, see Bourassa 1991.
[5] The nostalgic appeal of such historic landscape pastiches is
obvious, and might add an interesting psychological twist to the
idea of “landscape as agency”. Cultural Geographer Yi-Fu Tuan
(1998) discusses this in his book “Escapism” James Corner (1999,
2006) discusses the lack of reflexive landscapes in contemporary
conditions in a series of essays.
[6] Herbert Simon provided one of the most comprehensive definitions
of design as “transforming existing into preferred situations”.
The ability to perform certain functions is a critical aspect of the
“preferred”. (Simon 1969).
[7] Site, “in common parlance, refers to the ground chosen for something
and to the location of some set of activities or practices…
A specific locale provides the material ground for action in design
practice, and ideas about site provide a theoretical background
against which such actions are taken” (Burns & Kahn 2005).
[8]Jorge Silvetti coined this term in the Gropius lecture at the
Harvard Graduate School of Design in April 2002 to describe the
superimposition of preconceived program-driven spatial organization.
(Silvetti, 2003)
[9] For approaches that discuss the complexities of “site” beyond
suitability for a project and engage potentials of both site and rituals
of use, see Langhorst 2006 and Girot 1999
[10] (Corner 1992). Words in italics have been added by authors to
augment the meaning of the quote.
[11] “Site planning lacks ambiguity, the progenitor of human experience”
(Krog 1981, 375).
[12] “Nonetheless, Landscape Architects continue to employ the
hopelessly inadequate two-dimensional plan as their primary
tool. The severity of this dilemma is illustrated in the discovery by
Appleyard (1979) that one of his students did not recognize an
eye-level photograph of a model developed from his plan.” (Krog,
1981, 375).
[13] Steven Holl describes perspectival renderings as “stills” or individual
frames out of a continuous sequence of experiences, where
“a determinate view necessarily gives way to an indeterminate flow
of perspectives” (Holl 2000, 13).
[14] “The profession of landscape architecture, so named in 1867,
was built on the foundation of several principles—dedication to the
public health, safety, and welfare and recognition and protection of
the land and its resources. These principles form the foundation of
the American Society of Landscape Architects’ Code of Professional
Ethics as well.” ASLA (2008)
[15] This is not a problem exclusive to landscape architecture. See
Fisher 2000, 27-37
Bibliography:
American Institute of Landscape Architects (2008): ASLA Code
of Professional Ethics. www.asla.org/about/codepro.htm [as accessed
23 Sept 2008]
Berleant, Arnold (1992): The Aesthetics of Environment. Philadelphia:
Temple University Press.
Berrizbeita, Anita (2001): Horizons of Undecidability. In: Case:
Downsview Park Toronto, New York: Prestel,116-125
Bourassa, Stephen (1991): The Aesthetics of Landscape. London:
Belhaven Press.
Botkin, Daniel (1990) Discordant Harmonies. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Burns, Carol & Kahn, Andrea (2005): Why Site Matters. In: Site
Matters, New York: Routledge, VIII.
Corner, James (1999): Recovering Landscapes as Critical Cultural
Practice. In: Recovering Landscape: Essays in Contemporary
Landscape Architecture, New York: Princeton Architectural Press,
1-26
Corner, James (1992): Representation and Landscape: Drawing
and Making in the Landscape Medium. Word and Image 8 (3):
243–75
Corner, James (2006): Terra Fluxus. In: The Landscape Urbanism
Reader, New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 22-33
Da Vinci, Leonardo (2008): Notebooks. New York: Oxford University
Press, 10
Dripps, R.D. (1997):The First House: Myth, Paradigm and the Task
of Architecture. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 15-18
Fisher, Thomas (2000): The Value and Values of Architecture.
In the Scheme of Things: Alternative Thinking on the Practice of
Architecture, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press: 27-37
Girot, Christophe (1999): Four Trace Concepts in Landscape
Architecture. In: Corner, J. Recovering Landscape: Essays in Contemporary
Landscape Architecture, New York: Princeton Architectural
Press. 59-68
Harvey, David (1996): Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference.
Cambridge: Blackwell. 120-175, 210-240
Holl, Steven (2000): Parallax, Princeton: Princeton Architectural
Press,13.
Howett , Catherine (1987): Systems, Signs and Sensibilities Lands-
Papers