Landscape Theory in Design 0415705959, 9780415705950

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Landscape Theory in Design

Phenomenology, Materiality, Cybernetics, Palimpsest, Cyborgs, Landscape Urbanism, Typology, Semiotics, Deconstruction – the minefield of theoretical ideas that students must navigate today can be utterly confusing, and how do these theories translate to the design studio? Landscape Theory in Design introduces theoretical ideas to students without the use of jargon or an assumption of extensive knowledge in other fields, and in doing so, links these ideas to the processes of design. In five thematic chapters Susan Herrington explains: the theoretic groundings of the theory or philosophy, why it matters to design, an example of the theory in a work of landscape architecture from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, debates surrounding the theory (particularly as they elaborate modern and postmodern thought) and primary readings that can be read as companions to her text. An extensive glossary of theoretical terms also adds a vital contribution to students’ comprehension of theories relevant to the design of landscapes and gardens. Covering the designs of over 40 landscape architects, architects, and designers in 111 distinct projects from 20 different countries, Landscape Theory in Design is essential reading for any student of the landscape. Susan Herrington is Professor in the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, where she teaches in the landscape architecture and architecture programmes. She is author of On Landscapes (Routledge) and Cornelia Hahn Oberlander: Making the Modern Landscape. She is also a licensed landscape architect in the State of Connecticut.

This book is a remarkable contribution to landscape architecture as a practice and as a discipline. Herrington brings clarity to what is often obtuse in design theory, while revealing the significance of tackling theory whether as a student, a teacher, or a practicing professional. Provocative images and questions framed by equally thoughtful prose comprise a rich body of landscape and design thinking and experience. This book will be a core resource in teaching and will more broadly increase the intellectual rigor of the discipline. Thaisa Way, Professor, Landscape Architecture, University of Washington What is landscape theory in design? In her new book addressed to students, Susan Herrington shares her insights and experience as a professor of architecture and landscape architecture, giving valuable answers. Timely, clear, and easily accessible with a wealth of case studies from around the world and numerous color illustrations, Herrington illuminates the theories that can help us analyze, understand, and interpret designed landscapes. From phenomenology to cybernetics, semiotics to deconstruction, readers will learn how these ideas and concepts relate to designed landscapes. A first of its kind, Landscape Theory in Design is also a manifesto for meaningful and critical landscape design and activism. Sonja Dümpelmann, Harvard University Graduate School of Design Susan Herrington takes us on a courageous, critical excursion in this clearly written and richly illustrated book, providing an overview of ideas that guide thinking through the design process. In an explicit attempt to help students examine their design thinking and motivations, Herrington unravels the roots of landscape architectural theory from philosophy to sociology in order to identify sources of normative theory in landscape architecture. This is further demonstrated through a valuable analysis of projects completed by designers and artists. Herrington also includes suggested questions and readings, a glossary, and a comprehensive bibliography. This will become a ‘must have’ text in schools of landscape architecture. Marcella Eaton, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture, University of Manitoba

Landscape Theory in Design

Susan Herrington

First published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2017 Susan Herrington The right of Susan Herrington to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Names: Herrington, Susan, author. Title: Landscape theory in design / Susan Herrington. Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016020490| ISBN 9780415705943 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780415705950 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315470771 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Landscape design. | Landscape architecture—Philosophy. Classification: LCC SB472.45 .H47 2017 | DDC 712.01—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016020490 ISBN: 978-0-415-70594-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-415-70595-0 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-47077-1 (ebk) Typeset in Univers by Keystorke, Neville Lodge, Tettenhall, Wolverhampton

Contents

Introduction

1

1

Forming

12

Theoretical groundings of formalism Why formalism matters Formalism in action Formalism debated Primary reading for formalism Theoretical groundings of expression theory Why expression theory matters Expression theory in action Expression theory debated Primary reading for expression theory Theoretical groundings of function Why function matters Function in action Function debated Primary reading for function Theoretical groundings of form generation Why form generation matters Form generation in action Form generation debated Primary reading for form generation Theoretical groundings of interventions Why interventions matter Interventions in action Interventions debated Primary reading for interventions Notes

12 16 16 25 25 25 29 29 33 33 34 35 36 40 41 41 42 43 48 49 49 52 52 56 56 56

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2

3

Spatial practices

61

Theoretical groundings of spatial constructs Why spatial constructs matter Spatial constructs in action Spatial constructs debated Primary reading for spatial constructs Theoretical groundings of illusionary space Why illusionary space matters Illusionary space in action Illusionary space debated Primary reading for illusionary space Theoretical groundings of phenomenology Why phenomenology matters Phenomenology in action Phenomenology debated Primary reading for phenomenology Theoretical groundings of memory and space Why memory and space matter Memory and space in action Memory and space debated Primary reading for space and memory Theoretical groundings of contested space Why contested space matters Contested space in action Contested spaces debated Primary reading for contested space Notes

61 66 67 75 76 77 78 78 85 86 86 87 88 92 93 93 94 95 100 100 100 102 102 106 107 107

Material matters

112

Theoretical groundings of materiality Why materiality matters Materiality in action Materiality debated Primary reading for materiality Theoretical groundings for the truth of materials Why truth of materials matters Truth of materials in action Truth of material debated Primary reading for truth of materials Theoretical groundings of palimpsest Why palimpsest matters Palimpsest in action Palimpsest debated

112 114 115 120 121 121 124 125 129 131 131 133 133 137

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4

5

Primary reading for palimpsest Theoretical groundings of consequentialism Why consequentialism matters Consequentialism in action Consequentialism debated Primary reading for consequentialism Notes

138 138 140 141 147 148 148

Language

153

Theoretical groundings of typology Why typology matters Typology in action Typology debated Primary reading for typology Theoretical groundings of semantics Why semantics matters Semantics in action Semantics debated Primary reading for semantics Theoretical groundings of semiotics Why semiotics matters Semiotics in action Semiotics debated Primary reading for semiotics Theoretical groundings of structuralism Why structuralism matters Structuralism in action Structuralism debated Primary reading for structuralism Theoretical groundings of post-structuralism Why post-structuralism matters Post-structuralism in action Post-structuralism debated Primary reading for post-structuralism Notes

153 156 157 164 165 165 168 170 176 177 178 180 182 188 190 190 192 195 200 201 201 204 205 211 212 212

Systems logic

221

Theoretical groundings of systems theory and cybernetics Why systems theory and cybernetics matter Systems theory and cybernetics in action Systems theory and cybernetics debated Primary reading systems theory and cybernetics Theoretical groundings of infrastructure

221 224 225 230 231 232

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Why infrastructure matters Infrastructure in action Infrastructure debated Primary reading for infrastructure Theoretical groundings of aleatory systems Why aleatory systems matter Aleatory systems in action Aleatory systems debated Primary reading for aleatory systems Theoretical groundings for digital systems Why digital systems matter Digital systems in action Digital systems debated Primary reading for digital systems Theoretical groundings for diagramming Why diagramming matters Diagramming in action Diagramming debated Primary reading for diagramming Notes

Glossary Bibliography Index

233 234 240 241 241 243 244 250 251 251 254 256 263 264 265 267 268 271 272 272

280 297 319

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Introduction

WHAT IS A THEORY, AND WHO CARES? What is a theory? Theories are debatable explanations concerning how you interpret phenomena in the world, make sense of experiences, discover patterns, and produce meaning. Notice I wrote “debatable.” Unlike the sciences, where “theory” is a phase in the scientific method, in the humanities most theories remain in the contested territory of debate. This means that the majority of theories introduced to you in this book are best estimates and debatable accounts. The goal of Landscape Theory in Design is to introduce you to theoretical ideas that will be useful in the design process. Certainly, not all theories are useful in design. In general there are three types of theories – resistant, normative, and explanatory – that are particularly germane to design and can serve as powerful motivators for those designing landscapes.1 Resistance theory challenges the status quo. The philosopher John Dewey thought that resistance was crucial to our experiences with art because it challenged what we believe. Dewey thought if your beliefs were never tested your appreciation of art would be “transient and overweighted with sentiment” and “lack significant meaning.”2 Intervention theories in the Forming chapter (1) and contested spatial theories in the Spatial Practices chapter (2) are both resistance theories. Intervention theories seek to change the way people think and act by intervening in a specific context. Thus, they enable the designer to operate critically through the act of design by challenging people’s perception of a landscape. Contested spatial theories hold that designed spaces are key locations where culture, ideology, and capital are continually negotiated. Understanding the contestability of space facilitates an understanding of design as part of this negotiation. In short, contested spatial theories challenge the notion of space as simply a neutral area to be shaped by the landscape architect. Since resistance theories challenge the status quo they tend to be passionately debated among professionals. In the Language chapter (4) you will read about the landscape architect Martha Schwartz, whose Bagel Garden questioned the role of plant material as the primary content of designed landscapes. This challenge struck a deep chord among readers of Landscape Architecture magazine, which featured the Bagel Garden on the cover, and the garden’s merits were debated for

1 䊐

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a year after its publication. Sometimes resistance can come directly from the client. Mikyoung Kim, a landscape architect, was hired by a couple in Lincoln, Massachusetts, a New England town known for its stately historic homes and undulating lawns. The couple didn’t want a lawn like the other houses, and their tastes were anything but historical. Look at the landscape for the Farrar Pond residence. Mikyoung Kim designed a tapestry of confetti-like paving and sedums instead of a lawn. Normative theories are based on what should be and there are many normative theories relevant to the landscape design process. The theory of consequentialism discussed in the Material Matters chapter (3), for example, maintains, “that the rightness or wrongness of an agent’s action depends solely on the value of the consequences of this action, compared to the value of the consequences of any other action that the agent could have undertaken.”3 Thus, consequentialism declares that you ought to consider the ecological costs of decisions made during the design process. This thinking has had a tremendous impact on material selection, extraction, transportation, assemblage, and production. Unlike resistant theories that prompt designers to act critically, normative theories tend to prescribe the way something should be done. Returning to the Bagel Garden, Schwartz was not proposing that every landscape architect start using bagels as a material source; rather the bagels provoked questioning of

0.1 Farrar Pond residence landscape (2007) by Mikyoung Kim, image courtesy of Mikyoung Kim Design, Lincoln, Massachusetts, USA

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Introduction 䊏

the conventional materials used in landscape design. Normative theories, such as consequentialism, contend that all landscape architects should consider the ecological costs of materials. In this sense, normative theories often turn into paradigms or schools of thought with their own tenets, and when entire schools of thought are debated this can lead to divisions or camps. In the Systems Logic chapter (5) you will read about landscape urbanism, whose followers challenged the tenets of new urbanism – a debate that continues today. Explanatory theories describe why something is the way it is, and while they are often used to explain an existing site, they also feature in the design process. The typological theories discussed in the Language chapter and the systems theories covered in the Systems Logic chapter are examples of explanatory theories. Landscape typologies help classify types of landscapes that share common traits. This classification creates a language of types that can be used and transformed through the design process. Systems theory, which provides an alternative to mechanistic explanations of life, can describe how natural systems continually interact with each other. The explanation of a landscape as an organic system facilitated the integration and regeneration of natural processes in the design process. Of the three types of theories, explanatory theories are the most difficult to debate because these theories describe more often than make claims. But who cares about theories in design? I’ve met some landscape architecture students who feel they don’t need to bother with theory. I tell them, theory is like exercise for the brain. Theories, at least the theories presented in this book, help develop your ability to see and interpret works of landscape architecture. This is an invaluable skill for you as a student, designer, landscape architect, and member of the design community, which is also an intellectual community. Speaking to the Design History Society meeting in Cornwall, the philosopher and sociologist of science Bruno Latour championed the term “design” for its ability to prompt interpretation and how it features in daily life. For Latour, “Design lends itself to interpretation . . . Wherever you think of something as being designed, you bring all of the tools, skills and crafts of interpretation to the analysis of that thing. It is thus of great import to witness the depths to which our daily surroundings, our most common artefacts are said to be designed.”4 Latour also commented that design “is never a process that begins from scratch: to design is always to redesign.”5 This is a perfect description of what landscape architects do, and theories can help in this endeavor by providing debatable explanations of site phenomena, landscapes experiences, patterns, and communication through the act of design. Debatable explanations, or theories, also have a long tradition in landscape architecture. The landscape architecture professor Jacky Bowring reminds us that, “Landscape architecture was born amidst a period of intense debate. During the eighteenth century, the sometimes heated exchanges between theorists of the picturesque raised many points of contention and laid down the foundations for the discipline of landscape architecture.”6 To be sure, one of the most prominent theories in the past few decades, picturesque association, can

3 䊐

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trace its roots back to this time period. For scholars such as Thomas Whately (1726–1772) and Richard Payne Knight (1750–1824), the associations sparked by a ruin in a landscape garden could provoke a range of sensations and associations ushered in by memory. Since these associations take place in the mind and not entirely in the objects being perceived, attributes of the landscape previously considered unattractive could be enjoyed as picturesque. With picturesque association the grotesque, the ugly, and the melancholy were hailed as important dimensions of landscapes. Subsequently, design features such as dark grottoes, decaying Roman-inspired bridges, and lichen-covered temples were purposely designed as part of the landscape to trigger people’s rumination on the glories of past civilizations. Homages to the fading agrarian society were also created with the inclusion of rundown mills and hermit huts. Indeed, ruins, whether classical or vernacular, became the experiential space of the past. As I argued in On Landscapes, this aesthetic mode of picturesque association has been revived in more recent works of landscape architecture that frame deteriorating relics from the industrial past. Abandoned industrial structures, most likely deemed eyesores by a previous generation, are now treasured for their associations with loss and decay. Like the eighteenth-century landscapes that lamented the loss of both classical splendor and the quaintness of agrarian life, post-industrial parks recall the loss of industry from a twenty-first century service-oriented perspective. An early precedent for these post-industrial parks is Duisburg North Park, designed by Latz + Partner, in Germany. Previously home to a Thyssen factory, the site was redesigned as a park. Latz + Partners intentionally retained features, such as abandoned railway scaffoldings, blast furnaces, and foundry walls, so that they could function like the ruins did in eighteenth-century landscape gardens. Indeed, picturesque association attests to the long-standing tradition that theory has played in landscape design.

THE FORMAT OF THIS BOOK The book is segmented into five chapters: Forming, Spatial Practices, Material Matters, Language, and Systems Logic. Whenever you place things in categories there will be overlap, and I note within the text points where theories converge across chapters, but you will most likely find some yourself as well. The chapters are “loosely” chronological, as form was central to theoretical discourse in the beginning of the twentieth century, while the rise of computer use and digital tools of late has made systems one of the more recent theoretical topics discussed. Each of the five chapters contains four or five theoretical positions that contain: “theoretical groundings,” describing the background of the theory; “why the theory matters,” detailing why I think it’s important for landscape architecture students to know this theory; theory “in action,” demonstrating how the theory is operating in a specific design; theory “debated,” which gives different views on the theory; and a primary source reading list. These readings can be paired with this book, or students can refer to these works in their own research.

4 䊐

Introduction 䊏

I purposely selected theory topics that translate to the design process. I’ve been teaching theory to landscape architecture students for many years, and there are plenty of theories, but I have found that only some can influence the design process. In this book I draw upon theories from philosophy, art theory, architecture, cultural studies, etc. Some might be disappointed that the theories in this book borrow from disciplines other than landscape architecture. I think this is a strength because it connects what you do in the design studio with ideas and movements larger than the discipline itself. Of course, not all theories are the same. You will encounter heavy theories, like phenomenology in the Spatial Practices chapter, which has a long-standing connection to philosophy. You will also read about lighter theories that have emerged out of the design professions, and do not rely on a deep philosophical tradition. I also selected theories that I could understand and explain clearly. Some think that if a text is confusing and it uses a lot of verbs as nouns, that it is theory. This is actually a writer trying to appear theoretical. Theory must be comprehensible because if you can’t understand it, you can’t debate it. The theory “in action” sections feature 111 projects from 20 different countries. I thank my students for finding many of these examples. I taught versions of this book to landscape architecture and architecture students in 2012, 2013, and 2014, and one of the requirements for the class was to find examples of the theories that they interpreted in recent works of landscape architecture. The criteria for selection maintained that the projects had to be built (only a few examples are not built), they should be graspable in a single image, and the student should be able to visualize the theory in the image. I wanted built examples because realizing a built project is ultimately what landscape architects do, and it is the most challenging dimension of practice. For practical purposes I wanted landscapes that could be understood from a single image. Also, this is an introductory book on theory and design for students, and students usually, but not always, begin with studios that address the human scale, the scale you know by first-hand experience. I also wanted my students to select views that showed the theory in action because I wanted them, and you, to look more carefully at images. We are bombarded with virtual images every day, and students can become very enthusiastic about images of designed landscapes that they see on the Internet. I do too. This tends to be the most prevalent way of studying designed landscapes today. A hundred years ago students of landscape architecture obviously didn’t have the Internet as a resource. Instead, they looked at lantern slides and performed careful in-situ studies, such as measured drawings, of built landscapes. It is my hope that this book will help you look at images of designed landscapes more discerningly, and, if you are lucky enough, of course visit them. You may have noticed that some words in this introduction are in bold type. This means their definition can be found in the Glossary. Here, you will find not only the meaning of terms as they relate to their theoretical context, but also the chapters where they appear. If I explain the meaning of a term in the text, it will not be in the Glossary. I strongly encourage you to look up words that you do

5 䊐

䊏 Introduction

not know, even if they are not in bold. If you don’t know the meaning of terms, this will hinder your comprehension of theories.

DID THE DESIGNERS IN THE “IN ACTION” SECTIONS USE THE THEORIES YOU DESCRIBE? I must confess, in most instances – I don’t know. The landscape architect Günther Vogt has said that his office is influenced by Claude Lévi-Strauss, whose theory of the “Raw and the Cooked” is part of the theoretical underpinnings of structuralism discussed in the Language chapter, and one of the places where I discuss Vogt’s ideas. However, most of the landscape architects, designers, artists, and architects covered in this book have not claimed to use the theories I write about. Although I did have the happy coincidence of hearing a lecture by the landscape architect Anu Mathur in Sweden. She started her talk off by quoting Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, a postcolonial feminist whose theories provide the theoretical grounding for post-structuralism in the Language chapter, and where I had placed Mathur’s work with Dilip da Cunha. Moreover, it doesn’t entirely matter if the designers employed the theory that I use their work to illustrate. Theories give names to explanations that have existed before the theory. Consider Jean-Paul Sartre’s theory of group praxis, which I discuss in the phenomenology section of the Spatial Practices chapter. Sartre’s theory concerns how people behave in a group for others, which empowers the individual while also reinforcing the group. He theorized that due to group praxis, you are obliged to a set of customs and behaviours. Your theory class could be described as an example of group praxis. Your participation in the class reinforces your role in the praxis as a student and the idea that this class is a group, and you engage in numerous customs and behaviours that are part of that reinforcement. You (hopefully) arrive at a specific time and place to take the course, you raise your hand and ask questions, you watch the presentations given by the instructor and classmates, and so forth. Think of what happens when these codes are not adhered to. Thus, group praxis is a phenomenon that Sartre observed during his lifetime and gave it a name. In other words, he discovered something very interesting that has probably existed among human beings for a long time. I used Little Spirit Garden by the artist Bill Pechet and Daly Landscape Architecture as an “in Action” example of Sartre group praxis. The garden honours infants who have died in the Vancouver area. Pechet designed 3,000 tiny concrete houses so that parents, family members, and friends of the infant could place items in the houses to commemorate them. I know Bill, and I don’t think he is familiar with Sartre’s theory, but he and Daly Landscape Architecture didn’t need Sartre’s theory to create this beautiful memorial. They just needed to tap into a practice that they had accurately observed in other memorials – where people placed items in commemoration of those who have died; the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC, for example. However, even though they didn’t need Sartre’s theory to design this landscape, knowing Sartre’s theory can help

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you understand Little Spirit Garden more profoundly and, more importantly, as a student this may cause you to think more deeply about the designs you create.

COMMON THEORIES IN THE BOOK

0.2 Modern landscape architecture versus postmodern landscape architecture

In writing this book I have discovered a number of competing positions within landscape architecture and how these relate to design. Landscape architects have not experienced the divisive schism between modernism and postmodernism that architects have witnessed. Yet, modern designers and postmodern designers do maintain disparate approaches or attitudes to the main subjects of the book. I hesitate to put a date on when landscape architecture became postmodern; this attempt is still hotly debated in architecture. The landscape architecture considered in this book covers a wide range of geographies and time periods, but generally landscapes created in Europe between the 1910s and the 1930s and in North America and Europe immediately after the Second World War are typically considered modern (albeit Horace Walpole published History of the Modern Taste in Gardening in 1780). Postmodern landscape architecture on the other hand is commonly associated with work created after the late 1960s, although there are landscape architects working today, such as Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, who argue that they maintain a modern practice. It may be more useful to distinguish some of major divisions claimed by modern and postmodern landscape architects (see Figure 0.2). Interestingly, by creating this list I have just participated in the most reoccurring controversial thought process discussed in this book – binary thinking. This practice, the pairing of two concepts that are thought to oppose each other in meaning, has occupied philosophers and theorists for decades. As you can see from the list on modern and postmodern landscape architecture, binary distinctions can help clarify differences. In the Western philosophical tradition

attitudes and influences

modern

postmodem

attitude towards form

autonomous function + site generate universal feelings

signifies culture memory + site connote multiple ideas

an area to be shaped psychology generate universal feelings

contested space of power cultural criticism connote multiple ideas

authentic new materials available after second WW identified as modern

artificial is ok, but not fake ecological consequences identified as sustainable

binary terms frame thought structures modem, architectural design vocabulary unify people across cultures and time

binary is too restrictive, repressive earthworik and land art, ecology language controls identity

should be controlled by designers scientific understanding will lead to harmony and stability

designers are part of the system artistic practice will lead to chance

Influences on form Impact of form on people attitude towards space Influences on space impact of space on people attitude towards materials influences on materials interpretation of materials attitude towards language influences on language impact of language on people attitude toward systems Influences on systems Impact of systems on people

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this practice, called the dialectical process, was thought to reveal the truth. Yet, others have found this thought process oppressive because one category always maintains power over the other. Also, by placing the world in opposing categories some have claimed that this limits individual identity. Think of the simple binary: male and female. There have certainly been critiques made by feminists that male maintains power over female, and the transgender movement has questioned the very basis of this simple pair. Another source of controversy I discovered in writing this book is what the landscape architect James Rose called “perceptible form,” which means that people can perceive human-designed forms in a designed landscape. Landscape architects are unique in that their work is sometimes confused with natural processes or not noticed as intentionally designed at all. Architects don’t need to wonder if the new addition they have designed for their client’s house will be perceived as naturally occurring. People won’t say, “Hey, look at that new sunroom that has grown on the side of that house.” Landscapes also have a special relationship with time. They often contain and are subject to non-human factors that significantly shape their character over time. Natural processes, such as growing plants and eroding soil, can significantly shape landscapes. Other art and design practices are subject to natural forces too, but these are incidental (unless a mud slide destroys the building). Natural forces in landscapes are not incidental; rather they are often part of the design intent. While some landscape architects prefer that their landscapes look as if they were not designed, for others it has been imperative to create landscapes that get noticed for their design. In fact I first started writing about landscape theory when my brother, Wayne, called me to ask if I knew anything about a landscape with golden frogs and a large planted dome at a shopping centre in Atlanta, Georgia. It was the Rio Shopping Center designed by Martha Schwartz. My brother worked in the corporate world and was looking at the property, and had never seen anything like this before. He was amazed and at the same time deeply curious about this landscape. He asked incredulously, “Is this what landscape architects really do? What does it mean?” This exchange with my brother prompted me to consider how designed landscapes feature in people’s daily lives, and that some designs will prompt interpretation. Years later I was teaching a landscape theory course at the University of British Columbia, and I was asked by Derek Matravers, a philosopher and visiting scholar that year, if he could join the class. It was a privilege that he participated in the course and I think he would make a great landscape theorist, but the question of “perceptible form” really bothered him. During the last week of the course he gave his own presentation to the class voicing his concerns. I won’t divulge his entire proposition, but he was very puzzled by the idea that landscape architects would want to relinquish human form-making to ecological processes. He recalled that some of his most treasured landscapes in London possessed strong forms, and this made them quite memorable. Matravers’s worries reminded me of the landscape architect Laurie Olin’s contention,

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It is the aesthetic endeavor that separates us from social and natural scientists, from engineers and policy planners, from politicians and preservation administrators. We make things in the endeavor to produce environments that are more complex, more stimulating, more useful, and more beautiful than if we had not intervened.7

But what is aesthetics, or more precisely, what does it have to do with landscape theory? As I have written in On Landscapes, John Dewey’s views on aesthetics are particularly relevant to landscape design.

RECOVERING DEWEY’S AESTHETICS Aesthetics is the philosophy of art, and according to the philosopher James Shelley, since the eighteenth century it has investigated “judgements, attitudes, experiences, qualities, objects, and values.”8 Initial conceptions of aesthetics focused on the act of making rational judgments, such as judging a landscape beautiful. These aesthetic theories were eventually supplanted by experience theories. John Dewey (1859–1952) was an early American pragmatist philosopher (along with Charles Sanders Peirce and William James), who made experience central to his aesthetic theories.9 In Art as Experience (1934) Dewey claimed, “The product of art – temple, painting, statue, poem – is not the work of art. The work of art takes place when a human being cooperates with the product so that the outcome is an experience.”10 In other words, Dewey didn’t think art happened in an object of art sequestered in a museum, rather it happens in experiences. He thought museums were akin to beauty parlours of civilization, and thought that people should find aesthetic experiences in daily life. By discovering aesthetic experiences outside of the museum walls, Dewey thought art would reach more people and shape interests instrumental to their daily lives. This aesthetic theory had the effect of unlocking where and when aesthetic experiences could happen, in a landscape, for example. In addition to Dewey’s contention that art occurs in daily life, and his insistence on resistance (as discussed earlier), two other facets of his pragmatism that are highly relevant to landscape theory in design are the socialness of aesthetic experiences and anticipation. Unlike other aesthetic theories, Dewey thought that aesthetic experiences promoted dialogue, socialization, and shared meaning. For example, Dewey established the Laboratory School at the University of Chicago, where he promoted “learning by doing.” Working in groups, children made gardens, plaster cities, and other works in order to build a community as a foil to the regimented and alienated forces of the city.11 Dewey thought gardening in particular was an activity that produced a strong social cohesion among children and their teachers.12 This underscores the social capacity of landscapes. Because landscape architects are often charged with the task of designing public spaces for all types of people, landscapes represent a key space for experiences that can be shared.

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䊏 Introduction

Lastly, Dewey’s conception of anticipation is the when dimension of his aesthetics and it suggests another experience made available by many landscapes. He charged that anticipation, the expectation of some change, starts before the experience commences and is carried through experience. For Dewey, “at each stage there is anticipation of what is to come. This anticipation is the connecting link between the next doing and its outcome for sense. What is done and what is undergone are thus reciprocally, cumulatively, and continuously instrumental to each other.”13 Since landscapes change over time, and thus tell time rather than deny it, they make available unique aesthetic experiences. Dewey’s aim to recover “the continuity of aesthetic experience in the normal processes of living,”14 was largely ignored by philosophers and the art critics who privileged art exhibited in museums. The philosopher Richard Shusterman contends that the neglect of aesthetic experiences in everyday life implies the “dismal assumption that ordinary life is necessarily one of joyless unimaginative coercion” and “provides the powers and institutions structuring our everyday lives with the best excuse for their increasingly brutal indifference to natural human needs for the pleasures of beauty and imaginative freedom.”15 It is the aim of Landscape Theory in Design to help you challenge these assumptions and indifferences.

NOTES 1. Susan Herrington, “An Ontology of Landscape Design,” The Routledge Companion to Landscape Studies, eds. Peter Howard, Ian Thompson, and Emma Waterton (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), 355–365. 2. John Dewey, Art as Experience (New York: Putnam Capricorn, 1958), 60. 3. Avram Hiller and Leonard Kahn, “Introduction: Consequentialism and Environmental Ethics,” Consequentialism and Environmental Ethics, eds. Avram Hiller, Ramona Ilea, Leonard Kahn (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014), 1–16 (3). 4. Bruno Latour, “A Cautious Prometheus? A Few Steps Toward a Philosophy of Design (with Special Attention to Peter Sloterdijk),” keynote lecture for the Networks of Design meeting of the Design History Society, Falmouth, Cornwall, 3 September 2008, 4, www.bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/112-DESIGN-CORNWALL-GB.pdf 5. Ibid., 5. 6. Jacky Bowring, “Meaning in Landscape Architecture and Gardens,” Landscape Review 13, no. 2 (2011): 40–43 (40). 7. Laurie Olin, “Most Important Questions,” Landscape Journal 11, no. 2 (1992): 171–172 (171). 8. James Shelly, “The Aesthetic,” The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics, third edition, eds. Berys Gaut and Dominic McIver Lopes (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), 246–256 (246). 9. See Michel Conan, ed. Contemporary Garden Aesthetics, Creations and Interpretations (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2007). This book is based on papers delivered at a Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium dedicated to Dewey’s aesthetics and gardens. 10. Dewey, Art as Experience, 214. 11. William Harms and Ida DePencier, Experiencing Education: 100 Years of Learning at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1998), 4. 12. John Dewey, School and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1942), 99.

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13. John Dewey, Art as Experience, 52. 14. Ibid., 10. 15. Richard Shusterman, “Pragmatism: Dewey,” The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics, third edition, eds. Berys Gaut and Dominic McIver Lopes (New York: Routledge, 2005), 121–131 (126).

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1

Forming

This chapter covers one of the most challenging aspects of design – the generation of forms. Where do forms come from? They can be drawn from the site, natural or cultural processes, the programme, and many other different sources. Historically, form generation in the design process was associated with the artrelated aspects of landscape design. In fact one of the earliest textbooks for landscape architecture students, An Introduction to the Study of Landscape Design (1917) by Henry Vincent Hubbard and Theodora Kimball, argued that landscape architecture was aligned with the fine arts.1 In keeping with the École des Beaux-Arts traditions, if you were a landscape architecture student in 1917 you would probably be busy studying historic forms to be copied in your studio design projects. Yet, twentieth-century art was rapidly changing, as it was no longer securely tied to the task of mimesis – representing attributes found in the three-dimensional world. Cubism and other early twentieth-century art movements abstracted reality on the canvas, and in sculpture, photography, film, and theatre. A painting of a city, for example, didn’t need to look like a city one might encounter first hand. These changes in the formal qualities of art eventually influenced ideas about designed landscapes and the way they were conceived and theorized.

1.1 Donnell Garden pool (1948) by Thomas Church, image courtesy of Marc Treib, Sonoma, California, USA

THEORETICAL GROUNDINGS OF FORMALISM Compare the image of the Donnell pool with the reflection pool at the Bloedel Reserve.

One pool is for swimming and the other pool is for viewing, but how are their formal properties – in terms of their colour, line, and shape – different? How do the colours and lines of the pools’ edges suggest stasis or movement?

By answering these questions you’ve just begun a formal analysis of two works of landscape architecture. Formalism in art and aesthetics addresses the formal

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1.2 The Bloedel Reserve reflection pool (1984) by Richard Haag, image courtesy of Marc Treib, Bainbridge Island, Washington State, USA

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qualities – the textures, forms, shapes, and lines – of a design or work of art. In general formalism prioritizes form and its qualities over form’s ability to represent something. A formalist analysis, for example, would not be concerned with the idea that the curving edges of the Donnell Garden pool mimic the edges of the salt marshes once in the distant background. Rather emphasis is placed on analysing the garden’s formal properties. The philosopher Nick Zangwill defines “formal properties as those aesthetic properties that are determined solely by sensory or physical properties – so long as the physical properties in question are not relations to other things and other times.”2 So, the salt marshes are not part of the formal properties of the Donnell Garden pool. In a formalist analysis, the focus is on the physical and sensory attributes of the design. Formalism can be traced back to the work of the art critic Clive Bell (1881– 1964) in his book Art (1913).3 While Bell never precisely defined formalism, his emphasis on the formal qualities of art, instead of what an artwork represented, became a dominant cultural attitude shaping the way art and design were discussed, conceived, and valued.4 Highlighting the far-reaching powers of Bell’s formalism, the philosopher Noël Carroll argues that even school children when reading a story “were taught not to let their attention wander away from the text: allow their concentration to become caught up in the story’s relation to real life, rather than to savour its formal organization and features (for example, its unity, complexity and intensity).”5 Indeed, the viewer’s recognition of form over other associations can be seen in the early writings of the landscape architect James Rose (1913–1991). In his 1938 article, “Freedom in the Garden” for Pencil Points magazine, Rose argued for a formalist conception of garden design, one that did not rely on the École des Beaux-Arts tradition of copying historical forms. Rose thought it was the garden’s basic forms and perception of the forms, and not what they represented, that counted. When form was perceptible “the thing acquires form and meaning. The arrangement may be pleasing or ugly, it may be loose or stiff, it may be symmetrical or unsymmetrical, but if the arrangement is perceptible, it possesses the quality of form, and to that extent is ‘formal.’”6 During the twentieth century formalism not only provided a method of evaluating art, but it also played an ontological role in defining what made something art. Art critics such as Clement Greenberg (1909–1994) proffered a version of formalism in order to champion abstract expressionist painting over painting that attempted to represent three-dimensional scenes or events, especially historic ones.7 Formalist approaches to landscape design also played an ontological role in defining a landscape as a modern one. This was particularly widespread after the Second World War, when the design professions sought a vocabulary that was “unfettered by religion, unconstrained by subject matter, free of national or linguistic boundaries.”8 It is this sense of the term formalism – as a language of basic forms – that reflects the formalist design theory of many mid-century landscape architects. These designers argued that the use of a basic design vocabulary was

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more egalitarian than École des Beaux-Arts designs. The landscape architect Garrett Eckbo (1910–2000) maintained “if our concept for design is held on a higher plane than our concept of people we introduce a contradiction in our work . . . how about the majority who experience our park designs? Do they require a course of training before they enjoy them?”9 Landscape designs referencing narratives and stories, for which historical interpretation was critical to their appreciation, were deemed elitist. In contrast, designs employing basic forms were considered egalitarian because they did not require an educational background or specialty in art history; one could simply sense them. For a counterexample to formalism, look at the Fountain of Pegasus at the Villa Lante, Bagnaia, Italy. The fountain’s design includes at its centre a sculpture of a winged horse, Pegasus, with its front hooves in the air and its rear hooves perched on a rock-like base. Pegasus, a figure from ancient Greek mythology, produced a spring of water wherever he struck the ground with his hoof. The fountain’s design conveys this myth, a very appropriate one given the bountiful supply of water at the Villa Lante site. 1.3 Fountain of Pegasus at the Villa Lante, image courtesy of Dominic McIver Lopes, Bagnaia, Italy

Comparing this with the previous examples of the Donnell Garden pool or the Bloedel Reserve pool, how are they different? If you were unaware of the myth of Pegasus would you be less likely to enjoy this fountain?

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If you did know the myth would you have a deeper appreciation of the garden’s design?

Why formalism matters Formalism transformed what a landscape design could look like and opened up a range of forms that could be borrowed from other fields. However, a major critique of formalism charged that there could never be a universal language of forms because people’s reception of forms (in a landscape or in a painting) were culturally biased and determined by socio-economic status or other factors. Yet, formalism matters precisely because of these differences in reception. Form, line, and colour can provoke extremely different reactions in people (including your studio critics and peers). In landscape architecture the employment of organic versus geometric forms are frequently points of passionate debate precisely because people do make associations with these forms. Some champion organic forms because they are commonly associated with natural processes. Some gravitate to geometrical forms because of their association with culture. Yet there are certainly geometries in nature (think of the precise distribution of petals in a flower or the crystalline shapes of a snow flake). Likewise, not all cultural processes need be geometrical (think of the wildly organic forms produced through digital fabrication). Yet, it is this aspect of formalism – the attention to formal properties in design and its reception by those reviewing or experiencing these properties – that is of value. Landscape architects are not able to control the reception of their work by others, but by carefully focusing on the formal properties of their designs, they may prompt a perception of these properties, whether, as Rose states, it is pleasing or ugly, loose or stiff. Formalism’s preoccupation with the visual qualities of design and people’s reception of design is a first step towards a landscape’s ability to mean or communicate. “For if the independence of the one from the other generates and sustains both communication and the interpretation of meaning, then formalism can be seen to provide the most compelling account of that relation.”10 Formalism in action Simplicity and complexity Debates regarding simplicity and complexity in design are commonly attributed to the work of the architects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown.11 Since the late 1960s they argued against the abstraction of formalists and favoured the complexity and contradiction old European squares and the Las Vegas Strip. However, in landscape architecture debates regarding simplicity versus complexity date back to eighteenth-century England. The fabled “Picturesque Controversy” probed this very issue. Richard Payne Knight (1750–1824) and Uvedale Price (1747–1829) criticized the landscapes of Capability Brown

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(1716–1783) for their smooth textures and simple shapes. Knight was suspicious of this new trade, landscape gardening, and thought Brown was “ignorant of painting, and incapable of judging picturesque effects.”12 To express his indignation Knight published The Landscape: A Didactic Poem in 1795, which mocked Brown’s landscapes as shaven and lacking in intricacy. Humphry Repton (1752–1818) retorted to Knight that a landscape gardener needed to consider how the landscape was accessed by the owner and the more practical uses of the landscape – not whether it looked like a painting or not. Knight countered that one of the many names Repton should call himself was a “walk maker.”13 By 1810 Uvedale Price joined in the debate against Brown and Repton, cautioning that it was important “to distinguish what is simple, from what is bald and commonplace; what is varied and intricate, from what is only perplexed.”14 Smoothness was a key critique that even extended to Price’s assessment of animals. “We find that the Pomeranian, and the rough water-dog, are more picturesque than the smooth spaniel, or the greyhound; the shaggy goat than the sheep: and these last are more so when their fleeces are ragged and worn away in parts, than when they are of equal thickness, or when they have lately been shorn.”15 Knight’s poem was accompanied by two engravings, one that looked to be designed by Capability Brown and another of a similar scene, but made picturesque. Look at Figures 1.4 and 1.5. What are the main differences between the two scenes? Does the scene depicted in Figure 1.5 look more natural?

1.4 A picturesque landscape by Thomas Hearne under the instruction of Richard Payne Knight for Landscape: A Didactic Poem (1795), public domain

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1.5 The same view as a modern Brownian landscape by Thomas Hearne under the instruction of Richard Payne Knight for Landscape: A Didactic Poem (1795), public domain

It has been argued that the intentional conflation of landscapes as nature in the gardens created during Knight’s time was a means of “naturalizing” the power of their prosperous owners. Critics such as the architectural historian Robin Evans argued that these landscapes were not only proof that their owners possessed the informality that only the very rich could afford, but that this wealth was part of a natural order, a given social hierarchy whereby the wealthy owned the landscape and the poor laboured in it. What else do you think Knight and Price were saying with these images?

Generations later two public landscapes can be compared for their simplicity and complexity, but with different connotations. Compare the images of the Promenade Plantée in Paris with the High Line in New York City. An abandoned railway viaduct that once connected Place de la Bastille to Varenne-Saint-Maur, Promenade Plantée spans 4.5 km from Place de la Bastille. It was transformed in the early 1990s as an elevated linear garden with roses and clipped ornamental shrubs, trellised arcades with climbers, and sculptures. The idea later inspired the creation of the High Line, but there are some marked differences. The garden designer Piet Oudolf’s planting design for the High Line entails more than 300 species of perennials, grasses, shrubs, and trees. His design takes its cues from the self-seeded landscape that had emerged on the abandoned rail tracks.

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1.6 Promenade Plantée (1993) by Jacques Vergely and Philippe Mathieux, Paris, France

1.7 The High Line (2014) by James Corner Field Operations, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and Piet Oudolf, New York City, USA

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Both projects are located on an abandoned elevated rail line, but how are their formal features different? How do simplicity and complexity factor into the two designs? Do you think the different designs impart dissimilar thoughts and feelings on the visitors?

Opacity and transparency In the 1970s the art historian Philippe Junod sought to identify the reoccurring patterns in art with a systematic theory of opacity and transparency. In doing so, he attempted to classify formal qualities of art as opaque or transparent. Opacity expunges any traces of the act of imitation, rejecting “that a work of art is a mirror in which one sees something else.”16 In seeking to avoid imitation, opaque designs are usually based on abstraction. In the philosopher Nelson Goodman’s words, abstraction is the “processes of image making in which only some of the visual elements usually ascribed to ‘the natural world’ are extracted (i.e. ‘to abstract’)”17 In other words, abstract works do not use mimesis. The theory of

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1.8 Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (2005) by Peter Eisenman, image courtesy of JoJan, https:// creativecommons. org/licenses/by/3.0/ deed.en, Berlin, Germany

Forming 䊏

transparency, on the other hand, reveals imitation in the artistic process, and thus it often involves mimesis. Look at the image of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The memorial consists of 2,711 massive rectangular forms (called stelae) on a sloping stretch of land (a size approximately equivalent to two soccer fields) in the heart of Berlin. Interpretations of Eisenman’s stelae are varied.

What do you think they are an abstraction of?

Look at the image of Shoes on the Danube. Between 1944 and 1945, Arrow Cross militiamen, the National Socialist party members of Hungary, led Jews to the Danube River. Standing by the river’s edge, they were forced to take off their shoes and were shot to death, immediately falling into the river.18 In 2005 Togay and Pauer sought to commemorate these victims of the Holocaust by installing 60 pairs of bronze shoes along the river’s edge.

Do you see how this memorial is transparent? Do the shoes look like they are from the 1940s? Can you see the transparency of imitation?

1.9 Shoes on the Danube (2005) by Can Togay and Gyula Pauer, courtesy of Julie Royce, Budapest, Hungary

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The landscape architect Catherine Dee contends, the ability to abstract is the basis of new creation. The human capacity to abstract, to apply or change an existing schema for a new situation created the possibility of fresh knowledge and new forms. Abstraction in design prevents mannerism and coping old forms. In abstraction lies the potential for significant new landscapes.19

How would the memorial be different if the bronze castings were abstract versions of shoes? Both examples are attempts to memorialize the Holocaust. How do they use form differently? Do you think the abstract design is more powerful than the transparent design or vice versa?

Seriality Seriality involves forms or objects that are repeated in space. The art critic Rosalind Krauss employed the term seriality to describe the repetition of objects or forms created by minimalist artists, such as Donald Judd. For Krauss, “What is characteristic of the approach taken by minimalist sculptors is that they exploited a kind of found object for its possibilities as an element in a repetitive structure.”20 While Krauss, a student of Clement Greenberg (1909–1994), would eventually reject formalism, seriality proved significant to the work of the landscape architect Peter Walker, who began to import this formalist strategy in his design work. Walker argued against the conventional notions of form as simply a way of enclosing space. Drawing from the minimalists, he used seriality to blur the distinctions between physical objects and space and draw attention to the pattern of forms as a designed landscape.21 Look at the image of Tanner Fountain.

How does seriality feature in the project? Are all the rocks the same in Tanner Fountain? If not what unifies the design? Do you think Walker’s design blurs the relationship between object and space instead of articulating an enclosed space?

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1.10 Tanner Fountain (1984) by Peter Walker, image courtesy of Peter Walker and Partners Landscape Architecture, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

Colour and form Colour in design is traditionally analysed as hue (warm colours or cool colours), value (degree of lightness), and chroma (saturation). The art critic John Ruskin (1819–1900), whose theories foreshadowed formalism, included colour as part of his seven lamps of architecture. Ruskin also had specific advice on colour’s relationship to form noting, “Let it be visibly independent of form. Never paint a column with vertical lines, but always across it.”22 He gleaned this insight from observing colour patterns in natural elements. “Notice how nature does it. In a variegated flower not one leaf red and another white, but a point of red and zone of white.”23 While there are flowers that do have colour changes on every other leaf, the colour does not conform to the form. By the twentieth century, the painters Amédée Ozenfant (1886–1966) and Fernand Léger (1881–1955) studied how space advanced or receded in the perception of coloured form. Léger, in particular, explored the play between representation and abstraction and the sense of flatness, and that of depth, as he saw these contrasts as indicative of modern life.24 A student of Léger’s, Bernard Lassus, brought this exploration to his own garden art, exploring sensory perception, nature, culture, and colour.25 For Lassus it is this very

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juncture between form and colour that has occupied his career for nearly half a century. In his design for the Colas Garden in Paris, Bernard Lassus, was asked by the client to separate the garden from the adjoining park space. Instead of your average fence or wall, Lassus created a layered scrim of plant material and perforated metal trees of a fictional plant material. Because of their different colours, these metal silhouettes give a depth to the view as darker colours recede and lighter colours advance. In the final backdrop, the real trees of the nearby park play against Lassus’s imaginary abstraction. According to the sociologist Michel Conan, the fictional plant material “bears the mark of clipping scissors, a mark of artificiality. This seems even truer of the high abstract arbour that forms the last limit of the hedge before the trees at the municipal park.”26 Why do you think Lassus wanted to give depth to this view? What do you think the relationship is between the fictional plant material and the real plant material?

1.11 Les Jardins suspendus de Colas (2007) by Bernard Lassus, image courtesy of Bernard Lassus, Plasticien Architecte– Paysagiste, Paris, France

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Formalism debated Formalism typically privileges the visual over other senses. The architectural theorist Marc Treib cautions in his widely read article, “The Content of Landscape Form [The Limits of Formalism],” that we should not design for the photographic image but the experience of the landscape . . . The photograph is a fragment that is forced to represent the whole, like the synecdoche of literature. But a landscape is not a fragment: it is a whole, and at times these designs maintain our interest only at a small scale for short periods of time . . . it demonstrates little regard for the human body, mystery and appeal, or for senses other than vision.27

Can you think of ways that you might include other sensory perceptions as part of form-making in landscape design?

As you will read in the Systems chapter, formalist approaches that attempted to create static forms were challenged by theories that viewed landscapes as process instead of a composition of forms. Indeed, ecologically performing landscapes can often look dishevelled and thus uncared for. The landscape architect Joan Iverson Nassauer argues, “The visual qualities of ecologically valuable landscapes and wildlife habitats can be misinterpreted by non-landscape architects as signs that its owner is not caring for it.”28 She suggests that these landscapes could be appreciated by non-professionals if designers gave cues to care, such as “bold patterns – these patterns indicate human intention by their crisp edges and landscape scale.”29

Can you think of some examples where landscape architects or designers have used “cues to care” in order to communicate that the landscape is intentional and cared for? Are there cues to care in the High Line project?

Primary reading for formalism Clive Bell, Art. David Carrier, Rosalind Krauss and American Philosophical Art Criticism: From Formalism to Beyond Postmodernism. Mitchell B. Frank and Daniel Adler, German Art History and Scientific Thought: Beyond Formalism.

THEORETICAL GROUNDINGS OF EXPRESSION THEORY Physical forms possess a character only because we ourselves possess a body. If we were purely visual beings, we would always be denied an aesthetic judgment of the physical world. But as human beings with a body that teaches us

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the nature of gravity, contraction, strength, and so on we gather the experience that enables us to identify with the conditions of other forms. Why is no one surprised that a stone falls towards the earth? Why does that seem so very natural to us? We cannot account for it rationally: the explanation lies in our personal experience alone.30 (Heinrich Wölfflin, “Prolegomena to a Psychology of Architecture,” 1886)

This is the art historian Heinrich Wölfflin (1864–1945) describing how architecture expresses to you the externalization of internal feelings – in this instance an understanding of gravity is learned from the pull of gravity felt by your own body. Wölfflin liberated architectural historians from the constraints of traditional historical analyses by attempting to isolate expressive content in the formal qualities of design. In this sense, the historian was chiefly concerned with expression, and how expression, over mere description, brings forth or re-enacts certain mental states in not only the artist but the audience or viewer as well. According to Wölfflin, “the body functioned as a sensitive psychological tool, providing the means to project the embodied feelings of the human subject onto the objects of art and culture, and thus enliven them with meaning.”31 Expression theory is closely related to formalism and Wölfflin would later develop a formalist methodology for his highly influential book, The Principles of Art History. However, expression theory primarily addresses the identification of emotions and their shaping of feelings. Emotions are reactions to stimuli coming through your sense of sight, sound, taste, smell, thermal conditions, pain, pleasure, balance, and motion. They are often immediate and occur unconsciously, and we often have little control over them. Recall a time when you could not stop crying or blushing – that’s your emotions at work. In contrast, “Feelings occur after we become aware in our brain of such physical changes; only then do we experience the feeling” of sadness when crying or embarrassment when blushing.32 Thus, expression theory is chiefly concerned with the emotional impact of the external world produced in art, such as film, literature, painting, or a landscape; and when a person expresses something she or he becomes conscious of that emotion. According to the philosopher Derek Matravers, “expression is experienced as being a quality of the work itself . . . Such qualities can be analysed independently of the state of mind of their creator.”33 In other words, a landscape architect might be happy, but produce a solemn landscape. Expressing something, solemnness for example, through the design of a landscape does not necessarily require that you have that emotion while engaged in the act of design. Matravers parses out several contemporary theories of expression. The first theory involves the experience of resemblance. Resemblance theory involves awareness of the emotion being expressed by something, but it does not necessarily make you feel that emotion. For Matravers the face of a St Bernard dog looks sad. The fact that I perceive its face as sad doesn’t mean the dog is sad and its face doesn’t make me sad. The St Bernard’s face resembles

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1.12 The karesansui (dry landscape) garden at Ryo¯an-ji Temple, Kyoto, Japan

the state of sadness. For a landscape example, return to the pools in the previous section. Experiencing the Donnell Garden pool might make me feel the emotion of happiness because the bright colours and flowing forms resemble happiness, whereas the Bloedel Pool might make me feel melancholy because the colours and static shape of the black pool resemble solemnity to me. Matravers is an advocate of Arousal Theory, which says that the expressive qualities of a work arouse feelings in the viewer.34 The emotion need not match the emotion experienced or planned by the artist or designer; however, it does prompt an emotional response. If you were unable to swim, for example, the bright and cheerful Donnell Garden pool in sunny California might fill you with fear and dread. As you will see in “Expression theory in action,” arousal theory is often at work in contemporary memorial designs where the calling forth of emotions is a central goal. Another expression theory is called expression-looks. Referring to twodimensional works, the philosopher Dominic McIver Lopes explains that we interpret expressions “because they are depicted as having physical configurations that are expression-looks. Not only are those configurations seen in pictures, but we see them as expressions when we see them as having the function of indicating.”35 These configurations are often identified by their

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resemblance to a particular idea or emotion, and humans can create them or they can be naturally occurring – such as the feeling of surprise when hearing the first clap of thunder during a storm. For landscape design, the physical configuration of a design becomes the vehicle for expressing something – an idea, an emotion, etc. In the article, “Gardens Can Mean,”36 I argued that when landscapes are designed by humans as a medium to communicate they express something. Starting with the garden at Ryo¯an-ji temple in Kyoto, which expresses a range of ideas, I moved the rocks and placed them in a line rather than in specific clusters using Photoshop. Look at the images of Ryo¯an-ji and not Ryo¯an-ji.

How do the two gardens differ? How might you interpret them differently?

If I actually made these changes to the rock and moss at Ryo¯an-ji, I would significantly change the way this garden expresses and what it expresses. This means the rocks of Ryo¯an-ji – their configuration in particular – must be communicating something to people visiting the garden.

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1.13 Not the karesansui (dry landscape) garden at Ryo¯an-ji Temple, Kyoto, Japan

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Why expression theory matters Like formalism, expression theories can facilitate the first steps of communicating to others through your design. Some theorists think that the projection of emotions onto the external world allows for a shared space to be created between the viewer and artist or designer.37 It enables the reader to understand the human emotions of another through an experience with the work, carving out a reality that humans share. Collective or shared emotions are particularly relevant to designed landscapes because many of the design projects that you undertake as a student are publically accessible projects. The landscape architect Laurie Olin was one of the earliest proponents of expressive content in design. In his article, “Form, Meaning, and Expression in Landscape Architecture,” he argued that the forms and material palette available to landscape architects offered rich opportunities for expression, and it was only professional conventions and cultural norms (which deemed that landscapes should look like they were created only by natural processes) that limited their use. He notes, Landscapes are made of many diverse phenomena – visual, aural, tactile, olfactory – that may trigger the recall of things from our own personal environmental history, which in turn combine with a world of information from our education and experience. For this reason there is no question in my mind that the art of landscape design – when it is an art – is possibly the most complex and sophisticated art we possess.38

Olin concluded that literary devices, such as metaphor, could invest meaning in design. His article has prompted debates over the past decades. Must landscape mean? Can landscapes be invested with meaning? Should they? Who determines this meaning? You will return to these questions in the Language chapter. Expression theory in action Resemblance Since 2000, the Les Jardins de Métis International Garden Festival in Quebec, Canada, has hosted a series of temporary gardens aimed at expanding the meaning of the garden in contemporary culture. The garden I designed, Hip Hop, is composed of two visually and experientially very different gardens – a black side and a white side. On the white side stalks of hops wind up tall poles, and steppingstones invite the visitor to hop through the delicate grasses. In contrast, the black side is stark and theatrical, like a stage set. The black ground and the movable Métis muses dressed in long formal gowns and crowned with black flax invite the spectator to move them (castors were affixed to their bases). While I didn’t intend this, people were scared of the muses (not full-blown “arousal theory” scared, but a little intimidated) because they thought the muses resembled witches. When I was invited back the following year I designed the garden

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1.14 International Garden Festival, Jardins de Métis/ Reford Gardens, Hip Hop Garden Muse (2004) by Susan Herrington, image courtesy of Robert Baronet, Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens, GrandMétis, Quebec, Canada

1.15 International Garden Festival, Jardins de Métis/ Reford Gardens, Hip Hop Garden Muse (2005) by Susan Herrington, image courtesy of Louise Tanguay, Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens, GrandMétis, Quebec, Canada

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in blue and white, and people delighted in the fact that they now resembled dancing women. Look at Hip Hop from the two different years. How do the two different versions of muses resemble different entities? Aside from colour, are there other aspects, such as plant material, that make these two muses resemble different ideas?

1.16 Bełz˙ec Death Camp Memorial landscape (2004) by Andrzej Sołyga, Marcin Roszczyk, and Zdzisław Pidek, and DDJM Biuro Architektoniczne, image courtesy of Lysy, https:// creativecommons. org/licenses/ by-sa/3.0/deed. en, Lublin District, Poland

Arousal There are some landscape projects where the design is intended to arouse strong emotions in the viewer. This is frequently the case in memorial designs when the emotion of grief and remembrance is part of the design. Look at the image of the landscape for the Bełz˙ec Death Camp Memorial in Poland. The notorious death camp was the site of the extermination of hundreds of thousands of Jews between 1942 and 1943. Using the remnants of this landscape as the expressive raw material for their design, the artists Andrzej Sołyga, Zdzisław Pidek, and Marcin Roszczyk created an interstice that cuts through a field of rubble and twisted rods that demarcate the extent of the death camp area. For the artists, the slicing of the earth reveals the hidden elevations of the terrain, and the gravity of the crime. This interstice leads visitors 10 meters downslope to a memorial wall. Inscriptions made from rusting cast-iron text abound: a wall contains the first names of Jews who died at the death camp, a perimeter walk lists the names of towns where Jews were removed from, and quotes from the biblical Book of Job define the entrance. The artists also saved the trees they found on site, noting, “the trees that were witness to the events will be kept on the terrain.”39

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What features of the memorial resemble the feeling that the artists wish to arouse?

Expression-looks As mentioned previously, according to Lopes expression-looks involves seeing configurations of forms “as having the function of indicating,” a certain expression. The theory of expression-looks is a refinement of resemblance theory. Expression-looks extends beyond colour or basic forms to include the elements in a particular form, figure, or combination that together express. Look at the image of The Garden that Climbs the Stairs, designed by Diana Balmori, in Bilbao, Spain. Here, the CorTen steel planter of billowy plants ascends (or descends) a flight of stairs between two towers.40 Balmori created a winding form for the planter and selected wispy plant textures to express the feeling of movement and ascension.

Can you see how the configuration of the planter with lines that contrasts with the rectilinear stairs express movement? If the plantings were arranged to conform to the rectilinear form of the steps would The Garden that Climbs the Stairs still have the same effect, or even expression-looks? If the photograph was taken at the top of the steps looking down would it be called The Garden that Falls Down the Stairs?

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1.17 The Garden that Climbs the Stairs (2009) by Diana Balmori, image courtesy of Balmori Associates, Bilbao, Spain

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Expression theory debated The role that expression has played in the design of landscapes has varied during the course of the twentieth century. While neuroscientists today have demonstrated that emotions are part of rational thought, for much of the interwar and post-war periods architects sought to rationalize their design methods, and landscape architects, such as Leberecht Migge (1881–1935), responded by designing landscapes that involved the strategic use of urban land for food and human use. As the architectural lecturer David Haney explains, “The rationalized garden was the necessary and logical complement to the rationalized building.”41 Migge’s interest in the rational distribution, use, and management of landscapes also extended to municipal lands and parks. Since emotions were perceived as the antithesis to rational thinking, and planning and design, the expressive dimensions of landscape design were largely ignored. Likewise the rise of functionalism, discussed in the next section, left little room for designers to consider how their work might express emotional states. This is particularly true in the post-Second World War years, when the demand for large-scale building programmes, built with alacrity, was common. Thorbjörn Andersson witnessed this in the Stockholm School of Park Design. The Stockholm School was initially inspired by the landscape architect Erik Glemme (1905–1959) whose “fascination of landscape architecture resulted from the experience of the soul as well as the senses.”42 Designing numerous parks and plazas in Stockholm, Glemme set the tone for design in this school of thought by stressing the expressive qualities of the natural region, and experimenting with innovative street-furnishings as well as play sculptures for children. With major rebuilding programmes underway during the 1960s, which sought to erect one million apartments in ten years, landscape architects in Stockholm attempted to develop rational planning and design methods that would be efficient and practical. According to Andersson the design approach developed by Glemme deteriorated. Indeed, Landscape architecture also suffered from these so-called rational production methods. The pre-existing characteristics of the landscape, for example, were eliminated in order to provide easy access for construction cranes. And the new landscape consisted of vast deserts of grass – good for maintenance if poor for people – and rationally organized playgrounds.43

Primary reading for expression theory Dominic McIver Lopes, Sight and Sensibility: Evaluating Pictures. Harry Francis Mallgrave and Eleftherios Ikonomou, Empathy, Form, and Space: Problems in German Aesthetics, 1873–1893. Derek Matravers, Art and Emotion.

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THEORETICAL GROUNDINGS OF FUNCTION “Functional” as the translation of the German words “sachlich”, “zweckmässig”, “funktionell”. Where English has one word, “functional”, German, by 1900, had three. While Germans often used the three interchangeably, they carry different nuances of meaning that give the concept a depth impossible to convey with the single English word.44 (Adrian Forty, “Function,” in Words and Buildings, 2000)

In English, the architect Louis Sullivan’s (1856–1924) phrase, “form ever follows function,”45 is often considered the starting point when form began to follow function. Yet, as the historian Adrian Forty reminds us in this quote, function has a long and varied history, particularly in the German language. From its early association with the functioning of tectonic elements of buildings in eighteenthcentury Italy to function’s varied meanings in Germany in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the term function was characterized by a complex history of usage before it became an English architectural term championed by modern designers. Christopher Tunnard was an early adopter of the term function in his theories on the design of gardens and landscapes. As an aspiring designer in the UK during the 1930s Tunnard was keen to reconceive gardens and landscapes in light of modern theories, such as functionalism. As a member of the Modern Architectural Research Group (MARS Group), which developed plans for the post-war reconstruction of London, Tunnard was influenced by modern architects and planners who sought to re-envision the world using rational design principles such as function. Some of Tunnard’s earliest proposals for a modern landscape architecture were described in articles he wrote for the Architectural Review between October 1937 and May 1938.46 These articles culminated in Gardens in the Modern Landscape (1938/1948) where Tunnard declared that a functional, emphatic, and artistic approach was needed for a modern conception of design. Tunnard espoused a version of functionalism where form followed both “fitness for purpose”47 and the “rational expression of construction.”48 In Tunnard’s description of the patio for the house at St Ann’s Hill in Chertsey, for example, he stresses the functional role of construction and the use of the patio as a walking surface. He notes “The surface of this paving was treated with carborundum at the floating stages partly to prevent slipperiness in wet weather and partly for the sparkle which this material imparts in sunlight.”49 Tunnard also asks readers to appreciate that “The incised division lines were cut at distances no greater than two feet apart to prevent cracking.”50 Both the carborundum and the division lines are part of the construction of the patio. While carborundum functions to aid in the human use of the patio (fit to the purpose of walking), the division lines function by accommodating movement of the patio subsurface caused by temperature changes and drying shrinkages (rational expression of construction).

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1.18 Norman T. Newton’s theory of function

natural functions biological

seeds dispersed by wind

mathematical/physics

angle of repose for soil

assigned functions use

provides seating

affective

signals a place to gather

Like formalism, function became synonymous with modern landscape architecture, particularly after the Second World War. In the 1950s the landscape architect Norman T. Newton (1898–1992) proposed a comprehensive theory of function for landscape design.51 While Tunnard’s conception of function asked landscape architects to appreciate human function and natural function as they related to the construction process, Newton defined function into four categories under two headings: natural functions and assigned functions. Biological and mathematical forces that exist without human intervention determine natural functions. The dispersal of dandelion seeds by the wind on a well-drained mound of soil will eventually result in a dandelion-covered mound. This type of growth is a natural biological function since the wind, seeds, sun, and soil conditions function to produce growth. The angle of repose of this well-drained mound of soil is approximately 45 degrees. This is a natural mathematical function because the angle of repose refers to the steepest angle at which a mound of soil remains stable. It’s determined by the frictional contact among soil particles and the pull of gravitational forces. Assigned functions are the products of conscious human intervention and involve use functions and affective functions. Revisiting the mound example, if the earth is stepped with risers just the right height for sitting this is an assigned use function because the shaping of the mound accommodates the function of sitting down. If I curve this north-facing stepped mound, I am communicating to people that this landscape can be used like an amphitheatre. This is an assigned affective function because the curved shape signals to people that they can gather to sit down. Newton thought all of these functions were important to achieve in a work of landscape architecture. Why function matters Functionalism remains important because it attempts to address the needs of the people who will ultimately use the designed landscape. Without a basic understanding of the purposeful functions of a project – the need to play or eat lunch, or view a concert – the design might hinder these actions. Also, the increased need for measuring the ecological functioning of landscapes, a descendent of Newton’s natural functions – its biological and mathematical dimensions – has become central to designing and evaluating the performance of landscapes. Inherent in these measures is the goal to enhance ecological functioning during and after construction. These tasks range from supporting

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to improving natural functions, such as water filtration, nutrient recycling, and wildlife movement. Newton’s fourth function, assigned affective function, also matters since there has been a growing concern among landscape architects that functions should not be concealed, but should feature in the visual reading or interpretation of a landscape, in what have been referred to as revelatory landscapes. Philosophers Glenn Parsons and Allen Carlson contend that reading the functioning of an environment’s form can make it beautiful, because this function gives coherence to forms that might otherwise be perceived as formless. They note, it seems possible for our knowledge of an object’s function to enhance the perceptual unity of that object to varying degrees. Without going so far as to make the object appear simple or elegant, knowledge of causal role functions of various perceptible elements of an ecosystem may render it less disordered and random-looking, more unified, than it would otherwise appear. It may in other words, give a different aesthetic appearance to the object.52

Yet, they also note that function might not always be translatable. Not everyone will understand the natural functions of an ecosystem or, in the example of the mound, the assigned function of an amphitheatre. This is what Parsons and Carlson call the problem of indeterminacy, when people do not see or understand the proper function to be appreciated.53 Much like Joan Iverson Nassauer’s advice to create cues to care, cues to function might help with the problem of indeterminacy. Function in action Four-fold function Newton’s four-fold functionalism can be seen in Stockholm at Hornsbergs strandpark by Nyréns Arkitektkontor. The meandering 700-meter-long linear landscape along lake Mälaren provides three floating piers that extend over the water. According to project manager Bengt Isling, the piers enable people to go out on to the lake and the seating is oriented towards the west in order to provide direct lines of sight to the setting sun in summer (natural, math function). The piers literally float on the water to minimize impact on the lakebed flora and fauna (natural, biological function). Isling also notes that people living close to the park use the space as a living room, so the piers were sized to provide enough space for families and small groups of people sitting, sunbathing, and swimming (assigned, use function). Lastly, the terminus of each pier forms a circle to denote where to gather (assigned, affective function).

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1.19 Piers at Hornsbergs strandpark (2012) by Bengt Isling and Nyréns Arkitektkontor AB, image courtesy of Bengt Isling, Stockholm, Sweden

Can you see how the designers have addressed all four of Newton’s functions?

Repurposed functions Landscapes and buildings are often used for functions that stand in sharp contrast to their originally intended function. An early example of a major repurposed landscape is Germany’s Duisburg North Park designed by Latz + Partners. Previously the site of a Thyssen factory, it was redesigned as a 200-hectare park. The activities of this ruined city of iron and steel consciously invert the original functions of the site’s landscape and structures. The gasometer serves as a scuba-diving facility, the cooling trough is now a lily pond, and the blast furnace accommodates community activities. Look at the image of the Climbing Garden for the German Mountaineering Club located in the former ore storage bunkers.

Do you think the form resulting from original function enhances the experience of the form with a new use? Do you think the more the extreme contrast between past function and present-day function, the more interesting the design?

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Operative functions Robert Venturi argued for multiple-use functions, which he called double functions, where there is an ambiguous correspondence among several functions and form. This was a critique of modern architects who assigned single uses to the forms they designed. Double functions also support his theory of contradiction and complexity in architecture. Venturi notes that the Ponte Vecchio in Florence affords multiple functions.54 The medieval bridge spans the Arno River for pedestrians, and contains shops and homes, and in the sixteenth century Giorgio Vasari built a corridor on top of the shops to connect the Uffizi with the Pitti Palace. So within a span of a river crossing, multiple functions are provided by forms that have several possible meanings or interpretations – bridge, home, and commercial corridor to name a few. The landscape architect, Alissa North, proposes a variation of double functions, called operative functions, where the functions of forms are not ambiguous, but rather targeted to perform specific, multiple ecological and social functions. For North, The operative landscape is an inherently dynamic and continually evolving medium that takes into consideration programmatic and ecological dynamics and uses landscape to direct communities towards resilient outcomes. The operative landscape approach accepts and incorporates change over time to reduce the need for continual material and maintenance inputs, while maintaining an active project agenda.55

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1.20 Climbing Garden at Duisburg Nord Landscape Park (2009) by Latz + Partner, image courtesy of Latz + Partner Landschafts Architekten Stadtplaner, Ruhr District, Germany

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In this sense operative functions can be layered in time and space rather than separated. Look at the image of Benthemplein Water Square by De Urbanisten. The site is located in one of the lowest parts of Rotterdam’s Spangen district. The area suffers from flooding on a regular basis. The new water square serves as a floodable space when raining and a dry park space when it’s not subject to rains. Varying depths of the plaza accommodate different types of interactions for children and adults.56 1.21 Benthemplein Water Square (2013) by De Urbanisten, image courtesy of Ossip van Duivenbode, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Can you see how the designers have provided for multiple functions depending on weather? Can you see how the designers have made the operative functions visible to the people using the square?

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Function debated Functionalism has provoked numerous debates. In The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), the writer and activist Jane Jacobs provided one of the earliest critiques of purportedly functional urban design and planning. Jacobs traced a lineage of city building approaches from the Garden City to the City Beautiful to the design schemes of the post-Second World War era, which increasingly siloed urban functions. Jacobs notes that, “to deal with the city’s functions was to sort and sift out of the whole certain simple uses, and to arrange each of these in relative self-containment.”57 Yet, as she argues, in reality, functions of the urban landscape are messy and complicated, and daily life in the city requires a mixture of uses and functions. She thought that vibrant cities could not be achieved by compartmentalizing a set of functional areas, such as highways, parks, housing, etc. Like Venturi’s double function and North’s operative function, what made urban landscapes vital was their accommodation of multiple, layered functions. Some historians charged that the promotion of functional design, particularly in architecture, was really a ruse meant to rid German architecture, which was often the exemplar of functional design, of its political connotations. In architecture the critique of functional design was intense, as some sought to employ the forms of architecture to express a problem rather than seeking to resolve one.58 The house designed by Robert Venturi for his mother, Vanna Venturi, contains elements that purposefully antagonize functions. For example the house contains a narrow set of stairs that lead up to a blank wall. In landscape architecture there were critiques as well. According to the landscape theorist Anita Berrizbeitia, George Hargreaves argued that design was impoverished by the conventional step-by-step design process which involved: site analysis, potentials and constraints diagram, bubble diagram, and finally the functional diagram resulting in a design.59 Many designers thought that this stale process was hindering what landscapes might contribute to people’s experiences. Some viewed meaning, particularly meaning as it related to the site and its cultural or natural history, as key facets of the design process that were just as important as functional requirements. However, critics were quick to point out when functions as basic as providing shade were not addressed. Both Treib and the landscape theorist Udo Weilacher have critiqued Isamu Noguchi’s California Scenario in Costa Mesa, California, as lacking in basic amenities. Weilacher notes that the landscape has no formal places to sit and little protection from the sun. “Noguchi was well aware of such functional requirements but nevertheless, he uncompromisingly decided to disregard purely functional aspects in favour of creating a place of significance.”60 I have argued that the lack of shade in California Scenario expresses the climate of California. As its title suggests, California Scenario was designed to evoke the California landscape and some of its major geographic features – forests, waterways, and mountains. Experiencing Noguchi’s California Scenario can be hot and sunny because Southern California on many days is hot

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and sunny. Noguchi is expressing this in his scenario, not solving the problems of the plaza being too sunny and hot, as described in the Language chapter. Primary reading for function Norman T. Newton, An Approach to Design. Marc Treib, ed., Meaning in Landscape Architecture & Gardens: Four Essays, Four Commentaries. Christopher Tunnard, Gardens in the Modern Landscape.

THEORETICAL GROUNDINGS OF FORM GENERATION The pieces’ configuration – the straight edge and the rough edge, the irregular grain produced by the successive throws – lucidly recorded the process of its making.61 (Marc Treib on Richard Serra’s Casting, 2005)

Form generation traces its roots to a number of different artists and art movements in the twentieth century (Georges Bataille’s Informe or formless, Duchamp’s use of chance, the drip paintings of Jackson Pollock, and Arte Povera in Italy).62 Landscape architects and artists interested in process were also exploring cybernetics and systems aesthetics, which you will read about in the Systems chapter. But it was the Process Art of the 1960s and 1970s in particular that influenced form generation in the design of landscapes. The 1969 exhibitions, “When Attitudes Become Form,” and “Anti-Illusion: Procedures/ Materials,” challenged the hegemony of formalist art and art criticism by emphasizing process over form. Process art privileges the “process” of creation over predetermined forms and compositions that were the ideals of formalism. Importantly, the forms that result from the process recall this process. While exhibits of Richard Serra’s work will sometimes include photographs of the artist himself creating the sculpture, the actual forms produced also reveal something about the process itself. In the above quotation this is how Marc Treib explains Casting, created by Richard Serra in 1969 for the exhibit “Anti-Illusion: Procedures/Materials.” To create this piece Serra poured molten lead against the junction of a wall and floor. Once peeled away this act was repeatedly done to create 12 castings.63 Even his title “casting” references the word “cast,” which means both to throw something with determination in a specified direction and the artistic usage of the term, meaning to shape a sculpture with molten material poured in a mould. Treib reinforces in his description of Casting that the forms resulting in Serra’s process reveal this process. The straight edges of the thrown material reveals its state as a fluid substance given shape by the corner of the wall meeting the floor, while ragged edges disclose the force of the throw. It is also interesting that Serra calls his work a verb. Instead of exploring shapes in design as the formalists, some process artists investigated a series of verbs as inspiration for process. Indeed, Serra compiled a list of verbs

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between 1967 and 1968 to illuminate the actions involved in creating sculpture. The list contained, among others, to roll, to crease, to fold, to store, to bend, to shorten, to twist, to dapple, to crumple, to shave, to tear, to chip, to split, to cut, to sever, to drop, to remove, to simplify, to differ, to disarrange, to open, to mix, to splash, to knot, to spell, to droop, to flow, to curve, to lift, to inlay, to impress, to fire, to flood, to smear, to rotate, to swirl, to support, to hook, to suspend, to spread, to hand, to collect – of tension, of gravity, of entropy, of nature, of grouping, of layering, of felting – to grasp, to tighten, to bundle, to heap, to gather, to scatter, to arrange, to repair, to discard, to pair, to distribute, to surfeit, to complement, to enclose, to surround, to encircle, to hide, to cover, to wrap, to dig, to tie, to bind, to weave, to join, to match, to laminate, to bond, to hinge, to mark, to expand, to dilute, to light, to modulate, to distil – of waves, of electromagnetism, of inertia, of ionization, of polarization, of refraction, of simultaneity, of tides, of reflection, of equilibrium, of symmetry, of friction – to stretch, to bounce, to erase, to spray, to systematize, to refer, to force – of mapping, of location, of context, of time, of carbonization – to continue.64

Serra also used nouns that referred to structural conditions such as gravity and equilibrium.65 Do you think if Serra created castings again he would get the same results?

Decades after Casting first appeared, Serra was invited to create a similar process piece for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.66 The castings are similar, but not exact, and in this way he was inviting chance to enter the process. Since process art emphasizes the process of creation over fixed forms and compositions, chance features in the art. Since chances are instances of events in the absence of any apparent intention to cause such events, process art challenges predetermined designs and forms. Moreover, process art also includes events and forces that are part of natural processes, which are continually subject to chance.67 Why form generation matters Form generation can be very constructive for students just beginning to design. The employment of action verbs as proxy to form, in particular, equips students with a method to aid in the production of design. By shifting the emphasis from predetermined forms to different actions resulting in the generation of form, students can dissipate limitations and explore new opportunities and relationships with the site. Form generation matters to landscape design because it liberates the design process from a concern with final forms to forms as a result of processes and methods. Another valuable dimension of process art to landscape design is its inclusion of time as part of the process. Faye Ran differentiates Process Art from Minimalist Art noting, “Often Process Art works incorporated the influence of natural forces such as gravity, or that combined disintegrative

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forces of time and nature. The timelessness and structural stability of Minimal Art was supplanted by a Process Art focused on event, sequence, change and impermanence, creative variability and mutability.”68 Thus, the inclusion of natural forces and unrepeatability also play a role in the generative process. In fact after Casting, Serra was known for his sculptural work placed outdoors and comprised of CorTen steel, a material that oxidizes over time and gives the material’s surfaces a rusty colour. Since chance and the influences of natural forces can be made part of form generation, the design anticipates this change. This is highly relevant to landscapes because they do not exist inside climate-controlled buildings. They are outside where processes of growth and decay, fluctuations in weather, gravity, wind, fire, and so on play an influential role in form generation. Form generation in action Action verbs as proxy Serra’s use of verbs in his work is linked to form generation. When an artist is able to work directly with materials, verbs enable this design process. Yet, unless you are engaged in design build (or if you’re like the landscape architect A.E. Bye who sometimes designed his landscapes with his pickup truck) the act of design is typically separated from the act of constructing the landscape. To more directly link these two processes, the landscape architects Kathryn Gustafson and Neil Porter use clay models to design. While clay is not the surface of the earth, it approximates the material, and the act of form generation. Look at the image of the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain, located in Hyde Park, London. Gustafson’s and Porter’s design was eventually modelled digitally, but initial explorations in clay enabled a starting point for creating forms that called forth the actions of Princess Diana. For Gustafson, “This memorial expresses the concept of ‘Reaching out – letting in’,” which reflects the actions of an inclusive, people’s princess. She let people into her life by reaching out to them. It is composed of 545 sections of Cornish granite; the memorial’s design also generates more diverse actions, such as “bubble” and “swoosh,” and since these forms shape the water, there is an auditory component to the design as well.69

Can you see the verbs described by Gustafson in the design?

Abstract archaeology Hargreaves Associates also works extensively with sand and clay models to generate what they refer to as an “abstract archaeology.” This approach does not attempt to blend in with the existing terrain of the site; rather the designed landscape is abstracted from both the cultural and natural artefacts of the site –

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1.22 The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain (2004) by Gustafson Porter, Hyde Park, London, England

1.23 Guadalupe River Park (1990) by Hargreaves Associates, image courtesy of Hargreaves Associates, San Jose, California, USA

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its topography, past use, geomorphology, and hydrology. The landscape architect Karen M’Closkey notes, “Clay models are not images in the way that drawings and diagrams are. The clay is not notational or pictorial; rather, it is a transformable, malleable, and homogenous substance . . . the clay enables the designers to focus on the form of the ground and the importance of sectional change for guiding movement.”70 Look at Hargreaves Associates’ Guadalupe River Park just after grading was performed. Can you see how the clay played a role in its form generation?

Miniature and panorama Scaling informs the landscape architect Günther Vogt’s theory of Miniature and Panorama. Conducting extensive fieldwork as part of the design process, Vogt notes, The geographer works through a survey scope, the botanist through a lens and the biologist through a microscope. They all share the same starting point, in that proximity to and distance from the analysed object is first conveyed via different scientific methods of analysis . . . Concentrating on detail activates several senses. In course of close examination, we see, smell and taste a complex entity of landscape.71

Miniature scales down while Panorama scales up elements of the existing landscape (natural and cultural) to create new forms. Look at the image of Hedge Two-Way Mirror Walkabout created by the artist Dan Graham with Günther Vogt. Here, the rooftop landscape of the Metropolitan Museum of Art provides multiple scales of discovery. The hedges refer to the American suburban gardens and the architectural glass represents the glass buildings of midtown Manhattan. The rooftop looks just above the treeline of Central Park and continues the panorama, while the skyline of Manhattan is reflected in the glass as well as the visitor herself looking at the work.

Why do you think the forms of these elements mimic their opposites? For example the curving architectural glass stands in for a rectilinear glass box, while the rectilinear hedge references the organic greenery of the park?

Look at the image of the Plaza for SIA Hochhaus (the Swiss Engineers and Architects Association) by Vogt Landscape Architects, in Zurich. Here, naturally occurring pebbles found near the river were brought to the Vogt office and studied. They eventually gave form to five larger-than-life site features, some containing water or plants.72 The irregular placement of these features play against the repeated lighter sandblasted circles, whose dimensions are based on manhole covers.

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1.24 Hedge Two-Way Mirror Walkabout (2014) by Dan Graham with Günther Vogt, image courtesy of Vogt Landscape Architects, New York City, USA

1.25 The Plaza for SIA Hochhaus (2006–2008) by Vogt Landscape Architects, image courtesy of Christian Vogt, Zurich, Switzerland

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Do you see how these features of the landscape express Vogt’s notion of panorama?

1.26 Garden for the Villa Noailles (restored) by Gabriel Guevrekian, Hyères, France

Patterning Patterning gives a regular reoccurring arrangement to form. In the Language chapter you will read about natural landscape patterns serving as a language and in the System chapter patterning is discussed as part of digital systems. Patterning, here, refers to form generation sampled from architectural geometries. Look at the image of the garden conceived by Gabriel Guevrekian (1892–1970) for the Villa Noailles designed by Robert Mallet-Stevens. According to the landscape architectural historian Dorothée Imbert, “In spite of its contrasting forms and colors, the garden established a relation between the site and the villa’s architecture, the former determining the overall triangular shape, the latter, the points from which the garden would be seen. As a pattern extending outward from the interior, the garden was purely deocrative.”73 The square terraces originally contained tulips and coloured tiles, as well as a pool. Today the terraces contain ice plants with tiles coloured yellow, red, blue, grey, and the architectonic ensemble is still distinct from the rough stones walls and olive trees that now dominate this hilltop site.

What forms remain constant in this pattern created by Guevrekian?

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1.27 Le Jardin des Étiquettes (2012) by Gilles Clément, image courtesy of Jean-Pierre Dalbéra https:// creativecommons. org/licenses/by/2.0/, Saint-Nazaire, France

Garden of movement One of the most basic form generators available to landscape architects is the growth and movement of plants. While plants are frequently thought of as stationary, particularly in the creation of a planting plan, many plant species move creating their own formal qualities. Gilles Clément’s theory of the Garden of Movement employs this idea. According to Clément “plants travel. Especially Herbs. They move in silence, nothing can be done about the wind.”74 At SaintNazaire, France, Clément instigated three gardens (Le Bois de Trembles, Le Jardin des Orpins et des Graminées, Le Jardin des Étiquettes) for three different areas of a former German submarine base. Look at image of Le Jardin des Étiquettes. Clément installed a thin layer of soil that will receive seeds brought by the wind, the birds, and by visitors. Twice a year, the new plants are identified and labelled to record this process. How did Clément generate form in this project, by the shape of the soil layer?

Form generation debated In the art world it has been charged that openness to chance and natural processes was sometimes quite narrow, as artists often limited their work to one process while controlling the others. Consider Walter De Maria’s Lightning Field (1977) in

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New Mexico, where electrical discharges of high voltage between clouds and the ground is the art form. The Field that is the selected art process consists of 400 polished stainless steel columns installed in a grid array. The columns are spaced approximately 67 meters apart. At first glance this may seem like a Minimalist Art work but it is the chance occurrence of the natural electrical discharge that was the goal of the experience of Lightning Field. James Nisbet argues, Although the poles are grounded for electrical charge, they are not standard, manufactured lightning rods, but two welded pieces of type 304 stainless steel, a material most notable for its resistance to oxidation. Though the poles are effectively lightning rods, their design speaks more to guarding against the appearance of time than to the capture of lightning.75

One of the most heavily debated projects, however, was the installation and removal of Serra’s Tilted Arc at the Federal Plaza in New York City. Serra’s 40-meter-long and 4-meter-high, 15-ton steel slab of CorTen steel cut across the Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan blocking the plaza’s use by tenants of the Jacob K. Javits Federal Office Building and Court of International Trade (later Customs Court) and neighbouring community members.76 Tenants also argued that they were given no opportunity to voice their opinions on Tilted Arc before it was installed under the direction of the General Service Administration. The controversy over Tilted Arc changed the way the public was involved in the selection of art in the landscape. After the removal of Serra’s sculpture, the landscape architect Martha Schwartz designed a new landscape and her design proposal was displayed in the building lobby before its installation, so people could give their opinions.77 Primary reading for form generation Georges Bataille, “Formless.” Laura Petican, “The Arte Povera Experience: Nature Re-presented.” Faye Ran, A History of Installation Art and the Development of New Art Forms: Technology and the Hermeneutics of Time and Space in Modern and Postmodern Art from Cubism to Installation. Richard Serra, Carmen Gimenez, and Hal Foster, Richard Serra: The Matter of Time.

THEORETICAL GROUNDINGS OF INTERVENTIONS Streets for paint-brushes we’ll use, our palettes – squares with their wide open space. Revolution’s days have yet to be sung by the thousand year book of time. Into the streets, the crowds among, futurists, drummers, masters of rhyme! (excerpt from “An Order to the Art Army,” Vladimir Mayakovsky, March 1918)78

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To intervene means to come between events in order to alter them. You could intervene in an argument among friends to prevent a fight, for example. Interventions in art and design follow a similar trajectory in seeking to alter what people think, or know. This is a poem by the poet, playwright, and actor Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893–1930), who was one of the founders of Russian Futurism and spokesperson for avant-garde art emerging after the Russian Revolution. What do you think he meant by “Streets for paint-brushes we’ll use, our palettes – squares with their wide-open space”?

One of the aims of the Soviet avant-garde during the early twentieth century was the production of art within the folds of the public sphere.79 Mayakovsky and his comrades sought to unite daily life and art and to provoke the public. Thus, interventions are located in between, on top, or within existing sites or objects in the site. They are highly relevant to forming in design because their forms respond to existing forms at the site of interception. They are also “site specific” works in publically accessible locations, taking advantage of the public as an audience. As Malcolm Miles notes, “One of the implications of interventionist art, and the point at which it departs from integrated urban design is its expansion of the definition of the location of art from physical site to public realm.”80 Thus, form is directly related to the interventionist strategies to communicate with people. Interventions also build upon the conceptual art movement. Conceptual art “rejects traditional artistic media because it locates the artwork at the level of ideas rather than that of objects.”81 Thus, a defining feature of interventions is the goal to engage viewers cognitively. This doesn’t mean I am unable to find conceptual art beautiful or ugly, but this is not the main intent of the conceptual artist, or the interventionist. This dimension of interventions, changing the way a landscape is understood or perceived, is an important aspect of interventions. The criticality of interventions can be traced to Marxist, feminist, and ecological critiques. In the 1980s, for example, the Guerrilla Girls, an anonymous feminist collective, began papering the walls outside of major museums with posters and stickers that highlighted the underrepresentation of female artists in museums all over the world. Using statistical information and humour in posters they decried: “Do women have to be naked to get into the Met Museum? Less than 5% of the artists in the Modern Art sections are women, but 85% of the nudes are female.”82 The Guerrilla Girls underscored the discriminatory practices of the art world that are not considered by the average museum patrons. By revealing cultural practices that might have been overlooked, they prompt you to pause and reconsider these practices. Look at the image of Michael Pinsky’s intervention, Plunge, at the Duke of York Column. Pinsky placed a ring of low energy, blue LED lights at the highest elevation predicted by scientists for the sea level rise in 3012.

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1.28 Plunge (2012) by Michael Pinsky, produced by Artsadmin and LIFT, image courtesy of Kristian Buus, London, England

Why do you think he did this? Would you start to see the city of London in a new way if you encountered this intervention, underwater perhaps? Do you see how the form of his intervention responds to existing forms?

Interventions do not require a redesign of the site. Pinsky did not redesign Waterloo Place and Gardens where the Duke of York Column is located, rather he attached the ring to the column itself drawing attention to this particular space and its vulnerability for inundation with the rise in sea levels over time. In other words interventions typically exploit what they are intervening on as part of their critique. Pinsky selected iconic vertical elements of the London landscape (he also installed rings around the Seven Dials Sundial Pillar and the Paternoster Square Column). Why do you think he intervened on these objects, instead of others? Are their locations significant as well?

In addition to acting critically, interventions can also inject humour and playfulness into the landscape. Agustina Woodgate created Hopscotch with 1100

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Numbers, as part of a site-specific street intervention for the Playpublik Festival, in Krakow, Poland.83 The intervention travels hundreds of meters along the sidewalk, in and out of drains and through parks and plazas in the city. People play along the hopscotch changing their daily use and interactions with the urban landscape. Similar to process art, interventions emerged as a way of shifting value from the end process of an object to process itself.84 Thus many interventions are often temporary. Yet, temporality is not required for something to be an intervention. Pinsky’s rings were temporary, but they could have been installed permanently. Lastly, interventions don’t necessarily need to be sanctioned by the institution or municipality that owns and maintains the landscape. Examples of guerrilla interventions entail intervening in places often unbeknownst to the general public or even the owner of the landscape. Why interventions matter Interventions seldom alter the entire existing site, and they are rarely permanent. Thus, interventions can potentially create less physical disturbance to an existing site, and they can also be less expensive. In fact many established landscape architects began their careers by designing interventions. Yet, most importantly, interventions enable design to operate critically. In contrast to other theories, such as functionalism, interventions don’t seek to resolve an issue, rather they attempt to bring to bear an issue or practice, or – in the case of Pinsky’s Plunge – an impending event, in order to prompt people’s awareness and ultimately action. Unfortunately, interventions are not always successful. In 2011, 30 years after their original interventions, the Guerrilla Girls found that “4% of the artists in the Modern and Contemporary sections were women, and 76% of the nudes were female.”85 In many ways the rise of interventions in the 1980s parallel concern over the expression of public art and public debate prompted by the translation of the sociologist and philosopher Jürgen Habermas’s Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere.86 Habermas’s account links the rise of mass media and consumer culture in Britain, Europe, and the United States with the decline of the liberal bourgeois public sphere in those countries. The public sphere transformed from a culturedebating public where the liberal bourgeois learned to critically reflect upon and debate aspects of society to a culture-consuming public sphere where the liberal bourgeois were simply spectators and consumers of images. Habermas found emancipation in the culture-debating public, and some types of art and landscape interventions seek to recover this debate literally within public space. Interventions in action Temporality Interventions are often temporary, lasting one day or a few months, and some interventions exploit their temporality. The urban intervention artist Néle Azevedo

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1.29 Minimum Monument Urban Intervention © Néle Azevedo, image courtesy Néle Azevedo, Santiago de Chile, 22 August 2012

uses the melting of ice to do just this in numerous interventions throughout the world. Look at the image of Minimum Monument. She created 1,000 figures of men and women, around 20 cm in height, out of ice, and placed them on the steps in the central Gendarmenmarkt Square in Berlin. Their placement coincided with the release of a report by the Geneva conference on global warming and climate change, and the miniature figures began to melt within minutes of the installation and didn’t even make it through the afternoon.

What do you think the artist’s intent was? How did the temporality of the ice enhance this concept?

Manyness Interventions can also involve manyness, or the state of being many in number, numerousness, or multiplicity. In Italy workers from different industries came together to install 10,000 yellow construction helmets at the square outside the stock exchange in Milan. The day of installation was called La Giornata della Collera, or The Day of Anger. Participants ranged from construction workers to architects – industries all crippled by the economic turmoil of 2008. For the artist Ai Weiwei numbers play a haunting role in remembering. He used 9,000 children’s backpacks to intervene on the façade of the Haus der Kunst in Munich,

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Germany. Entitled Remembering, each backpack represents a life lost in the earthquake that occurred in the Chinese province of Sichuan in 2008. Borrowing the colour scheme (blue, red, green, yellow) from the Toys ‘R’ Us Logo,87 Ai Weiwei wrote with the bags a quote from one of the mothers of the earthquake victims. “Seven years she lived happily on this earth.” Look at the image of Remembering.

How do the numbers factor into this project? What is the significance of the colours?

Subtraction Interventions do not necessarily add to the landscapes, they can also subtract. Look at the image of Bunker 599, by Atelier de Lyon & Rietveld ArchitectureArt-Affordances. The bunker dates to 1940 and it is one among 700 that were constructed as part of the Dutch military line of defence commencing in 1815. The designers cut out and removed a section of the heavy concrete structure. They also designed a walkway running through the cut section and out to the water, which was integral to the original defence strategy. The subtraction of a slice of the bunker enables visitors to inhabit the bunker’s interior, which is typically cut off from view completely. Ronald Rietveld explained, “Our aim with the

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1.30 Remembering, So Sorry (2010) exhibit by Ai Weiwei, image courtesy of Sanfamedia https:// creativecommons. org/licenses/ by-nd/2.0/, Haus der Kunst, München, Germany

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1.31 Bunker 599 (2010) by Atelier de Lyon & Rietveld ArchitectureArt-Affordances, image courtesy of Kees Lokman, Culemborg, The Netherlands

project was to question the policies on monuments by doing this intervention.”88 By slicing through the heavily fortified bunker, the public can see the secretive quarter, which at one time housed 13 soldiers.

How do you think their intervention was challenging policies on monuments?

Subversive Sometimes interventions can be subversive, meaning they to seek to undermine an established practice, system, or institution. In most North American cities people are prohibited from using fruit-bearing trees as street trees. As a result in cities such as San Francisco thousands of ornamental varieties of cherry and pears trees are planted, which do not provide food for human consumption. The Guerrilla Grafters, a grassroots collective, attempted to challenge this practice by grafting fruit-bearing plant branches onto the branches of ornamental fruit trees lining the streets of San Francisco. Guerrilla Grafters Tara Hui argues “We don’t have a supermarket and we have very few produce stores here . . . What better to alleviate scarcity of healthy produce in an impoverished area than to grow them yourself and to have it available for free.”89

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What do you think the Guerrilla Grafters are subverting? What complications might arise out of this subversive intervention? The Grafters usually find people living or working near the grafted tree who agree to maintain it, but what happens when these people move?

Interventions debated Interventions that engage the public or are constructed with guerrilla tactics prompt ethical considerations. Miles differentiates interventions from integration, in that intervention “ruptures the illusions of consensus,”90 while an integrated design scheme organizes forms so as to provide a harmonious, interrelated whole. The standard design for street trees involves a selection of tree types that are usually regulated by municipalities with the consensus idea that the trees should be low maintenance with minimal litter and reduced height so as to not interfere with power lines and drainage. Guerrilla Grafters challenge this assumption by grafting fruit-bearing twigs onto the sterile trees. The philosopher Jennifer A. McMahon argues for a pragmatist version of site-specific installations or interventions. She notes that they “raise our awareness of the kind of inferences we make regarding certain objects, and that when left unexamined, we treat as simply a given.”91 Most people probably think that it is a given that we should not expect the public realm of streets to provide us with fresh fruit. Yet, the public are not always keen to be challenged by interventions. Some interventions have resulted in lawsuits. In Baltimore, a landlord attempted to sue Carol Ott for property damages because of her collaboration with artists belonging to the Wall Hunters, who painted over abandoned buildings. Ott was accused of trespassing and causing “a mural to be erected.”92 Wall Hunters artist Nether argued that the murals were a type of civil disobedience to highlight how the city of Baltimore had failed to address the deleterious condition of the Greenmount East and Sandtown neighbourhoods. Fortunately, a judge dismissed the case. Primary reading for interventions Rosalyn Deutsche, Evictions: Art and Spatial Politics. Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Nato Thompson and Gregory Sholette with Joseph Thompson, eds., The Interventionists User’s Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Life.

NOTES 1. Henry Vincent Hubbard and Theodora Kimball, An Introduction to the Study of Landscape Design (New York: Macmillan, 1917), 109. 2. Nick Zangwill, The Metaphysics of Beauty (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), 56.

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3. Clive Bell, Art (London: Chatto & Windus, 1914). 4. Noël Carroll, “Formalism,” The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics, third edition, eds. Berys Gaut and Dominic McIver Lopes (New York: Routledge, 2013), 87–95 (87). 5. Ibid., 91. 6. James Rose, “Freedom in the Garden,” reprinted in Modern Landscape Architecture: A Critical Review, ed. Marc Treib (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993), 68–71 (70). 7. See Clement Greenberg, “Towards a Newer Laocoon,” Partisan Review 7, no. 4 (July–August, 1940): 296–310 and Michael Fried, “Art and Objecthood,” Artforum 5 (June 1967): 12–23. 8. Caroline A. Jones, “Form and Formless,” A Companion to Contemporary Art since 1945, ed. Amelia Jones (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006), 127–142 (128). 9. Garrett Eckbo, Landscape for Living (New York: Architectural Record with Duell, Sloan, & Pearce, 1950), 73. 10. Michael Schreyach, “Conference on the Goals and Limits of Formalism“ (Berlin, 28 November 2014), ArtHist, 3 November 2014 (accessed 18 January 2015), . 11. Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (New York, Museum of Modern Art, 1966). Foregrounding postmodern architecture, Venturi argued that modern design was actually a dishonest demonstration of functionalism. Modern buildings and cities were made to look functional with pared-down simple lines and regimentally organized spaces. Yet, people’s actual behaviours and the workings of society were complex. This was the contradiction for Venturi. The spaces that looked functional were often dysfunctional. 12. Richard Payne Knight, The Landscape: A Didactic Poem (London: W. Bulmer, 1795), 43. 13. David Jacques, “The Picturesque Debate,” Georgian Gardens: The Reign of Nature (London: B.T. Batsford, 1983), 150–155 (151). 14. Uvedale Price, Essays on the Picturesque: As Compared with the Sublime and the Beautiful (London: J. Mawman, 1810), 296. 15. Ibid., 59. 16. Alan Colquhoun, Modernity and the Classical Tradition: Architectural Essays, 1980–1987 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989), 14. See also Philip Junod, Transparence et Opacité. Essai sur les fondements théoriques de l’art modern (Lausanne: L’Age d’homme, 1976). 17. Nelson Goodman, Grove Art Online (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), accessed 2 June 2015, https://www.moma.org/collection/details.php?theme_id=10946 18. See the Information Portal to European Sites of Remembrance, a project of the Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, accessed 2 June 2015, www. memorialmuseums.org/eng/staettens/view/973/Shoes-on-the-Danube-Promenade. 19. Catherine Dee, To Design Landscape: Art, Nature and Utility (New York: Routledge, 2012), 30. 20. Rosalind E. Krauss, “The Double Negative: A New Syntax for Sculpture,” in Passages in Modern Sculpture (New York: Viking Press, 1977; 1981), 243–288 (245). 21. Douglas C. Allen, “Tanner Fountain,” in Peter Walker, Experiments in Gesture, Seriality, and Flatness, ed. Linda L. Jewell (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Graduate School of Design, 1990), 14–19 (16). 22. John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture (New York: Wiley & Halsted, 1857), 114. 23. Ibid., note 35. 24. Lassus attended workshops by Fernand Léger who argued for “color was not subordinated to mass but seen as its necessary compliment.” See Mohsen Mostafavi and David Leatherbarrow, On Weathering: The Life of Buildings in Time (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005), 92. 25. Michel Conan, Crazannes Quarries by Bernard Lassus (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2004), 101.

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26. Ibid., 110. 27. Marc Treib, “The Content of Landscape Form [The Limits of Formalism],” Landscape Journal 20, no. 2 (2001): 119–140 (124). 28. Joan Iverson Nassauer, “Messy Ecosystems, Orderly Frames,” Landscape Journal 14, no. 2 (1997): 161–170 (168). 29. Ibid. 30. Heinrich Wölfflin, “Prolegomena to a Psychology of Architecture,” Empathy, Form, and Space: Problems in German Aesthetics, 1873–1893, eds. and trans. Harry Francis Mallgrave and Eleftherios Ikonomou (Santa Monica, CA: Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1993), 149–189 (151). 31. Kimberly A. Smith, “Introduction,” The Expressionist Turn in Art History: A Critical Anthology (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), 1–51 (13). 32. Manuela Lenzen, “Feeling Our Emotions,” Scientific American (2005), accessed 2 June 2015, www.scientificamerican.com/article/feeling-our-emotions/. 33. Derek Matravers, “Art, Expression and Emotion,” The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics, third edition, eds. Berys Gaut and Dominic McIver Lopes (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), 404–414 (407). Here, Matravers is distancing contemporary expression theory from the writer Leo Tolstoy’s theory of expression. Tolstoy held that art expressed what the artist was feeling, sometimes even when in the act of making something, but this theory has been refuted (see Leo Tolstoy, What is Art? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969)). 34. Ibid., 410. 35. Dominic McIver Lopes, Sight and Sensibility: Evaluating Pictures (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 84–86. 36. Susan Herrington, “Gardens Can Mean,” Landscape Journal 26, no. 2 (2007): 302–317. 37. See Jan Slaby “Emotions and the Extended Mind,” Collective Emotions: Perspectives from Psychology, Philosophy, and Sociology, eds. Christian von Scheve and Mikko Salmela (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). 38. Laurie Olin, “What did I mean then and now?” Meaning in Landscape Architecture and Gardens, ed. Marc Treib (New York: Routledge, 2011), 72–81, 79. Original article: Laurie Olin, “Form, Meaning, and Expression in Landscape Architecture,” Landscape Journal 7, no. 2 (1988): 149–168. 39. Belzec Memorial, accessed 3 June 2015, www.deathcamps.org/belzec/memorial. html. 40. See Philip Jodidio, Landscape Architecture Now! = Landschafts-Architektur heute! = Paysages contemporains! (Cologne: Taschen, 2012), 74. 41. David Haney, “‘No House Building without Garden Building!’ (‘Kein Hausbau ohne Landbau!’): The Modern Landscapes of Leberecht Migge,” Journal of Architectural Education 54, no. 3 (2001): 149–157 (150). 42. Thorbjörn Andersson, “Erik Glemme and the Stockholm Park System,” Modern Landscape Architecture: A Critical Review, ed. Marc Treib (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993), 114–133 (131). 43. Ibid. 44. Adrian Forty, “Function,” Words and Buildings: A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2000), 174–195 (180). 45. Louis H. Sullivan, “The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered,” Lippincott’s Magazine (March 1896): 403–409. 46. See David Jacques and Jan Woudstra, Landscape Modernism Renounced: The Career of Christopher Tunnard (1910–1979) (New York: Routledge, 2009), 32. Tunnard even appeared in the BBC in March of 1938 describing how to lay out a modern lot. 47. Christopher Tunnard, Gardens in the Modern Landscape (London: The Architectural Press, 1938), 69.

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48. 49. 50. 51. 52.

53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60.

61. 62.

63. 64. 65. 66.

67. 68.

69.

70.

Forty, “Function,” 184. Tunnard, Gardens in the Modern Landscape (1948), 102. Ibid., 103. Norman T. Newton, An Approach to Design (Cambridge, MA: Addison-Wesley Press, 1951), 113. Glenn Parsons and Allen Carlson, Functional Beauty (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2008), 126–127. They charge that Immanuel Kant’s formalism and the way philosophers of art interpreted his theory of disinterestedness excluded function from aesthetic appreciation. Ibid., 78. Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, 34. Alissa North, Operative Landscapes: Building Communities through Public Space (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2013), 6. Anneke Bokern, “Water Squares Rotterdam,” Topos 90 Resilient Cities and Landscapes (2015): 78–83. Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York: Random House, 1961), 18. See Peter Eisenman, “Post-Functionalism,” Oppositions 6 (Fall 1976): i–iii. Anita Berrizbeitia, “Hargreaves Associates: Key Words and Phrases,” Hargreaves Associates: Landscape Alchemy (San Francisco: ORO Editions, 2009), 60–66 (65). Udo Weilacher, Between Landscape Architecture and Land Art (Basel: Birkhäuser, 1996), 105. For the debate between Treib and me see Susan Herrington, “Gardens Can Mean,” Meaning in Landscape Architecture and Gardens, ed. Marc Treib (New York: Routledge, 2011) 174–204 (181). Also see Marc Treib, “Must Landscapes Mean? Approaches to Significance in Recent Landscape Architecture,” Landscape Journal 14, no. 1 (1995): 46–62. Marc Treib, Settings and Stray Paths: Writings on Landscapes and Gardens (New York: Routledge, 2005), 80. The Arte Povera was coined in 1967 by the Italian art critic and curator, Germano Celan. Arte Povera artists employed materials not normally associated with traditional art, such as animals, vegetables, and plants. See Laura Petican, “The Arte Povera Experience: Nature Re-presented,” Meaning of Abstract Art between Theory and Nature, eds. Paul Crowther and Isabel Wunsche (London: Routledge, 2012), 184–197. Richard Serra and Clara Weyergraf-Serra, Richard Serra, Interviews, Etc., 1970–1980 (Yonkers, NY: The Hudson River Museum, 1980), 181. See Lisa Saltzman, Making Memory Matter: Strategies of Remembrance in Contemporary Art (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 91. Richard Serra, Carmen Gimenez, and Hal Foster, Richard Serra: The Matter of Time (Gottingen: Steidl Verlag, 2006), 49. Kenneth Baker, “Richard Serra and the Materiality of Sculpture,” SFGATE, 11 April 2010, accessed 3 June 2015, www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Richard-Serraand-the-materiality-of-sculpture-3267846.php. Douglas Crimp, “Richard Serra: Sculpture Exceeded,” October, 18 (Autumn, 1981): 67–78 (78). Faye Ran, A History of Installation Art and the Development of New Art Forms: Technology and the Hermeneutics of Time and Space in Modern and Postmodern Art from Cubism to Installation (New York: Peter Lang, 2009), 166. Landezine, “Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain by Gustafson Porter,” accessed 3 June 2015, www.landezine.com/index.php/2014/11/diana-princess-ofwales-memorial-fountain-by-gustafson-porter-landscape-architecture/. Karen M’Closkey, Unearthed: The Landscapes of Hargreaves Associates (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 13.

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71. Günther Vogt, “Visual Essay,” Miniature and Panorama: Vogt Landscape Architects, Projects 2000–12 (Zurich: Lars Müller, 2012), 24–27 (24). 72. Vogt, Miniature and Panorama: Vogt Landscape Architects, Projects 2000–12, 258– 265 (259). 73. Dorothée Imbert, The Modernist Garden in France (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), 132. 74. Gilles Clément and Philippe Rahm, Environ(ne)ment : manières d’agir pour demain, ed. Giovanna Borasi (New York: Rizzoli, 2006), 17. 75. James Nisbet, “A Brief Moment in the History of Photo-Energy: Walter De Maria’s Lightning Field,” Grey Room 50 (Winter 2013): 66–89 (76). 76. Clara Weyergraf and Martha Buskirk, Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc (Eindhoven: Van Abbemuseum, 1988) 110. For a legal description of Tilted Arc’s removal see Barbara Hoffman, “Law for Art’s Sake in the Public Realm,” Art and Public Sphere, ed. William J. T. Mitchell (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 113–146. 77. Harriet F. Senie, The Tilted Arc Controversy: Dangerous Precedents? (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002). 78. See “Vladimir Mayakovsky: The Poet of the Revolution,” Socialist Worker, accessed 20 January 2016, http://socialistworker.co.uk/art/2935/Vladimir+Mayakovsky%3A+th e+poet+of+the+revolution. 79. Gregory Sholette, “Interventionism and the Historical Uncanny,” The Interventionists User’s Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Life, eds. Nato Thompson and Gregory Sholette with Joseph Thompson (North Adams, MA: MASS MoCa Publications, 2004), 133–141. 80. Malcolm Miles, Art, Space and the City (New York: Routledge, 1997), 207. 81. Elisabeth Schellekens, “Conceptual Art,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta (2014), accessed 5 November 2014, http://plato.stanford.edu/ archives/win2014/entries/conceptual-art. 82. Guerrilla Girls, accessed January 31, 2015, www.guerrillagirls.com/posters/venicewallf. shtml. 83. Woodgate has created hopscotch installations in other cities we well. See Agustina Woodgate, “Temporary Contemporary,” accessed 3 June 2015, https://www.bassmuseum.org/tc/agustina-woodgate-tc-temporary-contemporary-2/. 84. Miles, Art, Space and the City, 205. 85. Christopher Bollen, “Guerrilla Girls,” Interview Magazine, accessed 20 January 2015, www.interviewmagazine.com/art/guerrilla-girls#_. 86. Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans. Thomas Burger with Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1962; 1989). 87. Ai Weiwei with Anthony Pins, Ai Weiwei: Spatial Matters, Art Architecture and Activism (London: Tate Publishing, 2013), 418. 88. “Movie Shows Concrete Bunker Cut in Half by RAAAF and Atelier de Lyon,” dezeen magazine, accessed 3 June 2015, www.dezeen.com/2013/12/11/ movie-concrete-bunker-cut-in-half-raaaf-atelier-de-lyon/. 89. Lonny Shavelson,“Guerrilla Grafters Bring Forbidden Fruit Back to City Trees,” The Salt (7 April 2012), accessed 3 June 2015, www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/04/07/150142001/ guerrilla-grafters-bring-forbidden-fruit-back-to-city-trees. 90. Miles, Art, Space and the City, 205. 91. Jennifer A. McMahon, Art and Ethics in a Material World: Kant’s Pragmatist Legacy (London: Routledge, 2014). 92. Edward Ericson Jr., “Judge Dismisses Landlord’s Suit against Housing,” City Paper (10 September 2014), accessed 4 June 2015, www.citypaper.com/blogs/the-news-hole/ bcp-judge-dismisses-landlords-suit-against-housing-blogger-20140910,0,1002646.story.

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Spatial practices

Space – its characteristics, measurements, and consequences – witnessed significant changes during the twentieth century. The subject of space not only occupied those working in physics, math, and psychology, but also in landscape architecture, as space became a central feature in design. While modern landscape architects sought to construct theories of enclosed space and space as a continuum, these conceptions gave way to more fluid ideas of embodied space, and the way space figures prominently in human memory. Space is immaterial, meaning that it does not consist of matter, but rather its perception is shaped by it. Regardless of this fact, however, space correlates with power and spatial theories regarding power and landscapes include individuals or groups who are often excluded from power relations. Indeed, their status as Other might offer unique insights into the nature of space for landscape architecture students.

THEORETICAL GROUNDINGS OF SPATIAL CONSTRUCTS We all carry the dominant coordinate of the axial system within ourselves in the vertical line that runs from head to toe . . . The spatial construct is so to speak, an emanation of the human being present, a projection from within the subject, irrespective of whether we physically place ourselves inside the space or mentally project ourselves into it.1 (August Schmarsow, “Essence of Architectural Creation,” 1893)

This is the art historian August Schmarsow (1853–1936) attempting to describe the art of architecture as a corporeal, spatial experience, and thus, an explicitly spatial construction by the designer. Schmarsow sought to devise a theory of sensory space as an alternative to theories on form and vision espoused by Wölfflin discussed in the Forming chapter, and which posited that form in architecture derived from the empathetic responses of human form.2

What do you think he means by “a projection from within the subject, irrespective of whether we physically place ourselves inside the space or mentally project ourselves into it”?

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As the architect Harry Francis Mallgrave explains, “Because of the organization of the human body, we always give space direction; the orientation of the face and limbs determine what is ahead and whether we are moving backwards or forward.”3 Spatial constructs are anticipated because you understand space,

2.1 Brovaktarparken (2014) entrance from urban area by Nod Combine, Stockholm, Sweden

2.2 Brovaktarparken (2014) entrance from the park side, by Nod Combine, Stockholm, Sweden

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according to Schmarsow, by moving through it, usually forward. Some designers exploit the directional movement of the body through space. Compare the two images of Brovaktarparken, designed by Nod Combine, in Stockholm. According to the landscape architect and architect, Magnus Schön, the heavily planted entrance to the small park relates to people moving from the Hornsberg park system along the river, while the stone landscape refers to access coming from the city centre.

Do these seem like two different parks? Do you see how the design exploits the directional quality of movement by the human body?

Historically, landscape architects were early adopters of “space” and its organization became a salient dimension of design.4 Charles Downing Lay (1877–1956) in his 1918 article for Landscape Architecture magazine noted space composition as a common trait among the arts, and he stressed the importance of its perception in the landscape. “It is not so much, as might be thought, the arrangement of objects with relations to each other (as we might say spacing) so that they will seem agreeably disposed and not crowded, but it is rather such an arrangement as makes the total space immediately apprehended by the mind.”5 In essence, space in landscape design not only requires organization, but its arrangement into a structured whole should be comprehended by those experiencing the landscape. Space served as a theoretical currency among designers, artists, and scientists during the twentieth century, and it became a basic vocabulary in the design professions because it stressed design as an intellectual activity over its association with physical labour. By associating design with the composition of space, designers hoped to distinguish themselves from those engaged in the building trades. The historian Adrian Forty notes, “In so far as architecture had always suffered the slur of being no more than a trade, or a business, the claim to deal with the most immaterial of properties of – ‘space’ – allowed decisively architects to present their labour as mental rather than manual.”6 Moreover, both architects and landscape architects stressed the important psychological contributions made by spatial conditions. Concepts mined from aesthetics, such as empathy, gave psychological import to their work. Translated from the German word “einfühlung” (meaning “feeling into”) in 1909, empathy made possible the idea that something as ethereal as space could shape people’s perceptions and feelings. Tunnard, who was quick to see the design potential of this theory, introduced empathy to landscape architects. Writing in Gardens in the Modern Landscape (1938/1948) he contended that an empathic approach (along with functional and artistic) was key to designing modern landscapes. In his conception of an emphatic approach,

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nature is not to be copied or sentimentalized, neither is she to be overridden. The banishment of the antagonistic, masterful attitude towards Nature, of excessive symmetry, a recognition of the value of tactile qualities in plant material, a grasp of the rhythm and accent, contribute to the supple and fluid adaptation of the site, which is the landscape architect’s chief arbiter of design.7

After the Second World War, space was viewed as a universal sensation that should be emphasized over the styles that attempted to represent feelings. As Treib notes, “space (makes me feel), rather than style (representation of a feeling).”8 Eckbo argued, “We live continuously subjected to space, wherever we go, indoors and out, from birth to death. The experience of space is a common vital human experience, comparable to those of food, sleep, clothing, or sex.”9 Like the basic forms preferred by modern landscape architects discussed in the Forming chapter, it was agreed that average people didn’t need to interpret feelings represented in an object, rather they could feel something from an experience with space. Compare the two images: the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and Vietnam Veterans Memorial: Three Servicemen, both on the National Mall in Washington, DC.

2.3 Vietnam Veterans Memorial (1982) by Maya Lin, image courtesy of Dave7, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-sa/2.0/deed.en, National Mall, Washington, DC, USA

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2.4 Vietnam Veterans Memorial: Three Servicemen (1984), also a Vietnam Veterans Memorial by Frederick E. Hart, public domain, National Mall, Washington, DC, USA

Can you see how Maya Lin used space to generate a feeling of sombre despair in the visitors?

Look at the image of the Three Servicemen statue. Can you see how the sculptural figures represent feelings for you?

The Three Servicemen statue was erected in response to Lin’s design. Can you think why?

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Why spatial constructs matter Landscape architects, whether they are designing on the computer or in-situ, conceive their designs as part of the physical site and site features usually have their own spatial qualities. A project on a vast open prairie landscape will have a spatial condition that is completely different from a small urban lot. Also, the landscape, unlike other spatial practices, is literally open to the sky, which makes understanding the existing spatial conditions of a site challenging. The landscape architect Dame Sylvia Crowe (1901–1997) posited, “Scale in the landscape has to contend with the limitless expanse of the sky,”10 and the presence of the sky in the experience of landscapes should prompt designers to consider scale beyond the human body. These spatial considerations may comprise elements like trees, which can greatly exceed the human scale. Second, the material frequently employed to define space, such as plant material, changes seasonally and over time, making exact definition difficult. At the same time, these challenges have made defining space in landscape architecture all the more interesting. In fact, the perceptive landscape architect exploits the time and the changing shape of space in the design process. The landscape architect Michel Desvigne has analysed time and spatial change using plan and section drawings of his design for Greenwich Millennium Park. His analysis demonstrates the remarkable spatial transformations that are anticipated after the trees were planted. Noel van Dooren notes, “The drawing does

300 Ft.

2.5 Arabesque Tree Planting 75-year time-lapse for Brooklyn Bridge Park by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, image courtesy of Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Brooklyn, New York, USA

100% otTotal Trees 330 ft' of Soil Per Tree 5 ft o.c. Planting

o YEARS

90% of Total Trees 380 ft3 of Soil Per Tree 6 ft O.c. Planting

5 YEARS

60% of Total Trees 630 ft' of Soil Per Tree 10ft o.c. Planting

30 YEARS

20% of Total Trees 1260 ft' of Soil Per Tree 20 ft o.c. Planting

75 YEARS

Arabesque Tree Planting 75 Year Timelapse Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc. Landscape Architects P.c.

Brooklyn Bridge Park 02 March 2007

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not simply explain the development of the forest. It mainly states that there are several independent stages of maturity which have an individual quality in terms of design.”11 Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates has conducted this type of analysis in their design for Brooklyn Bridge Park. At the start of the project the park has 100 percent coverage of planted trees at 5 feet on-centre and 75 years later they anticipate 20 percent tree coverage with trees located at 20 feet on-centre.

Can you see how the drawings reveal an understanding of the spatial changes to come as part of the conception of the landscape project?

Spatial constructs in action Enclosing Enclosing space is often one of the first design tasks for students of landscape architecture. The idea of enclosing with vertical and horizontal planes can be traced back to August Schmarsow’s conception of humans as vertical axes who move directionally through a depth of spatial volumes. The base planes, overhead planes, and vertical planes typically define spatial volumes, and during the past four decades these planes have been described in detail in numerous textbooks dedicated to landscape design. Yet, spatial enclosure remains a powerful design tool. The philosopher Stephanie Ross stresses the impact that spatially defined outdoor spaces impart. She notes, “Enclosure brings about a focused attention. It redirects us to the microscopic features of our surroundings and encourages us to reflect on our sensory and bodily engagement with them . . . Enclosure prompts us to imagine, heightening and intensifying the experiences framed by the boundary that encloses and surrounds us.”12 Look at the Geometrical Gardens/Musical Gardens conceived by the landscape architect C. Th. Sørensen (1893–1979). They were composed as a series of hedge-defined rooms shaped in: an ellipse, a circle, a pentagon, a triangle, a square, a hexagon, a heptagon, and an octagon, and pruned at varying heights. Sørensen was inspired by the geometric landforms of the Vikings.13 During the 1950s the Danish manufacturer and art collector Aage Damgaard (1917–1991) was so enthralled by the design that he hired Sørensen to create the garden at a smaller scale at his shirt factory in Herning. Damgaard’s commission, as well as other works of art, was intended for the enjoyment of his factory workers.14 Twenty years ago in memory of C. Th. Sørensen the Association of Danish Landscape Architects planted the Musical Garden at the scale originally intended by the landscape architect.

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Do you think Tunnard would have described the garden as empathetic?

The grid In her essay, “The Originality of the Avant-Garde,” the art critic Rosalind Krauss exposed the fiction of originality perpetuated by avant-garde artists in the 1970s. She pointed out that many of these artists employed similar techniques in their work. She noted, “one figure drawn from avant-garde practice in visual arts, provides an example. This figure is the grid . . . the absolute stasis of the grid, its lack of hierarchy, of center, of inflection, emphasized not only its antireferential character but – more importantly – its hostility to narrative.”15 Indeed, the grid can be seen as a recurring strategy in a number of landscape spatial practices. For example, Dan Kiley believed that the gridded spaces of his landscapes expressed a non-hierarchal spatial continuum of nature and humans. He described his work as “constructed with layers of pattern, volume and time woven together . . . the essence of infinity, the perpetration of nature’s mystery.”16 To weave these patterns together Kiley typically overlapped layers of gridded space with other features. Marc Treib calls this practice slippage, an approach that he has also identified in the work of the architect Mies van der Rohe.17

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2.6 Geometrical Gardens/Musical Gardens (1983) by C. Th. Sørensen, image courtesy of Gina Crandell, Herning, Denmark

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Slippage Slippage is also employed by Peter Walker and Partners. Using distinctive patterns and landscape elements that slip by each other, they create a design that layers the programmed spaces together. Look at the image of Novartis Headquarters Courtyard, by Peter Walker and Partners, in Basel, Switzerland. Here, a radiating quincunx of Himalayan birch trees, pool, and grass overlap to create slippage.

2.7 Novartis Headquarters Forum 1 Courtyard (2004) by Peter Walker and Partners Landscape Architecture, image courtesy of Peter Walker and Partners Landscape Architecture, Basel, Switzerland

Can you see the use of slippage, how the spatial borders of the water channel, tree quincunx, and grass spaces slip by each other?

Syncopation Spatial continuum, defined as the flow of space and how the designer controls the experience of this flow, is exemplified by the theory of syncopation. Borrowed from music, syncopation displaces “expected” beats with delay, and this delay invites anticipation.18 Transferred to the design of landscapes, syncopation involves manipulating what people can see, usually with grading or plants, as they move through space. By concealing and revealing views, anticipation and mystery are brought into the experience of the landscape. Several modern landscape architects gleaned this theory from studying Japanese stroll gardens. Cornelia Hahn Oberlander was introduced to syncopation by her landscape architecture professor Lester Collins, who had visited Asia and developed an oeuvre

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that blended modern and Chinese garden aesthetics. Oberlander has continued to employ syncopation as it has helped her to think of how people are led through space by design.19 Look at the image of the path, which climbs up to the highest point of Cabecera Park. The hill serves as a visual cue to mark the 90 degree bend of water flow of the Turia River before it is channelled through the city of Valencia. Atop the hill affords expansive views of the city and the designers used a classic syncopation technique to prompt your anticipation as you wind your way up. Living tectonics Expanding Kenneth Frampton’s tectonic theory of architecture to landscape architecture, Jane Hutton stresses how the growth and maintenance of a landscape must be part of its conception. Using Central Park as her focus, she describes the often hidden but constructive role played by the ground layers of the park and the dynamics of living tectonics. She also proposes maintenance as construction. Hutton writes, “subtraction of vegetation through maintenance is paradoxically linked to growth.”20 At Central Park Frederick Law Olmsted, “wagering that the removal of 300 cords of wood would stimulate the same amount of re-growth within two years cited thirty-nine sources in a directive for continued removals.”21 This is an interpretation of tectonics that is unique

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2.8 Cabecera Park (2004) by Eduardo de Miguel Rabones, Arancha Muñoz Criado, and Vicente Corell Farinós, Valencia, Spain

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2.9 Shenyang Jianzhu University landscape (2004) by Turenscape/ Kongjian Yu, image courtesy of Kongjian Yu, Liaoning Province, China

to landscape architects and it can play a powerful role in changing the spatial dimensions of a landscape. Look at the image of the campus landscape at Shenyang Jianzhu University. Designed by the landscape architecture firm Turenscape, this part of the campus was conceived as a rice field, which the students harvest every year and sell. Not only has Turenscape preserved the site’s agricultural function and maintained the cultural tradition of this region in producing the special, Northeast Rice, but they have also exploited the spatial change of living tectonics.22 As a plant material rice typically grows to approximately two meters (6 feet) in height during a growing season. Thus, this rapid production of biomass dramatically transforms the spatial qualities of the landscape.

Can you imagine how the spatial qualities change before and after the students have harvested the rice? Do you think this why Turenscape placed social spaces in the middle of the rice field?

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Miniature and panorama In the Forming chapter you read about Günther Vogt’s theory of miniature and panorama. This theory can also be thought about in terms of spatial scale. Miniature involves the scaling down of landscape spatial types and panorama entails the scaling up of landscape spatial types, and this approach can be seen in numerous designed landscapes. MINIATURE

The landscape theorist Elizabeth K. Meyer analysed Dan Kiley’s design for the Miller residence as a case of scaling down. When the project was first conceived in the 1950s the Miller property was situated at “the seam between three spatial fields” – an urban grid, a larger suburban grid, and the half-milesquare agrarian lands, which are the hallmark of the Midwestern landscape of the United States.23 Kiley scaled down the dimensions of this meta-landscape to approximately 5.7 hectares (13.5 acres) as part of his design response. More recently, miniaturization has been used to adjust a site’s microclimatic conditions. Michel Desvigne, in his experimental garden with Patrick Blanc at the Ministry of Culture in Paris, found that the microclimate of the existing courtyard space, with its glazing and light levels, mimicked high-altitude southern forests

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2.10 Garden for the Ministry of Culture (2004) by Michel Desvigne Paysagiste and Patrick Blanc, image courtesy of Michel Desvigne Paysagiste, Paris, France

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and their undergrowth. For Desvigne, “Thus the idea was formed to adapt and miniaturize one of these forests in a small surface area – a box of 170 square meters set within a larger courtyard. Over twelve strata, 1000 plants from 100 species selected by the botanist.”24 Desvigne transformed Kiley’s formal miniaturization of landscape spatial types to a miniaturization of a landscape spatial type based on environmental conditions. According to Desvigne, one of the reasons he used miniaturization is “to make the compositional device disappear.”25 Look at the image of the Ministry of Culture garden.

Do you think they have made the compositional device disappear? 2.11 Queen Elizabeth 2012 Olympic Park Planting Concept, Hargreaves Associates lead designers with LDA Design, image courtesy of Hargreaves Associates, London, England

Why do you think this was their intention?

PANORAMA

For the designers of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London, panorama provides a very interesting approach to the planting design scheme. According to Sarah Price, George Hargreaves, the lead designer, envisioned “a linear chronological sequence based on plant families.”26 The design team, with Andrew Harland and Neil Mattinson of LDA Design, sought to build upon the British

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tradition of collecting plants from around the world, and William Robinson’s Wild Garden of the 1870s.27 Plants from numerous regions of the world were grouped and laid out based on Robinson’s approach, which involved the careful study of a plant’s habit of growth as well as the microclimate conditions and the hardiness of selected plants (not necessarily native). Robinson’s loose style is distinguished by large drifts of hardy perennial plants for woodland areas, around bodies of water, and in meadows. Robinson’s Wild Garden was typically employed at a residential scale, but at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, this approach was scaled up to a park scale. Coloured air Coloured Air is part of Bernard Lassus’s theory of “minimal intervention.” Lassus stresses, “Minimal intervention doesn’t mean not wanting to do anything, but using ‘espace propre’ carefully. When in 1965 I used a red tulip to carry out the important experiment ‘Un air rosé’ . . . This is the principle of minimal intervention: the place is not altered physically in any way and nevertheless, you change the landscape.”28 In essence, intervening within space can change the sensory perception of that space. For Lassus, the white card placed in the red tulip caused the air and the white card to be perceived as red. The role of colour has

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2.12 Queen Elizabeth 2012 Olympic Park, Hargreaves Associates lead designers with LDA Design, image courtesy of Hargreaves Associates, London, England

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2.13 Pink Balls 2012 by Claude Cormier + Associés, image courtesy of Stéphane Mabilais, Montréal, Canada

also figured prominently in the work of Claude Cormier. From Blue Stick Garden to his more recent Pink Balls installation in Montréal, Claude notes, “we have taken into our practice the notion of color. We realized early on that color is actually extremely loaded, and we challenge that aspect within each project.”29 Look at the image of Cormier’s Pink Balls 2012 in Montréal. The temporary project consists of more than 170,000 pink resin balls suspended along 1.2 km of Sainte-Catherine Street in the East Village. Look at the background of the image. Do you see how the space is coloured, but at a different scale than Un Air Rosé? Do you think the pixel-like qualities of the balls enables this colouring?

Spatial constructs debated Theorists examining modern housing projects, in particular, questioned the neutrality of space. As you will read in Contested Spaces in the final section of this chapter, Henri Lefebvre’s theory of “the production of space” revealed how spaces created in the urban landscape and made possible by capitalist systems – such as the appropriation of geographical territories, the allocation of land

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uses and infrastructure, and the distribution of labour and materials – were not simply neutral, abstract entities. For Lefebvre, these spaces of modern urbanism reinforced social relations, and served as a tool to be employed by a hegemonic class to reproduce its own dominance in society. Thus, architects and planners engaged in this production were complacent in upholding the dominant power structures. In this sense, space was conceived as ideological, rather than as an unbiased dimension of design. The universal effects of space on people were questioned as well. Some critics argued that perceptions or emotions produced by spaces were culturally constructed. As such, the effects of space on individuals differed based on cultural background, gender, age, and class. In essence, people from diverse cultural backgrounds will perceive and react to spaces differently. Age and gender play a role as well. For example, the cultural geographer Gill Valentine argues that who occupies and controls spaces and when has a greater impact on how women feel about space than the physical design of spaces. “Women feel threatened in spaces and at times when they perceive the behaviour of men with whom they may share the space to be unregulated by agents of formal or informal control; or, when they perceive the space to be actively controlled by a threatening male group.”30 The manipulation of space as the chief concern of design was questioned within landscape architecture as well. Peter Walker posited, “When landscape is treated as simply space – as simply a suitable setting for a building or a piece of sculpture – people tend to ignore the landscape.”31 Walker challenged landscape architects to consider other aspects of design, such as bold patterns and forms that would make the landscape more visible to people, and thus secure it to the world of art in its own right. Likewise, Martha Schwartz has dedicated her career to designing landscapes that employ humour, metaphor, and connections to pop culture. Shifting concerns with space to a concern with meaning, Schwartz thought the manipulation of spatial volumes was not enough, and there were far more interesting ideas to communicate through her design work. The landscape architect Dean Cardasis has also made the case that the space we move through and pause is directly linked to a landscape’s meaning. He notes, “keener recognition that the design of the volume itself – the space through which we move and in which we come to rest – is inextricable from the meaningfulness and utility of the work.”32 At the same time, the spaces of a designed landscape need not depend on facts, but rather appearances, and this is the subject of the next section. Primary reading for spatial constructs Charles Downing Lay, “Space Composition.” Harry Francis Mallgrave and Eleftherios Ikonomou, editors, Empathy, Form, and Space: Problems in German Aesthetics, 1873–1893. Christopher Tunnard, Gardens in the Modern Landscape.

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THEORETICAL GROUNDINGS OF ILLUSIONARY SPACE

2.14 Rabbit or Duck? (1899) by Joseph Jastrow, public domain

Look at the image of Rabbit or Duck? What do you see pictured in this image? A Rabbit? A Duck? Can you see both the rabbit and the duck at the same time? This figure is one of the most analysed ambiguous images used in philosophy and psychology.33 Rabbit or Duck? was created by the psychologist Joseph Jastrow (1863–1944) and it first appeared in a German humour magazine published in 1892. Jastrow used the image to show that vision is not simply the reception of visual stimuli, but it also involves mental activity. The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) drew his own version of this ambiguous figure to explain his theory of “seeing-as,” which involves you simultaneously seeing and interpreting. You may see the drawing as a duck or you may see it as a rabbit depending on what you want to see it as. In his publication, Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation, the art historian E. H. Gombrich (1909–2001) used Rabbit or Duck? to challenge the notion that perceptual phenomena (the marks or lines made by the drawer) correspond to one interpretation. The ears of the rabbit, for example, may also be the duck’s bill. According to Gombrich you can easily switch back and forth seeing the duck or the rabbit, but you are unable to see both the duck and the rabbit at the same time. “Illusion, we find, is hard to describe or analyse, for though we may be intellectually aware of the fact that any given experience must be an illusion, we cannot strictly speaking, watch ourselves having an illusion.”34

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While Gombrich’s theories on illusion and the use of the Rabbit or Duck? picture have been debated and critiqued,35 his work radically changed thinking on visual perception, art, and techniques employed to represent something. Gombrich never succinctly described illusion, but in essence illusion happens when “the visual information ‘creates’ the illusion by making one ‘leap’ to a conclusion, to taking the visual information as something other than it is.”36 Why illusionary space matters Illusions matter because people typically enjoy illusions, and they prompt you to question the reality you see, or at least appear to see. Illusions have a long history in the design and reception of landscapes. Reflective materials, in particular, can be employed to give illusions. Historically, mirrors, water features, and other reflective surfaces provided virtual worlds of illusion. A classic example of illusion as integral to the design of landscapes can be found in the Moon Bridges of China. These pedestrian bridges were steeply curved in section and placed over water. From a particular vantage point, the view of the physical bridge combined with the reflection of the bridge in the water below formed a circle. This mirrored image of a circle represented the moon, a reoccurring symbol found in ancient Chinese myths to the contemporary consumption of mooncakes during lunar festivals. Another example is the Claude Mirror, which was used by both artists and by tourists experiencing landscapes. It was typically convex in shape and the mirror was coloured. The convex shape of the mirror reduced and unified the visual field by concentrating it into one gaze held in the hand.37 The mirror’s backing, which was often black or smoky-sepia instead of silver, coloured the reflected image. Like an Instagram filter, it helped unify the tonality of the image. The artist and writer William Gilpin (1724–1804), who foregrounded a theory of the picturesque, argued that this avoided the spotting of light and provided for a graduation of tones, “so as not to appear affected.”38 The Claude Mirror created an image, but landscape architects also have used physical design to create spatial illusions. These illusions are typically illusion of distortion, which involve manipulating the size, length, or height of objects in the landscape to make your perception of the landscape dissimilar from its physical reality. Illusionary space in action Illusion of depth The illusion of depth uses the science of perspective to make a landscape space seem either shallower or deeper than measured. This technique manipulates the mechanism of visual perception. The illusion of depth is a very old spatial practice that can be traced back to trompe l’oeil39 and anamorphosis techniques employed in the design of historic gardens in Italy and France.40 Look at the image of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park. Designed in 1974 by Louis Kahn in collaboration with landscape architect Harriet Pattison, and

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2.15 Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park (2012) by Louis Kahn with landscape architect Harriet Pattison, Roosevelt Island, New York City, USA

constructed in 2012, the park was designed to give an illusion of depth with an accelerated perspective. They designed a tapered sloped lawn bordered by allées of 120 littleleaf linden trees. The trees and lawn are approximately 45 meters at the top of the sloped lawn and converge approximately 15 meters at the terminus of the slope. Thus, “The perception of distance expands and contracts.”41

Why do you think Kahn and Pattison employed this technique for a memorial dedicated to Roosevelt?

Optical illusions Optical illusions in landscape architecture involve a design that creates a perception of it that is remarkably different from distinct viewpoints. Like the “illusion of depth” there is a planned mismatch between what is perceived at a certain point in space and what the landscape is physically. However, the “illusion of depth” usually exaggerates the one-point perspective laws of foreshortening with the goal of creating an illusion of reality. In contrast, optical illusions distort perception to communicate something.

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A well-known type of optical illusion is anamorphosis, which “gives a distorted image of the object represented but which, if viewed from a certain vantage point or reflected in a curved mirror, shows the object in true proportion.”42 Since the correct anamorphic image can only be seen at a certain vantage point, it is usually done to trick people. However, it is also a way designers or artists can communicate something deeper. Numerous interpretations of one of the most famous examples of anamorphosis, the distorted skull in Hans Holbein the Younger’s painting, The Ambassadors (1533), have been proffered. Look at the skull in the painting, The Ambassadors. Some scholars have argued that it represents death, while others claim that the original placement of the painting in a stairwell would have heightened your awareness of the skull. Look at the two views of Who to Believe? by the artist François Abélanet at the Ephemeral Garden Square in Paris. His 1,500-square-meter landscape uses anamorphosis, and gives the impression of a three-dimensional globe from the main steps in front of the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall). Abélanet remarks, “we live in a world where one hears the debates of ecologists, scientists, manufacturers . . . I simply wanted to note the problem of the tree and invite people to

2.16 The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein the Younger (1533), public domain

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2.17 Who to Believe? (2011) by François Abélanet The Anamorphist, image courtesy of François Abélanet, Paris, France

2.18 Who to Believe? (2011) by François Abélanet The Anamorphist, image courtesy of François Abélanet, Paris, France

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question the place that it, nature, and the environment have in their lives.”43 The journalist Henry Adams observes, Abélanet’s garden reminds us that the view from City Hall can be quite different from everywhere else – that, in fact, the seeming logic of its view of things can be nonsensical. To fully grasp reality we need to see how it looks from more than one place (politicians, take note). Like much of the world’s best art, Abélanet’s creation is at once silly and profound.44

Abélanet uses anamorphosis to prompt people to question why people should privilege one way of looking at an issue; can you think of other ways anamorphosis might be used?

Illusionary contours Illusionary contours (also known as subjective contours) are the perceived outlines of shapes (the contour) that are created by other shapes, lines, or textures. The Kanizsa Triangle illusion developed in 1955 by the psychologist Gaetano Kanizsa is a famous example of illusionary contours. It was used by Gestalt psychologists to explain the “law of enclosure.” They proposed theories of how you perceptually organize something in its totality, versus in its parts. The “law of enclosure,” for example, was thought to prove that when you see an object, you are capable of imagining features of the object that are missing, particularly regarding its shape.45 Look at the Kanizsa Triangle illusion.

2.19 Kanizsa Triangle illusion

Do you see a whole triangle? Even though the triangle has not been drawn, do you see how the triangle is perceived by the objects drawn around it?

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2.20 Platz der Republik (1997) by Lützow 7, image courtesy of Mike Peel, Creative Commons, www. mikepeel.net, Berlin, Germany

Look at the image of Platz der Republik in Berlin. Hedges on the side are parted to create a meandering river-like space. What shape do you see? How would the effect be different if the designer created the meandering path delineated by a row of hedges in the shape of a meandering river?

Colour contrasts Your perception of colour is a consequence of wavelengths reflected back to your eyes. Ambient and reflected light conditions and the colour’s context in relationship to other colours and shapes influence your perception of colour; thus, colour has many illusionary qualities. Colour has been a rich and varied subject for both scientists and artists. As mentioned previously, Claude Cormier considers colour a key element to his work. Cormier often borrows from artists, such as Claude Monet, who used painting techniques to invoke optical principles, such as the dotted brush strokes of complementary colours that would be unified into a vibrant scene in the eye’s mind.46 Look at the image of TOM II. Cormier used 5,060 temporary overlay markers or TOMS that are typically used for short-term temporary lane markings in construction zones.

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2.21 TOM II (2013) by Claude Cormier + Associés, image courtesy of Guillaume Paradis, Montréal, Canada

Looking at the complementary colours of green and red, can you see how they create a field-like composition of poppies? Why do you think he used temporary overlay markers?

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Illusionary space debated Illusions experiment with errors in sense perception. Bernard Lassus argues against illusion, contending, “I try to achieve clarity. 21 centimeters is 21 centimeters for me and not 22 centimeters.”47 His critique raises an interesting question – should defining space in design be a mathematical endeavour (based on measure or proportion) or should designers exploit the illusionary qualities of space and your perceptions of it? Obviously the designed landscape abounds with measurements that landscape architects must conform to, such as the depth of a pond to avoid algae growth and the widths of paths for accessibility. But are those measured landscape features more real than how we perceive them – despite how unmeasured that perception may be?

The language of reality versus appearance is commonly used in perceptual testing, such as the “illusionary contour.” The “Müller–Lyer illusion,” an optical illusion shown here is another popular test.

2.22 The Müller-Lyer illusion

The common explanation for this illusion notes that the two lines appear to be different lengths, but in reality they are the same length. For the philosopher Katherine J. Morris, this relies on the preconception that the measurable is assumed to be more real than the nonmeasurable . . . Once we recognize that “real” simply means “measurable” in this context, we might be in a position to raise the question why the measurable is supposed to be more valuable than the non-measurable. We can grant for certain purposes, e.g., building a bridge that will not fall down, it is; for others, e.g., judging the aesthetic qualities of a bridge, it is not.48

So, is what is visible more real than what is measured? Are there types of landscape design projects where misperceptions are welcomed?

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This is the link that Lassus tries to reveal, by making measurements apparent you may not apprehend, he is describing the invisible. Making the invisible, visible is a practice of phenomenology, particularly Jean-Paul Sartre’s phenomenology. Primary reading for illusionary space E. H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation. Arnault Maillet, The Claude Glass: Use and Meaning of the Black Mirror in Western Art.

THEORETICAL GROUNDINGS OF PHENOMENOLOGY Natural objects, for example, must be experienced before any theorizing about them can occur. Experiencing is consciousness that intuits something and values it to be actual; experiencing is intrinsically characterized as consciousness of the natural object in question and of it as the original . . . objects would be nothing at all for the cognizing subject if they did not “appear” to him, if he had of them no phenomenon. Here, therefore, “phenomenon” signifies a certain content that intrinsically inhabits the intuitive consciousness in question and is the substrate for its actuality valuation.49 (Edmund Husserl, Pure Phenomenology, 1917)

Phenomenology is a philosophical method that privileges experience as the source of subjectivity. In this quote the philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859– 1938), the founder of phenomenology, is describing this philosophical method in which he attempts to describe experience as he encounters it. Husserl was dissatisfied with assumptions made in the sciences, which held that the world was rationally structured, and so comprehending knowledge about this world required rational thought. For Husserl this was misguided, particularly when studying human consciousness, and he sought a method as an alternative to standard scientific approaches, such as the scientific method of induction. What do you think he means by “experiencing is intrinsically characterized as consciousness of the natural object in question and of it as the original”?

Husserl is alluding to intentionality, or your directed awareness of things in the world.50 These phenomena need not be physical objects appearing in perception, but can also come from your imagination or memory as well. Husserl’s descriptive phenomenology requires that you bracket off preconceived ideas and suspend value judgments about the experience of the phenomena. He believed that this would make possible a more focused and systematic study of the structures of consciousness and phenomena that appear to you. Read this philosopher’s descriptive account of his experience with a tree: Consider my visual experience wherein I see a tree across the square. In phenomenological reflection, we need not concern ourselves with whether the tree

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exists: my experience is of a tree whether or not such a tree exists. However, we do need to concern ourselves with how the object is meant or intended. I see a Eucalyptus tree, not a Yucca tree; I see that object as a Eucalyptus, with a certain shape, with bark stripping off, etc. Thus, bracketing the tree itself, we turn our attention to my experience of the tree, and specifically to the content or meaning in my experience.51

Can you explain bracketing in this account?

Numerous other philosophers have expanded Husserl’s methods (and of course debated them). The philosopher Martin Heidegger’s (1889–1976) hermeneutics emphasized interpretation over Husserl’s descriptive methods. Heidegger discarded Husserl’s method of bracketing as he argued that you should interpret things in the world in more practical ways, such as planting trees with friends, for example. The philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961) argued that the living body played a key role in perception, rather than only consciousness.52 Here, you will be introduced to the phenomenological methods of Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) and his three types of the imagining consciousness – negation, consciousness and time, and being for others.53 These types of consciousness stem from his major phenomenological studies regarding the imagination. Since this is dense material I have folded the theoretical grounding of each of Sartre’s descriptions of the imagining consciousness within the “in action” section. Why phenomenology matters Sartre’s phenomenology is important to landscape architecture because of the way imagination figures in his theory. Also, landscapes can provide tangible evidence of the absent. A cemetery, a vacant lot, or a denuded forest, for example, makes absence evident. Although these instances are often discussed under the rubric of memory making, they also trigger imagination. Sartre distinguishes imagination from remembering, perceiving, and other more passive types of consciousness. His emphasis on the imagining consciousness in experience is especially relevant for design students who are charged with the task of creating new landscapes. Sartre himself was concerned with imagination. He not only wrote dense academic texts, but also short stories, novels, and plays, so he was a creative person himself. Through the bodily engagement with the world Sartre provides an interpretation of imagination that is in relationship to the world, invited by the physical objects and spaces you encounter. Thus, consciousness is an imaginative act that not only reveals present meaning, but also enables you to see the world other than it is.54 Returning to the vacant lot, the empty property may prompt you to think of what was once there, why it is no longer there, and what could possibly be there in the future.

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Although Sartre was influenced by Heidegger, his phenomenology does not shy away from dualism, the idea that your consciousness is separate from something you are experiencing. For Sartre, you can no more be the tree you are encountering, as the tree can be you. According to philosopher Robert Bernasconi, “neither consciousness, nor ‘the thing,’ has priority.”55 Sartre’s binary distinction between consciousness and the external world is where encounters start, where you begin to describe the familiar. Moreover, describing the landscape can be a valuable place to start the design process. This phenomenological aspect of the design process can be seen in the work of Vogt Landscape Architects. Their approach to projects always involves walking the larger territory of the project, often with a scientist. Vogt notes, “The walker’s perspective is of fundamental importance to our planning process, a view of open space we consciously adopt in the course of our design work. It is not only the designed space that is significant; the sequence of spaces transited before and after also become important.”56 The walking experience translates into their design response as well. For example, the footpath designed at the Novartis Campus compresses the hidden landscape of terraces, dendritic drainage systems, and abandoned river channels that they walked through in the Basel region. The scale of this encounter, however, has been transformed to a dimension that can be experienced walking for an hour, the time given to Novartis employees for their lunch break. Phenomenology in action The space of negation Sartre posits that absence is the unconditional principle of all imagination.57 The experience of absence is what Sartre calls “negation,” and it is a powerful tool of the imagining consciousness that arises from encountering the world as it colours experience and gives it depth. Sartre explains negation by describing an experience in Pierre’s room. Pierre’s non-existence in the room is dependent on Pierre at one point being there and his absence is experienced as present. Sartre’s “being and nothingness” oscillates through negation, “every psychic process of negation implies a cleavage between the past and the present – this cleavage is nothingness.”58 Here is Sartre describing Pierre’s absence from his room: The room of someone absent, the books of which he turned the pages, the objects which he touched are in themselves only books, objects, i.e., full actualities. The very traces which he has left can be deciphered as traces of him only within a situation where he has been already appointed as absent. Pierre’s absence, in order to be established or realized, requires a negative moment. If in terms of my perceptions of the room, I conceive of the former inhabitant who is no longer in the room, I am of necessity to produce an act of thought which no prior state can determine nor motivate, in short to effect in myself a break in being.59

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Have you ever been in a space inhabited by someone who was not there and his or her absence shaped your imagining consciousness about the space?

2.23 Sinking Garden (2012) by Nikola Bojic´ and Alan Waxman, image courtesy of Nikola Bojic´, Hangzhou, China

Sartre would describe this phenomenon as a psychic break or break in being. Look at the image of Sinking Garden, by Nikola Bojic´ and Alan Waxman, for the XiXi National Wetland Park, West Lake International Invitational Sculpture Exhibition. Historical research conducted by the designers revealed that the creation of the park and subsequent development had displaced local families, obliterating their connections to the former landscape. Bojic´ and Waxman collected old boats used by these families and resituated them in a wetland. Each turf-laden boat pays tribute to a family that for generations lived in the region. On the opening day of the exhibition the name of a family was inscribed on each boat. The boats are analogons, which Sartre argues represent something true about the real. The power of an analogon is in direct proportion to the degree to which absence is relevant.

Why do you think the designers put the boats in the water?

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Time and consciousness Sartre proposes that the structure of consciousness rests upon the basic premise that “to be aware of an object is not to be the object.”60 Thus, being has two forms – in-itself (en-soi) and for-itself (pour-soi). In-itself is something that exists and is not conscious of itself, a walkway for example, and it can be anything that one is conscious of. For-itself exists but it is conscious of itself, you, for example. In-itself and for-itself are always distanced (physically, my feet don’t become part of the walkway) but related by time since consciousness is temporal. Thus, at each moment in time our consciousness “nihilates” its own past to become aware of a new situation with the present operating as a mixture of both present and past. This is experienced time or “the qualitative lived time of our concerns and practices, the time that rushes by or hangs heavy on our hands, rather than the quantitative ‘clock’ time that we share with physical nature.”61 Look at the image of Maya Lin’s 11 Minute Line. Created in a cow pasture near the Wanås Foundation in Sweden, this serpentine line was inspired by the Serpent Mound in Ohio. Lin first drew the line and then modelled it three-dimensionally. It takes approximately 11 minutes to walk atop this 500 meter-long, two-meter high mound. John Beardsley suggests that this work and other projects by Lin evoke the Japanese aesthetic of ma. He explains, “Neither space nor time in this conception is fixed; neither exists without the other. Space is experienced through time; time is measured by movement through space”62

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2.24 11 Minute Line (2004) by Maya Lin, image courtesy of The Wanås Foundation, image by Anders Norrsell, Wanås, Sweden

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How do you think Lin exploits lived time and space versus measured clock-time? How do you think this relates to the rural context of open fields and cows at Wanås?

Group praxis Sartre’s third form of being, relates to group praxis or being for-others (pourautrui). Group praxis constitutes itself in given moments, with an emphasis on empowering the individual while simultaneously acknowledging the individual as a group member.63 For Sartre, these are experiences that give meaning to existence and oblige us to a set of customs and behaviours. He also stressed the role of worked-matter in this praxis. You encounter worked-matter every day and these experiences link us to the collective. Worked-matter includes “all the human stamped physical and cultural environments (bus routes, institutions, customs, and so on) in which we live.”64 Interestingly, this matter is more than what it is physically. As Sartre describes, “A ticket is a ticket rather than a pasteboard rectangle only insofar as it is supported by consciousness, but you cannot get into the theatre without it. By means of worked-matter we individually and collectively carve out our being in a world by our concrete actions or praxis.”65

2.25 Little Spirits Garden (2013) by Bill Pechet, Bill Pechet Studio and Joseph Daly Landscape Architecture, image courtesy of Joseph Daly, Royal Oak Burial Park, Victoria, Canada

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In some instances, the worked-matter performs as an analogon, which is an image, sensation, or a physical element that prompts the imagination. Think of spontaneous memorials where people bring worked-matter to the scene of the incident. A bottle of Lucky Tiger left at a spontaneous memorial is no longer just a toiletry product, but rather an analogon, which calls forth the deceased by giving us what he smelled like. It prompts us to imagine the aftershave other than it is. The being for-itself haunts being in-itself in the context for-others. Look at the image of Little Spirits Garden by the interdisciplinary designers/artists Pechet Studio and Daly Landscape Architecture. The garden is designed to pay tribute to the loss of infants in the Victoria area of British Columbia, Canada. A tiny concrete house was made for each of the 3,000 infants to be commemorated. Parents and family members were encouraged to bring items to inhabit the houses.

Do you see how the worked-matter performs as an analogon? Why do you think people feel compelled to bring items to this landscape and to spontaneous memorials in general?

Espace propre You can see the phenomenology of Sartre in the early work of Bernard Lassus. According to Conan, Lassus’s working process “is accomplished through a process of corporeal exploration.”66 This reflects Sartre’s goal, which seeks to render those phenomena invisible, visible.67 and remind one of the “multiple relations that bind us to the visible and the tangible world.”68 Lassus’s garden theory began in the Coracle Gallery in London; according to Lassus, “I hung strips of yellow paper from the ceiling of the gallery, suspended a plumb line next to a wall and put a spirit level on the floor. I did this in order to destroy the notion that rooms are exact geometric forms . . . It’s a matter of destroying misperceptions and examining what seems to be reality.”69 Phenomenology debated Sartre’s Phenomenology has been debated by philosophers, particularly Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who privileged the role of the body in phenomenology. In fact several books have been published that are exclusively dedicated to their disagreements. A common critique made by Merleau-Ponty concerns Sartre’s in-itself (en-soi) and for-itself (pour-soi) in his conception of being. For Merleau-Ponty, this theory represents the “cutting consciousness off from the world” with in-itself and for-itself having no effect on each other.70 But other scholars have argued that Sartre’s dualism is a false labelling of in-itself and for-itself, and that the two types of being are “more of a continuum than a polar duality.”71 For example, negation prompts the oscillation between being and nothingness.

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The role of phenomenology in the design process has also been debated. The architecture theorist Jonathan Hale notes that some have charged, “Phenomenology is fundamentally conservative and backward-looking, apparently too preoccupied with nostalgia for a supposedly subject-centred world.”72 Indeed, the very idea of subject-centred world was challenged by post-structuralism. As you will read in the Language chapter, there are many overlaps between phenomenology and structuralism, as well as post-structuralism. Yet phenomenology’s privileging of first-hand experiences and the primacy of subjectivity in creating meaning is at odds with structuralism’s privileging of the external systems of relations. Proponents of structuralism argued that a priori structures of the mind mediate experiences, and thus, they would preclude any direct description of lived reality. Moreover post-structuralism would question not only the subjectivity of experience, but also the very placement of human experience at the centre of meaning. Yet, if there is one dimension of human experience that is primarily defined by your own personal encounters, it is your memory, and this is the subject of the next section. Primary reading for phenomenology Martin Heidegger, Phenomenology of Intuition and Expression: Theory of Philosophical Concept Formation. Edmund Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy – First Book: General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception. Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology. Jean-Paul Sartre, The Imaginary: A Phenomenological Psychology of the Imagination.

THEORETICAL GROUNDINGS OF MEMORY AND SPACE the soul can still regard past events which are preserved in its intellect, and it can recall these (for recollection is an intellectual activity). But it can form no new memories when it no longer has a body. Because memory requires a body, the souls in Dante’s Inferno are forever stuck in their pasts, unable to form memories or combine old ones into new thought (for which they would need bodily organs).73 (Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory, 2004)

An expert of medieval culture, Carruthers is referring to the narrative poem, The Divine Comedy, by Durante degli Alighieri (1265–1321) better known as Dante. The poem divulges the imaginary journey of Dante’s soul towards God from “Inferno” to “Purgatory” and eventually “Paradise.”

Why do you think the body is an important dimension of human’s ability to form memories?

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Carruthers herself notes that this bodily connection to memory is based on the medieval Dominican friar Thomas Aquinas’s (1225–1274) belief that “sensory memory does not survive death.”74 But why should you concern yourself with the theory of a medieval friar?

He was probably on to something. Not as much as your soul, but about the important linkages between your body, mind, and brain in the creation of memories. Recent studies in the neurosciences have found that the spaces you experience are vital to the formation of memories. Specific neurons in the brain enable you to both construct and navigate internally a sense of external physical spaces and to construct memories.75 Because these parts of your brain’s circuitry are exclusively dedicated to spatial navigation and memory, the experience of physical spaces with your body can produce strong memories. In fact your spatial memory may exceed other types of memory. Think about the difference between reading about a landscape versus physically experiencing a landscape. Can you recall the landscape you visited more vividly and precisely than a landscape you read about?

The ability to recall spatial experiences – culturally or personally – in the present is critical to the design process because spatial memories can also serve as springboards for design. Carruthers also notes that memories can be used to create new things. This insight links past encounters and the imagination, which is critical to students who are often called upon to envision anew with the past in mind. This idea is also reflected in the architect Juhani Pallasmaa’s contention, “Memory and fantasy, recollection and imagination, are related and they have always a situational and specific content. One who cannot remember can hardly imagine because memory is the soil of the imagination. Memory is also the ground of self-identity; we are what we remember.”76 Why memory and space matter Since landscape architects often work with natural systems that have their own memories it is important to avoid the outsize romantic memories often attached to these systems. In California, for example, landscape architects carried out an extensive programme of day-lighting streams. The fluvial geomorphologist Matt Kondolf argues that many of these projects demonstrate how cultural memory can distort knowledge concerning the restoration of alluvial systems. Uvas Creek in California, for example, was restored to match an idealized version of rivers witnessed in English landscape gardens. The day-lighted creek was designed as a serpentine, single channel with a series of logs and plump boulders lining the sides. Unfortunately creeks in this part of California are wide,

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with sand-and-gravel beds. One year after this extreme makeover, Uvas Creek reverted to what creeks look like in this particular region of the world – wide and gravelly. Kondolf warns that despite our cultural preference for the single meandering channel, witnessed in numerous landscape paintings and etchings, “the river usually remembers and reasserts its true nature, which is often more dynamic and messy.”77 This example demonstrates that memory and the types of memory – cultural or natural – are important to distinguish from each other. Memory and space in action Framed space Framing refers to vertical frames made with vegetation, walls, or even earth. They are typically used to draw attention to a view. The architect Donlyn Lyndon argues, “Spaces become memorable in two ways: through formal structures with special coherence or power, and through events that take place rooted in location.”78 Landscape architects are primarily concerned with his first point – forming spaces. Vertical frames can enable the designer to direct attention to important parts of the site. At Centennial Park by Maria Caffarena de la Fuente, Andrés García Alcaraz, Victor Cobos Márquez, and Bernardo Gómez Delgado, in Algeciras, Spain, significant features on and off the site are literally framed. As part of a national park area situated on the Punta de San García, Centennial Park provides a view out to the Strait of Gibraltar. Four concrete frames at a turn in the park’s pathway frame the space of both cultural and natural artefacts. These prospects range from the Rock of Gibraltar, viewing stations created for the project, and to the site’s location at the juncture connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea.

2.26 Centennial Park (2007) by Maria Caffarena de la Fuente, Andrés García Alcaraz, Victor Cobos Márquez, and Bernardo Gómez Delgado, image courtesy of falconaumanni, https:// creativecommons. org/licenses/ by-sa/3.0/deed.en, Algeciras, Spain

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These frames are literally giant frames, can you think of other ways you might frame space?

Remnant space Because landscape architects often incorporate existing site features as part of their design response, they also have the opportunity to retain remnant spaces as a way to recall past spatial memories of the site. Remnant spaces are leftover spaces from a former process or use of the site. Look at Thames Barrier Park, by the landscape architect Alain Provost, in East London. Notice the deep spatial qualities of the sunken garden. This space takes its cue from the site’s previous industrial use. The park occupies a former chemical and dye works, armaments factory, and tarmac plant. By preserving and reconceiving the five-meter-deep former dry dock (utilized when the land was an industrial site) as a sunken garden, Provost creates one of the chief mnemonic features of the site.

2.27 Thames Barrier Park (2000) by Alain Provost of Groupe Signes with Patel Taylor, London, England

In keeping this hollowed space and making it part of the design, do you learn something about the scale of the industrial activities that took place there? Why do you think the hedges in the sunken garden are maintained in wavelike patterns?

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2.28 MFO Park (2002) by Planergemeinschaft MFO-Park burckhardtpartner/ raderschall, Burckhardt + Partner AG Architekten/ Raderschall Landschaftsarchitekten AG, image courtesy of Markus Fierz and Roland Raderschall, Zurich, Switzerland

Manufactured memories While Thames Barrier Park expresses a past use that actually occurred on the site, landscapes can also be designed to convey former uses as a constructed memory. Indeed, not all memories are accounts of something true. The construction of false or distorted memories happens to everyone. Look at the image of MFO Park, by Burckhardt + Partner AG and Raderschall Landscape Architects, in Zurich. The park is located in the Neu-Oerlikon area, which was home to a former weapons production and testing facility, dismantled in 1999. The galvanized steel framing system, wire mesh, and cables suggest a former industrial building, but the structure is new. It also serves as an armature for numerous scented perennial vines and creepers, which climb the structure. Catwalks and stairs allow for the volumetric exploration of the structure and provide experiences of different fragrances.

Can you see how the design recalls a memory of a building that may not have been there at all? What role do you think the scents play in memory?

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Childhood memories Your own spatial memories can also serve as a catalyst for design. This insight links past encounters and the imagination, which is critical for students in the design studio. Consider the River Aire. The watercourse drains a 100-km catchment area from the Salève range to the mountains of France and onto the Plaine de l’Aire. During the 1930s it was reconfigured as a concrete channel. More than a half-century later, George Descombes was commissioned to restore five kilometers of this canal into an open water system.79 Descombes not only refused to forget the river’s past as a channelled waterway, but he also sought to reveal the imaginative relationship he had with this watercourse. He notes: This river is part of the territory of my childhood. My father was a bookseller, which as a child gave me access – at least in writing – to the American landscapes described by the novelists James Fenimore Cooper, James Oliver Curwood, and Joseph Conrad. So with these impressions in my mind I used to go to the river with my dog, excitingly expecting to encounter a grizzly bear or something walking or fighting in the snow. The land and its trees and river then seemed large and the reality of my own dimensions small. That has all changed, of course, the dimensions have changed. I became taller and the landscape smaller.80

In response, Descombes’s design of the formerly channellized river retains parts of the straight concrete walls (memories of the canal) in juxtaposition with the unwieldy movements of the newly freed river (his own personal memories of the waterway).

How do you think his response reflects both the site’s memory and his own memory and imagination? Do you have spatial memories that could serve as an inspiration for design? Do you remember a landscape from your childhood memories as huge, and when you visited this same landscape as an adult it seemed smaller?

Heterodite Bernard Lassus asks, “Is not heterogeneity more welcoming than homogeneity?”81 The prefix hetero- means other or different. On the other hand, the prefix homo- means the same. Lassus proposes a heterodite space where site memories are slivers of time juxtaposed. For Conan, Heterodite constitutes a creative approach that replaces the idea of composition – that is, the introduction of an intellectual order chosen a priori by the creator. In contrast to the composition Heterodite theory calls for highlighting the

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fragments of the history of a place thus discovered in an ensemble of juxtaposed fractions of a place, whose extension is left up to the imagination of each.82

Lassus argues that heterogeneity is appropriate for gardens and landscapes because “no site is ever a blank surface, thus it is not possible to apply a unifying organization, which in order to reduce heterogenius, would tend to destroy the knowledge of it still more.”83 Look at Lassus’s design for a motorway rest stop at Nîmes-Caissargues, France. At the Nîmes-Caissargues Rest Stop Lassus contrasts spatial practices from two different time periods: Le Nôtre’s use of the avenue space in his baroque gardens and the twentieth-century highway. A great garden invention of the seventeenth century, the 700-meter-long avenue is bound by rows of trees on each side in Lassus’s design. While the motorway literally cuts off the avenue, the spatial boundaries of the avenue continues over it, sloping towards the view of Nîmes. Here, Lassus collides two pre-eminent landscape types of the seventeenth and twentieth centuries – the stately space of the avenue and that of the open road. Do you see how the Rest Stop is a heterodite space? If Lassus placed sound walls where the site meets the motorway, why would that not be a heterodite space?

2.29 The avenue from the theatre façade at Nîmes-Caissargues Rest Stop (1990) by Bernard Lassus Plasticien Architecte– Paysagiste, image courtesy of Dominic McIver Lopes, Nîmes, France

2.30 The avenue extending on either side of the motorway at NîmesCaissargues Rest Stop (1990) by Bernard Lassus Plasticien Architecte–Paysagiste, image courtesy of Dominic McIver Lopes, Nîmes, France

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Memory and space debated The historian Daniel Abrahamson notes, “Memory, conventionally understood, consists of personal recall and reconstruction of past events. Necessarily, it involves forgetting. History, conventionally understood, represents culture’s official explanation of the past.”84 Abrahamson thinks that designers should not rely solely on personal memories when reconstructing the past because these memories are difficult to critique. For example, you can’t challenge Descombes’s childhood memories because they are his own personal recollections. On the other hand you could challenge a historical fact about the River Aire, such as the erection of a dam in 1876. There would be documentation and perhaps photographs, and other recordings to substantiate its construction that year. In other words, Abrahamson is concerned that society, and design professionals in particular, may have forgotten the important role that history plays. Chiefly, that history is documented, and in turn, open for debate. He notes. “If the public is content merely to remember the past, then the powerful will be entrusted too fully with planning the future. Change demands engagement, which entails conviction; conviction allows debate, which leads to change. Memory cannot be debated; history can. Make history, not memory.”85

Can you think of why memories might pose a problem for a memorial design or a historic preservation project?

Primary reading for space and memory Daniel M. Abrahamson, “Make History Not Memory.” Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture. Marc Treib, editor, Spatial Recall: Memory in Architecture and Landscape.

THEORETICAL GROUNDINGS OF CONTESTED SPACE Space thus understood is both abstract and concrete in character: abstract inasmuch as it has no existence save by virtue of the exchangeability of all its component parts, and concrete inasmuch as it is socially real and as such localized.86 (Henri Lefebvre, The Urban Revolution, 1970)

Here, the Marxist philosopher and sociologist Henri Lefebvre (1901–1991) employs the terminology (abstract and concrete) to describe the commodification of space in the production of post-Second World War urban development. He argued that the urban landscape was not simply composed of symbolic and functional spaces created by professionals. Rather, these spaces were key locations where economics, ideology, and capital were continually negotiated. It is where society literally reproduces itself as a spatial practice. “Abstract” space, according to Lefebvre, is the space you work with when you are designing. It is measurable and exists in the mind of a professional landscape architect,

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architect, or planner. In other words, it is the space you use as a designer. Abstract space is also an instrumental space, meaning it plays a key role in power relations. Henri Lefebvre’s use of the term “concrete” does not refer to the pourable mixture of cement, water, sand, and gravel. Rather, concrete space, according to Lefebvre, is the space you experience. It is not so much measured space as it is lived space. Lefebvre studied the town of Mourenx in France to prove his point. Originally a sparsely populated commune in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, the discovery of gas deposits in the area during the 1950s prompted the French government to build another town in Mourenx to accommodate thousands of new workers. Lefebvre argued that the spaces of this housing development were abstract, in other words conceived by the designer as isolated features in an exchange-value society; thus, securely tethered to the capitalist chain of production, distribution, and consumption. But he also contended that these spaces were concrete in character, as the distribution of housing types mirrored the workers’ status in the factory system, “segregating the inhabitants according to socioprofessional categories: workers lived in blocks of flats, supervisors in towers, management personnel in villas.”87 It is in this sense that Mourenx becomes a commodity, which is a concrete abstraction.

2.31 New City: San Francisco Redeveloped (1947), public domain

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For Lefebvre the process of commodification became the operational logistics of spatial practices – the procurement and design of housing. Lefebvre often described these spatial practices as an “isomorphic space without privileged orientation or direction (such as front or back, high or low); any linkage among objects in this space is neither impossible nor necessary.”88 Certainly, what Lefebvre experienced at Mourenx was not limited to France. Globally, this type of urbanism spread to numerous countries during the latter half of the twentieth century, particularly in the United States through federally funded urban renewal programmes. Many of these housing schemes were inspired by the architect Charles-Édouard Jeanneret’s (Le Corbusier’s) plan for Radiant City, which separated land uses and transportation corridors, and featured various forms of multi-family high-rise housing with swaths of open space. Look at the redesign proposal for San Francisco’s Western Addition area. How do the proposed buildings and open spaces compare with the older gridiron housing that was created before the Second World War? When you design spaces, do you conceive of them in the abstract? Lefebvre’s critique of space later extended to the historic redevelopments of older European cities as he anticipated the transformation of these urban centres as exclusive sites for tourism. He writes: countries in the throes of rapid development blithely destroy historic spaces – houses, palaces, military or civil structures. If advantage or profit is to be found in it, then the old is swept away. Later, however, perhaps towards the end of the period of accelerated growth, these same countries are liable to discover how such space may be pressed into the service of cultural consumption, of ‘culture itself,’ and of the tourism and the leisure industries with their almost limitless prospects. When this happens, everything that they so merrily demolished during the belle époque is reconstituted at great expense . . . what had been annihilated in the earlier frenzy of growth now becomes an object of adoration. And former objects of utility now pass for rare and precious works of art.89

Ironically, 15 years after this account was published, Lefebvre was interviewed from his home near the Pompidou Centre in Paris. He complained bitterly that he was being “pushed out” of his apartment as the city of Paris was “museumfied” for touristic development.90 The renovation of apartments in his neighbourhood increased their value; thus, Lefebvre himself was facing the impacts of his theory that linked designed space, power, and capital. Why contested space matters Since the inception of the profession of landscape architecture, a chief concern has been the creation of public spaces that are shared by all people. During

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the nineteenth century when Frederick Law Olmsted visited Birkenhead Park, a project that gave the people of Liverpool 51 hectares (125 acres) of pastoral parkland, he was keen to bring this notion of a people’s garden to the United States. This vision eventually materialized in his plans with the architect Calvert Vaux for Central Park in New York City. Since Olmsted’s time, landscape architects have continued to fight for publically accessible spaces. Since the late 1970s, however, the privatization of previously public, open space has increased, chiefly in cities. Funded through public–private partnerships, this breed of urban landscape is often heavily monitored to keep certain individuals out, particularly homeless people and skateboarders. The urban historian M. Christine Boyer argues that these types of urban spaces are signs that the city has relinquished its social contract with its citizens. In her assessment of public– private redevelopments in New York City, she noted that the city was “no longer concerned with such high-Modernist aspirations as providing a broad range of housing, efficient transportation or leisure and workspace for the masses.”91 The withdrawal of federal funding for urban projects, the loss of industrial economies, and the waning social imperative of designers in general, opened the doors to a new conception of the city in North America. According to Boyer this conception regarded the city as a site for tourism and the spectacle of consumption, resulting in the privatization of public spaces and a greater disparity between rich and poor – a critique that would certainly resonate with Lefebvre. Critiques of post-Second World War functionalist urbanism, the privatization of public spaces in North America, and the transformation of historic urban centres as spectacles for tourist consumption suggest that conceptions of space are not neutral or objective, nor do these conceptions of space simply represent power. Space is power, and it is this contestation of power relations that can be explored in design. Contested space in action Utopias and heterotopias The philosopher Michel Foucault (1926–1984) in his essay, “Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias,” outlined a conception of heterotopias he found in all societies. While utopias are unreal idealized sites, he argues that heterotopias are real counter sites for those not conforming to societal norms. For Foucault they exist in all societies, and in Western culture these spaces of societal deviation include places for dead people (the cemetery), ill people (the hospital), or bank robbers (prison). Skateboarders are an interesting social type because communities will often go to great lengths to prohibit them from skating in public landscapes designed for other activities. At the same time, landscape architects have been creating special spaces, heterotopias, where they can skate. These real counter sites can reproduce a street vocabulary with steps and handrails or a suburban vocabulary with sunken areas appearing like empty swimming pools. Yet, despite these

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efforts, skateboarders continue to appropriate their own spaces in the city. As the designer Chihsun Chiu notes, they refuse “to accept the city as produced. Thus such physical elements as roads, footpaths, railings, stairs, and handrails are stripped of their symbolic values and given new values.”92 Look at the Eduard-Wallnöfer-Platz, designed by LAAC, in Innsbruck, Austria. At 9,000 square meters (2.2 acres), the public square comprises an undulating topography of concrete and granite aggregate, which has been treated differently (such as sandblasted or polished), creating a continual surface for play. The designers intentionally sought to blur the boundaries between a heterotopic space for unauthorized activities (skateboarding) and condoned activities, such as eating your lunch on a park bench. ArchDaily notes that the Platz contains “a wide variety of people happily coexisting within it, from businessmen, to skaters, to the elderly, to families with young children.”93

Can you think of other types of programmes that coexist in the same landscape?

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2.32 Eduard-WallnöferPlatz (2010) by LAAC Architekten, image courtesy Ralf Roletschek, https:// creativecommons. org/licenses/ by-sa/3.0/deed.en, Innsbruck, Austria

Spatial practices 䊏

Subversive space In the Forming chapter you read about subversive interventions, where the Guerrilla Grafters intentionally subverted the established practice of planting non-fruit-bearing street trees by grafting fruit-bearing branches onto these trees. Subversive spaces can also be created and can serve as a critique. The landscape architect Julie Bargmann, founder of D.I.R.T. (Dump It Right There) Studio, is known for her dynamic action plans that reuse site material as integral to the design process. Yet, Bargmann is also known as a fierce advocate for public rights to landscapes. When her studio was commissioned to design Hardberger Park at Voelcker Farm, 311 acres of degraded post-agricultural land on the outskirts of San Antonio, she worked very closely with surrounding community members to realize the park as 75 percent managed woodland and 25 percent outdoor rooms for community use. During the numerous meetings with neighbours and other community members she noticed that some people did not like how large immigrant families used the parks in the area for outdoor dining. This attitude incensed Bargmann, as she wanted all people to use this new park. Look at the image of Hardberger Park at Voelcker Farm.

2.33 Hardberger Park (2009) by lead designer, Julie Bargmann, D.I.R.T. Studio, Stephen Stimson and Lauren Stimson, Stephen Stimson Associates Landscape Architects, San Antonio, Texas, USA

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What did Bargmann do to accommodate the immigrant families? How was this act subversive?

Residual space Residual spaces take advantage of leftover spaces. These are spaces that are often unused or unprogrammed, and while they are most likely owned by someone, they often lack any signs of ownership, and may even be neglected. Residual spaces are often ideal sites to intervene. Look at the image of the Crack Garden in San Francisco. In what CMG Landscape Architecture calls “tactical interventions,” a concrete slab in an urban backyard was jackhammered with a series of vertical lines, creating cracks that extended to the soil below. The cracks were planted with tough plants that could endure the environment and in turn transform the concrete lot into a green space.

2.34 Crack Garden (1999) by Kevin Conger of CMG Landscape Architecture, San Francisco, image courtesy of Kevin Conger, California, USA

Why do you think CMG called this a tactical intervention? What will be the long-term benefit of Crack Garden? Why do you think they made the cracks consistent lines?

Contested spaces debated Disputes over space – who designs it and uses it, and when and how – are commonly associated with issues of gender, race, and class. The landscape architecture professor Patricia McGirr argues that the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (discussed in Spatial Constructs at the beginning of this chapter) “became a medium for the struggle over class, race, gender made possible by

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its larger context.”94 Many veterans resented Maya Lin’s design because it did not conform to the heroic figurative style of memorials that they were familiar with, and which their response, the Three Soldiers statue, abides by. Lin’s design was anti-heroic, sombre, and most notably abstract. McGirr furthermore maintains that many of the veterans resented the designer herself: Lin was not only female, but she was also of Chinese heritage, and she was placed in the category of Asian Other. In addition to issues of gender, race, and class, the increasingly risk-averse, safety-conscious nature of society is a significant factor contributing to the contestability of landscapes. The fear of taking risks and its transformation as a core value in many cultures is based on what the sociologist Frank Furedi calls the “precautionary principle,” when the perceived dangers in taking risks are greater than not taking risks at all. According to Furedi the precautionary “principle has caused an institutionalization of caution. It offers security in exchange for lowering expectations, limiting growth and preventing experimentation and change.”95 The precautionary principle makes sense for the security industries; however, it’s an insufficient tenet for the design of landscapes. There are some landscapes where risk taking should be encouraged. For example, landscapes for children should prompt curiosity and provide that vital ingredient of challenge. Yet all too often the false hope of a risk-free environment prevails and many outdoor play spaces designed for children are sterile with low, standardized play equipment, fencing, and rubber matting – what the landscape architect Helen Woolley calls Kit, Fence, Carpet, or KFC!96 Primary reading for contested space Christine Boyer, “Cities for Sale: Merchandising History at South Street Seaport.” Michel Foucault “Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias.” Henri Lefebvre, “The Production of Space.”

NOTES 1. August Schmarsow, “Essence of Architectural Creation,” Empathy, Form, and Space: Problems in German Aesthetics, 1873–1893, intro. and trans. Harry Francis Mallgrave and Eleftherios Ikonomou (Santa Monica, CA: Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1994), 281–297 (289). “Das Wesen der architektonischen Schöpfung,” (Essence of Architectural Creation) served as Schmarsow’s inaugural address to the University of Leipzig in 1893, and was published a year later by Karl Hiesermann in Leipzig. 2. Harry Francis Mallgrave and Eleftherios Ikonomou, “Introduction,” in Empathy, Form, and Space: Problems in German Aesthetics, 1873–1893, intro. and trans. Harry Francis Mallgrave and Eleftherios Ikonomou (Santa Monica, CA: Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1994), 1–85 (61). 3. Ibid. 4. For more on the spatial experiences of landscapes in history, particularly during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Europe, see Michel Conan, ed., Landscape Design and the Experience of Motion (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2003) and Martin Calder, ed., Experiencing the Garden in the Eighteenth Century (Bern: Peter Lang, 2006).

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5. Charles Downing Lay, “Space Composition,” Landscape Architecture 8 (January 1918): 77–86. 6. Adrian Forty, “Space,” Words and Buildings: A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2000), 256–275 (265). 7. Christopher Tunnard, Gardens in the Modern Landscape (London: The Architectural Press, 1938; 1948), 105. 8. Marc Treib, “Axioms for a Modern Landscape Architecture,” Modern Landscape Architecture: A Critical Review, ed. Marc Treib (New York: MIT Press, 1993), 36–67 (40). 9. Garrett Eckbo, Landscape for Living (New York: Architectural Record with Duell, Sloan, & Pearce, 1950), 62. 10. Sylvia Crowe, Garden Design (Woodbridge: Garden Art Press, 1994), 82. 11. Noel van Dooren,“Speaking About Drawing,” Topos: The World of Landscape Architecture 80 (2012): 43–54, 47. 12. Stephanie Ross, What Gardens Mean (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 171. 13. Gina Crandell, Tree Gardens: Architecture and the Forest (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2013), 49. 14. Susan Herrington, “Beauty: Past and Future,” Landscape Research 41, no. 4 (2016): 441–449. 15. Rosalind Krauss, The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987), 158. 16. Marc Treib, “The Nature of Space,” Dan Kiley Landscapes: The Poetry of Space, eds. Reuben M. Rainey and Marc Treib (Richmond, CA: William Stout Publishers, 2009), 57–78 (58). 17. See Marc Treib, “Dan Kiley and Classical Modernism: Mies in Leaf,” Landscape Journal 24 no. 1 (2005): 1–12. 18. Daniel J. Levitin, This is Your Brain on Music (New York: Dutton, 2006). 19. Susan Herrington, Cornelia Hahn Oberlander – Making the Modern Landscape (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013). 20. Jane Hutton, “Substance and Structure 1: The Material Culture of Landscape Architecture,” Landscape Architecture’s Core? Harvard Design Magazine no. 36 (2013): 116–123 (123). See also Kenneth Frampton, Studies in Tectonic Culture: The Poetics of Construction in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Architecture, ed. John Cava (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995). 21. Ibid. 22. William S. Saunders, “Go Productive: The Rice Campus of Shenyang Jianzhu University,” Designed Ecologies: The Landscape Architecture of Kongjian Yu, ed. William S. Saunders (Basel: Birkhaüser, 2013), 50–55 (50). 23. Elizabeth K. Meyer, “Kiley and the Spaces of Landscape Modernism,” Dan Kiley Landscapes: The Poetry of Space, eds. Ruben M. Rainey and Marc Treib (Richmond, CA: William Stout Publishers, 2009), 117–143 (139). 24. Gilles A. Tiberghien, “Vegetation as Setting: Living Environment in Miniature,” Intermediate Natures: The Landscapes of Michel Desvigne, ed. Delphine Costedoat (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2009), 137–149 (147). 25. Ibid., 141. 26. John Hopkins and Peter Neal Interview, “Interview with Sarah Price, Layering Horticulture and Ecological Across the London 2012 Gardens,” The Making of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, eds. John Hopkins and Peter Neal (Chichester: John Wiley, 2013), 153–164 (154). 27. William Robinson, Wild Garden, accessed 20 January 2015, http://babel.hathitrust.org/ cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044103115259;view=1up;seq=7.

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28. Udo Weilacher, Between Landscape Architecture and Land Art (Basel: Birkhäuser, 1996), 117. 29. Emily Waugh, “Interview with Claude Cormier + Associés,” Landscape Architecture’s Core? Harvard Design Magazine no. 36 (2013): 46. 30. Gill Valentine, “Women’s Fear and the Design of Public Space,” Built Environment: Women and the Designed Environment 16, no. 4 (1990): 288–303 (301–302). 31. Peter Walker, Experiments in Gesture, Seriality, and Flatness, ed. Linda L. Jewell (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Graduate School of Design, 1990), 12. 32. Dean Cardasis, “Imaginary Gardens with Real Frogs: Space in the Work of Martha Schwartz,” GSD News (Winter–Spring 1996): 1–4 (3). 33. John F. Kihlstrom, “Joseph Jastrow and His Duck – Or Is It a Rabbit?” accessed 28 May 2015, http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~kihlstrm/JastrowDuck.htm. 34. E. H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (New York: Pantheon Books, 1960), 5–6. 35. Dominic McIver Lopes, “Painting,” The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics, third edition, eds. Berys Gaut and Dominic McIver Lopes (New York: Routledge, 2013), 596–605 (600–601). 36. Sheldon Saul Richmond, Aesthetic Criteria: Gombrich and the Philosophies of Science of Popper and Polanyi (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1994), 48. 37. Arnault Maillet, The Claude Glass: Use and Meaning of the Black Mirror in Western Art, trans. Jeff Fort (New York: Zone Books, 2004), 88. 38. Ibid., 113. 39. Luke Morgan, “The Early Modern ‘Trompe-L’Oeil’ Garden,” Garden History 33, no. 2 (2005): 286–293. 40. André Mollet, Le Jardin de Plaisir, 1651, accessed 28 May 2015, www.oakspring.org/ landscape7.html. 41. Gina Pollara “Kahn’s Vision Realized,” Four Freedoms Park: A Memorial to Franklin D. Roosevelt, expanded edition (New York: Four Freedoms Park Conservancy, 2014), 10–11 (11). 42. Harold Osborne “Anamorphosis,” The Oxford Companion to Art (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), 43–44. 43. Juxtapoz, “Who to Believe? By François Abélanet,” 10 July 2011, accessed 28 May 2015, www.juxtapoz.com/current/who-to-believe-by-francois-abelanet. 44. Henry Adams, “Is a ‘Garden’ the World’s Greatest New Artwork? Francois Abelanet’s Extraordinary Turf ‘Sculpture’ on a Paris Plaza Epitomizes a Grand Tradition of Artful Illusion,” The Smithsonian, accessed 28 May 2015, www.smithsonianmag.com/ arts-culture/is-a-garden-the-worlds-greatest-new-artwork-949342/?no-ist. 45. Bence Nanay, “Perception and Imagination: A Modal Perception as Mental Imagery,” Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition 150, no. 2 (2010): 239–254. 46. John Gage, Color and Culture: Practice and Meaning from Antiquity to Abstraction (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1993), 220. Also see Johannes Itten, The Elements of Color: A Treatise on the Color System of Johannes Itten Based on His Book the Art of Color, trans. Ernst Van Hagen (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1970). 47. Weilacher, Between Landscape Architecture and Land Art, 111. 48. Katherine J. Morris, Sartre (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2007), 39. 49. Edmund Husserl quoted in Dermont Moran, “Pure Phenomenology, Its Method, and Its Field of Investigation,” The Phenomenology Reader, eds. Timothy Mooney and Dermont Moran (London: Routledge, 2002), 124–133, 125. 50. David Woodruff Smith, “Phenomenology,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2013 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, accessed 28 May 2015, http://plato. stanford.edu/archives/win2013/entries/phenomenology.

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51. Ibid. 52. See Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Donald A. Landes (New York: Routledge, 2012). 53. Susan Herrington, “You Are Not Here: Sartre’s Phenomenological Ontology and the Architecture of Absence,” Footprint: Delft School of Design Journal 3 (2008): 51–64. 54. See also Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin, “Phenomenology: Merleau-Ponty and Sartre: What is Phenomenology?” The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics, third edition, eds. Berys Gaut and Dominic McIver Lopes (New York: Routledge, 2013), 126–136. 55. Robert Bernasconi, How to Read Sartre (New York: W.W. Norton, 2006), 26. 56. Günther Vogt, “Foreword: Between Search and Research,” in Alice Foxley, Distance & Engagement: Walking, Thinking and Making Landscape (Zurich: Lars Müller Publishers, 2010), 8. 57. Jean-Paul Sartre, The Imaginary, trans. Jonathan Webber (London: Routledge, 2004), 188. 58. Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology, trans. Hazel E. Barnes (New York: Philosophical Library, 1956), 26–27. 59. Ibid. 60. Hazel E. Barnes, “Sartre’s Ontology: The Revealing of Making and Being,” The Cambridge Companion to Sartre, ed. Christina Howells (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 14. 61. Thomas Flynn, “Jean-Paul Sartre,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta (Fall 2013 Edition), accessed 28 May 2015, http://plato.stanford.edu/ archives/fall2013/entries/sartre/. 62. John Beardsley, “Hidden in Plain View: The Land Art of Maya Lin,” Maya Lin: Systematic Landscapes (Seattle: Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, 2006), 85–103, 89. 63. Joseph S. Catalano, A Commentary of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Critique of Dialectical Reason (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 161. 64. Barnes, “Sartre’s Ontology: The Revealing of Making and Being,” 26–27. 65. Ibid., 39. 66. Michel Conan, The Crazannes Quarries by Bernard Lassus (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2004) 86. 67. See Jean-Paul Sartre, Imagination, trans. Kenneth Williford and David Rudrauf (New York: Routledge, 2012). 68. Bernard Lassus, The Landscape Approach (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), 183. 69. Weilacher, Between Landscape Architecture and Land Art, 111. 70. Margaret Whitford, “Merleau-Ponty’s Critique of Sartre’s Philosophy: An Interpretative Account,” The Debate Between Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, ed. Jon Stewart (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1998), 48–65 (53). 71. Bernasconi, How to Read Sartre, 26. 72. Jonathan Hale, “Critical Phenomenology: Architecture and Embodiment,” Architecture & Ideas 12 (2013): 23. 73. Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 58. 74. Ibid., 58. 75. See Torkel Hafting, Marianne Fyhn, S. Molden, May-Brit Moser, and Edvard Moser, “Microstructure of a Spatial Map in the Entorhinal Cortex,” Nature 436 (2005): 801– 806, and Takuya Sasaki, Stefan Leutgeb, and Jill K. Leutgeb, “Spatial and Memory Circuits in the Medial Entorhinal Cortex,” Current Opinion in Neurobiology 32C (30 October 2014): 16–23. 76. Juhani Pallasmaa, “Space, Place, Memory and Imagination: The Temporal Dimension

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77. 78. 79.

80.

81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86.

87. 88. 89. 90. 91.

92.

93.

94.

95. 96.

of Existential Space,” Spatial Recall: Memory in Architecture and Landscape, ed. Marc Treib (New York: Routledge, 2009), 16–41 (18). Mattias Kondolf, “River, Meanders, and Memory,” Spatial Recall: Memory in Architecture and Landscape, ed. Marc Treib (New York: Routledge, 2009), 117. Donlyn Lyndon, “The Place of Memory,” Spatial Recall: Memory in Architecture and Landscape, ed. Marc Treib (New York: Routledge, 2009), 64. Mattias Kondolf, “Liberty and Human Access for a Peri-urban River: Restoration of the Aire, Geneva,” The River Chronicle (7 October 2014): 38–39, accessed 20 January 2016, http://issuu.com/archizoom/docs/the_river_chronicle1?e=3753097/9671038# search. Georges Descombes, “Displacement: Canals, Rivers, and Flows,” Spatial Recall: Memory in Architecture and Landscape, ed. Marc Treib (New York: Routledge, 2009), 123. Lassus, The Landscape Approach, 53. Conan, Crazannes Quarries by Bernard Lassus, 90. Lassus, The Landscape Approach, 65. Daniel M. Abrahamson, “Make History Not Memory,” special issue on “Constructions of Memory,” Harvard Design Magazine (Fall 1999): 78–83 (78). Ibid., 83. Henri Lefebvre, quoted in “Critique: Space as Concrete Abstraction,” Henri Lefebvre on Space: Architecture, Urban Research, and the Production of Theory, Łukasz Stanek (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011), 133–164 (155). Henri Lefebvre, quoted in “Research: from Practices of Dwelling to the Production of Space,” Henri Lefebvre on Space, Stanek, 109. Stanek, in “Critique: Space as Concrete Abstraction,” Henri Lefebvre on Space, 145. Henri Lefebvre, “The Production of Space,” Rethinking Architecture, ed. Neil Leach (London: Routledge), 139–146 (143). Henri Lefebvre, Writings on Cities, eds. and trans. Eleonore Kofman and Elizabeth Lebas (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996; 2000), 209. Christine Boyer, “Cities for Sale: Merchandising History at South Street Seaport,” Variations on a Theme Park: The New American City and the End of Public Space, ed. Michael Sorkin (New York: Hill and Wang, 1992), 181. Chihsin Chiu, “Streets versus Parks: Skateboarding as a Spatial Practice in New York City,” Urban Environments, Environmental Design Research Association 38th Annual Conference, 101–107, accessed 29 May 2015, www.edra.org/content/ streets-versus-parks-skateboarding-spatial-practice-new-york-city. See “New Design for Eduard-Wallnöfer-Platz Public Square / LAAC Architekten + Stiefel Kramer Architecture,” ArchDaily, 2 August 2011, accessed 7 May 2015, www. archdaily.com/?p=155050. Also see Karl Grimm and Dagmar Grimm-Pretner, “Urban Landscape in Motion,” accessed 29 May 2015, www.playground-landscape.com/en/ article/view/905.html. Patricia L. McGirr, “Vietnam Veterans Memorial: Landscape and Gender in the Twentieth Century,” Shared Spaces and Divided Places: Material Dimensions of Gender Relations and the American Historical Landscape, eds. Deborah L. Rotman and Ellen-Rose Savulis (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2003) 62–85 (81). Frank Furedi, Culture of Fear: Risk-taking and the Morality of Low Expectation (London: Continuum, 2002), 9. Helen Woolley and Alison Lowe, “Exploring the Relationship between Design Approach and Play Value of Outdoor Play Spaces,” Landscape Research 38 (2013): 53–74.

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3

Material matters

Materials – their use, handling, and assemblage – are critical dimensions of the designed landscape. Their criticality is due to the fact that people often come into direct contact with the materials of a landscape. Materials can also communicate. The landscape theorist Udo Weilacher contends, the “Material becomes the medium which influences the figurative and symbolic message of the work.”1 Since materials constitute the physical attributes of the landscape, how the material is produced – extracted, harvested, moulded, or grown – has powerful ecological and social consequences. After the Second World War landscape architects were eager to use materials made newly available to civilians. Previously restricted war-related materials and modes of fabrication became fungible resources for landscape architects and architects. Both professions employed post-war materials, commodities, and systems to generate a modern design vocabulary. Mass-produced and globally distributed, many materials came to symbolize modern landscape architecture. Consider Garrett Eckbo’s ALCOA Forecast garden from 1956. Sponsored by Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA), the garden promoted aluminium as the perfect exterior material that was lightweight, non-rusting, and easily perforated for uses like overhead trellises.2 Yet by the late 1980s the Brundtland Report, coupled with the acknowledgment that the climate was rapidly changing due to human activities, prompted many landscape architects to consider the ecological consequences of their material selection.

THEORETICAL GROUNDINGS OF MATERIALITY Matter is produced by letting time flow from the past to the present via a strange definition of causality; materiality is produced by letting time flow from the future to the present, with a realistic definition of the many occasions through which agencies are being discovered. The paradox of the present situation is that this point is much more obvious to many scientists than it is for most other people.3 (Bruno Latour, “Agency at the time of the Anthropocene,” 2014)

Materiality provides a theoretical lens for design as it goes beyond an understanding of material as only matter – its substance, shape, volume, and surface

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– to the way materials serve as an intermediary between the present and the future. In the opening quote this is how the philosopher of science Bruno Latour distinguishes matter from materiality. If you read his definition carefully, matter flows from the “past to present,” while materiality is future directed. What you anticipate materials will do in the future, the way materials interact over time, with each other, and how they are interpreted shape key questions regarding materiality.4 Latour’s version of materiality is part of the actor-network theory that you will read about in the Systems chapter. What is important to materiality here, is its relationship to material semiotics, which expands the study of meaning from traditional concerns with language to material processes and technological devices, which bear meaning. As the geographer Steve Hinchliffe observes, “Material semiotics most significantly enables a recognition of human and non-human times and spaces and the roles in the co-constitution of worlds.”5 Moreover, Latour also emphasizes agency, “the many occasions through which agencies are being discovered.” Agency, here, means the ability of a human or object to act and this idea will be more specifically addressed in the section on Consequentialism at the end of this chapter. The origins of materialist thinking can be traced back to pre-Socratic Greek philosophers. The ancient conception of materialism holds that nature is the fundamental source of all phenomena in the universe – from what you feel and think to the celestial system. This conception also maintains, “Nature exists independently of mind but that no mind can exist apart from matter. The material world existed long before mankind or any other being came into existence.”6 In the eighteenth century Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d’Holbach (1723–1789) published The System of Nature or, the Laws of the Moral and Physical World, which portrayed the universe within a philosophical materialist framework. He contended that every event or action, even thoughts and feelings, were the result of interactions of physical matter governed by natural laws. This version of philosophical materialism suggested that everything, including your consciousness and thought (mind), is causally contingent upon matter. Of course, Idealists and scientists have debated this conception of materialism as new conceptions of matter emerged in physics. Since materialists denied the existence of the spirit, materialism is at odds with most religious conceptions of the universe. The important aspect of philosophical materialism here is the fact that you shape material, a specific type of matter, in design, and in doing so you have the opportunity to consider and express those causal dependencies between mind and matter. In addition to philosophical materialism, materiality is also shaped by its usage in material culture studies, which originally developed out of archaeology, anthropology, and sociology. The goal of material culture studies is to glean knowledge on a particular group or society through an analysis of their physical artefacts – their objects, resources, and spaces – from gardens to architecture to mugs to pin cushions. As Professor of Material Culture Joyce Hill Stoner defines it, “Material Culture is the unpacking or mining of both historic and everyday

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objects to find the embedded ideas and concepts that define the surrounding society.”7 Hence, studying a specific landscape, its material qualities and properties will convey something to you about the people and animals that shaped that landscape – their beliefs and conventions. Reinforced in Latour’s contemporary definition of materiality, material in material culture is valued for not only its physical properties, but also for its interpretive potential. Why materiality matters Materiality is to landscape architects as words are to writers. Like a writer, a landscape designer must not only understand the properties of materials, but also their communicative dimensions. Materiality matters because it constitutes the physical matter that people interact with long after the design project is completed. Materials are touched, walked upon, or sat on – to name a few interactions – and anticipating the specific experiences arising out of these interactions is often a key objective for designers. The landscape architect Andrea Cochran reflects on the use of gravel for walkways and its auditory experience. She notes, “there is a sensual quality when you walk on something and you hear the sound. This idea of using materials to shape experience of a space is central to my work.”8 As Latour notes, materiality also concerns itself with communication. In landscape architecture, earthwork artists and land artists inspired many designers to select and shape materials in order to communicate something about their landscape design – its reference to a site’s history or a specific culture or natural system. Earthwork artists and land artists share a similar palette of materials with landscape architects: terrain, water, sun, shadow, plants, rocks, concrete, manufactured objects, etc. Meyer has suggested that earthworks, such as Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty, Michael Heizer’s Double Negative, Walter De Maria’s Lightning Field, and Robert Irwin’s Nine Spaces, Nine Trees resonate with landscape architects because “Their creators employed formal presence to focus attention on a place and its particular qualities – its ancient natural histories, its deep time, its recurring natural cycles and processes – that were almost invisible to a culture of distraction and disengagement.”9 Materiality is also connected to learning, particularly for those who can’t read or write, such as young children. The developmental psychologist Jean Piaget’s constructivist view of learning contends, Knowledge is not a copy of reality. To know an object, to know an event, is not simply to look at it and make a mental copy or image of it. To know an object is to act on it. To know is to modify, to transform the object, and to understand the process of this transformation, and as a consequence to understand the way the object is constructed.10

For young children, the materiality of a landscape is vitally important because they develop and learn about the world through the exploration of objects and

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materials. Children engaged in spontaneous sensory exploration of the physical world will pull, tug, put things in their mouths, and invent stories about the materials they see, hear, smell, taste, and touch. This is how they learn, so the materials of landscapes designed for children are vitally important. Materiality in action Dialectical materialism As discussed in the introduction, the dialectical process finds its roots in the Western philosophical tradition as a method of debate involving contradictory ideas or opposing forces. The philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770– 1831) proposed a dialectical approach as an alternative to linear processes in the development of knowledge. Hegel’s dialectical process involved thesis, antithesis, and their continual unification to arrive at a synthesis. In his article, “Frederick Law Olmsted and the Dialectical Landscape,” the earthwork artist Robert Smithson interpreted dialectics as physical processes and he described the parks designed by Olmsted as a form of dialectical materialism.11 Combining dialectics and materialist philosophical traditions, Karl Marx’s (1818–1883) and Friedrich Engels’s (1820–1895) dialectical materialism holds that it is not just your consciousness that determines who you are, but your social being and the artefacts of your society. In other words, “the conditions of material existence themselves are determinative of the very means by which we understand them and ourselves.”12 The streets, arterial roads, and highways that you travel everyday help define your consciousness. It is a dialectic because these thoroughfares are not isolated objects but are materials altered by human subjectivity – the streets are obediently dotted with recycling bins every Tuesday morning, rummage sale signs are posted at highly visible intersections, and graffiti is spray painted on the sound barrier walls lining the highway. Marx’s materialism is dialectical because it is an interaction between who you think you are (human subjectivity) and the material world created by labour or material production.13 Look at the image of Jon Piasecki’s Stone River in New York State. Piasecki built the 244-meter-long path (800 feet) by hand through the woods. He hauled almost 400 tons of stone by wheelbarrow and laid each stone in relation to each other and to the plants, trees, fallen logs, and the existing stone walls that he encountered. Reflecting on his own labour, Piasecki notes, Today, design and fabrication are generally distinct entities. Labour is devalued. Unknown people toil to make our things. Machines spew out the stuff of our needs and desires and the making of them dehumanizes the production class and despoils the land. Of course the machines are essential, and some disconnect between design and fabrication is inevitable, but this project openly asks if perhaps our fascination with the virtual over the actual, or with design over build, has gone too far?14

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3.1 Stone River (2009) by Jon Piasecki, image courtesy of Jon Piasecki, New York State, USA

Do you agree that landscape architecture and society in general devalues physical labour? Why do you think he created it all by himself, why didn’t he have a building party?

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3.2 Avena+ Test Bed – Agricultural Printing and Altered Landscapes (2013) by Benedikt Gross, image courtesy of Benedikt Gross, Unterwaldhausen, Germany

Medium is the message The term medium is closely related to materiality and refers to the means of doing something or how something is communicated or expressed. Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980), a philosopher of communication theory, coined the term “message is the medium” to describe how media can profoundly modify the way we think and behave. For McLuhan the message was this change and a medium is “any extension of ourselves.”15 “McLuhan always thought of a medium in the sense of a growing medium, like the fertile potting soil into which a seed is planted, or the agar in a Petri dish. In other words, a medium – this extension of our body or senses or mind – is anything from which a change emerges.”16 He also thought that too much emphasis was placed on the content of inventions and not the way the invention delivered its content. Thus, the message of a social networking site is not the content of the site, but the way it changes the way we collaborate or the way we fund special projects or technological inventions, and socialize in general. Look at the image of Avena+ Test Bed by the artist Benedikt Gross. The 11.5-hectare field (28 acres) in Unterwaldhausen, Germany, was planted with 85 percent oats (Avena sativa) and with 15 percent of 11 different wildflowers and herbs. The way Gross planted this field, however, was very different from standard field planting methods. Using algorithms and Global Positioning System (GPS) enhanced with Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS), he digitally mapped out the planting location of the oats, wildflowers, and herbs. He then

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rode a specialized tractor that enabled him to sow the seeds with precision, a pixel resolution of three by three meters.17 According to Gross, “You could say in the last 50 years everything was about mechanisation to increase scale and efficiency, but the next thing in farming is digitalisation and precision farming, where everything is going to be mapped right down to the single plant.”18 By increasing the diversity and placement of plants in the field, Gross envisions this new way of planting as an alternative to monoculture agriculture, a practice where genetically similar or identical plants are planted in rows over a large area. Monoculture planting has limited habitat value, and it often requires pesticides because of the likelihood of mass crop failure due to extreme climate changes and the inundation of diseases, pathogens, and pests. How do you think this experiment could change the way we plant landscapes? What do you think of the pattern he created? How do you think he harvested the oats?

Material practices Championed by the architect Stan Allen, material practices involve activities that transform material “to produce new objects and new organizations of matter.”19 Allen argues that, “Although they work to transform matter, material practices necessarily work through the intermediary of abstract codes such as projection, notation, or calculations. Constantly mixing media in this way, material practices produce new concepts out of the material and procedures of the work itself.”20 Allen distinguishes material practices from materiality per se. He posits that material practices are only provisionally indebted to material. Look at the image of Ferdinand Ludwig’s, Oliver Storz’s, and Hannes Schwertfeger’s Footbridge, along Lake Constance in Germany. A raised 2.5-meterhigh metal structure was first built and then young willows trees were entwined in the structure itself. As the willows grew, they supported more of the load. After a few years a structural engineer granted a “botanical certificate of fitness.” The certificate signalled that it was time to remove the structure’s support columns so that the willow trees held up the walkway on their own. “Each structure is a blend of fiction and reality . . . We have to subject ourselves to the tree’s own structural rules,”21 says Storz. Trees replace columns and their roots replace the typical foundation footing, making a new type of footbridge. What types of calculations do think the designers had to make to determine the number of willow trees? Do you think Footbridge is provisionally indebted to materials, or could other materials be used?

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3.3 Footbridge (2005) by Ferdinand Ludwig, Oliver Storz, and Hannes Schwertfeger, image courtesy of Ferdinand Ludwig, Lake Constance, Germany

Why do you think they selected willow? What else did the designers need to consider about the tree, aside from its structural logic?

As the designers point out, it’s “not quite as easy as it sounds. For instance, there is the ‘risk of strangulation’ if metal fasteners obstruct the flow of sap. The architects have already had to tack on ‘sap bypasses’ made from branches to keep their botanical building material alive.”22 Encoding Encoding expresses the way a material is shaped or manipulated in the design. “In the process of materials there is an opportunity to layer information about the process itself. Such formwork markings can become the dominant logic of a modulated form.”23 Concrete, for example, and the way it is formed is often a source of encoding. Look at the image of Fenchurch Garden, designed by Paul Hensey and Remo Pedreschi for the Royal Horticultural Society Chelsea Flower Show. Fabric formworks for reinforced concrete enable designers to create concrete elements that express how the concrete was formed using fabric

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What does this encoding say about the construction process and the nature of concrete?

membranes that waste less material compared to other forming systems, such as wood framing. Materiality debated Materiality developed in the design fields as an alternative to critical practices developed in the late twentieth century. As the architect Robert McAnulty notes, “Old-school critical practice, concerned with analysis, interpretation, and representation was dismissed.”24 Designers sought theories that were normative rather than discursive, and instrumental to creating an ecologically sound environment rather than concerned with revealing the ideological aspects of design. “For the new materialism, even the most seductive of forms must be held to a higher standard – do they meet some unspoken ‘performance’ criteria?”25 McAnulty also argues that materialist ideas are often positioned as the antithesis to formalist concerns with design. Yet, he notes, “By emphasizing material’s performance over formal configuration, the antiformalist argument fails from the outset. It is impossible to separate matter from form. Matter is never without shape; the medium is always already formed.”26

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3.4 Fenchurch Garden, by Paul Hensey/ Elysium Design with Remo Pedreschi, Edinburgh College of Art, The University of Edinburgh, image courtesy of Remo Pedreschi, Royal Horticultural Society Chelsea Flower Show 2009, London, England

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For landscape architects, much of the materiality is already there. Not only the weather, but also the existing conditions of the site have material qualities. One dimension of materiality that has been debated in landscape architecture is the theory of medium-specificity. Developed by the art critic Clement Greenburg, medium-specificity asserts that the material of an artwork is the defining aspect of that work. Greenberg’s theory was dominated by a teleology, “in which art history identifies itself with a process of purification, each art pared down to its essence, to the specific qualities of its medium.”27 For traditional categories of art, such as painting for example, paint on canvas defined a painting as a painting. But what are the medium-specificities conventional to landscape architecture? This was a question posed by Jane Gillette in her article, “Can Gardens Mean?” Gillette provided a list of garden elements “water in the form of lakes, rivers, and fountains; paving of all sorts; walls, benches, statuary; grading; follies that range from grottos to temples; and flower, trees, stones, and shrubs” as the media of gardens.28 In “Gardens Can Mean” I explained that artists have continuously challenged the medium-specific categories of art. Movements and people as diverse as the Bauhaus, Walter Benjamin, Andy Warhol’s factory, and earthwork artists have sought to make conventional categories more porous, and not specific to a material. Many categories of art were challenged because they were unable to fully account for our current world of mass production, digital media, and cultural difference. Landscape architects and designers have also challenged the medium-specificity of the conventional list of materials used in landscapes. In the numerous gardens and landscapes created by Martha Schwartz, Ken Smith, and Claude Cormier, the use of materials contemporary to our own times has been explored. Primary reading for materiality Bruno Latour, “Agency at the Time of the Anthropocene.” Robert Smithson, Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings.

THEORETICAL GROUNDINGS FOR THE TRUTH OF MATERIALS Materials . . . matter because of the ways they can be treated. Neither stone nor glass possess any essence or “truth,” nor is one or the other singularly apposite to our time. The whole matter rests on the ways the materials are shaped and transformed, the ways they become what they had not been before, the ways they exceed themselves.29 (David Leatherbarrow, “Material Matters,” 2009)

Here the architectural theorist David Leatherbarrow is referring to the “truth” of materials, a subject that has troubled designers since the art critic John Ruskin (1819–1900) brought the question of the “honest use” of materials to the forefront of design thinking in the nineteenth century. In The Seven Lamps

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of Architecture (1849), Ruskin envisioned that each lamp would serve as a guide to material selection in the design process. His advice was largely in reaction to industrial materials, such as wrought iron, that were increasingly employed in architecture and engineered structures during his lifetime. Ruskin’s proposed grammar included: Sacrifice – human craft in service of God; Truth – honest use of materials and structure; Power – to impact the human mind with massing, light, shadow; Beauty – ornamentation inspired by nature; Life – buildings should be made by human hands with the rhythms they afford; Memory – buildings should respect the culture where they have been designed; and Obedience – avoiding originality for its own sake.

3.5 Parc des ButtesChaumont railing, Paris, France

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In particular Ruskin was against camouflaging material or making a material look like it was something else. He argued, “to cover brick with cement, and to divide this cement with joints that it may look like stone, is to tell a falsehood.”30 The truth of materials also informed William Robinson’s assessments of parks in France. During his visit to Parc des Buttes-Chaumont in Paris, Robinson reproves the use of artificial rock. “Instead of true rockwork” we find “plastering over heaps of stones . . . A hole is left and there is this mass from which may spring a small pine or an ivy, but the whole thing is incapable of being divested of its bald character.”31 Look at the image of the railing designed for the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont. According to the landscape historian Ann Komara, the engineer Jean-Charles Adolphe Alphand (1817–1891) designed “throughout the park stair risers and hand railings in reinforced concrete that imitate wood logs or tree limbs.”32 What would Robinson not approve of?

More than 50 years after Alphand’s design work in Paris, reinforced concrete was used for its expressive potential, rather than its imitative capabilities. At the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris (1925), Robert Mallet-Stevens, working with the sculptors Jan and Joël Martel, created trees made of concrete panels to exploit the versatility afforded by reinforced concrete in their garden, Jardin de l’habitation moderne. Unfortunately the trees were not well received as critics found them an unfortunate joke.33 Look at the image of Robert Mallet-Steven’s concrete trees.

3.6 Jardin de l’habitation moderne (1925) Robert MalletStevens with Jan and Joël Martel, public domain, Paris, France

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How does this use of concrete differ from the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont railings? Is one more honest than the other?

A concern for “the truth of materials” continued to occupy modern architects and landscape architects during the twentieth century as designers distrusted illusion, particularly historical illusion. The honest use of material became a tenet of modern architecture and early speculations on modern landscape architecture followed suit. In Gardens in the Modern Landscape (1938, 1948), Tunnard contended “there is no artificiality where there is no attempt to disguise materials. Most concrete paving aims at being a substitute for stone; the deception is even encouraged in laying, when crazy or random courses give a path or terrace of this material an ill-conceived air of inappropriateness in any surroundings.”34 Tunnard preferred the pavers at St Ann’s Hill House, “which do not pretend to be other than they are; the texture and shape of each slab is as precise and formal as a machine – there is no attempt to make them appear natural.”35 Minimalist sculptors also avoided illusion and personal expression in their work, relying, instead, on the arrangement of building materials, such as fired bricks, or industrial fabrication in order to erase any sign of the artist’s hand. Describing the minimalist work of artists, such as Carl Andre and Donald Judd, the art critic Rosalind Krauss explains, “these artists reacted against the sculptural illusionism which converts one material into the signifier for another: stone, for example, into flesh – an illusionism that withdraws the sculptural object from literal space and places in a metaphorical one.”36 The minimalist artists’ selection of non-conventional art material also sought to transform traditional interpretive practices – from the artist as the generator of meaning – to the audience. For minimal art, “meaning,” is not internal to the work of art, embodied in composition and originating in the mind of the artist; it has no “artistic” conventions, detail or incident that would even prompt us to consider the possibility of intrinsic content. Rather, for any meaning to exist at all, that meaning must be actively created within our reflective apprehension of it.37

Why truth of materials matters The honest use of materials is linked to their tectonic and expressive capabilities. Thus, it is particularly valuable for designers to understand these capabilities. As Frampton suggests, the tectonics of material construction can form the poetic dimension of design. He notes, “I am not alluding to the mere revelation of constructional technique but rather its expressive potential. Inasmuch as the tectonic amounts to a poetics of construction it is art, but in this respect the artistic dimension is neither figurative nor abstract.”38 In essence, the most basic character of a landscape’s expression can be the way it has been constructed with material.

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Moreover, typically sites for landscape architecture projects already have material qualities, the site’s soil and bedrock for example. By using and reshaping or revealing site material you can communicate something about the site before it was designed, a subject discussed in the next section. This practice can also reduce the impact that the design makes on environmental systems, a subject that will be discussed in detail in the last section of this chapter, Consequentialism. Truth of materials in action

3.7 Pedra Tosca Park (2004) by RCR Architects, public domain, La Garrotxa Volcanic Zone Natural Park, Catalonia, Spain

Tectonic expression Materials possess a tectonic logic, physical capabilities that pertain to their properties, which can be expressed in design. The strength of a material, its buoyancy, its flexibility, or its aspect when cut or sanded can serve as tectonic expressions. Loose material has an angle of repose, and this is expressed at Pedra Tosca Park. Look at the image of the park by RCR (Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem, Ramón Vilalta) Architects. The park covers the Olot volcanic field and is geologically very special with 40 volcanic cones and numerous lava flows.39 Pedra Tosca Park, was once farmed and the thick layers of basalt boulders (2 to

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1.5 meters thick) needed to be cleared to make the land tillable. The designers used this solidified volcanic lava and CorTen steel (or weathering steel given that it quickly oxidizes, creating rust that actually strengthens the material) to define the entrance and exit ways to the new park and to express both the cultural and natural history of the region. The landscape architect, Julian Raxworthy, notes “The detail of the walls is miraculously simple: about 500 millimetres wide slabs of steel standing approximately two metres tall in a palisade arrangement, with 75 millimetre gaps between them, through which one can see the rocks piled behind.”40 Can you see the tectonic expression? What do the piles of rock say about this type of material’s angle of repose? What do think determined the size of the gaps?

Geomorphic agents Look at the terraces at the Novartis Campus Park by Vogt Landscape Architects, in Basel, Switzerland. During the design process, which included extensive field trips, map analyses, and model-making, a found “hidden landscape” of unusual glacial sediments was discovered in the Rhine Valley embankments. Vogt Landscape Architects sought to act as agents in expressing this material and the

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3.8 Terraces at Novartis Campus Park (2006–2016) by Vogt Landscape Architects, images courtesy of Christian Vogt, Basel, Switzerland

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design was conceived “as a model of the prehistoric Upper Rhine Valley.”41 The terraces served as a mimesis of the valley’s geomorphology at a miniature scale to be observed by the park users.42 Combining clay and Rhine gravel excavated from the parking garage that lies beneath the park, the terraces were installed to create channels for the park’s pathways. Once the material was stable its gravelly texture was revealed and expressed by etching and chiselling into the terrace.43

Can you see how the texture and the scoring give the effect of glacial striation?

3.9 Ole Bulls Plass (1993) by Arne Saelen, image courtesy of Arne Saelen, Bergen, Norway

Aspects of stone Aspect is the transformation of a material as a result of tooling and natural colour. Designers can reveal the different striations and veins of stone through different surface treatments. Look at the image of Ole Bulls Plass, a public square named after the violinist and composer Ole Bull in Bergen, Norway. Designed by the landscape architect Arne Saelen, this careful meditation on stone employs two types – local grey gneiss with pink veins and pink granite – and seven different aspects: “raw, rough picked, fine picked, flamed, sawn, hone, and polished” to create a subtly diverse set of colours and textures.44

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Can you see how the rain enhances the aspect of the stone in this plaza?

Material allusion Materials can allude to or refer to site conditions that might not be visible to people. Look at the steps designed for North Bethesda Market in Maryland by Nelson Byrd Woltz. According to principal Thomas L. Woltz, the region rests upon sedimentary bedrock, but given the site’s urban condition, people were rarely aware of its presence. To allude to this underlying Triassic period rock Nelson Byrd Woltz selected paving quarried from locally sourced stone.

There are probably many landscape architects who use locally quarried rock, but can you see how this detailed design of the stairway highlights this material allusion?

Artificial, but not fake This statement is frequently made by the landscape architect Claude Cormier, who refers to his landscapes as artificial – but not fake. Fake to Cormier is a material that is meant to deceive, to look indistinguishable from something it

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3.10 Steps designed for North Bethesda Market (2008–2010) by Nelson Byrd Woltz, image courtesy of Eric Piasecki/OTTO, Rockville, Maryland, USA

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is not. Synthetic turf for example is fake. For Cormier, “Artificial still refers to something authentic . . . like a canopy of trees in a forest, even if it’s a sky-blue canopy made of fibreglass.”45 Look at the image of Claude Cormier’s Lipstick Forest at the entrance to the Montréal Convention Centre. Collapsing two seemingly distant phenomena – the dignified beauty of trees with the glamorous innuendo of cosmetics and the viscosity of resin – Lipstick Forest demonstrates that landscapes are not merely the distant pleasures of sight. The forest contains giant tree trunks rendered in resin to mimic the forms of trees in a nearby park. Referring to the Montréal Lipstick Kiss logo, the trunks are painted glossy shades of pink for that “just applied” look.

3.11 Lipstick Forest (2002) by Claude Cormier + Associés, image courtesy of Jean-François Vézina, Montréal Convention Centre, Canada

Do you see how these are not fake trees, but artificial ones? What would fake trees look like?

Truth of material debated In landscape architecture, by the 1980s designers began to reject modern tenets, such as “the truth of materials” in their work. For example, in 1986, Martha Schwartz designed with plastic topiary shrubs, plastic flowers, and metal forms covered in AstroTurf to resemble neatly clipped hedges for the Splice Garden in

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Cambridge, Massachusetts. Indeed, in some instances it was only viable to use fake material, prompting designers to draw from unexpected sources as part of their design process. For the rooftop of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, for example, the landscape architect Ken Smith could have no live plants or heavy materials, so he created Camouflage Garden, employing 185 plastic rocks, 560 artificial boxwoods, glass, and recycled rubber mulch. The composition of this material was derived from the camouflage pattern of his skateboarding pants!46 Do you think claims to “the truth of materials” can be over-weighted by feelings of moral superiority?

As noted previously in the “Truth of materials in action,” Claude Cormier likes to distinguish fake materials from artificial ones. For Cormier, if plastic is shaped to look like a plant or concrete paving is imprinted to look like stone, this is fake. Plastic formed into pink plastic balls is artificial, as it is truthful to a synthetic material that can be easily moulded into this shape. Yet, sometimes budget or scarcity might prevent the use of a particular material. There also might be ethical reasons (think of fake fur) that would lead a designer to select a material that gives the illusion of another material. There is certainly a long-standing tradition in landscape and garden design to employ materials that represent something else. Think of the traditional Japanese garden, which is often full of materials that reference other things. In the karesansui gardens or dry gardens of Japan, for example, sand or gravel refers to water. The raking of this material into ripple-like formations also brings to mind wave effects in water. Materials representing things other than what they are can be witnessed in Western gardens as well. The philosopher Stephanie Ross clarifies, however, that this is not an example of illusion. During a visit to a karesansui garden you are not deceived into thinking that you can take a swim in the sand. Likewise, during a visit to Stourhead Garden you would not actually think that the central lake is the Mediterranean. Rather, the lake alludes to this sea as part of Virgil’s epic, The Aeneid, one of the central themes of the garden. Ross describes this experience as a type of two-foldedness whereby “we are simultaneously aware of the physical and the virtual garden.”47 As discussed in illusionary space in the Spatial Practices chapter, there are design elements or techniques that are employed precisely to create illusion. The haha, for example, gives an illusion from the house that grazing animals in the distance are part of the garden. In fact, the etymology of the term haha is thought to come from the surprise upon realizing that you were about to fall from a retaining wall. Materials can also be handled in a way that makes you think of the material in a different way. I’ve often thought that the wall made with recycled railway tracks at Portland’s Tanner Springs Park by Ramboll Studio Dreiseitl have been placed in a way that makes this normally hard material appear almost like fabric. Look at the image of Tanner Springs Park.

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3.12 Tanner Springs Park (2010) by Ramboll Studio Dreiseitl, Portland, Oregon, USA

What do you think?

Primary reading for truth of materials William Robinson, The Parks, Promenades and Gardens of Paris, Described and Considered in Relation to the Wants of Our Own Cities. John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture. Christopher Tunnard, Gardens in the Modern Landscape.

THEORETICAL GROUNDINGS OF PALIMPSEST The surface of England is like a palimpsest, a document that has been written on and erased over and over again; and it is the business of the field of archaeology to decipher it. The features concerned are of course the roads and field boundaries, the woods, the farms and other habitations, and the other products of human labour; these are the letters and the words inscribed on the land.48 (Osbert Guy Stanhope Crawford, Archaeology in the Field, 1953)

Here, the archaeologist Osbert Guy Stanhope Crawford (1886–1957) employs the term palimpsest to describe a landscape.

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Do you know why he would compare the landscape to a written document? One of the earliest uses of the term palimpsest in relationship to landscape – both figuratively and literally – was Frederic William Maitland’s (1850–1906) nineteenth-century description of an English landscape ordinance map as a “marvellous palimpsest.”49 Studying this map as a palimpsest, he was able to decipher the historic settlement patterns, particularly Germanic versus Celtic communities. Palimpsest refers to the ancient practice of writing and erasing and writing again over the same surface, such as parchment paper or vellum. With time, the writing surface accrued faint traces of former texts called the scriptio inferior or the “underwriting,” which were later interpreted by scholars. The archaeologist Gavin Lucas argues that the term palimpsest emphasizes the material aspect of writing as well as the memory-laden material acts of inscription. What is underwritten as well as overwritten, scripto secunda, is part of the site’s material story. Indeed the landscape “palimpsest encapsulates the dual process of inscription and erasure.”50 Since the landscape serves as the material evidence of past cultures and natural events, Crawford’s metaphor was adopted by both archaeologists and geographers studying landscapes, particularly those working in the English language.51 These studies often represented both natural and cultural changes in the landscapes as a series of distributed layers. As the landscape archaeologist Oscar Aldred points out, “the palimpsest takes a particular view on the material accumulation of events, viewing these in terms of sequence as if a linear temporality; one of accumulation of one layer and then another, in which previous layers are shadows of their former self.”52 While the theory of palimpsest was initially used to describe rural landscapes, it also has been used to analyse memorials and monuments designed for urban landscapes in the twentieth century. In his analysis of memory practices in Berlin, Buenos Aires, and New York City, Professor of German and Comparative Literature Andreas Huyssen argues that public memory-making, like a palimpsest, is selective, and that much of the selection process is in service to politics and the formation of an urban identity in a global context. In particular Huyssen singles out the city of Berlin as a palimpsest urban landscape. There is perhaps no other major Western city that bears the marks of twentieth-century history as intensely and self-consciously as Berlin. This city text has been written, erased, and rewritten throughout that violent century, and its legibility relies as much on visible markers of built space as on images and memories repressed and ruptured by traumatic events.53

Material palimpsest has been advanced by designers as an analytical method and design approach as well. In each usage, the landscape serves as the parchment paper upon which natural and cultural changes make imprints over space and

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time. Natural changes might include rocks left by glaciers, while cultural changes might include the addition of structures or the subtraction of earth. Of course, these two types of activities, natural and cultural, interact with each other over time. For example, deforestation by humans increases soil erosion and flooding, which then prompts the erection of dykes. What is crucial to palimpsest is to consider the simultaneity of these layered changes and their interactions. Why palimpsest matters Palimpsest offers a conception of landscape design as a material exhibit of multiple temporal and spatial events and artefacts. This theory is particularly helpful with projects where communicating the history of the site is paramount to the design brief. The geographer Paul Vidal de La Blache (1845–1918) argued that palimpsest means to “understand the correspondence and correlation of things, whether in the setting of the whole surface of the earth, or in the regional setting where things are localized.”54 Palimpsest also serves as an underlying theory in the landscape architect Peter Latz’s approach to design. As Udo Weilacher reveals, Peter Latz knows from experience that it is very rare for the various levels of a landscape to be completely undisturbed. Each new use added to a landscape disturbs what is already there to a certain extent, and brings its own characteristic structures with it. These then manifest themselves as an information layer in their own right. What qualities the historical and contemporary levels have, whether they are still complete or fragmented, whether they can be completed or repaired, or whether it might make more sense to replace them completely with new information layers are questions landscape architects have to address constantly when designing.55

Palimpsest in action Residuality Residuality is put forth by Aldred as a way of thinking about the accumulated and removed layers of the landscape. “Residuality depends on the relations within its networked assemblage and the way in which the residual elements work together when gathered with other entities.”56 What is pertinent to the designer’s use of residuality is the emphasis on the changeability of materials and elements for future use. “The ability to change while remaining a recognizable material form in terms of their residuality is perhaps a key issue that needs to be explored in landscape.”57 Look at the image of the garden wall at the Latz office in Ampertshausen, Germany, where they have carefully retained the site’s material memory. As Weilacher recounts, “a whole series of enclosing and retaining walls in Amperthausen are obviously made of reused builders’ rubble, old roof tiles, used paving stones, shapeless lumps of concrete, bleached wooden planks

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and similar things.”58 And in keeping with the theory of palimpsest this material communicates something to visitors in their garden. Weilacher argues that these remnant materials “tell a story of their own that cannot be overlooked – possibly recalling the days when bricks were still made by hand, perhaps complaining about demolition of carefully built barns, commenting on the increasing uselessness of old sheds.”59 Can see how this material might tell you something about the site’s history?

Palimpsest revealed Sometimes features of a site’s palimpsest can be hidden from view, scriptio inferior, and it is the task of the designer to reveal this hidden dimension as a scripto secunda. A beautiful example of a hidden palimpsest revealed is the K Garden by the landscape architect Dieter Kienast. Look at the image of Dieter Kienast’s earthen wall from his garden in Zurich. The structure is 10 meters (33 feet) long, 60 centimeters (2.4 inches) thick, and 2.5 meters (8.2 feet) in height and it was built with tamped layers of loam. Kienast says, “the layers of soil

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3.13 The garden wall of Peter and Anneliese Latz (1991) by Latz + Partner, image courtesy of Monika Nikolic, Ampertshausen, Germany

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3.14 Earthen wall at the K Garden (1994) by Kienast Vogt Partner, image courtesy of Udo Weilacher, Zurich, Switzerland

remain invisible in their various shades of brown. The wall shows a lovely mutable picture, which changes in colour and structure depending on the time of day and year. It has thus become the bearer of the image of the ordinarily hidden earth.”60 Weilacher also adds, pure soil, pure dirt is not just a construction material but a medium with its own inherent history, mythology, and meanings, interacting with all other elements in the garden and reacting sensitively to changes in the surrounding microclimate: whenever the humidity in the air rises, the wall reacts immediately and intensifies its natural play of colors.61

Can you see the soil layers? How does the earth wall express the structure of the soil?

Future palimpsest Material palimpsests need not only refer to the past. They can also project into the distant future as well. Look at the image of 100 Forests by Taylor Cullity

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Lethlean with Tonkin Zulaikha Greer in Canberra, Australia. The 250-hectare landscape for Australia’s National Arboretum commemorates Canberra’s widespread, devastating fires of 2003. Each forest is comprised of threatened or ethnobotanically significant single-species from around the world. “The forests, each 2–3 hectares in size, are arranged via a grid across the undulating topography.”62 Fictional palimpsest As a working method, palimpsest enables the landscape architect to select what elements to reveal or cover as part of the design process. The landscape architect Rebecca Krinke posits that a palimpsest also invites the designer to add fiction to the site. She writes: “Thinking of the site as a palimpsest allows designers to utilize the site’s layers of history to reveal aspects of the site, or even to add a new layer of self-conscious fiction.”63 In other words, fictional palimpsest enables the designer to intervene with invented constructions that might not be derived from the site, but they’ve been added to prompt imaginative interpretations. Look at the image of Ice-Water Wall at Teardrop Park, designed by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates. The existing site was previously filled land along the Hudson River shoreline. With the episodic layering of chunks of blue stone that arc out of the ground to the height of 9 meters high and 56 meters long, the Ice-Water Wall may prompt all types of interpretations. The artist Ann Hamilton,

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3.15 National Arboretum Canberra 100 Forests (2011) by Taylor Cullity Lethlean and Tonkin Zulaikha Greer Architects, image courtesy of Taylor Cullity Lethlean and John Gollings, Canberra, Australia

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IcewalLConcept Sketch

Icewall_Under Construction

IcewalLQuarry Mock-up

IcewalLOn Site

3.16 Ice-Water Wall concept drawing at Teardrop Park, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, New York City, New York, USA

who worked on the project with Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates and Michael Mercil, describes the wall as “recalling a natural history of the Hudson River Valley, these sections might also recall the processes of quarrying, or of masonry. But this stonework neither comes from nor quite belongs to any of those things. And because it was never any other built thing, the stonework is not a ruin.”64 Teardrop Park was designed for children and with the intent that the very materials of the landscape would provide a source of play and imaginative engagement.

Do you think the wall’s fictional quality will prompt children to imagine all types of things, like pretending that it is a mountain or a dragon?

Palimpsest debated Palimpsest is in opposition to a design process that treats the site as a blank slate or tabula rasa. Thus, there has been sustained interest in palimpsest by many landscape architects. Eelco Hooftman, landscape architect at GROSS. MAX, contends, “We never have a tabula rasa; it’s nearly always an existing site that needs a new chapter in its process of transformation . . . I think this idea of projects is not only about redesign but also about recycling pieces of fabric into new projects.”65 Indeed, a palimpsest conception of design can allow for a richly textured portrayal of the past and future through its materials. However, this theory also demands critical decision-making by the designer.

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Palimpsest involves both the underwritten as well as overwritten material, and the designer often functions like a curator, selecting what material will be divulged to people and what material will remain hidden. For politically contested landscapes this can pose problems for those individuals and social groups who are underwritten in the palimpsest. This situation potentially creates what Brenda Bender calls a proprietor palimpsest, where those in power ultimately decide the appropriate interpretation of historical and cultural material.66 While Bender addresses the proprietor palimpsest of Stonehenge and its appropriation by the heritage industry, a wave of postcolonial studies scholars have critiqued proprietor palimpsests, particularly ones regarding indigenous people in North America. For example, consider the mission gardens created by the Franciscans during the eighteenth century in California. Today, these renovated gardens, with their chapels, extensive gardens, plaques, memorials, and ruins have been retained as idyllic educational retreats for those tourists willing to pay a small fee to visit. Employing a postcolonial critique of the history of these mission gardens and their current design features, the anthropologist Elizabeth Kryder-Reid finds that the renovated garden elements function to situate the mission gardens in a broader history of California’s origins, overwriting commemoration and Christian heritage-making while erasing the legacy of these missions as sites of forced labour. Indeed, these missions were instrumental in the Spanish colonization of the indigenous people in what is now California. By telling this underwritten history of oppression Kryder-Reid, “offers an alternative, challenging the imbalance of power in contemporary cultural heritage practices and opens space for silenced voices and perspectives.”67 Can you see how the mission gardens are a proprietor palimpsest? What material might you include in these gardens to make them more balanced in their message? Do you think that if individuals or groups are only represented through their material artefacts that you run the risk of not helping this group if they are still repressed?

Primary reading for palimpsest Osbert Guy Stanhope Crawford, Archaeology in the Field. Andreas Huyssen, Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory.

THEORETICAL GROUNDINGS OF CONSEQUENTIALISM More exactly, it is as if materiality and morality were finally coalescing. This is of great importance because if you begin to redesign cities, landscapes, natural parks, societies, as well as genes, brains and chips, no designer will be allowed

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to hide behind the old protection of matters of fact . . . By expanding design so that it is relevant everywhere, designers take up the mantle of morality as well.68 (Bruno Latour, “A Cautious Prometheus? A Few Steps toward a Philosophy of Design,” 2008)

In his lecture to the Design History Society, Latour stresses the morality of material. Morality is the practice of ethics, and this position is best explained by consequentialism. The normative theory of consequentialism has received renewed interest in environmental ethics and public policy, and, as Latour argues, it is highly relevant to design. Moreover, consequentialism has direct ties with landscape architecture regarding materiality as it “holds that the rightness or wrongness of an agent’s action depends solely on the value of the consequences of this action, compared to the value of the consequences of any other action that the agent could have undertaken.”69 Consequentialism is often contrasted with deontological ethics in which actions and decisions are predicated upon conformity with a moral norm, or an adherence to a set of rules. The philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) was influential in the development of deontological moral theories. Kant thought the “only thing unqualifiedly good is a good will.”70 In other words, an act or decision is deemed right or wrong depending on the actor’s or decision-maker’s motivation. The intention of an agent is the basis of moral evaluation and “a right action is one motivated through a sense of duty.”71 For example, today is your birthday and I surprise you by giving you a kitten. Unfortunately, the fur and dander make you cough and wheeze and you break out in a rash. The consequentialist would say that given the outcome of this action, it was not good because it gave you an allergic reaction. Given the imperative to furnish you with a birthday present and my best intentions, a deontologist would say I wasn’t in the wrong. My intentions were good as I conformed to the norm of giving a friend a birthday present. Utilitarianism is a type of consequentialism that has been tied to landscape designers during the nineteenth century. Utilitarianism holds “that an ethical person should base his/her actions on the promotion of the greatest good (pleasure) for the greatest number of people.” 72 Philosophers Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) advocated utilitarianism as key to social and political reforms, such as the abolition of slavery. In fact Bentham influenced the landscape designer and author John Claudius Loudon (1783–1843) who brought utilitarianism to his promotion of botany, horticulture, and landscape gardening as a type of social reform. Loudon, who invented the theory of gardenesque, rejected the idea that knowledge in these areas was the province of an upper-class educated elite. Loudon’s particular reform agenda sought to improve the middle class by educating them on plant knowledge, garden design, and even city planning because he believed this knowledge promoted the greatest good. He also thought the middle class would represent the majority of English society in the future, and he was able to reach this population not only through books but also through the increasingly popular periodical

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publication – the magazine. Thus, in keeping with utilitarianism, Loudon was addressing the greatest number of people.73 Utilitarianism was eventually overshadowed by consequentialism as utilitarianism was condemned for its narrow interpretation of good. Most proponents of consequentialism rejected the idea that all values could be condensed into a single effect. In turn, consequentialists proposed a more pluralistic theory of value, opening a range of outcomes. Classical utilitarianism was also criticized for its hedonism, which views pleasure as the only intrinsic good and pain as the only intrinsic bad. Why consequentialism matters The very materials that landscape architects work with are integral to the wellbeing of both the animate and the inanimate, and this operates at a scale from the detailed features of a site to the global transportation of materials. Thus, material use often rests upon consequentialist premises. Material – its selection, extraction, transportation, assemblage, and its material production – is often at the heart of the ethical decisions made in a landscape design project. In keeping with the definition of materiality, the consequences of a project’s material can be deeply tethered to its materiality – what you think the project contributes, its status, its performance, and its contributions. The consequentialism of materiality can provide the opportunity to make decisions that may have the best outcomes. In the late 1980s the planner and architect Peter Oberlander placed a report in the hands of the landscape architect Cornelia Hahn Oberlander. He said, “Cornelia, this document will change the way you practice.”74 The report was written by the Brundtland Commission and it was called Our Common Future. It gave evidence of the critical need to work towards a sustainable future at a global level and that this work would involve all sectors of society, including landscape architecture. Peter Oberlander was correct and it did impact many professions, especially as the effects of climate change were made evident. Indeed, Latour points out, “none of the elements necessary to support life can be taken for granted.”75 The impact that design has on natural systems and processes has been deemed so important that measurements, such as “ecological footprints” and “carbon neutral,” have become central to designing and evaluating the performance of designed landscapes. Landscape architects have developed their own toolkits, assessment packages, checklists, and modelling programmes to predict the impact of their designs. Even deontological rules have been created, such as the Green Rating Systems and Best Practices manuals, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), and the Living Building Challenge to promote adherence to design decision-making that will minimize damage to environmental systems. While initial developments of these codified practices started with materials, they now address the entire building process. Consider the work of Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, who demanded that the contractors of the CK Choi building and landscape separate out and recycle their daily lunches!

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Do you think it is possible to really determine the best consequences of material selection and use given the myriad of materials available to you today? Can we really know how the materials we design with today are going to impact long-term outcomes?

While much thought has been given to impacts on natural systems and processes, materials also influence human health and well-being, and you will return to this consideration at the end of this section in “Consequentialism debated.” Consequentialism in action Displacement In 1967 the artist Robert Smithson examined industrial lands around New Jersey. The sheer scale of movement of earth and rock intrigued him. Equally, he was fascinated by the machinery used to extract and transport this material, which included digging machines, drills, explosives, and rippers – the steel-tooth rakes attached to tractors.76 These observations inspired his series, Non-Site. “The site, in a sense, is the physical, raw reality of the earth or the ground that we are not really aware . . . Instead of putting something on the landscape, I decided it would be interesting to transfer the land indoors, to the Non-Site, which is an abstract container.”77 Non-Site, such as the one displayed in 1968, entailed five diminishing-sized wooden bins arranged in forced perspective with each bin containing chunks of limestone from Franklin Mine in New Jersey.78 The bins were accompanied by a two-dimensional representation of the Franklin Mine site, with markers indicating the places where the material had been collected. Smithson’s piece creates a dialectic between the site and Non-Site through displacement. This dialectic changes not only the object of displacement and its original context, but where it is displaced to – the museum. For Smithson, “The earth to me isn’t nature, but museum. My idea is not anthropomorphic. It’s related to man and matter rather than man and nature.”79 Non-Site revealed how the materials selected for a landscape design not only change the project site but also transform other sites through extraction, whether rock, soil, or plant materials. Look at the image of the You Are Here Garden, for the Métis Garden Festival in Métis-sur-Mer, Quebec. The designers, Bruce Matthews and Taco Iwashima, cut a square shape of wild meadow from a nearby area of the festival grounds and literally transplanted it to create their garden (it was placed back in its original location after the Festival concluded). A plastic tarpaulin draped across the entrance to their garden shows an image of the bare square-shaped plot of soil in a meadow.

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Does this make you think about what is displaced when you select materials for a landscape? What do you think the beneficial consequences are of this project? Or negative?

Operator The term bricolage was used by the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss to describe an approach to thinking and making where available materials or found objects are assembled and manipulated. Lévi-Strauss sought to distinguish the bricoleur from the engineer who pursued optimal solutions and new material to solve a problem. For Lévi-Strauss, in contrast to the engineer, The “bricoleur” is adept at performing a large number of diverse tasks; but, unlike the engineer, he does not subordinate each of them to the availability of raw materials and tools conceived and procured for the purpose of the project. His universe of instruments is closed and the rules of his game are always to make do with “whatever is at hand”, that is to say with a set of tools and materials which is always finite and is also heterogeneous because what it contains bears no relation to the current project, or indeed to any particular project, but is the contingent result of all the occasions there have been to renew or

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3.17 International Garden Festival, Jardins de Métis/ Reford Gardens, You Are Here Garden (2002) by Christopher Bruce Matthews and Taco Iwashima, image courtesy of Michel Laverdière, Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens, GrandMétis, Quebec, Canada

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enrich the stock or to maintain it with the remains of previous constructions or destructions.80 3.18 Urban Outfitters Landscape (2005–2011) by lead designer, Julie Bargmann, founder and principal, D.I.R.T. Studio; David Hill, project landscape architect and Jen Trompetter, project manager, both also of D.I.R.T Studio, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Günther Vogt proposes a third term, operator. For Vogt, “bricoleur – usually a collector – interweaves pre-existing materials with great skill in accordance with this concept, the engineer behaves rationally. He establishes rules, in our instance for the landscape, defines objectives, and searches for the best method of achieving them.”81 The operator is “adept at both approaches, and exploits each according to the project in question.”82 Look at the courtyard for the Urban Outfitters Headquarters, designed by D.I.R.T. Studio, in Philadelphia. The site was previously a Navy shipyard, one of the first in the country. To save tons of concrete, asphalt, and brick from entering the landfill and to commemorate the men and women who worked on the yard over the span of 150 years, Julie Bargmann of D.I.R.T. Studio salvaged this material and regenerated it as part of the landscape scheme, harvesting “precious debris for reuse.”83

Can you see how Bargmann was working like a bricoleur or operator?

Harvester Designing the landscape for the Legislative Assembly Building in Yellowknife, Canada, Cornelia Hahn Oberlander developed a method of harvesting plants from the site as the plant material source. She collected plant tissues and seeds from the site prior to the building construction, brought them to Vancouver

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where they were propagated, and when they reached maturity she returned them to the Yellowknife site for replanting. Oberlander also employed this technique in the East Three School in Inuvik. Located 200 km north of the Arctic Circle, Inuvik’s growing season was extremely short with approximately 30 days of complete darkness during winter, and like Yellowknife, there was no access to nurseries. Harvesting seeds and tissues from plants already growing on the site has enabled Oberlander to install plant material she knew would thrive in the Arctic’s harsh conditions.84

3.19 Planting Approach for the Legislative Assembly Building, by Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, diagram by Bryan Beça, Yellowknife, Canada

What do you think the consequences are to this approach to plant material?

Bio-mimicry Bio-mimicry involves the creation of materials, structures, and systems that mimic biological entities and processes. While the theory is new to many disciplines, bio-mimicry has been employed in landscape design for a long time. The gardener, architect, and Member of Parliament, Sir Joseph Paxton, for example, used the structure of the Victoria amazonica as an inspiration for his design of the Crystal Palace in 1851. Paxton was impressed by the lily’s organic structure and

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3.20 GROW, a product of Solar Ivy, at the “Design and the Elastic Mind” exhibit at the MoMA, image courtesy of Kenny Louie, https:// creativecommons. org/licenses/by/2.0/

placed his daughter Anne on its pads to demonstrate their strength.85 According to Margaret Flanders Darby, “What Paxton learned from the lily was that great horizontal surfaces – in a leaf or a roof – could be largely supported with the extra stiffness provided by the ridge-and-furrow configuration of his greenhouse roofing system.”86 The hollow cast-iron support columns also served as gutters transporting rainwater to the ground. Since the glass panels were faceted, the roof allowed for the penetration of light in the morning and afternoon. Bio-mimicry in design typically resembles the biology it is modelled on. Look at image of Solar Ivy by Samuel and Teresita Cochran, and Benjamin Wheeler Howes. Using printable solar panels that can be attached to a wire mesh, the shape and colours of the panels resembles the leaves of an ivy plant. The solar panels also share a similar function with ivy as well. Whereas ivy converts light energy from the sun into chemical energy that enables it to grow, Solar Ivy harvests solar energy that is connected to an inverter or battery to provide energy for use by people.87

Do you see how this is bio-mimicry? Can you think of some consequences of selecting this material instead of ivy plants?

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Bio-design Inspired by Industrial Ecology, which posits that industrial processes can be “designed to resemble ecosystems wherein every waste product becomes a raw material for another process,” bio-design exploits processes in living organisms in an attempt to produce materials that are more sustainable.88 Evocative Design, a biomaterials company, grows their material products. Cultivating material such as mycelium, the thread-like branching filamentous structure found in fungus, in agricultural waste, Evocative Design can produce numerous types of materials, such as structural composites and bricks. Consulting to the architecture firm The Living, Evocative Design grew bricks with discarded cornstalks and mushroom parts in moulds developed by 3M. Since the production of bricks is carbon-intensive (firing requires a good deal of energy that in many cases is produced with coal), the grown bricks produce less carbon and use less water than fired bricks. Look at Hy-Fi, by The Living for the 2014 Young Architects Program at the Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1 in New York. After the exhibit is removed, a “local non-profit, Build It Green, will compost the bricks and turn them into fertilizer.”89

3.21 Hy-Fi (2014) by The Living for the Young Architects Program at The Museum of Modern Art, image courtesy of David Benjamin, Long Island City, New York, USA

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The mushroom-based biomaterial could have been moulded into any shape, why do you think they wanted to create something that took the form of a traditional fired brick?

Consequentialism debated Within the field of environmental ethics there are disagreements among consequentialists around actual consequences versus expected consequences. Actual act consequentialists say that morally right actions are those where the actual value of the consequence of your action (the selection of readily available local material, for example, will limit transportation) is greater than the actual value of the consequence of selecting any other material available to you. Expected act consequentialists say that morally right acts are those where the expected value of the consequences (the selection of wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, for example) is greater than the expected value of the consequences of doing otherwise. Philosophers Avram Hiller and Leonard Kahn point out that, “When the consequences of one’s actions are reliably predictable, the differences between actual and expected consequences are small.”90 When it comes to more complex situations, for example how the climate will in fact change and its impacts in 100 years, the difference can be significant. An actual act consequentialist would judge the rightness or wrongness of our enactment of policies now based on the value that the actual consequences of this enactment will have in, say, 100 years. An expected act consequentialist would judge the rightness or wrongness of our enactment of policies now with reference to our current expectations regarding the value of the consequences of these actions.91

In this sense, landscape architects are typically expected act consequentialists. In most cases awards are given out in the present for the expected consequences of actions, not 100 years after the landscape is constructed. Another concern among consequentialists is: what constitutes a good or a bad consequence? Typically the status of good or bad consequences is related to states of well-being, freedom, and equality, and the extent of the consequences. Risk and relative risk, too, are related factors in consequentialism. Increasingly, risk avoidance has played a significant role in the design of landscapes, particularly in North America and in England. Earlier I discussed the important role that materials play in children’s development. Unfortunately, the word “risk” has changed from a neutral term meaning the probability of a given outcome to its equation with an undesirable event or the causes of these events.92 Due to perceived risks many materials and elements have been removed from the landscapes designed for children. This material has included basic landscape elements such as plants, sand, and building materials.

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However, children need to take risk to develop and risk-taking results in positive consequences for children’s health.93 Risks are not hazards, which have no clear benefits. Taking risks or risky play denotes “a situation whereby a child can recognize and evaluate a challenge and decide on a course of action.”94 Climbing a tree, for example, prompts a child to assess the height and strength of a branch – considerations that are not needed with standardized equipment. The child psychologist Ellen Sandseter has developed the emerging theory of risky play. She defines risky play as thrilling and exciting play that includes the possibility of physical injury.95 Types of risky play include playing at height, speed, near dangerous elements (e.g., cliffs, trees, water, fire), and with dangerous tools (knives, saws, and axes). Sandseter argues that there should also be the potential for disappearing or getting lost in a landscape as a form of risky play. Were you able to take risks as a child?

Primary reading for consequentialism Avram Hiller, Ramona Ilea, and Leonard Kahn, Consequentialism and Environmental Ethics. Bruno Latour, “A Cautious Prometheus? A Few Steps toward a Philosophy of Design (with Special Attention to Peter Sloterdijk).” Samuel Scheffler, ed. Consequentialism and Its Critics.

NOTES 1. Udo Weilacher, Between Landscape Architecture and Land Art (Basel: Birkhäuser, 1996), 14. 2. Marc Treib and Dorothée Imbert, Garrett Eckbo: Modern Landscapes for Living (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 77–93. 3. Bruno Latour, “Agency at the Time of the Anthropocene,” New Literary History 45, no. 15 (2014): 1–18. 4. Erwin Viray, “Why Material Design?” Material Design: Informing Architecture by Materiality (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2011), 8–9 (8). 5. Steve Hinchliffe, “’Inhabiting’ – Landscapes and Natures,” The Handbook of Cultural Geography, eds. Kay Anderson, Mona Domosh, Steve Pile, and Nigel Thrift (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2002) 207–226 (217). 6. George Novack, Origins of Materialism: The Evolution of the Scientific View of the World (New York: Merit, 1965), 24. 7. Joyce Hill Stoner, “Definitions of Material Culture,” Miscellaneous Objects, accessed 21 January 2016, http://miscellaneousobjects.blogspot.ca/2008/07/definitions-ofmaterial-culture.html. 8. Tim Richardson, Futurescapes: Designers for Tomorrow’s Outdoor Spaces (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2011), 50. 9. Elizabeth K. Meyer, “Post-Earth Day Conundrum: Translating Environmental Values,” Environmentalism in Landscape Architecture, ed. Michel Conan (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2000), 187–244 (196). 10. Richard E. Ripple and Verne Norton Rockcastle, Piaget Rediscovered (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, 1964), 8. 11. Robert Smithson “Frederick Law Olmsted and the Dialectical Landscape,” Artforum (February 1973), 62–68.

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12. Michael Bérubé, “Materialism,” New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society, eds. Tony Bennett, Lawrence Grossberg, and Meaghan Morris (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005), 210–211. 13. Ibid. 14. Christopher Henry, “Stone River – Jon Piasecki,” ArchDaily, 13 October 2011, accessed 6 April 2015, www.archdaily.com/?p=173867. 15. Marshall McLuhan and Lewis H. Lapham, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (New York: MIT Press, 1964; 1994), 7. 16. Mark Federman, “What is the Meaning of The Medium is the Message?” accessed 21 January 2016, http://individual.utoronto.ca/markfederman/article_mediumisthemessage.htm. 17. Interaction Awards 2014, “Avena+ Test Bed – Agricultural Printing and Altered Landscapes, Royal College of Art,” accessed 21 January 2016, http://awards.ixda. org/entry/2014/avena-test-bed-agricultural-printing-and-altered-landscapes/. 18. Tafline Laylin, “Benedikt Groß Brings Digital Printing to Precision Farming,” Inhabit, 23 August 2013, accessed 21 January 2015, http://inhabitat.com/benediktgros-brings-digital-printing-to-precision-farming/avena-test-bed-by-benedikt-gros-6/. 19. Stan Allen, “Points and Lines,” SCI-Arc Media Archive, 24 February 1999, accessed 21 January 2016, http://sma.sciarc.edu/video/stan-allen/. 20. Stan Allen, “Introduction: Practice vs. Project,” Practice: Architecture, Technique and Representation (Amsterdam: G+B Arts International, 2000), xiii–xxv (xiii). 21. Philip Bethge, “New Branch of Architecture: Grow Your Own Skyscraper,” Spiegel International, 22 July 2009, accessed 21 January 2016, www.spiegel.de/international/ germany/new-branch-of-architecture-grow-your-own-skyscraper-a-636716.html. 22. Ibid. 23. Thomas Schropfer, “Modulating: Transformation by Shaping and Texturing,” Material Design: Informing Architecture by Materiality (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2011), 88–105 (99). 24. Robert McAnulty “What’s the Matter with Material?” Log, No. 5 (Spring/Summer 2005): 87–92 (89). 25. Ibid. 26. Ibid., 90. 27. Jeffrey Kastner and Brian Wallis, Land and Environmental Art (London: Phaidon Press, 1998) 32. 28. Jane Gillette, “Can Gardens Mean?” Landscape Journal 24, no. 1 (2005): 85–97 (82). 29. David Leatherbarrow, “Material Matters,” Architecture Oriented Otherwise (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2009), 69–94 (91). 30. John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture (London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 1849), 48. 31. William Robinson, The Parks, Promenades and Gardens of Paris, Described and Considered in Relation to the Wants of Our Own Cities (London: John Murray, 1869) 61. 32. Ann Komara, “Concrete and the Engineered Picturesque: The Parc des Buttes Chaumont (Paris, 1867),” Journal of Architectural Education 58, no. 1 (2004): 5–12 (9). 33. See Dorothée Imbert, The Modernist Garden in France (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), 38. 34. Christopher Tunnard, Gardens in the Modern Landscape (London: The Architectural Press, 1938; 1948), 103. 35. Ibid. 36. Rosalind Krauss, “The Double Negative: A New Syntax in Sculpture,” Passages in Modern Sculpture (New York: The MIT Press, 1977; 1981), 243–288 (266). 37. Jonathan Vickery, “Organizing Art: Constructing Aesthetic Value,” Museums in the Material World, ed. Simon Knell (New York: Routledge, 2007), 214–229 (222).

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38. Kenneth Frampton, Studies in Tectonic Culture: The Poetics of Construction in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Architecture ed. John Cava (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995), 2. 39. Field Guide to the La Garrotxa Volcanic Zone (La Garrotxa Volcanic Zone Natural Park, Catalonia, Spain, 2012), 65. 40. Julian Raxworthy, “Parc de Pedra Tosca in Les Preses, Spain,” Topos 55 (2006): 91–94, 92. 41. Günther Vogt, Miniature and Panorama: Vogt Landscape Architects, Projects 2000–12 (Zurich: Lars Müller, 2012), 135. 42. Ibid., 175. 43. Alice Foxley, Distance & Engagement: Walking, Thinking and Making Landscape (Zurich: Lars Müller, 2010), 206. 44. Arne Saelen, Urban Landscapes: Arne Saelen (Barcelona, Spain: Loft, 2012), 120. 45. Lori Fazari, “Don’t Tell Him It’s Fake,” Globe and Mail, 27 April 2007, accessed 10 June 2015, www.theglobeandmail.com/life/dont-tell-him-its-fake/article684437/. 46. Susan Hines, “Ulterior Exterior MoMA’s New Roof Garden Is Cloaked with Meaning rather than Plants,” Landscape Architecture, November 2005, accessed 10 June 2015, https://www.asla.org/lamag/lam05/november/feature3.html. 47. Stephanie Ross, What Gardens Mean (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 179. 48. Osbert Guy Stanhope Crawford, Archaeology in the Field (London: Phoenix House, 1953), 51. 49. Frederic William Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond: Three Essays in the Early History of England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1907), 15. 50. Gavin Lucas, Understanding the Archaeological Record (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 115. 51. Hayden Lorimer, “Caught in the Nick of Time: Archives and Fieldwork,” The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Geography, eds. Dydia DeLyser, Steve Herbert, Stuart Aitken, Mike Crang, and Linda McDowell (London: Sage, 2010), 248–273. 52. Oscar Aldred, “Time for Fluent Landscapes,” Conversations with Landscape, eds. Karl Benediktsson and Katrin Anna Lund (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010), 59–78 (70). 53. Andreas Huyssen, Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003), 51–52. 54. Geoffrey J. Martin and Preston E. James, All Possible Worlds: A History of Geographical Ideas (New York: John Wiley, 1993), 193. 55. Udo Weilacher, Syntax of Landscape: The Landscape Architecture of Peter Latz and Partners (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2008), 26. 56. Aldred, “Time for Fluent Landscapes,” 59–78 (66). 57. Ibid., 68. 58. Weilacher, Syntax of Landscape, 28–29. 59. Ibid., 29. 60. Dieter Kienast, “Between Tradition and Innovation,” Dieter Kienast (Basel: Birkäuser, 2004), 64–66 (65). 61. Udo Weilacher, “The Garden as the Last Luxury Today,” Contemporary Garden Aesthetics, Creations and Interpretations, ed. Michel Conan (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2007), 81–95 (89). 62. Bustler, “Taylor Cullity Lethlean wins Landscape of the Year Award for the Second Year in a Row,” 7 October 2014, accessed 12 June 2015, www.bustler.net/index.php/article/ taylor_cullity_lethlean_wins_landscape_of_the_year_award_for_the_second_yea/. 63. Rebecca Krinke, “Overview: Design Practice and Manufactured Sites,” Manufactured Landscapes: Rethinking the Post-Industrial Landscape, ed. Niall Kirkwood (London: Spon Press, 2001), 128.

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64. Ann Hamilton, “Teardrop Park,” accessed 21 January 2016, www.annhamiltonstudio. com/public/teardroppark.html. 65. Eelco Hooftman, “GROSS. MAX,” Landscape Architecture Core? Harvard Design Magazine no. 36 (2013): 68–69 (68). 66. Brenda Bender, “Contested Landscapes: Medieval Time to Present,” Material Culture: Critical Concepts in the Social Sciences, ed. Victor Buchli (London: Routledge, 2004), 42–51. 67. Elizabeth Kryder-Reid, “Marking Time in San Gabriel Mission Garden,” special issue on Time, eds. Sonja Duempelmann and Susan Herrington, Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes: An International Quarterly 34, no. 1 (2014): 15–27 (19). 68. Bruno Latour, “A Cautious Prometheus? A Few Steps toward a Philosophy of Design (with Special Attention to Peter Sloterdijk),” Keynote lecture for the Networks of Design meeting of the Design History Society, Falmouth, Cornwall, 3 September 2008, 6. 69. Avram Hiller and Leonard Kahn, “Introduction: Consequentialism and Environmental Ethics,” Consequentialism and Environmental Ethics, eds. Avram Hiller, Ramona Ilea, and Leonard Kahn (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014), 1–16 (3). 70. Larry Alexander and Michael Moore, “Deontological Ethics,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2015 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, accessed 21 January 2016, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2015/entries/ethics-deontological/. 71. Daniel Holbrook, “The Consequentialistic Side of Environmental Ethics,” Environmental Values 6, no. 1 (1997): 87–96 (92). 72. Tani E. Bellestri, “Utilitarianism,” Green Issues and Debates: An A-to-Z Guide, eds. Howard S. Schiffman and Paul Robbins (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2011), 475–477 (477). 73. Heath Schenker, “Women, Gardens, and the English Middle Class in the Early Nineteenth Century,” Bourgeois and Aristocratic Cultural Encounters in Garden Art, 1550–1850, ed. Michel Conan (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2002), 337–360. 74. Susan Herrington, Cornelia Hahn Oberlander – Making the Modern Landscape (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013). 75. Latour, “A Cautious Prometheus?” 9. 76. Robert Smithson, “A Sedimentation of the Mind: Earth Projects,”Artforum (September 1968): 82–91 (83). 77. Robert Smithson, “Symposium,” Earth Art, ed. Nina Jager (Ithaca, NY: Andrew Dickson White, Museum of Art, 1970), 63–79 (67). 78. Kastner and Wallis, Land and Environmental Art, 44. 79. Ibid. 80. Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Savage Mind, trans. George Weidenfeld (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962; 1966), 17. 81. Günther Vogt, “Shadows of Landscape,” Landscape Architecture’s Core? Harvard Design Magazine no. 36 (2013): 130–135 (131). 82. Ibid. 83. Julie Bargmann, “Dirt Studio’s Brooklyn Navy Yard Visitors Center,” accessed 21 January 2016 www.dirtstudio.com/#bny. 84. Susan Herrington, “Designing above the Arctic Circle,” Journal of Landscape Architecture 8, no. 2 (2013): 44–51. 85. Margaret Flanders Darby, “Joseph Paxton’s Water Lily,” Bourgeois and Aristocratic Cultural Encounters in Garden Art, 1550–1850, ed. Michel Conan (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2002), 255–283 (265). 86. Ibid., 273. 87. William Bostwick, “The Ripple Effect: Solar Ivy,” Metropolis Magazine (March 2010): 104.

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88. William Myers, Bio Design: Nature, Science, Creativity (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2012), ii. 89. Avinash Rajagopal, “Behind The Living’s 100% Organic Pavilion for MoMA PS1,” Metropolis, 10 February 2014, accessed 24 June 2015, www.metropolismag.com/ Point-of-View/February-2014/MoMA-PS1/. 90. Hiller and Kahn, “Introduction: Consequentialism and Environmental Ethics,” 5. 91. Ibid., 5–6. 92. Sven Ove Hansson, The Ethics of Risk: Ethical Analysis in an Uncertain World (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). 93. Mariana Brussoni, Rebecca Gibbons, Casey Gray, Takuro Ishikawa, Ellen Beate Hansen Sandseter, Adam Bienenstock, et al., “What is the Relationship between Risky Outdoor Play and Health in Children? A Systematic Review,” International Journal of Environmental Research on Public Health 12 (2015): 6423–6454. 94. David Ball, Tim Gill, and Bernard Spiegal, Managing Risk in Play Provision: Implementation Guide (London: Play England, 2012), 120. 95. Ellen Sandseter and Leo Kennair, “Children’s Risky Play from an Evolutionary Perspective: The Anti-phobic Effects of Thrilling Experiences,” Evolutionary Psychology 9 (2011): 257–284.

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Language

In its broadest sense, “The term language designates any signifying whole (system) be it verbal, musical, visual, gestural, etc. We speak a language of architecture, a language of music or a language of landscape.”1 This chapter concerns theories of design as a language, as a means to communicate through design. The idea that landscapes could be designed to communicate ideas prompted speculations that landscapes could be read or interpreted as texts, which in turn spurred debates on interpretation and meaning. If a designer can communicate ideas, how do people interpret these ideas from the landscape? What if their interpretation was different from the designer’s intent? Can landscapes mean or must they? If landscapes can mean, what are the rules structuring this meaning? As the philosopher Paul Ricoeur (1913–2005) notes, If it is true that there is always more than one way of construing a text, it is not true that all interpretations are equal and may be assimilated to so-called rules of thumb . . . It is always possible to argue for or against an interpretation, to confront interpretations, to arbitrate between them, and to seek for an agreement, even if this agreement remains beyond our reach.2

Indeed, when landscape design was conceived as a language, landscape theory reached its most self-critical phase, because debates over language and meaning were central to disputes within the humanities.

THEORETICAL GROUNDINGS OF TYPOLOGY Look at the historic typologies of homes on Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina, created by the US National Park Service. What is the drawing comparing and contrasting? How is this a typological study? Typology is the classification of artefacts by type and these types can be grouped by different categories – formal, historical, thematic, etc. The development of

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typologies or classification systems for architecture and landscape architecture can be traced back to the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century zeal for encyclopaedias and dictionaries. The architectural theorist Antoine-Chrysostôme Quatremère de Quincy (1755–1849) as well as John Claudius Loudon (1783– 1843) sought to provide an organized language representing the designed environment. Loudon, for example, wrote numerous encyclopaedias for a wide range of topics related to the landscape – including agriculture, plants, trees and shrubs, gardening, and architecture. According to the architectural theorist Sylvia Lavin, the gravitation to encyclopaedias and dictionaries in architecture during this time period was a consequence of the growing belief that language was an artificial system, one not created by God, but invented by rational thought.3 Thus, Quatremère de Quincy’s analysis of historical buildings was filtered through his theory of type, which was free from theology or a concern with chronological developments or cultural events. The theory of type or typology was later revived by architects between the 1960s and 1980s, as a critique of modern architecture. Disillusioned with the modern tenets of design, which purportedly derived form from function and ignored historical precedents, architects such as Giulio Carlo Argan, Aldo Rossi, Rafael Moneo, Jorge Silvetti, and Alan Colquhoun looked to the historical development of urban spatial types as a source of design. Rafael Moneo argued, for example, that “Theoreticians of the Modern Movement rejected the idea of type as it had been understood in the nineteenth century, for to them it meant immobility, a set of restrictions imposed on the creator who must, they posited,

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4.1 Historic Typologies of Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina, National Park Service (2010), public domain

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be able to act with complete freedom.”4 In contrast to the notion of typology as a set of restrictions, these architects viewed typology as a generative source for design. Aldo Rossi, quoting Quatremère de Quincy in his book, Architecture of the City, distinguished a type from a model, noting, The word “type” represents not so much the image of a thing to be copied or perfectly imitated as the idea of an element that must itself serve as a rule for the model . . . The model, understood in terms of the practical execution of art, is an object that must be repeated such as it is; type, on the contrary is an object according to which one can conceive works that do not resemble one another at all.5

For Rossi, the rules of type stipulated the essential principle of architectural design. He posited, “Typology presents itself as the study of types of elements that cannot be reduced further . . . The process of reduction is a necessary, logical operation, and it is impossible to talk about the problem of form without this presupposition.”6 In other words, since type was not an identical copy or model, it involved invention or design; thus, architects could employ type to not only analyse the built environment, but also to generate new ones. In this sense, a typology of landscapes in design doesn’t mean copying types of design, but distilling their rules or inner logic. Take for example a common agricultural type, the orchard, which is an intentionally planted area of trees, typically containing fruit trees or nut trees. In many cultures orchards are laid out in a regular grid in low densities to provide light and air to each tree, and to enable access for maintenance and harvesting. They can also be laid out in a quincunx pattern or along the contours of a slope, and the exact spacing of the trees will be based on their variety and where the orchard is located. Since this is an agricultural type, a consistent tree layout and spacing will determine the maximum number of trees per unit area. The trees’ need for air, water, light, and human access is fulfilled by the fact that they have this regularized layout, or what can be referred to as the orchard’s internal logic. The key starting point to employing typology as a design method starts with this internal logic. The role of typology in design was also explored in landscape architecture. Inspired by Dame Sylvia Crowe and Mary Mitchell’s book, The Pattern of Landscape (1988),7 the landscape planner and forester Simon Bell wrote Landscape: Pattern, Perception, and Process (1999).8 Bell was concerned in particular with our perception of natural patterns (such as spirals, meanders, explosions, branching, and packing and cracking) and how they were expressed in patterns created by people. Importantly, he stressed how long-term processes shaped these types of patterns. He notes, Pattern type is also determined by flow dynamics such as turbulence or eddies . . . These patterns are easy to observe in liquid. Other flows are of stress

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or energy, not directly visible, but inferred by indirect evidence such as stress fractures in wood, sand dunes produced by the wind or the structure of bones, evolved to respond to stresses, whilst minimizing the use of materials.9

Underscoring the linkage of cultural types, the landscape architects Cynthia Girling and Kenneth Helphand wrote Yard, Street, Park: The Design of Suburban Open Space to help designers and planners engaged in the design of new communities through use of a scaled networked typology.10 Their analyses of the basic building blocks of landscape types ranged from private yards to neighbourhoods to playgrounds, and local and regional park systems that are connected by corridors linking vehicular, bicycle, and pedestrian movement. Type continues to be a source of inspiration for landscape architects. In Composing Landscapes (2008) the landscape architecture professor Clemens Steenbergen stressed the transformational potential of types. He writes, three successive dynamic phases can be distinguished in transformation as a design process: decomposition (in which the historical material is investigated and the useable elements isolated); processing (in which they are once again confronted with a given situation and a new programme); and synthesis (in which a new functional and visual-spatial relationship is created).11

What if you returned to the orchard example? If you performed these three steps, what might you design?

Why typology matters Typology is important because it concerns the language of the design disciplines, whether in landscape architecture, architecture, or urban design. While these types will overlap – for example the piazza is common to both landscape architecture and urban design – it is important for students to be aware of these types. The architectural theorist Alan Colquhoun notes, “we are not free from the forms of the past and the availability of these forms . . . if we assume that we are free, we have lost control over a very active sector of our imagination, and of our power to communicate with others.”12 This statement attests to two different and equally valuable contributions made by typology: internally within the process of design and externally to the public experiencing the design. Typology concerns types specific to landscape architecture and the internal logic of these types, but it does not “advocate the reversion to an architecture which accepts tradition unthinkingly,”13 rather one that transforms the types. In this way, typological explorations can operate critically. Building upon the work of the philosopher, linguist, and critic Roland Barthes, who argued, “There is nothing more essential for a society than to classify its own languages,” and “that language is never innocent,”14 Jorge Silvetti proposed a “criticism from

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within” in his widely read essay, “The Beauty of Shadows” (1977).15 Criticism from within uses architectural language, but it also subverts its conventional linguistic usage. For Silvetti, this critique should not be a one-liner or simply commentary – it should impact the way you think about the world. This practice not only enables the designer to be reflective and critical of language, but create new, unexpected associations, exposing “certain meanings of the work that are otherwise obscured by ideological veils.”16 And this is the beauty of shadows, for, like language, shadows cast a form out of the light that is not an exact replica of the object that it portrays. Second, and importantly, non-designers often readily understand types. They have most likely experienced an orchard or an allée before. They might not know that a walkway lined with trees or tall shrubs is called an allée, but they know that this spatial type leads somewhere. A typological approach to design is also valuable to students who feel that it gives them a starting point for design, particularly for urban projects. As the urban designer David Walters and artist Linda Brown argue, “It helps establish workable patterns of urban forms and spaces quickly at the outset of a project, setting out a framework that can be enriched by the subtleties of site circumstances.”17 Typology in action Morphological types The urban theorist, painter, and architect Camillo Sitte (1843–1903) was one of the earliest critics of modern urban types, such as the “apartment-house block system,” and the forced geometries of plazas with their monuments or fountains at their centres.18 He lamented the open spaces built during his lifetime and argued, “They often serve no other purpose than to allow for more air and light, or to bring about a certain interruption in the sea of houses, at most, to provide freer views of a large building.”19 Interestingly, Sitte’s critique led him to conduct a morphological study of urban spatial types throughout Europe. The study was published as Der Städtebau nach seinem künstlerischen Grundsätzen (City Planning According to Artistic Principles) in 1889. Sitte favoured the incrementally conceived urban open spaces from the Middle Ages and Renaissance periods. To convince readers of their value he presented plan views of numerous urban plazas from these eras, showing their similarities and how practical use gave shape to their form. For example, he found that the centre of these older plazas was kept free from fountains, statues, or other monuments. He explained that these plazas were not only social spaces used for household water collection, but they also served as thoroughfares of movement across the space. Since the plazas were not initially paved, the movement of people and horses created rutted pathways crisscrossing the space. So when a fountain is to be installed, it obviously will not be set in the midst of the deeper ruts, but on any of the islands that lie between the lines of communication. If the

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community gradually grows larger and acquires wealth, then the square will be graded and paved, but the fountain remains where it stood . . . one can understand why fountains and monuments do not lie on the main axes of the traffic, not in the middle of the squares, nor in line with central portals.20

Sitte’s work was published in English beginning in 1945, and he greatly influenced postmodern urban designers, landscape architects, and architects. Yet, many typologies created by landscape architects employ plant materials, which on their own change over time, and thus alter the original type. How can typologies in landscape architecture account for these changes?

Look at the image of Oerliker Park, designed by Schweingruber Landscape Architects and Hubacher and Haerle Architects. Located on the site of former industrial lands north of Zurich, Switzerland, the park’s design accounts for morphological change. The designers created an open space system and forest, but also employed ideas from forest management – strategic interventions in the project after its initial installation – as part of their design. The park’s landscape

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4.2 Oerliker Park (2001) by Schweingruber Zulauf Landscape Architects and Hubacher and Haerle Architects, image courtesy of Grün Stadt Zürich, https:// creativecommons. org/licenses/ by-sa/3.0/deed.en, Zurich, Switzerland

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architects planned grids of 700 European Ash (Fraxinus excelsior), 104 Silver Birch (Betula pendula), 64 Wild Cherry (Prunus avium), 40 Sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua), and 33 Princess (Paulownia tomentosa) trees.21 The trees were selected for their hardiness, but also for their pattern of growth and contrasting colours. To compensate for the slender callipers of the young trees, they were spaced on a 13-foot on-centre grid around the park’s central open space. The forest management scheme for the park included a programme of thinning and eventually removing some trees to produce additional spatial volumes within the park. From 2015 to 2025, over 350 trees will be evenly removed from the southern part of the park to create a quincunx pattern. After 2025, the removal of less than 100 trees will create additional open space. Do you have any ideas what the removed trees could be used for?

4.3 Spirulina fountain (2015) by Bureau A, image courtesy of Bureau A, Parc des Evaux, Switzerland

Garden types Given the lengthy history of garden design, the chronological documentation of garden types reveals a wide variety of forms. The garden historian Tom Turner identifies 24 garden types from ancient Egypt to postmodern styles.22 Italian Renaissance gardens, known for their rectilinear, axial spaces, and linear water channels provided a point of departure for the Spirulina fountain, designed by

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Bureau A, in Geneva, Switzerland. In particular, the gravity-fed watercourses of sixteenth-century Italian gardens inspired their design. According to Bureau A, the “form and dimensions of the fountain quote the water cascades of the Villa Aldobrandini built in 1550 in Frascati, Italy.”23

What elements have remained the same and what elements have they transformed? Do you know why the water in the fountain is green?

“The fountains double as a breeding ground for spirulina, a highly nutritious blue-green algae.”24 Bureau A harvests the algae with fabric filters that trap the microalgae. Spirulina can be used to make smoothies, dips, pudding, and juice. Little feet/big feet Using the practice of binding women’s feet as an analogy for European decorative landscapes and women’s natural feet as an analogy for his vernacular agricultural typology, the landscape architect Kongjian Yu has proposed a “big foot” revolution for landscape architecture in China. According to Yu, “For most of a thousand years, Chinese girls were forced to bind their feet so they could marry citified elites, since their natural, ‘big’ feet were associated with provincial people and rustic life.”25 Yu charges that this aesthetic of the small, dysfunctional foot (women whose feet were bound could barely walk) is much like the design types imported from Europe into Chinese cities during the nineteenth century – these landscapes were decorative featuring ornamental plants and fake rocks, and they didn’t function ecologically. He notes, “The aestheticized landscape defined by the privileged urban minority prior to the twentieth century are now eagerly sought by the masses, whose peasant ancestors had struggled to become city dwellers. These migrants, just like the peasant ‘big foot’ girls, are eager to bind their feet.”26 As an alternative, Yu proposed a big foot aesthetic, whereby designed landscapes take their cues from vernacular agricultural types that function in the cultivation of crops, but also operate ecologically. Look at the landscape by Turenscape for the Yellow Dragon Cave Theatre, Wuling River, Hunan Province. The path in the image defines the edge of a polder. The polder landscape is an alternative to the disruptive dam systems that obstruct water flow along alluvial plains of the Wuling River. Turenscape’s design borrowed from a very old Chinese water and agricultural management system dating back to 2200–2100 BCE.27 This gravity-fed system allows for flow across the agricultural fields, which simultaneously reduces the impact of flooding and maintains a consistent water depth required for the rice to grow.

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4.4 Landscape for the Yellow Dragon Cave Theatre (2010) by Kongjian Yu/Turenscape, image courtesy of Kongjian Yu, Hunan Province, China

Can you see how this landscape is a version of Yu’s “Big Foot” theory? The concert hall (in the background) appears to borrow from a similar idea, do you know why the roof of the hall is slanted? Polder landscapes are not unique to China, are there other vernacular polders?

Aletheic image The architect Christian Norberg-Schulz (1926–2000) developed the theory of the aletheic image in his widely read book, Genius Loci, Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture (1980).28 Like other designers during his time, he was dissatisfied with the technocratic dimensions of modernism, and he sought to base architecture on the concept of genius loci. Norberg-Schulz’s early attempts to link phenomenology with design involved his theory of topology,29 which referred to the spatial organization of historical works of architecture and landscape architecture as it is lived. For Norberg-Schulz, through the physical exploration of historic sites topology was revealed to you. For example, Cetona, one of the many circular hilltop towns of Tuscany, Italy, is an example of topology. As you wind your way up the main street of the town you trace with your body’s movement the geomorphology of the town itself. Norberg-Schulz’s theory of the aletheic image was intended to inspire new designs grounded in the patterns of nature. Aletheic refers to Heidegger’s use of the Greek term aletheia, which means truth as revealing or disclosing encounter. Norberg-Schulz thought the rock outcroppings in the Bohemian mountains provided the aletheic image for the curvilinear façades of Bohemian architecture because of their similar formal qualities.30 Resembling the sculpted rock formations, the exterior walls of the architecture were fashioned the same way with curving edges.

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Do you think the meandering seat wall provides an aletheic image of the river?

Look at the image of Citygarden, by Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, in St Louis Missouri. Located just blocks away from the Mississippi River, the tripartite scheme of the park recalls the three different agricultural or alluvial patterns of the river. The northern precinct contains a 168-meter-long arching wall of Missouri limestone that represents the limestone river bluffs that have been carved by the Mississippi. The floodplain area is subject to the water flows of over 100 vertical water jets for children’s play. While the lowland precinct recalls one of the river’s most defining characteristics with a 351-meterlong meandering seat wall. Archetype The psychologist Carl Jung (1875–1961) advanced two conceptual layers of the unconscious – the personal and the collective. According to Jung, “The personal layer ends at the earliest memories of infancy, but the collective layer comprises the pre-infantile period, that is, the residues of ancestral life.”31 Jung posited that the content of the collective unconscious possesses universal archetypes,

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4.5 Citygarden (2009) by Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, St Louis, Missouri, USA

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which have reoccurred throughout history and culture. These Jungian archetypes could manifest themselves in personalities. The wise old man – you may have witnessed him in the character Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter series or Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, who are examples of this personality archetype. Yet, Jung also proposed the idea of transformational archetypes. These are not personalities, but are typical situations, places, ways and means, that symbolize the kind of transformation in question. For Jung, “Like the personalities, these archetypes are true and genuine symbols that cannot be exhaustively interpreted, either as signs or as allegories. They are genuine symbols precisely because they are ambiguous, full of half-glimpsed meanings, and in the last resort inexhaustible.”32 Interestingly, Jung found these symbols of transformational archetypes in the imagery of Tarot cards. While Freud viewed the act of making art as part of the process of sublimation, Jung thought the collective unconscious was inspirational for artists. Archetypes encountered in the world could trigger lost memories of the collective unconsciousness due to cryptomnesia, which means to store the memory, but forget its source. Jung provided an example of how the unconscious informed the conscious in the human psyche. A professor was walking with a student past a farm when suddenly; apparently out of nowhere, “images of his childhood began to surge up.”33 Perplexed, the professor walked back to the farm with the student and discovered the smell of geese as the source of this interruption. As a child he had spent time on a farm that had geese, whose distinct smell had formed a lasting impression. Sensing this odour as an adult, it produced the memory-images of his childhood. Jung concluded that even if we do not consciously remember a particular smell, “the unconsciousness will inhale the ‘odour.’”34 While I’m not completely convinced by the Tarot card example given by Jung, the idea that landscapes communicate subconsciously is promising, and there are certainly types of landscapes, the labyrinth for example, that reoccur across times and cultures. The landscape architect Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe (1900–1996) was inspired by archetypes and viewed landscape design as a way to communicate subconsciously to people through the design. He also thought this activity should be kept to oneself. “Tell no one, if you can, for this is a message from one subconscious to another, and the intellect spoils such things.”35 More recently, archetypes have played a role in the work of landscape architect Kim Wilkie. Look at the image of Orpheus, by Kim Wilkie at Boughton Park in Northamptonshire. The inverted grass pyramid descends 7 meters below the existing ground level where a square pool of water reflects the sky. Orpheus is the archetypal personality of the “inspired singer” and the use of water has been a transformational archetype in literature and landscapes. A journalist for the Telegraph was quite sceptical of Wilkie’s design proposal (particularly the Fibonacci symbol he created next to the inverted pyramid). Yet, once she visited the park, she exclaimed,

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Why do you think Orpheus aroused such a reaction in the journalist? But then, but then . . . You stop in your tracks and this extraordinary deep pit 50 meters square at the top opens out, with sloping terraces that lead down to a square, black pool at its base. There are times when you know you are in the presence of a great work and this was one of them. Is it partly the scale, partly the inversion of Olympus and Hades, the balance of heaven and hell, the contemplation of life and death? I cannot define what it is that trips the sensory triggers and made me stop chatting to friends, minding the rain, sneering at Fibonacci. It was bigger than everything, not just physically, but spiritually.36

Typology debated Typology has been critiqued from a number of different perspectives. The architects Lynda Schneekloth and Karen A. Franck note that the use of type in the design process relies too heavily on replicating the image of a particular type rather than employing typology (or typing) as a starting point for creating new forms and space. They state, Type is enormously useful. It explains the world to us, it makes sense for us. And it does this, usually without our having to think about it: we accept knowledge of the world structured and interpreted through type. Type is suggestive rather than true. This is its power, but also its problem. We assume the truth, and we

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4.6 Orpheus (2009) by Kim Wilkie, image courtesy of Kim Wilkie, Northamptonshire, England

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assume agreement when, in fact, this is not in the nature of typing nor of the struggle to form and change spatial practice.37

The urban designer Alex Wall thinks formal typologies are inadequate for describing and responding to current urban conditions. Unlike Sitte’s traditional cities, for example, which possess a central core and are distinct from the countryside, contemporary urbanism is polycentric and networked across regional and global spaces. Wall notes, “familiar urban typologies of square, park, district, and so on are of less use or significance than are the infrastructures, network flows, ambiguous spaces, and other polymorphous conditions that constitute the contemporary metropolis.”38 Wall also points out that these traditional urban typologies tend to accommodate limited programmes, when in fact expanding as well as densifying urban environments need a layering of diverse programming. The landscape architect Jill Desimini has proposed the idea of “development typologies” in describing Stoss Landscape Urbanism’s work in Detroit. These typologies are physical and functional and they are located in relationship to land uses that, according to Desimini, push the boundaries of traditional zoning categories to include specific visions and performance metrics . . . There are five broad categories: community open spaces which encompass traditional recreational and civic open spaces, ecological landscapes that create floral and fauna habitat, blue and green infrastructures which address storm water needs citywide, working and productive landscapes that expand existing agricultural and energy operations, and transitional landscapes that celebrate the art and event installations for which the city is known.39

The forms of these developmental typologies map onto pre-existing forms of Detroit’s urban landscape. These forms are characterized by not only the city’s abandoned infrastructure, buildings, and industry, but also its extensive gridiron street system and the low-lying lakebed plain of former ancient lakes and glacial deposits. Primary reading for typology Karen A. Franck and Lynda H. Schneekloth, Ordering Space: Types in Architecture and Design. Cynthia L. Girling and Kenneth I. Helphand, Yard, Street, Park: The Design of Suburban Open Space. Aldo Rossi, Architecture of the City. Clemens Steenbergen, Composing Landscapes: Analysis, Typology and Experiments for Design.

THEORETICAL GROUNDINGS OF SEMANTICS Man, for many philosophers both ancient and modern, is the “representational animal,” homo symbolicum, the creature whose distinctive character is the creation and manipulation of signs – things that stand for or take the place of something else.40 (William J. Mitchell, Critical Terms for Literary Study, 1990)

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Here, Mitchell claims that humans are unique for their propensity to represent, express life, not simply live life as other animals. Do other animals represent or express life? What ways do humans represent or express?

Mitchell’s claim can be traced back to the work of the neo-Kantian philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1874–1945) who thought that humans were distinct from other animals in generating symbols, and that the creation of symbols was salient to all spheres of life, ranging from language and myths to the arts and sciences. Since symbols were so ubiquitous, Cassirer proposed that they should replace reason as the unifying structure of culture.41 How symbols functioned as a language to mediate experience also figured in Cassirer’s theories. He maintained, The world of language and the world of art offer us direct proof for this prelogical structuring, for this “stamped form” that precedes and underlies the work of concepts . . . We have already made this clear in the case of language, but it holds equally for the organic nature of the arts. Sculpture, painting, and architecture seem to have a common object.42

For Cassirer, symbolic forms precede concepts and knowledge and as such symbols provide key questions in semantics – the study of meaning. Semantics is considered a forerunner and a branch of semiotics and linguistics, the study of language.43 Another important dimension of the way symbols figure in experiences as prompted by representations is the hybrid nature of their sensory and intellectual apprehension. In describing optical experiences with lines drawn on a page, Cassirer states, Such an experience is never composed of mere sensory data, of the optical qualities of brightness and color . . . as sensory experience it is always the vehicle of a meaning and stands as it were in the service of that meaning. But precisely therein it is able to perform very different functions and through them to represent very different worlds of meaning.44

Cassirer’s philosophical interest in symbols, language, and meaning influenced numerous arts, including art history and art criticism. At the Warburg Institute Cassirer’s student, Erwin Panofsky (1892–1968), brought this focus on symbolic values and semantics to art history.45 In Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance, Panofsky countered analyses based on formalism and revolutionized scholarship in art history. Panofsky took particular aim at Wolfflin’s formalist account, which held that the content of art remained the same throughout history, with only the formal aspects changing based on style. Panofsky’s approach sought to interpret the changing symbolic values of a culture, which he thought would elude art historians who only conducted formal analyses.

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Like a detective, Panofsky pursued the intrinsic meaning of symbolic values, which he claimed, “underlies and explains both the visible event and its intelligible significance.”46 To achieve this, he proposed a synthesis of formal analysis with the study of images, stories, and allegories in the accretion of meaning. He notes, “by transferring the results of this analysis from every-day life to a work of art, we can distinguish in its subject matter or meaning the three same strata.”47 These strata included the primary or natural subject matter (pre-iconographical description), the secondary or conventional subject matter (iconographical analysis), and the intrinsic meaning or content (iconographical synthesis).48 Looking at the image of the Studley Royal Water Garden, a pre-iconographical description involves identifying the forms, lines, and colours as representations of ponds as mirrors of the sky and on this cool rainy day in Yorkshire the ponds’ “expressional qualities”49 are sombre. An iconographical analysis entails the recognition of these as the Moon and Crescent Ponds of the Studley Royal Water Garden, whose realization became the prime occupation of John Aislabie (1670–1742) after he was expelled from Parliament.50 Aislabie was a subscriber to John James’s Theory and Practice of Gardening (1712), an English translation of Antoine-Joseph Dezallier d’Argenville’s Théorie et la pratique du jardinage. The book explained the design, installation, and maintenance of formal parterre gardens and it influenced the layout of the water gardens at Studley Royal starting from 1718.51 An iconographical synthesis involves the realization that Aislabie’s employment of a simple vocabulary of forms paid homage to the restrained gardens of Williamite England over the ostentatious Whig values expressed at gardens like Stowe.52

4.7 Studley Royal Water Garden, North Yorkshire, England

Do you see the different phases of analysis?

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Building upon the use of symbols, and their semantic affordances, the philosopher Nelson Goodman (1906–1998) transferred these theories to aesthetics in Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols (1968).53 For Goodman non-linguistic forms such as pictures, music, dance, and architecture referred in different symbol systems. These works possessed, “different functions and bear different relations with the worlds they refer to. Hence, artworks require interpretation and interpreting them amounts to understanding what they refer to, in which way, and within which systems of rules.”54 The linguistic versus nonlinguistic refer differently, but as the philosopher Jennifer Robinson points out, “works of art are now commonly understood as meaningful entities, with cognitive value, requiring interpretation rather than passive appreciation.”55 She also notes that Goodman, like the theorists you will read about in post-structuralism, maintains that, “language and art do not merely reflect an antecedently existing world but help to create new ones.”56 Goodman built upon Languages of Art during his career, and in 1985 he turned to analysing architecture, writing “How Buildings Mean,” a chapter that thanks the landscape architect Laurie Olin for his invaluable help. 57 Goodman states “buildings allude, express, evoke, invoke, comment, quote; that are syntactical, literal, metaphorical, dialectical; that are ambiguous or even contradictory!”58 He didn’t believe that all buildings mean, rather he sought to discover how some works of architecture function like works of art – and this is when they mean. Why semantics matters How landscapes could mean became important to a number of different practitioners in the 1980s. To some extent this interest came from exposure to earthworks, land art, and public art created by artists. These art movements were part of the wider conceptual art movement that privileged a work of art’s concept or underlying idea over its form or mimetic character. As you read about in the Material Matters chapter, earthwork artists in particular influenced landscape architects because they often shared a similar palette of materials with landscape architects, such as terrain, water, sun, shadow, plants, rocks, concrete, manufactured objects, etc. Moreover, earthwork and land artists attempted to say something about the context of their work as a source of their work’s significance. A concern with meaning also stemmed from a dissatisfaction with the overprescriptive approach to design that resulted in aesthetically dull landscapes. In 1983 the landscape architect George Hargreaves penned a brief manifesto on the future of landscape architecture, critiquing the traditional design process which he saw as (a) understand the site (emphasis on natural phenomena); (b) fit the functional program of land use; and (c) make it beautiful . . . For urban plazas there is the blond/dark brown color scheme with an asymmetric ground plane pattern

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incorporating level change, and always centered on a feature (water, sculpture, etc.) The park grounds have to be English picturesque: mounds (often the wrong scale); spatially clumped plantings; a colorful understory; and of course curvilinear water features . . . No matter how much site analysis was done, built works of landscape architecture fell into a few easy categories.59

He concluded that in the future, the expression of symbolism, mysticism, and humanism will become a preoccupation. Time, nature, and culture will serve as physical media and subject. Light, shadow, sky, rain, plants, dirt, debris, people of all types, and manmade elements that intensify and abstract what is already there will become the focus of simpler, more receptive compositions and non-compositions.60

Five years later, in his widely read article, “Form, Meaning and Expression in Landscape Architecture,” Olin critiqued design practices that ignored the connection between forms and their meaning. He thought this work offered, “at best a second- or third-hand emotional or artistic encounter.”61 Olin described how Panofsky laid the groundwork for analysing the semantic interpretation of art from the past, and how this approach was relevant to the design of landscapes. He posited that similar to the communicative interpretations of non-verbal arts, such as painting and architecture, landscapes too could be decoded and thus deliver meaning. Both Hargreaves’s and Olin’s critiques of contemporary landscape architecture prompted debate, but they also expanded the conception of design – going beyond the functionalist bubble diagram as the progenitor of design to a conception of design that explored a landscape’s ability to express and communicate to others. Goodman’s own account of why meaning matters in art and architecture also emphasized how these practices construct worlds, and contribute to their making. He concluded “How Buildings Mean” by asking, why it matters how and when a building means, I think that a work of architecture, or any other art, works as such to the extent that it enters into the way we see, feel, perceive, conceive, comprehend in general . . . A building, more than most works, alters our environment physically; but moreover, as a work of art it may through various avenues of meaning, inform and reorganize our entire experience. Like other works of art – and like scientific theories, too – it can give new insight, advance understanding, and participate in our continual remaking of a world.62

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Semantics in action Denotation Goodman’s conception of denotation concerns description and representation. For Goodman, “it involves any labelling, any application of a symbol of any kind to an object . . . Buildings are not texts or pictures and usually do not describe or depict. Yet, representation does occur in salient ways in some architectural works.” Goodman found that most frequently, “prominent parts of the building represent” rather than the whole.63 In denotation semantic movement travels from “the symbol to what it applies to as a label.”64 For example, he discovered denotation operating in the towers of Antoni Gaudí’s Sagrada Família in Barcelona because they represented nearby mountains. For Goodman, “They are revealed as startling representations when we come upon the tapering conical mountains a few miles away at Montserrat.”65 Parts of the Sagrada Família, specifically the towers, denote parts of this Catalonian mountain, particularly the geomorphology of its peaks. So what the towers of the Sagrada Familia mean, entails understanding their reference to these local mountains.

4.8 The Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família by Antoni Gaudí, image courtesy Arnaud Gaillard, https:// creativecommons. org/licenses/ by-sa/1.0/deed.en, Barcelona, Spain

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4.9 Mountains near Montserrat, image courtesy Torero from nl, https:// creativecommons. org/licenses/ by-sa/3.0/deed.en, Catalonia, Spain

Literal exemplification According to Goodman, “Whether or not a building represents anything, it may exemplify or express certain properties . . . and this is one of the major ways that architecture means.”66 Travelling in the opposite direction, exemplification moves “from symbol to certain labels that apply to it or to a property possessed by it.”67 Goodman used a fabric swatch to explain literal exemplification. A swatch of cloth exemplifies certain aspects of the cloth, not its size or cut, but certainly its texture and colour. Goodman also saw literal exemplification in architecture. He described a building, where the structure is openly visible to people, as an example of it exemplifying characteristics of its structure.68 The structure is literally supporting the building and exemplifying that fact. While Goodman uses a function of a building, the structure, that is exemplified, it need not always be a function. Look at the image of the Village of Yorkville Park, by Schwartz Smith Meyer Landscape Architects, Inc. and PWP Landscape Architecture, in Toronto. The park is located in a former nineteenth-century village (now a part of Toronto) known for its Victorian row houses. Inspired by the Victorian practice of collecting specimens from the natural world, such as bugs and plants, in collection boxes, they compartmentalized the park into discrete segments, each displaying a Canadian landscape type. In the area exemplifying the Canadian Shield (a Precambrian continental shield covering eight million square kilometers) they placed a literal chunk of this bedrock formation in the park. The rock was extracted from northern Ontario in pieces, brought to Toronto, and reassembled.

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Can you see the how the rock is like the fabric swatch described by Goodman? Are there aspects of the Canadian Shield that you can know by experiencing this park? Are there aspects of the Canadian Shield that you can’t know by experiencing this park?

Metaphorical exemplifications According to Goodman, metaphorical exemplifications are expressions, for, “not all the properties (or labels) that a building refers to are among those it literally possesses.”69 For example, he noted that a building might be “jazzy” without deploying any musical instruments. The building’s design identifies something (the forceful rhythm and improvisation of a musical genre) as being liken to something unrelated (a high-rise apartment building), thus highlighting the similarities between the two. Look at the image of the Lurie Garden, Millennium Park, by Gustafson Guthrie Nichol. With a background in fashion design, Kathryn Gustafson often

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4.10 Village of Yorkville Park (1994) by Schwartz Smith Meyer Landscape Architects and PWP Landscape Architecture, image courtesy of Turner Wigginton, Toronto, Canada

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4.11 The Shoulder Hedge at the Lurie Garden, Millennium Park (2004) by Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, image courtesy of Cynthia Girling, Chicago, USA

employs metaphors that relate to human form, but these forms are made from earth or plants.70 Gustafson started her design process by writing a list of words and phrases that she associated with Chicago. As Cheryl Kent retells, “One was ‘City of Big Shoulders’ from Carl Sandburg’s famous 1914 poem, Chicago.”71 Gustafson worked with the metaphor of the body and Chicago’s landscape history to create a series of zones: The Shoulder Hedge, The Light Plate (the prairie before Western settlement), the Dark Plate (the trees before the Chicago fire), and The Seam (the meeting of past with the present). Gustafson doesn’t think that most people will interpret these metaphors, rather they were a way “to give shape and coherence to the garden.”72 Yet, Charles Waldheim certainly made these associations. He described The Shoulder Hedge as “muscular” and “appearing to support the gleaming headdress of Gehry’s music pavilion.”73 He also noted that along with the other Plates, “together they resemble a muscular and armored torso.”74

Can you see the metaphor in the Shoulder Garden? Would you call it corporeal-like, just as Goodman found a building jazzy?

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Allusion For Goodman, allusions are chains of references made through features of architecture that allude to other examples of architecture, which might contradict each other or reinforce one another. What makes an exemplification a type of allusion is the chain of referents made through the features (organization, colour, etc.) of the design in other features of other designs. Goodman gives the example of parts of a Michael Graves building as alluding to Egyptian or Greek architecture.75 This can happen in landscape architecture as well. Look at the image of the Blue Stick Garden, by Claude Cormier, installed at Hestercombe Gardens. Originally designed for the International Garden Festival in Grand-Métis, Canada, Cormier sought to allude to the perennial border gardens designed by Elsie Reford at the historic Reford Gardens (located next to the festival site). Reford based her design on the great perennial borders of the Edwardian garden artist, Gertrude Jekyll. Trading perennial plants for wood sticks; Cormier’s garden is composed of 3,500 garden stakes. Each stake is painted blue on three sides and orange on the fourth. When you first walk into the Blue Stick Garden, you are surrounded by blue, the collective hue of the stakes. However, when you turn around to exit and expose your eye to the orange side of the stakes, the entire garden turns orange.

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4.12 International Garden Festival, Jardins de Métis/ Reford Gardens, Blue Stick Garden (2004) by Claude Cormier + Associés, image courtesy of Yvan Maltais, Jardins de Métis/ Reford Gardens, Hestercombe Gardens, Somerset, England

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What parts of the Blue Stick Garden allude to Reford’s and Jekyll’s gardens? How are movement and colour different from these gardens? Why do you think Blue Stick was resurrected in the gardens of Hestercombe?

Sensory meaning Goodman’s semantic theories included sensory experiences beyond the visual. Sensorial experiences, such as smell and touch, can contribute to cognitive interpretations of a landscape, and since landscapes are typically outside and are often intense sensory environments with changing temperature, light, smell, and wind, they can be superior vehicles for meaning. The developmental psychologist Jean Piaget (1896–1980) was one of the first psychologists to identify sense experience as a key source for our conceptual knowledge and the foundation blocks of meaning in developing children. More recently neurological studies concerning the biological foundations of consciousness in adults have also found that our senses contribute to our rational thinking; challenging the notion that knowledge cannot be derived from sensation. Marc Treib has also highlighted the contributions of sensory experience to meaning: In the past, sensory pleasures have served to condition meaning. Consider the expression of taste in the selection and arrangement of cut flowers in Japan or the ecstasy of religious experience that underwrote so much CounterReformation art and architecture. Sensory experience moved the viewer, causing him or her to reflect upon religious meaning as well as one’s position in the universe – powerful stuff indeed.76

A common strategy in using sensation as a vehicle for meaning is the emphasis on one sensorial input over others, such as a sound garden or a scent garden. Look at the image of California Scenario by Isamu Noguchi. His design denotes six different geographical areas in California, including: Forest Walk, Land Use, Desert Land, Water Source, Water Use, Energy Fountain, and The Spirit of the Lima Bean (in homage to the agricultural heritage of Southern California). The design has been criticized for not providing enough shade for visitors. I have argued that being exposed to the sun is part of the scenario; it is connected to Noguchi’s intent to communicate something about the Southern California landscape. The intensity of feeling the heat on your skin is part of its meaning. What do you think?

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Semantics debated Whether gardens and landscapes can or must mean sparked a lively debate between Laurie Olin, Marc Treib, Jane Gillette, and me.77 In short, Olin sought to explore how landscape architects might invent meaning through their design work. Describing the landscape architect Richard Haag’s work at Gasworks Park and the Bloedel Reserve, Olin noted, “many of the best works of the moment are inquiries into the validity of past expressions and their extension into the present, as well as being new and healthy creations of their own.”78 I agreed with this idea, but Treib was skeptical of the whole enterprise, particularly those who intentionally sought to design landscapes that communicate an idea. He maintained, “What the designer intends in the design may or may not be manifest, appreciated, or understood by those experiencing the place.”79 Gillette agreed with Treib, but further added that gardens were an inferior conveyor of meaning, particularly when compared to literature. Goodman (who was not part of the debate) made the point that, “Even when a building does mean, that may have nothing to do with its architecture. A building of any design may come to stand for some of its causes or effects, or for some historical event that occurred in it or on its site.”80 This is true with landscapes as well. Think of the grassy knoll associated with the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963. The grassy knoll was put into the international public consciousness, despite the fact that it was simply a grass median between the parking lot for the Texas School Book Depository and Elm Street.

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4.13 California Scenario (1982) by Isamu Noguchi, image courtesy of Marc Treib, Costa Mesa, California, USA

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Moreover, it is important to remember that the meaning conveyed by a landscape architect is not necessarily the correct one. To determine how landscapes and gardens can mean, we need to consider different perspectives involved in the construction of meaning by the design community and those using the garden or landscape. They all have variable intentions, and from a single garden they will most likely mine different interpretations. For many landscape architects, people using the landscape offer the “most correct” interpretation. The non-professional may not interpret a landscape the way a designer intended, but this does not render the landscape meaningless. Rather, it suggests multiple interpretations. There is a great deal to learn about the human imagination in comparing different interpretations, particularly regarding public landscapes. Traditionally it is the critic who writes about the meaning of gardens. Because landscape architecture magazines play an educational role for practitioners, academics, and students, critics will often describe a designer’s intentions in their analysis of the work. However, these intentions are not presented as the only correct meaning. Instead, by revealing the intent and meaning of a garden from the designer’s perspective, others may be inspired to consider similar approaches. The meaning of landscapes, as interpreted by critics, is valuable because it can situate a work of landscape architecture within the field of practice, enriching and diversifying the audience. This theory of meaning coincides with the philosopher Arthur Danto’s ontology of art. For Danto, something is art when it becomes embedded in the discourse among art critics and theorists about art. In other words, meaning is constructed amongst designers working in and writing about landscapes, by virtue of this discourse. Treib also argued that landscape architects should be less concerned with conveying meaning in their landscapes, and more involved with creating landscapes that are pleasurable to all the senses. Gillette agreed with this point and found it an important task of the designer. I think designers can communicate through their design work, but they can also provide great pleasurable places as part of their meaning. Pleasure does not need to be cut off from a landscape communicating an idea. All four critics appeared to agree on significance, which differs from meaning. Ultimately, the meanings ascribed to landscapes are often why they are cherished and maintained over time. The duration of time that can be spent experiencing a landscape makes available meaning through memory. This is a process that can lead to a landscape having great significance, a point stressed by Treib. Primary reading for semantics Ernst Cassirer, The Logic of the Cultural Sciences: Five Studies. Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols. Stephanie Ross, What Gardens Mean. Marc Treib, editor, Meaning in Landscape Architecture & Gardens: Four Essays, Four Commentaries.

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THEORETICAL GROUNDINGS OF SEMIOTICS We are able to infer from smoke the presence of fire, from a wet spot the fall of a raindrop, from a track on the sand the passage of a given animal, and so on.81 (Umberto Eco, Theory of Semiotics, 1976)

What do you think the Italian philosopher and novelist Umberto Eco means by this statement?

Eco thought the world was full of inferences. Some of these inferences were intended, some of these were unintended, and some were naturally occurring, such as the wet spot as an indicator of rain. For Eco “there exist acts of inference which must be recognized as semiotic acts.”82 Semiotics is the theory of signification, which involves both “the process of generating meaning as well as the meaning that has been produced.”83 In other words, it entails the study of signs and symbols and also their use in the interpretation of meaning, and takes language as a model instance. The linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky traced semiotic studies to the work of Enlightenment philosophers.84 However, it was Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913) who thought of semiotics as a distinct endeavour. He posited, “since language was a system of signs linguistics ought to be part of a larger science of signs” and not a subcategory of philosophy.85 In the last decades of the nineteenth century Saussure introduced his students to the term “semiologie” or semiology. You will be reading more on Saussure in the next section, regarding Structuralism. Both semiotics and semiology concern the use of language, and depending on the theorist, language could be constituted by auditory sounds, written text, films, advertisements, landscape, cars, architecture, etc. A particular given in both semiotics and semiology is the arbitrary nature of language. This book you are reading has nothing to do with the fact that it is called a “book.” The tree outside your window has nothing innately to do with the word “tree.” English speakers have only agreed to call that woody perennial plant a tree. Some students find this revelation startling because, unless you are bilingual, you are not always aware of the arbitrary assignment of meaning in language – it seems natural to call a tree a tree. However, there are some key differences between semiotics and semiology. “In contrast to semiology, which studies sign systems and their organization (e.g. traffic codes, sign language), semiotics concerns itself with how meaning is produced.”86 Semiotics greatly expanded its range of application from linguistics to “all sensory stimuli that could create another idea in the receiver’s mind”87 by including unintentional and natural sources of signs. This broadened view of semiotics was significantly advanced by the philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914). Peirce proffered his own version of signification, chiefly in a triad or three-part system of interpretant, representamen, and object. For Peirce,

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A very broad and important class of triadic characters (consist of) representations. A representation is that character of a thing by virtue of which, for the production of a certain mental effect, it may stand in place of another thing. The thing having this character I term a representamen, the mental effect or thought, its interpretant, the thing for which it stands, its object.88

Thus, the interpretant is a sentient being who uses other signs to define a sign. The representamen is a sign determined by the object, and the object is what it is meaning. For example, you (the interpretant), encounter the California Scenario plaza by Isamu Noguchi. You see various sculptural forms, plantings, and a watercourse (the representamens). Since you are a student of landscape architecture, you know this is California Scenario and these elements represent aspects of California’s geography (the object) (see Figure 4.14). Peirce’s system differs from Saussure’s binary oppositions or Greimas square (discussed in the Structuralism section) for not only its diagrammatic shape, but also the important role that interpretation plays in signification. For example, not everyone will interpret California Scenario as you did. A quick check on Yelp shows a number of different interpretations. Although many people did know that the landscape represented California, and one person even took their children there to learn about the geography of the state, multiple interpretations are good. The point is that Noguchi’s objective (to portray California’s geography) guided the design’s forms and materials, and this in turn prompted people to interpret the landscape. To understand the relationship between the sign vehicle (representamen or the signifier) and what the sign stands for (object or signified) numerous semioticians have used the philosopher John Stuart Mills’s terminology – denotation and connotation. To denote means the sign vehicle literally possesses the attributes. Yet, words carry emotional, political, and cultural associations in addition to their literal meanings, and this is what connotation tackles. To connote means to

Interpretant making sense of the sign using other signs

4.14 Charles Sanders Peirce’s semiotic triad

Representamen the form of the sign

Object that to which the sign refers

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produce the varied illusions and myths that make language appear natural. For example, green connotes the attribute of greenness (fresh, sustainable, young and naive), and denotes all things and people who possess those attributes (avocados, a landscape architect, Cleopatra regretting her dalliances with Julius Caesar when she was a young woman). Umberto Eco expanded the idea of denotation and connotation to include his theory of sign-functions, which function to mean differently depending on the socio-cultural context; thus taking on numerous meanings. In 1986 Eco published the essay, “Function and Sign: The Semiotics of Architecture,” positing that “all cultural phenomena are, in reality, systems of signs, or that culture can be understood as communication – then one of the fields in which it will undoubtedly find itself most challenged is that of architecture.”89 Eco describes three codes for architecture: the technical (beams, floors, column, etc.), the syntactic (the spatial types), and the semantic code, which concerns denotative and connotative meanings. Explaining that a throne denotes seating, but connotes royalty, he shows how architecture can denote by communicating “a possible function”90 and connote by building upon this function by symbolizing an ideological or sociological type. A room might denote a place for gathering, but it connotes, “ideologies of inhabitation (common room, dining room, parlour).”91 In landscape design, a walkway defined by an allée of mature oak trees denotes by enabling me to move from one location of the garden to another. This same walkway connotes grandeur because of the magnificent scale of the trees. It might connote a type of garden as well, a formal one. And if the trees are English Oaks they connote ideologically, as old money, since these trees are slow-growing and their maturity signals that they were planted long ago. Connotation may also involve figures of speech, which are common tropes used by writers and artists to prompt the reader’s or viewer’s imagination. A figure of speech is a word or a phrase that carries meaning differently from its literal meaning. Figures of speech are departures from the conventional denotations of words. “Often the vividness of the picture in our minds depends upon comparisons. What we are trying to imagine is pictured in terms of something else familiar to us, and we are asked to think of one thing as if it were something else.”92 Poetry employs figures of speech to help the reader visualize an idea or feeling. The landscape architect Anne Whiston Spirn argued in The Language of Landscape that figures of speech aid in the design and interpretation of landscapes. Spirn charged, “Landscape is scene of life, cultivated construction, carrier of meaning. It is language.”93 Why semiotics matters Semiotics matters because as a student of landscape architecture you will be charged with producing designs that denote and even connote to other people. Kati Lindström, Hannes Palang, and Kalevi Kull stress that the Peircean sign model is particularly useful in landscape studies because it includes the

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triad of the physical sign, the object or meaning, and our understanding of it, which describe the meaning-making process of landscape design.94 They note, “Landscapes, like languages, consist of signs, that is, independent identifiable meaningful units.”95 They also argue that semiotics, “gives a good methodological basis for discussing the relations that the symbolic and material aspects of landscapes may have for different communities. It also provides a solid descriptive framework for understanding how different communities . . . may live in different landscapes on the same physical grounds.”96 Thus, Peircean semiotics may also include the role of interpreters in producing meaning as well. Like Roland Barthes, Eco argued that semiotics is valuable to expression in numerous cultural forms. Importantly, both Barthes and Eco used semiology and semiotics critically. While Barthes employed semiology to reveal the myths contemporary to his times, semiotics in Eco’s hands is a device that divulges pre-existing cultural systems and ideological codes in both his non-fiction and fictional works. In Theory of Semiotics Eco argued, “the interpreter of a text is at the same time obliged both to challenge the existing codes and to advance interpretive hypotheses that work as a more comprehensive, tentative and prospective form of codification.”97 Consider The Name of the Rose, Eco’s first novel. Written in the genre of a detective novel, the year is 1327 and its main character, the Franciscan monk William of Baskerville, and his assistant Adso of Melk travel to an Italian monastery to debate theological issues; however, a series of deaths compel William to use his uncanny interpretive powers to solve the crimes. Probing matters of interpretation, authorship, and the polemics of meaning, Eco produced a story of historical and theological intrigue and semiotic analyses in action. “The ability to read and interpret signs recurs throughout the narrative as a leitmotif closely associated with William.”98 For Eco, William must interpret signs to solve the murder. Unfortunately, for William, he never solves the murders; thus, the truth is never discovered. Indeed, “The Name of the Rose demands that we question interpretations, and settle for something less than definitive answers,”99 a hallmark of Eco’s semiotics. While Spirn doesn’t cite Eco’s The Name of the Rose, or Gertrude Stein’s famous line “rose is a rose is a rose,” or Shakespeare’s “What’s in a name? that which we call a rose,” her chapter, “A Rose Is Rarely Just a Rose: Poetics of Landscape,” certainly alludes to the connection between literature and how landscapes can mean. Spirn demonstrates the potential of using devices, such as figures of speech, employed in literature to produce meaning in the design of landscapes. Spirn views these devices as ways of expanding the idea of landscape beyond its role as a setting for a building. She argues, “The failure to recognize the potential figurative power of landscape in its own right, not simply as a backdrop or a frame for a building is common. Yet all but a few figures and tropes some of which turn specifically on wordplay (onomatopoeia) are present in landscape architecture.”100 You will read about select examples of Spirn’s theories in the following semiotics in action.

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Semiotics in action Emphasis According to Spirn, “emphasis” in the design of a landscape can provide cues to meaning in the landscape. She notes, “Placing emphasis on one thing requires downplaying the importance of something else, and this raises questions. Why emphasize one thing over the other? And to what end?”101 In poetry, emphasis is achieved through the repetition of words or phrases. While Spirn cautions against using too much emphasis, she reveals a number of different techniques to achieve emphasis, such as placement, framing, alliteration, rhythm, exaggeration, and distortion. Look at the image of Green Varnish, in the courtyard of the Contemporary Art Museum of St Louis, by Nomad Studio. A warped layer of sedum practically fills the 200-square meter space. The landscape architects William E. Roberts and Laura Santin of Nomad are trying to communicate how we “varnish” or cover up and ignore inconvenient truths about the environment, such as climate change. According to Roberts and Santin, “Green Varnish explores the necessity of hiding inconvenient realities with polite beauty. A green fabric elegantly covers all the inopportune facts.”102

4.15 Green Varnish (2015) by Nomad Studio, image courtesy of William E. Roberts, St Louis, Missouri, USA

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In Peirce’s semiotics, what are the interpretant, the representamen, and the object in Green Varnish? How do you think distortion and exaggeration are at work here? How has the turned-up edges of Green Varnish suggested something underneath, and thus the act of covering something?

The wall reads, “We live in denial within a vanishing landscape.” Do you think they needed the quote to further communicate their idea?

Anomaly For Spirn, a landscape anomaly is one that is incongruous to its setting, time, or order. Several different types of anomalies are offered by Spirn, including an anastrophe, which “is an inversion of the normal or expected order for emphasis, or humor, or priority.”103 An anastrophe can give significance to a phrase or sentence. The Star Wars character Yoda does this frequently. In Star Wars 5: The Empire Strikes Back Yoda tells Luke Skywalker, “Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.” Do you think Yoda would sound as all-knowing if he instead said “We are luminous beings, not this crude matter”?

The first time I saw Caixa Forum Museum Vertical Garden by Patrick Blanc, I was fascinated by the numerous shrubs and grasses emerging from the side of this seven-storey building. I’ve seen plenty of Cornus sanguinea (common dogwood), but never protruding from a vertical surface. It prompted me to think about the way you conventionally view plants. Look at the image of Caixa Forum Museum Vertical Garden. Do you think as green walls become more prevalent that they will lose their ability to serve as an anomaly?

Another example of an anomaly is an anachronism. For Spirn, an anachronism involves a reinterpretation of historic forms in a current context. An anachronism is used to draw attention to history and its connection to current times. Shakespeare’s plays are often presented in different times than when they were originally written. For example, the Stratford Shakespeare Festival presented As You Like It in 2005, but the set and costumes date from the 1960s, and the music was arranged and played by the band Barenaked Ladies. The intent was

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4.16 Caixa Forum Museum Vertical Garden (2007) by Patrick Blanc, Madrid, Spain, 2007

to reveal that a comedy written in 1599 has themes that reverberate with other periods of human history. Look at Curtis “50 cent” Jackson Community Garden, in Queens, designed by the landscape architect Walter Hood. Hood asked himself “Could you make a garden in a working class community that looked like it belonged in a rich neighbourhood? What would happen if you gave them parterres, if you gave them something that looked like you needed to care for it?”104 Hood was inspired by the cutwork of the Garden of Tender Love and the colourful lettuces and vegetables in the parterres of the Potager garden, both at the garden at Château de Villandry in France. Interestingly, Villandry was designed in the twentieth century to recreate Renaissance gardens. Joachim Carvallo

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4.17 Curtis “50 cent” Jackson Community Garden (2007) by Walter Hood, image courtesy of Hood Design Studio, Queens, New York, USA

designed three main gardens at Villandry (Potager, Ornamental, and Water) to represent the hierarchical, social positions of animals, servants, and owners.105 As the landscape historian Elizabeth Barlow Rogers observes, the layout of the garden reflects Carvallo’s “own belief in class hierarchy and social order.”106 At the 50 Cent Garden, Hood combines the garden vocabulary (Potager) with the garden type (Ornamental garden).

Can you see how Hood denotes these two compartmentalized gardens in his own design for the park? What do you think Hood is connoting? Do you think he is trying to erase these divisions in his own anachronism? Hood may also be connoting something about the garden’s sponsor since Curtis Jackson is a Rapper.

Allegory In Spirn’s analysis of metaphor she identifies allegory as a figure of speech that has been used for many years in the design of landscapes. An allegory is an extended metaphor where hidden meanings are revealed to evoke stories that describe principles of right and wrong actions and the nature of human

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character. The sociologist Michel Conan argues that people’s movement through Renaissance and Baroque gardens, such as Tivoli and Versailles, involves reflection on the allegorical scenes made available by the gardens’ design and layout. He contends that their designs were instrumental in helping visitors “reflect upon their choice and discover clues that enabled them to reconstruct the metaphorical meaning attached to their decision.”107 Look at the image of Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe’s John F. Kennedy Memorial at Runnymede, which employs allegory. An acre of land overlooking the fields of Runnymede, where the Magna Carta was sealed in 1215, was given to the United States in perpetuity for the memorial. For Jellicoe, “the path sequence is an allegory of human experience of life, death, and spirit” as visitors venture from the darkness of the woodland and up to the light of the hillside.108 The allegory begins with a mown grass path cutting across a low meadow. Its mowing denotes the desire lines left by previous visitors. The path leads to the wicket gate where you enter a shadowy woodland and a steep path of 60,000 granite sets, “the wild woods of life.”109 Atop the hill, a stone monument greets the visitor. Jellicoe was insistent that the “lettering on the stone covers the whole surface, so that it is not so much an inscription upon it as an expression of the stone itself, it is as it were the stone speaking.”110 A nearby American Scarlet

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4.18 John F. Kennedy Memorial (1965) by Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe, Runnymede, England

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Oak “flames each year into November, as if to provide a salutatory reminder of man’s violent spirit.”111 To the north another stone path travels to two pairs of stairs leading up to two monumental seats with views across Runnymede and the River Thames. The view symbolizes “the opening of the landscape of hope in the allegory.”112

Can you see how Jellicoe’s design attempts to tell an allegory of life and death? Do you think that people who know nothing of Jellicoe’s intent will read anything into his design?

Paradox and irony Spirn finds the world teaming with landscape paradoxes. A paradox refers to the use of ideas that are contradictions at first glance, but upon a closer look they could be true and lead to deeper meaning.113 Irony and paradox “are closely related and often combined. Both are dualisms, but irony contrasts surface meaning and underlying reality.”114 The landscape architect Ken Smith uses irony to comment upon contemporary culture. According to the critic Nina Rappaport, Smith designs landscapes as a form of cultural criticism, and “offers an ironic view of contemporary life, imbuing his work with content in a subtle manipulation of form, material, and texture that encourage observers to perceive their environment with new meaning.”115 For Rappaport, the ironic is always suggested by the play between meanings in Smith’s work. Look at the image of WallFlowers by Ken Smith, in New York City. WallFlowers is an ongoing project of artificial flowers that Smith first developed in the bathroom of his New York City loft and years later he installed an expanded version of it on the façade of Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum. According to Smith, silk flowers were adhered with safety pins to giant flowers that he and his associates cut from brightly coloured erosion control fabrics.116 These were then attached to a scrim of fluorescent orange construction fencing that draped over the façade of the former mansion of industrial magnate, Andrew Carnegie. Smith claimed that many of his clients wanted flowers in their gardens and that “WallFlowers is my attempt to investigate the persistence of cultural interests in flowers in the context of my long-time interest in design’s simulation of nature as an art form.”117

What is the irony of using the landscape construction material to create flowers? Does this project make you think differently about the potential for erosion control fabric?

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4.19 Cooper Hewitt Triennial WallFlowers (2007) by Ken Smith Landscape Architect, image courtesy of Ken Smith, New York City, USA

Semiotics debated Like structuralism and other language-based theories, semiotics was criticized for its ahistorical stance. The sociologist Dominic Strinati argues, “codes and signs are not universally given, but are historically and socially specific to the particular interests and purposes which lie behind them . . . Meaning is manufactured out of historically shifting systems of codes, conventions, and signs.”118 Jellicoe’s memorial means differently now than it did a year after President Kennedy’s assassination. Hood intentionally used a garden motif from a garden of a wealthy doctor in a part of the city that struggles economically. A parterre de broderie does not naturally denote wealth and status; the relation is

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ontologically arbitrary as it is assigned by a particular culture. Yet, Hood’s intentions are anything but arbitrary. He knows that in Western culture these embroidered landscapes are associated with wealthy owners of European gardens. So how landscapes serve as sign vehicles is arbitrary, but why they do, is not. Within landscape architecture there have been numerous supporters of semiotics in design. The landscape architecture professor Karsten Jorgensen, for example, argues that experiences with landscapes are latent with stories and myths. He views semiotics as a valuable strategy for landscape design, and notes, designing an outdoor space becomes a semiotic action: the landscape architect produces “statements” that will be responded to by future users of the area. In a semiotic context, therefore, landscape elements no longer merely constitute the “means” or “building material” of landscape architecture, rather, they form a “repertoire” of expressions that may be used to make certain statements within an area.119

Catherine Howett in her article, “Systems, Signs, Sensibilities: Sources for a New Landscape Aesthetic,” posits that theories taken from semiotics can be applied to landscape design to tap the communicative dimensions of design. Howett notes, “A better understanding of the sign-systems available to us will contribute to a revitalized, freshened imagery in the landscapes we design.”120 She argues that such an understanding of sign-systems will lead designers beyond the conventional compositional devices that typically reproduce the pastoral landscape. She described Richard Haag’s design for Gas Works Park as an example of a landscape that communicated this new aesthetic. Gas Works Park was one of the earliest post-industrial parks to keep its hulking industrial structures as signs of its former use. For Howett, “Haag’s plan forced people to consider not just the degree of positive visual and spatial interest possessed by this relic of an outdated technology, but what its meanings might be for the community it had served for fifty years.”121 The philosopher Marcia Muelder Eaton argues that semiotics holds important implications for interdisciplinary approaches to theoretical and applied problems in landscape architecture. She contends that landscapes function like signs in natural languages and like signs they mirror cultural differences. Landscapes, she posits, signify in large part what a particular culture or subculture values more generally.122 Yet, she cautions that in using semiotics to develop new forms and aesthetics in landscape architecture, the designer must share a similar language and value with the public she is trying to communicate with. For example, the structures saved by Haag as part of his design for Gas Work Park heralded a new language for the design of post-industrial landscape, which, as you know, was repeated throughout the world. Yet, during the early years of the Gas Work Park, the public living near the park didn’t understand or like this new language. This attitude has changed, but it took a while.

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Primary reading for semiotics Umberto Eco, Theory of Semiotics. Charles Sanders Peirce, Charles Sanders Peirce: Collected Writings. Anne Whiston Spirn, The Language of Landscape.

THEORETICAL GROUNDINGS OF STRUCTURALISM Aesthetics and science. Art and ecology. Culture and nature. Architecture and landscape. City and country. Public and private. Reason and emotion. Male and female. Man and woman. Why do landscape architects so frequently describe the world and their work in pairs? Either–or. This or that. One or the other. Perhaps this tendency to rely on pairs, binary terms, reflects an essential attribute of the activities of the landscape architect who is involved in shaping and forming the land – “nature” – to accommodate human use and to embody cultural values. Or is this trait an attribute of a larger societal norm? What does it mean to structure the world into binaries?123 (Elizabeth K. Meyer, “The Expanded Field of Landscape Architecture,” 1997)

Here, Meyer is pointing out a common trope in thinking about the world and describing it – binary terms. What do you think it means to structure the world into binaries? Can you think of a landscape architecture project that expresses binary thinking as part of its design?

As a theoretical framework, structuralism holds that a set of relations structures our thoughts and that this structure can be found in language and other social and cultural phenomena. Ferdinand de Saussure founded structural linguistics, which laid the groundwork for the basic analyses of structuralism used in other fields, particularly semiotics (the study of signs and symbols and their use and interpretation).124 Saussure analysed the underlying structure of language as a system of signs. In his Course in General Linguistics (based on student notes) he posited that signs comprise the association of the signifier with the signified.125 This process is called signification. The signifier is the conveyor of meaning and the signified is what it means. Saussure was mainly concerned with words and sounds, and he primarily addressed intentional language; however, his basic premise regarding the sign was transferred to other fields, which expanded the signifier to include cultural and physical things, and unintentional and intentional acts.126 Roland Barthes used the example of a bouquet of red roses to explain signification in his book, Mythologies (1957), in which he analysed the contemporary myths of petite-bourgeoisie culture and presented them as a semiological system (which you will return to in Post-structuralism in the next section). In his example of language, the roses are the signifier; the signified

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4.20 Roland Barthes’s signification in language

language

1. Signifier a bouquet of red roses

2. Signified

passion 3. Sign

passion weighted roses

MYTH

1 SIGNIFIER

11 SIGNIFIED

111 SIGN

is the meaning or content of the bouquet of red roses, which in Western culture means passion. Together they equal the sign, which are passion-weighted roses.127 What is critical about signification regarding structuralism is the relational quality of meaning and the arbitrary nature of signs. Roses don’t naturally signal passion, they are assigned this by culture, so signs are culturally constructed. Ferdinand de Saussure notes, “Polite formulas, for instance, though often imbued with a certain natural expressiveness (as in the case of a Chinese who greets his emperor by bowing down to the ground nine times), are nonetheless fixed by rule; it is this rule and not the intrinsic value of the gestures that obliges one to use them.”128 A bouquet of red roses means passion in many Western cultures, but certainly not all cultures. It could be an insult in a culture where it is not customary to give red roses to loved ones. An important consequence of this theory maintains that the relationship between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary, so signs are arbitrary.129 By arbitrary, Saussure does not mean that “the choice of the signifier is left entirely to the speaker . . . I mean that it is unmotivated, i.e. arbitrary in that it actually has no natural connection with the signified.”130 This idea that signs are arbitrary is often attributed to deconstruction, but in fact it can be traced back to Saussure. Saussure also argued that the way you recognize a sign is relational in that it is produced by its difference from other things. For Saussure, “it is understood that the concepts are purely differential and defined not by their positive content but negatively by relations with other terms of the system.”131 Signs are understood through a network of similarities and differences. Thus, in the English language, I know the furry creature sitting at my feet is a “dog” because he is not a cat, he is not a human, he is not a space alien, and so forth. Since structural analyses tend to focus on differentials, attention is given to binary structures, a sign’s most basic opposition. Open In Up

Closed Out Down

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Ferdinand de Saussure influenced the anthropologist and ethnologist, Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908–2009), who you read about in the Material Matters chapter. Lévi-Strauss brought structuralism into his theory of culture and mind in his studies of myths as language, which radically transformed anthropology as well as other fields. He provided one of the most enduring examples of structural analysis in his book The Raw and the Cooked (1969). According to Lévi-Strauss, “Starting from ethnographic experience, I have always aimed at drawing up an inventory of mental patterns, to reduce apparently arbitrary data to some kind of order, and to attain a level at which a kind of necessity becomes apparent, underlying the illusions of liberty.”132 Lévi-Strauss sought to reveal the unconscious and hidden mental structures or patterns that gave rise to the myths he observed. He sought, “to not show how men think in myth, but how myths operate in men’s minds without their being aware of the fact.”133 Analysing mythic thought structures of the Bororo people in Brazil and Bolivia, and tribes in other South American countries, he argued that people understood the world through binary oppositions. Lévi-Strauss wanted “to establish the existence of an isomorphism between two oppositions, that of nature and culture, that of continuous and discrete quantities.”134 By identifying differential binary opposite structures (raw and cooked or moist and dry) that were common to such diverse groups of people, Lévi-Strauss aspired to reveal the basic and universal structures fundamental to all humans. Raw is something in its natural state; cooked is its modification by culture. All cultures have states of raw and cooked in their food preparation; some cultures will eat some food raw and others will eat that same food cooked, fish for example. Lévi-Strauss was not so interested in what they ate, rather how this binary structure existed for all cultures. Why structuralism matters Structuralism influenced numerous fields of study, including landscape architecture. In 1979 Rosalind Krauss adapted the Klein Group, a diagrammatic method used in structural analyses, in her essay, “Sculpture in the Expanded Field.” In this article Krauss attempted to account for the earthwork art and land art that had been emerging in the 1960s and 1970s, for she had claimed, “Sculpture had entered a categorical no-man’s-land: it was what was on or in front of a building that was not the building, or what was in the landscape but was not the landscape.”135 Referring to Perimeters/Pavilions/Decoys (1978) by the artist Mary Miss, Krauss recognized that she could no longer rely on the formalist methods of critique established by Clement Greenberg or standard historical methods, which categorized the chronological development of artwork. Instead of “elaborate genealogical trees,” Krauss suggested “the possibility of looking at historical process from the point of view of a logical structure,”136 which might account for this work. Thus, instead of describing how Miss might have been influenced by previous artists (elaborate genealogical trees) Krauss looked to structuralism. Krauss employed a semiotic square based on the Klein Group diagram, but you can warm up using the square invented by the structuralist semiotician

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Algirdas Greimas. He developed the Greimas square as a way to reveal how meaning is produced from signification, chiefly the identification of a sign (S) with its opposition, contradiction, and negation. It is based on the premise that: S1 is the sign for open S2 is the sign for closed –S1 is the sign for not open –S2 is the sign for not closed

S1 and S2 are in opposition because open and closed are opposites, and their axial movement is complex because how can something be closed and open at once? –S1 and –S2 are in opposition because not open and not closed are opposites, and their axial movement is neutral because something that is not open and not closed is neither. S1 and –S1 are contradictory because open and not open are contradictions to the same idea. S2 and –S2 are contradictory because closed and not closed are contradictions to the same idea. S1 and –S2 are complementary because open and not closed are complementary states. S2 and –S1 are complementary because not open and closed are complementary states.

(open) S1

(not open) –S1

(closed) S2

(not closed) –S2

oppositions 4.21 The basics of the semiotic square

contradictory complementary

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Inspired by this structuralist methodology Krauss noted, “Sculpture, it could be said, had ceased being a positivity, and was now the category that resulted from the addition of the not-landscape to the not-architecture. Diagrammatically expressed, the limit of modernist sculpture, the addition of the neither/not, looks like this.”137 Krauss began with neutral oppositions: Not-landscape Not-architecture Sculpture

Referring to the Klein Group, she argued, “By means of this logical expansion a set of binaries is transformed into a quaternary field which both mirrors the original opposition and at the same time opens it. It becomes a logically expanded field which looks like this.”138 I’ve added examples of built works that I think might fit Krauss’s terms.

site-construction partially buried wood shed

landscape

architecture

prospect park

the parthenon

marked sites

axiomatic structures

spiral jetty

field rotation

not landscape

not architecture

not prospect park

not the parthenon

complex both the parthenon and prospect park

neuter neither the parthenon nor prospect park

sculpture reclining figure

So instead of defining the new earthwork art as works that were specific to a particular medium, an approach advanced by Greenberg’s medium-specificity, Krauss created a field of binary oppositions, contradictions, and complements, which expanded the field of art, literally and metaphorically. Krauss not only viewed this structuralist field as a method of analysis, but also as a tool in the production of art. She argued that, “The Field provides both for an expanded and infinite set of related positions for a given artist to occupy and explore, and for an organization of work that is not dictated by the conditions of a particular medium.”139 Years later, reflecting on her use of the diagrammatic method borrowed from structuralism, Krauss stressed the generative potential of the Klein Group.

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4.22 Krauss’s Klein Group with examples

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But the universe I am mapping is not just a binary opposition, or axis; it is a fourfold field, a square. And its logic is that the generating opposition can be held steady over the whole surface of the graph, extending into the other two corners . . . This graph, of course, a Klein Group. For Lévi-Strauss, for Greimas, for structuralists generally, the interest of the Klein Group was precisely in this quality of rewriting so that what might seem the random details of cultural practice . . . emerge as a set of ordered transformations, the logical restatements of a single, generating pair of oppositions.140

While it is unclear whether landscape architects followed through in making a Klein Group diagram as part of their design process, Krauss’s interest in binary oppositions as a starting point in analysis and design influenced a wide range of designers and scholars. Elizabeth K. Meyer wrote the influential essay “The Expanded Field of Landscape Architecture” to acknowledge Krauss’s method and to explore an approach to landscape design that expanded thought beyond binary oppositions. “Landscape architecture must be allowed to speak a language that, first, avoids binaries and operates in the spaces between boundaries of culture and nature, man and woman, architecture and landscape; and second allows us to question the very premise upon which our knowledge of landscape architecture is based.”141 She thought this approach would foster a more nuanced collaboration between landscape processes and the design process where “the site and the designer are collaborators.” The landscape architect Karen M’Closkey noted that Krauss’s essay as well as the artists she featured in her essay were “extremely influential in reinvigorating the theoretical and the conceptual underpinnings of the idea of ‘landscape’ – the terms, methods, and representations around which site is constructed.”142 Indeed, at the time of Krauss’s writing in 1979, many landscape architects were reacting against, in Peter Walker’s words, the “Huge quantity of mediocre development work whose sheer size has become a symbol of the mindless market-oriented expansion of suburban development.”143 These disenchanted landscape architects looked to the art world, particularly to earthworks and land art, which were not clearly defined as sculpture, architecture, or landscape architecture. As the editors of the Journal of Landscape Architecture observed in 2013, the new possibilities for an expanded field for landscape architecture has continued into the twenty-first century.144 Structuralism in action Distance/engagement For Günther Vogt, structuralism, particularly the work of Lévi-Strauss, plays a significant role in the design process of the office.145 Describing “a structuralist mind set: the perception as a product of complex interplay between human beings and animate and inanimate nature,”146 Vogt’s work begins with

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the scientist and the poet, the researcher and the searcher, the design and analysis, panoramic and miniature, and distance and engagement – culminating in designed landscapes that ultimately synthesize binaries. Look at the image of Novartis Campus Green, in Basel. Referred to by the landscape architect Alice Foxley as a hybrid park and square of “limestone terraces and planted topography,”147 it was inspired by a field trip to the karst landscape in the Swiss Alpine region of Glarnerland. Vogt’s office studied this landscape up close (engaged) and through aerial mapping (distant). A karst is a hydrogeological formation created by the dissolution of layers of soluble rock, such as limestone. In Switzerland karsts are characterized above ground by an expansive surface terrain of limestone pavements, but below ground, they are defined by a vast network of conduits and large caves with turbulent water flow.148 Vogt translated the principles of the karst “into a hybrid language combining aspects of geological topography and texture with precise architectural geometry” in physical modes that blur analysis and design.149

4.23 Novartis Campus Green (2010) Vogt Landscape Architects, image courtesy of Günther Vogt, Basel, Switzerland

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Do you see how the built project blurs geological topography and architectural geometry?

4.24 The Bagel Garden (1979) by Martha Schwartz, image courtesy of Alan Ward, Boston, USA

Familiar/strange Pop exploits the binary perceptions of the familiar and the strange. The term was coined by the artist Richard Hamilton in 1957. Penned in a letter to the architects Alison and Peter Smithson, regarding an exhibition, Hamilton wrote that pop art, “is Popular (designed for a mass audience), Transient (short-term solution), Expendable (easily forgotten), Low Cost, Mass Produced, Young (aimed at youth), Wicked, Sexy, Gimmicky, Glamorous, Big Business.”150 Pop art has been a rich source for architects, such as Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi, as well as landscape architects because it employs objects designed for a mass audience. As Adriaan Geuze claims “I love pop art because it’s about mass society. After all, I work in Randstad, where around six million people live in a very small area. There is not a single square meter that has not been worked at least ten times.”151 Indeed, Martha Schwartz, Claude Cormier, Ken Smith, and Adriaan Geuze have all created gardens and landscapes in the vein of the familiar and strange. “Penetrating the mechanics of signification,” Umberto Eco argues that, “the pop operation consists of taking a particular aspect of this civilization of

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signs, objects, and images and transposing it.”152 He notes, “an object exists: this object in its normal context; has a meaning. I take it into another context and it changes its meaning . . . Russian formalist called this ostranenie, which can be translated as ‘making strange’ and at once we are forced to read it by a different code.”153 Eco offers several ways of transposing, including multiplication, such as the serial reproduction with variation as seen in Andy Warhol’s Marilyn and insertion “the real object into another manipulated context.”154 This is precisely what Martha Schwartz did in her temporary installation, The Bagel Garden. Look at the image of this garden. As you can see, the hedges of this residential yard enclose 96 lacquered bagels (a mixture of salt and pumpernickel) laid out upon a ground of coloured gravel normally used for aquariums. The Bagel Garden appeared on the January 1980 cover of Landscape Architecture magazine. In her article she explained that the bagels were “locally made, shade tolerant, inexpensive, and low maintenance.”155 How has Schwartz transposed the real into another manipulated context?

Syntagmatic/paradigmatic Barthes identified two axes of language in Saussure’s theory: the syntagmatic and the paradigmatic (or associative). The syntagmatic plane is an analysis of syntax (rules or principles governing sentence structure). It “is a combination of signs in a chain of speech where each term derives its value from its opposition to what preceded and what follows.”156 The paradigmatic plane involves analysis of the signifying system where the signs are based on association. Look at Figure 4.25 showing how the syntagmatic axis runs horizontally, so meaning arrives via the positioning of the signifiers, here verbs and nouns. Turner helped the ladybug has a different meaning than the ladybug helped Turner, and certainly Mohit caught the cougar is different from the cougar caught

syntagmatic

u ".;::::;

ro E Cl '6 ~ ro C.

Turner

helped

the lady bug

Zinnia

saw

the leopard

Mohit

caught

the cougar

Dom

walked

the dog

4.25 Syntagmatic and paradigmatic analysis

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Mohit. Paradigmatic runs vertically and meaning is derived from a set of similar types of signifiers, people, verbs, and animals that are differentials. Barthes also thought that these differentials send messages about different cultural contexts and customs as well. Turner could be in a garden, Zinnia might be at a zoo, Mohit could be in the forest, and Dom might be in his neighbourhood. This is because many Western cultures associate ladybugs with gardens, leopards with zoos, cougars with forests, and dog walking with neighbourhoods. Barthes was known to apply his theories to everyday life encounters, from fashion to cuisine to architecture. He refers to the syntagmatic and the paradigmatic in a building, noting each linguistic unit is like a column in a building of antiquity: this column is in a real relation of contiguity with other parts of the building, for instance the architrave (syntagmatic relation); but if this column is Doric it evokes in us a 4.26 Cattedrale Vegetale (2002) by Giuliano Mauri, image courtesy of Pava, https:// creativecommons. org/licenses/ by-sa/3.0/it/deed.en, Valsugana, Italy

comparison with other architectural orders, the Ionic or the Corinthian; and this is a potential relationship of distribution (associative relations).157

Along similar lines, look at the image of Cattedrale Vegetale at Arte Sella, in Valsugana, Italy. In 2001, the artist Giuliano Mauri arranged 80 hornbeam saplings in a series of wood frames that each form a column of a church nave. Over time, the framework helps shape the hornbeam trees, but this dead wood will eventually rot away leaving the trees to form the nave.

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Can you see how the hornbeam trees and frame serve as linguistic units in an instance of syntagmatic? Can you see the associations made with churches in Italy as examples of paradigmatic?

Structuralism debated Critics have questioned the structuralists’ insistence on synchronic methods, which focused on the systemic association of relations, and their neglect of diachronic approaches, which emphasize historical development through cause and effect chains or historical processes. The literary critic Terry Eagleton, for example, warned against strict structuralist approaches. Eagleton argued, For the hardest forms of structuralism they were universal, embedded in a collective mind which transcended any particular culture, and which Lévi-Strauss suspected to be rooted in the structures of the human brain itself. Structuralism, in a word, was hair-raisingly unhistorical: the laws of the mind it claimed to isolate – parallelisms, oppositions, inversions and the rest – moved at a level of generality quite remote from the concrete differences of human history.158

Lévi-Strauss’s use of structuralism was also critiqued for ignoring the power of people to assert meaning in their own world, “and to attempt to alter them in different ways. Just as it is impossible to understand culture without taking history into account, so it is easily impossible to understand it without taking account of human agency.”159 Returning to the signification of red roses, I could start a movement of giving loved ones bouquets of daisies, if I really wanted, no? This was a point of contention in Lévi-Strauss’s theoretical battle with Sartre. While the two intellects shared similar interests in dialectical processes, Sartre’s existentialism countered two main themes cogent to Lévi-Strauss’s brand of structuralism – history and freedom. Lévi-Strauss’s structuralism was in reaction against historical and evolutionary methods used in anthropology. For the human rights lawyer Bernard E. Harcourt, “the structuralism of Lévi-Strauss offered a theoretical avenue that valued other cultures, especially non-Western cultures . . . By studying non-Western cultures and praising them, Lévi-Strauss was offering a living example of the value of the Other.”160 In this sense, LéviStrauss sought to demonstrate how you and the tribal people of South America are the same because you share universal structures of the human mind. Yet, according to Bernasconi, Sartre, “Above all, wanted to show that if one takes existing society as a given, one overlooks the history which creates that society, and in particular one overlooks the extent to which human beings make society by their activity . . . Society is a set of human relations and it would be better to understand the individual as constituted by those relations than vice versa”.161 Thus, for Sartre, studying non-Western people is not enough, for if we ignore

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how people in the West historically formulated non-Western people as Other, we will fail to learn from the problems with creating categories such as the Other, and how Others might free themselves from this category. This highlights Sartre’s problem with freedom in the structuralism advanced by Lévi-Strauss. For Sartre, Lévi-Strauss downplayed the self as an agent in society in order to pursue the study of universal structures that the individual re-enacted. Structuralism was also a reaction against existentialism, which privileges individual experience and choice. “In sharp contrast to structuralism, which begins from the intersubjectivity of shared meaning, the point of departure for existentialism is the individual meaning giver”162 in relation to others. Sartre thought that it was not the invariant structures of the human mind that you and I share as humans, but freedom, and the responsibility toward freedom once you have realized your bad faith. The Sartrean term, “bad faith,” is a lie to oneself that is made to avoid responsibility towards freedom.163 Sartre explains the theory of bad faith by way of the enthusiastic waiter, who acts like being a waiter with overenthusiastic comments about the food, quick movements that produce a serviette on your lap, and an unchecked eagerness to serve. For Sartre, these behaviours typify a waiter, they are not what the waiter as a human is actually thinking about the restaurant or the customers, or the food served. “Sartre believes that we are in bad faith if we do not seek freedom for all, because it amounts to deceiving ourselves about the nature of freedom.”164 Within landscape architecture, Meyer ultimately cautions against binary oppositions, particularly man and nature, as they have gendered nuances with the coding of woman as nature.165 As I argued in On Landscapes, “woman– nature coding” has served to both legitimize and confine the role of women in society, as Other to be interpreted and protected. When women are aligned with nature, they may be excluded from culture.166 Indeed, binary categories are often thought of today as oppressive; think of the transgender movement that has questioned the very basic binary terms of male and female. As Meyer points out, binary terms should lead to hybrid states and they should “allow us to question the very premise upon which our knowledge of landscape architecture is based.”167 It is precisely these goals that post-structuralists would champion. Primary reading for structuralism Roland Barthes, Elements of Semiology. Rosalind Krauss, “Sculpture in the Expanded Field.” Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics.

THEORETICAL GROUNDINGS OF POST-STRUCTURALISM Post-structuralism is not a unified theory or school of thought, but rather a descriptor for a set of critiques proposed by individuals (some who were originally structuralists, like Roland Barthes). Many critics are considered post-structuralists,

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4.27 Structuralism versus post-structuralism

structuralism

post-structuralism

derived from

linguistic models

continental philosophy

attitude towards structures

fixed structures shape thought and meaning

structures are arbitrary

universal truths

shared among all humans

rejection of universal truths

thought patterns

can be reduced to basic categories

plurality and relative to culture

your identity

bound by universal structures

mediated by culture and media

priority given to

author

reader

relationship to

anti-humanism

posthumanism

methods

synchronic (ahistorical)

ideologically situated, critical

associated with

modernism

postmodernism

but I will limit my discussion to the theories of Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. As the prefix “post” suggests, post-structuralism critically expanded the semiological study of meaning with regard to language, the arbitrariness of the sign, the fact that you are not always aware of structures operating in society, and that differences and similarities form structures. Yet, poststructuralism also reacted against many tenets of structuralism (see Figure 4.27). The origins of post-structuralist thought are often attributed to the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900). In particular, Nietzsche’s critique of truth, his emphasis on interpretation and differential relations of power and his attention to questions of style in philosophical discourse thus became central motifs within the work of the post-structuralists as they turned their attention away from the human sciences and towards philosophical critical analysis.168

One of the earliest critics of structuralism was Jacques Derrida (1930–2004), who invented deconstruction, which sought to challenge assumptions made in Western metaphysics. Derrida conceived of deconstruction in three different ways from 1967 to 2004; eventually employing it to prevent violence and render justice as his work increasingly turned to questions of politics and ethics.169 However, his first version of deconstruction probed the linguistic assumptions in Saussurean structuralism. Derrida agreed that signs were arbitrary; yet, he also thought that the network of signs and meaning was not fixed or stable. This instability of meaning was part of Derrida’s critique of the Western philosophical practice of privileging speech over writing in the dialectical process. This process held that written words represented speech; thus, speech was more proximate to thought than writing.170 Derrida exposed the problems with this supposition by examining spoken versus written expressions. Might

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and mite, for example, have different meanings, but this is only revealed in written form, not when spoken. If I say the words out loud, another person may not know what I am referring to – the power wielded by someone or sesame seedsize arachnid. “The difference in spelling is ‘written,’ for it can only be read not heard; when spoken the difference is lost.”171 Furthermore, distinguishing mite from might depends heavily on context. For Derrida, another problem with the dialectical process was the assumption that the progress of knowledge emerged from opposing forces – good and evil, man and woman, nature and culture. Yes, binary thinking again. In “Speech and Writing According to Hegel” (1971) Derrida examined Georg Ludwig Hegel’s (1733–1799) dialectical method. Hegel, like Plato, privileged speech over writing and, according to Derrida, Hegel’s attempts to overcome the false constructions of dualisms were hindered by his privileging of speech. For Derrida “the pre-eminence of the phoni is one with the essence of metaphysics.”172 Like structural analyses, philosophy also employed binary oppositions and Derrida charged that these oppositions were not in “peaceful coexistence of a vis-à-vis, but rather with a violent hierarchy. One of the two terms governs the other (axiologically, logically, etc.), or has the upper hand.”173 Thus, to deconstruct this hierarchy Derrida invented the strategy he called, “différance,” which is a play on the verb différer, meaning both to differ and to defer. Différance makes evident that the relationship between the signified and the signifier is continually and indefinitely differing and deferring. It is due to this infinite process that texts are said to have no stable meaning. Deconstruction “negates any intrinsic meaning of the texts and locates meaning only outside of it,”174 denying any stable, intrinsic meaning. Another critique levelled at structuralism was the universality of structures. As a structuralist Lévi-Strauss sought to find patterns that could be found in the wilds of South America as well as suburban London. He thought as humans we share the same patterns of thought. As Harcourt points out, Foucault, who was troubled by this idea, asked, “What does it mean that we find patterns and closed systems of meaning?” and “how is it that any one interpretation becomes convincing and at what price?”175 In other words, how do you come to understand that something is true and what do you give up when you believe that it is true? To answer this question Foucault turned to a discursive history, in Discipline and Punish (1975; 1977) and History of Sexuality (1976; 1978). “On Foucault’s account, modern control of sexuality parallels modern control of criminality by making sex (like crime) an object of allegedly scientific disciplines, which simultaneously offer knowledge and domination of their objects.”176 Using his method of genealogy, Foucault showed that knowledge about institutions, such as prisons, and sexuality are not the result of a progressive unfolding of influences and causes – perspectives that unify these historical entities and their progress. On the contrary, “Foucault’s point is rather that, at least for the study of human beings, the goals of power and the goals of knowledge cannot be separated: in knowing we control and in controlling we know.”177 For example,

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he argued that the very construct of childhood was used to control and produce what society thought human nature, as a biological phenomenon, should be.178 Knowledge, for Foucault, cannot be separated from power because those in power institute norms, through knowledge in the sciences, for example, and you internalize and monitor to ensure that you conform to those conventions. In other words, the price you pay for believing and internalizing these norms is your identity. Describing herself as a “practical Marxist–feminist–deconstructionist,” Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak proposed that deconstruction could unmask powerful binary oppositions and reveal their hidden oppressive hierarchies, which privileged a gendered subjectivity. “Subjectivity encompasses individual consciousness, emotions, and unconscious thoughts and desires,” and since this subjectivity was almost always male and Western, individuals who did fall into this category were silenced.179 Spivak translated Derrida’s De la grammatologie into English and later she wrote the highly influential essay, “Can the Subaltern Speak?”180 that helped define postcolonial studies. The term “Subaltern” was coined by the Marxist theoretician and politician Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) to describe people who are economically dispossessed and subject to the hegemony of the ruling classes. Building on the work of both Derrida and Foucault, as well as Edward Said’s theory of orientalism, Spivak applied the term Subalterns to those people formerly under colonial power, who are still subjected to its legacy. She showed how the banning of Hindu practices, such as sati, revealed a silent Subaltern in the history of colonial India. Sati is the traditional practice whereby wives can commit suicide after their husband’s death by self-immolation. She argued that the British colonizers were horrified by this practice, and while they thought they were saving Hindu women from Hindu men, they failed to ask Hindu women about their own opinions regarding this act. Thus, Spivak revealed a chasm between the more nuanced understanding of this historical practice as understood by the colonized and the discourse generated by the colonizers. Spivak also took aim at those in the West who engaged in Subaltern Studies. As a female born in Calcutta and teaching in academic institutions in the United States, she cautioned, “the intellectual has to learn to be critical of her own roles in patriarchal culture and postcolonial theory and unlearn her approach to the subject.”181 In other words, when Western intellectuals speak for Subalterns they are seemingly unaware that they are re-inscribing the colonial hegemony of the ideology of Other. Why post-structuralism matters Post-structuralism ultimately challenged some of the most basic premises of structuralism, and so modernism. According to philosopher Alan D. Schrift, post-structuralist thinkers reflected the “Nietzschean–Freudian–Marxists spirit of the times . . . they turned away from the social sciences and towards a philosophical–critical analysis of writing and textuality (Derrida); relations of

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power, discourse, and construction of the subject (Foucault),” and the exposé of the gendered subjectivity and the hegemonic legacy of colonialism (Spivak).182 This criticality prompted other disciplines (including landscape architecture) to question given conventions and attitudes that defined individual practices. The philosopher Christopher Norris notes, “Deconstruction neither derives nor really flees the common sense view that languages exist to communicate meaning. It suspends that view for its own specific purposes of seeing what happens when the writs of convention no longer run.”183 Since the “weakening of the ‘real’ (an original, authentic, stable referent, experience, and meaning) is both a topic and an effect of postructuralist inquiries,”184 basic assumptions in design, such as the connection between function and form, the role of experience in interpretation, and the incorruptibility of landscape as nature were challenged. Post-structuralist theories are valuable because they have the potential to not only critique landscape architecture projects, but also the project of landscape architecture. The broader and more critical notion that post-structuralist theories might reveal and disrupt assumptions in landscape architecture – its conventions, myths, and placement in culture – has been explored in historical accounts of landscape architecture, in particular. In 1994 the landscape architect Heath Schenker posited that the history of landscape architecture has been described to students as a series of works by “master designers” – almost exclusively male.185 Using Norman T. Newton’s classic textbook, Design on the Land (1971), as an example she showed how attempts to rewrite women into this conventional approach to history in effect marginalized women’s contributions. Newton’s method, similar to many historians before him, echoed art historical practices, which focused on the chronological development of periods (the Baroque, then the Picturesque, etc.) and the genius designer who defined the epoch (Le Notre, Vanbrugh). Since women were denied status as “prodigal designers,” in history, there were few women to discuss in a history of landscape architecture. As an alternative, Schenker examined nineteenthcentury Birmingham, England, through a feminist historical lens that included actions beyond the role of genius designer in the creation of landscapes. Thus, by challenging the conventional approach to telling the history of landscape architecture, she was able to provide a more inclusive history that included both men and women. More recently, histories of women and landscape architecture have been explored. In 2015 Sonja Dümpelmann and John Beardsley compiled a history of women and modern landscape architecture in their book, Women, Modernity, and Landscape Architecture. Post-structuralism in action Deconstruction The architect Bernard Tschumi was one of the first designers to link Derrida’s deconstruction to the design of a landscape by involving Derrida in his winning proposal for the Parc de la Villette competition. Tschumi’s scheme for the park

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involved a combination of points (the roughly 10 x 10 x 10-meter bright red follies), lines (paths and thematic gardens), and planes (large expanses of grass, gravel, and water). Instead of using a more common ordering principle, such as symmetry, Tschumi assembled these features in layers. While points, lines, and planes defined the geometrical features of early geographic information systems in the 1970s, Tschumi’s layering was not used for analytical purposes. The folly structures themselves provided Tschumi with a key example of deconstruction and post-structuralist thinking regarding the sign. According to Tschumi, the “strict repetition of the 10 x 10 x 10 meter folly is aimed at developing a clear symbol for the park, as strong as the British telephone booth or the Paris Metro gates.”186 He also charged that the follies meant nothing because they were signifiers (images) rather than signified (the idea).187 This proposition was supported by Derrida’s essay “Point de folie maintenant l’architecture,” which accompanied Tschumi’s portfolio La Case Vide: La Villette. While the park had yet to be constructed, Derrida validated the follies as embodiments of the urge to deconstruct; thus, aligning the park’s design with deconstruction. Derrida claimed, “These follies destabilize meaning, the meaning of meaning, the signifying ensemble of this powerful architectonics. They put in question, dislocate, destabilize or deconstruct the edifice for their configuration.”188 Thus, by denying the follies the very basic requirement of a programme, Tschumi was deferring their meaning, and destabilizing the very notion that structures should have a function.

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4.28 Folly by Bernard Tschumi for Parc de la Villette (1987), image courtesy of Dominic McIver Lopes, Paris, France

Language 䊏

Look at the image of one of the follies. While they were intended to accommodate no prescribed function, over the years they have been used and interpreted in various ways. One folly is now home to a Hamburger Quick Restaurant and Wikipedia says the follies serve to orient people in the park. Différance reveals the relationship between the signified and the signifier as continually and indefinitely differing and deferring, denying any intrinsic meaning of the follies.

Do you see the différance in Tschumi’s approach to the follies? Do you think that by not programming these follies, people visiting the park could use and interpret these structures on their own accord?

Textuality Both Derrida and Foucault described the “textuality” of human experience in their post-structuralist theories. The historian Saul Cornell surmises, “Derrida expands the text to encompass all areas of human activity, while Foucault effectively shrinks the text to a mere affect of discourse.”189 For Derrida, textuality asserts that the meaning of a text is not authorized by the writer, or, in landscape architecture, by the landscape architect – rather there should be multiple interpretations. After his involvement with the Parc de la Villette competition ended, Derrida claimed that it was the individual architect who was in need of deconstruction. He posited, “deconstruction is never individual or a matter of the single, self-privileged authorial voice. It is always a multiplicity of voices . . . And you can take this as a rule: that each time deconstruction speaks through a single voice, it’s wrong, it is not deconstruction anymore.”190 In a different vein, “Foucault treats particular texts as the products of larger structures of meaning and power which he labels discourses. Foucault sees all human activity shaped by discourses, which become the means by which various fields of human knowledge are constituted, organized, and enforced.”191 This idea of textuality stresses the culpability of language to stand in for meaning – a condition that establishes a need for critical interpretation. “Objects of study such as historical events, institutional practices, or cross cultural relationships may therefore be seen as systems of signs to be deciphered and interpreted, rather than as realities to be recorded.”192 Look at the image of DIN A4 at the German Institute of Standards in Berlin. Designed by Richard Weller with Cornelia Müller and Jan Wehberg, this courtyard serves mainly as a viewing space from the offices above. According to Weller, the main feature of the design is an A4 piece of paper “scaled up to become a 16 x 7 meter black granite slab tilted from a height of 1.5 meters . . . The enlarged A4 granite slab not only bears the institute’s (DIN) letter head, but also stainless steel letters and signs beginning with Babylonian script that appear to tumble down the page.”193 The Deutsches Institut für Normung e.V. (DIN) or the

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4.29 DIN A4 (1993) by Richard Weller in Association with Müller Knippschild Wehberg (MKW) landscape architects, image courtesy of Richard Weller, German Institute of Standards, Berlin, Germany

German Institute for Standardization, established the sizes of paper used in all types of offices, as well as tens of thousands of standards for technology, urban development, and energy logistics. Do you think DIN is a discourse in Foucault’s sense of the term?

The Latin letters, A, H, S, U, F, M, T, in particular can be seen above, and emphasize Derrida’s idea of textuality. Do you think they spell something? What do you think this means? Weller revealed that the letters speak “of Babel and the entire efforts of language as the standardized system to be meaningfully attached to the phenomenal world . . . we were asked if the massive brooding stone tablet held a cryptic message. It does not.”194

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Why do you think they did not make words from the letters? Equally important, why would you think that a written element of an alphabet should be telling you something? What does that say about textuality?

Third space The postcolonial writer Homi K. Bhabha’s theory of “third space” proposes an alternative to the dichotomies of colonizer/colonized, master/servant, Christian/ Hindu, or other oppositional power relations. He posited that sites of enunciation and representation – including the geographical imagination – are examples of these spaces where individuals and cultures interact. He gave the example of Hindu peasants in northern India who were asked by Christian colonists to convert to Christianity. For Bhabha, it would be easy to interpret this as simply a binary situation between “a muscular colonial Christianity that was keen to convert and an indigenous religious tradition that resisted conversion,” but what Hindu peasants did was “produce supplementary discourses as sites of resistance and negotiation.”195 The Hindu peasants replied that they would be happy to convert, but they could only believe the colonists if they admitted that they didn’t eat meat. In effect, for Bhabha, “That which was given is reinscribed and transvalued, so that the Christian missionary has to relocate his doctrinal position. A phrase that was . . . doctrinally secure becomes retranslated in its colonial enunciation, and opens up another site for the negotiation of authority, both symbolic and social.”196 One of Bhabha’s approaches to third space involves hybridity whereby the “signs of cultural memory and sites of political agency”197 are redrawn. According to Bhabha the hybrid moment is when the “transformational value of change lies in the rearticulation, or translation, of elements that are neither . . . but something else besides, which contest the terms and territories of both.”198 In their book, Deccan Traverses, the architects and landscape architects Anuradha Mathur and Dilip da Cunha describe how the East India Company, through both scientific and artistic endeavours, constructed the identity of Bangalore as the “Garden City of India.” Mathur and da Cunha reflect on some of the beautiful remnants of this garden city legacy today. However, they also observe, Of course, there was another side to these projects, the side that used things they singled out and knowledge that they constructed to administer a foreign hand. Here, survey fixed boundaries and defined properties for the purpose of revenue; sketches and paintings were a means of statistical documentation; plant studies and introductions served the company’s economic objectives. These were colonial enterprises and they served not merely to exploit, but also to construct the land, its image, and its self image.199

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In their examination of the colonists’ maps, texts, sketches, and other imagery, Mathur and da Cunha found that the voice of the colonized had been marginalized in the construction of its identity as a garden city. Moreover, local knowledge had been disregarded in the colonists’ understanding of the Indian subcontinent’s hydrology and geomorphology. One example is the colonists’ confusion over the Deccan Plateau, an area known as the land of a thousand tanks. Prior to colonization, tanks had been constructed to collect rain and run-off while “bunds” or embankments were built across swales.200 Together, bunds and tanks functioned as an evenly distributed system. However, the colonial engineers insisted that the flow of water moved hierarchically, like a natural system, with water moving from tributaries to larger flowing waters. Mathur and da Cunha note, “contrary to the engineer’s view there is no dominant water course in the land of a thousand tanks . . . it was more political than physical, dependent on managed sluices more than natural resources.”201 Look at the drawings produced by Mathur and da Cunha. Which drawing is the re-inscribed practice and which drawing is the colonial engineer’s conception of the Deccan Plateau?

4.30 From Deccan Traverses: The Making of Bangalore’s Terrain by Anuradha Mathur/ Dilip da Cunha, image courtesy of Anuradha Mathur/Dilip da Cunha

4.31 From Deccan Traverses: The Making of Bangalore’s Terrain by Anuradha Mathur/ Dilip da Cunha, image courtesy of Anuradha Mathur

Why do you think Mathur and da Cunha wanted to create this map? Do you see the maps as a third space?

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Post-structuralism debated Derrida’s deconstruction, and its perceived conflation of language and thought, has been one of the most debated theories among the post-structuralist propositions. The architectural theoretician Robin Evans argued that since deconstruction concerned the study of language and writing, there emerged “some confusion about whether architecture is being made like language or the study of language.”202 Indeed, much discussion focused on the role of the signifier and the signified, components in the analysis of language more than the way one might choose to write. Echoing a similar sentiment, the philosopher Edward Winters posited, “the study of languages as whole systems independent of their actual uses is an abstraction away from the life of language.”203 In other words, when language is studied as a conceptual system of the signifier, the signified, and the sign, it will not tell you much about the language as a lived experience. Moreover, experiences with landscapes cannot always be described as an abstract play of the signifier, the signified, and the sign. The cognitive scientist Steven Pinker argued that language was not the same as thought, “not the only thing that separates humans from other animals, not the basis of all cultures, and not an inescapable prison house, an obligatory agreement, the limits of our world, or the determiner of what is imaginable.”204 He also condemned semioticians who viewed the storehouse of knowledge in the human brain as couched in words and sentences. He asked: “What did you read on the page before this one? I would like to think that you can give a reasonably accurate answer to the question.”205 Try it, really.

Now try to write down the exact words you read on those pages. Chances are you cannot recall a single sentence verbatim, probably not even a single phrase. What you remembered is the gist of those passages – their content, meaning, or sense – not the language itself. Cognitive scientists model this “semantic memory” as a web of logical proposition images, motor programs, strings of sound, and other data structures connected to one another in the brain.206

However, the biggest debate over deconstruction involved the architect Peter Eisenman and Derrida himself. After Tschumi had won the Parc de la Villette competition, it was decided that the planes in his scheme would be divided into smaller gardens designed by different architects and landscape architects (and are very popular today). Tschumi brought Eisenman and Derrida together to co-design one of these gardens. Their collaboration on the garden entailed approximately seven meetings and numerous correspondences from 1985 to early 1990. Initial accounts of the design collaboration were positive for both Eisenman and Derrida. In 1988 Derrida wrote, “Why Eisenman Writes Such Good Books,” but he admitted that he initially thought “the discourse would be

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my realm and that architecture ‘properly speaking’ – places, space, drawing, the silent calculation, stones, the resistance of materials – would be his.”207 In turn, Derrida decided to design his own element for the garden, a gilded metal object that “at once would resemble a web, a sieve, or a grill (grid).”208 As revealed in their book, Choral L Works (1997), their collaboration suffered from misunderstandings on the nature of the design project and deconstruction. What disturbed Derrida the most was “Eisenman’s reliance on traditional rhetorical modes,” the very binary and dialectical processes that Derrida critiqued.209 Derrida also struggled to engage Eisenman in a discussion on the actual garden. In April 1986, Derrida pleaded with Eisenman, “I understand in a very abstract way, but why don’t you explain the physical aspects.”210 By 1989 their collaboration had completely deteriorated. The project was over budget and their garden scheme had taken over other designers’ gardens. While we will never know the true extent of their relationship, correspondences between Derrida and Eisenman (published in 1990 in Assemblage and later in Choral L Works) attest to a bitter and complex relationship. Derrida pleaded to Eisenman, “I would have spoken perhaps of my own displacement in the course of ‘choral work’ but here it is you who must speak . . . When did we begin to work together, had we never done so, on this Choral Work that is not yet constructed but that one sees and reads everywhere? When will we stop?”211 A few months later Eisenman quipped, “perhaps what I do in architecture, in its aspirations and in its fabric, is not what could properly be called deconstruction.”212 Undoubtedly referring to their garden project, Eisenman also wrote, “you see, Jacques, when you leave your own realm, when you attempt to be consistent, whatever that might mean in architecture, it is precisely then that you do not understand the implications for deconstruction in architecture – when deconstruction leaves your hands.”213

Was Eisenman correct, that Derrida should not be the sole author of deconstruction?

Primary reading for post-structuralism Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology. Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference. Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality 1: An Introduction.

NOTES 1. Bronwen Martin and Felizitas Ringham, “Language,” Key Terms in Semiotics (London: Continuum, 2006), 113. 2. Paul Ricoeur, “The Model of the Text: Meaningful Action Considered a Text,” From Text to Action: Essays in Hermeneutics, II, trans. Kathleen Blamey and John B. Thompson (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1991), 144–183 (160).

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3. Sylvia Lavin, “The Republic of the Arts,” Quatremère de Quincy and the Invention of a Modern Language of Architecture (New York: MIT Press, 1992), 158–175. 4. Rafael Moneo, “On Typology,” Oppositions 13 (Summer 1978): 22–45. 5. Antoine Chrysostôme Quatremère de Quincy, quoted in Aldo Rossi, Architecture of the City (New York: MIT Press, 1984), 40. 6. Ibid., 41. 7. Sylvia Crowe and Mary Mitchell, The Pattern of Landscape (Chichester: Packard, 1988). 8. Simon Bell, Landscape: Pattern, Perception, and Process (New York: E & FN Spon, 1999). 9. Ibid., 22. 10. Cynthia L. Girling and Kenneth I. Helphand, Yard, Street, Park: The Design of Suburban Open Space (New York: Wiley, 1994). 11. Clemens Steenbergen, Composing Landscapes: Analysis, Typology and Experiments for Design (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2008), 297. 12. Alan Colquhoun, Modernism in the Classical Tradition: Architectural Essays 1980– 1987 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989), 74. 13. Ibid. 14. Roland Barthes, Writing Degree Zero, trans. Annette Lavers and Colin Smith (New York: Editions du Seuil 1953, 1968), 16. 15. Jorge Silvetti, “The Beauty of Shadows,” Oppositions 9 (1977): 43–61. 16. Ibid., 45. 17. David Walters and Linda Brown, “Devices and Designs: Sources of Urbanism,” Design First (Oxford: Architectural Press, 2004), 83–93 (85). 18. Christiane Crasemann Collins and George R. Collins, Camillo Sitte, the Birth of Modern City Planning (New York: Rizzoli, 1986). 19. Ibid., 143. 20. Ibid., 160. 21. Gina Crandell, Tree Gardens: Architecture and the Forest (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2013). 22. Tom Turner, Garden History: Philosophy and Design 2000 BC–2000 AD (Abingdon: Spon, 2005). 23. Designboom, “Spirulina Fountain by Bureau A Acts as Cultivating Garden Folly in Geneva,” accessed 21 January 2016, www.designboom.com/architecture/bureaua-spirulina-fountain-garden-folly-parc-des-evaux-confignon-geneva-01-16-2015/. 24. Ibid. 25. Kongjian Yu, “The Big Foot Revolution,” Designed Ecologies: The Landscape Architecture of Kongjian Yu, ed. William S. Saunders (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2012), 42–49 (42). 26. Ibid., 44. 27. Catherine Seavitt, “Yangtze River Delta Project,” Scenario 03: Rethinking Infrastructure, Spring 2013, accessed 21 January 2016, http://scenariojournal.com/ article/yangtze-river-delta-project/. 28. Christian Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci, Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture (New York: Rizzoli, 1980; 1979). 29. See Christian Norberg-Schulz, Intentions in Architecture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1966; 1965). 30. Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci, Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture, 98. 31. Carl Gustav Jung, Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 7: Two Essays in Analytical Psychology, eds. and trans. Gerhardt Alder and R.F.C. Hull (New York: Bollingen, 1972, 1953), 77. 32. Ibid., 38.

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䊏 Language

33. Tjeu van den Berk, Jung on Art: The Autonomy of the Creative Drive (New York: Routledge, 2012), 4. 34. Ibid. 35. Geoffrey Jellicoe, “Jung and the Art of Landscape: A Personal Experience,” Denatured Visions: Landscape and Culture in the Twentieth Century, eds. Stuart Wrede and William Howard Adams (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1991), 124. 36. Mary Keen, “New Landscape at Boughton: Kim Wilkie’s Gateway to the Underworld,” The Telegraph, 7 August 2009, accessed 22 April 2015, www.telegraph.co.uk/ gardening/gardenstovisit/5988456/New-landscape-at-Boughton-Kim-Wilkiesgateway-to-the-underworld.html. 37. Karen A. Franck and Lynda H. Schneekloth, “Type: Prison or Promise,” Ordering Space: Types in Architecture and Design, eds. Karen A. Franck and Lynda H. Schneekloth (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1994), 15–38 (30). 38. Alex Wall, “Programming the Urban Surface,” Recovering Landscape, ed. James Corner (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999), 233–249 (235). 39. Jill Desimini, “Wild Innovation: Stoss in Detroit” Scenario 03: Rethinking Infrastructure (Spring 2013), accessed 22 April 2015, http://scenariojournal.com/ article/wild-innovation-stoss-in-detroit. 40. William J. Mitchell, “Representation,” Critical Terms for Literary Study, eds. Frank Lentricchia and Thomas McLaughlin (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 11–22 (11). 41. Edward Skidelsky, Ernst Cassirer: The Last Philosopher of Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), 49. 42. Ernst Cassirer, The Logic of the Cultural Sciences: Five Studies, trans. Steve G. Lofts (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), 19–20. 43. Winfried Nöth, Handbook of Semiotics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 103. 44. Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms: Volume 3 The Phenomenology of Knowledge (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1957), 200. 45. Michael Ann Holly, Panofsky and the Foundations of Art History (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984), 44. 46. Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance (New York: Harper & Row, 1972, 1939), 5. 47. Ibid. 48. Ibid., 14–15. 49. Ibid., 5. 50. Tessa Goldsmith, Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Souvenir Guidebook (The National Trust, 2011), 36. 51. John Aislabie, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, accessed 11 July 2014, www.oxforddnb.com/view/printable/252. 52. See Tim Richardson, The Arcadian Friends: Inventing the English Landscape Garden (London: Bantam, 2008). 53. Nelson Goodman Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1968). 54. Alessandro Giovannelli, “Goodman’s Aesthetics,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), accessed 22 January 2016, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2010/entries/goodman-aesthetics/. 55. Jennifer Robinson, “Nelson Goodman,” The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics, third edition, eds. Berys Gaut, and Dominic Lopes (New York: Routledge, 2013), 179–189 (179). 56. Ibid. 57. Nelson Goodman, “How Buildings Mean,” Reconceptions in Philosophy and Other

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58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88.

89.

90. 91. 92.

Arts and Sciences, eds. Nelson Goodman and Catherine Z. Elgin (Cambridge, MA: Hackett, 1988) 31–48 (31). Ibid., 33–34. George Hargreaves, “Postmodernism Looks Beyond Itself,” Landscape Architecture 73, no. 6 (1983): 60–65 (63–64). Ibid., 65. Laurie Olin, “Form, Meaning, and Expression in Landscape Architecture,” Landscape Journal 7, no. 2 (1988): 149–168 (151). Goodman, “How Buildings Mean,” 48. Ibid., 36. Ibid. Ibid., 34. Ibid., 36. Ibid. Ibid., 37–38. Ibid., 40. Leah Levy, Kathryn Gustafson: Sculpting the Land (Washington, DC: Spacemaker Press, 1998), 9. Cheryl Kent, Millennium Park Chicago (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2011), 108. Ibid., 109. Charles Waldheim, Constructed Ground: The Millennium Garden Design Competition (Urbana: University of Illinois, 2001), 18. Ibid. Goodman, “How Buildings Mean,” 42. Marc Treib, “Must Landscapes Mean? Approaches to Significance in Recent Landscape Architecture,” Landscape Journal 14, no. 1 (1995): 46–62 (60). See Marc Treib, ed. Meaning in Landscape Architecture & Gardens: Four Essays, Four Commentaries (London: Routledge, 2011). Ibid., 69. Ibid., xii. Goodman, “How Buildings Mean,” 43. Umberto Eco, Theory of Semiotics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976), 17. Ibid. Martin and Ringham, “Signification,” Key Terms in Semiotics, 186. Steven Pinker, Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language (New York: Basic Books, 1999), 10. Jonathan Culler, The Pursuit of Signs: Semiotics, Literature, Deconstruction (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981), 22. Martin and Ringham, “Semiotics,” Key Terms in Semiotics, 175. Russell Daylight, “The Difference between Semiotics and Semiology,” Gramma: Journal of Theory & Criticism 20 (2012): 37–50 (37). Charles Sanders Peirce, Charles Sanders Peirce (1931–58): Collected Writings, eds. Charles Hartshorne, Paul Weiss, and Arthur W. Burks (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 303. Umberto Eco, “Function and Sign: The Semiotics of Architecture,” Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory, ed. Neil Lech (London: Routledge, 1997), 182–202 (182). Ibid., 183. Ibid., 194. Carl E. Bain, Jerome Beaty, and J. Paul Hunter, The Norton Introduction to Literature, third edition (London: W. W. Norton, 1981; 1973), 650.

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93. Anne Whiston Spirn, The Language of Landscape (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), 15. 94. Kati Lindström, Hannes Palang, and Kalevi Kull, “Semiotics of Landscape,” The Routledge Companion to Landscape Studies, eds. Peter Howard, Ian Thompson, and Emma Waterton (New York: Routledge, 2013), 97–105 (97). 95. Ibid., 98. 96. Ibid., 105. 97. Eco, Theory of Semiotics, 129. 98. Christoph Prang, “The Creative Power of Semiotics: Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose,” Comparative Literature 66, no. 4 (2014): 420–437 (422). 99. Barry Schwabsky, “Semiotics and Murder: A Review of The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco,” The New Criterion, September 1983, accessed 22 January 2016, www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Semiotics-and-murder-6303. 100. Spirn, The Language of Landscape, 216. 101. Ibid., 217–218. 102. Nomad Studio, “Green Varnish,” World Landscape Architecture, accessed 22 January 2016, http://worldlandscapearchitect.com/green-varnish-by-nomad-studioat-contemporary-art-museum-st-louis/. 103. Spirn, The Language of Landscape, 225. 104. Publically Engaged Architecture, “Baisley Park,” Tumblr, 8 May 2013, accessed 22 January 2016, http://anethere.tumblr.com/post/22686092385/baisley-park-jamaicaqueens-ny-walter. 105. Kenneth Woodbridge, “Doctor Carvallo and the Absolute,” Garden History 6, no. 2 (1978): 46–69 (50–51). 106. Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, “Landscape and Cityscape as Aesthetic Experience: The Arts and Crafts Movement and the Revival of the Formal Garden,” Landscape Design: A Cultural and Architectural History (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2001), 375–401 (384). 107. Michel Conan, “Landscape Metaphors and Metamorphosis of Time,” Landscape Design and the Experience of Motion, ed. Michel Conan (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2003), 287–317 (297–298). 108. Jellicoe, “Jung and the Art of Landscape: A Personal Experience,” 126. 109. Michael Spens, The Complete Landscape Designs and Gardens of Geoffrey Jellicoe (London: Thames & Hudson, 1994), 92. 110. Ibid., 96. 111. Ibid., 92. 112. Ibid., 94. 113. Spirn, The Language of Landscape, 229. 114. Ibid. 115. Nina Rappaport, “Landscapes as Cultural Criticism,” Ken Smith Landscape Architect: Urban Projects, ed. Jane Amidon (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006), 133–137 (133). 116. Ken Smith, Ken Smith: Landscape Architect (New York: Monacelli Press, 2009), 176–177. 117. Ibid., 174. 118. Dominic Strinati, An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture (London: Routledge, 1995), 110. 119. Karsten Jorgensen, “Semiotics in Landscape Design,” Landscape Review 4, no. 1 (1998): 39–47 (44). 120. Catherine Howett, “Systems, Signs, Sensibilities: Sources for a New Landscape Aesthetic,” Landscape Journal 6, no. 1 (1987): 1–12 (8). 121. Ibid., 9.

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122. Marcia Muelder Eaton, “Responding to the Call for New Landscape Metaphors,” Landscape Journal 9, no. 1 (1990): 22–27 (22). 123. Elizabeth K. Meyer, “The Expanded Field of Landscape Architecture,” Ecological Design and Planning, eds. George F. Thompson and Frederick R. Steiner (New York: John Wiley, 1997), 45–79 (45). 124. John T. Waterman, “Ferdinand de Saussure – Forerunner of Modern Structuralism,” Modern Language Journal 40, no. 6 (October 1956), 307–309 (307). 125. Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, eds. Charles Bally, Albert Sechehaye with Albert Riedlinger; trans. Wade Baskin (New York: Philosophical Library, 1959), 66. 126. Daylight, “The Difference between Semiotics and Semiology,” 42. 127. Roland Barthes, Mythologies, trans. Annette Lavers (New York: Hill and Wang, 2001, 1957), 113. 128. Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, 68. 129. Ibid., 67. 130. Ibid., 69. 131. Ibid., 117. 132. Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Raw and the Cooked (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1969), 10. 133. Ibid., 12. 134. Ibid., 28. 135. Rosalind Krauss, “Sculpture in the Expanded Field,” October 8 (Spring, 1979): 30–44 (36). 136. Ibid., 44. 137. Ibid., 36. 138. Ibid., 37. 139. Ibid., 43. 140. Rosalind E. Krauss, The Optical Unconscious (New York: MIT Press, 1993), 14. 141. Meyer, “The Expanded Field of Landscape Architecture,” 51. 142. Karen M’Closkey, “Introduction,” Unearthed: The Landscapes of Hargreaves Associates (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 1–23 (3). 143. Peter Walker, “The Practice of Landscape Architecture in Postwar United States,” Modern Landscape Architecture: A Critical Review, ed. Marc Treib (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993), 250–259 (255). 144. Bernadette Blanchon-Caillot, Kamni Gill, Karsten Jørgensen, Bianca Maria Rinaldi, and Kelly Shannon, “Editorial Landscape Architecture in an Expanded Field,” Journal of Landscape Architecture (2013): 4–5 (4). 145. Günther Vogt, “Foreword: Between Search and Research,” Distance & Engagement: Walking, Thinking and Making Landscape, ed. Alice Foxley (Zurich: Lars Müller, 2010), 7–23 (10). 146. Ibid., 16. 147. Alice Foxley, “Novartis Campus Green,” Distance & Engagement: Walking, Thinking and Making Landscape, 97–133, (97). 148. International Association of Hydrogeologists, “About Karst Hydrogeology,” accessed 22 January 2016, http://karst.iah.org/karst_hydrogeology.html. 149. Foxley, “Novartis Campus Green,” 110. 150. Rachel Cooke, “Richard Hamilton: A Masterclass from the Father of Pop Art,” 14 February 2010, accessed 22 January 2016, www.theguardian.com/ artanddesign/2010/feb/14/richard-hamilton-interview-serpentine-cooke. 151. Udo Weilacher,“Hyperrealistic Shock Therapy Adriaan Geuze,” Between Landscape Architecture and Land Art (Basel: Birkhäuser, 1996), 229–244, (232). 152. Umberto Eco, “Lowbrow Highbrow, Highbrow Lowbrow,” Pop Art: The Critical

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153. 154. 155. 156. 157. 158. 159. 160.

161. 162. 163. 164. 165. 166. 167. 168. 169.

170. 171. 172. 173. 174.

175. 176.

177. 178. 179.

180.

Dialogue, ed. Carol Anne Mahsun (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Research Press, 1989), 219–231 (220). Ibid., 223. Ibid., 225. Tim Richardson, The Vanguard Landscapes and Gardens of Martha Schwartz (London: Thames & Hudson, 2004) 149. Roland Barthes, Elements of Semiology, trans. Annette Lavers and Colin Smith, twelfth printing (New York: Hill and Wang, 1968), 58. Ibid., 59. Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction, 2nd revised edition, anniversary edition (New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 94–95. Strinati, An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture, 121. Bernard E. Harcourt, “An Answer to the Question: What Is Poststructuralism?” The Law School, University of Chicago, March 2007, note 10, accessed 22 January 2016, www.law.uchicago.edu/files/files/156.pdf, 15. Robert Bernasconi, How to Read Sartre (New York: W.W. Norton, 2006), 96. Harcourt, “An Answer to the Question: What Is Poststructuralism?” 9. Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology, trans. Hazel E. Barnes (New York: Philosophical Library, 1956), 67. Bernasconi, How to Read Sartre, 59. Meyer, “The Expanded Field of Landscape Architecture,” 49. Kate Soper, “Nature/’nature,’” Futurenatural: Nature, Science, Culture, ed. George Robertson et al. (London: Routledge, 1996), 28. Meyer, “The Expanded Field of Landscape Architecture,” 51. Alan D. Schrift, “Introduction,” Poststructuralism and Critical Theory’s Second Generation (New York: Routledge, 2014), 1–17 (6). Leonard Lawlor, “Jacques Derrida,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, accessed 18 June 2009, http://plato.stanford.edu/ archives/spr2014/entries/derrida/. Christopher Norris, Deconstruction Theory and Practice (London: Routledge, 1991), 30. Joseph Adamson, “Différence,” Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory, ed. Irena R. Makaryk (Toronto: University of Toronto, 2000), 534. Jacques Derrida, “Speech and Writing According to Hegel,” 1971, accessed 22 July 2009, http://hydra.humanities.uci.edu/derrida/hegel.html. Jacques Derrida, Oppositions, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1982): 41. Hanna Buczynska-Garewicz, “Semiotics and Deconstruction,” Reading Eco: An Anthology, ed. Rocco Capozzi (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), 163– 172, (167). Harcourt, “An Answer to the Question: What Is Poststructuralism?” 17–18, 20. Gary Gutting, “Michel Foucault,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2014 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, accessed 30 October 2015, http://plato.stanford. edu/archives/win2014/entries/foucault/. Ibid. Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality 1: An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Vintage/Random House, 1990), 104. Victoria Walker, “Feminist Criticism, Anglo-American,” Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory: Approaches, Scholars, Terms, ed. Irene R. Makaryk (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 39–44 (42). Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, eds. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 66–111.

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181. Nancy Arden McHugh, Feminist Philosophies A–Z (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), 137. 182. Schrift, “Introduction,” 6. 183. Norris, Deconstruction Theory and Practice, 128. 184. Zsyzsa Baross, “Poststructuralism,” Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory: Approaches, Scholars, Terms, ed. Irene R. Makaryk (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 158–162 (158–159). 185. Heath Schenker, “Feminist Interventions in the Histories of Landscape Architecture,” Landscape Journal 13, no. 2 (1994): 107–112. 186. Bernard Tschumi, “The La Villette Competition,” Landscape: The Princeton Journal of Thematic Studies in Architecture 2 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Architectural Press, 1985), 201. 187. Ibid., 181. 188. Jacques Derrida, “‘Point de folie – Maintenant’ architecture from Bernard Tschumi, La Case Vide: La Villette 1985,” Architecture Theory since 1968, ed. K. Michael Hays (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998), 574. 189. Saul Cornell, “Splitting the Difference: Textualism, Contextualism, and Post-Modern History,” American Studies with American Studies International 36, no. 1 (1995): 57–80 (59). 190. Christopher Norris, “Jacques Derrida in Discussion with Christopher Norris,” Architectural Design Deconstruction II (London: Academy Group, 1989), 11. 191. Cornell, “Splitting the Difference: Textualism, Contextualism, and Post-Modern History,” 59. 192. Manina Jones, “Textuality,” Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory: Approaches, Scholars, Terms, ed. Irene R. Makaryk (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 641–642 (641). 193. Richard Weller, Room 4.1.3: Innovations in Landscape Architecture (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), 144. 194. Ibid. 195. Homi Bhabha, “Interview with William J.T. Mitchell,” Artforum 33, no.7 (1995): 80–84. 196. Ibid. 197. Homi K. Bhabha, “Introduction,” The Location of Culture (New York: Routledge, 1994; 2004), 11. 198. Ibid., 41. 199. Anuradha Mathur and Dilip da Cunha, Deccan Traverses: The Making of Bangalore’s Terrain (New Delhi: Rupa, 2006), 3. 200. Anuradha Mathur and Dilip da Cunha, “Waters Everywhere,” Design in the Terrain of Water, eds. Anuradha Mathur and Dilip da Cunha (Philadelphia: Applied Research + Design Publishing with the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, 2014), 8. 201. Mathur and da Cunha, Deccan Traverses: The Making of Bangalore’s Terrain, 105. 202. Robin Evans, Translations from Buildings to Drawings and Other Essays (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997), 124–125 (125). 203. Edward Winters, “Architecture,” The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics, eds. Berys Gaut and Dominic McIver Lopes (London: Routledge, 2001), 519–530. 204. Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (New York: Viking, 2002), 208. 205. Ibid., 210. 206. Ibid. 207. Jacques Derrida, “Why Eisenman Writes Such Good Books,” Rethinking Architecture: A Cultural Reader, ed. Neil Leach (London: Routledge, 2001), 338. 208. Ibid., 342.

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209. Jeffrey Kipnis, “Twisting the Separatrix,” Assemblage 14 (1991): 31–61 (45). 210. Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman, Chora L Works, eds. by Jeffrey Kipnis and Thomas Leeser (New York: Monacelli Press, 1997), 82. 211. Jacques Derrida, “Letter to Peter Eisenman,” trans. Hilary P. Hanel, Assemblage 12 (1990): 6–13 (7–8). 212. Peter Eisenman, “Post/El Cards: A Reply to Jacques Derrida,” Assemblage 12 (1990): 14–17 (17). 213. Ibid.

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5

SYSTEMS LOGIC

A system is an array of interrelated or interdependent elements that form a complex whole, and it has spatial and temporal boundaries that can be open, closed, or fluid. Historically, landscape architects have taken a deep interest in natural systems because they are frequently part of what constitutes a designed landscape. Designers have also probed if they are part of the system or in control of it. Systems played a key role in the topic of the first chapter, Forming, because understanding a landscape as a system can involve identifying patterns and forms that are a result of processes in a landscape system. McHarg thought, for example, that by understanding how natural systems operated, you could design with nature, and that the analysis of nature would lead to the most appropriate forms. By the 1990s the idea that design was resolved by creating forms was questioned as the notion of “strategy” emerged as an approach with no singular answer, but rather a series of outcomes where the designer’s response was only one of the many facets of the design process.

THEORETICAL GROUNDINGS OF SYSTEMS THEORY AND CYBERNETICS Compare the two drawings. How are they different? What different types of conclusions can you draw about a tree from the two different diagrams? Systems theory is rooted in General Systems Theory (GST) and cybernetics.1 As an alternative to reductionism, systems theory became highly influential during the twentieth century in the sciences, math, sociology, arts, and of course landscape architecture. Systems theory was initially promoted in the sciences as an alternative to scientific methods modelled upon work in physics.2 The goal was to replace the reductionist methods of physics with the study of life systems and, thus, exchange machine metaphors for organic ones. According to Gerald Midgley, an organizational theorist, the problem with mechanistic metaphors is their insistency that “all things in the world (including human beings, organizations and societies)

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Oxygen expelled light energy,

transpiration

Carbon Dioxide absorbed

of water twig

transport of carbohydrates branch limb

from leaves

transport of water. nutrients up tree

trunk

water and Oxygen absorbed

water uptake and food storage

5.1 Tree

5.2 Tree

are like clockwork toys. If we can figure out how they work, then we will be able to change them according to our will, within the limits of the natural laws that they conform to.”3 Alternatively, organic metaphors imply a living structure or organization, a tree instead of a toy, which adapts and changes over time. Even meta-theories like evolution were reconceived to “embrace the idea that organisms co-construct their world rather than passively adapting to it, resulting in the conclusion that organisms are part of what they observe, not separate from it.”4 Biologists, in particular, sought to replace machine thinking with systems thinking. The biologist Karl Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901–1972), for example, promoted GST as the foundation for understanding all living organisms. 5 Von Bertalanffy thought GST should supersede Descartes’s ‘Bête machine,’ which explained life by means of physics and chemistry.6 Indeed, Descartes’s model was ill-fitted to describe the self-organizing biological systems that were nonmechanistic. In contrast to the closed system of chemistry or physics, von Bertalanffy envisioned a unified theory that considered systems as complexes of interacting elements, open systems that interacted with their environments. While a biologist by training, his generous definition of a system extended to both human and non-human entities, and inquiry in both the humanities and the sciences. This breadth of scope also further defined systems theory as an interdisciplinary research project. A systems approach is more appropriate to studying living organisms because these organisms are open processes that continuously interact with

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their surroundings. For example, if I wanted to study the effects of air pollution on plants, a systems approach would involve an analysis of the plants’ interactions with air movement, soil, water, microbes, nearby plants, sunlight, climate change, etc. In other words, I would investigate the systems that make plant life possible, and this would prompt me to consider the plants as living organisms, not as machines. I would also most likely consult with professionals in other disciplines due to the varied interactions that plants need to thrive. Since landscape architects deal with sites containing multiple natural and cultural processes, systems theory has been advanced by numerous professionals. Echoing the lament of von Bertalanffy, McHarg claimed, “Architects used to say, ‘form follows function.’ This was a kind of manifesto, always illustrated by inorganic systems like utensils and planes and rockets . . . If one looks at organic systems, I think one would have to adapt the statement and say, ‘form expresses process,’ or better still, ‘Process is expressive.’”7 In keeping with systems theory, McHarg also enlisted a multitude of professionals, such as ecologists, foresters, and hydrologists, to collaborate on his landscape architecture projects. Known for his advancement of the map overlay method, which was a precursor of computerized Geographic Information Systems (GIS), McHarg sought to document an exhaustive set of information in an attempt to know a site or a region in its totality. His plan-view overlay drawings distinguished different layers of systems (soils, hydrology, vegetation, etc.) while the content within each layer was spatially isolated and weighted for its suitability for development. The darkest gradations of tones represented areas with the highest value and the lightest tones indicated areas with the least significant value. All of the mapped layers were then superimposed to create a composite map that in McHarg’s words looked something like a “complex X-ray photograph with dark and light tones.”8 Light areas revealed locations that should be developed, while dark areas should be saved from development. McHarg was also influenced by cybernetics. Like systems theory, cybernetics is an explanatory theory concerned with the communication and control of organic and inorganic systems. While it is often debated whether cybernetics is a branch of systems theory or vice versa, a significant feature of cybernetic theory is the introduction of the circular causality of feedback loops.9 The mathematician Norbert Wiener (1894–1964) developed the theoretical foundations for cybernetics during the Second World War when he invented a computational device to predict the location of enemy aircraft – an anti-aircraft predictor or AA predictor. “As the AA predictor came to fruition, Wiener came to see it as the articulated prototype for a new understanding of the human–machine relation, one that made soldier, calculator, and fire-power into a single integrated system.”10 This new understanding of human–machine relations influenced an array of people in different fields, especially the ecological theories of Eugene Odum in his classic book, Fundamentals of Ecology.11 The introduction of feedbacks were vital to anticipating change in ecological systems because positive feedback increased the rate of transformation, while negative feedback decreased

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the rate of transformation. Thus, if you could model these feedbacks you could forecast and control landscape change.12 While McHarg gravitated to cybernetics for its ability to control ecosystem change, Lawrence Halprin was inspired by cybernetics’ inclusion of chance as a way of relinquishing control in the design process. Influenced by his wife, the dancer and choreographer Anna Halprin, as well as the emerging cybernetic art of the 1960s,13 Halprin developed “scores” as part of his design process with design professionals, students, and community members. Holding summer programmes for landscape architecture and architecture students, Halprin, in his own words, “wanted them to deal directly with structures in space and to experience the relationship of bodily movement as a major force in design. This was quite different from the usual visual importance they had been concentrating on in their architectural classes.”14 Scores entailed both the singular instructions for individuals and a set of master instructions (revealed to the participants at the conclusion of the workshop) that described the process. While Halprin devised the scores himself, the individual scores and the interactions created through enacting the scores were open to interpretation. According to the landscape designer Margot Lystra, “the open score foregrounded temporal uncertainty, thereby offering a significant departure from the traditional plan, section, and perspective drawings, which were spatially explicit and highly prescriptive.”15 Scores led to Halprin’s development of the RSVP cycles theory, with “S” standing for scores. Ann Komara notes, in RSVP “R” represents human and physical materials, motivations, and aims. “V” stands for Valuation or the analysis and resulting action or what Halprin would describe as the “feedback.” Lastly, “P” represents Performance, the result of the Scores and the style of the process, whether drawing, dance, or a structure made of driftwood.16 Why systems theory and cybernetics matter Systems theory and cybernetics are important to landscape architecture because they take into account process over time. While McHarg and Halprin championed cybernetics for divergent reasons, they both emphasized design process over the end result. Since cybernetics is an explanatory theory it has enabled them to validate their end results by documenting these processes as rationale for their design decisions. McHarg’s was inspired by the natural sciences and his design process sought objectivity in design decision-making, while Halprin’s process was inspired by dance and choreography, so he included people’s subjective feelings as well as his own experiences with natural systems as part of the design decision-making process. The philosopher Darrell Arnold has observed, “systems theory played a levelling role in the fundamental distinctions between humans and animals on one hand, and the organic and inorganic on the other.”17 Indeed, McHarg’s inclusion of the ecological sciences sought to bring the full breadth of natural systems at play on a site or region. For McHarg, natural systems, such as soil formation, had the same right to occupy a layer on his map overlay system as human systems, such as housing values.

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Alternatively, Halprin’s approach attempted to equalize the role of the designer and non-designer in the design process. Systems theory and cybernetics in action Regenerative landscapes Developed by the landscape architect John T. Lyle, regenerative landscapes go beyond preserving or conserving natural systems to integrate and revive natural and human processes in a cyclical system. For Lyle, regenerative landscapes provided an alternative to linear, one-way systems. “Eventually a one-way system destroys the landscape in which it depends. The clock is always running and the flows always approaching the time when they can flow no more. In its very essence, this is a degenerative system, devolving its own source of sustenance.”18

5.3 Shanghai Houtan Park (2010) by Turenscape/ Kongjian Yu, image courtesy of Kongjian Yu, Shanghai, China

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Look at image of Shanghai Houtan Park by Turenscape. By the twenty-first century this 14-hectare alluvial plain along the Huangpu River had reached Lyle’s state of degeneration. The site had been home to a former steel factory and shipyard, and its water received a “water quality ranking of Lower Grade V, the worst on a scale of I–V, and is considered unsafe for swimming and recreating, and is devoid of aquatic life.”19 Turenscape regenerated the living biological and cultural systems of the site, including water filtration and treatment, flood management, habitat creation, food production, and education opportunities. Inspired by the agricultural terraces of China, a planted stepped landscape oxygenates the nutrientrich water, and absorbs suspended sediments and pollutants from the water – performing the natural functions of wetlands. These stepped terraces also accommodate the movement of people who can now reach the river’s edge.20

How is this park a regenerative landscape? If the park had been planted with Yu’s definition of “little feet,” from the Language chapter do you think it would still be considered regenerative?

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5.4 Landscape Park in Riem (2005) by Latitude Nord, Munich (district of Riem), Germany

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Deep forms In 1991 John Lyle wrote the widely read article, “Can Floating Seeds Make Deep Forms?”21 As Joan Hirschman Woodward notes, his question asks readers to think of landscape architecture as floating seeds that disperse, lodge, and sometimes take root, giving physical, designed expression to a particular time and place. If designs are inextricable from the pulse of the landscape processes, such as the flows and cycles of water, soil, wind, energy, and species, they may create deep form.22

Look at the image of Landscape Park in Riem (BUGA Park), formally the MunichRiem airport, by Latitude Nord. Thousands of planted trees take their diagonal formation from regional biophysical processes and cultural practices, such as farming, that also follow this direction. According to the landscape theorist Gina Crandell, By looking at maps of the hydrology and woodland composition of the region, the landscape architects discovered that the largest blocks of existing woodland, as well as the River Isar . . . are both oriented diagonally from the northeast to the southwest. The organization of vernacular field patterns and pathways that overlaid this geography left a similar diagonal imprint on the landscape before the airport was built. Even the primary runway for the former airport followed this direction.23

How do you think the trees are like Lyle’s floating seeds?

Cyborgs The term cyborg, or cybernetic organism, was coined by Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline in the 1960s to describe astronauts that could operate in outer space. “The purpose of the Cyborg, as well as his own homeostatic systems, is to provide an organizational system in which such robot-like problems are taken care of automatically and unconsciously, leaving man free to explore, to create, to think, and to feel.”24 Decades later the feminist Donna J. Haraway introduced her own version of cyborgs.25 For Haraway, cyborgs were not freed from the physical environment or their own homeostatic systems. Rather Haraway’s cyborgs were emancipated from the dominant political and cultural constructs. A hybrid of human, animal, and machine, the cyborg was a “rhetorical strategy and a political method,”26 to critique mainstay feminist identity politics, which still relied on the language dualisms. According to Haraway, “These are the couplings which make Man and Woman so problematic, subverting the structure of desire, the force imagined to generate language and gender, and so subverting the structure and modes of reproduction of ‘Western’ identity, of nature and culture, of mirror and eye, slave and master, body and mind.”27 Similar to the post-structuralist theories discussed in the Language chapter, Haraway viewed these dualisms as instances of domination over women, minorities, animals, workers, and nature.

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Cyborg theory marked the commencement of posthumanism, which critiqued traditional Western notions of the body, the self, technology, nature and the environment. The architect Ariane Lourie Harrison posits, Posthuman theory extends the cyborg metaphor beyond the body and into the built environment, imagining designed space itself as a prosthetic and producing new understandings of a “nature” that itself can no longer be conceived as an originary or neutral ground. Fields ranging from sociology to geography have explored the political implications of extending the human body into the environment through science and technology, fueling the debate over the status of nature.28

Indeed the idea that there were “no essential differences or absolute demarcations between bodily existence and computer simulation, cybernetic mechanism and biological organism”29 influenced many fields, including landscape architecture. Meyer identified cyborgs as part of landscape architecture’s expanded field. According to Meyer, “the landscape cyborg – a hybrid of human and nonhuman natural processes, of the mechanical and the organic – can occupy the conceptual space between oppositional pairs such as man-made and natural, man and nature, engineering and natural process.”30 Creating robotic hybrids, the artist Gilberto Esparza invents small robotic creatures that thrive in urban and polluted environments by feeding off the energy inherent in these places. His Urban Parasite creatures are made from recycled electronic products. These small snail-like robots move across electric and tel-

5.5 Plant Nomad (2015) by Gilberto Esparza, “Cultivos” exhibition at the Laboratorio Arte Alameda, Mexico City, 2015–2016

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ephone wires prevalent in many cities. Esparza’s Plant Nomads, self-sustaining phyto-bots that are machine–plant hybrids, combine animal and plant habits by seeking out water with twelve motorized legs. On-board microbial fuel cells (MFC) drive a current by using bacteria found in the contaminated water, which the plants that crown the top of the creature use and process. According to Esparza, a Plant Nomad “deals with the alienated transformation of this new hybrid species that fights for its survival in a deteriorated environment.”31 Look at the Plant Nomad for the “Cultivos” exhibition at the Laboratorio Arte Alameda in Mexico City. How is this piece a cyborg?

Actor-Network-Theory Initially developed to describe innovations in the sociology of science and technology, the Actor-Network-Theory (ANT) proposed a unique interpretation of networks. Advanced by Latour, as well as Michel Callon and John Law, ANT considers humans and non-humans (including things) as agents in a system. For Latour, sociology is, “best defined as the discipline where participants explicitly engage in the reassembling of the collective.”32 Like cyborgs, ANT is a posthuman theory and it is not a technical network like a train system, which Latour considers only partially an example of ANT. In other words, the Actors in ANT must have agency (the capacity to act) and inscribe the network. The Actor is “something that acts or to which activity is granted by others.”33 Latour argues that ANT overcomes “the tyranny of distance or proximity . . . The difficulty we have in defining all associations in terms of networks is due to the prevalence of geography.”34 ANT has been employed to analyse ecosystems management and the protection of the Stockholm National Urban Park system, while the photographer Andrew Langford has employed ANT theory in the production of his landscape photographs. In both these instances the scientist and the artist breaks down the divisions of humans, nature, and artefacts and considers their networked relations. As Langford notes, “objects and individuals are conceived as the assembled outcomes of networked relations, and spaces and things are, therefore, in a constant state of iteration and transformation through flows and forces of material, human elements and non-human phenomena.”35 Echoing Latour, the architect Anne Tietjen argues that Agency here does not designate an intentional activity, but the actor’s capacity to affect other actors . . . ANT thus directs landscape architects’ attention to the effects of interaction between human and non-human actors. It is the relations between physical structures and natural and socio-cultural processes and not the physical structures themselves we need to be interested in.36

Look at the image of LOLA Landscape Architects’ Ecological Energy Network, an ecological corridor connecting Landgoed Wielewaal and Wandelpark Eckart

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in the Netherlands. According to LOLA Landscape Architects’ founder, Eric-Jan Pleijster, they combined the electrical infrastructure of the power grid with a linear ecological and cultural landscape. The land underneath the lines (spanning over 1,000 hectares) is designed to accommodate wetlands, plant material, as well as access routes for humans and other animals as an integrated network. The relationship between habitats for humans and non-humans and the immediate needs provided by landscape and the distant needs accommodated by the power line and wetland channels demonstrate how LOLA’s network exploits the tyranny of distance and proximity.37

Do you see how the animals, humans, and non-human phenomena will inscribe the network designed? Do you see how they have agency?

Systems theory and cybernetics debated Most system-based theories are explanatory in that they describe why something is the way it is. While they are very useful in the analysis phase of design or in assessing design, their role regarding design is firmly tied to documenting this process. While the methods, such as the map overlay system advanced

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5.6 Ecological Energy Network (2012) by LOLA Landscape Architects, image courtesy of LOLA Landscape Architects, the Netherlands

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by McHarg, influenced a generation of landscape architects to consider design in relationship to natural systems, these methods also reinforced the idea that by adhering to the rules of a system, you would develop an appropriate design response. As Marc Treib has observed, The McHargian view was focused to the point of being exclusive, confusing and conflating two rather different arenas of landscape intervention. To be sure it would be fatuous, if not dangerous, to manage a region without thorough analytical investigation; viable design begins with the study of the natural parameters. But the planning process rarely requires the active form-making and innovation that is central to landscape architecture . . . McHarg’s method insinuated that if the process were correct, the consequent form would be good, almost as if objective study automatically gave rise to the appropriate aesthetic.38

Likewise, the actual participatory contributions of Halprin’s RSVP cycles have also been questioned. The historian Alison B. Hirsch argues that Halprin’s design process was not as participatory as he suggested. Halprin typically designed the scores himself, and, according to Hirsch, during workshops he often ignored the ideas of participants when they differed from his own ideas.39 ANT, in particular, has been criticized. According to Sandra Harding, a philosopher, ANT has been blind to social circumstances, which are conditioned by gender, race, class, and the impacts of postcolonialism. By ignoring these aspects of the social and the political regimes that shape them, ANT is unqualified to promote social justice through changes in policy.40 This point also resonates with the way network systems are frequently described by designers. For example, in Architecture in the Space of Flows (2012) there is a lack of acknowledgment of these very circumstances observed by Harding. Regarding global trade flows, the authors state, “The widespread nodes of the informal economy emerge in a period of transition towards globally oriented market economies, in which the state’s role is more and more confined by optimizing the flows of provisional arrangements.”41 Informal economies involve workers who are not regulated or protected by unions or an established state. Likewise, these flows might entail tankers filled with oil, and the state’s goal in optimizing their flow might result in serious repercussions. Yet, the conceptualization of global, economic trade as simply a network of flows does not prompt these questions. For the cultural theorist David M. Berry this has been the poverty of networks modelled on system theory. “For, of course, our models, whether network-based or otherwise, are simplifications of the world. The network is not ontological, it is analytical, and as such it is restricted in how much it can tell us and how useful it can be.”42 Primary reading systems theory and cybernetics Donna J. Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Eugene Odum, Fundamentals of ecology. Ludwig von Bertalanffy, General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications.

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Norbert Weiner, Cybernetics, or, Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine.

THEORETICAL GROUNDINGS OF INFRASTRUCTURE The world beneath Manhattan is a cake of endless layers, a foundation as deep as the Chrysler building is high. On the top lies a three-inch strip of asphalt. Next comes almost ten inches of coarse concrete. After that, soil, a nasty soil that soaks up chemicals from the street. In another inch or three come the wires – telephone and electric, streetlight and fire alarm, and the newest addition, cable TV – all buried in casings and kept close to the curbs. Gas lines puff away another foot below; water mains gurgle four feet under; steam pipes are buried six feet deep. Every sewer pipe is different (they’re installed at an angle so that sewage is always flowing down), but they’re generally above the vaults of the subways, which vary in depth from a few dozen inches (the Lexington Avenue line) to eighteen stories below (191st Street on the Broadway local). Water tunnels – running 200–800 feet deep – mark the farthest man-built depths.43 (Henry Granick, Underneath New York, 1947)

Infrastructure is the network of physical and bio-physical systems that facilitate the necessary operations of daily life. In general, infrastructure moves something from one location to another. It can be the movement of data in a digital infrastructure, the movement of sewage in a city’s network of sewage pipes, or the globally distributed system of standardized shipping containers that move everything from food, to commodities, to extracted resources by ships, trains, and trucks. Historically, the movement of water has been passive, such as the gravity-fed aqueducts built by the Romans to transport water to the city of Rome, and mechanized, such as the Machine de Marly that attempted to pump water up to the fountains at the Gardens of Versailles. Landscape architects have often engaged themselves with infrastructural projects that combine natural systems, technological systems, and their aesthetic appreciation. The landscape historian Michael Lee, for example, has studied the nineteenth-century infrastructure works of Peter Josef Lenné (1789– 1866) whose landscapes addressed the early industrial land uses of Germany. Lenné’s plans for Landwehrkanal, a 10.7-kilometer-long shipping canal running parallel to the Spree River in Berlin, inverted traditional planning practices based on building locations. Instead his plans were guided by open spaces to be preserved and enhanced. According to Lee, “Lenné’s design for the Landwehrkanal was an innovative attempt to transpose Prussia’s water infrastructure technology into an urban setting as the basis for a new metropolitan configuration.”44 It also demonstrated the incorporation of economic, social, and aesthetic uses within this infrastructural project by incorporating a series of tree-line allées corresponding with different segments of the new canal.

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The work of the landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted foregrounded the idea of landscape as infrastructure. His 1870s plan for the Back Bay Fens project in Boston was part of the Emerald Necklace, a 445-hectare chain of treelined walkways, parks, and waterways planned with Charles Elliot. The Fens site was heavily polluted from upstream waterways that met the salt marshes of the Charles River (before it was dammed). The newly designed marshes were planted with sedges, rushes, and salt grasses that filtered the water and reduced odours. By integrating the watercourses and planted marshes, Olmsted was creating an early version of green infrastructure. While this type of infrastructure work continued in park systems and other traditional landscape architecture projects, most twentieth-century infrastructure projects were dominated by engineering solutions that replaced human labour with technological systems, which in turn separated different infrastructural needs. The architect Gary Strang, in his article, “Infrastructure as Landscape,” observed that North America had witnessed “a fundamental, systemic change as energy formerly produced by human labor was being generated or collected in remote areas and carried into the city from the surrounding region.”45 Piped rivers, sewer lines, electric poles were isolated from each other and their environment, and were often concealed or camouflaged from public view. Moreover, Strang argued that “Designers have most often been charged with hiding, screening and cosmetically mitigating infrastructure, in order to maintain the image of the untouched natural surrounding of an earlier era . . . They are rarely asked to consider infrastructure as an opportunity, as a fundamental component of urban and regional form.”46 Strang called for the creation of thick and biologically complex landscapes that harnessed infrastructure and celebrated its collective power; thus, linking the natural, technological, and cultural dimensions of infrastructure. Why infrastructure matters One of the most sustained advocates of landscape as infrastructure has been the landscape architect Pierre Bélanger. He argues that given the deleterious state of most twentieth-century infrastructure projects – crumbling roads and bridges, defunct airports and factories, polluted harbours, leaking dams, toxic legacies of military–industrial uses, and choked landfills – it is essential that landscape architects reconceive these systems. Bélanger contends, “Once the sole purview of the profession of civil engineering, infrastructure – which includes the management of water, waste, food, transport, and energy – is taking on extreme relevance for landscape planning and design practices in the context of the changing, decentralizing structures of urban–regional economies.”47 In his redefinition of landscape as infrastructure Bélanger proposes a circulating infrastructural organization to deal with the waste created as a by-product of urban systems. For Bélanger, “Wasting is natural: there is a built-in process to the patterns of urbanization and modes of production that has and always will generate waste . . . The construction of urban ecologies and reclamation of

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biophysical processes provide much greater flexibility and adaptive potential than the infrastructural undertakings of a previous era.”48 Infrastructural landscapes are also important for the challenges they present designers. These landscapes are often managed and controlled by numerous regulating authorities, insurance companies, private corporations, and community groups. This managerial complexity coupled with the myriad of professional consultants required to realize a built landscape as infrastructure can pose challenges. Furthermore, innovative projects can be halted – not because of a lack of knowledge and technical ability but by the inability of professionals to give up territory and negotiate the problems encountered when defying the status quo. Infrastructure in action Engineering infrastructure According to landscape theorist Ian Hamilton Thompson, Landscape architects have become interested in infrastructure in two ways, and though these may be linked both theoretically and in practice it’s worth considering them separately. The first mode of practice is associated with infrastructure’s origins in transport engineering. The second involves the conceptual shift that opens up meaningful discussion of “green infrastructure,” posited on the idea that networks of ecosystems provide essential services such as clean air and water and healthy soils.49

5.7 Madrid Rio (2011) by West 8 in collaboration with MRIO Arquitectos, Madrid, Spain

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Look at the image of Madrid Rio, by West 8 in collaboration with MRIO Arquitectos, in Madrid, Spain. A 6-kilometer-long portion of the main motorway was located below grade and covered with an extensive park system comprising a total area of 80,000 square meters of promenades, small parks, 17 playgrounds, water features, and bridges. By hiding the vehicular infrastructure with a park, the designers were able to reunite the people of Madrid with the River Manzanares, which had been previously severed by the four-lane motorway. The consumption and burning of fuel by vehicles contribute to air pollution. Given that Madrid Rio provides much-needed recreation spaces for Madrid residents, do you think that in some instances camouflage is OK?

Robert Thayer in his book Gray World, Green Heart (1994) questioned strategies of concealment and camouflage. Thayer maintained, “The guilt people feel over the predominance of technology in their lives is most easily revealed by the concealment of technological features by trees, fences, walls, earthforms.”50 He argued that by camouflaging infrastructure that might be detrimental to the environment, you maintain the illusion that you as an individual are neither part of nor responsible for that infrastructure and its consequences.51 Green infrastructure Green infrastructure employs natural elements as an infrastructure to manage water, habitats, and other natural processes as part of the design. Green infrastructure can be witnessed at multiple scales, from the use of planted roofs to absorb water run-off from a building to the regional scale with corridors and patches that facilitate the movement of water and animals. While the first green infrastructure projects were created in parks and rooftops, they are now integrated into neighbourhoods. Look at the diagrams for Washington Canal Park by OLIN. Constructed on three city blocks, which formerly served as a parking lot, the green infrastructure system collects stormwater from not only the park and the park’s pavilions, but also buildings bordering the park. The captured water is cleansed using cisterns and plants in the park and then used for site irrigation, building use, and the park’s fountains. Because of the expansive scope of this green infrastructural system, the park is able to save approximately three million gallons of potable water per year.52 How did OLIN’s design response make residents living near the park aware of where the water in the fountains and irrigation was coming from?

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5.8 Washington Canal Park (2012) by OLIN, image courtesy of OLIN, Washington, DC, USA

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Instrumentalism Echoing the concerns raised by Strang, Richard Weller has argued, “A pastoral modernity holds sway in the public imagination, and thus landscape remains popularly defined as the absence of infrastructure.”53 In other words, not only does the public rarely think of landscape as an infrastructure, but also they don’t expect to see infrastructure in a landscape. To remedy this situation Weller proposes that landscape architecture should be the “art of instrumentality, or better still, an ecological art of instrumentality.”54 Instrumentalism is a facet of the pragmatic philosophy primarily associated with Dewey and James (and discussed in the Introduction), which posits that theories should be goal-directed instruments. “For James and Dewey, this holds of all our concepts and theories: we treat them as instruments, as artefacts to be judged by how well they achieve their intended purpose. The content of a theory or concept is determined by what we should do with it.”55 In Art as Experience, Dewey wrote “when things are defined as instruments, their value and validity reside in what proceeds from them; consequences not antecedents supply meaning and verity.”56 In On Landscapes, I described the instrumental imagination, which is strategic because it can enable things in the world, once considered undesirable, to become valuable. Consider, billboards, large-scale signs advertising everything from beer to vacation homes. They are usually seen from freeways, highways and streets, and they are often deemed “eyesores,” elements that detract from the landscape. Look at the diagram for a billboard in the Bujama District of Lima, Peru. Engineers from Peru’s University of Engineering and Technology (UTEC) have reconceived billboards as both water filtration devices and water producers. Their first prototype, which takes water from air, exploits Lima’s geography and basic physics, which transform the state of matter from a gas phase into liquid phase. Perched upon bluffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Lima is the world’s

condenser air

air filter

air filter

air

carbon filter

5.9 Water generating billboard (2013) by UTEC, Lima, Peru

water faucet

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second largest desert city and the people living in Lima struggle to obtain water for basic needs. At the same time, there is plenty of water in the air, with humidity levels reaching more than 90 percent on summer days. The billboard advertises the engineering school, but it also serves as a condenser, a device or unit used to condense vapour into liquid. Like the condensation that occurs on your glass of cold lemonade on a warm summer day, the billboard contains five condensers that are cooler than the ambient air. When air contacts the cooled surfaces of the condensers in the billboard, the air cools, and the water vapour condenses into liquid water. “After reverse-osmosis purification, the water flows down into a 20-liter storage tank at the base of the billboard. The billboard generates about 96 liters of water each day, and a simple faucet gives local residents access to the water.”57 Do you think that, given the instrumentality of this billboard, it is no longer an eyesore? The billboards tend to be placed along highways, but is that the best place for water collection?

Landscape urbanism In her book The Granite Garden (1984), the landscape architect Anne Whiston Spirn revealed that the urban environment was not separate from natural systems; rather cities were teeming with plants and animal life, hydrological and geological systems, and the movement of air. For Spirn, “The city must be recognized as part of nature and designed accordingly.”58 Along similar lines, Charles Waldheim coined the term “landscape urbanism” in the 1990s. According to Waldheim, “landscape urbanism can be read as a disciplinary realignment in which landscape supplants architecture’s historical role as the basic building block of urban design.”59 Waldheim’s theory, combined with the fact that by the 1990s the impacts of climate change, collapsed rustbelt economies, and crumbling infrastructure were undeniable facts, attracted numerous followers in both architecture and landscape architecture, including James Corner, Linda Pollack, Pierre Bélanger, Stan Allen, and Chris Reed. Corner declared four provisional themes defining landscape urbanism: (1) the conception of landscape as processes over time instead of static forms, (2) the staging of surfaces, with surface alluding to urban infrastructure, which “create an environment that is not so much an object that has been ‘designed’ as it is an ecology of various systems and elements that set in motion a diverse network of interaction,”60 (3) the operational or working method for representing “urban geographies that function across a range of scales and implicate a host of players,”61 (4) and the imaginary, which he feels was impoverished in previous planning traditions. Some of the earliest expressions of landscape urbanism can be seen in the 1999 competition for Toronto’s Downsview Park, a 231.5-hectare defunct

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military air base (won by Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau); the Freshkills Competition on Staten Island in 2001 (won by James Corner Field Operations), and the High Line competition in Manhattan in 2004 (won by James Corner Field Operations, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and Piet Oudolf). The overriding leitmotifs generated by these competitions involved numerous analyses of ecological systems and cultural practices, elaborate and often beautiful diagrams of these processes, and the emphasis on strategy, over designed forms. For Waldheim, landscape urbanism provided the answer to postmodern architecture’s new urbanism movement. In the wake of the social and environmental disasters of industrialization, postmodern architecture retreated to the comforting forms of nostalgia and seemingly stable, secure, and more permanent forms of urban arrangement. Citing European precedents for traditional form, postmodern architects practiced a kind of preemptive cultural regression, designing individual buildings to invoke an absent context, as if neighborly architectural character could contravene a century of industrial economy.62 5.10 Changing park ecologies at the Bass River Park by Stoss Landscape Urbanism, image courtesy of Stoss Landscape Urbanism, West Dennis, Massachusetts, USA

Look at the image of Bass River Park, in West Dennis, Massachusetts, by Stoss Landscape Urbanism. The site’s salt marsh had been filled, adversely affecting its ability to filter out nutrients and provide habitat. Stoss Landscape Urbanism’s approach involved both short- and long-term tactics. According to Stoss, The strategy looks to establish a varied landscape field – an earthen carpet of hillocks – that supports short- and long-term competition among four vegetal communities characteristic of the region: red cedar meadow, sand plain, wet

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meadow, and salt marsh. Long-term environmental changes, short-term disturbances, and even use or maintenance practices can subtly or radically shift the balance among vegetal types, allowing one or another community to establish predominance – if only temporarily.63

The site also includes boardwalks and other structures for people as well. What role do you think the hillocks and the found vegetal communities play in setting “in motion a diverse network of interaction”? Which community do you think will dominate?

Infrastructure debated The biggest controversy regarding infrastructure has been over its theories – particularly landscape urbanism. Landscape urbanists often promoted their cause by critiquing new urbanism. For example, they condemned “new urbanists” for using the neighbourhood as the building block for city-making, and privileging density and walkability over ecological systems as the key measures of a sustainable urbanism. They also critiqued the new urbanists’ preoccupation with form and their reliance on patterns of urban development recycled from older European cities. The new urbanists countered the criticism, producing Landscape Urbanism and its Discontents: Dissimulating the Sustainable City (2013). The professors Kristina Hill and Larissa Larsen provide the most lucid description of some of the shortcomings regarding both camps. They explained: New Urbanism has tended to make moral arguments that build on the perceived evils of sprawl, adding functional arguments supported by less than complete evidence (for the pedestrian – friendliness of their formal strategies, for example). Landscape Urbanism has claimed authority from landscape ecology, but its proponents are generally more fascinated with science as a source of unresolvable indeterminacies, rather than the progressive construction of theory via hypothesis-testing that would be familiar to most actual scientists.64

The way the two “isms” visually and verbally describe their work is also distinct. While new urbanists usually provide representations depicting the human-scaled dimensions of their design projects, landscape urbanists gravitate towards the sciences with stunningly beautiful matrixes, diagrams, and maps of ecological systems, albeit the science behind this ecology is probably something you learned in Grade 7. Hamilton praised landscape urbanism for its intention to improve ecological environments; yet, he also pointed out the recurrence of “dubious philosophy, unhelpful imagery and obscurantist language that Landscape Urbanism ought to dump.”65 Indeed, a persistent critique levelled in

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Landscape Urbanism and its Discontents and other critiques, concerns the often elliptical, dense, military speak used to describe landscape urbanism. Hill and Larsen find that landscape urbanists, “generally engage in a tautological style of debate that is impenetrable,” meaning they unnecessarily repeat the same ideas and terms to describe their theory. Hill and Larsen speculate that, “The characteristics of flexibility, open-endedness, and indeterminacy can be used to avoid specific answers.”66 Interestingly, most of the built projects deemed exemplary of landscape urbanism or new urbanism are not particularly urban. How is Freshkills, located on Staten Island and the suburban fringes of New York City, an example of landscape urbanism? The park’s connections to the city are primarily marked through past events – as a former landfill and as a recipient of debris from the 911 attacks. How does the Lifescape strategy for the park connect with future urban processes? Size aside, how is it different from other landfill reclamation projects? Many new urbanist housing projects, while walkable within the housing development itself, are located in the outer suburbs on green fields with unrealized transit connections. Worse yet, some are gated, further distancing their relationship to the city or other issues that are a part of urbanity. Regarding sprawl, the urban historian Dolores Hayden posits that the emphasis on new building construction, rather than the rehabilitation of existing neighbourhoods, jeopardizes the renovation of existing suburbs.67 Indeed these movements did not anticipate, nor have they addressed, the social and economic challenges faced by cities as predicted by Lefebvre, who complained bitterly that he was being ‘‘pushed out’’ of his Paris apartment as the city was being developed and “museumfied” for touristic development.68 Hill and Larsen propose an Adapted Urbanism or Equitable Urbanism, which addresses climate change, infrastructure, and the health and well-being of the most vulnerable members of society. This is a promising idea given that researchers in the health sciences are increasingly concerned with the way physical environments shape human health. Primary reading for infrastructure Pierre Bélanger, “Landscape as Infrastructure.” James Corner, “Terra Fluxus.” Anne Whiston Spirn, The Granite Garden: Urban Nature and Human Design. Gary Strang, “Infrastructure as Landscape.” Charles Waldheim, “Landscape Urbanism: A Genealogy.”

THEORETICAL GROUNDINGS OF ALEATORY SYSTEMS This method of work with whatever comes into the patient’s head when he submits to psychoanalytic treatment, is not the only technical means at our disposal for the widening of consciousness. Two other methods of procedure serve the same purpose, the interpretation of his dreams and the evaluation of acts which he bungles or does without intending to.69 (Sigmund Freud, “The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis,” 1910)

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This is Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), the founder of psychoanalysis, explaining some of the key clinical techniques he employed to help root out the psychological problems and repressed feelings of his patients. Freud thought that these methods (spontaneous thoughts, dream interpretations, and Freudian slips) would reveal your subconscious thoughts, which could then be analysed. Freud’s work influenced the surrealists who set out to develop aleatory approaches to writing, poetry, painting, printmaking, and other art forms. Aleatory refers to the systematic integration of spontaneity, chance, and randomness into the design process. In 1917 the poet Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918) coined the term surrealism to describe the ballet Parade, which involved the unlikely collaboration between Pablo Picasso, the composer Erik Satie, the playwright Jean Cocteau, and the choreographer Léonide Massine. Parade was notable for its inclusion of cubist-inspired costumes and jarring sounds made with sirens, typewriters, and airplane propellers that produced what Apollinaire called, “une sorte de sur-réalisme” of modern life.70 Surrealism was later organized as a movement by the dadaist poet André Breton, whose enthusiasm for tapping the unconsciousness came about after using Freud’s methods with patients at a neuropsychiatric centre in Saint-Dizier during the First World War.71 Declaring, “I resolved to obtain for myself what one seeks to obtain from patients, namely a monologue poured out as rapidly as possible, over which the subject’s critical faculty has no control,”72 Breton defined one of surrealism’s chief features, automatism, or the spontaneous open-ended method of producing words, images, sounds, etc. In addition to these aleatory methods, the surrealists also invented specific parlour games, such as the exquisite corpse.73 The chief goal of surrealism, according to Breton, was to “bring about the state where the distinction between subjective and the objective loses its necessity.”74 Surrealists critiqued dada artists for losing their spontaneity, but the movement’s criticisms also extended to larger issues concerning mimesis in art, the false hope of rational thought and positivism, and (once again) dualisms in society. Regarding mimesis, Breton argued, “The mistake lies in thinking that the model can only be taken from the exterior world,”75 while the interior, subconscious world lay untapped. Breton charged, “We are still living under the reign of logic . . . It is apparently by pure chance that a part of our mental world, which we pretend not to be concerned with any longer, – and, in my opinion by far the most important part – has been brought back to light. For this we must give thanks to the discoveries of Sigmund Freud.”76 Like other theories in this book (the posthuman theory of cyborgs, for example) the surrealists challenged dualist reasoning and binary thinking. Breton quipped, “Everything leads us to believe there exists a certain point in the mind in which life and death, reality and imaginary, past and future, the communicable and the incommunicable, high and low are to be perceived as contradictions.”77 Surrealist methods, in fact, sought to blur perceived distinctions. According to the philosopher Susan Buck-Morss, surrealists did not look

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to folk culture for inspiration, or as with neoclassicism, tacking the symbols of ancient myths onto present forms, they viewed the constantly changing new nature of the urban–industrial landscape as itself marvelous and mythic. Their muses, as transitory as spring fashions, were stars of the stage and screen, billboard advertisements, and illustrated magazines.78

Surrealism influenced numerous avant-garde movements during the twentieth century in Europe and in North America. In particular, it inspired the philosopher and critic Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) who thought surrealist shock tactics would provide a counter to capitalism and to bourgeois culture’s adoration of the fetishized commodity. In fact, he concluded in his essay, “Surrealism: The Last Snapshot of the European Intelligentsia,” claiming that surrealism was the only movement to fulfil the directives of the Manifest der kommunistischen Partei (Communist Manifesto), the 1848 pamphlet on society and politics by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.79 The surrealist’s system of collage and typographical manipulation also inspired the Situationist International (SI). One of SI’s initial aims was to counter the very premises of functionalism in modern urbanism in the post-Second World War era,80 a critique similarly shared with Henri Lefebvre and discussed in the Spatial Practices chapter. For the art historian Tom McDonough, “Extravagance, gratuitousness, and disorientation became their watch words, posed against the increasing hegemony of post-war functionalist architecture, which had triumphed as France desperately tried to address the crisis posed by the four million families displaced during the Second World War.”81 The SI spokesperson Guy Debord (1931–1994) thought “contemporary architecture and urbanism were nothing less than the logic of alienation and reification writ in stone, the capitalist refashioning of space into its own décor.”82 Debord countered this urbanism by developing the concept of psychogeography, which is the study of the effects of the environment on the psychological states and behaviour of people. A popular technique used in psychogeography was the dérive – an unplanned drifting of people through the urban landscape, which was later mapped. Dérives were typically “one day, in the interval of time contained between two periods of sleep,”83 and usually conducted in small groups. For the philosopher Sadie Plant, “to dérive was to notice the way in which certain areas, streets, or buildings resonate with states of mind, inclinations, and desires, and to seek out reasons for movement other than those for which an environment was designed.”84 Linking surrealist methods of revealing the unconscious workings of the mind with people’s movement in the city, Debord hypothesized that future cities would be designed for dérives.85 Why aleatory systems matter Since surrealists often addressed the everyday – what is taken for the ordinary in life – their methods are well suited for landscapes. Fernando Magallanes, a landscape architect and professor, explained that some early surrealist explorations

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addressed the landscape as a “metaphorical, poetic, and inspirational vehicle for surrealist ends.”86 He described how the surrealist poet Louis Aragon’s unplanned trip to the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont in Paris revealed it as a site filled with abstract fictive possibilities and more concrete visible objects, such as oddly placed Greek follies, engineered bridges, and reconfigured artificial landscapes containing magical and psychoanalytical meanings. The animist qualities found in the park objects, the deaths produced from numerous suicide jumps off a bridge in the park, and its tormented quarried past were magical to the writers in the reconfiguring of a surreal place.”87

The surrealists’ aleatory methods are also important to the design process as they were developed to “bypass the circuits of knowledge and to uncover the unconscious life which rationality obscured.”88 In this way their methods can tap intuitive ideas that you may not be consciously aware of. They can also help you start the design process. Christophe Girot incorporates a dériveinspired approach to his first encounter with a site in his widely read essay, “Four Trace Concepts in Landscape Architecture.” He advises landscape architects to start the design process with landing, where “intuitions and impression prevail . . . During landing, nothing is allowed to remain obvious or neutral to the designer; rather everything is apprehended with wonderment and curiosity, with subjective and interpretive eyes.”89 After landing, sometimes designers will create a site impression, a collaged image that captures the Landing encounter. As you will read in Diagramming systems in the final section in this chapter, montages and collages leave room for the imagination by viewers. Moreover, these modes of visualization can also be part of the image-making in your own design process. Corner argued, “As the Surrealists have already shown the power of a physically inhabited and synaesthetic realm can re-enchant the ordinary and make the world magic once again. The tactics of appropriation, collage, abstraction, imaginative projection, and so on are strategies used to prompt free association, providing liberatory mechanisms of construal.”90 Thus, these methods not only open up new ideas in the reception of landscapes, but also in the designer. For example, during my design process for the Hip Hop garden, I collaged historic images of Elsie Reford with contemporary images of plant material that led to plant muses. In this way, aleatory systems are both the means to design and its end. Aleatory systems in action Collage With the publication of his novel, The Hundred Headless Woman: La Femme 100 Têtes (1929),91 the surrealist artist Max Ernst made famous the practice of collage. Ernst initially considered himself a dadaist, but inspired by Freud’s psychoanalytic work, the oneiric (dream-like) qualities of Giorgio de Chirico’s

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5.11 Hortus Medicus by GROSS. MAX, image courtesy of GROSS. MAX

paintings, and the odd assortment of images he found in the advertisements of an illustrated catalogue, Ernst sought to make collage the lifeblood of surrealism.92 While other artists, such as cubists, had used collage, Ernst’s collages referred to his own unconscious, dream life. As his biographer, Evan M. Mauer, observed, “Freud’s discussions of the hidden structures and symbolic meanings of dream-work provided Ernst with the methodological approach of his collage novels and related works of the 1920s and 30s. The analyst’s explanation of dreams as a condensed sequence of symbolic images was essential to the artist’s serial arrangement of collages to represent the dream process.”93 Indeed, the 147 dream-like collages assembled in The Hundred Headless Woman: La Femme 100 Têtes reinforce this idea. Assembled while Ernst was ill and confined to bed, the images were taken from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century magazines and journals. The novel is self-referential; as a child the day Ernst’s pet bird died his sister was born; thus, Ernst’s alter personality (the bird-like human, Loplop) and women provide reoccurring images in the book. Ernst also employed word play, another surrealist tactic. Cent (100), spoken in French, sounds like sans, so the woman is (sans) without a head, and she is also the appellation, “perturbation,” because Ernst was perturbed to learn of the death of his bird and the birth of his sister at the same time.94 Moreover, Ernst repeated compositional structures and differently scaled images, a technique that he thought “reinforces the viewer’s visual memory” and the distorted quality of dreams.95 Also, like a dream, time references are not linear in The Hundred Headless Woman. Ancient Greek goddesses share the same graphic plane as figures contemporary to Ernst’s times. Assessing Ernst’s oeuvre, Mauer concluded, “Throughout his career Ernst sought to increase the visual faculties of both artists and viewers by utilizing elements of chance and techniques of visual automatism to liberate the creative imagination and stimulate

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the process of free association.”96 To be sure this influence can be found in the collages of GROSS.MAX. Look at the collage, Hortus Medicus, by GROSS.MAX Landscape Architects in Edinburgh. As the landscape architecture professor Brett Milligan observed, “They read as open visual text with space for contingency and possibility . . . a reproductive agency that flirts with the reader’s imagination . . . They index themselves as lingering imagined fantasies that reveal notions of what might be, while acknowledging a propositional future that doesn’t yet exist.”97 What have they done to make this image dream-like?

Displacement In addition to automatism and the oneiric quality of Ernst’s collages, systematic displacement was also promoted “to reveal the latent or unobserved magic of common elements by placing them in an unexpected context.”98 For Ernst, displacement involved, “the fortuitous encounters of two distant realities on an unfamiliar plane.”99 Olin described Harlequin Plaza by George Hargreaves as a landscape of displacement. Olin noted that the materials of the plaza can be found in traditional nineteenth-century parks. However, What is new and different (and unsettling to many) is the compositional methods and devices employed. The composition is indebted to strategies developed in painting, especially surrealism. This is a landscape of displacement, distortion, and dislocation. The floor, or pavement, which we usually expect to be a fairly neutral ground quietly holding everything into place, is not only a brightly contrasting and active surface, but its orthogonal patterns are skewed and begin

5.12 Harlequin Plaza by Hargreaves Associates, image courtesy of Hargreaves Associates, Englewood, Colorado, USA

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to writhe under the comparatively weightless objects that break and interrupt it more than sit upon it. Walls rise and fall, or are pulled apart, the outsides of which are harsh. Inside between two central walls, things are small, fragile, oddly domestic, and out of place . . . It stimulates and disturbs. It pleases and teases.100

Look at the image of Harlequin Plaza, located in the sleepy suburban town of Englewood, Colorado. The plaza’s asymmetrical black-and-white polished terrazzo, diamond-patterned courtyard, and coloured walls certainly provided a contrast to its context, and its merits were hotly debated amongst landscape architects. However, the owner of the two office towers and plaza complex, John Madden, marvelled at the design. He claimed that Hargreaves had “the concept for the piazza on a matchbook cover.”101 Unfortunately, when Madden sold Harlequin Plaza 15 years later, the new owners removed the plaza due to leaks in the underground parking. Madden confessed, “It was a phenomenal thing Hargreaves had done on a matchbook cover. To me, it was like someone had taken the Gettysburg Address and thrown it out the window.”102 Interestingly, the new plaza was redesigned by EDAW with earth-tone colours, annual displays of flowers, plantings and trees to match its surroundings and provide shade. Do you think there are situations where dislocation heightens recognition of the context?

Transformed objects Objects occupy a special place in the aleatory methods of surrealism, and these include found objects, readymades, perturbed (deformed) objects, natural objects, and transformed objects. According to the surrealist artist Conroy Maddox, “These objects reflect a universe brought back to life. Obeying only the laws of chance or psychic necessity, they establish a kind of canon of the unexpected, lending coherence to a dream world which identifies itself with a new and exciting poetic experience.”103 The landscape architects Jacky Bowring and Simon Swaffield, describing post-disaster landscapes, note that found objects or objets trouvés can function as potent artefacts as they “bear witness to past events.”104 They refer to Ishinomaki, Japan, where a giant can advertising whale meat had been washed up onto the roadway by the tsunami in 2011. “Recognizing its potency as – a ready-made – the can was left in the middle of the road and traffic diverted around it.”105 Transformed objects can also involve the chance juxtapositions of unlikely objects to produce new objects and negate former uses.106 This strategy was developed in homage to the poet Comte de Lautréamont’s phrase, “Beautiful as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissecting table” in his poetic novel, Les chants de Maldoror (1869). For many of the surrealist artists, “the sewing machine and umbrella represent seemingly incompatible

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objects reassembled to form a surprising new image.”107 Transformed objects could be sculpture assembled from found objects or readymades, or utilitarian objects brought together, but, as a rule, they should be unrelated in daily life. According to the historian George Basalla, “First, a utilitarian object is altered so that it loses its primary useful function. If that function is not entirely lost, then it is at least severely impaired. Second, in the process of being transformed, the useful artifact takes on a new function that is symbolic, aesthetic, or educational. Third, the form of the object remains essentially unchanged.”108 The goal of the transformed object is to produce the marvellous. In surrealism, the marvellous represents the unconsciousness and, equally important, the freedom of an object to be no longer tethered to the uses demanded by the culture that made it.109 Look at Blue Tree by Claude Cormier, created for the Cornerstone Festival of Gardens in California. The site Cormier was given for the festival contained a large tree – and it was dying. Cormier wished to remove it, but the festival organizers would not allow him to cut it down. Playing with Photoshop and an

5.13 Blue Tree by Claude Cormier + Associés, image courtesy of Geneviève L’Heureux, Cornerstone Festival of Gardens, Sonoma, California, USA

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image of his garden site, Cormier began covering the image of the tree with blue paint balls. This led him to drape the tree with 70,000 blue balls that he created by bringing together two unlikely objects, a blue Christmas tree ornament and a ping-pong ball. Can you see how Cormier’s approach involves a transformed object? He has certainly negated the function of the ping-pong ball, but what about the Christmas decoration? 5.14 International Garden Festival, Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens, Jardin de la Connaissance (2010) by 100 Landschaftsarchitektur – Thilo Folkerts – Rodney LaTourelle, image courtesy of Louise Tanguay, Jardins de Métis/ Reford Gardens, Grand-Métis, Quebec, Canada

Would you describe Blue Tree as marvellous in surrealist terms?

Détournement The critical method of détournement began with the Letterist International movement, and was later embraced as a key signature of SI. According to Guy Debord, “the fundamental laws of détournement are the loss of importance of each détourned autonomous element – which may go so far as to lose its original sense completely – and at the same time the organization of another meaningful ensemble that confers on each element its new scope and effect.”110 Debord and the artist Gil J. Wolman proposed two types of détourned elements, minor and major. “Minor détournement is the détournement of an element which has no importance in itself and which thus draws all its meaning from the new

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context in which it has been placed.”111 Minor détournement could involve remixing messages from mass media, for example. A major détournement manipulates something of high ideological value, such as political or religious text. An instrumental dimension of détournement is its subversive intent. For Debord, “Détournement is thus first of all a negation of the value of the previous organization of expression.”112 SI was both a political and an art movement, and it was through the tactics of détournement in film, painting, advertisement, and other visual images that they sought to undermine the power and authority of late capitalism. While early SI examples of détournement clearly borrowed from surrealist collage, the aleatory or open-ended methods of this practice became increasingly less concerned with the subconscious, and much more directed to the conscious, critical mind. Look at the image of Jardin de la Connaissance by Thilo Folkerts of 100 Landschaftsarchitektur and Canadian artist Rodney LaTourelle. Created for the Les Jardin de Métis International Garden Festival in Quebec, the designers détourned approximately 40,000 books by assembling them outdoors to create rooms and seating. Mushrooms and mosses were applied to accelerate their natural détournement as the books decomposed back into the forest from where their paper first originated. According to the designers, “Seedlings and insects have activated the walls, carpets and benches. Mushrooms – those cultivated and those who have come by themselves – have made the garden their home. Many of the originally bright colours of the books have faded. Culture is fading back into nature.”113 Do you think the types of book left to rot in the garden make a difference? If the designers used religious books or political texts, would the Jardin de la Connaissance become a major détournement?

Aleatory systems debated Surrealism attracted female artists and it helped expand the subject matter of their investigations more than any other modern art movement.114 However, feminist scholars have critiqued the sexist stereotyping of women in many examples of surrealist art, and their role as “an object” to be cut up, fragmented, and collaged. In Surréalisme et sexualité (1971) the feminist Xavière Gauthier posited that the surrealist woman is a purely male invention.115 Mary Ann Caws, the literary critic, furthered, that the surrealist woman is, “Headless. And also footless. Often armless too; and always unarmed, except with poetry and passion. There they are, the surrealist women so shot and painted, so stressed and dismembered, punctured and severed: is it any wonder she has (we have) gone to pieces?”116 Yet the historian Whitney Chadwick has showed that female surrealists disregarded these early objectifications of women, and instead helped pave a path to work that “gave new artistic form to some of the conflicts confronting women in the

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early twentieth century.”117 Referring to the work of Leonora Carrington, Léonor Fini, and Meret Oppenheim, Chadwick argued, “The image of the female body, conceived not as Other but as Self, anticipated a feminine poetics of the body – imaging and celebrating the female body’s organic, erotic and maternal reality – that would fully emerge only with the feminist movement of the 1970s.”118 In landscape architecture, Olin eventually questioned the usefulness of surrealist methods. On Harlequin Plaza, he notes, I do think it transgresses the boundary between what is acceptable and understandable in private and what is welcomed and desirable in public. This does not imply a double standard but rather that we have different needs as individuals and a group. What people may indulge themselves on private estates may be of arguable justification when proposed for the public realm . . . Harlequin Plaza is, nevertheless, a watershed in American landscape composition and imagery. It has opened up possibilities that did not exist before its brash appearance.119

Primarily, these opportunities involved considering a design as a foil (in the sense of literature, a contrast) to context instead of simply blending into context. Alternatively, Magallanes argues that landscape architects borrow surrealist approaches to design. “Theory, imagery, and techniques help birth ideas that break from the traditional. Contemporary landscape architects are not surrealist, they are designers who seek to mine the surrealist spirit.”120 He also points out that some well-established landscape architects may not have called themselves surrealists, but some of their work echoes surrealist theories. Indeed, the landscape architect, sculptor, and stage set designer Isamu Noguchi – whose career has been defined by blurring distinctions between art and landscape, East and West, design and art – was influenced by surrealism.121 Primary reading for aleatory systems Alistair Brotchie, A Book of Surrealist Games. Max Ernst, The Hundred Headless Woman: La Femme 100 Têtes. Sigmund Freud, “The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis.” Tom McDonough, The Situationists and the City. Franklin Rosemont, editor. What Is Surrealism? Selected Writings.

THEORETICAL GROUNDINGS FOR DIGITAL SYSTEMS Trick question: was there any digitally-encoded art before the invention of the electronic computer? Answer: yes! A Midsummer Night’s Dream is digitally encoded because it is written in the English alphabet . . . Of course, Shakespeare’s plays aren’t digital art and Shakespeare wasn’t a digital artist. Neither was Bach. The lesson is that there’s more to digital art than digital encoding. Digital art involves computer-based encoding in a common digital code.122 (Dominic McIver Lopes, A Philosophy of Computer Art, 2010)

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5.15 Planting scheme by Philip Belesky, image courtesy of Philip Belesky

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As the philosopher Dominic McIver Lopes notes, the digital has a long history in the arts, from the use of the alphabet in the writing of a sonnet or the employment of musical notation in the creation of a symphony. However, with the development of the computer, which uses a binary digital code of zeros and ones, and its powerful ability to process these data, the term digital has become more closely associated with this technology. Landscape architects were early adopters of computer systems. The architectural historian Antoine Picon has suggested, “the applications of computing to geography and landscape are as old if not older as those concerning architecture.”123 The landscape architecture professor Carl Steinitz, for example, used SYMAP mapping programs, which prefigured geographic information system (GIS) for environmental planning projects as early as 1967. IMGRID, however, was the first grid-based spatial analysis tool written expressly for landscape architects, and eventually landscape architects like C. Dana Tomlin wrote their own software programs, such as the Map Analysis Package (MAP).124 In the early 1980s Tomlin also developed a key component featured in many GIS products today, Map algebra.125 Using basic algebraic operations, Map algebra provided a language to express a model (a sequence of operations) as a script.126 In GIS, this script enabled two or more map layers to produce a new map. While landscape architects have used computer-aided drafting (CAD) systems since the 1990s, in the past decade two interrelated computational strategies – parametric and algorithmic design – have provided unique approaches to traditional design. Parametric literally means to set constraints or parameters in the design process, and it is based on procedures. Referred to as parametric modelling, Jillian Walliss et al., argue that this modelling “shifts focus to the performative aspects of landscape, placing emphasis on effect, thereby creating a closer alignment between forms and systems.”127 Algorithms are the more detailed instructions in a computer program. Algorithmic design involves the manipulation of script for a particular type of computer program. When designers work directly with code, there is a move away from visual form-making to form and its relation to code. Philip Belesky at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, for example, has created script that automatically matches the water, soil, and salinity of terrain to needs and tolerances of plant species to create a planting plan. “In each case, a planting palette has been created, and each species’ tolerances for soil saturation (top) and water salinity (bottom) are identified and placed along a spectrum. The resulting planting plan script then automatically matches the tolerances of each species to the conditions at each spatial point.”128 The landscape architecture professor Nadia Amoroso links landscape architecture’s gravitation to digital tools back to the profession’s deep interest in process and how ecological outcomes could be modelled. Indeed, data-driven mapping and analysis can handle large quantities of diverse information, and this remains a driving interest as more recently developed GIS software, such as ArcMap, has enabled landscape architects to export information to 3D design

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software, such as Rhinoceros. Amoroso describes how Stoss Landscape Urbanism uses this software as a source of feedback in the design process. The “digital tools allowed the team to test the ephemeral conditions of the site. A variety of versions were tested in Rhino at this preliminary stage in order to troubleshoot all possible volumetric and topographical assumptions.”129 Another benefit of using digital tools in design regards output. According to Sean Cubitt, a professor of media and communications, “From the standpoint of the computer, any input will always appear as mathematical, and any data can be output in any format. Effectively, an audio input can be output as a video image, as text, as a 3D model, as an instruction set for a manufacturing process, or any other digital format that can be attached to the computer.”130 This versatility, explains Lopes, is due to the fact that “computer programs handle input and output in a common format (e.g. binary code), so they’re blind to the type of data that come in as input or exit as output.”131 Not only has the nature of the output diversified, but digital tools have also bridged the gap between design and the physical generation of form. Amoroso described how the computer played a role in direct form-giving in her University of Toronto studio. Students selected action words (not unlike Richard Serra’s approach) like ripple, flow, bump, carve, or pinch that served as parameters. They “abstracted them into experimental forms using 3D Studio MAX and Rhinoceros” and eventually they fabricated them into models using CNC machines and 3D-plotters.132 Of course, digital design tools were predated by analogue design aides. As Hargreaves recalls, “this involved setting up perspectives, trying to master drawing techniques, and planning and crafting models.”133 Analogue design methods typically entailed hand-drawing and drafting, and they dominated design, representation, and production in landscape architecture until the rise of computer-aided design work. A plan view of a landscape drawn by hand is considered analogue because it attempts to provide an analogy of the world experienced, say looking down from an airplane over your design. It attempts to create a one-to-one approximation between the two. “Computers are devices designed to run computational processes”134 that rely on a set of instructions, which are mathematical in nature, and perform certain tasks, such as cropping. The algorithm is not something that you see when using software, but when you receive an update this typically means that there has been an improvement made to certain algorithms functioning in the older version of the program. While analogue hand-drawing and digital devices for drawing are often seen as separate enterprises, the landscape architects Bradley Cantrell and Wes Michaels argue that analogue approaches underlie most of the digital media used today.135 As they suggest, think of the terminology, such as paint bucket or eraser, used in computer programs. These terms denote the function of analogue work. Why digital systems matter Computer digital systems matter because they have become fundamental to most aspects of your life. Considering my own experience with the computer, it

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has grown exponentially. I wrote my first high school term paper on a computer that my father had built himself. It displayed on a television screen encased in a blue-painted plywood box (not sure why he painted it blue). Now I am surrounded by digital computers and most things in my life have been converted to data. David Berry has even ventured that we now have a digital identity, a quantified self. “The digital has become the paradigmatic means of explaining what it means to live and work in the post-industrial democracies – this I call computational identity thinking.”136 For Cantrell and Michaels digital design is significant to landscape architecture because of its editability and efficiency in the design process. They refer to editability “as the ability to alter, change or update various aspects of a drawing in order to maintain flexibility as the design process progresses.”137 Prior to digitally aided design, a tremendous amount of human labour in an office was spent physically erasing (albeit with electric erasers) and redrawing dimensions of the design from the conceptual stages to change orders made during the construction process. Cantrell and Michaels describe efficiency in several ways, “automation, replication, and transformation. Digital media, based in computing, creates a paradigm that embraces the reuse of drawings and symbols through scaling, rotating, and effects. Most repetitive tasks can be automated when working with digital media.”138 Thus, like editability, efficiency saves time as it eliminates the copying of drawings, such as planting details, which might be used numerous times in different projects. The fluency in which 3D digital modelling can anticipate and display landscape change is also an important contribution of computational systems. Parametric modelling allows landscape architects to visualize forms and structural tectonics that might be very difficult, if not impossible, to model with physical models created by hand. According to Jillian Walliss et al., “One of the most significant advancements in digital technologies has been the ability to intuitively model non-Euclidean and continuous surfaces in three dimensions.”139 Think of the elaborate bridges designed by West 8, a firm that was an early adopter of digital design. Digital fabrication matters because it links computer design with production or manufacturing. It allows students to experiment directly with prototypes that enable the exploration of ideas, spaces, forms, and materials.140 Digital fabrication may also challenge the episteme of standardization produced by the economic benefits of mass production. Look up from reading this book. If you are in a room, the doors, windows, and the chair you are sitting on are undoubtedly standardized. Even if you are lucky enough to be reading this in a park on a nice sunny day, the bench or the Ikea picnic blanket you are sitting on, the light posts, the trash bins, the drinking fountains, are standardized as well. Benches and other site features may come in different colours or surfaces, but the one you are sitting on is identical in size and shape to thousands of others. While much design thinking and discourse focuses on sites and their systems, landscape architects frequently rely on populating their landscapes

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with integrated, mass-produced objects. This has happened because it is more economical for the mechanical manufacturing industries to mass produce standardized elements. Mario Carpo, an architectural historian, argues that the digital will promote the idea of nonstandard production. For Carpo, If the continuity between digital design and fabrication tools had been first exploited to showcase pieces of unique and sometimes virtuosic formal difficulty, the accent now shifted toward the technical and social implications of a fully integrated design and production chain. The capacity to mass-produce series of nonidentical items led to a new range of theoretical and practical uses . . . Industrial mass production used to depend on mechanical matrixes, molds, or casts of which the upfront cost had to be amortized by reusing them as many times as possible. But due to the elimination of mechanical matrixes, digital fabrication tools can produce variations at no extra cost.141

In short, he surmises that custom design is realizable as standardization will no longer be the most cost-saving method of production. Digital systems in action Synthetic patterning Patterns, arrangements, or sequences of comparable forms, have a long history as a heuristic in landscape design. Think of the “parterre of embroidery” found in historic French gardens. In 1709 Antoine-Joseph Dézallier d’Argenville wrote La théorie et la pratique du jardinage that demonstrated the use of a grid to lay out a parterre’s embroidered surface, which was typically made of coloured stone, gravel, and crushed marble framed by a green hedge.142 His garden theory book was so popular with the rising middle class (eager to improve their more modest domestic sites) that it was revised and reprinted several times.143 Striking visual patterns can also be seen in the tiled courtyard walls of the Alhambra, in Granada, Spain, which are geometrical in origin. At the Alhambra, rotating squares generate the multiple-pointed stars made of ceramic tiles. For example, the eight-pointed star is created by overlapping two squares at 45 degrees.144 Peter Walker, Martha Schwartz, and Claude Cormier have also employed patterns in their work. Defining patterns at the human scale as “characterized by repetitive geometries that aggregate to create an overall spatial organization . . . based on repetition and recurrence (both formal and temporal),” Karen M’Closkey argues that patterns are visual indications of process. “Patterns, as diagrams of process carry the potential to bind together oppositional categories that still seem to plague discussions in landscape architecture – systems versus composition, representation versus performance, matter versus symbols, vision (distance) versus immersion (multisensory).”145 Since computers “can be programed to recognize the distinctive shape of the pattern from the data” they

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5.16 Drawings for Dew Point, by PEG Landscape Architecture, image courtesy of PEG Landscape Architecture, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

5.17 Dew Point (2010) by PEG Landscape Architecture, image courtesy of PEG Landscape Architecture, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

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very efficiently and with great alacrity, make digital systems uniquely qualified to produce patterns.146 Moreover, in concert with the development of digital fabrication, these patterns can be quite complex. The Not garden and Not again garden by Karen M’Closkey and Keith VanDerSys of PEG office of landscape architecture reference the traditional knot gardens, comprised of low plant material that intersect to form a repetitive pattern. However, M’Closkey and VanDerSys generated their patterns using digital modelling tools and laser-cutting fabrication. Weed control fabric was cut to mimic the traditional planting beds, and was later seeded. According to Amoroso, the Not garden tested “the basic carrying capacity of the geo-textile, while the latter, larger version experimented with a more intricate pattern and expanded the plantings to include flowering, drought tolerant species.”147 In PEG’s project, Dew Point, they followed a similar approach, except for this project the pattern was made by applying moisture retardant to the paving. The retardant was applied with a sprayer over templates cut from chipboard. How did digital systems help the designers conceive of this design? Can you see how it is ephemeral?

Transposing Based on a system of “reading and transposing,” Michel Desvigne has developed a design method that abstracts an aerial view of a landscape. Captured by a scanner and transferred to an orthonormal grid, this image served as the compositional device for planting and hardscape.148 Look at Michel Desvigne’s rooftop design for Keio University, Tokyo. Isamu Noguchi originally designed a welcoming room, sculptures, and a garden here in the 1950s, which were torn down as a result of the redevelopment of the university. Desvigne’s design pays tribute to Noguchi, who often abstracted natural elements and systems in his design work. According to Gilles A. Tiberghien, a philosopher, his approach to the project was more of a system than a motif. “The initial landscape, which was literally scanned, was embodied in a checkerboard made up of slabs, which were themselves pierced with holes of varying sizes. The idea was not to faithfully reproduce a natural setting, but rather an empirical system whose artifice is obvious.”149 Based on the scanned patterns analysed, the slabs for the roof were either solid, perforated with circular holes (ranging from 150cm, to 200cm, to 300cm, to 375cm in diameter) or they were extruded in reference to Isamu Noguchi’s prayer stools.150 The perforated slabs contained a variety of trees, shrubs, and water spouts.

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5.18 Drawing for rooftop design by MDP Michel Desvigne Paysagiste for Keio University, image courtesy of MDP Michel Desvigne Paysagiste, Tokyo, Japan

5.19 Rooftop design (2005) by MDP Michel Desvigne Paysagiste for Keio University, image courtesy of MDP Michel Desvigne Paysagiste, Tokyo, Japan

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If Desvigne transposed a different site, a city for example, how do you think this would affect the design? Do you see the connection with the extruded prayer stools and the planted areas?

Faceting Faceted models involve groups of polygons, typically triangular in shape, that are represented as a volumetric mesh that can be easily manipulated to create different gradients and patterns of surface. According to Andrea Hansen, principal of Fluxscape, Faceted surfaces, more perhaps than any other digital artifact, are direct results of the software in which they are designed. A common cross-pollinator between geographic analysis and landscape design is the TIN, or Triangulated Irregular Network: a tessellated surface formed between geographic coordinates in GIS (Geographic Information Software) that can be exported and manipulated in 3D modeling software.151

While faceting lends itself easily to terrain, it can also inform structures. Look at Dymaxion Sleep by Jane Hutton and the artist, Adrian Blackwell. Inspired by Richard

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5.20 International Garden Festival, Jardins de Métis/ Reford Gardens, Dymaxion Sleep (2009–2013) closed, by Jane Hutton and Adrian Blackwell, courtesy of Louise Tanguay, Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens, GrandMétis, Quebec, Canada

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5.21 International Garden Festival, Jardins de Métis/ Reford Gardens, Dymaxion Sleep (2009–2013) opened, by Jane Hutton and Adrian Blackwell, courtesy of Robert Baronet, Jardins de Métis/ Reford Gardens, Grand-Métis, Quebec, Canada

Buckminster Fuller’s intermittent sleeping schedule, which alternated between 30 minutes of sleep and six hours of waking time, and his Dymaxion World Map, Dymaxion Sleep provides planes of nylon netting that when folded up create a faceted enclosure. When unfolded, children and adults can suspend themselves over the smells of lemon geranium, mint, lavender, and fennel planted below.

How do you think digital systems helped the designers conceive this design?

Topology Topology, the study of continuous surfaces, traces its roots back to theoretical geography and thematic cartography, and specifically the work of William Warntz, Director of Harvard University’s Laboratory for Computer Graphics and Spatial Analysis. During the 1960s, While others saw surfaces as cellular, the Laboratory emphasized topology, fundamental to Triangular Irregular Networks (tin) and similar software. Warntz was primarily interested in thematic surfaces, such as population, income, and continentality, and his theory of the topological structure of surfaces based on points (peaks and pits; passes and pales), lines (ridges and courses), and areas (hills and dales) works equally well for thematic and physical surfaces.152

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Warntz was interested in how surface conditions and spatial distributions were informed by social and economic data. However, landscape architects and architects have concerned themselves with the programmatic requirements of surfaces. Look at the image of Southeast Coastal Plaza in Barcelona, by Teresa Galí-Izard with Foreign Office Architects (FOA). Hansen identifies topology as a factor in conceiving this landscape. “A single unit (a crescent shaped paver) is deployed across the site, changing from pathway to amphitheater, skate ramp, and retaining wall.”153 This plaza extends for hundreds of meters; do you see how topology allows for the expression of a continuous surface?

Alternatively, Christophe Girot has theorized that topology is about how a tree meets the ground and how water sounds as it runs over a stone. We believe in crafting comfort and beauty out of landscapes in the many ways we entrust our world with deeper meaning. Topology is about developing a new set of disciplinary tools capable of responding fully to a continual terrestrial situation, and it is precisely this continuity that gives us more insight and potential when developing solutions.154

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5.22 Southeast Coastal Plaza (2003) by Teresa Galí-Izard, Barcelona, Spain

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Bringing his theory of topology into his Landscape Visualization and Modeling Laboratory (LVML) at ETH Zurich, Girot is currently designing a landscape for the Sigirino Depot, a landscape that is literally the by-product of tunnels dug through the Alps to accommodate train lines. According to Brett Milligan, “3.7 million cubic meters of pulverized gneiss mined from within the Sotto Ceneri mountain range will be amassed on the Sigirino hillside, raising its finished elevation over 150 meters.”155 While it will not be complete until 2020, 3D analysis visualization technology has enabled his team to design this material into a complex system of paths and water collecting areas as part of the topological landscape. Digital systems debated David Berry posits, Theoretically the “digital” is an empty signifier that has suffered from a lack of critical attention particularly in relation to its ideological deployment, but also its ahistorical usage even in avowedly critical work. Empirically, of course, and also technically, the “digital” has stood for a particular method of discretization, although too often this is collapsed into 0s and 1s and the binary structure underlying most computation today. In this sense, the “digital” has served too often as a descriptive term and hence has avoided, in some sense, critical attention itself.156

Indeed, while digital tools have generally been accepted as part of landscape architecture, their actual influence on the design profession is still not completely understood. Digital computer systems and their ability to generate intricately curving forms and meshes has had a profound effect on architecture since the 1990s, particular in the work of Greg Lynn, Zaha Hadid, and Frank Gehry. How has it also shaped landscape design? Hansen makes the observation that with computer-aided drafting systems that can rapidly calculate equations for curvatures, “landscapes today increasingly employ the geometry of nature – curves, tributaries, gradients – to seamlessly blend into their natural settings or reintroduce nature into an urban setting.”157

Does this suggest a return to the pastoral tradition in design that seeks an idealized version of nature that camouflages the presence of human intent or infrastructure? Is this a new computational pastoralism?

Digital computer systems not only affect form-making, but they may also shape your own design thinking. Drawing and writing by hand versus using your mouse and keypad engage different parts of the brain, and some scientists suggest that the design process benefits when working by hand versus the computer. Researchers in Turkey compared interior designers’ use of free-hand sketching

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compared with computer use. They found that hand-drawing increased “perception of visual–spatial features, and organizational relations of the design, production of alternative solutions and better conception of the design problem.”158 Drawing by hand also stimulates more parts of the brain and engages your ability to store and recall information (your memory). Take out a piece of paper and draw a tree. What did you need to draw the tree by hand?

Probably your memory because you would have to think about what kind of tree you are capable of drawing and what type. Is it in winter or in spring? Now draw a tree using a selection from your favourite computer program. What did you need to know to draw the tree with the computer?

In terms of the digital’s ideological deployment, most discussions have concerned the digital’s efficacy in producing hyperreal scenes of proposed landscapes. Hyperrealism in landscape architectural imagery suggests that a representation resembles a photo-like version of reality. Achieved through programs like Photoshop, these visualizations exhibit textured detail, atmosphere, and correct shadowing that can sometimes fool people. Linking hyperrealism to the postmodern critic Jean Baudrillard’s conception of hyperrealism, which posits that these images can come to control consciousness, Karl Kullmann, a landscape architect, argues that “hyper-real visualisations assume a position of authority over the viewer that is primed for exploitation . . . Even where no deception is intended, the constructed design rarely approximates the image that was intentionally presented as its accurate simulation.”159 This type of existential power was demonstrated to me last year when I was visiting with friends, who were not designers, in London. They were very excited about a renovated square recently constructed in the city. They raved about its design and they were pretty sure their friends had seen it as well. When I visited this fabled square, it was the same as the last time I saw it a few years ago. Apparently, they saw hyperreal images of the proposal in the newspaper and thought it had been constructed. Van Dooren claims, “A concrete victim of digital developments I want to mention is the collage as a representational type. Today’s drawing and the technical possibilities for photoreality seem to speak against rough non-realistic drawings like collage. But especially in landscape, reality is a troubled concept, as we mainly speak about time frames of 15 up to 50 years.”160 Both Kullman and Catherine Dee argue for literal gaps in the imagery that enable the viewer to imagine the future, and of course not confuse the imagery with what does or will exist in the future. Kullman calls for a “loose-realism” in digital and analogue

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representations. These “techniques retain potentiality (and avoid determinancy) by requiring points of view from both the author and the viewer, potentially drawing closer together the author–subject diaspora.”161 Dee contends that “erasure rarely gains status of treasured tool in the design studio, although erasure has many important functions . . . Erasure supports contingency and openness, serendipity, and a tracking of changes in time, idea, and form.”162 Primary readings for digital systems Nadia Amoroso, Digital Landscape Architecture Now. Bradley Cantrell and Wes Michaels, Digital Drawing for Landscape Architecture: Contemporary Techniques and Tools for Digital Representation in Site Design. Mario Carpo, Algorithm and the Alphabet. Dominic McIver Lopes, A Philosophy of Computer Art. Karen M’Closkey, “Synthetic Patterns: Fabricating Landscapes in the Age of ‘Green.’”

THEORETICAL GROUNDINGS FOR DIAGRAMMING The drawing is only a diagram, and we have made it a diagram in order to show with the utmost possible clearness the relative areas, and the symmetry and fairness of their distribution.163 (Charles Eliot, General Principles in Selecting Public Reservations and Determining Their Boundaries, Boston Metropolitan Park System, 1902)

To be sure, there is one type of drawing that has most successfully lent itself to the design process and to understanding the landscape as a system. This type of drawing is the diagram. Here, the landscape architect Charles Eliot (1859–1897) is describing a key virtue of the diagram – its ability to explain and persuade. A diagram is usually a simplified drawing showing the workings of something over time and space, and amongst its parts. It is one of the oldest forms of communication, and diagrammatic representations of systems are applicable to a wide range of fields from their use in proofs in logic to the explanation of signification in semiotics.164 Diagramming has a long history of use in landscape architecture as well. The landscape theorist Anita Berrizbeitia explains how developments in the natural sciences prompted Charles Eliot to explore new representational techniques, indicating an epistemological shift in landscape architecture. Combining maps with scalable reference systems, Eliot created diagrams to rationalize his park proposals. For local commissioners he mapped the park systems in Paris, London, and Boston at the same scale, and superimposed a scaled grid over each map to make comparisons. He also created a diagram that showed the relationship of park system components and their distribution across metropolitan Boston to each other and to the State House with concentrically scaled rings.165 Jacky Bowring and Simon Swaffield note the prevalence of diagramming in landscape architecture, particularly during the twentieth century. The Ecoscores created by Lawrence Halprin, Ian McHarg’s dune formation diagrams in the

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opening pages of Design with Nature, the man/place diagrams of Alle Hosper, and Kevin Lynch’s visual survey diagrams, are just a few examples. Bowring and Swaffield posit that landscape architects use diagrams “both as analytical tools and as generative expressions of design imaginings . . . Like metaphors, diagrams ‘carry’ ideas into another form, and the process of abstraction can involve a leap of faith in terms of comprehension.”166 In Design with Nature, for example, McHarg produced a series of cross-sections to explain dune formation and to demonstrate that the Dutch dike design system – comprised of a Guardian (Waker), Sleeper (Slaper), and Dreamer (Dromer) – was akin to designing with nature. Bowring and Swaffield also describe how, “the diagrammatic ‘language’ of edge, node, district, and landmark developed by Lynch to summarize the way people experience the urban fabric has become embedded in landscape architectural education and practice at multiple scales.”167 Lynch’s classic study, published in Image of the City (1960), revealed the physical and spatial elements that enabled people to understand and navigate through the urban landscape. Interviewing people in Los Angeles, Boston, and Jersey City, Lynch found that people used specific features to create mental representations or mental maps of what the city contained and the way it was organized. These features included paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks. Lynch concluded that if designers and planners gave clarity and prominence to these features in their work, this would increase people’s ability to make sense of complex landscapes such as cities. Thus, these features served as a heuristic for the designer. Landscape urbanists and the eidetic operations (techniques that both imagine and project new landscapes) of James Corner also champion the use of diagrams. In Corner’s view the imaginative potential of the diagram serves as a counter to the conception of landscape drawing as a pictorial representation or simply a technical endeavour. For Corner, the diagram, mental map, or spatioorganizational image was closer to the conception of landscape as landschaft than landskip. “In landskip, the making of a picture participates in and makes what is to be pictured. In landschaft the formation of synaesthetic, cognitive images forge a collective sense of place and the relationship evolved through work.”168 In other words, since diagrams aim to explain and they can be generative in the design process, they are more akin to the German term landschaft, which includes social as well as political dimensions of the landscape. Diagrams are less like the term landskip, which privileges the landscape as a view. Corner and others frequently cite OMA’s competition proposal for Parc de la Villette as inspiration for this representational strategy – where “dismantling and isolation of layers and elements in plan not only proposes a productive working method, akin to montage, but also focuses attention on the logic of making the landscape rather than on its appearance per se.”169 Architectural references to diagramming have been influenced by the philosopher Gilles Deleuze and the psychoanalyst Félix Guattari, and their theory of rhizomes. A second companion to their book Anti-Oedipus (1972), A Thousand Plateaus (1980)

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formulates a relationship between power and subjectivity where “capitalism constantly opens new markets of desire that capitalism must rigidly control in order to survive.”170 Deleuze and Guattari seek to remove these limitations “in order to free the desiring-machines and dismantle the subject and the State.”171 As postmodern thinkers influenced by post-structuralism, and particularly Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari rallied against many aspects of structuralism as discussed in the Language chapter, such as binary logic. They argued for multiplicities of interpretations, and the production of the new as a continuous, centreless, rhizomatic system. Indeed, the rhizome occupies a special place in their project, and serves as a visual concept of the diagram, as initially conceived by Foucault. For Deleuze and Guattari, rhizomes should replace the role that the tree has played in not only the analysis of language, but also as an image and concept for societies in general. They contend, Binary logic is the spiritual reality of the root-tree. Even a discipline as “advanced” as linguistics retains the root-tree as its fundamental image, and thus remains wedded to classical reflection . . . Binary logic and biunivocal relationships still dominate psychoanalysis (the tree of delusion in the Freudian interpretation of Schreber’s case), linguistics, structuralism, and even information science.172

While some trees spread by rhizomes (live oaks, for example), the appeal of the rhizome is its lack of unified formation and indeterminate space of reproduction. They posit, “any point of a rhizome can be connected to anything other, and must be . . . A rhizome ceaselessly establishes connections between semiotic chains, organizations of power, and circumstances relative to the arts, sciences, and social struggle.”173 Another important dimension of rhizomes as “a diagram type”174 is its relationship with the past. For Deleuze and Guattari, “all of the tree logic is a logic of tracing and reproduction . . . The rhizome is altogether different, a map and not a tracing . . . Tracing is closed and traces the past, what was, while the rhizome is entirely oriented towards an experimentation in contact with the real.”175 Deleuze furthered his exploration of the diagram and rhizomes in his book Foucault. In Discipline and Punish, Foucault introduced the concept of the diagram as a way of understanding the visual and discursive functioning of physical and social systems such as prisons, hospitals, and schools as they “formalizes function and gives them aims” (to punish, to care, to educate).176 Deleuze stressed that this formalizing function was the diagram, and he claimed, “The diagram is no longer an auditory or visual archive but a map, a cartography that is coextensive with the whole social field.”177 As the art historian Jakub Zdebik explains, The diagram displays relations of forces and translates them from one system to another. The mechanics, through which it performs this task is difficult to discern since the diagram is non-representation. The diagram consists of abstract forces (e.g. surveillance) that make up a particular system (e.g. prison system) and can be applied to another system (e.g. schools or barracks).178

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Why diagramming matters Since diagrams can show relational forces over time and space, and amongst different aspects of the landscape, they are valuable to the design process. As Bowring and Swaffield argue, they can reflect both social and ecological systems. Some of the most basic design diagrams used in landscape architecture, such as the modernist’s use of the bubble diagram, for example, helped determine the relationships between numerous human uses. For the landscape ecologist Richard T. Forman, who charges, “Form is the diagram of force,”179 the diagram enables him to explain complex natural systems, such as the key variables determining the minimum width of streams and river corridors.180 Given the complexity of change in landscapes, van Dooren argues, “time, change and dynamics deserve more attention being very specific features of landscape architecture. The emblematic example is the park, which needs decades to mature. We strive for representing time in a more educative, and strategic ways. This may inspire us to study representations in other disciplines.”181 Information visualization, for example, concerns the legibility of visual displays of information and data. This visualization can take the form of cartographic images, graphs, scatter plots, flow charts, or other types of diagrams. As Lauren Manning, a communications designer, observes, “visualization is more effective than a large, incomprehensible data set in that it sifts out what is pertinent and presents it in a legible form.”182 Information visualization’s most prolific and persuasive champion is the statistician, political scientist, and artist Edward Tufte. The following will demonstrate some of his theories on the visual display of information in diagramming. According to Tufte, “to document and explain processes, to make verbs visible, is at the heart of information design.”183 Diagramming in action Layering and separation Layering information about systems can be difficult because you can introduce “non-information patterns and textures simply through their combined presence. Josef Albers defines this visual effect as 1+1= 3 or more, when two elements show themselves along with assorted incidental by-products of the partnership.”184 Albers’s theory lies at the heart of layering – the use of white space on paper or the screen. Look at the diagram based on Alber’s idea. The Bauhaus trained painter, Albers, cautioned that when diagramming, you must be aware that white space is perceived as a graphic element. This is why one plus one does not equal two. Tufte notes that colour can be used for the same types of information, measurement for example, which adds coherency to the layering. Small areas of intense saturated colour can also be effective for communicating the most important information.185 In the diagram explaining water purification, Stoss Landscape Urbanism uses white space as part of the diagram’s composition and small areas of colour to clearly communicate this important function of the designed landscape.

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one graphic element

three graphic elements 5.23 From Albers’s 1+1=3

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5.24 Minneapolis Riverfront diagram (2011) by Stoss Landscape Urbanism

How would this diagram be different if the entire scheme was rendered? Notice the role that numbers play in the diagram, and how their placement doesn’t involve arrows or callout that interfere with the image.

Micro/macro readings Tufte’s theory of Micro/Macro Readings recommends that “to clarify, add detail . . . Micro/Macro designs enforce both local and global comparisons and, at the same time, avoid disruption of context switching . . . it is not how much empty space there is but rather how it is used.”186 This might seem like a surprising statement because adding detail might make a diagram too busy, but Tufte argues that we need a simple overall scheme with micro level detail. “Simpleness is an aesthetic preference, not an information display strategy, not a guide to clarity. What we seek is a rich texture of data, a comparative context, and understanding of complexity revealed with an economy of means.”187 Look at Figure 5.25 from the Schoolyard Park competition. The entry was design by Yasuaki Tanago, Shinya Minami, and Yasuyuki Sakuma. Their overall scheme involves corridors in both the landscape and the architecture. The macro idea is simple and legible, but so is the micro-world of their proposal. Small multiples For Tufte, “Small multiple designs, multivariate and data bountiful, answer directly by visually enforcing comparisons of changes, of the differences among objects, of the scope of alternatives . . . constancy of design puts the emphasis on changes in data, not changes in data frames.”188 Since landscape architects

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work with existing sites, this always provides an opportunity to compare before and after conditions. This is what Humphry Repton, a landscape designer frequently cited by Tufte for both praise and criticism, did so well in his Red Books. However, what Tufte proposes here is the duplication of similar images to show change, rather than pulling the flap back to see Repton’s brilliant design. Tufte warns that it’s difficult to make the long-awaited comparisons among geographic distributions “so comparisons should be small in size, to be enforced within the scope of the eye span.”189 Look at the proposal for the Hannover City 2020 ideas competition, by LOLA Landscape Architects. Can you see that by displaying the same tree with different pavilion configurations you can compare the alternatives to each other? Can you see how LOLA uses “small multiples”?

Other advice From typeface to the display of information, Tufte advises on textual information as well. He cautions against “label clutter,”190 which is avoided in both LOLA’s and Stoss’s diagrams. Moreover, you should obviously avoid typefaces that are difficult to read. Tufte also stresses that ALL CAPS CAN GRAB YOUR ATTENTION, BUT

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5.25 Schoolyard Park 13 acres competition entry (2002) by Yasuaki Tanago, Shinya Minami, and Yasuyuki Sakuma

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5.26 Treehugger Pavilions for Hannover City 2020 ideas competition by LOLA Landscape Architects, image courtesy of Eric-Jan Pleijster

THEY ARE MORE DIFFCULT TO READ compared with words in sentence-case formatting. This is why most highway signage is not produced in all upper-case letters. Motorists driving at high speeds must be able to read these signs quickly, so they can respond, and the combination of upper- and lower-case letters is more legible. Tufte also warns against “data imprisonment” favouring cartographic lines and the subtle uses of colour, and what he calls the strategy of the “subtraction of weight” to free data for its comprehension.191 In general, colours should be analogous, otherwise the information is not weighted, and “when everything is emphasized nothing is emphasized.”192 Look at Land Value by Bill Rankin.

If the diagram was differently coloured do you think it would be more difficult or easier to read? Do you see how Rankin has used white space?

Diagramming debated Bowring and Swaffield point out that there are sensorial dimensions of landscapes that are difficult to be designed or explained by diagramming. They note, while designers such as Lynch and Halprin sought to diagram movement through space, the forms of expression remain primarily objective. The phenomenological, felt, experiential landscape, however, is characterized by subjective response, and it is these aspects which exceed the graphic capacity of diagramming . . . smell, for example, cannot even be represented, let alone diagrammed, as the only language of expression we have for the olfactory dimension is text, and even that relies on the language of analogy.193

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As you read in the Theoretical Groundings for Diagramming at the beginning of this section, the prevalence of the diagram emerged as it was influenced by Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizome theory and later promoted by architects and landscape architects. Given Deleuze’s and Guattari’s lack of knowledge regarding the biological aspects of actual rhizomes, do you think their theory is still valid? Should it be renamed? The diagram was also promoted, particularly by Corner, to avoid the nostalgic, pictorial images conferred by landskip. He argued for a “shift away from landscape as an object of appearance to processing information, dynamics of occupancy, and the poetics of becoming. Whereas these processes may be imaged, they are not necessarily susceptible to picturing.”194 In short, he thinks if you made diagramming integral to your design process, you would avoid designing a landscape chiefly for its visual appearance, particularly its appearance as a pastoral scene. If you avoid thinking about how something looks, will you avoid designing a landscape that is nostalgic and pictorial?

Primary reading for diagramming James Corner, “Representation and Landscape: Drawing and Making in the Landscape Medium.” James Corner, “Eidetic Operations and New Landscapes.” Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Edward R. Tufte, Beautiful Evidence. Edward R. Tufte, Envisioning Information. Jakub Zdebik, Deleuze and the Diagram: Aesthetic Threads in Visual Organization.

NOTES 1. Suzanne Witzgall, “Art as an Open System: Complexity and Interaction in Art since 1960,” Living Systems, eds. Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau (Barcelona: Arts Santa Monica, 2011), 29 (29–37). 2. Darrell Arnold, “Systems Theory: A Mixed Theory,” Traditions of Systems Theory: Major Figures and Contemporary Developments, ed. Darrell Arnold (New York: Routledge, 2014), 10–20 (10). 3. Gerald Midgley, Systemic Intervention Philosophy, Methodology, and Practice (New York: Springer, 2000), 2. 4. Ibid., 3. 5. Karl Ludwig von Bertalanffy, General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications, revised edition (New York: Penguin ,

5.27 Land Value (2006) by Bill Rankin (www.radicalcartography.net)

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6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

21. 22. 23. 24.

25. 26.

1969). The groundwork for a General Systems Theory (GST) began in the 1920s at the Institute for Experimental Biology or “Prater Vivarium” in Vienna. The experimental biologists of Prater Vivarium did not want to passively study biological process, as promoted by Ernst Haeckel in “well-constructed analytical experiments from which they hoped to derive causal explanations” (see Manfred Drack, Wilfried Apfalter, and David Pouvreau, “On the Making of a System Theory of Life: Paul A. Weiss and Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s Conceptual Connection,” Quarterly Review of Biology 82, no. 4 (2007): 349–373 (352)). They also felt mechanistic physical laws were inadequate for studying living systems. Drack et al., “On the Making of a System Theory of Life: Paul A. Weiss and Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s Conceptual Connection.” Ian McHarg, “The Ecology of the City,” AIA Journal 38, no. 5 (1962): 101–103 (102). Ian McHarg, Design with Nature (Garden City, NY: Natural History Press, 1969), 35. See John T. Lyle, Design for Human Ecosystems: Landscape, Land Use, and Natural Resources (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1999). Peter Galison, ‘The Ontology of the Enemy: Norbert Wiener and the Cybernetic Vision,” Critical Inquiry 21, no.1 (1994): 254–255. Odum, Eugene. Fundamentals of ecology. Philadelphia, Saunders, 1971. Lyle, Design for Human Ecosystems: Landscape, Land Use, and Natural Resources, 130. See Witzgall, “Art as an Open System: Complexity and Interaction in Art since 1960,” Living Systems. Lawrence Halprin, “The Rebellious Sixties,” A Life Spent Changing Places: Lawrence Halprin (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 113–150 (132). Margot Lystra, “McHarg’s Entropy, Halprin’s Chance: Representations of Cybernetic Change in1960s Landscape Architecture,” special issue on Time, eds. Sonja Duempelmann and Susan Herrington, Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes: An International Quarterly 34, no. 1 (2014): 71–84 (78). Ann E. Komara, Lawrence Halprin’s Skyline Park (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2012), 133. Arnold, “Systems Theory: A Mixed Theory,” 11. Lyle, Design for Human Ecosystems: Landscape, Land Use, and Natural Resources, 5. Michela de Poli and Guido Incerti, “Shanghai Houtan Park,” An Atlas of Recycled Landscapes, ed. Luca Molinari (Milan: Skira, 2014), 140–143 (140). William S. Saunders, “Landscape as a Living System: Houtan Park Shanghai Expo Park,” Designed Ecologies: The Landscape Architecture of Kongjian Yu, ed. William S. Saunders (Basel: Birhäuser, 2013), 164–183. John T. Lyle, “Can Floating Seeds Make Deep Forms?” Landscape Journal 10, no. 1 (1991): 37–47. Joan Hirschman Woodward, “Foreword,” Design for Human Ecosystems: Landscape, Land Use, and Natural Resources (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1999), v. Gina Crandell, Tree Gardens: Architecture and the Forest (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2013), 88. Alexis C. Madrigal, “The Man Who First Said ‘Cyborg,’ 50 Years Later,” Atlantic, 30 September 2010, accessed 22 January 2016, www.theatlantic.com/technology/ archive/2010/09/the-man-who-first-said-cyborg-50-years-later/63821/). Donna J. Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge, 1991). Donna Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and Socialist–Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century,” The Cybercultures Reader, eds. Barbara M. Kennedy and David Bell (London: Routledge, 2000), 291–324 (291).

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27. Ibid., 312. 28. Ariane Lourie Harrison “Introduction: Charting Posthuman Territory,” Architectural Theories of the Environment: Posthuman Territory (New York: Routledge, 2013), 3–36 (8). 29. N. Katherine Hayles quoted in Ariane Lourie Harrison, “Introduction: Charting Posthuman Territory,” Architectural Theories of the Environment: Posthuman Territory, 7. 30. Elizabeth K. Meyer, “The Expanded Field of Landscape Architecture,” Ecological Design and Planning, eds. George F. Thompson and Frederick R. Steiner (New York: John Wiley, 1997), 45–79 (53). 31. William Myers, Bio Design: Nature, Science, Creativity (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2012), 218. 32. Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 247. 33. Bruno Latour, “On Actor-Network Theory. A Few Clarifications plus More than a Few Complications,” special issue of the Danish philosophy journal, accessed 22 January 2016, www.bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/P-67%20ACTOR-NETWORK.pdf, 7. 34. Ibid., 4. 35. Andrew Langford, “In Transition,” Emerging Landscapes: Between Production and Representation, eds. Davide Deriu, Krystallia Kamvasinou, and Eugénie Shinkle (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), 75–80 (76). 36. Anne Tietjen, “Translations – Experiments in Landscape Design Education,” Nordic Design Research Conference 2013, Copenhagen-Malmo, accessed 22 January 2016, www.nordes.org. 37. Jan-Eric Pleijster, “Natural Urban Landscapes,” lecture to the Swedish Association of Architects Oyster All-Inclusive conference, Stockholm, 18 September 2015. 38. Marc Treib, “Nature Recalled,” Recovering Landscape: Essays in Contemporary Landscape Architecture (Sparks, NV: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999), 31. 39. Alison B. Hirsch, “Scoring the Participatory City: Lawrence (& Anna) Halprin’s Take Part Process,” Journal of Architectural Education 64, no. 2 (2011): 127–140 (139). 40. See Sandra Harding, “Modernity’s Misleading Dream: Latour,” Sciences from Below: Feminisms, Postcolonialities, and Modernities (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008), 23–48. 41. Peter Mortenbock and Helge Mooshammer, “Trade Flow: Architecture of Informal Markets,” Architecture in the Space of Flows (New York: Routledge, 2012), 117–134 (118). 42. David M. Berry, “The Poverty of Networks,” Theory, Culture & Society 25 (2008): 364–372 (365). 43. Henry Granick, Underneath New York (New York: Robert E. Sullivan, 1947; 1991), 12. 44. Michael G. Lee, “Infrastructure as Landscape Embellishment: Peter Joseph Lenné in Potsdam and Berlin,” Technology and the Garden, eds. Michael G. Lee and Kenneth I. Helphand (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2014), 169–197 (184). 45. Gary Strang, “Infrastructure as Landscape,” Places 10, no. 3 (1996): 8–15 (12). 46. Ibid., 11. 47. Pierre Bélanger, “Landscape as Infrastructure,” Landscape Journal 28 no. 1 (2008): 79–95 (91). 48. Pierre Bélanger, “Landscape Infrastructure, Excerpt from ‘Infrastructural Ecologies: Fluid, Biotic, Contingent,’” Landscape Architecture’s Core? Harvard Design Magazine no. 36 (2013): 154–157 (156). 49. Ian Hamilton Thompson, “Essence-less Landscape,” Landscape Architecture’s Core? Harvard Design Magazine no. 36 (2013): 24–35 (28). 50. Robert Thayer, Gray World, Green Heart: Technology, Nature, and Sustainable Landscape (New York: Wiley, 1994), 74.

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51. Ibid., 96. 52. Landscape Architecture Foundation, Case Study Briefs, Washington Canal Park, accessed 23 January 2016, http://landscapeperformance.org/case-study-briefs/ canal-park. 53. Richard Weller, “An Art of Instrumentality: Thinking Through Landscape Urbanism,” The Landscape Urbanism Reader, ed. Charles Waldheim (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006), 69–85 (73). 54. Ibid., 77. 55. Christopher Hookway, “Pragmatism,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (Spring 2015 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, accessed 23 January 2016, http://plato. stanford.edu/archives/spr2015/entries/pragmatism/. 56. John Dewey, Art as Experience (New York: Putnam Capricorn, 1958), 154. 57. Kiona Smith-Strickland, “A Billboard that Condenses Water from Humidity,” 25 April 2013, accessed 23 January 2016, www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-tech/ a8875/a-billboard-that-condenses-water-from-humidity-15393050/. 58. Anne Whiston Spirn, The Granite Garden: Urban Nature and Human Design (New York: Basic Books, 1984), 5. 59. Charles Waldheim, “Landscape as Urbanism,” The Landscape Urbanism Reader, ed. Charles Waldheim (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006), 35–53 (37). See also Charles Waldheim, “Landscape Urbanism: A Genealogy,” Praxis 4 (2002): 10–17. 60. James Corner, “Terra Fluxus,” The Landscape Urbanism Reader, ed. Charles Waldheim (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006), 21–33 (31). 61. Ibid. 62. Waldheim, “Landscape as Urbanism,” 38–39. 63. Stoss Landscape Urbanism, “Bass River Park,” accessed 24 January 2016, www. stoss.net/projects/9/bass-river-park/. 64. Kristina Hill and Larissa Larsen, “Adaptive Urbanism,” Landscape Urbanism and Its Discontents: Dissimulating the Sustainable City, eds. Andrés Duany and Emily Talen (Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, 2013), 215–230 (222–223). 65. Ian Thompson, “Ten Tenets and Six Questions for Landscape Urbanism,” Landscape Research 37, no.1 (2012): 7–26 (24). 66. Hill and Larsen, “Adaptive Urbanism,” 219–220. 67. Dolores Hayden, Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820–2000 (New York: Pantheon Books, 2003). 68. Henri Lefebvre, “The Urban in Question,” Writings on Cities, eds. E. Kaufman and E. Lebas (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 209. 69. Sigmund Freud, “The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis,” American Journal of Psychology 21, no. 2 (1910): 181–218 (200). 70. Catherine Miller, Jean Cocteau, Guillaume Apollinaire, Paul Claudel et le groupe des six (Belgium: Pierre Mardaga Éditeur, 2004), 139. 71. Margaret Cohen, Profane Illumination: Walter Benjamin and the Paris of Surrealist Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 57. 72. André Breton, “What is Surrealism?” Theories in Modern Art: A Source Book by Artists and Critics, ed. Herschel B. Chipp (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), 410–417 (417–411). 73. Annette Shandler Levitt, The Genres and Genders of Surrealism (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1999), 2. 74. Breton, “What is Surrealism?” 417. 75. André Breton, “Surrealism and Painting,” Art in Theory 1900–1990, eds. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000), 440–446 (442). 76. André Breton, “First Manifesto of Surrealism,” Art in Theory 1900–1990, eds. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000) 432–440 (434).

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77. Quoted in J. H. Matthews, Introduction to Surrealism (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1965), 48. 78. Susan Buck-Morss, The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989), 256. 79. Walter Benjamin, “Surrealism: The Last Snapshot of the European Intelligentsia,” Modernism: An Anthology, ed. Lawrence Rainey (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005), 1087–1095 (1091). 80. Tom McDonough, The Situationists and the City, ed. Tom McDonough (London: Verso, 2009) 2. 81. Ibid., 6. 82. Ibid., 29. 83. Ibid., 82. 84. Sadie Plant, The Most Radical Gesture: The Situationist International in a Postmodern Age (New York; London: Routledge, 1991; 2002), 59. 85. McDonough, The Situationists and the City, 78. 86. Fernando Magallanes, “Landscape Surrealism,” Surrealism and Architecture, ed. Thomas Mical (New York: Routledge, 2005), 220–233 (221). 87. Ibid., 222. 88. Jean La Marche, “Surrealism’s Unexplored Possibilities in Architecture,” Surrealism and Architecture, ed. Thomas Mical (New York: Routledge, 2005), 220–233 (275). 89. Christophe Girot, “Four Trace Concepts in Landscape Architecture,” Recovering Landscape, ed. James Corner (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999), 59–67 (61). 90. James Corner, “Representation and Landscape: Drawing and Making in the Landscape Medium,” Word & Image 8, no. 3 (1992): 243–275 (268). 91. Max Ernst, The Hundred Headless Woman: La Femme 100 Têtes, trans. Dorothea Tanning (New York: George Braziller, 1981). 92. Richard Rainwater, “Max Ernst, Printmaker,” Max Ernst: Beyond Surrealism: A Retrospective of the Artist’s Books and Prints, ed. Richard Rainwater (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 3–36 (8). 93. Evan M. Mauer, “Images of Dream and Desire: The Prints and Collage Novels of Max Ernst,” Max Ernst: Beyond Surrealism: A Retrospective of the Artist’s Books and Prints, ed. Rainwater, 73. 94. Ibid., 63. 95. Ibid., 68. 96. Ibid., 69. 97. Brett Milligan, “GROSS. MAX and Promiscuous Collage,” Free Association Design, 2 March 2010, accessed 24 January 2016, https://freeassociationdesign.wordpress. com/author/bmilligan/. 98. Levitt, The Genres and Genders of Surrealism, 12. 99. Ibid., 10. 100. Laurie Olin, “Form, Meaning, and Expression in Landscape Architecture,” Meaning in Landscape Architecture and Gardens: Four Essays, Four Commentaries, ed. Marc Treib (London: Routledge, 2011), 22–70 (30). 101. Greenwood Village History 1850–2000, accessed 25 January 2016, www. greenwoodvillage.com/index.aspx?NID=1463. 102. Ibid. 103. André Breton, “Inaugural Breaks 1947,” What Is Surrealism? Selected Writings, André Breton, ed. Franklin Rosemont (New York: Monad, 1978), 371. 104. Jacky Bowring and Simon Swaffield, “Shifting Landscapes in-between Times,” Landscape Architecture’s Core? Harvard Design Magazine no. 36 (2013): 96–105 (100).

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105. Ibid. 106. Alistair Brotchie, A Book of Surrealist Games, ed. Mel Gooding (London: Shambala Redstone, 1995), 107. 107. Nathan Paul Eburne, Surrealism and the Art of Crime (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008), 49. 108. George Basalla, “Transformed Utilitarian Objects,” Winterthur Portfolio 17, no. 4 (1982): 183–201 (183). 109. Breton, “Inaugural Breaks 1947,” 341. 110. Guy Debord, “Situationist International, ‘Detournement as Negation and Prelude,’” Art in Theory 1900–1990, eds. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 696–698 (697). 111. Guy Debord and Gil J. Wolman, “A User’s Guide to Détournement,” Situationist International Anthology, revised and expanded edition, 2006, trans. Ken Knabb, accessed 25 January 2016, www.bopsecrets.org/SI/detourn.htm. 112. Debord, “Situationist International, ‘Detournement as Negation and Prelude,’” 697. 113. Thilo Folkerts and Rodney LaTourelle, “Jardin de la Connaissance by Rodney LaTourelle and 100 Landschaftsarchitektur – update,” Dezeen magazine, 15 August 2012, accessed 25 January 2016, www.dezeen.com/2012/08/15/jardin-de-laconnaissance-by-rodney-latourelle-and-100-landschaftsarchitektur-update/. 114. Whitney Chadwick, Women, Art, and Society, fifth edition (London: Thames & Hudson, 2012), 309. 115. Xavière Gauthier, Surréalisme et sexualité (Paris: Gallimard, 1971). 116. Mary Ann Caws, “Seeing the Surrealist Woman: We Are a Problem,” Dada/ Surrealism 18 (1990): 11–16 (11). 117. Chadwick, Women, Art, and Society, 315. 118. Ibid., 311. 119. Olin, “Form, Meaning, and Expression in Landscape Architecture,” 33. 120. Magallanes, “Landscape Surrealism,” 228. 121. Valerie Fletcher, Isamu Noguchi: Master Sculptor (Washington, DC: Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, 2004), 48. 122. Dominic McIver Lopes, A Philosophy of Computer Art (London; New York: Routledge, 2010), 3. 123. Antoine Picon, “Substance and Structure II: The Digital Culture of Landscape Architecture,” Landscape Architecture’s Core? Harvard Design Magazine no. 36 (2013): 124–129 (124). 124. Nick Chrisman, “Charting the Unknown: How Computer Mapping at the GSD became GIS,” (Redlands, CA: ESRI, 2004), 5, accessed 15 May 2015, www.gsd. harvard.edu/gis/manual/lcgsa/HarvardBLAD_screen.pdf. 125. Paul A. Longley, Mike Goodchild, David J. Maguire, and David W. Rhind, “Geographic Spatial Modelling with GIS,” Information Systems and Science (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, 2011), 403–423 (414). 126. Ibid., 417. 127. Jillian Walliss, Heike Rahmann, Zaneta Hong, and Jorg Sieweke, “Pedagogical Foundations: Deploying Digital Techniques in Design/Research Practice,” Journal of Landscape Architecture 3 (2014): 72–83 (76). 128. Philip Belesky, “Processes and Processors,” accessed 25 January 2016, http:// philipbelesky.com/projects/processes-and-processors/. 129. Nadia Amoroso, Digital Landscape Architecture Now (London: Thames & Hudson, 2012), 12. 130. Sean Cubitt, “Analogue and Digital,” Theory, Culture & Society 23 (2006): 250–253 (250). 131. Lopes, A Philosophy of Computer Art, 64. 132. Amoroso, Digital Landscape Architecture Now, 11.

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133. George Hargreaves, “Foreword,” Digital Landscape Architecture Now, ed. Amoroso, 7. 134. Lopes, A Philosophy of Computer Art, 49. 135. Bradley Cantrell and Wes Michaels, Digital Drawing for Landscape Architecture: Contemporary Techniques and Tools for Digital Representation in Site Design (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2010), 2. 136. David Berry, Critical Theory and the Digital (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014), 19. 137. Cantrell and Michaels, Digital Drawing for Landscape Architecture, 14. 138. Ibid. 139. Walliss et al., “Pedagogical Foundations: Deploying Digital Techniques in Design/ Research Practice,” 74. 140. Ibid., 82. 141. Mario Carpo, Algorithm and the Alphabet (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011), 41. 142. Virgilio Verceloni, European Gardens: An Historical Atlas (New York: Rizzoli, 1990), 78. 143. Michel Conan, “Introduction,” Bourgeois and Aristocratic Cultural Encounters in Garden Art, 1550–1850, ed. Michel Conan (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2002), 3. 144. Rafael Hierro Calleja, Granada and the Alhambra, trans. Nicola Jane Graham (Granada: Ediciones Miguel Sánchez, 2005), 41. 145. Karen M’Closkey, “Synthetic Patterns: Fabricating Landscapes in the Age of ‘Green,’” Journal of Landscape Architecture (Spring 2013): 16–27 (26). 146. Berry, Critical Theory and the Digital, 126. 147. Amoroso, Digital Landscape Architecture Now, 216. 148. Gilles A. Tiberghien, “A Landscape Deferred,” Intermediate Natures: The Landscapes of Michel Desvigne, ed. Delphine Costedoat (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2009), 151–179 (173). 149. Ibid., 171. 150. Ibid., 173. 151. Andrea Hansen, “From Hand to Land: Tracing Procedural Artifacts in the Built Landscape,” Scenario 01: Landscape Urbanism, eds. Sarah Kathleen Peck and Eliza Shaw Valk, Fall 2011. 152. Chrisman, “Charting the Unknown: How Computer Mapping at the GSD became GIS,” 7. 153. Hansen, “From Hand to Land: Tracing Procedural Artifacts in the Built Landscape.” 154. Christophe Girot, “Topology – A New Measure of Quality in Landscape Architecture,” accessed 25 January 2016, http://girot.arch.ethz.ch/research/designprecision-topology/archives-design-precision-topology/topology-a-new-measureof-quality-in-landscape-architecture. 155. Brett Milligan, “Decade Hillside: The Sigirino Depot,” 6 June 2011, accessed 26 January 2016, https://freeassociationdesign.wordpress.com/2011/06/06/ decade-hillside-the-sigirino-depot/. 156. David Beer, “Interview with David Berry on Digital Power and Critical Theory,” Theory, Culture, & Society, 1 May 2014, accessed 26 January 2016, http://theory culturesociety.org/interview-with-david-berry-on-digital-power-and-critical-theory/. 157. Hansen, “From Hand to Land: Tracing Procedural Artifacts in the Built Landscape.” 158. Zafer Bilda and Halime Demirkan, “An Insight on Designers’ Sketching Activities in Traditional versus Digital Media,” Design Studies 24, no. 1 (2003): 27–50. 159. Karl Kullmann, “Hyper-realism and Loose-reality: The Limitations of Digital Realism and Alternative Principles in Landscape Design Visualization,” Journal of Landscape Architecture 9, no. 3 (2014): 20–31 (22). 160. Noel van Dooren, “Speaking about Drawing,” Topos: The World of Landscape Architecture 80 (2012): 43–54 (54). 161. Kullmann, “Hyper-realism and Loose-reality,” 30. 162. Catherine Dee, “Plus and Minus: Critical Drawing for Landscape Design,” Thinking

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163. 164.

165.

166. 167. 168.

169. 170. 171. 172. 173. 174. 175. 176. 177. 178. 179. 180. 181. 182.

183. 184. 185. 186. 187. 188. 189. 190. 191. 192. 193. 194.

and Drawing: Confronting an Electronic Age, ed. Marc Treib (Abingdon: Routledge, 2008), 60–71 (66). Charles William Eliot, General Principles in Selecting Public Reservations and Determining Their Boundaries, Boston Metropolitan Park System, 1902. Sun-Joo Shin, Oliver Lemon, and John Mumma, “Diagrams,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2014 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, accessed 25 January 2016, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2014/entries/diagrams/. See Anita Berrizbeitia, “Geology and Temporality in Charles Eliot’s Metropolitan Park System, Boston (1892–1893),” Special Issue on Time, Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes Quarterly 34, no. 1 (2014): 38–51. Bowring and Swaffield, “Shifting Landscapes in-between Times,” 143. Ibid., 145. James Corner, “Eidetic Operations and New Landscapes,” Recovering Landscape: Essays in Contemporary Landscape Architecture, ed. James Corner, (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999), 152–169 (161). Ibid., 164. Timothy S. Murphy, “Gilles Deleuze,” Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory, ed. Irena R. Makaryk (Toronto: University of Toronto, 2000), 288–290 (289). Ibid. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), 5. Ibid., 7. Ibid., 16. Ibid., 12. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage Books, 1995), 211. Gilles Deleuze, Foucault (New York: Continuum, 2006), 30. Jakub Zdebik, Deleuze and the Diagram: Aesthetic Threads in Visual Organization (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012), 24. Richard T. Forman, Land Mosaics: The Ecology of Landscapes and Regions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 5. Ibid., 245. Van Dooren,“Speaking about Drawing,” 53–54. Lauren Manning, “Visualizing Information,” Scenario 01: Landscape Urbanism (Fall 2011), ed. by Sarah Kathleen Peck and Eliza Shaw Valk, accessed 25 January 2016, http://scenariojournal.com/article/lauren-manning/. Edward R. Tufte, “Explaining Magic,” Visual Explanations (Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press, 1997), 54–72 (55). Edward R. Tufte, “Layering and Separating,” Envisioning Information (Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press, 1990), 53–65 (53). Ibid., 63. Edward R. Tufte, “Micro/Macro Readings,” Envisioning Information, 37–51 (50). Ibid., 151. Edward R. Tufte, “Small Multiples,” Envisioning Information, 66–79 (67). Ibid., 76. Edward R. Tufte, “Words, Numbers, Images – Together,” Beautiful Evidence (Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press, 2006), 82–121 (120). Edward R. Tufte, “Links and Causal Arrow,” Beautiful Evidence, 64–81 (71). Tufte, “Layering and Separating,” 65. Jacky Bowring and Simon Swaffield, “Diagrams in Landscape Architecture,” Diagrams of Architecture, ed. Mark Garcia (Chichester: Wiley, 2010), 141–152 (150). Corner, “Eidetic Operations and New Landscapes,” 159.

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Accelerated perspective The technique of accelerated perspective involves the intentional exaggeration of a perspectival view. For example, if you would like to exaggerate the depth of a path you would narrow the width of the path as it moves away from a particular viewing point. Since objects get smaller as they recede from view, this will have the effect of making the path appear longer than it would if you had designed the width of the path to remain constant. Used in Chapter 2 Spatial Practices: Illusionary Space Aesthetics Aesthetics is the philosophy of art and it considers the formal qualities, judgments, attitudes, and experiences of various art forms, including the built environment and thus landscapes. Aesthetics emerged as a topic of philosophic debate in the eighteenth century when British philosophers developed theories of taste. These theories supplanted the absolute standards of beauty and proportion forged since the Renaissance. By the twentieth century, investigations in aesthetics included attitudes or the state of mind when appreciating an artwork as well as the nature of aesthetic experiences. Today, aesthetics is a growing field addressing numerous art forms and practices throughout the world. Used in the Introduction; Chapter 1 Forming: Formalism; Chapter 4 Language: Typology, Semantics, Semiotics, Structuralism; and Chapter 5 Systems Logic: Systems Theory and Cybernetics, Infrastructure, Aleatory Systems, Diagramming Analogon Analogon is a term used in Jean-Paul Sartre’s (1905–1980) theory of the imagination. An analogon is the physical matter that invites you to perceive it as a representation of something, someone, or a mental image. Through the imaginary process, the analogon assumes the place of what the physical matter represents. For example, a photograph of someone can stand, for a moment, for that person, and prompt you to ascribe the feelings you have regarding that person to the photograph. You know the photo is not that person, but the analogon invites you to make those associations. Analogons are particularly powerful if they concern a person who is deceased, and this is why you often see people bringing physical matter or analogons (a photo of the person or her favourite toy) to memorials. Used in Chapter 2 Spatial Practices: Phenomenology

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Anamorphosis The technique of anamorphosis manipulates the rules governing perspective to distort an image or a view. The correct or intended view or image is only comprehended by occupying a specific vantage point or by using special optical devices. Used in Chapter 2 Spatial Practices: Illusionary Space Avant-garde From the French term for “advance guard” (a unit of the French army that advances ahead of other units), “avant-garde” was first used in the nineteenth century to describe innovative art that broke with traditional artistic conventions to envision a new future for society. By the mid-twentieth century, avant-garde art was considered an alternative to kitsch art, which is the German name for art that is cheap and garish, and often exhibits an exaggerated sentimentality. A continuous theme found in avant-garde art is its insistence on rule breaking, experimentation, and originality. Used in Chapter 1 Forming: Interventions; Chapter 2 Spatial Practices: Spatial Constructs; and Chapter 5 Systems Logic: Aleatory Systems Bête machine Bête machine is a doctrine advanced by René Descartes (1596–1650) who thought that machines were apt metaphors for explaining the behaviours of non-human animals. Descartes believed this because he thought non-human animals lacked an awareness of their own existence. For Descartes, humans were the only animals to be conscious of themselves. Used in Chapter 5 Systems Logic: Systems Theory and Cybernetics Binary Binary structures concern two terms that are mutually opposed to each other, such as tall versus short. Binary oppositions can be either a contradiction, such as open versus not open, or they can be contrary, such as open versus closed. The semiotician Algirdas Julien Greimas (1917–1992) developed contradiction and contrary binary oppositions as key components of his semiotic square, which he thought provided the basic structure of meaning. Used in the Introduction; Chapter 4 Language: Semiotics, Structuralism, Post-structuralism; and Chapter 5 Systems Logic: Aleatory Systems, Digital Systems, and Diagramming Bourgeois public sphere The sociologist and philosopher Jürgen Habermas developed the term “bourgeois public sphere” in his book, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: – An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Habermas gave a historical–sociological account of spaces where the bourgeois, or middle class, came together as a public. He observed a proliferation of these types of spaces, such as salons and coffee houses, in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England, France, and Germany. These social spaces were sites of political and artistic debates, but they were transformed, according to Habermas, with the expansion of capitalistic economies, the uneven distribution of wealth, and the rise of media. These changes in Western culture relocated

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communication on political issues, in particular, to mass media and advertisements, diminishing the contributions made by the middle class in the public sphere. Used in Chapter 1 Forming: Interventions; and Chapter 5 Systems Logic: Aleatory Systems Bracket When you walk down the street you experience people, animals, physical objects, other people, feelings and thoughts, and you probably consider them just to be there – existing. You don’t question if they exist or what they are really. In other words, you take them for face value. The sidewalk, the trees, the mailbox, and the squirrel racing by your feet are phenomena that are separate from you and they existed before you walked down the street. The philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) called this a natural theoretical attitude, a stance that he critiqued in scientific inquiries. Husserl sought to break with this attitude by employing his phenomenological technique called bracketing. For Husserl, bracketing involves suspending judgment in an experience in order to perceive and describe objects of your external reality. Much like the way a bracket in writing works to enclose a word so as to isolate it from the context of a sentence, bracketing in phenomenology distils the essence or common structure of phenomena. Used in Chapter 2 Spatial Practices: Phenomenology Bricolage For Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908–2009), bricolage refers to the thought processes of the bricoleur, who uses whatever is at hand to create something. In contrast, the engineer uses precise materials and calculations to construct something. Used in Chapter 3 Material Matters: Consequentialism Capital Capital refers to money, but in the Marxist sense of the term, capital is the wealth that produces more wealth. For example, if a capitalist owns a mine, she owns not only the money the mine generates but also the land, the structures associated with the mine, the machinery, and the hired miners – this is her capital. In this Marxist definition, capital is an expanding system. By hiring the miners, who use the machines and raw materials of the land to create surplus money, she is in the position to generate more capital. Cultural capital is associated with the work of sociologist and philosopher Pierre Bourdieu, and it refers to the non-monetary assets that promote social mobility. Monetary assets are economic resources you have at hand, while cultural capital entails knowledge, skills, education that you have acquired. For example, you might earn a university degree that may open up career opportunities that you might not have had if you had only completed high school. Used in Introduction Commodification Commodification is a Marxist term for the transformation of a relationship, formerly not commercialized, into a commercial relationship,

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involving buying and selling. Thus, it is the transformation of something into a commodity. Sports have often been described as undergoing commodification. While playing sports began as a source of fun and exercise, in many instances it has transformed into a multimillion dollar commercial industry. Used in Chapter 2 Spatial Practices: Contested Space Critical practices In landscape architecture and architecture, critical practices are approaches that incorporate critique as part of the generative process of design. In other words, design becomes the vehicle for criticism. Martha Schwartz’s use of bagels as a material in her Bagel Garden (Figure 4.24) is an example. Her design response was a critique of landscape architects’ focus on plants as the primary material for all gardens. Critical practices can be traced back to the 1970s in the architect Jorge Silvetti’s conception of a “criticism from within” (see Chapter 4 Language: Typology). This approach was part of the return to language and the gravitation to typology in both landscape architecture and architecture. Thirty years later the architect Stan Allen proposed that theoretically driven critical practices should be future-oriented, as he critiqued typology as too concerned with the past, and unsuitable for addressing twenty-first-century urbanism. Used in Chapter 3 Material Matters: Materiality Dialectic or dialectical Derived from the Greek verb “to converse,” dialectics can be traced back to the philosopher Socrates (470 BCE–399 BCE) in the fifth century BCE. However, it was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s (1770–1831) sense of the term dialectic, as a mode of thought that unites opposites, which influenced Karl Marx (1818–1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) and their theory of dialectical materialism. Hegel’s contemporary Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) provided one of the most well-known explanations of dialectics: a reconciliation of first a thesis with its antithesis to generate a synthesis. Used in the Introduction; Chapter 3 Material Matters: Materiality, Consequentialism; and Chapter 4 Language: Semantics, Post-structuralism Discourse Discourse refers to the way knowledge is formed and made true. The philosopher Michel Foucault’s (1926–1984) use of the term regards specific language communities, such as the prison system or the medical field, which not only construct a shared language and method of thinking, but also define the limits of knowledge. This is why Foucault views discourse as power – because discourse constitutes the province of knowledge and the community understood to be in possession of knowledge. Used in Chapter 4 Language: Semantics, Post-structuralism Discursive practices In Michel Foucault’s (1926–1984) sense of the term, discursive practices relates to the operations of discourses. They are the constellation of culturally specific procedures, rituals, and rules for producing and distributing different forms of knowledge and power, and the creation of identity.

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Used in Chapter 3 Material Matters: Materiality; Chapter 4 Language: Poststructuralism; and Chapter 5 Systems Logic: Diagramming École des Beaux-Arts While the term originates with the National School of Fine Arts in Paris, it also refers to a school of thought in landscape architecture and architecture that was practiced and taught primarily between 1893 and 1929 (between the Chicago Columbian Exposition and the Great Depression). Landscape designs reflecting the École des Beaux-Arts tradition revived older styles from Ancient Greece and Rome, Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque-era Europe. These styles could be mixed within one design as well. Used in Chapter 1 Forming: Formalism Empathy Empathy’s meaning has changed over time. Today, for example, empathy is often equated with sympathy, or our ability to identify with the feelings of others. When it was initially introduced to the design professions in the mid-twentieth century, empathy inspired landscape architects to express feelings and emotion through their designs. An asymmetrical layout of site features, for example, was thought to create movement in the eye and a sense of freedom and movement. Used in Chapter 2 Spatial Practices: Spatial Constructs Exchange-value Exchange is the practice of swapping something for something else with the condition that you will be receiving an equivalent in return. In exchange-value societies, this exchange is mediated by money. Used in Chapter 2 Spatial Practices: Contested Space Existentialism Existentialism is not an organized philosophical movement; rather several philosophers and thinkers have been identified as existentialists, including Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855), Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980), Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986), and Albert Camus (1913–1960). Themes addressed by existentialists include the consequences of the absurdity of existence and the commitments we share towards freedom. Existentialists also believed that philosophy should not be treated as an objective science or a form of remote contemplation, so many existentialists “lived out” their philosophy through literature. Thus, existentialism is both a philosophical and literary endeavour. For example, in Sartre’s novel, Nausea, the 30-year-old protagonist Antoine Roquentin learns that his existence is superfluous. He does this while looking at a root of a chestnut tree, which grows without him or without reason. This experience brings on nausea as he realizes that like the root his existence is absurd. Nausea reveals this state of existence and Sartre selected the word nausea because it is an uncontrollable sensation, rather than an idea. Used in Chapter 4 Language: Structuralism; and Chapter 5 Systems Logic: Digital Systems

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Exquisite corpse In the surrealist game, exquisite corpse, each player draws or pastes down an image on a sheet of paper, which is then folded to hide it from the view of the next player, who does the same before passing it on to the next person. Once finished, the entire sheet of paper is unfolded to reveal a collective image. This game was promoted by surrealists for its emphasis on chance, unpredictability, and group interaction. Used in Chapter 5 Systems Logic: Aleatory Systems Fetishized commodity The term fetish finds its origins in anthropology. Western anthropologists used “fetish” to describe the charms and other magical objects sacred to the Africans living in Guinea. In Marxist thought the term commodity refers to merchandise, wares, and other commercial goods (although now “commodities” refer to food and resources that are traded on the market) in the capitalist system of an exchange-value society. The emphasis on exchange-value is important because in an exchange-value society the labour required to produce the commodity is not necessarily an inherent part of its value. The oft-exploitive relationship between labour and the commodity is hidden. Pairing “fetishized” with “commodity,” like the charm that holds powers beyond what can be detected from the physical charm itself, the fetishized commodity is revered as possessing something that is transcendent from its inherent material. Think of the cult following that iPhones possess. Used in Chapter 5 Systems Logic: Aleatory Systems Gardenesque Coined by the gardener and writer John Claudius Loudon (1783–1843), gardenesque refers to a theory of planting design that emphasized the display of exotic, specimen plants. These plants were placed in distinctively shaped arrangements, such as in circular beds, that enabled people to view each plant at its best. The gardenesque style was in some ways a reaction to the nineteenth-century antiquarian Quatremère de Quincy’s critique that landscape gardens that looked indistinguishable from what nature could produce should not be considered art. Thus, the defined planting beds and the exotic specimens of gardenesque gardens signalled to viewers the status of the garden as an art form. Used in Chapter 3 Material Matters: Consequentialism Genealogy Genealogy is Michel Foucault’s (1926–1984) critical approach to history. He proposed genealogy as an alternative to ahistorical descriptions of the past (through typology for example) or developmental trajectories (as witnessed in most history textbooks). Foucault thought these histories painted an illusion of progress as an inevitable outcome of time and place that ultimately privileged the viewpoint of those writing the history. For example, landscape architecture history is typically presented to students in North America with a Eurocentric viewpoint with the idea that as political hegemony shifted around the Mediterranean, Europe, England, and later the United States there was an

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inevitable progression of landscapes and gardens. In contrast, genealogy constructs narratives that can be used to critique the present. Used in Chapter 4 Language: Post-structuralism Genius loci A Latin term, genius loci is typically used to describe the atmosphere of a specific place. Originally the term was inscribed on Roman altars dedicated to the protective spirit of a region. British philosophers and writers later revived the term in the eighteenth century. Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671–1713), for example, used the term genius loci in The Moralist (1709) to describe the relationship between nature, beauty, and moral truth. Genius loci was also expressed in the design of landscapes during this time period. For example, the entry drive to Castle Howard in North Yorkshire, England, was not flattened with grading. Rather, the drive rolls over the hilly terrain so that visitors can feel ancient geomorphology or genius loci. Used in Chapter 4 Language: Typology

6.1 Entrance drive to Castle Howard, York, England

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Haha A haha is a vertical barrier that facilitates an uninterrupted view of the landscape from the house. It can be made using a retaining wall or a steep slope. Hahas were first described by Antoine-Joseph Dezallier d’Argenville (1680–1765) in his book, La théorie et la pratique du jardinage (1709). Hahas were used extensively in eighteenth-century landscape gardens in Britain because you could look out and see grazing animals as part of the view, but the animals were unable to come up to the house because of the vertical barrier. Used in Chapter 3 Material Matters: Truth of Materials Hedonism Hedonism describes a type of value associated with classical utilitarianism in which the only thing good for its own sake is pleasure or happiness. All goods are pleasure or means that ultimately lead to pleasure. For example, the classical utilitarian Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) thought pleasure was an intrinsic feature of good, while bad was associated with pain. In the twentieth century the philosopher G. E. Moore (1873–1958) criticized the hedonistic value theory advanced in classical utilitarianism. He believed in the promotion of good, but thought there should be a plurality of what could be deemed good beyond simply pleasure. Used in Chapter 3 Material Matters: Consequentialism Hegemony Hegemony describes social and political relations whereby the ruling class dominates the subordinate class. This domination is so complete that the dominant class’s worldview is enshrined as the cultural norm and perceived as natural and inevitable, rather than culturally constructed and debatable. In this sense, the power of hegemony is derived from its invisibility because as one class becomes dominant it becomes common sense to accept this hegemonic relationship. Used in Chapter 1 Forming: Form Generation; Chapter 2 Spatial Practices: Spatial Constructs; Chapter 4 Language: Post-structuralism; and Chapter 5 Systems Logic: Aleatory Systems Hermeneutics Referencing the Greek god Hermes, who delivered and deciphered messages from the divine to mortals, hermeneutics concerns interpretation. While hermeneutics was initially concerned with the interpretation of biblical texts, by the nineteenth century it involved the analysis of non-religious texts in the determination of the author’s intentions. In the twentieth century philosophers such as Martin Heidegger (1889–1976), Hans Georg Gadamer (1900–2002), and Paul Ricoeur (1913–2005) provided diverse insights into hermeneutics. Heidegger, for example, claimed that phenomenology was hermeneutics, meaning the aim of phenomenology sought to interpret experience. Through a highly structured hermeneutical method, Heidegger proposed that the most primordial type of knowing could be revealed. Alternatively, Ricoeur argued that interpretations would vary depending on the reader’s cultural background. Today hermeneutics applies to a range of artefacts beyond

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written texts, including landscapes. In his article, “A Discourse on Theory II: Three Tyrannies of Contemporary Theory and the Alternative of Hermeneutics,” James Corner proposed hermeneutics as an approach to the theory and practice of landscape architecture. By exploring situational interpretation and metaphor, Corner thought that landscape architects could overcome positivism, the use of paradigms, and the avant-garde, which he viewed as tyrannies that limited the imaginative process. Used in Chapter 2 Spatial Practices: Phenomenology Heuristic A heuristic is a rule-of-thumb method or shortcut. You probably know the distance of your stride, one meter in length for example. This knowledge can then be used as a heuristic to determine how long a street is by walking and counting your steps. Used in Chapter 2 Spatial Practices: Spatial Constructs; and Chapter 5 Systems Logic: Digital Systems, Diagramming Iconology First proposed by Erwin Panofsky, iconology is an alternative to iconography, which concerns the identification, description, and classification of visual images and symbols of historical art. Iconology takes this analysis a step further by situating the work of art in its cultural and historical context and identifying how the work elaborates underlying notions of nationhood, religion, time period, or class. With iconology art could be treated like other historical documents, such as texts. The literary critic W. J. T. Mitchell later made iconology part of his ideological analysis of images in Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology. Used in Chapter 4 Language: Semantics Idealism In philosophy, idealism claims that reality is fundamentally mentally constructed, and this immaterial aspect of reality has priority over the material dimensions of reality. For example, you are reading this book. You see the book, the words and images on the page. You can touch the book or turn the pages, etc. These perceptions all happen within your mind, where you form an image of the book. An idealist would assert that aside from your immediate perceptions there is no such thing as an external objective world of books because reality takes place in your mind. A materialist would disagree and claim that there is an independent objective reality of books outside of your mind. Used in Chapter 3 Material Matters: Materiality Ideology Ideology comprises the conscious, but often unconscious, shared beliefs and values held by an individual or group of people. When a critic uses the term ideology it is usually employed to reveal that these beliefs are untrue. Like hegemony, ideology’s power rests in its invisibility. Ideological beliefs are typically taken for common sense and they are rarely subject to debate. Ideology has been theorized by numerous individuals over the course of the twentieth century, and the Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser (1918–1990) argued that

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you are unable to live without ideology. It is an inescapable fact of life. In his theory of ideological state apparatus, he argued that ideology represents the imaginary relationship between you and your material existence, and it is practiced through some type of state apparatus, such as religion, school, or media. He also contended that ideology operated in more subtle ways in daily interactions. Analysing language, for example, may reveal hidden assumptions. When someone uses the term “natural,” such as, “it’s only natural that you don’t excel at grading and drainage because you’re female,” this statement uncovers certain beliefs held by the speaker regarding gender and technical competence that the speaker may not be aware of, but this ideology is revealed through the use of language. Used in the Introduction; Chapter 2 Spatial Practices: Spatial Constructs, Contested Space; Chapter 3 Material Matters: Materiality; Chapter 4 Language: Post-structuralism; and Chapter 5 Systems Logic: Aleatory Systems, Digital Systems In-situ Taken from the Latin phrase, in-situ means literally “on site.” If you design a landscape in-situ that means you are designing it on site and not back at the studio or office. Used in the Introduction; and Chapter 2 Spatial Practices: Spatial Constructs Medium-specificity Developed by the art critic Clement Greenberg, who emphasized the material of an artwork as the defining aspect of that work, medium-specificity expanded earlier critiques of paintings, which might have incorporated the study of an artist’s brushwork, for example. Greenberg’s medium-specificity championed paintings that emphasized the flat, painted canvas over paintings that attempted to create the illusion of depth. Paintings that stressed the flatness of the painted canvas specifically expressed the uniqueness of painting in comparison to other arts, such as sculpture. Used in Chapter 3 Material Matters: Materiality; and Chapter 4 Language: Structuralism Metaphor A metaphor is a technique of describing something by calling it something else. Typically the two terms are far removed from each other but have some characteristics in common. Consider your studio and a pigsty; you could say, “I should clean up this pigsty,” for example. You are not saying that the studio is literally home to a group of omnivorous domesticated mammals with big snouts. You are telling me that the studio is a stinking mess. The goal of metaphors is to transfer qualities of one person, place, or expression to another in order to heighten the readers’ or listeners’ interpretation. Also see synecdoche. Used in Chapter 4 Language: Semantics, Structuralism; and Chapter 5 Systems Logic: Systems Theory and Cybernetics, Aleatory Systems, Diagramming

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Mimesis Mimesis dates back to the work of Plato and Aristotle, and it is chiefly concerned with the way art imitates reality. Aristotle considered drama in the tragedies as an imitation of life, for example. During the twentieth century mimesis was brought into question with the emergence of paintings that did not attempt to represent three-dimensional reality. In 1964, discussions on mimesis shifted to sculpture when Andy Warhol created Brillo boxes. Warhol’s artwork, a series of the boxes made of painted plywood, looked very much like the boxes of real cleaning pads you could purchase in the supermarket. In fact when Brillo boxes were sent for exhibition in Canada, customs refused to give it the special tax status of an artwork and taxed them as a commercial product. The philosopher Arthur Danto called this “the paradox of mimesis” and he questioned what made something art. Used in Chapter 1 Forming: Formalism; Chapter 3 Material Matters: Consequentialism; Chapter 4 Language: Semantics; and Chapter 5 Systems Logic: Aleatory Systems Mnemonic Taken from the Greek word mnemonikos, which means “of or pertaining to memory,” mnemonic devices can be a pattern of letters, ideas, rhymes, and associations that assist in memory. You’ve probably developed some mnemonic techniques for your plant identification courses. Used in Chapter 2 Spatial Practices: Memory and Space Neo-Kantian Philosophers, theorists, and art critics who are called NeoKantians are individuals who have revived some dimension of the philosophy formulated by Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). The revival of Kantian philosophy dates back to nineteenth-century Germany, but more recently in the twentieth century the art critic Clement Greenberg identified his conception of modern art with Kant. Used in Chapter 4 Language: Semantics Ontology In philosophy ontology examines what exists and what the basic features and relations are that constitute something that exists. It is the latter sense of the term, what makes something what it is, which theory addresses. Thus, an ontological theory of landscape architecture might speculate on what makes something a work of landscape architecture. Used in Chapter 1 Forming: Formalism; Chapter 3 Material Matters: Materiality; and Chapter 4 Language: Semantics, Semiotics Orientalism Developed by Edward W. Said, orientalism concerns the misrepresentation of the East by the West, and it is closely tied to the term Other. For Said, orientalism reinforces a Eurocentric prejudice against people from Arab and Islamic cultures by conflating different groups in these cultures as one undifferentiated Other. Used in Chapter 4 Language: Post-structuralism

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Other In post-structural theories the term Other is used to describe individuals or communities who are excluded or marginalized from the dominant power group, and whose identities are often reproduced by the West as separate entities that are interpreted through discursive practices, especially stereotypical images. Used in Chapter 2 Spatial Practices: Spatial Constructs, Contested Space; Chapter 4 Language: Structuralism, Post-structuralism; and Chapter 5 Systems Logic: Aleatory Systems Quincunx Derived from the Latin quinque (five) and uncia (twelfth), quincunx originally referred to the Roman currency, five-twelfths. It also refers to a planting pattern traditionally used for laying out trees in an orchard. The pattern resembles the five side on a dice with dots at four corners to form a square with one dot in the centre of the square. This pattern was spaced to provide ample sun to the trees as well as access for harvesting. Used in Chapter 2 Spatial Practices: Spatial Constructs

6.2 Quincunx pattern, public domain

Reductionism Reductionism in the sciences claims that concepts, explanations, and methods used in one scientific field can be used to elucidate another domain of science. The use of physics to describe the working of biological phenomena is an example. Used in Chapter 5 Systems Logic: Systems Theory and Cybernetics Revelatory landscapes In 1998 a special issue of Landscape Journal featured the exhibition, “Eco-Revelatory Design: Nature Constructed/Nature Revealed.” Chaired and edited by Brenda Brown, Terry Harkness, and Douglas Johnston.

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The exhibition envisioned design as a way of revealing aspects about natural systems and cultural practices operating in the landscape that might not be visible or identifiable. The objective of the design sought to reveal these systems or practices. An early example of a revelatory landscape is the Bamboo Garden by Alexandre Chemetoff at Parc de la Villette. Here, Chemetoff revealed the infrastructure typically hidden under the park. Used in Chapter 1 Forming: Function

6.3 Bamboo Garden (1987) by Alexandre Chemetoff, Parc de la Villette, Paris, France

Semiotic square Greimas’s semiotic square is the visual logistics of how meaning is structured through binary oppositions. Contrary terms presuppose S1 and S2 and they are typically represented by a straight line running horizontally.

(hot) S1

(cold) S2

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Contradictions negate (provide a negative in meaning with the word not) terms and usually run on the diagonal of the square. (cold) 5,

(hot) 5,

(not hot) -5,

6.5 Step two semiotic square

(not cold) -5,

oppositions contradictory

What is sometimes called complementary or implications of the relationships formed, typically runs vertically, meaning that something that is hot implies it is not cold, making them complementary. Similarly, something that is cold implies that it is not hot. (hot) S1

(not hot) –S1

(cold) S2

(not cold) –S2

oppositions 6.6 Step three semiotic square

contradictory complementary

Used in Chapter 4 Language: Structuralism Seriality In minimalist art seriality involves the non-hierarchical repetition of equivalent objects or materials to form patterns and juxtapositions of patterns. Translated into landscape architecture by Peter Walker, seriality involved a similar repeating of objects that visually dominate the environment.

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Used in Chapter 1 Forming: Formalism; and Chapter 5 Systems Logic: Aleatory Systems Situationist International SI or Situationist International was an alliance formed in the late 1950s among European artists and intellectuals who sought to break with the spectacle of consumer culture. Their efforts culminated in the May 1968 revolt when demonstrations, strikes, and the occupation of universities and factories in France practically shut down the country. Used in Chapter 5 Systems Logic: Aleatory Systems Sublimation A theory of Sigmund Freud, sublimation involves the unconscious channelling of impulses, which would normally be considered inappropriate in society, into more socially acceptable forms of practice, such as art. Used in Chapter 4 Language: Typology Synecdoche Synecdoche is a literary device that employs the name of only one part of something to refer to the whole of the thing. For example, the word “sails” is frequently used to refer to a whole ship. So sails are a synecdoche for the ship, while literally the sails of a ship only comprise one facet of it. The goal of synecdoche seeks to give deeper meaning to common objects and circumstances. Metonymy is frequently confused with synecdoche, but metonymy is employed to express a well-known characteristic of the word, but not necessarily a part of the thing to which it refers. The word Hollywood is used as a metonym for the movie industry in the United States, for example. Also see metaphor. Used in Chapter 1 Forming: Formalism Tabula rasa Translated from Latin as “blank slate,” the term refers to the wax tablet used in antiquity and the medieval period to take notes. A tabula typically comprised two wooden boards connected (like book binding) with leather straps. Thin layers of wax were embedded into each of the planks to create a writing surface for a stylus. By melting the wax, you could erase your notes and start anew on the blank slate. Tabula rasa was associated with the philosopher John Locke’s conception of a child’s mind in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. In the twentieth century tabula rasa was used to describe landscape architects and architects who approached a site as a blank slate, ignoring its history or existing conditions. Used in Chapter 3 Material Matters: Palimpsest Tectonic theory Tectonics initially concerned the processes shaping the structure and properties of the earth’s surface, and how it changes over time. Kenneth Frampton in his book, Studies in Tectonic Culture: The Poetics of Construction in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Architecture, borrowed the term for his theory of architecture. He argued that the materials architects used and the methods in which they put these materials together could be a reflective

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expression of an architectural idea. Instead of deferring to architecture as a sign, an abstraction away from life, Frampton promoted architecture as the poetics of construction encountered in daily life. Used in Chapter 2 Spatial Practices: Spatial Constructs; and Chapter 3 Material Matters: Materiality Teleology Taken from the Greek telos, “end,” and logos, “reason,” teleology is the explanation for something in virtue of its end purpose. A teleological explanation of why a mug has a handle is that it enables you to pick up the mug without burning your hand. The handle’s shape and size accommodates your hand, and its protrusion from the mug itself makes it a cooler surface than the part of the mug containing the hot coffee. Thus, this explains the end purpose of the mug – to help you drink your coffee. Used in Chapter 3 Material Matters: Materiality Trompe l’oeil In French the term trompe l’oeil means to fool the eye. It is a technique used to create optical illusions, such as making a two-dimensional work appear three-dimensional. This type of visual illusion is commonly seen in paintings and murals, but it also has a long tradition in garden design with extant examples dating back to the courtyard gardens in Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79 CE. Used in Chapter 2 Spatial Practices: Illusionary Space Trope The word trope is a rhetorical device in which words are used in a different way from their standard usage. Examples of tropes include irony, metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche. Post-structuralists identified tropes as examples of recurring, conventionalized ideas or ways of expressing ideas. This approach to trope is exemplified in Elizabeth K. Meyer’s critique of binary thinking as reoccurring practice in landscape architecture. Used in Chapter 4 Language: Semiotics, Structuralism Utilitarianism As a type of consequentialism, utilitarianism is an ethical theory, which holds that the morally correct act is the act that produces the most good. Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism because it situates the rightness and wrongness of actions squarely on the outcomes or consequences of choosing one action over another. Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) formalized utilitarianism, called classical utilitarianism, as a distinct normative ethic that aligned the good with pleasure and happiness. In classical utilitarianism the utility of an action, policy, or rule should be directed towards fostering the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Used in Chapter 3 Material Matters: Consequentialism Vernacular Vernacular landscapes are typically created by non-designers, and are based on habits, cultural traditions, or personal preferences. They are usually domestic, such as your great uncle’s vegetable garden, or they can be large

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scale and a product of functional requirements, such as agricultural landscapes. Originally used to describe dialects spoken by average people in different countries, John Brinckerhoff Jackson is credited for expanding the conception of the vernacular to the study of landscapes in his book, Discovering the Vernacular Landscape. Used in the Introduction; Chapter 4 Language: Typology; and Chapter 5 Systems Logic: Systems Theory and Cybernetics

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Bibliography

Abrahamson, Daniel M. “Make history not memory.” Special issue on Constructions of Memory, Harvard Design Magazine no. 9 (Fall 1999): 78–83. Adams, Henry. “Is a ‘Garden’ the world’s greatest new artwork? Francois Abelanet’s extraordinary turf ‘sculpture’ on a Paris plaza epitomizes a grand tradition of artful illusion.” The Smithsonian. Available online at www.smithsonianmag.com/artsculture/is-a-garden-the-worlds-greatest-new-artwork-949342/?no-ist. Accessed 28 May 2015. Adamson, Joseph. “Différence.” Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory, edited by Irena R. Makaryk. Toronto: University of Toronto, 2000. Ai Weiwei with Anthony Pins. Ai Weiwei: Spatial Matters, Art Architecture and Activism. London: Tate Publishing, 2013. Aislabie, John. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Available online at www.oxforddnb. com/view/printable/252. Accessed 11 July 2014. Aldred, Oscar. “Time for fluent landscapes.” In Conversations with Landscape, edited by Karl Benediktsson and Katrin Anna Lund. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010. Alexander, Larry and Michael Moore. “Deontological ethics.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2015 Edition), edited by Edward N. Zalta. Available on line at http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2015/entries/ethics-deontological/. Accessed 21 January 2016. Allen, Douglas C. “Tanner Fountain.” In Peter Walker: Experiments in Gesture, Seriality, and Flatness, edited by Linda L. Jewell. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Graduate School of Design, 1990. Allen, Stan. “Introduction: practice vs. project.” In Practice: Architecture, Technique and Representation. Amsterdam: G+B Arts International, 2000. ——. “Points and lines.” SCI-Arc Media Archive, 24 February 1999. Available online at http://sma.sciarc.edu/video/stan-allen/. Assessed 21 January 2016. Amoroso, Nadia. Digital Landscape Architecture Now. London: Thames & Hudson, 2012. Andersson, Thorbjörn. “Erik Glemme and the Stockholm park system.” In Modern Landscape Architecture: A Critical Review, edited by Marc Treib. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993. ArchDaily. “New design for Eduard-Wallnöfer-Platz public square / LAAC Architekten + Stiefel Kramer Architecture,” 2 August 2011. Available online at www.archdaily. com/?p=155050. Accessed 7 May 2015. Arnold, Darrell. “Systems theory: a mixed theory.” In Traditions of Systems Theory: Major Figures and Contemporary Developments, edited by Darrell Arnold. New York: Routledge, 2014. Bain, Carl E., Jerome Beaty, and J. Paul Hunter. The Norton Introduction to Literature, third edition. London: W.W. Norton, 1981; 1973.

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318 䊐

Index

Page numbers in italics denote an illustration

Amoroso, Nadia 253–4, 258 analogons 89, 89, 92, 280

3D modelling: fabrication techniques 254,

analogue design 254

255–6, 258; visualization in design process

anamorphosis 78, 80, 80, 281

253–4, 255, 260, 263

Andersson, Thorbjörn 33

11 Minute Line (Lin) 90, 90–1

animal habitats 230, 230, 235 anticipation, concept of 10

Abélanet, François: Who to Believe? 80, 81, 82

Apollinaire, Guillaume 242

Abrahamson, Daniel 100

archetypes, transformational 162–3, 164

abstract archaeology 43, 44, 45

ArcMap 253–4

abstraction 20, 22

Arnold, Darrell 224

accelerated perspective 78–9, 79, 280

arousal theory 27, 31, 31–2

action verbs 41–2, 43

Arte Povera 59n

Actor-Network-Theory (ANT) 229–30, 230, 231

artwork: aesthetics and symbols 168; formalist

Adams, Henry 82 adaptive urbanism 241 aesthetic experience: imported perspective 160; shared emotions 64–5, 64–5 aesthetics: conceptions of 9, 280; Dewey’s

analysis 12, 14; ontology of art 177; symbolic values 166–7 aspect (stone surface) 127, 127 assigned functions (Newton) 35, 36 Atelier de Lyon: Bunker 599 54-5, 55

theories and practices 9–10; formalist

auditory experience 43, 114

analysis 12, 14; semiotics in design 189

avant-garde 50, 68, 243, 281

Aislabie, John: Studley Royal Water Garden 167, 167

Avena+ Test Bed (Gross) 117, 117–18 Azevedo, Néle: Minimum Monument 52–3, 53

Albers, Joseph 268 Aldred, Oscar 132, 133

Bagel Garden (Schwartz) 1, 2–3, 197, 198, 283

aleatory systems: collage, visualizing

Balmori, Diana: Garden that Climbs the Stairs,

aid 244–6, 245; détournement 249, 249–50; displacement and contrast 246, 246–7; surrealist foundations 242–3, 251; transformed objects 247–9, 248; visualization in design process 243–4 aletheic image 161–2, 162 algorithmic design 253

The 32, 32 Bargmann, Julie: Hardberger Park 105, 105; Urban Outfitters Headquarters 143, 143 Barthes, Roland: language classification 156; semiotics, use of 181; signification 190–1, 191; syntagmatic and paradigmatic analysis 198, 198–9

Allen, Stan 118, 283

Basalla, George 248

allusion: chain of referents 174, 174; materials

Bass River Park (Stoss) 239, 239–40

128, 128, 130 Alphand, Jean-Charles Adolphe: Parc des Buttes Chaumont, Paris 122, 123 Althusser, Louis 288–9

Beardsley, John 205 Bélanger, Pierre 233–4 Belesky, Philip 252, 253 Bell, Clive 14

319 䊐

Index 䊏

Bell, Simon 155–6

Cantrell, Bradley 254, 255

Bełz˙ec Death Camp Memorial, Poland 31, 31–2

Cardasis, Dean 76

Benjamin, Walter 243

Carlson, Allen 36

Bentham, Jeremy 139, 287, 295

Carpo, Mario 256

Benthemplein Water Square (De Urbanisten)

Carroll, Noël 14

39, 39

Carruthers, Mary 93–4

Bernasconi, Robert 88, 200

Carvallo, Joachim 184–5

Berrizbeitia, Anita 40, 265

Cassirer, Ernst 166

Berry, David M. 231, 255, 263

Casting (Serra) 41, 42

Bertalanffy, Karl Ludwig von 222

Cattedrale Vegetale (Mauri) 199, 199

Bête Machine 222, 281

Caws, Mary Ann 250

Bhabha, Homi K. 209–10, 210

Centennial Park, Algeciras 95, 95

billboards, water generating 237, 237–8

chance, effect on process 42, 48–9

binary thinking: binary oppositions (Saussure)

Chemetoff, Alexandre: Bamboo Garden 292,

179, 191; conceptions of 7–8, 281; Derrida’s critique 203; design intent 190; gender issues 201; oppressive hierarchies 203–4; structural analysis in cultures 191–2; surrealist criticism 242

292 children, designing for: aesthetic experience 9, 33; material selection 114–15, 137; risk taking limitations 107, 147–8 Chiu, Chihsun 104

bio-design 146, 146–7

Chomsky, Noam 178

bio-mimicry 144–5, 145

Church, Thomas: Donnel Garden pool 12, 13,

Blackwell, Adrian: Dymaxion Sleep 260–1, 260–1 Blanc, Patrick: Caixa Forum Museum Vertical Garden 183, 184 Bloedel Reserve reflection pool (Haag) 12, 13, 14, 27, 176 Blue Stick Garden (Cormier) 174, 174

14, 27 Citygarden (Nelson Byrd Woltz) 162, 162 Claude Mirror 78 clay: form generation aid 43, 45; geomorphic agent 126, 126–7 Cléments, Gilles: Le Jardin des Étiquettes 48, 48; plant movement 48

Blue Tree (Cormier) 248, 248–9

Clynes, Manfred 227

Bojic´, Nikola: Sinking Garden 89, 89

CMG Landscape Architecture: Crack Garden

bourgeois public sphere 52, 281–2

106, 106

Bowring, Jacky 3, 247, 265–6, 268, 271

Cobos, Victor 95, 95

Boyer, M. Christine 103

Cochran, Andrea 114

bracketing 86–7, 282

Cochran, Samuel & Teresita: Solar Ivy 145,

Breton, André 242–3

145

Brovaktarparken (Combine) 62, 63

Colas Garden (Lassus) 24, 24

Brown, Denise Scott 197

collage, visualizing aid 244–6, 245, 264

Brown, Lancelot 16–17

colour: diagramming 268, 271, 272; emotional

Brown, Linda 157

triggers 29, 30, 31; form, relationship with

Brundtland Report 112, 140

23–4, 24; perception of 83, 84; spatial

Buck-Morss, Susan 242–3

practices 75, 75

Bunker 599 (Rietveld) 54–5, 55

Colquhorn, Alan 156

Burckhardt+Partner AG and Raderschall:

Combine, Nod: Brovaktarparken, Stockholm

MFO Park, Zurich 97, 97 Bureau A: Spirulina fountain 159

62, 63 commodification of space 100–2, 101 Conan, Michel 24, 92, 98–9, 186

Cabecera Park, Valencia 70, 70

conceptual art 50, 168

Caffarena, Maria 95, 95

concrete (material): contested space 104, 104;

Caixa Forum Museum Vertical Garden (Blanc) 183, 184 California Scenario (Noguchi) 40–1, 175, 176, 178

fakery, distrust of 124; formwork design 119, 119–20; framed space 95, 95; reinforced imitations 122–3, 123; remodelled 98, 106, 106; subtraction of 54, 55

320 䊐

Index 䊏

consequentialism: actual and expected

Deleuze, Gilles 266–7, 272

consequences 147; bio-design 146, 146–7;

De Maria, Walter: Lightning Field 48–9

bio-mimicry 144–5, 145; displacement, impact

denotation and connotation (semiotics) 179–80

of 141, 142; material selection and ethical

denotation (semantics) 170, 170

dilemma 140–1; optimized operations 142–3,

deontological ethics 139

143; plant reintroduction 143–4, 144; risk and

dérives (psychogeography) 243, 244

relative risk 147–8; theoretical principles 2,

Derrida, Jacques: deconstruction 202–3,

139; utilitarianism, links to 139–40 contested space: abstract and concrete space

205–6, 211; Parc de la Villette, Eisenman collaboration 211–12; textuality 207

(Lefebvre) 100–1; commodification of space

Descartes, René 222, 281

101, 101–2; gender, race and class issues

Descombes, George 98

106–7; heterotopias 103–4, 104; public

Desimini, Jill 165

space, privatisation of 103; residual 106, 106;

Desvigne, Michel: Garden for the Ministry of

subversive 105, 105–6; theoretical principles

Culture, Paris 72, 72–3; planting and spatial

1, 100

change 66–7, 72–3; Rooftop design, Keio

Cormier, Claude: artificial but not fake 128–9, 130; Blue Stick Garden 174, 174; Blue Tree

University 258, 259, 260; transposing in digital design 258

248, 248–9; Lipstick Forest 129, 129;

détournement 249, 249–50

patterning 256; Pink Balls 2012 75, 75; TOM

De Urbanisten: Benthemplein Water Square,

II 83, 84 Cornell, Saul 207 Corner, James 238, 266, 272, 288 Crack Garden (CMG) 106, 106 Crandell, Gina 227 Crawford, Osbert Guy Stanhope 131–2

Rotterdam 39, 39 Dewey, John: aesthetic theories and practices 9–10, 237; resistance, importance of 1 Dézallier d’Argenville, Antoine-Joseph 167, 256, 287 diagramming: definition 265; Deleuze and

critical practices 120, 283

Guattari’s rhizomatic system 266–7,

Crowe, Sylvia, Dame 66, 155

272; design and visualization tool 265–6;

Cubitt, Sean 254

information visualization 268; layering and

cues to care 25

separation 268–9; micro/macro readings

cultural critique: Chinese tradition 160;

269, 270; sensory experience, lack of 271;

Haraway’s cyborgs 227; interventional

small multiple designs 269–70, 271; textual

projects 50, 52; Other categorisation 200–1,

information 270–1, 272

291; postcolonial heritage 138, 160, 203,

dialectical materialism 115–16, 141

209–10; power relations 209

dialectical process: debate leading to truth 7–8;

Cunha, Dilip da 209–10, 210 Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson Community Garden (Hood) 184–5, 185 cybernetics: criticisms of 230–1; cyborgs

Derrida’s critique 202–3; Hegel’s approach 115, 283 Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain (Gustafson/Porter) 43, 44

227–9, 228; design decision-making process

différance (Derrida) 203, 207

224–5, 231; influence on posthumanism 228;

digital fabrication: design and production 255–6;

machine-plant hybrids 228, 228–9; theoretical foundation 223 cyborgs 227–9, 228

techniques 254, 258 digital systems: 3D modelling and fabrication 254, 255–6, 258; 3D model, visualization tool 253–4, 255, 260, 263; design thinking,

Daly Landscape Architecture 6–7

influence on 263–4; digital art, precomputer

Damgaard, Aage 67

251, 253; editability and efficiency 254, 255;

Dante 93

faceted surfaces 260–1, 260–1; hyperrealism,

Danto, Arthur 177, 290

deception issues 264–5; mapping and data

Debord, Guy 243, 249–50

analysis programs 252, 253–4; synthetic

deconstruction 202, 203, 205–7, 211

patterning 256, 257, 258; topology 261–3,

Dee, Catherine 22, 264–5 deep form (Lyle) 226, 227

262; transposing 258, 259, 260 DIN 44 (Weller) 207–9, 208

321 䊐

Index 䊏

discursive practices 202–3, 207, 267, 283 displacement: compositional method 246, 246–7; materials 141, 142

Fanklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park (Kahn) 78–9, 79 Farrar Pond residence (Kim) 2, 2

Donnel Garden pool (Church) 12, 13, 14, 27

Fenchurch Garden (Hensey) 119–20, 120

Dooren, Noel van 264, 268

Folkerts, Thilo: Jardin de la Connaissance 249,

Duisburg North Park, Germany 4, 37, 38

250

Dümpelmann, Sonja 205

Footbridge (Ludwig et al) 118–19, 119

Dymaxion Sleep (Hutton and Blackwell) 260–1,

formalism: basic forms, egalitarian approach

260–1

14–15; colour and form 23–4, 24; counterexample 15, 15–16; early exponents

Eagleton, Terry 200

14; experience, sensory and educational 15,

earthwork artists 114, 168, 192

25; formal properties and qualities 12, 14,

Eaton, Marcia Muelder 189

16; opacity and transparency 20–1, 20–2;

Eckbo, Garrett 15, 64, 112

seriality 22, 23; simplicity and complexity

École des Beaux Arts 12, 284

16–20, 17–19

Ecology Energy Network (LOLA) 229–30, 230

Forman, Richard T. 268

Eco, Umberto 178, 180, 181, 197–8

form generation: action verb, applications 41–2,

Eduard-Wallnöfer Platz (LAAC) 104, 104

43, 44; aid to design production 42–3;

Eisenman, Peter: Memorial to the Murderered

art-related 12, 41, 48; chance, effect on

Jews of Europe 20, 21–2; Parc de la Villette,

process 42, 48–9; computer-aided design,

Derrida collaboration 211–12

effect on 263; miniature and panorama

Eliot, Charles 265

45, 46, 47; organic versus geometric 16;

empathic approach 63–4, 284

patterning 47, 47; plants, growth and

emphasis techniques 182, 182–3

movement 48, 48; Process Art, influences

enclosing space 67

of 41–3

Engels, Friedrich 115, 243

formwork design 119, 119–20

environmental factors: bio-materials and design

Forty, Adrian 34, 63

146, 146–7; camouflaging infrastructure 234,

Foucault, Michel: diagram, concept of

235; climate change 112, 140; cues to care

267; discursive practices 202–3, 207,

25; eco-conscious construction 35–6, 140,

283; genealogy, method of 203, 285–6;

160, 161; ecological systems 223–4, 229–30,

heterotopias 103; textuality 207

230, 233, 239, 239–40; issues into public

Fountain of Pegasus, Villa Lante, Bagnaia 15, 15

sphere 50–1, 51, 52–3, 53, 182, 182–3;

framing 95, 95–6

monoculture, alternative to 117, 117–18;

Frampton, Kenneth 70, 124, 294–5

recycling and salvage 143–4, 143–4

Franck, Karen A. 164–5

Ernst, Max 244–6

Freshkills Park, Staten Island 239, 241

Esparza, Gilberto: Plant Nomad 228, 229; robotic

Freud, Sigmund 163, 241–2, 245, 294

hybrids 228–9

function: anti-functional design 40–1; double

Evans, Robin 18, 211

functions (Venturi) 38; functionalism’s

Evocative Design 146

prescriptive design 40; indeterminacy

exchange-value society 101, 284, 285

problem 36; natural and assigned functions

existentialism 200–1, 284

(Newton) 35–6; operative functions 38–9,

expression-looks 27–8, 32, 32

39; practical and ecological considerations

expression theory: arousal theory 27, 31, 31–2;

35–6, 37; rational design and construction

expression-looks 27–8, 32, 32; principles 26;

34; revised function, same form 37, 38; term

resemblance, experience of 26–7, 29, 30, 31;

origins 34

restrained by rationality 33; shared emotions

Furedi, Frank 107

through design 29; Wölfflin’s contribution 25–6

Galí-Izard, Teresa: Southeast Coastal Plaza, Barcelona 262, 262

faceted surfaces 260–1, 260–1

Garcia, Andrés 95, 95

fakery and camouflage 122–3, 123

gardenesque 139, 285

322 䊐

Index 䊏

Garden for the Ministry of Culture, Paris (Desivgne) 72, 72–3 Garden that Climbs the Stairs, The (Balmori) 32, 32

GROSS.MAX: Hortus Medicus 245, 246 Guadalupe River Park (Hargreaves) 44, 45 Guattari, Félix 266–7, 272 Guerrilla Girls 50, 52

garden types 159

Guerrilla Grafters 55–6, 105

Gaudi, Antoni: Sagrada Família 170, 170

Guevrekian, Gabriel: Villa Noailles, France 47, 47

Gauthier, Xavière 250

Gustafson, Kathryn 43, 44; Lurie Garden,

gender, race and class issues: Actor-Network-

Millennium Park 172–3, 173

Theory, ignorance of 231; cultural legacy misrepresented 138, 203; cultural non-conformity 106–7; discursive practices

Haag, Richard: Bloedel Reserve reflection pool 12, 13, 14, 27, 176; Gas Works Park 176, 189

202–3, 291; forced traditions 160; immigrant

Habermas, Jürgen 52, 281–2

communities 105, 105; Other categorisation,

haha 130, 287

objection to 200–1, 290; surrealist female

Hale, Jonathan 93

stereotypes 250; utilitarianist reform 139–40;

Halprin, Lawrence 224–5, 231, 265

women’s contribution to design 205

Hamilton, Ann 136–7, 137

genealogy (Foucault) 203, 285–6

Hamilton, Richard 197

General Systems Theory (GST) 221, 222, 273n

Haney, David 33

genius loci 161, 286

Hansen, Andrea 260, 262

geographic information systems (GIS) 223, 253

Haraway, Donna J. 227

Geometrical Gardens/Musical Gardens

Harcourt, Bernard E. 200, 202

(Sørensen) 67, 68 geomorpology, design influence: glacial sediments 126, 126–7; mountains 170,

Hardberger Park (Bargmann) 105, 105 Harding, Sandra 231 Hargreaves Associates: Guadalupe River Park

170–1; river features 88, 94–5, 136–7, 137,

44, 45; Harlequin Plaza, Englewood 246,

162, 162; rock formations 161, 171, 172

246–7; Queen Elizabeth 2012 Olympic Park

Geuze, Adriaan 197

73–4, 73–4

Gillette, Jane 121, 176, 177

Hargreaves, George 40, 168–9, 246, 246–7, 254

Gilpin, William 78

Harlequin Plaza (Hargreaves) 246, 246–7

Girling, Cynthia 156

Hart, Frederick E.: Vietnam Veterans Memorial:

Girot, Christophe 244, 262–3

Three Servicemen 64–5, 65, 107

glass, scaled replication 45

Hayden, Dolores 241

Glemme, Erik 33

Hearne, Thomas 17–18

Gombrich, E.H. 77–8

Hedge Two-way Mirror Walkabout (Graham)

Gómez, Bernardo 95, 95 Goodman, Nelson: abstraction defined 20;

45, 46 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 115, 203

aesthetics and symbol systems 168;

Heidegger, Martin 87, 161, 287

allusion 174; denotation 170, 170–1; literal

Helphand, Kenneth 156

exemplification 171–2, 172; meaning

Hensey, Paul: Fenchurch Garden 119–20, 120

behind design 169, 176; metaphorical

hermeneutics 87, 287–8

exemplifications 172–3, 173

Herrington, Susan: Hip Hop 29, 30, 31

Graham, Dan: Hedge Two-way Mirror Walkabout, Manhattan 45, 46

heterogeneity, application of 98–9, 99 heterotopias 103–4, 104

Gramsci, Antonio 203

High Line, New York (Corner et al) 18, 19, 20, 25

gravel: auditory experience 114; geomorphic

Hiller, Avram 147

agent 126, 126–7

Hill, Kristina 240, 241

Greenburg, Clement 14, 121, 289

Hinchliffe, Steve 113, 137

green infrastructure 235, 236

Hip Hop (Herrington) 29, 30, 31

Green Varnish (Nomad Studio) 182, 182–3

Hirsch, Alison B. 231

Greimas, Algirdas 193, 193, 281, 292–3, 292–3

Holbein, Hans: The Ambassadors 80, 80

gridded space 68

Hood, Walter: Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson

Gross, Benedikt: Avena+ Test Bed 117, 117–18

Community Garden 184–5, 185, 188–9

323 䊐

Index 䊏

Hornsberg strandpark (Arkitektkontor) 36–7, 37 Hortus Medicus (GROSS.MAX) 245, 246 Howes, Benjamin Wheeler: Solar Ivy 145, 145 Howett, Catherine 189 Hubacher and Haerle Architects: Oerliker Park, Zurich 158, 158–9 Hubbard, Henry Vincent 12 humans, representational animals 165–6

Jardin de I’habitation moderne (Mallet-Stevens) 123, 123 Jardin de la Connaissance (Folkerts & LaTourelle) 249, 250 Jastrow, Joseph 77, 77 Jekyll, Gertrude 174 Jellicoe, Geoffrey, Sir 163; John F. Kennedy Memorial 186, 186–7

Husserl, Edmund 86–7, 282

Jorgensen, Karsten 189

Hutton, Jane: Dymaxion Sleep 260–1, 260–1;

Jung, Carl 162–3

living tectonics 70

Junod, Philippe 20

Huyssen, Andreas 132 Hy-Fi (The Living) 146, 146–7

Kahn, Leonard 147

hyperrealism 264–5

Kahn, Louis: Franklin D. Roosevelt Four

Ice-Water Wall at Teardrop Park (Van

Kanizsa, Gaetano 82, 83

Freedoms Park 78–9, 79 Valkenburgh) 136–7, 137

Kant, Immanuel 139

iconology 166–7, 288

karesansui garden 130

ideology 288–9

Kienast, Dieter: K Garden 134–5, 135

illusionary space: colour contrasts 83, 84;

Kiley, Dan 68

illusionary contours 82–3, 82–3; illusion

Kiley, Dan 72

of depth 78–9, 79; illusion, seeing and

Kimball, Theodora 12

interpreting 77–8, 130; optical illusions

Kim, Mikyoung 2, 2

79–80, 80–1, 82; Rabbit or Duck? (Jastrow)

Kline, Nathan S. 227

77, 77; reality, value of 85–6; reflective

Knight, Richard Payne 4, 16–18, 17–18

materials 78

Komara, Ann 123

Imbert, Dorothée 47, 47

Kondolf, Matt 94–5

indeterminacy, problem of 36

Krauss, Rosalind: gridded space 68; Klein Group

industrial reclamation: formalist approach 18, 19, 20; interpretation and meaning 176, 189;

and structuralist methodology 192–5, 193–4; minimalist artwork 124; seriality 23

memory and space 96–7, 96–7; picturesque

Krinke, Rebecca 136

association 4; regenerative landscapes 225;

Kryder-Reid, Elizabeth 137–8

typological design 158, 158–9

Kull, Kalevi 180–1

infrastructure: definition 232; engineered

Kullman, Karl 264–5

landscapes 234, 234–5; evolving use in landscape design 232–3; green infrastructure

LAAC: Eduard-Wallnöfer Platz 104, 104

235, 236; instrumentalism 237, 237–8;

Laboratory School, Univ. of Chicago 9

landscape urbanism 238–40, 239; landscape

land artists 114, 168, 192

urbanism and new urbanism critiqued 240–1;

landscape anomalies 183–5, 184–5

waste management and renewal innovation

landscape architecture: “cues to care” 25;

233–4

early textbooks 12; founding principles 3–4;

instrumentalism 237, 237–8

medium to communicate 28–9; modernism

intervention theories: conceptual art, links to

and postmodernism divisions 7; perception

50; cultural, political critiques 50–1, 51,

and interpretation 8–9, 176–7; public

52–6, 53–5; humour 51–2; multiplicity 53–4,

consultation 49; theories, contribution to

54; principles 1, 50; site specific, public accessibility 50, 52, 56; subtraction 54–5, 55; subversive 55–6; temporality 52–3, 53

design 3 Landscape Park in Riem (Latitude Nord) 226, 227

Iwashima, Taco: You Are Here Garden 141, 142

landscapes: ecologically valuable 25; site’s

Jacobs, Jane 40

landscape urbanism 3, 238–40, 239

James, John 167

Langford, Andrew 229

layered history 132–3; social capacity 9

324 䊐

Index 䊏

language, communicating ideas 153

Magallanes, Fernando 243–4, 251

Larsen, Larissa 240, 241

Maitland, Frederic William 132

Lassus, Bernard: Colas Garden 24, 24; form

Mallet-Stevens, Robert 123, 123

and colour 23–4; heterogeneity in design

Mallgrave, Harry Francis 62

98–9, 99; illusions, critique of 85, 86; minimal

Manning, Lauren 268

intervention 74–5; Sartre’s influence 92

map overlay method 223, 230–1

Latitude Nord: Landscape Park in Riem 226, 227

mapping programs 223, 253–4

Latour, Bruno 3, 112–13, 114, 139, 140;

Marx, Karl 115, 243

Actor-Network-Theory (ANT) 229 LaTourelle, Rodney 249; Jardin de la Connaissance 250 Latz + Partner: Duisburg North Park, Germany 4, 37, 38; Latz Office Garden 133–4, 134

material allusion 128, 128, 130 material culture 113–14 materiality: communicative and interactive dimensions 113–15; consequentialist ideals 139, 140–1; dialectical materialism

Latz, Peter 133

115–16, 141; encoding, formwork design

Lavin, Sylvia 154

119–20; material practices 118–19, 119;

Lay, Charles Downing 63

materials, key component 112; medium,

Leatherbarrow, David 121

mode for growth/communication 117,

Lee, Michael 232

117–18; medium-specificity 121; practice

Lefebvre, Henri 75–6, 100–2, 101, 241

development 120–1; theoretical approaches

Léger, Fernand 23, 57n

112–14

Le Jardin des Étiquettes (Cléments) 48, 48

material palimpsest 132–3

Lenné, Peter Josef 232

material semiotics 113

Lévi-Strauss, Claude: bricolage, improvised

materials, truth of: artificial but not fake

assembly 142–3, 282; design influence

128–9, 129; fakery and camouflage 123;

6, 195; Foucault’s critique 202–3; Sartre’s

geomorphology as model 126, 126–7;

critique of structuralism 200–1; universal

historical illusion 124; material allusion 128,

structures of humans 192

128, 130; minimalist approach 124; rejection,

Lightning Field (Walter) 48–9

artistic or practical 129–30; Ruskin’s design

Lindström, Kati 180–1

guidance 121–3; tectonic and expressive

Lin, Maya: 11 Minute Line 90, 90–1; Vietnam

capabilities 124–6, 125

Veterans Memorial 64, 64–5; Vietnam

Mathur, Anu 6, 209–10, 210

Veterans Memorial 106–7

Matravers, Derek 8, 26–7, 58n

Lipstick Forest (Cormier) 129, 129 literal exemplification 171–2, 172

Matthews, Christopher: You Are Here Garden 141, 142

Little Spirits Garden (Pechet) 6–7, 91, 92

Mauer, Evan M. 245–6

LOLA Landscape Architects: Ecology Energy

Mauri, Giuliano: Cattedrale Vegetale 199, 199

Network 229–30, 230; Hannover City 2020

Mayakovsky, Vladimir 49, 50

competition 270, 271

McAnulty, Robert 120

Lopes, Dominic McIver 27, 32, 251, 253, 254

McDonough, Tom 243

Loudon, John Claudius 139–40, 154, 285

McGirr, Patricia 106–7

Lucas, Gavin 132

McHarg, Ian 223, 224, 230–1, 265–6

Ludwig, Ferdinand: Footbridge 118–19, 119

M’Closkey, Karen 195, 256, 257, 258

Lurie Garden, Millennium Park (Gustafson)

McLuhan, Marshall 117

172–3, 173

McMahon, Jennifer A. 56

Lützow 7: Platz der Republik 83, 83

medium-specificity 121, 289

Lyle, John T. 225, 227

memorials: abstract and transparent design

Lynch, Kevin 266

20–1, 21–2; emotional arousal 31, 31;

Lyndon, Donlyn 95

reflection of actions 43, 44; space and shared

Lystra, Margot 224

experience 64–5, 64–5; spontaneous sites 92

Maddox, Conroy 247 Madrid Rio (West 8) 234, 235

Memorial to the Murderered Jews of Europe (Eisenman) 20, 21–2

325 䊐

Index 䊏

memory and space: childhood experiences 98; cultural distortions 94–5; framing 95, 95–6; heterogeneity in design 98–9; history and authenticity 100; manufactured memories 97, 97; remnant space 96, 96; spatial memories 93–4 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 87, 92 metaphorical exemplifications 172–3, 173 metaphors, related to: human form 172–3; machines to organic 221–2, 222

42–3; soil, living medium 135; typology in design 155–6; utilised in critique 249, 250 natural systems, study of: cybernetics’s contribution 223–4; system theory approach 221–3, 222 negation, space of 88–9, 89 Nelson Byrd Woltz: Citygarden, St Louis 162, 162; North Bethesda Market, Rockville 128, 128 neo-Kantian 166, 290

Meyer, Elizabeth K. 72, 190, 195, 201, 228

Newton, Norman T. 35–6, 205

MFO Park (Burckhardt+Partner AG) 97, 97

new urbanism 240–1

Michaels, Wes 254, 255

Nietzsche, Friedrich 202

Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates: Brooklyn

Nîmes-Caissargues Rest Stop (Lassus) 99, 99

Bridge Park 66, 67; Ice-Water Wall at

Nisbet, James 49

Teardrop Park 136–7, 137

Noguchi, Isamu: California Scenario 40–1, 175,

micro/macro readings 269, 270 Midgley, Gerald 221–2

176, 178; Desivgne’s design tribute 258, 259; surrealist influence 251

Migge, Leberecht 33

Nomad Studio: Green Varnish 182, 182–3

Miles, Malcom 50, 56

Non-Site (Smithson) 141

Milligan, Brett 246, 263

Norberg-Schulz, Christian 161

Mill, John Stuart 139, 179–80, 295

Norris, Christopher 205

mimesis: abstract works 20; definition 12, 290;

North, Alissa 38–9

scaled replication 126, 126–7; surrealist

North Bethesda Market (Nelson et al) 128, 128

criticism 242; transparency, role in 21

Novartis Campus Park (Vogt et al) 88, 126,

miniature and panorama 45, 46, 47, 72–4, 72–4 Minimal Art 42–3, 124 minimal intervention 74–5, 75

126–7, 196, 196 Nyréns Arkitektkontor: Hornsberg strandpark 36–7, 37

Minimum Monument (Azevedo) 52–3, 53 Miss, Mary 192 Mitchell, Mary 155 Mitchell, William J. 165–6, 288

Oberlander, Cornelia Hahn: eco-conscious 140; modern practice 7; native plant harvesting 143–4, 144; syncopation 69–70

mnemonic devices 96, 96, 290

Oberlander, Peter 140

Moneo, Rafael 154

Odum, Eugene 223–4

Morris, Katherine J. 85

Oerliker Park (Schweingruber et al) 158, 158–9

Müller, Cornelia 207–9, 208

Ole Bull Plass (Saelen) 127, 127

Müller-Lyer illusion 85, 85

OLIN: Washington Canal Park 235, 236

multiplicity 53–4, 54

Olin, Laurie: aesthetics 8–9; expression in design 29, 176; Harlequin Plaza’s legacy

Nassauer, Joan Iverson 25 National Arboretum Canberra 100 Forests (Taylor et al) 135–6, 136 natural functions (Newton): biological/

246–7, 251; meaning behind design 168, 169 Olmsted, Frederick Law 70, 103, 115, 233 ontology 177, 290 opacity 20

mathematical 35; ecological performance

operator skills 142–3, 143

35–6

orientalism 203, 290

natural processes: day-lighting streams, impact

Orpheus (Wilkie) 163–4, 164

of 94–5; diagramming 266; eco-conscious

Oudolf, Piet 18, 19

design 140, 229–30, 230; effects of time

Ozenfant, Amédée 23

8, 66, 66–7, 225, 268; green infrastructure 235, 236; humidity and water infiltration 237,

Palang, Hannes 180–1

237–8; information visualization 268; organic

palimpsest: fictional enhancement 136–7,

versus geometric 16; role in Progess Art

137; future landscapes 135–6, 136; hidden

326 䊐

Index 䊏

dimensions 134–5, 135; material palimpsest

Plant, Sadie 243

132–3; proprietors, balanced heritage 137–8;

Platz der Republik (Lützow 7) 83, 83

residuality 133–4; site history 132; theoretical

Plaza for SIA Hochhaus (Vogt et al) 45, 46

principles 131–2

Plunge (Pinsky) 50–1

Pallasmaa, Juhani 94

political critique, interventions 52–6, 53–5

Panofsky, Erwin 166–7, 288

Pop art 197, 197–8

panorama 45, 46, 73–4, 73–4

Porter, Neil 43, 44

paradoxical and ironic design 187, 188

posthumanism 228

parametric modelling 253, 255

post-structuralism: criticisms of 211; critiques

Parc de la Villette, Paris: Bamboo Garden

of structuralism 202–5; deconstruction 202,

(Chemetoff) 292, 292; Derrida and Eisenman

203, 205–7, 206; deconstruction critiques

collaboration 211–12; OMA’s proposal 266;

211–12; historical accounts reappraised 205;

Tschumi’s competition design 205–6, 206

Nietzsche’s influence 202; structuralism,

Parc des Buttes Chaumont, Paris 122, 123, 244 Parsons, Glenn 36 patterning: form generation 47, 47; synthetic 256, 257, 258

tenets compared 202; textuality 207–9, 208; third space 209–10, 210 post-war design (1945-70): commodification of space 100–2, 102; modern perspective 14;

Pauer, Gyula: Shoes on the Danube 21, 21–2

new materials 112; rational, functional design

Paxton, Joseph, Sir 144–5

33, 34, 40, 243; space and shared experience

Pechet, Bill: Little Spirits Garden 6–7, 91, 92

64

Pedra Tosca Park (RCR Architects) 125, 125–6

precautionary principle 107

PEG Landscape Architecture: Dew Point 257, 258

Price, Uvedale 16–17

‘perceptible form’ 8

Process Art 41–3

phenomenology: critiques 92–3; group praxis

Promenade Plantée (Vergely/Mathieux) 18, 19,

and worked-matter (Sartre) 91, 91–2;

20

Husserl’s methods and critics 86–7;

proprietor palimpsest 137–8

imagining consciousness (Sartre) 87–90,

Provost, Alain: Thames Barrier Park, London

89–90

96, 96

philosophical materialism 113

psychogeography 243

Piaget, Jean 114–15, 175

PWP Landscape Architecture see Schwartz

Piasecki, Jon: Stone River 115–16, 116

Smith Meyer

Picon, Antoine 253 picturesque association: eighteenth century origins 3–4; industrial ruins, revival theme 4; Picturesque Controversy 16–18, 17–18 Pidek, Zdzisław 31, 31 Pierce, Charles Sanders 178–9, 179, 180–1

Quatremère de Quincy, Antoine-Chrysostôme 154, 285 Queen Elizabeth 2012 Olympic Park (Hargreaves) 73–4, 73–4 quincunx pattern 69, 69, 155, 291

Pink Balls 2012 (Cormier) 74–5, 75 Pinker, Steven 211 Pinsky, Michael: Plunge 50–1, 51

Ramboll Studio Dreiseitl: Tanner Springs Park, Portland 130, 131

Plant Nomad (Esparza) 228, 229

Ran, Faye 42–3

plants: bio-mimicry 144–5, 145; botanical

Rankin, Bill: Land Value 271, 272

construction 118–19, 119, 199, 199;

rationality 33

commercial by-product 159, 160;

Raxworthy, Julian 125, 126

digitalisation and precision farming 117,

RCR Architects: Pedra Tosca Park 125, 125–6

117–18; ecological considerations 233, 239,

recycling and salvage: bio-materials and design

239–40, 258; effect of movement 48, 48; growth and spatial change 66, 66–7, 70–1,

146, 146; native plant harvesting 143–4, 144; on-site material 143, 143

71, 158, 158–9; microclimates 72, 72–3;

reflective materials 78

native plant harvesting 143–4, 144; scent and

Reford, Elsie 174

memory 97, 97; system theory analysis 223;

regenerative landscapes 225, 225–6

themed planting 73–4, 73–4

Remembering So Sorry (Weiwei) 53–4, 54

327 䊐

Index 䊏

remnant space 96, 96

literal exemplification 171, 172; meaning

Repton, Humphry 17, 270

behind design 168–9, 176–7; metaphorical

resemblance: emotional triggers 27; perception

exemplifications 172–3, 173; sensory

and interpretation 26–7, 29, 30, 31 residuality 133–4, 134

experience 175, 176; symbolic form and values 166–7

residual space 106, 106

semiology 178

resistance theory 1–2

semiotics: ahistorical criticism 188; allegory

revelatory landscapes 36, 291–2, 292

185–7, 186; anomalies 183–5, 184–5;

Ricoeur, Paul 153, 287

communicative and interactive dimensions

Rietveld, Ronald: Bunker 599 54–5, 55

188–9; denotation and connotation 179–80;

risky play theory 148

emphasis 182, 182–3; Greimas Square

Robinson, Jennifer 168

193, 193, 292–3, 292–3; interpretation and

Robinson, William 123

meaning 179, 180–1; paradox and irony 187,

Rogers, Elizabeth Barlow 185

188; Pierce’s signification triad 178–9, 179,

Rose, James 8, 14

180–1; theoretical principles 178; tropes as

Rossi, Aldo 155 Ross, Stephanie 67, 130 Roszczyk, Marcin 31, 31 RSVP cycles theory 224, 231

design aid 180, 181 sensory experience: contribution to meaning 175, 176; scent and memory 97, 97; unconscious inhalation 163

Ruskin, John 23, 121–3

seriality 23, 23, 293

Ryo¯an-ji temple, Kyoto 27, 27–8

Serra, Richard: Casting 41, 42; materials used 43; Tilted Arc 49; verbs as inspiration 41–2,

Saelen, Arne: Ole Bull Plass 127, 127

43

Sagrada Família (Gaudi) 170, 170

Shanghai Houtan Park (Turenscape) 225, 226

Said, Edward 203, 290

Shelley, James 9

Sandseter, Ellen 148

Shoes on the Danube (Togay and Pauer) 21,

Sartre, Jean-Paul: bad faith 201; common

21–2

critique 92; group praxis and worked-matter

Shusterman, Richard 10

6, 91–2; imagining consciousness 87–8;

sign-functions 180

Lévi-Strauss’s structuralism, counter-

signification: Pierce’s semiotic triad 178–9, 179;

argument 200–1; negation, experience of

relational meaning, arbitrary sign 190–1,

absence 88–9; time and consciousness 90

191; Saussure’s structural linguistics 190–1;

Saussure, Ferdinand de 178, 190–2 scaling: miniature 45, 46, 72, 72–3; panorama 45, 46, 73–4, 73–4; spatial considerations 66

semiotic principles 178 Silvetti, Jorge 156–7, 283 simplicity and complexity 16–20, 17–19

Schenker, Heath 205

Sinking Garden (Bojic´ & Waxman) 89

Schmarsow, August 61, 63, 67

Sitte, Camillo 157–8

Schneekloth, Lynda 164–5

Situationist International (SI) 243, 249–50, 294

Schrift, Alan D. 204–5

skateboarders 103–4, 104

Schwartz, Martha: Bagel Garden 1, 2–3, 197,

slippage 68–9, 69

198, 283; Federal Plaza, New York 49; patterning 256; Rio Shopping Center, Atlanta 8; space with meaning 76; Splice Garden 129–30 Schwartz Smith Meyer: Village of Yorkville Park 171–2, 172 Schweingruber Landscape Architects: Oerliker Park 158, 158–9

Smith, Ken: Camouflage Garden 130; WallFlowers 187, 188 Smithson, Robert: dialectical materialism 115; Non-Site 140 Solar Ivy (Cochran & Howes) 145, 145 Sołyga, Andrzej 31, 31 Sørensen, C. Th.: Geometrical Gardens/Musical Gardens 67, 68

Schwertfeger, Hannes see Ludwig, Ferdinand

Southeast Coastal Plaza (Galí-Izard) 262, 262

Scott Brown, Denise 16, 197

Soviet avant-garde 50

semantics: aesthetics and symbol systems 168;

space: ideology and urbanism 75–6, 100;

allusion 174, 174; denotation 170, 170–1;

varied perceptions of 61, 76

328 䊐

Index 䊏

spatial constructs: comprehension of composition 63; empathic approach 63–4,

influence 251; movement goals and influences 242–3

65; enclosing space 67; gridded space 68;

Swaffield, Simon 247, 265–6, 268, 271

human-orientated 61–3; living tectonics

symbols and semantics 166–8

71; living tectonics 70–1; site conditions

syncopation 69–70, 70

and scale 66; slippage 68–9, 69; space and

systems theory: Actor-Network-Theory (ANT)

shared experience 64–5, 64–5; syncopation

229–30, 230, 231; applications 221, 230;

69–70, 70; time and spatial change 66, 66–7

criticisms of 230–1; deep form, local

spatial memories 94

processes 226, 227; design decision-making

Spirn, Anne Whitson: allegory 185–6; emphasis

process 224; life systems, study of 221–2,

182; landscape anomalies 183; landscape

222; principles 3; regenerative landscapes

urbanism 238; paradox and irony 187; tropes

225, 225–6

as design aid 180, 181 Spirulina fountain (Bureau A) 159, 159–60

tabula rasa 137, 294

Spivak, Gayati Chakravorty 6, 203

Tanner Fountain (Walker) 23, 23

steel: form generation 41, 43, 48–9; shaped

Tanner Springs Park (Romboll et al) 130, 131

forms 32, 32; structural function 97, 97, 118; tectonic expression 125, 125–6

Taylor Cullity Lethlean: National Arboretum Canberra 100 Forests 135–6, 136

Steenbergen, Clemens 156

tectonic expression 125, 126

Steinitz, Carl 253

tectonic theory 70, 294–5

Stockholm School 33

temporality, intentioned 53, 53–4

stone: aspect 127, 127; granite memorial 43;

textuality 207–9, 208

integrated design 104; manual labour 115,

Thames Barrier Park (Provost) 96, 96

115–16; site enhancement 136–7, 137;

Thayer, Robert 235

surface treatment 104

The Living (firm): Hy-Fi 146, 146–7

Stone River (Piasecki) 115–16, 116 Stoner, Joyce Hill 113–14

theories: contribution to design 3; definition of theory 1; types and related principles 1–3

Storz, Oliver see Ludwig, Ferdinand

third space 209–10, 210

Stoss Landscape Urbanism: Bass River Park

Thiry, Paul-Henri 113

239, 239–40; diagramming technique 268–9,

Thomas, Aquinas 93

269; digital tools 254

Thompson, Ian Hamilton 234, 240

Strang, Gary 233

Tiberghien, Gilles A. 258

Strinati, Dominic 188

Tietjen, Anne 229

structuralism: binary thinking 190, 191–2; design

Tilted Arc (Serra) 49

reappraisal 192–5, 193–4; distance/engaged

Togay, Can: Shoes on the Danube 21, 21–2

analysis 196, 196–7; human agency and

TOM II (Cormier) 83, 84

freedom downplayed 200–1; mind set for

Tomlin, C. Dana 253

design 195–6; post-structuralist differences

topology 261–3, 262

202; signification, principles and applications

transformed objects 247–9, 248

190–1; syntagmatic and paradigmatic

transparency, theory of 20–1, 21

analysis 198, 198–200; transposing, familiar/

transposing: digital design 258, 259, 260;

strange 197, 197–8; unhistorical critique 200; universality of structures critique 202–3

Pop Art 197, 197–8 Treib, Marc: Casting (Serra) 41; design intent

Studley Royal Water Garden, Yorkshire 167, 167

176, 177; formalism 25; Noguchi critique 40;

sublimination 163, 294

sensory experience 175; slippage, gridded

subtraction, intervention design 54–5, 55

space 68; space and shared experience 64;

subversion: public rights 105, 105–6; unauthorised planting 55–6, 105

systems theory critique 231 triangulated irregular network (TIN) 260, 261

Sullivan, Louis 34

trompe l’oeil 78, 295

surrealism: aleatory systems in design 243–50,

tropes: definition 295; design aid 180, 181

245–6, 248–9; female portrayal 250–1; Freud’s influence 242, 245; indirect design

Tschumi, Bernard: Parc de la Villette, Paris 205–6, 206, 211

329 䊐

Index 䊏

Tufte, Edward 268, 269–71 Tunnard, Christopher 34, 63–4, 124 Turenscape: Shanghai Houtan Park 225, 226;

structuralism, role in design 195–6; theory of miniature and panorama 45, 46, 47, 72 Vogt Landscape Architects: Novartis Campus

Shenyang Jianzhu University 71, 71; Yellow

Park, Basel 126, 126–7, 196, 196;

Dragon Cave Theatre, Wurling River 160, 161

phenomenological approach 88; Plaza for SIA

Turner, Tom 159

Hochhaus, Zurich 45, 46

typology: aletheic image 161–2, 162; archetype 162–4, 164; classification systems 153–4,

Waldheim, Charles 173, 173, 238, 239

154; contemporary urbanism 165; design

Walker, Peter: design trends 195; Novartis

language, shared and reimagined 156–7;

Headquarters Courtyard 69, 69; patterning

development typologies 165; garden

256; seriality 22, 293; space with meaning

types 159, 159–60; internal logic 155;

76; Tanner Fountain 23, 23

modern critique and interpretation 154–5;

Wall, Alex 165

morphological types 157–9, 158; principles

WallFlowers (Smith) 187, 188

3; replication critique 164–5; role in design

Wall Hunters 56

155–6; vernacular agricultural types 160–1,

Walters, David 157

161

Warhol, Andy 198, 290 Warntz, William 261–2

urban development: commodification of

Washington Canal Park (OLIN) 235, 236

space 100–2, 101; cultural memory 132;

Waxman, Alan: Sinking Garden 89, 89

development typologies 165; ideological

Wehberg, Jan 207–9, 208

75–6, 100; landscape urbanism 238–41, 239;

Weilacher, Udo 40, 112, 133–4, 135

morphological process, value of 157–8; new

Weiner, Norbert 223

urbanism 240–1; public space, privatisation

Weiwei, Ai: Remembering, So Sorry 53–4, 54

of 103; regeneration, misallocated projects

Weller, Richard: art of instrumentality 237; DIN

241; Situationist International’s vision 243; typology in design 156, 157, 165; waste management and renewal innovation 233–4 utilitarianism 139–40, 287, 295

44 207–9, 208 West 8: digital design 255; Madrid Rio 234, 235 Whately, Thomas 4 Who to Believe? (Abélanet) 80, 81, 82

VanDerSys, Keith 258

Wilkie, Kim: Orpheus 163–4, 164

Venturi, Robert: double functions 38, 40;

Winters, Edward 211

Pop Art, influence of 197; simplicity and

Wittgenstein, Ludwig 77

complexity 16, 57n

Wölfflin, Heinrich 25–6, 166

vernacular landscape: definition 295–6; polder 160–1, 161 Vidal de La Blache, Paul 133 Vietnam Veterans Memorial (Lin) 64, 64–5, 106–7 Vietnam Veterans Memorial: Three Servicemen

Wolman, Gil J. 249 Woodgate, Agustina: Hopscotch with 1100 numbers 51–2 Woodman, Joan Hirschman 227 Woolley, Helen 107 worked-matter 91–2

(Hart) 64–5, 65, 107 Village of Yorkville Park (Schwartz et al) 171–2, 172 Villandry (Carvallo) 184–5 Villa Noailles (Guevrekian) 47, 47

Yellow Dragon Cave Theatre (Yu) 160, 161 You Are Here Garden (Matthews and Iwashima) 141, 142 Yu, Kongjian 160–1, 161

Vogt, Günther: design influences 6; Hedge Two-way Mirror Walkabout, Manhattan

Zangwill, Nick 14

45, 46; operator, optimized skills 143;

Zdebik, Jakub 267

330 䊐