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Architectural Research Quarterly
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Is landscape architecture?
David Leatherbarrow
Is landscape architecture?
David Leatherbarrow
I was not the first to pose this question; it was first Architecture and landscape: yesterday and today
asked in print by Garrett Eckbo, one of the most Subordinate standing has often been conferred on
important landscape architects in America in the landscape architecture because its professional
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twentieth century. One could equally reverse the history is much shorter than architecture’s and its
question and ask: ‘Is architecture landscape?’. In theory correspondingly slighter – three centuries of
either formulation the question is about the theorising landscape in the Western tradition, three
relationship between two arts that are normally to four times that for architecture. Recent writings
understood as separate professions these days. In fact, and projects, however, show that the dependency
Eckbo was not the first to puzzle over this issue, even suggested by this lineage is false. Today there is wide
if his exact formulation had no antecedents. The agreement that the traditional subordination of
question had already been posed in the nineteenth landscape architecture to architecture is no longer
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century, when landscape architecture emerged as a acceptable. If, in the past, landscape and urban
distinct discipline. The early theorists of the field, design turned to architecture for ideas and
Humphry Repton and John Claudius Loudon in methods, in our time, concepts and techniques that
England, Antoine-Chrysostome Quatremère de Quincy were thought to be proper to large-scale landscape
in France, and Andrew Jackson Downing in the usa, design have been appropriated by architecture:
all wondered about the relationships between these phenomena of process or temporal unfolding;
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two practices – if indeed they were two. The ‘registration’ prompting articulation; ‘mapping’ as
professional accrediting and licensing bodies that a survey technique, and so on. The strong impact of
were formed subsequently tried to settle the matter these ideas and methods on architecture cannot be
and institutionalise the distinction. But the question denied, nor can it be explained as a result of
may be older, for it is possible to say that the ecological consciousness, to which it nevertheless
distinction between these disciplines, at least the relates. Recent arguments for urban ecology,
suggestion of fundamental differences, was debated landscape urbanism and ecological urbanism
even earlier in the eighteenth century. The cases I have suggest that thinking about landscape (in its several
in mind include the Abbé Laugier and William senses) will enable architects and planners to
Chambers; the first compared the routes through a re-conceive the nature and task of designing
forest to the streets of a town, while the second used buildings and cities, as if the whole of which
landscape aesthetics to evaluate the merits of a buildings are part is territorial, environmental or
building’s facade. Despite this tradition and indeed topographical, that is, not only architectural.
maybe because of it, the questions these theorists This realignment of the disciplines has given rise
asked have not disappeared in our time. to much enthusiasm and exaggeration, among
My aim, in the study that follows, is not to give a final contemporary landscape theorists. Frequently we are
answer but to introduce a term of comparison, told that the coupling of landscape design and city
topography, that will help us to see and describe what making – landscape urbanism – offers contemporary
landscape and architecture have in common. culture a coordination of previously unrelated
Questions concerning technique and working disciplines. That this observation is patently false is
materials will enter into the issue, as will matters of apparent to anyone with a modicum of historical
standing or rank. But a more important topic for me knowledge, as I have already suggested and will
will be the historical and cultural content of land and consider further below. Current practice presents
building form; I believe and shall try to show that the not a coupling of previously unrelated arts but a new
conception of land and materials ‘in themselves’ is an understanding of what binds them together. For
unhelpful abstraction that abbreviates the real subject centuries, landscape and architecture have been two
matter of design in landscape, architecture and cities, interrelated ways of articulating culture, shaping
thereby reducing its relevance and risking its future. and showing typical situations. In their expressivity,
favour frontality and pictorialism. Attention to the buildings’ of Peter and Alison Smithson, which were
spatial aspects of a place – its enclosures, continuities envisaged as horizontal ‘ordering systems’ that
and extent – can thus lead to interpretations of its synchronised architectural structure with the flows
potentials for occupation and use, which are not of climate (as in the Kuwait project of 1969). The
only, or not essentially pictorial but practical. practice of folding architecture into the environment
In addition to the material, spatial and practical was not an innovation of 1965, however. The same
aspects of the topography, there is a third style of working can be seen in Le Corbusier’s designs
characteristic to which I alluded earlier that is just as from earlier decades (including Chandigarh, the
important as these first three: its temporal quality. Radiant Farm, the Cooperative Village).
Seen over time, the materials of landscape Le Corbusier was not the only architect in the 1930s
continually renew themselves. A site’s metabolism is to integrate superstructure and substructure.
key to its capacity for continued relevance. Time is Consider, for example, the Parkway project in
also the medium of one’s experience of landscape, Philadelphia by Jacques Gréber and Paul Cret.
for terrain is known most fully in the duration of Although planned at exactly the same time as Le
spatial passage or movement, its delayed or Corbusier’s Cooperative Village, it demonstrates a
accelerated sequences, as well as it repetitions and very different understanding of urban terrain.
inaugurations. Temporality opens an essential Gréber’s way of working was closer to the ‘landscape
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dimension of spatial sense. In summary: urbanism’ of Tony Garnier, whose Cité Industrielle
topography is important to landscape, architecture (1917) elaborated a spread-out, horizontal landscape
and urban design due to its attention to the of buildings, public space and infrastructure,
materiality, spatiality, practicality and temporality of precisely what Le Corbusier rejected in some but not
terrain. It shows how alternatives to the pictorial or all of his urban designs. Before Garnier and
aesthetic approach can increase the cultural content throughout the nineteenth century there were many
of the building, landscape and city, as it (cultural projects that coordinated landscape with city design,
sense) is assumed and renewed in the practice of none more fascinating than Claude-Nicolas Ledoux’s
everyday affairs; which is to say the ethical sense of design for the saltworks and ‘urban’ settlement at
praxis, as it has been examined in recent political Chaux. In that project, architecture, law and morals
philosophy (in the writings of Hans-Georg Gadamer, were proposed as outgrowths of the natural world,
Jürgen Habermas, Richard Rorty and Giorgio although Ledoux’s hand is evident at all scales and in
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Agamben). For my part (with these writers in the all parts of the buildings, programmes and
background), I would like to show that representations of nature. Architects in the preceding
contemporary design work points to the decisive role century were equally sensitive to the potentials of
played by the situations and institutions of practical landscape when envisaging urban form: a
life in the restructuring of urban, architectural and representative case could be Pierre Patte’s plan for
landscape topography. siting monuments in Paris (1765), for each public
space was designed as if it occupied a clearing in a
Precedent park or forest, as Laugier had recommended. So, too,
The expanded sense of topography I have elaborated for architects in the Baroque, Mannerist and
may be new to current usage but it is not without Renaissance periods. Well-known cases include
precedent in the histories of architectural, landscape Versailles, the Rome of Pope Sixtus V, Raphael’s Villa
and urban design, as I suggested at the outset. Madama and Rossetti’s designs for Ferrara – not only
Considering a couple of the exemplary projects of the piazzi he planned, but the large public campo.
the past several years, such as the Olympic Sculpture That last term, meaning both square and field, shows
Park in Seattle [1, 2, 3] (Weiss and Manfredi) or the that the interweaving of landscape and cityscape is
Fresh Kills Lifescape in New York [4, 5, 6, 7] (Field longstanding in projects, techniques, concepts and
Operations), it is plain that proposals that use vocabulary. The current agenda for ‘landscape
landscape as the basis for urban transformation are urbanism’ or ‘ecological urbanism’ cannot be
not without precedent. understood apart from this history, nor should it be
The most prominent example from the 1980s is seen as radically new. In fact, the uniqueness of
Bernard Tschumi’s Parc de la Villette, with its current work only emerges in contrast with what
combination of programmes, involvements with the preceded it.
pre-existing urban (infrastructural) environment, One way to identify the singularity of today’s
phased development, and so on. But that project had projects for the urban landscape is to focus on their
its own antecedents. If one looks back another rejection of what can be called the two-world
twenty years there are other well-known designs that hypothesis, the notion that artificial and natural
combine landscape and architecture in new urban terrain are categorically distinct, that landscapes that
order. An obvious case is Le Corbusier’s plan for the have been made are radically dissimilar to those that
Venice Hospital (1965). That project’s interwoven generate themselves. Another way to view this
seascape and cityscape anticipated the ‘mat opposition is to separate the two parts of the English
word landscape; for the first half indicates material
3 Weiss/Manfredi that is naturally given and the second indicates the
Olympic Sculpture look, appearance or image of what has been made –
Park, sunset view
of ‘Eagle’ by
although we also see unaltered terrain as picture-like.
Alexander Calder In contemporary theory this apparently obvious
landscape theorist from any period that did not at least. Similarly slow will be the pace of change in
recognise this rather conspicuous fact. Nor is it new the buildings and ‘infrastructural networks’,
to observe that the norms and structures of society especially when contrasted with the movement
vary through time; as long as there have been organised by the several paths that cross the site.
histories, there has been awareness that the Faster still are the transport routes that cut or edge
institutions, laws, morals and habits of cultures the terrain (a trucking route, rail line, waterfront
develop and disintegrate over time. The key question trolley circuit, bicycle path, and ferry line). The
concerns the relationships between changes in each schema for environmental remediation introduces
of these realms – nature and culture – or what is still another chronology into the landscape, a very
taken to be the order of both. long one, ranging from the unrecorded prehistory
To document their design for the Olympic of the land’s misuse, to the time of ‘capping’, and
Sculpture Park, Weiss and Manfredi developed a then into the unending time of ‘monitoring’. In
number of renderings that visualised the spaces addition to the site-times that are local to project,
and schedules by which the project could meet its other temporalities serve as wider frames of
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several programmatic requirements. The slowest reference: the schedules of business and leisure in
configuration appears to be the one that gave the the town that are structured by the workweek and
project its name: the ensemble of artworks. the hours of the day, the seasons of the year that
Although the collection will grow over time, one regulate the growth and deterioration of the
can suppose that the works placed within the plantings, and the slow and steady rhythm of the
landscape will preserve their standing for decades, waves against the shore. Despite the fact that I have
listed these places, events and schedules a cool evening, waterfront leisure on warm
separately, their ‘internal’ workings require weekends, retaining walls resisting erosion while
reciprocity. The same dependencies (eccentricities) supporting a viewing terrace. Because the
can be seen in the other project I mentioned, the situations of urban life are enmeshed in both the
Fresh Kills Lifescape, as well as the more recent histories of a culture and the processes of the
and impressively successful High Line project in natural world, cities are not the result of several
New York City, also the work of James Corner and architectural projects alone but also the legible face
Field Operations. In these two and many others of of the social practices they accommodate, when
our time the hackneyed distinction between scheduled according to ecological processes, in
natural and cultural history has been refused. acknowledgement of their several claims,
anticipated and unforeseen.
Conclusion Plato’s last dialogue, Laws begins with three old
By virtue of their multiple and reciprocal thinkers climbing Mount Ida toward Zeus’
temporalities, these projects allow us to see beyond birthplace. Both their pace and that of the dialogue
the idea that the city as something ‘for us’ and the follow the slow course of the sun on the day before
natural world is something ‘in itself’. Presented the summer solstice. Four well-worn paths cross
instead is an ensemble of situations or institutions (and cross out their separateness) as they move
that give shape, schedule and orientation to the toward the cave of beginnings: the philosopher’s
patterns of everyday life, constituting a world that path; the dialogue’s; the sun’s and the year’s. In this
is so successfully urban that it is taken to be myth, as in the stories proposed by the better
natural, despite the contradiction this usage projects of our time, a new urbanity is to be
implies. I would like to describe this condition as synchronised with the cycles that both structure its
cultural ecology, a topography in which human rhythms and transcend them. Whether we call this
affairs are synchronised with natural processes: architecture or landscape is a minor issue, as long
business over a breakfast table brightened by as the topography we have in mind sustains the
morning light, musical performance in the quiet of kind of culture we unthinkingly assume is natural.