ABL 2103

HISTORY AND THEORY OF

LANDSCAPE
ARCHITECTURE 1
(2018/2019)

Course Tutor: Ms. Brenda Kamande

 INTRODUCTION
— The history of ornamental gardening may be
considered as aesthetic expressions of beauty through
art and nature, a display of taste or style in civilized life,
an expression of an individual's or culture's philosophy,
and sometimes as a display of private status or
national pride—in private and public landscapes.

— Forest gardening, a plant-based food pro-system, is the

world's oldest form of gardening. Forest gardens
originated in prehistoric times along jungle-clad river
banks and in the wet foothills of monsoon regions.

— In the gradual process of families improving their

immediate environment, useful tree and vine species
were identified, protected, and improved while
undesirable species were eliminated. Eventually alien
species were also selected and incorporated into the
gardens.
— The enclosure of outdoor space began in 10,000 BC. Though
no one knows the specific details of the first garden,
historians imagine the first enclosure was a type of barrier for
excluding animals and marauders.
— Garden construction and design was a primary precursor to
landscape architecture, and it began in West Asia, eventually
spreading westward into Greece, Spain, Germany, France,
Britain, etc. The modern words of "garden" and "yard" are
descendants of the Old English "geard", which denotes a fence
or enclosure.
— After the emergence of the first civilizations, wealthy persons
began to create gardens for purely aesthetic
purposes. Egyptian tomb paintings of the 16th century BC
are some of the earliest physical evidence of
ornamental horticulture and landscape design; they
depict lotus ponds surrounded by symmetrical rows
of acacias and palms. Another ancient tradition is
of Persia: Darius the Great was said to have had a "
paradise garden" and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were
renowned as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Persian gardens were designed along a central
axis of symmetry.
— Byzantium and Moorish Spain kept garden traditions
alive after the 4th century. By this time a separate
gardening tradition had arisen in China, which was
transmitted to Japan, where it developed into
aristocratic miniature landscapes centered on ponds
and separately into the severe Zen gardens of temples.
— The 19th century saw a welter of historical revivals and
Romantic cottage-inspired gardening, as well as the rise
of flower gardens, which became dominant in home
gardening in the 20th century.
— The 20th century saw the influence of modernism in the
garden: from the articulate clarity of Thomas Church to
the bold colors and forms of the Brazilian
Roberto Burle Marx.
— Environmental consciousness and
sustainable design practices, such as
green roofs and rainwater harvesting, are becoming
widely practiced as innovations in these fields continue
to develop.
 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE
— Landscape Architecture is the art, planning, design, management ,
preservation and rehabilitation of the land and the design of human-
made constructs. The scope of the profession includes architectural
design, site planning, housing estate development, environmental
restoration, town or urban planning, urban design, parks and
recreation planning, regional planning, landscape urbanism, and
historic preservation.

— A practitioner in the field of landscape architecture is called a

landscape architect

— The history of landscape architecture is related to the

history of gardening but is not coextensive. Both arts are concerned
with the composition of planting, landform, water, paving and other
structures but:

— Garden design is essentially concerned with enclosed private space

(parks, gardens etc)

— Landscape design is concerned with the design of enclosed space,

as well as unenclosed space which is open to the public (
town squares, country parks, park systems, greenways etc).
Ancient sense of Landscape – Origin
of Landscape Architecture
— Landscape architecture can exist naturally without the
influence of man. Sense of landscape Architecture is
older than civilized man; beautiful landscapes existed
before man’s invention of architecture.

— 1000 years ago, man had no architecture (No sense of

buildings) Man used to claim the sense of Landscape
Architecture of nature as his own; man settled in caves,
river valleys, tree tops, and hill tops etc.

— Primitive hunters chose dramatic and natural

landscapes as meeting places for religious and cultural
ceremonies/social functions i.e. discussion of tribal
agenda, sacrifices, circumcision, marriage etc. They
gave meaning to the natural landscapes thus claiming
natural landscapes.
— The aborigines; natives of Australia, are
representatives of this historic way of life, they had
pyramids as Egyptians. The aborigine’s pyramids;
pilbala were naturally occurring unlike the
Egyptians which were man-made.
— The aborigines were hunters, gatherers, dancers
and dwell in caves.
— Most of the aborigines meetings took place in
pilbala. Landscapes were chosen due to their
dramatic feel (i.e. assume unusual forms),
mountains, caves, by river pool, large rock
boulders, deep gouges by the aborigines.
— The aborigines used to inscribe murals depicting
their social life, hunting techniques, religious
ceremonies and philosophy.
— The cave art has been preserved to the present
world and a lot of discoveries have been made in
France.

— The ancient man also used to control landscape by

use of fire. Nomads used fire to clear forest so that
grass could grow for their animals.

— This was also used to scare and drive away wild

animals and also to control hunting and also to
facilitate their movement through difficult terrains.
(Indians used to drive the bisons to run over cliffs)

— Fire was also used to encourage growth of food

crops, slash and burn method.
Ancient landscapes are commonly associated with

— The aborigine sense of landscape, commonly

known for rock painting and totems

— Egyptian gardens: clearly portrays issue of man

conquering nature, where wives of the kings used
to enjoy in the gardens with slave
eunuchs(castrated men taking care of them)

— Hanging gardens of Babylon (Persians): Duplicated

hilarious landscapes observed in the introduction of
the current hanging gardens.

— Tower of Babel :- Ziggurat commonly known for

their stepped pyramids
Cultural and Landscape
— Culture is a transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in
symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in
symbolic form by means of which people communicate,
perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes
towards life. (Clifford Geertz)

— The term “landscape” has a history of multiple and changing

meanings that have evolved out of a common focus on the
environment. The origins of this term in 16th-century Western
Europe link it to human communities and their individual
cultural and place identities, as well as to larger feudal
landholdings that might now be referred to as rural areas.

— In the same era, landscape became associated with

picturesque countryside scenery in art. The latter
interpretation has had the greatest influence on common
usage in the English language. By the mid-20th century, the
idea of landscape expanded to take in large-scale natural
ecosystems. Each of these perspectives—landscape as urban,
rural, or natural—reflects different social constructions of
environments with overlays of human values.
— Although a newer term than landscape, “cultural
landscape” also has a varied collection of definitions
associated with it. Most of these revolve around the idea
of the natural environment as physically manipulated
and changed by human action, leaving a visible trace;
thus, its interpretation is complicated by its similarity to
the term “landscape.”

— A holistic view sees cultural landscapes as all

landscapes that are either affected by human action—
directly or indirectly—or associated with, and
meaningful to, a human culture or cultures.

— The larger body of literature on cultural landscape

varies in its orientations. In some cases the influence of
the idea of “landscape as scenery” is evident, with the
focus on rural areas taking precedence.
— In others, the literature looks only to built
environments. Cultural landscape is less frequently
associated with natural areas. However, the results
of ethnographic and resource management studies
have shown that what are often considered natural
areas can nearly always be viewed as cultural
landscapes.

— In Landscape Legacies the emphasis is on

intentionally created spaces, and this creativity can
range from predominantly symbolic to complete
physical transformation. It can therefore apply in
urban, rural, and even natural contexts.
 CULTURAL
LANDSCAPES IN
AFRICA
 The Fulani of West Africa
— The Fula people are predominately in western
Africa, from Guinea and Senegal to Cameroon and
Central African Republic, including Mali, Sierra
Leone, and Nigeria.
— The Fulani people are considered the largest
nomadic group in the world. They are descendants
of nomads from North and sub-Saharan Africa.
They were the first people in western Africa to
convert to Islam.
— There are more than 6 million Fulani people. They
are considered among the most “widely dispersed
and culturally diverse peoples in all of Africa.”
There are two different types of Fulani:
a) The nomadic/pastoral Fulani who move with their
cattle throughout the year.
b) The settled Fulani who mainly live in villages and
cities permanently.
The typical Fulbe homestead

Layout plan of a
saré at Bé
showing the
compounds of the
wives which are
surrounded by
woven straw mat
fences.
 A typical homestead
— The Fulani homestead is called a saré. The saré is enclosed by
a fence and contains pole-framed, circular-plan huts.
— A typical saré comprised of several dwellings including a
reception (guest) hut and at times another hut nearby which
had been built by an unmarried son.

— Beyond a screen wall, an enclosure contained the huts of the

wives arranged in a loose arc around the compound of the
headman’s hut (fattude) which was square shaped.
— Every wife had a hut where she lived with her pre-pubertal
children and a kitchen. A grinding hut was also present.
Inside the kitchen were hearthstones. Similar hearthstones
were located in the open for cooking during the dry season.
Water pots were sunk into the ground and grass granary bins
were set on rocks to jeep away rodents.
— The huts have a wall cladding of woven straw and domed,
thatched roofs. There are also cylindrical earth houses roofed
with conical pole-and-thatch.
— The homestead also contained granaries, a kitchen hut,
a grinding shelter, a cattle pen in the centre of the saré,
a well and at the rear of each saré were latrines and a
dunghill.
— The roofs of huts were frequently infested with white
ants which would consume one hut in six months. The
average life of a hut was ten years. Every other year, a
hut within a saré would become uninhabitable and the
whole saré would be replaced within a span of fifteen
years.
— The function of huts often changed depending on their
physical state. New huts were built for new wives, old
ones were recycled or used for other purposes e.g.
deteriorating sleeping huts became a kitchen, an old
kitchen became a storage hut or animal pen
— When a family member died, the body was interred near
the guest hut and the deceased own hut would be
abandoned.
More permanent structures of the Fulbe tribe
The typical Wodaabe homestead
The whole homestead
consists of:

— bed-shelters
— ancilliary shelters
— calf rope
— cattle corral
Features of the Wodaabe homestead
The Wodaabe homestead is arranged to symbolize
important social relationships
— Calf Rope – A leather rope at the centre of the
homestead to which the calves of the household
herd are tethered when the herd is in the corral.
— Cattle corral – It is located in front of the calf rope.
This is often a circular patch of earth trampled by
the cattle and since movement is so frequent here,
a corral fence is not often made.
— Corral fire – In the centre of the cattle corral is a
fire place round which the cattle gather in the early
morning and in the evening when they return from
pasture.
— Bed-shelters – Also known as suudi are the
dwellings of the household head’s wives and the
matricentral components of the family.

— Ancilliary shelters – These are rough beds found in

the anciallary huts round the cattle corral under
convenient bushes or trees. These shelters belong
to the young males of the household.

Camps are formed of a number of homesteads such

as this, the general shape of a camp is a rank of
homesteads facing west with their calf ropes and bed-
shelters in the same straight line from north to south.
Wodaabe homestead set up in midst of pasture
 How the homestead functions
There is a clear division in the homestead between the
male and female spheres of action.

Between the back fence and the calf rope is the

female area. The main shelters in this part of the
homestead are the bed-shelters of the household
head’s wives and the essentials of the shelters. The
bed-shelters are arranged in rank facing West, the
senior wife’s shelter at the North, the rest in
descending order of seniority to the South.

The old woman’s shelter also known as bukkaaru

shelters the aged mother of the household head.
The only males who sleep in this part of the
homestead are the household head and his infant
sons. No males other than infant boys eat or work in
this part of the homestead. The bed-shelters area is
given over exclusively to the day to day execution of
the women’s tasks.

West of the calf rope is the male area of the

household, where the cattle, the main interest and
preoccupation of the men are kept. When during the
day a cattle corral is vacated, women do not cross it
and children do not play in it.
 The Buganda Kingdom
— The Buganda Kingdom is situated on the northern
and western shores of Lake Victoria, extending
from latitude 2˚ N to 1˚ S. The Nile River borders it
to the eastern side separating it from Busoga, and
on its other landward side it adjoins other
kingdoms; in the north Bunyoro, in the west Toro
and Ankole, and in the south, Kiziba.
— Today Buganda is one of four provinces in the state
of Uganda and is situated on the northern and
western shores of Lake Victoria, from 2° N to 1° S
latitude. The province extends 198 miles (320
kilometers) along the lakeshore and 81 miles (130
kilometers) inland, with a land area of
approximately 17,370 square miles (45,000 square
kilometers).
Buganda heritage sites.
 Baganda Settlements
— The Baganda village or kyalo was a collection of
large bee-hive huts built on the slope of a hill. The
land between the top of this hill and the stream in
the valley beneath was the mutala, the area
cultivated by the villagers.

— Villages are built on the slopes of the innumerable

low flat-topped hills that dot the Buganda
countryside.

— The hill-top is generally not built on because the

soil at the top is rocky and the elephant grass that
grows there forms the best pasture.
— The thickly populated part of the village, the
characteristic landscape consists of the expanse of
broad, dark green banana leaves which indicate native
habitations, climbing up the slope but coming to an end
in time to leave the clear cut outline of the ridge with
occasionally a clump of trees.

— The village is not built according to any regular plan; it

has no public open space or any other central point.
Each house stands by itself among its own bananas,
and two houses are so close that one can shout to the
other.

— Villages consist of thirty to eighty dispersed

homesteads, each surrounded by its banana garden and
interspersed with fallow land and patches of cotton,
covering an average of five or six acres.

— Originally, dwellings consisted of a round framework of

posts and canes covered with thatched grass that
extended upward to form a beehive-shaped roof.
— In the twentieth century the typical dwelling was
rectangular, also of post and cane framework but with
mud walls and a corrugated iron roof replacing the
thatched grass.

— Every village has its main road, some 3.6 metres wide
when properly weeded by which the lorries came to
collect cotton in the buying season.

— In front of the house, children play, beans and coffee

berries are laid to dry in the sun, bark-cloths are spread
for the final airing that completes their manufacture,
skins stretched to dry and the washing is hang out.

— The domestic unit is the homestead (maka), which

consists of a house and kitchen with additional sleeping
huts and a latrine. A yard surrounds the house and itself
is surrounded on three sides by gardens where
permanent crops of coffee and bananas grow.
 Buganda’s Major Cultural and
Historical Sites
a) Kasubi Tombs
— Kasubi tombs (Amasiro-Royal tombs) are located on
Nnabulagala hill three kilometers to the west of
Kampala city center.
— This was Kabaka Mutesa 1 (1856-1884) palace built in
1882 and converted into royal burial grounds in 1884.
— There was a huge dome shaped grass thatched
structure ‘Muzibu Azaala Mpanga’ used as a burial
ground (mausoleum) for Buganda kings and to date four
kings are buried there.
— Unfortunately, this important cultural heritage got burnt
in March 2010, and plans are under way to restore it to
its former glory.
 .

Kasubi Tombs (burnt on 16th March 2010). It is a major example of an

architectural achievement in organic materials, principally wood, thatch, reed
and wattle
— The mausoleum is only for the kings and other
royals are buried outside.
— On the compound there were other grass thatched
structures used for different purposes.
a) ‘Bujjabukula’ is the security house and entrance to
the compound.
b) ‘Ndogoobukaba’ is the store house for the sixteen
Royal Drums “Mujaguzo” and the drums have been
kept there since 1856 during Mutesa 1 reign.
c) The other houses are mausoleums for the different
princesses and Kabaka’s wives.
The thirty predecessors of the four kings are buried
elsewhere in the kingdom with twenty six being buried
in Busiro County west of Kampala.
b) Kabaka’s Lake

— The Kabaka’s lake located 500 meters from Lubiri

palace is an important landmark in Buganda’s
history.

— The lake was excavated on the orders of Kabaka

Mwanga II in 1885. It was supposed to link with
Lake Victoria through a 20 km canal and would be
used as an escape route in case of attack.

— Mwanga’s plans of beautifying the lake shores and

constructing the canal were not completed by his
successors. However, the lake has important birds
living in the papyrus vegetation and some cultural
rituals are performed here annually.
c) Kabaka’s Trail
Buganda has had kings since the 12th Century and the
social-culture story through the Kabaka’s trail links a series
of cultural sites which are within easy reach of Kampala.
The sites on this trail include:
— Naggalabi-Buddo⎯coronation site and the very heart of
the kingdom;
— Katereke Prison⎯where the earth speaks of betrayal
and murder;
— Wamala King’s tombs⎯a place of ritual and ceremony;
— Naamasole Kanyange Tombs⎯linking mother and son
forever;
— Ssezibwa Falls–beauty and healing in harmony.
— Nnamasole Baagalayaze Tombs and Cultural centre⎯a
place of hope, celebration and learning.
Kabaka’s trail.
d) Namugongo Martyr’s Shrine

— Namugongo Martyr’s shrine six kilometers to the North

East of Kampala is a symbol of brutality and holiness.

— Brutality because twenty-two young Christian converts

who were Kabaka Mwanga II royal servants were
executed (burnt) on his orders for refusing to denounce
Christianity.

— There was holiness because it depicts devotion of the

young converts to Christianity. They preferred death to
disowning Christianity.

— Artist impressions depicting the different scenes of the

execution grace the whole place and the bones of Karoli
Muwanga one of the martyrs are kept in the shrine.
Evolution of Namgongo Martyr’s shrine
(e) Other cultural Sites

— Buganda is well endowed with other cultural

products like scared hills, trees, (e.g. Nakayima tree
in Mubende, shrines, caves and waterfalls scattered
all over the kingdom.

— The surrounding communities and Baganda in

general have significant attachments to them.

— They are used for spiritual healing and cultural

rituals by the traditional healers (Basamize) and
their followers.