Is this landscape architecture’s finest moment?

[Thomas Rainer]

Is the profession of landscape architecture entering into a new golden age? If the 2012 ASLA awards are any indication, the answer may be yes.

http://landscapeofmeaning.blogspot.com/2012/09/landscape-architectures-finest-moment.html

 

Landscape architects have long lived with a dualistic view of the profession. Inside the profession, LA’s see themselves as heirs to Frederick Law Olmsted’s heroic and sweeping ambitions. Landscape architects shape cities, create National Parks, protect the environment, and even stimulate social reform. But this rather ambitious internal view of the profession is undercut by landscape architecture’s relative obscurity in the public eye. Introduce yourself as a landscape architect at a cocktail party and questions about lawn mowers, flowers, or plant diseases immediately follow. Since Olmsted, the chasm between what landscape architects think they do and what the majority of them actually do has been very deep. Until now.

Landscape architects may indeed be gaining influence.  To read more, click to see the full article:

 

http://landscapeofmeaning.blogspot.com/2012/09/landscape-architectures-finest-moment.html

[Chris Whitted]

“the chasm between what landscape architects think they do and what the majority of them actually do has been very deep. Until now.”

Is this true?  Am I in some tiny minority who has always recognized that they can’t all be grand, showy, award-winning projects?

From year one of school I was always told, and my experiences since have supported, that what you see in LAM and ASLA awards and the like is the “1%” to make a more current analogy.  There are relatively few firms and landscape architects who get to work on these kinds of projects, in no small part because there aren’t that many of them out there comparatively speaking.  I’m sure many of us wish to (I certainly always have), but for the most part the bread and butter of an LA is the residential subdivision and small(er) commercial development.  If the chasm is any less deep now, it’s because those markets have shrunk to less than a shadow of their former selves and all the LAs who were doing that work aren’t doing any at all.  The minority became the majority, in public view anyway – from what I’ve seen in polls and industry research data the people and projects we see and hear about even within the profession are just the tip of a very large iceberg.

I don’t mean to belittle those projects at all, at least not the ones that actually function as opposed to being ‘art installations’. They certainly do push boundaries and establish precedent, trying out new ideas.  They show in a very public way what it is that landscape architecture strives for (or can anyway).  Strangely enough we share a lot of commonalities with the fashion industry.  I wonder how many people and projects had to come before them though? I recall proposing some bioswale-type areas as part of a streetscape in an urban area and being shot down twice by the local engineering department. Six months later a project went up in the same area with the same elements, though I’m sure they had to do enough standard infrastructure to support drainage as if the elements weren’t even there.

Is landscape architecture making progress? Certainly. Of course we’re gaining influence. But while we’ve made some leaps and bounds in even the last decade it’s been a long and slow effort, not some sudden change.  Even slower in terms of the public eye; I wonder how many of those award winning projects have any sort of landscape architecture recognition with their users or local public. I would say that yes, we’re doing more now than ever and becoming more recognized within our and allied proffessions, but public recognition is still lagging far behind for those same accomplishments.

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