the Apocalyptic Manifesto

[Trace One]

http://www.public.iastate.edu/~isitdead/dead_f2.pdf

 

Sorry if this has already been posted – a fellow Land8-er pointed it out to me, and in terms of a coherent rant, it is pretty good, IMHO..

Definitely no humour here, and I also think that some of our jaded practicitioners, like Andrew G., could contribute greatly to editing this school piece..

[Pat S. Rosend]

Wow. An interesting read. Lots for me to think about. I hope it’s not dead. I enjoy what I do even thought it is different form what other LA’s do.

[Thomas J. Johnson]

That’s an interesting piece. It has a number of valid points. Though those concerns have existed since the beginning of our profession. I don’t think you can say “this” is landscape architecture, nor should we be able to. Within the profession there are a number specialties and focuses, each unique, specific and part of the whole. As a landscape architect, you need to understand them all, but not be a master of them all. That would be impossible. At it’s best, landscape architecture is a group of professionals all contributing their specialized knowledge to a project. It is the firm that represents the profession, not any one individual.

Our social contacts often reinforce personal weaknesses and shortcomings. We seek out others to compliment ourselves, essentially creating a larger, more powerful self. It should be the same way in a well balanced firm. Each individual contributes to the creation of a larger, more powerful brain.

We do fill a unique role in any project. Personally, I see us bridging a gap between civil engineering and architecture. We are “experiential” designers of all things outdoors. Architects design the building. Civils make sure it all works. The three overlap, and they should. It’s a fluid process.

It would be difficult to pick any classic LA design and say, yeah, a civil or arch could have done that. They couldn’t have. The fact that people don’t understand what we do is only an issue in terms of marketing and selling ourselves but honestly, most people can’t wrap their head around what we do. When people ask me what is landscape architecture, I tell them, “every time you step outside, that’s landscape architecture. We spend 99% of our time in the built environment. Everything you see out of your window, every thing you experience on foot or in a vehicle was designed. It was thought of by somebody.” That’s when I usually see a little explosion in their brains, their eyes spin around and they are at a lose for words. Most people don’t think about it. We go about our daily lives, more or less oblivious to our environment. Landscape Architects operate bellow the surface of consciousness for most people. That’s cool. That’s fine. If we can blow their mind occasionally, even better.

So how do we market ourselves? I don’t know… I suppose it boils down to contacts. Keeping in touch with corporate and civic developers and making them aware of our value and our desire to lead or participate in their next project.

[Tanya Olson]

Very interesting read with lots of great points – many of which we’ve been discussing here over the last year or so.

My thoughts:
LA probably doesn’t need a unified theory – we have different ‘schools’ of thought and tradition – the authors named many of the modern ones; social conscience (though social control is closer to the truth), modernism, ecological design, etc. – and conveniently skipped our ancient roots in Japanese, Middle eastern, African, Greek, Roman and European culture / garden / city design. I don’t think these roots are borrowed from other professions; landscape architecture is one of their many progeny. Perhaps that is what we’re seeing now – not the demise of landscape architecture but the creation of new progeny – new related fields that are as yet unnamed and are still gestating within landscape architecture.

I find heart in the fact that landscape architecture is hard to nail down…its moving and alive. Dead things in contrast are easy to describe, summarize, eulogize. Similarly, visual and performing arts are difficult to describe – ‘what is art?’ is the question each artist seeks to answer. Why would that not be valid for landscape architects?

Some things not considered in the manifesto:
– everything seems orderly and clear through the lense of history, hardly proof of pending demise.
– who gave the authors the idea that we are all a-political? Tons of us are intimately involved in local, regional and state politics.
– why does there have to be one big answer?
– as long as we’re doing it, its not dead.
– I don’t care what anyone says, landscape architects are, as a whole, better at grading, planting and designing for humans moving through or residing in the landscape than any other profession.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

Landscape architecture is design on the land. It is such a broad topic that anyone can cruise around it and pick things out in just about any subject or philosophy and make points that try to sway things this way or that way. None of it defines the profession or the state of the profession because it simply is “design on the land”. It is always great and always aweful, it is always simle and always complicated, …. it just depends on what part you are looking at and what values you are judging that part.

All the stress and arguement can always be traced to one thing – someone defines what landscape architecture should be and then measures everything against that assumption. It is design on the land from what I can tell. All the other controversy is based on pretending that it fits in a box. The boxes fit into it from how I see it, not the other way around.

Is that jaded?

[Thomas J. Johnson]

Unfortunately I’ve never been good at groveling… Sometimes I wish I was…

[Trace One]

Great Tom Wolfe piece, Russel, thank you – man he was alive back then, in his words..

I take away from that a sort of cycnicism of theory, in keeping with our general anti-intellectual atmosphere in America today (and forty years ago, thanks Mr. Wolfe..)
But unfortunately, Olmsteds designs, Prospect Park, look the way they do because of theory – either written or not… The Alhambra looks the way it does because of thought, writing, theory (under which I include belief in god – another theory..)

Perhaps it is our loss of historical knowledge, and focus on the moment that makes theory seem so empty – how many LA’s are there today that equal Olmsted, yet how many are forced to act as though they equal him..

?
And then, of course, the Turner Prize, (British Paining Prize) when it was given to the painter – Abt, I think her name was, two years ago..She painted triangles in layers (very nice subtle paintings) and since it was so layered one could not even SEE the triangles underneath the triangles..
Now if that isn’t ‘ever-so-much-more-so”, Robert McCloskey’s ‘salt’ that made everything taste better, you just can’t see it..for sale, $2 a bottle..
Of course, snake oil is in the grand american tradition..I geuss.

[Thomas J. Johnson]

You never cease to surprise me T1! For someone who dislikes lengthy posts, your enjoyment of Wolfe’s loquacious prose seems out of character. Granted, my writing hardly measures up to his. Though, without knowing anything about him, he sounds stereotypical of a brilliant NY intellectual drunkard who rambles on just to hear himself talk. While it was highly educational, dear god man, get on with it!

He does bring up some great points that are applicable to our discussion, namely, the pitfalls inherent in attempting to make the visual literary. Nearly every description of a Land Arch project ends up sounding the same to me. Maybe we’ve been over trained / conditioned to use key phrases; suggestive, implied, weave, urban fabric, blah, blah, blah… Perhaps, we should, like a Buddhist, when asked about the moon, point at the moon.

That doesn’t help us define, market and competitively place our profession amongst our competitors though. A list might help. What is landscape architecture? What isn’t landscape architecture? For instance, sculptures and fountains are often subcontracted to artists and fountain designers. Are THEY landscape architecture? We design spaces for them to exist, but we do not usually design them ourselves. The list could go on and on… colors, materials, hardscape, softscape, lighting, irrigation, urban, suburban, wilderness… we do it all and more. We have different aesthetics. Different theories. Different idols…

Halprin recreated natural phenomenons with psychedelic-Asian-alien geometry. Olmsted was a master of light handed expansive spacial experiential design. Walker is a technical mastermind. Kiley created modern rooms outdoors…on and on… Each one has a distinctive style, aesthetic, theory, philosophy behind their work. They’re easily discernible yet they are all representative of Landscape Architecture.

Which brings us back to the basics. The LARE. If you have your license you are a Landscape Architect. If you don’t, you’re not. You are something else. Landscape Architecture IS those basics. Once you have those mastered you can take it in any direction you want and sign-off on your work. Then your work speaks for itself. You build a portfolio based on your work and that’s what gets you more work. You can’t sell yourself to a client based on somebody else work. You need to be able to say “I’ve done this and I can do this for you”. Once you’re a Landscape Architect, what “that” is, is up to you…

[Author]

Posts