Landscape is our Sex by David Heymann

Different designers get inspiration from different sources. Sometimes they are practical, sometimes philosophic, sometimes metaphoric, and sometimes a bunch of BS to justify something they just plain wanted to do. It matters not which design profession. That diversity is a great thing because it offers choices to the real people behind the project to choose a designer to meet their needs.

I don’t think any of us need to feel threatened by architects “co-opting” the landscape. Responding to existing conditions is just plain practical (interesting to think how the Mac Computer building design fits into this). Architects manipulating the landscape to better work with their buildings is not inherently bad either unless they are incompetent at doing so.

Any audience can be programmed and/or diverted to see a project in a certain way to some extent. I will be presenting a 1970’s condo re-vitalization landscape plan to the residents of 14 buildings later today. This is not a strip out and start over landscape. Some areas were well maintained, some were re-landscaped by unit owners, some had odd things added by unit owners, some lost a plant here or there that were never replaced, …. a complete hoge-poge without a big budget. The people who are a mess will get all new landscaping. The people who did a good job maintaing things will get nothing. The people who willy-nilly tossed in plants will lose them. Some will get a few new plants and some much needed pruning and thinning. They will all be paying for it. Half my presentation will be to re-program them into seeing the project from a perspective other than what they are getting at their own unit. It works, for the most part (this is the seventh village in this condo that I have done this for).

The big lesson in the article is not what direction architecture is going regarding the landscape or what the public perception of the landscape is. It really is about shaping your audience to respond possitively … or not. Design as a business is not all a competition of ideas and flashy drawings. It is about relating to and the perception of those whom you are designing for.

I think the article is about how deceptive architects are being, and use the comfy dialect of site to convince, whicle their true impulse right now is to be brutalist and modernist in the extreme. Zaha Hadid is an excellent example of brutalism, in my opinion..

So I agree with Roland, this writer  is not interested in co-opting, it seems like he really doesnt think architect CAN work with landscape effectively.

But I disagree with Roland, in the strength of ‘landscape image’ – I don’t think landscape is anywhere, in the public’s eye..I mean look at that Hadid building..where are the benches? yet she gets it built. 

Context vs. Scenario

If the context does not actually match, some designers program the observers with a story line in order to create a scenario in which the building fits.

You  can look at it as a sham or you might be the type that is intrigued by the whole thing and think it is great. … you know, the Martha Swartz bagels and such, or the abstract art that hangs in a museum*, or a Haiku. Some people get a thrill out of it while others think it is lame. It is diversity of design. No one is right, no one is wrong. It is all perpective and/or perception.

*Roland, a piece in the U of I gallery that I saw in 1983 had potatoes attached to the wall in a triangle. One at the top, two in the middle. Three below. The sign below read “One potato, two potato, three potato, floor”. My skirt did not blow up, but obviously others felt it was gallery worthy. Without the sign, the composition was nothing.

If landscape is compared to sex than it is likely that there are different orientations, some fetishes, ….. and some perversions with the bottom line being that pleasure is the driving force.

I think it has similarities including intolerance when it does not match our own inclinations.

Some would say that landscape architects are getting ……

…. by architects.

I, for one, don’t have a problem with landscapes being created by others. You have to have dark in order to see the light.

Looks like a flashback to Idaho 1988 with that Dan Quayle spelling of potato. … I met him in the state house there. …Weird, no kidding, he just popped up on my tv right now. Freaky coincidence!

All in good fun. You probably heard the same report in the backround on the radio and it triggered a subconscious response. Or it comes from seeing “Famous Potatoes” on the license plates every day. Weird that they add the “e” when it goes plural.