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Landscape as Urbanism: A General Theory
A definitive intellectual history of landscape urbanism
It has become conventional to think of urbanism and landscape as opposing one another―or to think of landscape as merely providing temporary relief from urban life as shaped by buildings and infrastructure. But, driven in part by environmental concerns, landscape has recently emerged as a model and medium for the city, with some theorists arguing that landscape architects are the urbanists of our age. In Landscape as Urbanism , one of the field's pioneers presents a powerful case for rethinking the city through landscape.
Charles Waldheim traces the roots of landscape as a form of urbanism from its origins in the Renaissance through the twentieth century. Growing out of progressive architectural culture and populist environmentalism, the concept was further informed by the nineteenth-century invention of landscape architecture as a "new art" charged with reconciling the design of the industrial city with its ecological and social conditions. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, as urban planning shifted from design to social science, and as urban design committed to neotraditional models of town planning, landscape urbanism emerged to fill a void at the heart of the contemporary urban project.
Generously illustrated, Landscape as Urbanism examines works from around the world by designers ranging from Ludwig Hilberseimer, Andrea Branzi, and Frank Lloyd Wright to James Corner, Adriaan Geuze, and Michael Van Valkenburgh. The result is the definitive account of an emerging field that is likely to influence the design of cities for decades to come.
It has become conventional to think of urbanism and landscape as opposing one another―or to think of landscape as merely providing temporary relief from urban life as shaped by buildings and infrastructure. But, driven in part by environmental concerns, landscape has recently emerged as a model and medium for the city, with some theorists arguing that landscape architects are the urbanists of our age. In Landscape as Urbanism , one of the field's pioneers presents a powerful case for rethinking the city through landscape.
Charles Waldheim traces the roots of landscape as a form of urbanism from its origins in the Renaissance through the twentieth century. Growing out of progressive architectural culture and populist environmentalism, the concept was further informed by the nineteenth-century invention of landscape architecture as a "new art" charged with reconciling the design of the industrial city with its ecological and social conditions. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, as urban planning shifted from design to social science, and as urban design committed to neotraditional models of town planning, landscape urbanism emerged to fill a void at the heart of the contemporary urban project.
Generously illustrated, Landscape as Urbanism examines works from around the world by designers ranging from Ludwig Hilberseimer, Andrea Branzi, and Frank Lloyd Wright to James Corner, Adriaan Geuze, and Michael Van Valkenburgh. The result is the definitive account of an emerging field that is likely to influence the design of cities for decades to come.
216 pages, Hardcover
First published February 22, 2016
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August 9, 2022
Had this been my first post-structuralist book, I probably would have slapped the shit out of Charles Waldheim, but because Deleuze is hard to top, I was actually very grateful that it applied the post-structuralist framework, perhaps ironically, to something more tangible.
It's a slow burn for sure, but I assure you, this book is absolutely worth it if you're looking for the vocabulary to explain why people and places do and must grow in tandem.
It's an excellent timeline of the concept, exploring first its roots in landscape art, then its resurgence as a response to the (literally) toxic social ills of urbanisation, industrialisation and war, before its shifts lens and takes on a more aerial view, examining the relationship between urban planning and agrarian urbanism.
Still, here are two things I wish I knew before I started reading the book:
#1. This is a book about landscape urbanism, not landscape architecture.
While the latter is more about incorporating the building into a landscape and noting its existing environment, the former goes a step further — it's about marrying the ecological, social and political in the design and public participation process. For those familiar, this is somewhat similar to Dovey and Polakit's concept of smooth and striated spaces (Chapter 11), but with an added ecological element to it.
If this is confusing still, it brings me to my second point:
#2. It probably helps to read the conclusion first.
If you're looking for a simple explanation (as simple as a book examining the history of post-structuralism in the field of ecological architecture can be) about what landscape urbanism is and its impacts, skip to the conclusion chapter:
The otherwise dense book is littered with great references and examples: James Corner, Frank Loyd Wright, and Andrea Branzi, just to name a few.
It's a slow burn for sure, but I assure you, this book is absolutely worth it if you're looking for the vocabulary to explain why people and places do and must grow in tandem.
It's an excellent timeline of the concept, exploring first its roots in landscape art, then its resurgence as a response to the (literally) toxic social ills of urbanisation, industrialisation and war, before its shifts lens and takes on a more aerial view, examining the relationship between urban planning and agrarian urbanism.
Still, here are two things I wish I knew before I started reading the book:
#1. This is a book about landscape urbanism, not landscape architecture.
While the latter is more about incorporating the building into a landscape and noting its existing environment, the former goes a step further — it's about marrying the ecological, social and political in the design and public participation process. For those familiar, this is somewhat similar to Dovey and Polakit's concept of smooth and striated spaces (Chapter 11), but with an added ecological element to it.
If this is confusing still, it brings me to my second point:
#2. It probably helps to read the conclusion first.
If you're looking for a simple explanation (as simple as a book examining the history of post-structuralism in the field of ecological architecture can be) about what landscape urbanism is and its impacts, skip to the conclusion chapter:
"... a performative turn that has reenergized landscape architecture with the potential for a paradoxical autonomy with urban form, derived from the highly scripted metrics of ecological logics and emergent forms... In lieu of the centrality of function, structure, urban coherence, humanist continuity and capital accumulation... [it] offers the potential for an architecture of radically distanced authorship arrived at through highly measured performative dimensions.
The otherwise dense book is littered with great references and examples: James Corner, Frank Loyd Wright, and Andrea Branzi, just to name a few.
Displaying 1 of 1 review