History + Theory

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE + URBANISM

HISTORY + THEORY

SOMAIYEH FALAHAT

BA (Hons) Landscape Architecture History + Theory

Teaching of history and theory on the programme is conceived as a complete journey over three years through the ideas, politics, art, ethics and landscapes of human civilisation. The first term of Year 1 introduces students to London, Greenwich and the broad range of research undertaken at the University of Greenwich. Group work, discussions and workshops balance the content between research, lectures and first-hand experiences of landscape, architecture and cities. A broad overview of landscape, architecture and art history follows in the second term of Year 1 and the first term of Year 2. Students develop their skills in writing essays and undertaking academic research, gradually framing a set of interests that inform their future studies. Greater focus occurs in the second term of Year 2 when contemporary themes in theory and built work are explored. In the Year 3 dissertation, each student develops research interests both as individuals and in small, themed and tightly guided groups with a dedicated supervisor. A high level of research quality and critical evaluation is expected, and the students are encouraged to pursue themes they are passionate about and forge connections with their design work. Many students undertake daring studies that are arresting in terms of their written and visual quality, as well as the connections made between sites, projects, and the cutting edge of landscape theory.

Masters Landscape Architecture + Urbanism Theory

Masters students explore the critical and theoretical discourses from landscape, architecture and urbanism that engage with the design, planning and production of cities, as well as the processes of urbanisation. There is an emphasis on landscape architecture, planning and urbanism theory, while aiming to open up interdisciplinary dialogues across design, philosophy, sociology, geography, history and anthropology, among others.

In the final year, Landscape Architecture and Urbanism Theory combines lectures, workshops and seminars to present core theoretical concepts and ensure opportunities for research. There are readings assigned every week that support the teaching and discussion, that help students to structure their own research and discover and/or reinforce their interests. There is much emphasis on discussion for critical evaluation. Readings range across the disciplines that impact landscape architecture, such as J.B. Jackson writing in landscape studies, Michel de Certeau and Henri Lefebvre on the study of everyday life, Jürgen Habermas and Walter Benjamin in political and cultural theory, Don Mitchell and Sharon Zukin on the politics and cultures of the contemporary city, and Denis Cosgrove and William Cronon on wilderness, nature, the sublime and industrial capitalism. Students choose the focus of the essay, researching a position and perspective developed on the project, practice and theory.

The following pages present excerpts from four carefully researched and adventurous projects, selected to show the diversity of subjects explored.

Emily Charlton-Gooch, MLA2

A Different Kind of Space: Understanding Protest Heterotopias as a tool for Challenging Power through Design

The main goal of this essay is to reflect on the lessons that landscape architects can take away from protest spaces. To do so, Foucault’s conceptualization of heterotopia is explored with focus on the typology of Beckett, Bagguley and Campbell. This creates a framework through which to look at spaces of protest and their value in challenging bodies of power. The theory of contained, mobile, cloud, encounter and rhizomic heterotopias is outlined, in order to analyse the ‘alternative’ types of space created by the actions of Extinction Rebellion in 2019. Through this framework it is possible to illustrate how a protest movement can create heterotopic spaces in Central London.

In the second part of the essay, the work of the experimental architectural collective Raumlabor is analysed, with a focus on the degree to which they achieve heterotopic space that challenges the neoliberal city. Four projects are discussed: ‘Open Raumlabor University’, ‘Silver Pearl’, ‘Haus der Statistik’ and ‘The Built, The Unbuilt, The Unbuildable’. The essay examines how Raumlabor share some characteristics of the protest heterotopias of Extinction Rebellion in their use of spatial (and non-spatial) strategies.

The usefulness of the theory of protest heterotopias is discussed in terms of its practical application in landscape architecture, after which strategies are suggested that may be useful in creating cities that challenge dominant power structures.

Michael Hallifax, MLA1

Why Rewilding? The Changing Perception of Nature in the Age of the Anthropocene

This essay questions the development of Rewilding as a public perception of nature, as distinct from that explored in academia. Whereas academia has a clear, albeit burgeoning, definition of Rewilding and the various methods envisaged to achieve the proposed outcomes, the public construct is an undetermined and idealistic vision. The fascination and evolution of this construct is informative of contemporary society, just as previous iterations of humanity's perception on nature are revelatory of their contemporary eras. Why have we become fixated with this perception of nature, in our age of the Anthropocene?

Photo: Charlton-Gooch, 2019

John Gast, American Progress, 1872

Lucas Cranach the Elder, The Garden of Eden, 1530

Ben Keene , BALA2

Depicting the Urban: How is Landscape used in Film to Question Reality?

We currently live in a time of uncertainty and confusion. Brexit, climate change, COVID-19; events that seem inexplicable and out of our control. Advancing technologies are drastically changing how we receive and interpret information, and as a result, how we interact with our environment. What was once limited to fantasy is now becoming reality. Technologies such as the internet and artificial intelligence are exhilarating and terrifying. They provoke intriguing ethical questions and blur the boundary between what we know as reality and fantasy.

Many contemporary narratives raise concerns of reality, virtuality, memory and subjectivity (Mennel, 2008). Film has the ability to challenge normative modes of thinking, representing our surroundings in ways that question and provoke new meaning. How are the distilled, carefully considered landscape representations used in film to ‘pierce through the wall of our fake world’ and question the truths that we take for granted? (HyperNormalisation, 2016)

Stephanie Walker, MLA1

Exploring Multiple Meanings of Landscapes, Power and the Space Between Meanings

What different types of meanings are created by our experience of landscapes, and can these meanings tell us things about our relationships to nature and the world around us? How is our shared sense of meaning created, and what is its relevance for the landscapes that we continue to influence? If we can understand the building blocks of our relationship to nature and landscapes, can we then use that understanding to create a more integrated view of nature that might help us adapt to impending climate-changed futures?

This essay examines different critiques of our relationships with nature, for example, metaphors of gardens and landscapes, and how landscapes embody power relationships. It speculates on other meanings that might be created or contained within these metaphors and power relationships, before looking at what potential for change or transformation might be contained within these expressions of meanings. By understanding other conceptions that are possible, it also becomes possible to shape a more ethical, ecological and ultimately better way of living in the world.