Harnessing the power of landscape professionals to influence the landscape of power

By Paul Lincoln

Commissioning Editor

Sylvia Crowe published the Landscape of Power in 1958. Publicity for the US edition stated: ‘The impact of industrialization on the world's landscape has hardly begun. Only in close-coupled nations such as Great Britain can we see the world's future pattern: a landscape increasingly punctuated and criss-crossed by power grids, giant new structures...’ This edition of Landscape pays tribute to Crowe’s legacy and, as the UK government struggles to meet its obligation on carbon targets ahead of COP26, it considers the current impact on the landscape of the infrastructure of power generation.

Hal Moggridge celebrates the legacy of Colvin and Crowe [page 15]. Luca Csepely-Knorr highlights the benign impact of the Central Electricity Generating Board not only on the landscape but on the development of the profession of landscape architecture, saying that, ‘The profession of landscape architecture, both within and outside the Board itself, was instrumental in the realisation of the CEGB’s vision that “conservation is everybody’s business” and a moral duty as well as a statutory one..’ There is a lesson for today’s landscape advocates seeking to heal the landscape in the context of a much more complicated legal framework.

The need to address the relationship between the landscape and the generation of power is illustrated by Marc van Grieken’s argument that as wind turbines become larger, their relationship with the landscape requires a new aesthetic [page 24]. The contradictions in designing for climate emergency are well illustrated by Rebecca Knight and Paul Macrae who address the safety implications of how turbines are lit as well as the challenge of building a power grid big enough to link the new generation of turbines [page 30]. Simon White looks at the role of seascape sensitivity studies [page 32] and Alister Kratt asks what the stalling of the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon project reveals about the UK’s approach to large-scale infrastructure [page 36].

Much of this edition is relevant to the climate emergency agenda, from helping practitioners to save energy [page 46] to the account of the LI’s Greener Recovery Festival [page 40] and our most recent publication Landscape for 2030 [page 63].

However, making a difference on the issue of climate emergency requires not only an appreciation of the landscape of power, but also a realisation of the power of the landscape practitioner to influence change.