Conference: ‘Future History: teaching history in landscape schools’

A conference will be taking place in September, looking at human dignity in a changing climate – reflecting on contemporary trends and the ways in which history is taught in the landscape profession.

Jan Woudstra

University of Sheffield

Increasingly, the perception within the profession of landscape architecture regarding its contribution to the environment is coming to reflect societal issues and environmental justice. This extends to the stories we tell. In the field of landscape architecture, it has been customary, after explaining the various terms and exploring the origins of the word landscape, to narrate development chronologically.

But rather than investigate trends in the vernacular landscape, we tend to concentrate on what happened in, and follow the fashions of, the gardens of nobility. That is until the nineteenth century, when we were able to investigate public parks. We continued to address the public landscape of cities when we moved into the twentieth century. This seemed to reflect an established order of things as well as the source material available. While ‘gardens’ within ‘landscape architecture’ have often been derided, they have continued to be a way to express the notion of styles in historic narration in a European tradition; Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Augustan, Brownian, Picturesque, Reptonian, Victorian, Arts and Crafts, Modernism, Postmodern, etc.

#MeToo, Black Lives Matter and debates on decolonisation have in the last couple of years brought the focus landscape histories, many aspects of which 2 had been accepted as a matter

of fact and are now being critically questioned. The houses and gardens of nobility are male and white and are recognised as an expression of colonial exploitation and suppression. Their use in historic narrative ought to be carefully considered; should their use be restricted? Clearly it is not whether we should respond to these international trends, but how we should (re)present the history of landscape design. In addition, the climate urgency has put a new perspective on the profession which puts past designs and practices in a different context. Some landscape schools have avoided these issues altogether and have stopped teaching history, an act of capitulation which in the current climate can also be interpreted as unacceptable, but it unfortunately reflects a general trend where student interest in history is waning. Yet history is important as a basis for any profession, as a point of reference, and as an inspiration for new design. No self-assured profession should avoid facing up to its past. With the landscape profession’s commitment to the long term, should we not use learning from the past as a prerogative to improve future landscapes and make them more sustainable?

It is for this reason that a conference is being organised to discuss different philosophies and approaches to the teaching of history at landscape schools. In order to derive some sort of consensus, it questions what history should be narrated in the education of landscape architects; how students may be engaged in the history of their chosen profession; what methods and tools may be devised to improve student engagement in history teaching; and what resources are required to improve teaching history?

The conference ‘Future History: teaching history in landscape schools’ is intended for those involved or interested in delivering the history of the profession and will be held on 8 and 9 September 2022 at the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Sheffield. It is organised in collaboration with FOLAR, the Friends of the Landscape Archives at Reading, and will be preceded by a series of online lectures hosted by Landscape Matters.

Jan Woudstra is a Reader in Landscape History and Theory at the Department of Landscape Architecture of the University of Sheffield.

For further details and updates see: http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/ landscape/events