AFTER LANDSCAPE Reflecting on the life and legacy of landscape architecture academic Marieluise Jonas – an educator who inspired many with her passion for and understanding of Asian urbanism. —
Text Jillian Walliss and Heike Rahmann Illustrations Tom Harper and Brock Hogan (Placemark)
1995
2002
2001
Began two-year landscape contractor apprenticeship Kiel, Germany
Worked as a landscape architect Hanover, Germany
Commenced study of aikido a modern martial art
2005 Commenced PhD research Keikan Lab, University of Tokyo
EXPANDED FIELDS
H y brid L andscapes
L A N D S C A P E F O U N D AT I O N S 1990 Student exchange to Arkansas, USA
F
1997
2001
Studied landscape architecture Höxter, Germany
Worked as a landscape architecture intern Kisho Kurokawa Architect and Associates, Tokyo, Japan
or some, life takes a defined course from school to university and then work, often in the same city and usually in the same country. This did not apply to Marieluise Jonas. Her desire to experience the new and unknown led her from her native Germany to the United States, Japan and finally to Australia, where she spent the last eight years of her life. But it is her work in Japan that will be her greatest legacy to landscape architecture and the design community. Her decade-long exploration of the intricacies of Japanese urbanism and her more recent contribution to tsunami-affected coastal villages offer students, practitioners and communities valuable knowledge and lessons.
where as a highschool exchange student in Arkansas she happened to shake the hand of then governor Bill Clinton. In 1995, after finishing highschool and a short exploration studying sociology at the University of Kiel in Germany, she commenced a two-year apprenticeship as a landscape contractor. This training laid the foundation of her career in landscape architecture. It was at this time that Marieluise and her partner, Heike Rahmann, first met. In 1997 Marieluise began her landscape architecture degree and soon, being bored by the focus on Eurocentric landscape architecture, she looked to expand her cultural understandings of landscape and design through an internship abroad.
Marieluise’s father, who travelled extensively for work, encouraged her interest in Japan from an early age. Her first encounter with a foreign country was in the USA,
In 2001 Marieluise was awarded a government-funded scholarship aimed at professional and personal development overseas. With Japan a major economic
2001 Awarded scholarship funded by German government
2005 Awarded HDR scholarship funded by DAAD and MEXT
partner, the German government was particularly supportive of young Germans working in Japan, offering specialized training in cross-cultural communication and diplomacy. Working for six months in the office of Tokyo-based architect Kisho Kurokawa, a renowned modernist architect who co-founded the Metabolism Movement in the 1960s, she quickly discovered that landscape architecture as presented in Germany did not exist in Japan. Instead, Tokyo exposed her to the cultural and spatial complexity of one of the world’s most intriguing megacities. The density and lack of open space raised an appreciation for the small and hidden moments in the city that are not easily accessible to the short-term visitor. This attitude toward unpretentious qualities paired with Marieluise’s curiosity to unpack the underlying social conditions of spatial design and inhabitation formed a constant presence in her academic work.
I fondly remember discussing aspects of your doctoral thesis at our research centre. You devised a theory of place that revealed your compassion and warmth. While at first sight understated, you in fact were interrogating the relationship between public and private and the sort of community needed to facilitate this. These are at heart very profound themes for contemporary society and for contemporary design and planning scholarship.
We conducted surveys and listened together to the residents talking about the pot plants of the narrow “low area” – the so-called shitamachi – backstreets when you were writing your doctoral thesis. After dining on the traditional dish of eel and egg during a study tour of Tokyo, we went to karaoke. I’m afraid you weren’t such a good singer. After the earthquake you continued to support us in the Sanriku area, partly by starting the Genba Gakkai (placemaking) study group.
Hiroshi Naito Architect and professor emeritus The University of Tokyo, Japan
Satoru Nagayama City planning division, City of Rikuzentakata, Japan
Marieluise said after my design thesis presentation in 2011, “I think weeds are great … I love weeds.” A simple statement, yes, however, Marieluise’s confidence in my project and concepts inspired me to pursue a PhD at the University of Melbourne and a teaching career at RMIT University. Brent Greene RMIT University
2008
ACADEMIA
2009 Lecturer in landscape architecture RMIT University
2011–2014
2015–2016
Program manager Bachelor of Design (Landscape Architecture), RMIT University
Program manager Master of Landscape Architecture, RMIT University
Inspired by her profound experiences in Japan, Marieluise finished her degree with a provocative design thesis that examined the link between spatial awareness and physical and temporal constraints of open spaces in prisons. After working for two years in a design practice in Hanover, Germany, Marieluise was eager to return to Japan. She applied for a PhD scholarship funded by the Japanese government. In 2005 she began her research at the Keikan Lab at the University of Tokyo, under the supervision of architect Hiroshi Naito. Her thesis interrogated the role of flowerpots as a sensitive mediator between private and public space. While she was quick to define her research interest, it took longer to convince her Japanese audience of the significance of her work and of the value of the foreign eye in expanding the knowledge of a ubiquitous phenomenon. She
Marieluise played such a large part in developing my view of landscape architecture. My first studio tutor, she not only allowed us to bury twenty-four mannequins in contaminated soil underneath the Bolte Bridge, she also gave us the reins to let us search and explore the meaning within. Her sheer excitement for these somewhat strange acts of scholar was something to behold … if she was excited by your ideas she backed you all the way. Benjamin Kronenberg Openwork, Melbourne
Marieluise’s insistence on a dynamic reading of landscape informed the ethics of her design approach and enabled her to connect with students and community members. These were connections forged around a conviction to act ethically and with integrity – finding, working with and demonstrating a quiet dynamism in and through a living relationship with landscape. A remarkable legacy. Jock Gilbert RMIT University, Melbourne
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practising in asia
Thesis completed Potscape – A study on the hybrid landscape of Tokyo’s informal gardens
The slide depicted a group of pot plants lining a street in Tokyo, simultaneously ad hoc and meticulous in their arrangement … Two years ago this image formed part of a lecture on Tokyo Voids and lodged in my mind as one of the most dynamic and powerful descriptions of an urban landscape. Marieluise’s book was formative in shaping my education of landscape and it continues to inform my practice.
When you saw how the genba – the actual landscape of the Sanriku Coastline, where people in Japan lived their lives – was being lost [to the seawall], you said in sorrow, “This can’t happen!” You drew on landscape design to propose a way for us to “live with the sea.” I can only hope that the time will come when all will realize the meaning and importance of your ideas.
Olivia O’Donnell The University of Melbourne (student)
Keiko Sugawara Kesennuma resident and documenter of the building of the seawall
2010
2011
Tokyo Void Design research studio RMIT University and University of Tokyo
Visited the disaster-affected areas in Tohoku Started engagement with local community in the recovery process after Great East Japan Earthquake
F I G H T I N G T H E sea W A L L
JAPAN DESIGN RESEARCH 2009 The Hidden Tokyo Design research studio RMIT University and University of Adelaide
approached these challenges with strong conviction, determination and – at times – a clever proportion of her typical wittiness. With her PhD complete, and with limited opportunity to pursue an academic career in Japan, Marieluise and Heike planned to go to California. But a series of unconnected events opened their minds to the potentials of Australia – a lecture from a New Zealander describing coastal batches, discussions with visiting University of Melbourne lecturer Darko Radovic and the growing implications of the 2008 global financial crisis. In 2009, after teaching at the University of Adelaide for a semester, Marieluise moved to Melbourne for a fulltime academic position in landscape architecture at RMIT University. In almost nine years of service she contributed significantly to the administration and leadership of the discipline, performing the roles of
2011 Visiting Research Fellow Hiroshi Ota Lab for Sustainable Urban Regeneration, Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo
program manager in the bachelor program (2011–2014) and the master’s program (2015–2016), while at times working with the school executive as acting deputy dean of the landscape discipline. Marieluise’s energy and passion for things and people she cared for, her sharp intellect and her exceptional ethical stance earned her deep respect among both staff and students. Large parts of her teaching engaged with the exploration of atmospheric qualities through material composition and construction techniques, highly inspired by Japanese design and craftsmanship. A hands-on approach and engagement with the physical world formed an important aspect in her pedagogy, whether it was through the emphasis on model making or through temporary site interventions that explored the existing material context and ephemeral characteristics of landscape.
2012 After Landscape A 100-year plan for Shibitachi Design research studio RMIT University and Tokyo University of Technology
In these projects, she would often place students in unconventional environments to test conceptions of landscape, while also encouraging the development of novel ideas and design outcomes. Marieluise’s biggest contribution to RMIT University and the broader Australian design community was through her understanding of Asian urbanism. Always grounded in landscape architecture, she provided an expanded disciplinary perspective on contemporary issues when lecturing in other programs and institutions. From 2009 Marieluise began regularly taking undergraduate and master’s students to Japan, often in collaboration with other universities in Australia and Japan. Immersing the students in a foreign culture was never a superficial experience. Instead, she aimed to unravel the material and atmospheric qualities in strange, unexpected,
The Japan that you knew from your father was perhaps an ideal – that Japan became diseased in the modern era. And then we were struck by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. However, that was the catalyst for people in the affected area to become more aware, while people from outside gathered in support. Perhaps it was by coming to help that you were able to see the Japan that you wanted to see. Shunsuke Hirose Landscape architect Fudokesei Büro für Umweltgestaltung
2013 Seawall/landscape symposium and workshop Rebuilding Kesennuma and Shibitachi: the possibilities for an economic and culturally sustainable future Funded by Australia-Japan Foundation
Shibitachi Rikuzentakada Kesennuma
practising in asia
Karakuwa Okabe
Tokyo
surreal and challenging places, which formed a lens through which she sought to uncover the deeper meaning and conditions of human existence. In December 2011, six months after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, Marieluise visited the coastal communities in Tohoku. Through her visiting research fellowship and collaboration with the University of Tokyo, Marieluise had the opportunity to engage with local fishermen and community leader Shintaro Suzuki, who was leading the reconstruction efforts in the small fishing village of Karakuwacho Shibitachi. Witnessing the destructive power of the tsunami firsthand, she also gained an insight into the cultural complexities of the recovery process. This encounter had a profound influence on Marieluise and guided her work and advocacy for landscape architecture for the rest of her life.
2014 Published Tokyo Void: Possibilities in Absence (co-authored with Heike Rahmann)
Seamlessly integrating research and teaching, her commitment to working along the Sanriku Coast was driven by two concerns: a deep sense of justice for the hard-struck communities and an intricate understanding of landscape systems that would challenge the readily available engineering solutions. The opportunities she envisioned for the recovery process led to her being awarded an unprecedented three successive AustraliaJapan Foundation grants funded by the Australian Government. This success is also testament to her sustained engagement with the communities that provided a poignant contrast to numerous short-lived programs offered by international support groups following the earthquake. The longevity of her efforts in Tohoku allowed her work to evolve and mature over time, expanding from developing masterplans for Shibitachi and Kesennuma to
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Hirota Bay
Kesennuma Shibitachi
Pacific Ocean
Thank you so much for coming each year to the Sanriku area. We are deeply grateful for the concern you felt for the Tohoku region and for Japan. The joint RMIT-Tokyo design lab seminars and parties later in izakaya bars – we have no happier memories. You are the pride of the landscape design lab, you are our friend for evermore.
Hashikami
Yū Nakai and Hideya Fukushima Landscape and Civic Design Lab University of Tokyo
Atop a slight rise in Hashikami on Japan’s Sanriku Coast, Marieluise and I came across a small outcrop of shrubs and weeds and, to our surprise, some flowers. It was in this moment that we realized this small bed of flowers was all that remained of a home washed away by the 2011 tsunami. Marieluise turned to me and said, “This is what we can design with.” Change is devastating when it happens quickly; it is sometimes our role to preserve and work with these memories in times of rapid change, in order for those whose town this was to not lose their identity and connection to this place. Hayden Matthys RMIT University
2016
2016
After Landscape IV Design research seminar, RMIT University
Visiting research fellow Graduate School of Law, Meiji University (with Professor Kenichiro Yanagi)
2016 2016 Living with the Sea Open seminar funded by Australia-Japan Foundation
PLACEMAKING
Affective Geometries Design propositions for a central park National Memorial, Hashikami, Japan Design research studio, RMIT University, with Tokyo University and Professor Masao Hijikata, Waseda University
the design of the designated national memorial park in Rikuzen-Hashikami. Aside from Marieluise’s professional expertise, a significant influence on her approach to the disaster was her study of aikido. Practising this modern Japanese martial art for more than sixteen years offered her further insights into the cultural intricacies of Japan merging the seemingly contradictory concepts of martial arts training with a philosophy of reconciliation and peace.
I will never forget how, despite the language barrier, we overcame national borders to talk together about common social problems. Hitomi Sasaki Community member who attended high school in Kesennuma, now resident in Miyagi
As Japanese authorities were quick to promote the construction of the controversial seawalls (covering a combined four hundred kilometres of coastline, including sensitive national parks and fishing grounds), Marieluise tended to the distressed communities to collectively uncover the impact of this infrastructure. In her effort to fight the seawalls she attained the support of leading landscape
and architecture academics in Europe and the Americas. Working with ideas of time, contingency and uncertainty, her projects foregrounded the enduring power and beauty of the traditional lifestyle informed by an intrinsic knowledge of life in balance with nature, including the acceptance of reoccurring destructive forces. As Katrina Simon, senior lecturer at the University of New South Wales, reflects: “Her work addressed the complexities of balancing living safely in a vulnerable landscape, but also allowing landscape systems to thrive and enabling people to connect to them. The challenges posed by such situations are almost overwhelming, but also creatively extending and inspiring. I think part of Marieluise’s legacy will be a desire to work towards addressing this issue in Japan and other places similarly affected by large-scale disaster.”
According to Newton’s law, energy can be neither destroyed nor created. Marieluise shattered that law with her brilliant capacity to produce and preside over multiple force fields that benefited human and all other kind. With her power for positive change sustained by a quiet beauty, dignity, compassion and grace, she never submitted to vested or prejudicial interests. Her understanding of the planet’s geo-forces and her love for the fundamental relationship between the infinite forms of life and non-life made a profound and lasting impact on all whom she met. Barbara Hartley University of Tasmania At the end of last year, with your acute powers of observation and your depth of scholarship, you carefully led a large group of students around those sections of the Hashigami area that had been devastated by the tsunami. How could I ever forget the precious proposals for reconstruction based on landscape design theory that you left behind. I can only now try my best to implement as many of your ideas as I can. Masao Hijikata Professor emeritus Waseda University
Marieluise and I often discussed the epistemological oppression of the modern knowledge over the traditional knowledge based on our aikido practice experiences in Australia and Japan. We assumed the similar oppression could be happening in the redevelopment process after the 3.11 earthquake in northern Japan, 2011. You left this world before seeing the result of the KesennumaTasmania project you started. You may have wanted to surface their locally contextualized, tacit and embodied experiences, which are overshadowed by development. Marieluise, I keep practising aikido, through which I can get close to the world that you wanted to share with me.
Future Proofing Kesennuma Study tour of Kesennuma delegation to the Huon Valley, Tasmania funded by Australia-Japan Foundation
I need optimism. Why do this project? What can I do? What can anyone do? Then I meet Keiko and I know why. We can share, teach and keep memories alive. We can support each other by being a witness, by listening and learning – and by coming back. Marieluise Jonas January, 2017
bushfires in 2016. Deeply caring for the experience of the participants but unable to attend the workshop in person due to her developing illness, she followed the event via social media. Sadly, she was not able to see the outcomes of her work. Marieluise Jonas was the epitome of a true global thinker. Her passing is a great loss to those who knew her as a friend, teacher and professional. But as so many have communicated following her death in September 2017, her influence on students is profound and lasting, and her inspiring contribution in reimagining a resilient future for the devastated coastal communities of Keseunnuma, Hashikami and Shibitachi will continue to guide future developments.
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practising in asia
2017
Her passion for learning and sharing knowledge through cultural exchange, derived from her own experiences overseas, also informed her last project, funded by the Australia-Japan Foundation, in May 2017. This initiative allowed a small delegation of Kesennuma residents to visit Tasmania’s Huon Valley, to exchange their experiences in recovery processes with members of local communities affected by the devastating
Abe Masahito Teacher specializing in education for sustainability, Koizumi district, Kesennuma City
Fumiko Noguchi RMIT University
LEAVING a LEGACY
Marieluise tried to shift the broader narrative of the recovery process, which is so often based on binaries, to create new opportunities for growth and regeneration through design. At the beginning of 2017 she finished a draft book proposal, tentatively called “After Landscape: Designing in uncertainty – learning from Japan for post disaster futures,” which would reflect on the collection and findings of her extensive work.
I give the deepest thanks for your brilliant imagination making Kesennuma and also Tasmania into places where we could mutually learn on site about the severity of the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. In this way you helped me to think on a global scale. You taught me how wonderful it was to exchange ideas with others whose travel experiences, country and point of view were different. You gave me great solace. From my heart, I honour your life.