History of Landscape and Urbanism Booklet

HISTORY OF LANDSCAPE + URBANISM B Y

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l HISTORY OF LANDSCAPE + URBANISM

A JOURNAL BY VINCENT TANG.

UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE LANDSCAPE + URBANISM HISTORY OF LANDSCAPE + URBANISM EVLU 4016 CHARLES THOMSEN TA: SHAWN STANKEWICH

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TABLE ON CONTENTS A PERSONAL LANDSCAPE EXPERIENCE

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ASSIGNMENT ONE

THE LINE IN THE LANDSCAPE

6 - 13

ASSIGNMENT TWO

MICHEAL VAN GESSEL

14 - 21

ASSIGNMENT THREE

22 - 29

THE LANDSCAPE OF MODERNITY

30 - 35

TWENTIETH CENTURY CANADIAN STYLE

36 - 47

RENAISSANCE

48 - 59

MANIFESTO

ASSIGNMENT FOUR ASSIGNMENT FIVE MID TERM EXAM MANIFESTO

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a personal landscape experience “I’m here”, I remember muttering to myself. I stared out the window like a child, overlooking the strange mosaic landscape beneath me as the plane slowly descended through the clouds. It is my first trip to Paris, let alone Europe. It had also been the first time I had been an ocean away from all the familiar surroundings the prairies could offer. “Paris” it said, sprawled across the wall as we hurried to meet our classmates. While my memory is filled with blurry visions, the experiences, or rather sensations of joy and wonder still lingered within. As I got my final glimpse of the city through the window of a speeding train, I wondered if I will ever come back again.

Three months before, when I received my letter from the Faculty of Architecture that I was placed in the Landscape + Urbanism program, I was, in all honesty, afraid. I did not know what landscape architecture or urbanism was. Quite frankly, my mind was set on architecture. I came into this program with the intention of becoming an architect and to realize I was entering the L + U program, there was this sensation of feeling lost.

And to learn that there was a mandatory trip to Europe, traveling to a foreign landscape, a place I had never been seemed only fitting. So I decided to take a leap of faith and just like that, I was standing at the entrance to Parc des Buttes Chaumont in Paris. That was the moment I knew, perhaps beyond my own recognition, that landscape architecture was the right program. How could it not be? Parc des Buttes Chaumont was one of the most beautiful places I had ever experienced. Not just in its picturesque qualities, or the wondrous views over Paris at the summit, or even the horse-drawn carriages passing by. It was this atmosphere, this aura that it possessed, or rather a more fitting term would be produced. It was happiness, excitement, pleasure, and wonder. The faces on the people I witnessed throughout, as well as mine personally are of much evidence to this. Exploring Parc des Buttes Chaumont, we traveled through avenues of Parisian horticulture, man-made historical landscapes, and a winding staircase that lead upward to a small temple crowned at the summit providing a captivating view of the city of Paris. I was fl oored, awe struck, and fl abbergasted. My descriptive script is truthfully incapable of captivating this unique and wondrous experience.

To my personal ambitions, I believe that being a landscape architect gives me the opportunity to leave a legacy. There is a quote by Rad Bradbury in his book, Fahrenheit 451, that goes, “Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted.

Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that fl ower you planted, you’re there.”

In Parc des Buttes Chaumont, I experienced not only the final product of a designer’s ambition, but also felt his legacy. The landscape architectural work was much more than a successful park that breathed life into the tight-knit urban fabric of Paris, it is an artist’s canvas. In my own opinion, Parc des Buttes Chaumont’s greatest achievement is not the park itself. It was this outstanding effect it had on its visitors. It was what you felt or reminiscent upon after you left its boundaries. It was this underlying memory, this spark of ecstasy you felt when you chose to relive it. It was legacy.

These sensations, feelings, and memories are the genesis of my design intention. I always approach my work with an intention to create those residual experiences within people. To make people excited, laugh, gaze in wonder, or simply smile. I chose to craft my legacy here. To become a landscape architect would allow me to leave my own legacy, using landscape architecture as my canvas. And perhaps this will be what I will leave behind when I die, and I can smile knowing I will have a place for my soul to go.

VINCENT TANG l EVLU 4016 l HISTORY OF LANDSCAPE + URBANISM

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VINCENT TANG l EVLU 4016 l HISTORY OF LANDSCAPE + URBANISM

THE LINE IN THE LANDSCAPE. A CROSS CULTURAL INFLUENCE FROM THE ANCIENT WORLD TO THE MODERN.

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Sunlight fell upon the wall; the wall received a borrowed splendor, Why set your heart on a piece of earth, O simple one?

Seek out the source which shines forever.

- Rumi

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n the third century BC, the Chinese Emperor Shihuandgi ordered his army to reconstruct, link, and augment walls on the northern frontier of China in order to form a continuous barrier protecting his young country from the menacing northern Mongolian “barbarians”1.

Although many perished in its completion, it stands as a mighty example of the unification of China, a nation forever linked by this line in the landscape. Chinese legend attributes the mythological creatures - the dragon and the phoenix - to this man-made marvel, which symbolizes the dream of unification the country’s forefathers intensely envisioned2. The mythological creatures symbolized the ancient people of China - those in the west worshipped the dragon and those in the east worshipped the phoenix3. The union of two cultures, east and west, is celebrated in a monumental wall known today as the Great Wall of China.

Figure 1

© Flickr. yackshack

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THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA.

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wall is perhaps the most fundamental element that composes architecture4. One of the most primitive forms of man made structure, it is undeniably powerful and immeasurably effective. Its form is very singular and simplistic in its nature, yet its application is infinite.

Countless times has the usage of the wall reappear in nearly every culture and time period. The wall can be used as shelter, based on the absolute need of human beings to be protected from the nature and weather, the wild animals and enemies5. The wall can also be expressive in art, used as a canvas amongst the desires of humans to represent themselves6. The wall can also be a means of communication, its presence alone can signify opposition or collectiveness7. All in all, the wall is a definitive and influential mark on the landscape, one that is infinitely repeated and forever applied.

The Great Wall of China is exemplary of the military fortification of unified China against the Mongolian hordes that threatened northern China.

The significance of military affairs associated with the formation of the Great Wall is foundational to its purpose.

During this time period, the cultural attitude of China was a place of isolation. Cultural syncretism, or the intermingling of cultural traditions was largely resisted

by China8. With reasons many, it is subjective to believe that China possessed an inherent belief that their culture was of superiority9. This is evidently true as for numerous centuries, had resisted Mongolian influence and preferred isolation. Under immense pressure from the potentiality of Mongolian invasion, the Great Wall was conceived.

Often misconstrued as a product of war, it was more of a defensive measure as well as more associated with culture, foreign policies, and economics than bloodshed and military action10. Philosophically speaking, the Great Wall of China is more appropriate for the country’s growth in the mixed soil of peace and war. It stands for power, an unbeatable power despite all the bitter conditions its conception created11.

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Figure 2

Š Flickr. Irina Salter

Built as a series of fortifications linked together through stone, brick, and tamped earth, its design principles include for it to be built to withstand the attack of small arms such as swords and spears, and the inclusion of defensive structures and elements such as battlements and signal towers12. This defensive line stretches across nearly 4,100 miles from northeast to northwest China13.

The Great Wall of China has become an iconic expression of human ingenuity and a glaring example of the powerful effects of the wall in the hands of man. Although used as a protective barrier, but nonetheless, a barrier to promote isolation, another wall gained noriety in similiar notions in our modern times.

Germany turned competitive and aggressive, resulting in the division of Germany into West versus East, Democracy versus Communism14. During these times, with the help and support of occupying powers, West Germany flourished and experienced rapid economic growth. The opposite was true to East Germany as the Soviet Union treated it like the spoils of war. A mass emigration of East Germany’s populous began to cross into West Germany and the East began to rapidly loose its labour force. In a final attempt after failed negotiations, a wall was erected in the midnight of an ordinary day, an impenetrable line that stood for oppression, and represented the symbolic boundary between Democracy and Communism15.

At the end of World War II, the Allied powers divided conquered Germany into four zones, each occupied by either the United States, Great Britain, France, or the Soviet Union13. As the relationship between the Soviet Union and the other three Allied powers quickly disintegrated, the cooperative atmosphere of occupied 9

In the grand scheme of things, the Berlin Wall was concieved to keep East Germans in and prevent them from escaping. It symbolized a siege mentality and a physical separation from its neighbour while the Great Wall of China was meant to keep nomadic barbarians out of Imperial China16. In a twisted duet of circumstances,

THE BERLIN WALL.

Š NATO Handout / Getty Images

Figure 3

the wall that was once designed to prevent people from entering is now used to prevent people from leaving. While the Berlin Wall was conceived under political oppression rather than Mongolian invasion, it can be interpreted that the Berlin Wall has been inspired by the Great Wall of China. The resultant form is remarkably indifferent despite its stark contrast to its intentional purpose. While both walls feature military fortifications and imposing structure in size and scope, the most important element in all of this is not the form itself but rather how the simplicity of the wall is adapted and reapplied in differing situations.

The concrete slabs reaching nearly twelve feet high topped with barbed wire is relative to the earthen-stone walls with battlements in the Great Wall of China17. Yet, its “preventive� properties are simply twisted in the context of its application. It cannot be denied that if the iron curtain of the Soviet Union was never lifted, it would not be an absurd thought that the Berlin Wall would stand the test of time just like its ancient Asian predecessor.

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o subject the Berlin Wall of its successfulness to its longevity is improper, nor is it acceptable to consider the fortunate few that succeeded in traversing the obstacle (as on numerous occasions, the Great Wall of China had been breached) as evidence in comparing the two.

Both, in its prime, were extremely, often with mournful results, successful in fulfilling its purpose. The difference comes from the notoriety both have gained in differing circumstances. The fall of the Berlin Wall became its most famous and celebrated moment while the Great Wall of China is revered as a relic of the ancient world and a prideful ancestral reminder to the people of China.

Between 1961 and its eventual collapse in 1989, the Berlin Wall embodied the voice of the German people. Artworks, murals, love letters, graffiti, and more adorned the western side of the wall. The wall became a communicative engine, a voice of displeasure and desire for the people of Germany. However, it is not to say that the Great Wall of China did not embody the same attribute. Archeologists have discovered ancient graffiti on stones and bricks 10

Figure 4

along the Great Wall18. This is evidential to the effective, yet universal nature of the wall. In the end, the cross cultural influences between the Great Wall of China and the Berlin Wall is evident. While, one was a massive defensive installment that unified West and East Chinese provinces and the other sought to separate the two, it can be entertained that the Communist high command concieved the Berlin Wall under similiar circumstances to the Chinese response to Mongolian invasion. And while it may be impossible to prove that the Communists looked to the Great Wall of China as inspiration, it cannot be proven that they did not. In the end, the cross cultural influence from this ancient line to this modern line is marked not only through mementoes or relics, but by their own respectable cultural impact on their landscape, their people, as well as becoming the forefathers to new lines that will inevitably shape the landscape.

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Š Flickr. TeckyTony

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Notes

1. - 3. , 8. - 13.

Henry M. Sayre., “The Early Civilizations of China and India, China

and It’s Influence”, Discovering the Humanities (Pearson Publications) pg. 26-27 , 267.

12. GreatWall.com , Welcome to the Great Wall Web Site, http://www. greatwall-of-china.com/ (Feb. 10, 2014).

4. - 6.

2 Walls Architects, Philosophy, http://www.2walls-architects.com/ philosophy/ (Feb. 10, 2014).

13. - 15., 17.

About.com , Berlin Wall - The Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall, http:// history1900s.about.com/od/coldwa1/a/berlinwall.htm (Feb. 10, 2014).

16. K. Kesavapany., The Fall of The Berlin Wall: A Singaporean Perspective, http://www.kas.de/upload/Publikationen/ Panorama/2009/1/kesavapany.pdf, Online PDF, (Feb. 10, 2014).

18.

Mike Tiller, Within These Walls, http://www.egliseduchrist-deodat. com/english/resources/english_bulletins/bulletin_52_english.html (Feb. 10, 2014).

Figure 1 yackshack, “DSC_0671” (2014), Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/ photos/88768139@N07/12253506345/sizes/o/)

Figure 2 Irina Salter, “Great Wall of China” (2014), Flickr (http://www.flickr. com/photos/irinasalter/6696654017/sizes/l/)

Figure 3 NATO Handout & Getty Images , “Berlin Wall” (2014), About.com (http://0.tqn.com/d/history1900s/1/0/W/E/1/berlinwall.jpg/)

Figure 4 tonytecky, “Ich Bin Ein Berliner - Arg 28” (2014), Flickr (http://www. flickr.com/photos/teckytony/11406923095/in/pool-berlinwall/)

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MICHAEL VAN GESSEL

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The English author and landscape architect Joseph Spence famously said: “What is, is the great guide as to what ought to be.” Respect for the past, combined with a curiosity for what is and a feeling for what could be. This is the dynamo that starts the engine of the design. Once that is running, the energy generated by designing charges the dynamo again.

Then nature takes over and all we need is patience. Be aware that you are one in a chain of people that shaped this particular piece of the world. Some parks I worked on started hundreds of years ago. Then my turn came. By the end of this century someone else will intervene and later still, another. You are here only briefly, one moment, you come and you go.

Nature will always be there and try to undo your work. Man-made nature has its own revenge on man by overgrowing what we did. As long as we inhabit this planet, there will be a need for landscape architects.

- Michael Van Gessel

Figure 1

© Stichting Het Utrechts Landschap

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Micheal Van Gessel Landscape Architect Atmosphere Symposium 2014 Action: Transforming the Present

Figure 2

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tmosphere 2014 is a interdisciplinary symposium exploring the designers and researchers modus operandi, their method of operation pertaining to design motives, agencies, conditions, and effects1.

Entitled “Action”, the symposium poses questions about performative and collaborative modes of making and inhabitation, prompting designers and researchers to reflect on their actions and interactions of the diverse materials, circumstances, policies and people they work with3.”Atmosphere 2014 gave insight into the creative process and collective design strategies that pertains to social dynamics, place-making, and philosophical design methods. The symposium and its presenters showcased a wide range of embedded elements such as adaptation, appropriation, and flexibility that are hallmark to their ‘successful’ practise, accounting for long-term time frames, designing with uncertainty, and overall project evolution4.

Michael Van Gussel is a landscape architect from the Netherlands who presented a keynote titled, Action Transforming the Present where he demonstrates, with great charisma and simplicity, his methodology and philosophy regarding his design intention and practise.

He details his ideology and design principles with the 15

phrase - its all about restraint! - where “to do one thing, put it on the landscape and see the result5”. This speaks volume to the simplicity behind his design principles.

Throughout the keynote, he demonstrates this ideology with, unironically, great simplicity. Throughout the projects presented, Michael Van Gussel gives a perspective into his work, demonstrating a substantial, informative, and entertaining look into how one works from conceptions to eventual application. The presentation is split amongst various works ranging from the Amsterdam Zoo to the expansive reimaging of the harbor area of Amsterdam. Throughout the presentation, Michael Van Gussel continuously reminds us the application of his philosophy, evidently repeated through provocative phrases such as “do it right!” or “not to do many, but little as possible”, as well as physically applying these ideologies into his design work. In the end, the presentation displayed the beauty of simplicity. Small and large interventions that answered challenging design dilemmas that would have plagued and frustrated the minds of many, Michael Van Gussel’s keynote gives light to simplistic solutions to complex(or simplistic?) problems, that, to simply put, a great design begins with the simplistic action of doing.

Cloister Garden Micheal Van Gussel Photography By Emillio Troncosco Larrain

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Figure 3

ichael Van Gussel’s presentation was a constant reminder of the personal perils in my design education. Often, I would struggle with the challenges of the project brief, consistently believing that complex(or rather of assumed complexity) challenges are to be met with complex solutions. Michael Van Gussel’s presentation was truly an eye-opener. With great clarity, he disproves this notion through the presentation of complex problems solved with simplistic thought processes, basic principles, and eventual simple solutions. It was as entertaining as it was exhilarating. Throughout the presentation, I was not left in a state of mental shock, but rather reminiscing on past moments where I let the weight of complexity outweigh the weight of an appropriate response. That, I would aim to produce complexity deliberately, in hopes of responding to the project brief. What I would be left with are subpar answers to a mirage of conditions rather than a definitive and applicable answer to the main areas of concern. Much of this has plagued my design education and to witness Michael Van Gussel’s work and methodology,

it gives me great pleasure to witness the absolute successfulness of simplicity. Michael Van Gussel has not only invigorated me with a new perspective on simplicity, but provides me with a definitive principle to respond to the age-old question that effects all that pass through the design program - how does one solve?

During his keynote, one of his exemplary works was the reimagination of the Artis Amsterdam Zoo. One of the main design attributes with the Artis Amsterdam Zoo was to redesign the enclosures for the animals. Michael Van Gussel addressed the issues that seem to effect all zoo enclosures all over the world. Often times, the animals are placed in isolation and exhibited through man-made habitats that appear “naturalistic”. This made animals hide within their enclosures and avoid the public eye. Although Michael Van Gussel never attempted to remove spaces where animals can not be seen as one can argue would be unethical and morally distasteful, he demonstrates with great simplicity in his design response a subtle intervention 16

Artis Amsterdam Zoo Micheal Van Gussel Photography By Emillio Troncosco Larrain

Figure 4

that was met with extraordinary results. Michael Van Gussel embodied a “natural but not naturalistic” approach to his design. This simple remodifying of habitat construction, where the remodification adheres to animal desires supersedes the replication of perceived natural settings, produces amazing effects. One example is the meerkat exhibition, where the enclosure is more of a hyper-reality of the animal’s habitat. It played with the idea of “unfamiliar, yet familiar” to the meerkat habitat and now the animal is frequently seen atop the habitat in plain sight. This is not to say that the meerkats are forced to be seen because of poor enclosure conditions, but rather, a simplistic design built on the idea of complete freedom to the animals allows for a positive outcome for both parties. The enclosure mimics the meerkat’s familiar habitats yet is designed in an imaginative way to promote the public engagement to zoo visitors without losing the complete freedom of the animal. Michael Van Gussel’s design seems to benefit the psychological effects of animals in isolation that has plagued many zoo enclosures with a 17

simplistic design intervention. This philosophy continues throughout the rest of Artis Amsterdam Zoo’s design.

Here, Michael Van Gussel plays with the “reversal of roles” where the enclosures are removed and replaced with an open design. Gone are the closed and sectioned cubicles for the animals, which are replaced and reorganized into the center as an open habitat corridor that truly exemplifies the notion of complete freedom. Michael Van Gussel discusses the lack of glass walls in his design as the dark corridors where people would walk and observe are not interfered with animals crossing into them because they simply avoid those areas. It was this conscious design decision to display a level of trust and simplicity in solving the issues of Artis Amsterdam Zoo, leaving behind a zoo that now allows for a far more intimate and responding engagement of visitors with animals. For Michael Van Gussel, the simplicity in his designs are a product of a reaction to something. His design decisions simply react to what is already in place, that his solutions appear to be hardly recognizable because of the beauty of its

Twickel Estate Micheal Van Gussel Photography By Kim Zwarts & Michael van Gessel

Figure 5

simplicity. I believe Michael Van Gussel has changed my perspective on my creative process. Michael Van Gussel demonstrates specific principles that govern much of his decision-making and it is in this consistency and clarity that is replicated over and over that gives light to his extraordinary and successful career. Much of his landscape designs around the Netherlands embody a quiet and serene quality. I believe this is in response to the simplistic nature of his designs - that the new is hardly recognizable - it transforms the new with the old. Here, Michael Van Gussel demonstrates true restraint, that it is of best interest to simplify to the essence of what you, as a designer, are trying to do. It is not of his, nor should be yours, an interest in fabricating complex designs in order the solve problems that can be solved simplistically, and in retrospect, beautifully. After Michael Van Gussel’s keynote, it became evident to stop and recollect myself and really ask yourself what truly defines you, what principles you want to posses, and what do you want to achieve as a designer. By an establishment of principles and a simplistic approach to design, the clarity from the ensuing result is where you can find the beauty in your work.

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ichael Van Gussel’s philosophy can be applied to design at the city-wide scale. I believe there are many prevalent issues within the city that are addressed with complicated design solutions, bloated and swollen with unnecessary complexity that often yield more problems that fix current ones. By taking inspiration to Michael Van Gussel’s methodology of action, perhaps we can finally take proper action in solving the problems that plague the modern city. Michael Van Gussel demonstrated with great rigour, how his principles are continuously reapplied and quite universal. The redesign and futureplanning of the harbor area of Amsterdam is testament to the clarity Michael Van Gussel instills in the overall conception of the harbor. Simplistic responses such as acknowledging and playing with the existing topography, creating nodes of attraction, and justifiable promenades on the water’s edge are all simplistic responses to what is ultimately desired for the city of Amsterdam. Furthermore, his envisioning of the harbor is in direct application to the principles he continuously adheres by. This gives a solid foundational layer to the city-planning of Michael Van Gussel’s proposal, therefore, solidifying the main intention 18

Figure 6

to prevent it from becoming misconstrued or complicated in the future. To simply put, Leonardo Di Vinci wrote, “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”, and I cannot help myself from admiring the simplicity of Michael Van Gussel’s work. That the heart of all the great sophistication, clarity, and beauty is simply the product of his modus operandi.

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Stronghold Grebbeberg Micheal Van Gussel Photography By Stichting Het Utrechts Landschap

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Notes

1. - 3.

University of Manitoba, Action - Atmosphere 2014, (Feb. 10, 2014). http://umanitoba.ca/architecture/atmosphere/submissions.html (Feb. 10, 2014).

4. Reed, C., 2010. The agency of ecology. In: Mostafavi, M., Doherty, G.,

2010. Ecological Urbanism, Harvard University: Lars Muller Publishers, pg. 325.

5. Van Gussel, Micheal., 2014, ‘Action Transforming the Present’,

keynote presented at the Atmosphere 2014: Action Conference, Winnipeg, 8th February 2014

Figure 1 Stichting Het Utrechts Landschap, “Stronghold Grebbeberg” , Landzine.com(2014), http://www.landezine.com/index.php/2011/03/ stronghold-grebbeberg-by-michael-van-gessel-landscape-

architecture/ (Assessed on Feb 12, 2014)

Figure 2 Land 8, “Terragrams dispatches interview with Dutch landscape

architect Michael van Gessel”, Land8.com (2014), http://api.ning.com/ files/SgD51lYTMpm6W3uHCNhdY4JeN7vAwjEmRQOJXpQ3E8X6dG X6ameGInb98zpj-od78um*3f WNwlaixTq8DY2y4KqbAXTvJbJH/

TG18MichaelvanGessel.jpg (Assessed on Feb 12, 2014) Figure 3 Emilio Troncoso,“Cloister Garden” (2014), Landzine.com, http://www. landezine.com/index.php/2011/02/cloister-garden-by-michael-van-

gessel/ (Assessed on Feb 12, 2014)

Figure 4 Emilio Troncoso “Artis Amsterdam Zoo” (2014), MichaelVanGussel. com, http://www.michaelvangessel.com/index.php, (Assessed on Feb 12, 2014)

Figure 5 Micheal Van Gessel “Twickel Estate” (2014), landzine.com (2014), http://www.landezine.com/index.php/2011/04/ twickel-estate-by-michael-van-gessel/01-michael-

van-gessel-landscapearchitecture-twickel-estate/, (Assessed on Feb 12, 2014) Figure 6 Stichting Het Utrechts Landschap, “Stronghold Grebbeberg” , Landzine.com(2014), http://www.landezine.com/index.php/2011/03/ stronghold-grebbeberg-by-michael-van-gessel-landscape-

architecture/ (Assessed on Feb 12, 2014)

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THE LANDSCAPE OF MODERNITY.

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“the soul of gardens shelters the greatest sum of serenity at man’s disposal.”

- Ferdinand Bac

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he ambiguity of the Modernist style is a difficult one to grasp. The general definition categorizes the modernist movement as the product of rapid technological innovation and the modernization of society at the genesis of the 20th century1. These innovations led to a new exploration in the underlying principles of architectural design. The “Modernist style” most iconic characteristic is the principle of “form follows function”, made famously by Louis Sullivan who became a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright, an architect who is now synonymous with modernism2. This principle is also adopted by some of the most prevalent modernist architects including Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier. As the modernist movement had become a widely adopted style, with many works now marking the contemporary world, the individual characteristics that define the modernist style revolves around the simplicity and clarity of its forms, the removal of unnecessary detail to reveal the visual expression and truth of structural components, and the adoption of the machine aesthetic (industrial building materials)3. As these characteristics of the modernist style give it it’s iconic image, one architect succeeds in creating his own version of modernism by imbuing it with the warmth and vibrance of his native Mexico4.

Figure 1 23

Figure 2

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t the age of 73 years old, Luis Barragan was relatively unknown to the rest of the architectural world5.

While others salivated at the contributions of Mies van der Rohe to the Chicago skyline, or the “machine aesthetic” of Le Corbusier, Luis Barragan sold letters, sketches and books from his archive to make ends meet6. At this elderly age, Luis Barragan had built nothing outside his native Mexico, and was even virtually forgotten there7. It wasn’t until a letter arrived at his Mexico City studio in 1975 asking if the Museum of Modern Art in New York could stage a retrospective of his career8. Known for the beauty and originality in his works, Luis Barragan had become a man of admiration amongst his fellow architects, and they lobbied intensively for his MoMA exhibition9. A few years later, Luis Barragan was awarded the Pritzker Prize, architecture’s answer to the Nobel10. Today, Luis Barragan is now regarded as one of the most important architects of the 20th century. His buildings are renowned for their mastery of space and light, but Barragan was also equally influential as a landscape architect and urban planner11.

Through minimalist-inspired flat surfaces, bright vivid sensuous colors, the beautiful use of light and water features, Luis Barragan once said, “I don’t divide architecture, landscape and gardening; to me they are one.”12 Inspired by many travels to Paris in his youth, he befriended Ferdinand Bac, a landscape architect which helped spark his fascination with landscape design. It is relevant that Luis Barragan’s contributions are not only to the modernist style, but also to the modernist approach to landscape architectural works, which demonstrate a conscious consideration of the outside13. From his trips to Paris, Luis Barragan learned about the modernist style from Le Corbusier and from Ferdinand Bac, he was exposed to the art of landscape and the ideas that gardens should be enchanted places for meditation14.

Later on in his life, Luis Barragan expresses himself as a landscape architect as he states, “I believe that architects should design gardens to be used, as much as the houses they build, to develop a sense of beauty and taste and inclination toward the fine arts and other spiritual values.” 15 24

Figure 2

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ne of his most wonderful works in accordance to his design philosophy is the fantastically colorful Cuadra San Cristóbal equestrian estate, located in Mexico City. Built between 1966 - 1968, Cuadra San Cristóbal is an equestrian-oriented rural development designed by Luis Barragan who had a deep appreciation for horses16. Throughout the 30,245 square-meter estate, fountains are designed and intended for horses to wade in to drink. Large stables and accompanying structures feature serene azure tones, contrasted against the terracotta of crisp whites and the surprising splash of pink on the exterior walls of the stables17. The wonderful concoction of materiality and color is said to have been heavily influenced by Luis Barragan’s family ranch in Jalisco where rain storms, red clay earth, and the natural landscape were inspirations to Cuadra San Cristóbal’s unique and colorful material palette18. This becomes a defining characteristic to the Barragan style as, “at a time when many modernist architects were erecting slabs of concrete, [Luis Barragan] committed to natural wood and stone materials.”19 25

© Flickr. Irina Salter

Figure 3

Barragan extensively demonstrates his acknowledgement of the surrounding landscape, extracting specific cues, colors, and textures and representing them in an modernist fashion. It becomes a true testament to his belief that architecture, landscape and gardening are undivided. Furthermore, the modernist style is exemplary of an ‘intellectualized art form’, and much of modernist style places an importance to the study of movement in space. Conceptualized as the extension of the exterior space, the modernist style explores the linkages of the outside-inside and Luis Barragan is no exception20. Cuadra San Cristóbal has the ability to make the outdoors become intertwined with the indoors, “not only through the use of glazing, but through the interplay between light and shade, and the interaction between covered structures and uncovered space—so much so, the two become indistinguishable.”21 Luis Barragan implements floor-toceiling windows to offer an invisible portal for sunlight to penetrate within and offer vistas of the lush and precisely landscaped grounds22. This play of shade and light, and the

Figure 4 linkages of interior and exterior environments is a dynamic demonstration of the ‘vice versa’, a fluidity that is embraced and promoted within the design23. Luis Barragan explores that bold minimalist geometric lines can be curbed by the imagination, or softened using the use of color and texture, as well as not restricting to generic building materials, but harnessing the power of the natural elements like the water and the earth24. In the end, Barragan creates a spectacular space for horses and spectators alike, an unmatched architectural lineage to the surrounding regional landscape that he has been so accustomed too. Luis Barragan’s Cuadra San Cristóbal is a brilliant example of the modernist style, not simply because of its replication of iconic modernist forms and shapes, or the theory behind the movement of space, or even the linkages of the exterior or interior dynamics.

It is because of its contrast, it contradiction to the characteristics of the modernist style that gives life to its importance. Luis Barragan transformed the modernist style to his own liking. Vivid colors, textural contrasts,

the play of light and water, and the accentuation of his buildings to the natural environment is a testament to his urge to encapsulate the vibrant and sensuous take of the Mexican aesthetic25. Luis Barragan’s distinctive approach to working within the modernist vocabulary challenges what truly constitutes the modernist style. Timothy Goheen writes, “...rather, Modernism is a way thinking or a set of principles that when grasped by an Architect or embraced in a region of the world, gives a variety of styles.”26 Luis Barragan’s style is intimately tied to his position relative to Mexican culture and the surrounding region. In his work of Cuadra San Cristóbal, the design shows how he objects the machine aesthetic because he was ‘a world away’ from the material palette of steel and grey concrete made so accessible to the modernist architects of Le Corbusier or Mies van der Rohe. Luis Barragan’s modernist style was a blending of the foreign and the familiar, where he would employ the usage of preindustrial materials like adobe and wood timbers and integrate sensuous colors coupled with the theoretical practises that have become inseparable to the modernist style27. In the end, Luis Barragan exemplifies 26

Figure 7

Figure 8

Figure 5

Figure 6

Figure 9

that the modernist style is not so much a universal application of specific principles or materials, it is much rather a theoretical exploration of the definitive orientation between man and space. That the modernist style is dependant on the one who executes the style with a rigor of truthfulness. Luis Barragan applies a truth to his material choice, “meaning that the true nature or natural appearance of a material ought to be seen rather than concealed or altered to represent something else.�28 What was true to Luis Barragan was the sumptuous relationship of color and texture to his native Mexico. It is here that Luis Barragan truly exemplifies his work as a modernist style within twentieth century landscape architecture as his approach was to show the pure planes in his work, be they walls of stucco, adobe, timber, or even water, are compositional elements all interacting with nature just like he himself had always done in his lifetime29. Luis Barragan passed away in 1988 in his beloved Mexico City, where he relaxed in solitude while enjoying his last few years with admiration and attention he rightfully deserved30.

27

Figure 10

28

Notes

1. - 3., 28.

Wikipedia.com, Modernist Architecture, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Modern_architecture (Mar. 30, 2014).

4. - 11., 13., 30.

DesignMuseum.com , Luis Barragan, http://designmuseum.org/ design/luis-barragan (Mar. 30, 2014).

12., 25. Styleture.com, The Works of Architect Luis Barragan, http://www. styleture.com/2012/05/14/the-works-of-architect-luis-barragan/ (Mar. 30, 2014).

14., 15.,

pritzkerprize.com , Pritzker Architecture Prize, Luis Barragan Biography, http://www.pritzkerprize.com/1980/bio (Mar. 30, 2014).

20. - 21.

16. - 19., 22. - 24.

Thomsen, C. 2014. Lecture on March. 8, 2014. (History of Landscape Architecture - EVLU 4016 - Canadian Style). University of Manitoba. March. 8, 2014.

Architectuul.com, Cuadra San Cristóbal, http://architectuul.com/ architecture/cuadra-san-cristobale (Mar. 30, 2014).

26. Archdaily.com, AD Classics: Casa Barragan / Luis Barragan, http:// www.archdaily.com/102599/ad-classics-casa-barragan-luis-barragan/ (Mar. 30, 2014).

27.-29. ColorStudio.com , Luis Barragan, Architect of Color, http://blog. colourstudio.com/2013/03/luis-barragan-architect-of-color.html (Mar. 30, 2014).

Figure 1 ThinkDesignerPrints.com, “Luis Barragan” (2014), ThinkDesignerPrints (http:// thinkdesignerprints.com.au/think/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/tumblr_ mebb18u2sD1rj2l4xo1_1280.jpg)

Figure 2 Steve Silverman, “San Cristobal Stable” (2014), Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ pov_steve/6824673004/)

Figure 3 GoreyC, “Luis Barragan House in Mexico City” (2014), Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/ photos/goreyc/5277776477/in/set-72157625514868195/)

Figure 4 Luis Pimentel, “Cuadra San Cristóbal” (2014), Behance (http://architectuul.com/ architecture/view_image/cuadra-san-cristobal/10826)

Figure 5 Luis Pimentel, “Cuadra San Cristóbal” (2014), Behance (http://architectuul.com/ architecture/view_image/cuadra-san-cristobal/9821/)

Figure 6 Luis Pimentel, “Cuadra San Cristóbal” (2014), Behance (http://architectuul.com/ architecture/view_image/cuadra-san-cristobal/9819)

Figure 7 Luis Pimentel, “Cuadra San Cristóbal” (2014), Behance (http://architectuul.com/ architecture/view_image/cuadra-san-cristobal/9818)

Figure 8 Luis Pimentel, “Cuadra San Cristóbal” (2014), Behance (http://architectuul.com/ architecture/view_image/cuadra-san-cristobal/9820)

Figure 9 Luis Pimentel, “Cuadra San Cristóbal” (2014), Behance (http://architectuul.com/ architecture/view_image/cuadra-san-cristobal/9817)

Figure 10 Salon Fester, “Casa Barragan” (2014), polytown.org (http://rbcdn.polytown.netdna-cdn. com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/110520_casa_barragan_salon_fenster.jpg)

29

TWENTIETH CENTURY CANADIAN STYLE.

Figure 1 30

“there is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

- Maya Angelou

I

n 1841, a Roman Catholic nun, Emilie Gamelin founded a hospice called l’Asile de la Providence in Montreal and occupied the location with the main purpose to provide sanctuary for elderly women1. Eventually, their collective good hearts founded the Sisters of Providence religious community and they formulated and ran a charitable soup kitchen called the l’Œuvre de la Soupe, handing out hundreds of meals to the poor and homeless every day2. In 1844, the organization expanded, developing the Asile of Providence, a building alongside St. Catherine street to house orphans. Unfortunately after 120 years of service, the hospice fell victim to demolition as the city of Montreal purchased the land in 1962 and razed the building in order to excavate and construct the eventual Montreal Metro station3. Once the construction of the metro station was completed, a large expansive patch of concrete was left where the hospice once stood. Today, the area has been revitalized as a public park to commemorate the city’s 350th anniversary as well as honoring the admirable contributions of Emilie Gamelin by giving the park the honor of her namesake, Place Émilie-Gamelin4.

The sense of place is an integral ingredient to the connection of people to the landscape. In landscape architecture, the symbolic connection to a specific geographic place yields a level of great importance. Both superimposed and intertwined into the horizontal plane we dwell upon, every landscape is forever imbedded within an extensive collection of historical prevalence.

Throughout the temporal timeline of a landscape, its historical nature is constantly buried, resurfaced,

31

uncovered, lost, or yet to be revealed. The act of the narrative is a powerful attribute to any landscape as it reveals to us to see elements in landscapes as a series of temporal sequences5. The history of Emilie Gamelin, and the Sisters of Providence are only one of the many temporal sequences belonging to the landscape where Place Émilie-Gamelin is situated upon. The first iteration of the public park was designed by Peter Jacobs and Philippe Poullaouec-Gonidec in 1989, naming the park Place Berri5. The designers set out a priority to achieve a symbolic connection to this specific geographic place, uncovering the rich and wonderful narratives that lied dormant within.

“As centers of social and cultural activity, cities also tend to express the narratives of the greater regions that they represent.”6 When Peter Jacobs and Philippe Poullaouec-Gonidec began to conceptualize their plans for the design of Place Berri, they recognized the public park’s immediate location within Montreal’s Latin Quarter but also wanted to “express in miniature the identity and character of the region’s topology, topography, and morphology.”7 The designers offered to reveal the narrative of the region’s distinctive environmental processes, recognizing its specific geographic location as relatively integral to the history and daily lives of the people who live and work in the landscape8. Both Jacobs and Philippe prioritized to symbolically represent the processes within the landscape, which are often not consciously articulated, forgotten and erased by urban development9. The philosophy of Place Berri translates the large-scale geologic processes of Montreal into coherent forms and serves as a

Figure 2

reminder to what was forgotten and fragmented10. Both Peter Jacobs and Philippe Poullaouec-Gonidec sought to generate a sense of place, told through the unveiling of Place Berri’s “successive development from grassy plateau, to farmland, to hospice, to a manufacturing site, to a parking lot, to the public park it is today.”11 This series of geographical events play an important role in the generation of the sense of place as the underlying historical timeline is creatively reimagined as a series of forgotten and remembered histories12. Place Berri features sloping successive rings of topography that parallels the growth of Montreal. It reveals the growth of the city, from the city’s first establishments along the river’s shore, extending out to the plateaus, ultimately reaching the foothills of the Laurentian and Appalachian Mountain ranges13. This play of geomorphology expresses the layers of shore, plain, mountain, and plateau in miniature within the design of the park. The designers attribute its design elements as representational tools to the immediate

region of Montreal14. Matthew Potteiger writes in his book, Landscape Narratives: Design Practices for Telling Stories, describing the geographical elements expressed in miniature, “...the active Saint Catherine Street as the river shore, the granite plaza as the gridiron of the city on the flat river plain, the lawn as the cote placide, fountains emerging from the terraced slope as streams that flow into the Saint Lawrence, and the trees as the higher reaches of the wooded Mount Royal.”15

Peter Jacob and Philippe Poullavec-Gonidec explain the ‘nature of the narrative’ as a place to be sensed, that users recognize that it is a place that invites occupation in a manner that is typical of the rites and rituals of Montreal16.

Place Berri stands as a park that is truthfully Montreal, its history and its geographic structure. Peter Jacobs ends his description of the intention of Place Berri as “[it] seeks to re-interpret these places and the events that have occurred within these landscapes in light of the potential for new stories in the future17.

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Figure 2

Figure 3

P

lace Berri, now known presently as Place Émilie-Gamelin is exemplary of Canadian landscape architecture. To what exactly constitutes the definition of the ‘Canadian style” in landscape architecture may be up to debate, however certain traits within the embodiment of this style is of relevance and must be applicable to be undoubtably Canadian. I believe the ‘Canadian style’ comes from the desire to preserve true Canadian traditional values. As a nation of over 32 million people, Canada is blessed with rich diversities in its geography, regions, people, and culture. The country represents the idea of the ‘melting pot’ and from this collective, rich narratives are plentiful and urged to be discovered. I believe that the ‘Canadian style’ must embody a certain truthfulness to its geographical location in order to faithfully invoke a sense of place that is fundamentally weaved within the colorful fabric of the Canadian landscape. Furthermore, it is undoubted that from my perspective, Peter Jacobs and Philippe Poullavec-Gonidec have proficiently performed and executed within the design of Place Émilie-Gamelin 33

© Flickr. Irina Salter

(or Place Berri) a work of landscape architecture that constitutes the ‘Canadian style’. The park design accurately and creatively displays the innumerable traditions and stories that have become absolutely inseparable from the landscape it lies within. The utilization of the narrative within its compositional elements allows for Place ÉmilieGamelin to not only represent a platform for new stories to unfold for its visitors, but also create a sense of place through its creative reimaginng the regions historical backround and physical attributes. The park exists as a fragment within the extensive collection of temporal sequences that have taken place before hand. Told through its design, location, namesake, and more, Place ÉmilieGamelin is an ongoing story, but a true Canadian story none the less.

Figure 4

34

Figure 5 Notes

1. - 2., 4.

Wikipedia.com, Place Émilie-Gamelin, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Place_%C3%89milie-Gamelin (Mar. 30, 2014).

3.

Alanah Heffez , Berri Square: Keeping Our Common Ground, http://spacing.ca/ montreal/2012/03/30/berri-square-keeping-our-common-ground/ (Mar. 30, 2014).

5. TheCandianEncylopedia.com, Landscape Architecture, http://www. thecanadianencyclopedia.com/en/article/landscape-architecture/(Mar. 30, 2014).

5.

Herrington, Susan , On Landscapes, the work of imagination, Routledge Taylor & Francis

Group, New York. pg. 94 (Mar. 30, 2014).

7. - 17.

Potteiger, Matthew & Purinton, Jamie, Landscape Narratives, Design Practices for telling stories, http://thesvrl.com/docs/04design_practices_for_telling_stories.pdf, pg. 171-173

Online PDF. (Mar. 30, 2014).

Figure 1 Frédérique Ménard-Aubin, “Place Émilie-Gamelin” (2014), Flickr (http://www.flickr. com/photos/quartierdesspectacles/12237079514/in/photostream/)

Figure 2 Frédérique Ménard-Aubin, “Place Émilie-Gamelin” (2014), Flickr (http://www.flickr. com/photos/quartierdesspectacles/12237080014/in/photostream/)

Figure 3 Frédérique Ménard-Aubin, “Place Émilie-Gamelin” (2014), Flickr (http://www.flickr. com/photos/quartierdesspectacles/12237079524/in/photostream/)

Figure 4 Frédérique Ménard-Aubin, “Place Émilie-Gamelin” (2014), Flickr (http://www.flickr. com/photos/quartierdesspectacles/12236866443/in/photostream/)

Figure 5 MemorableMontreal.com, “Plan of Place Berri” (1996), MemorableMontreal (http:// www.memorablemontreal.com/document/image/original/HM_ARC_002668-001.jpg)

35

“I have placed you at the very center of the world...

You may, as the free and proud shaper of your own being, fashion youself in the form you prefer.�

- Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man

Figure 1.

36

An unknown individual standing at the summit of Mount Ventoux.

RENAISSANCE by vincent tang

In the ascension of Mount Ventoux, Petrarch’s pilgrimage to the mountain top is guided -significantly- by the ancient Roman poet Virgil1.

A narration through a metaphysical landscape, which ultimately promises the exhilaration of a panoramic perspective of the adjacent countryside2.

The actual ascension by Petrarch of Mount Ventoux is endured as he claims, “my motive was to see what so great an elevation had to offer.”3 This is the ultimate characteristic, or rather the ideal mind set of the Renaissance man. “A new and bolder human perspective of the terrestrial landscape than that of the medieval individual whose inward gaze, contemplated only the visionary landscape of paradise.”4

Renaissance comes from the Italian word, rinascita, meaning “rebirth” which became the title for historians to assert on the individuals whose “beliefs and values of the medieval world were transformed.”5 The Renaissance period is characterized by the ideals that so starkly contrasted the Middle Ages that came beforehand. Henry M. Sayre writes in his work, Discovering the Humanities, “where the Middle Ages had been an age of faith, in which the salvation of the soul was an individual’s chief preoccupation, the Renaissance was an age of intellectual exploration, in which the humanist strove to understand in ever more precise and scientific terms the nature of humanity and its relationship to the natural world.”6 The age of the Renaissance derives much of its origin to the underlying development of humanism, which centers around “an emphasis on education and on expanding knowledge, the exploration of the indiviual potential, 37

the desire to excel, and the commitment to civic responsibility and moral duty.”7 The Renaissance is also characterized by the growing desire to the revival of the classical forms and practices of antiquity. The visible remains of the classical world, with shells of old basilicas and baths, broken columns of ancient temples and excavated decorative fragments, served as inspiration, a ready reference for a new generation8. In the Renaissance age, the revered ancient practises served as guidelines which would ultimately revive the use of axial symmetry and other significant stylistic design traits burrowed from the ancient classical world9. Elizabeth Barlow Rogers writes, in her book, Landscape Design, a cultural and architectural history, pertaining to landscape ideals in the Renaissance period, “Petrarch’s view from Mount Ventoux prefigures a shift in attitude toward landscape as a response to a new confidence in human powers of reason...the fostering of a spirit of open-ended inquiry found an expressive analogue in the design of actual contemporary landscapes as the inwardly focused, self-contained paradise garden gradually gave way to an expansive, outwardly directed, more worldly garden.”10

The Renaissance period marks an integral and significant step in the development of landscape architecture and urban design. The many distinctive traits that characterized the Renaissance period are instilled and replicated to the present day. Much of the period’s success is evident in its longevity as many of its numerous notable conventions have influenced and forged some of the most noteworthy landscape architecture and urban design works. One cannot say that the Renaissance has no place in his/her work. For we are forever indebt to the ancestral knowledge passed down onto us and our eventual successors entire.

The Renaissance is an era that encompasses nearly three centuries. It is a compilation of many fields; a vast cultural movement that includes innovations and inventions in the realms of art, music, poetry, mathematics, politics, and science11.

In the realm of landscape architecture and urban design, one can grasp the many stylistic endeavors of various cultures throughout the Renaissance period. In discussion, the focus will remain on the Italian Renaissance Gardens and their innovations and influence in the development of landscape architecture and urban design.

The Italian Renaissance Garden era marks the origin of many innovative techniques. The liberation of the mind to explore and discover the secrets of science and mathematics have yielded many technical discoveries that “designers and artists often virtuosically demonstrated in their work during the Renaissance period.”12 Inspired by classical ideals of order and beauty, the Italian Renaissance Garden Style intends “for the pleasure of the view of the garden and the landscape beyond, for contemplation, and for the enjoyment of the sights, sounds and smells of the garden itself.”13 Of the most noteworthy of innovations is the development of perspectival systems, and the rediscovery of axial planing from classical antiquity. While Renaissance fascination with perspectival systems produced many iconic Renaissance art, perspectival innovations have also been utilized remarkably in the works of landscape architecture14.

“As mathematical truths and formal beauty unified the minds of Renaissance artists”15, one of the most notable works of the Italian Renaissance Garden style is the Belvedere Court. The word belvedere comes from its Italian origin, which means “beautiful view.” A belvedere, in essence, is a lookout whose purpose is the enjoyment of scenery16. During the Renaissance, belvederes became an important device to enjoy the views of gardens and the surrounding landscape17. Belvedere Court is a conglomerate of sorts, with components unified together through the design of its “palace garden”. The villa known as Belvedere was built by Innocent VIII from 1484 to 1492 on a hill within the Vatican. However, the importance does not lie within the location of the villa or its commanding views over the Roman countryside, but because of the subsequent treatment of the ground that lay between it and the Vatican, which became an integral influence within garden design history18.

Today, half of the Belvedere Court serves as “a parking lot for Vatican employees, while the remaining half is a pleasant sculpture garden [for] visitors.”19 However, it would be criminal to undermine its significance as a pivotal development in the history of landscape design as Bramante’s subsequent implementation of the axial terraced composition was a revolutionary idea in Italian Renaissance Garden design and an integral moment in landscape architecture development. Upon new election of Pope Julius II in 1503, the pope commissioned architect Donato Bramante (1444-1514) to “provide a physical link between the Belvedere of Innocent VIII on its hill and the Vatican Palace below, creating a sheltered communication between the two buildings.”

In Bramante’s design, he employed “principles of symmetry and proportion in an axial organization of forms and space that [have] not been seen since antiquity.”20

The importance of Bramante’s work on the Belvedere Court, as well as his predecessors, is evident in its application of the perspectival systems that dominated the thought of the Renaissance designer.

Bramante utilizes the principles of single-point perspectives in order to achieve an ordering of visual space through perspective. The importance of vantage points in existence with axes, enabled and manifested a perspectival treatment of space. The reinforcement of axial symmetry and dramatizing the transition from space to space became ubiquitous to Italian garden design and subsequently influenced many more Renaissance landscape works and future works in modern times. The construction of the Belvedere Court continued sporadically over half a century onward until its finality occurring in 158321.

Belvedere Court is a prime example of Italian Renaissance landscape design as it embodies the principles of linear perspective and the humanist movement so prevalent in the Renaissance era. Not only in the utilization of perspectives in its design, Bramante successfully exploits the inventiveness of symmetry and its effectiveness in its application.

The effectiveness of symmetry and axial planning in design gave a distinctive appearance. It elevated the play of one’s sight, an illustrative view of man’s work on the terrestrial landscape where the design acts as a “transparent window through which the observer looks to see the constructed pictorial world.”22 38

Figure 2.

Bramante’s Sketch of Belvedere Court

Figure 3.

Haussmann Lines © Vincent Tang

Much of the work is exemplary of the admiration of Renaissance painting conventions onto landscape design. The innovations of the artistic world has crossed over from the pictorial landscape of two-dimensional imagery to the actual landscape.

It marks the development of intellectual exploration and humanity’s relationship to nature, where the reoccurring theme of “man over nature” becomes something of prevalence. While this strategy for development in present times may appear outdated, its application has constructed some of the most iconic landscape architecture and urban design works in subsequent centuries. An example can be the 39

Haussmann lines, where Haussmann’s radical restructuring of Paris (which gave the city its present form) involving the construction of long, straight, wide boulevards cutting through the old, irregular medieval fabric of old Paris, turning it into city of wide avenues that extend outward is a dramatic play on the perspective line over the landscape23. While Belvedere Court and Haussmann Lines were conceived under different circumstances, both demonstrate the utilization of the innovations of the Renaissance era, primarily perspectival systems. A concerning matter can be entertained regarding the involvement of the Italian Renaissance and its influence on landscape architecture

and urban design, within social, economical and environmental issues. While it can be argued that the Italian Renaissance offers little advice or inspiration towards solving present environmental situations, environmental concerns were relatively unexplored during this time. The Italian Renaissance period was more of a foundational moment in human relationship to the landscape in terms of the beginnings of grand human inventiveness and ingenuity onto the craft of the landscape. However, it is not to say that the Italian Renaissance period, or the Renaissance in general, offer little to strategic decisions for site development as Bramante’s design of Belvedere Court “showed how designers could successfully exploit steep terrain”24. It can be interpreted that the innovations shown within the immediate design of Belvedere Court and subsequent works of Italian Renaissance Garden style offer a ‘stepping stone’ towards environmental strategic planning, which in essence, can become the precursor to true environmental conscious design.

The Belvedere Court and Italian Renaissance era offer little in aid to the social and economic issues of today. In retrospect, the Renaissance Period in general, may have arguably contributed to the creation of social and economical issues we face today. Much of the Renaissance works, especially in landscape architecture or gardens, are products of the high elite class. Such social and economical disparity is evident in the occurrence of such works only appearing in unison with individuals of high status25. Therefore, social and economical issues pertaining and relevant to urban design practises today like the gentrification of a neighborhood cannot necessarily be solved using Italian Renaissance design conventions. However, it is not justifiable to paint such a negative light on what Italian Renaissance can offer for present site development strategies or people in general.

The humanist movement, that has such a profound relation to the Renaissance period, had its greatest impact on the elite and powerful as it associated more towards individuals of high status26. These individuals were in the best position to commission art, and thus, humanist ideas dominated the Italian Renaissance art. As such, only people of great wealth could create these landscape works27.

While the landscape works of Italian Renaissance offer little insight into fixing social and economical problems of the present time, one can argue the Humanist movement has allowed us to reap the positivity of economic prosperity and social acceptance we take for granted today. Fred S. Kleiner writes, in his book, Gardner’s Art through the Ages: A Global History, “Humanism fostered a belief in individual potential and encouraged individual achievement as well as civic responsibility.

Whereas people in medieval society accorded great power to divine will in determining the events that affected lives, those in Renaissance Italy [encouraged] individual improvement [and] rewarded excellence with fame and honor.”28

Therefore, the Italian Renaissance became the origin of widespread educational practise and cultural appeal. This prosperity within the people released them from the obedience to a divine entity and allowed a more expansive and explorative mind29.

Thus, it can be argued that while the landscape architecture works of the Italian Renaissance may not give direct answers to the social and economical problems we face today, it can be interpreted that this period help formulate the progression of culture, economics, and social elements that profoundly shaped present human life.

40

Figure 4.

Axial Symmetry of Belvedere Court

axial symmetry

Figure 6.

Axial Symmetry in Relation to Site Plan.

axial symmetry Figure 5.

Axial Symmetry in Relation to Cross Section

41

Figure 7.

Perspective Line in Villa Guilia

“Like Poliphilus in Hypnerotomachia or Alice in Wonderland, one must, as in a dream, search for the door that opens to the delightful underground grotto, where the buxom caryatids stand on their water-grit platform.�

- Elizabeth Barlow Rogers on Villa Giulia, Landscape Design; A Cultural and Architectural History

42

Figure 8.

Nymphaeum in Villa Guilia

Italian Renaissance gardens reflect the artistic conventions during its time. Its convention relative to the techniques of the current arts is evidently more profoundly displaced in the exact manipulation of the garden form and space exemplified by Villa Giulia30. Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, in her book, Landscape Design, a cultural and architectural history describes the shift in style,

from previous Italian Renaissance garden designs as so eloquently portrayed by the design of the Belvedere Court. Where one is with clear axial organization and a static spatial composition, the Villa Giulia embodies the delightfulness of the ‘surprise’, a device which involves “the unfolding of elements not seen or anticipated in advance, [the] movement of space [becomes a guiding principle.]”35

“In the mid-sixteenth century, the mature Renaissance style of straightforward axial movement and calm, self-contained monumentality [yielded] to the manipulation of that style into an idiom of sinuous elegance, spatial eccentricity, and compositional ambiguity and tension as found in the art of the painter.”31

The Villa Giulia spaces are organized into a series of unexpected events. As one moves from space to space, “from the narrow vestibule into the embrace of the horseshoe-shaped court”36, there is a axial tug for the eye of the wanderer created by the axial symmetry, but the interlocking and revealing of contrasting spaces alongside the axial tug creates a much different experience in propelling the visitor forward37. However, what makes the Villa Giulia much more innovative and elaborate is the visual puzzle it presents to the wanderer.

Elizabeth Barlow Rogers explains the visual puzzle,

The Villa Giulia was designed by architects, Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574), Bartolommeo Ammannati (1511-1592), and Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola (15071573) for Pope Julius III for his ascension to papacy in 155032. The villa harkens back to the inspirations of classical antiquity, specifically towards the written word of Pliny the Elder and his descriptions of Hadrian’s Villa33. The Villa Giulia is nonetheless, an ‘evolution’ of the Italian Renaissance garden style, “demonstrating a sophisticated interlocking of interior and exterior space and axial gamemanship.34” The spatial treatment of the Villa Giulia is different 43

“...for while one can see through a rear loggia behind the nymphaeum into a garden, the strong axis has become entirely imaginary at this point [as] there is no immediately visible route leading from the first loggia to the second and out into that garden. To proceed, one must decent one of the curving staircases to the lower court where yet another puzzle presents itself.”38

perspective

axial symmetry

interlocking of interior and exterior spaces

Figure 9.

Play on Perspective in the spaces within Villa Guilia.

perspective

Figure 10.

Exploded Axiometric of Villa Guilia detailing the change of spaces

The Villa Giulia embodies the same axial principles that dominate much of the Italian Renaissance garden style. However, its innovation lies within the playfulness and radical experimentation of the perspectival system. While Belvedere Court exemplified strict concentration towards axial symmetry perspectives and terracing elevations, the Villa Giulia brought the play of the perspective to new dimensions which created the attractive and innovation design principle of ‘surprise’. While it cannot be proven, whether or not the Villa Giulia is the forefather to the implementation of the ‘surprise’ within landscape architecture or even urban design, it can be stated with confidence that much of that stylistic design principle can trace its ancestral roots to the Villa Giulia.

44

Figure 11.

Mount Ventoux

The Italian Renaissance Garden style, or much rather, the Renaissance in its entirety, mark an integral and significant step in the development of landscape architecture and urban design. The distinctive design elements the Renaissance period developed over the course of three centuries have characterized and marked the landscape to the present day. It can be quite unimaginable to envision a landscape without the invention of perspectival systems. The powers of axial symmetry and the respect to classical antiquity are forever intertwined with many national iconic structures and landscape designs. The Lincoln Memorial and the expansive axial Reflecting Pool is a prime example of not only classical antiquity flare, but also the powerful effects of the axial tug, especially in the role of political prowness. But perhaps, we are all ‘Renaissance men (or woman)’. Leonardo Di Vinci, an expertise in many fields - from architecture to art, botany to anatomy, and much more - defines the modern notion of the “Renaissance man”39. Perhaps we, as designers, are entitled to the same.

As I study to become a landscape architect, I have witnessed the role of the designer continuously grow and envelope nearly all aspects of the world. Not only is the quintessential form of applying acquired knowledge to built space, the Renaissance characterizes the initial conception of man’s unique relationship with 45

the natural world. It poetically gives birth to the moment that man explores the potentiality within his deep conscious to craft upon the landscape. While conventions of the axial symmetry and perspectives are now forever intertwined with design education as well as design application. We, as designers, may miss the magnitude of the Renaissance’s influence and its developments have on our way of thinking.

I believe, we as designers, embark on a circular journey, in retrospect, we learn new ways from the reminiscing of the old. The old become the new, the classics become the creatively reimagined. And while the implementation of the axis has become a prevalent tool in my design work, I cannot help but extend a nod of appreciation to those who came before me, ‘the Renaissance man (or woman)’, that initiated intellectual exploration, the strive to understand in ever more precise and scientific terms, and embodying the conscious understanding of the nature of humanity and its relationship to the natural world. And so I stand, like Petrarch before he begins his journey to the summit of Mount Ventoux, with my sight gazed high at my aspirations to the pursuit of new discovery that only a unique perspective can offer, I can mutter to myself the same phrase like so many that have whispered before, “my motive was to see what so great an elevation had to offer.”40

46

Notes 1 - 4, 8 - 12, 15 - 21, 24, 29, 30 - 38, 40

Rogers, Elizabeth Barlow, “Classicism Reborn: Landscape Ideals of the Renaissance in Italy and France” Landscape Design A Cultural and Architectural History, ABRAMS Print, 2001. Print. pg.

125-137. Accessed on 7th Mar. 2014

7, 14, 22, 25, 26 - 28,39

Kleiner, Fred S., “Italy, 1400 to 1500” Gardner’s Art Through The Ages: A Global History, Enhanced 13th Edition, Volume II, Wadsworth Cengage Learning., 2009. Print. pg.

541-562. Accessed on 7th Mar. 2014

5,6

Sayre, Henry M., “The Renaissance” Discovering the Humanities, Princeton Hall, 2008. Print. pg.

187. Accessed on 7th Mar. 2014.

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Wikipedia. “Italian Renaissance Garden” Wikipedia INC, 2014. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ital ian_Renaissance_garden> Accessed on 7th Mar. 2014.

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Wikipedia. “Haussmann’s renovation of Paris” Wikipedia INC, 2014. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Haussmann%27s_renovation_of_Paris> Accessed on 7th Mar. 2014.

Figure 1

“Mont Serein. Mont Ventoux, Vaucluse.” Photograph. Mayumi Pavy. Flickr, Yahoo. Inc. 2013.

Web. 7th Mar 2014. < http://www.flickr.com/photos/mayumipavy/8588502825/in/pool-ventoux/>

Figure 2 “Belvedere Courtyard in the Vatican Palace.” Photograph of Drawing. Donatella Bramante.

Wikipedia. 2014. Web. 7th Mar 2014. < http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/ Giovanni_antonio_dosio%2C_cortile_del_belvedere_secondo_il_progetto_del_Bramante.jpg> Figure 3

“Haussmann Lines.” Photograph. Vincent Tang. 2013. Web. 7th Mar 2014.

Figure 4

“Great Niche, north end of the Belvedere Court.” Photograph. Diana Gongora. Scanned Print.

Rogers, Elizabeth Barlow, “Classicism Reborn: Landscape Ideals of the Renaissance in Italy and France” Landscape Design A Cultural and Architectural History, ABRAMS Print, 2001.

Print. pg. 134. Inc. 2013. Web. 7th Mar 2014.

Figure 5 “FIG. 161. COURT OF THE BELVEDERE, ROME—SITE-PLAN” Web Image. GardenVisit.com. 2014.

Web. 7th Mar 2014. < http://www.gardenvisit.com/assets/madge/tem40d1seg101/ original/tem40d1seg101_original.jpg> Figure 6 “FIG. 162. THE BELVEDERE, ROME—CROSS-SECTION OF THE COURT” Web Image. GardenVisit.

com. 2014. Web. 7th Mar 2014. <http://www.gardenvisit.com/history_theory/library_ online_ebooks/ml_gothein_history_garden_art_design/roman_renaissance_gardens> Figure 7 “Villa Guilia.” Photograph. Natalia Romero. Flickr, Yahoo. Inc. 2013.

Web. 7th Mar 2014. < http://www.flickr.com/photos/72144018@N00/2580205019/in/photolist- 4W1e4r-9XWoes-71iWGg-71nW8o-4W1fft-7rVXq6-9XTu4X-e3wFTV-e3wEJ4-e3wFmp- 9XWo7S-6tMaa9-9BjSEJ-ck6skY-4QWEsr-9XWoNC-6tMbrm-4W5oPW-9Y4Etx-9XWoGo-e7Spq7- 4W15fr-7udgHQ-7u9nKp-7uddFG-7udhgj-7udgX1-7u9oJX-7u9u2k-7udfUf-7u9si4- 7u9rCZ-7udkQ9-7udjmA-7udjBw-fpNCR9-9XTtSX-7kdnK9-7u9mQ4-7udnuY-7udfkE- 7udgaA-7udn6E-7u9iGP-7udeyj-7u9jFR-9Y4E12-7udiPs-7u9pVe-7u9tta-7u9kaz> Figure 8

“Nymphaeum, Villa Guilia.” Photograph. Diana Gongora. Scanned Print.

Rogers, Elizabeth Barlow, “Classicism Reborn: Landscape Ideals of the Renaissance in Italy and France” Landscape Design A Cultural and Architectural History, ABRAMS Print, 2001.

Print. pg. 134. Inc. 2013. Web. 7th Mar 2014.

Figure 9 “Villa Guilia Section/Plan.” Photograph of Drawing. Tom’s Work at YOSA

http://www.except.nl. 2014. Web. 7th Mar 2014. <http://www.except.nl/overig/yale/eisenman/ villa-giulia-section-plan.jpg> Figure 10 “Villa Guilia Isometric.” Photograph of Drawing. Tom’s Work at YOSA

http://www.except.nl. 2014. Web. 7th Mar 2014. < http://www.except.nl/overig/yale/eisenman/ villa-giulia-iso.jpg> Figure 11 “Rest Up, Mount Ventoux” Photograph of Drawing. The Beauty of Cycling

http://www.cyclingtips.com 2014. Web. 7th Mar 2014. < http://cyclingtips.com.au/2011/07/rest- day-up-mont-ventoux/> Figure 0.

“BRUNELLESCHI and the Re-Discovery of Linear Perspective x” Photograph of Drawing.

maItaly. 2014. http://www.http://maitaly.wordpress.com 2014. Web. 7th Mar 2014. <http:// maitaly.wordpress.com/2011/04/28/brunelleschi-and-the-re-discovery-of-linear-perspective/>

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“The purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one” - Malcolm Forbes

Figure 1

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© Vincent Tang

MANIFESTO by vincent tang

H

istory is an archive of memory. From these archives, we travel through our memories, carving out and revealing history like an archeologist searching for prehistoric gems in the landscape. The historical timeline of our craftsmanship on the landscape is marked through the historical collective of human’s ingenuity on the environment. From the first primitive huts made out of mammoth tusks to the concrete jungles of the modern world, the course, History of Landscape and Urbanism, was a journey, a travelling tale through the east, west, north, south, past, and present.

To reflect on the knowledge gained throughout the course, I cannot help but bear its resemblance to chapters in a book. The course was a catalogue, with each chapter detailing the historical periods of humanity’s craft upon the landscape identified as landscape architecture and urbanism. It was a delightful exploration of not only historical works, but an extensive insight into the individuals whose genius gave birth to them. The insight into their motives, inspirations, influences, and contextual references helped formulate an in-depth analysis of how each landscape architectural work and/or urban design is conceived. Furthermore, the course also details how each progressive historical period laid the foundations for the next, and I cannot help but give a nod of appreciation for

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the ones who came before me, as my predecessors have left a legacy that is undeniably influential and profound.

What separates us so far in the grand scheme of time is quickly eroded away by the knowledge they have passed down to us. However, there is an underlying purpose to this course. As much as the course is a collection of historical landscape architecture and urban design relevance, one cannot undermine or fail to realize the importance of history. Each historical period and their respectable individuals whom have made extraordinary contributions to the field, have all aided in the progression of this profession we call landscape architecture. The acknowledgement of history cannot be taken as a shortsighted ‘revisiting of the past’, but a learning tool, or much rather, a reminiscing of the lessons we have learned through the trials and tribulations of our predecessors.

The ultimate progression of our field is aided by what we remember and what we have learned. George Santayana once wrote, “those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it”, and it would an injustice to not preserve the history of landscape architecture and the invaluable lessons that go along with it. In the end, history is an archive of memory, but a memory of the lessons that we have learned and will forever use in the pursuit of the greater, the ultimate progression of the betterment of landscape architecture and urbanism.

S

torytelling is the most primitive form of communication. Before the conception of books, films, music, or even language, the act of storytelling has always been the definitive form of communication amongst individuals and it has never left us. Since the dawn of mankind, individuals have told stories through the landscape. The landscape acts as a canvas, a collective medium capable of generating a dialogue that speaks in invisible tongue. The earliest known cave paintings in Chauvet-Pont-dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Arc Cave detail a galloping trio of horses1. The painting allows one to develop an intimate relationship by creating a dialogue between the observer and the landscape. The tale of the landscapeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s historical secrets are revealed. And while these simple markings in the landscape tell stories of what once existed, I believe it creates a greater conscious connection to the landscape. The development of this intimate relationship is derived from the connection generated through the act of the narrative. Many landscape architectural works have their roots deep in narrative structure, although it may not be intentional, their work speaks of a passion, a pursuit, and an intention. It gives insight into what they hold most valuable in their ambitions. Fredrick Law Olmstead, the forefather to landscape architecture, crafted marvelous works that are deeply rooted in his pursuit of environmental consciousness. Kongjian Yuâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work details his backround as a peasant farmer and his heartfelt, intimate admiration to the landscape. It is through their work that the narrative plays an incredible role in not only giving insight into their own individual pursuits, but what their work aims to achieve. Thus, as designers of the

landscape, they play the role of a curator, their works mark a narrative as the quintessential communicative act to inspire and create relationships, harmony, and equality within all realms of the natural world. On the other hand, their professional work is beyond a fabrication of ecological infrastructure, or a designed establishment of networks, it is a museum of thought that it is deeply rooted in an inexhaustible desire to fix the ailing world.

I believe narratives in landscape design is an important design tool to be utilized in landscape architectural work because it not only develops a more personal relationship between man and the horizontal plane in which he/she dwells upon, but also aids in creating a more responsive design approach, one where ambition and intention is mixed with artistic imagination.

Furthermore, to tell the story of the site, one must engage the site. To engage the site and crafting a truthful narrative allows a designer and his eventual intervention to be personally tied to the site. His response is a personal one, a truthful one, and the most appropriate one. Often times, this is an abandoned element in landscape architecture.

Many designs that fail simply did not listen to the landscape. They sought to overlay designs without much regard to how it relates or forms a cohesive bond. What is left is a disconnected intervention, one that ignores the vital components of the site and thus fails to achieve a successful result. Therefore, the act of using narrative as a design tool is more than an artistic tool that connects visitor to site, it is also part of the process of creation.

It allows for the assimilation of a complex network of elements that tell the story of the site.

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Figure 2 Bamboo Gardens, Parc de la Villette, Paris © Vincent Tang

T

h rough landscape architecture, we can use narratives to become greater agents of change. The usage of the narrative is an additional tool to help create appropriate responses with unparalleled intimate ties. It is my greatest motive and intention to craft landscapes that produce happiness, excitement, pleasure, and wonder. To create landscapes that heal, protect, sustain, and enrich all realms of life. And to create landscapes that are not only products of agents of change, but to produce agents of change themselves. I believe that the most effective way of educating a new breed of agents of change is through the act of the narrative. The wonder of creating something artistically and imaginatively, truthful and enriching is an infectious and pleasurable undertaking. I believe that using narrative in a design approach allows one to push the boundaries of landscape architecture, to create something for people that is just as effective and infectious as a good story being told. With this is mind, one may wonder about the innumerable amount of stories to be told.

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Susan Herrington writes in her book, On Landscapes: Thinking in Action, “landscape narratives can expand our imagination.”2 Within Parc de la Villette in Paris, Alexander Chemetoff’s Bamboo Garden utilizes landscape narrative to reveal what is hidden. Herrington writes, “...since landscape narratives can help us imagine events thar we don’t normally encounter, they can also help us imagine things that are literally hidden from our first-hand experiences with landscapes.”3

Here, Chemetoff tells the tale of Paris’ metainfrastructure through the exposure of water mains and electrical lines that form the infrastructure that sustains the park4. Through the clever act of revealing the conduits that are essential to the park’s functioning, Chemetoff tells the tale of the Parisian meta-infrastructure5. The revealing of this infrastructural layer “which is typically buried underneath the soil, absent from our experience and knowledge”6, the Bamboo Garden

Figure 3 Bamboo Gardens, Parc de la Villette, Paris © Vincent Tang

entices visitors to imagine all the pipes that run under the seemingly thin layer of the city7. Herrington explains the creative usage of the narrative, “[the] garden tells the story about how thick our urban landscapes really are...”8 Here, Chemetoff aims to reveal the systems that remain invisible to us at the surface, to demonstrate the infrastructural labyrinth underneath us as “captivating as what lies above.”9 The design of the Bamboo Garden was to evoke a response from its visitors, the contrasting image of the garden’s coolness and fecund growth of the lush bamboo and metallic arteries that criss-cross in every which way is a narrative tool to achieve a conscious recognition of what lies beneath every metropolis10. Furthermore, a sound chamber at the base of the garden “[taking] environmental sounds like bird songs, wind, and the sound of fluids moving through pipes, mixing them into a haunting melody that echoes through the garden.”11 reinforces Chemetoff’s intention. Through the creative approach of using narrative, it not only creates a unique aesthetic experience by assaulting our senses, but also reveals and allows the visitors to inject their own level of imagination to the garden. Thus, a more intimate and personal dialogue is created, one where the visitors become part of garden. They witness and participate in the story and fabricate their own.

Throughout the course History of Landscape and Urbanism, our exploration of various designers and their respective works has manifested incredible interest.

I recognize and deeply admire their work and understand their role in the collective progression of landscape architecture and urbanism. However, if I were to chose a designer whose work embodies values and attitudes that I aspire to, it is undoubtably Marion Weiss and Michael Manfredi. The dynamic duo’s firm, Weiss/Manfredi have recently become a prominent figure amongst the professional practise of landscape architecture. While these designers were unexplored during the course, I cannot help but associate all those who have come before, having paved the way and influenced the minds of these two incredible agents of change. Although featuring a vast range of design work, the duet’s arguably most famous work is the Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle. Both Weiss and Manfredi’s innovative and creative work on the formulation of Olympic Sculpture Park began with (as you guessed it), a narrative. At the conceptual stage of the design, the duet explored the extensive historical layering of the site. The two complied a series of preceding events that have led to the site’s pre-existing condition of a derelict patch in the city, characterized by contaminated 52

Figure 4 Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle

soils, a 40 ft. grade change, highway, train and trucking infrastructure, and a polluted water body12. The narrative they constructed became the foundation that would eventually influence their design decisions. They depicted a narrative regarding “a land shaped and transformed by man in ways nearly unimaginable.”13 In the end, they chose to accentuate the forces at work here, recognizing and playing with them like characters in a fairy tale. Marion Weiss discusses the design intention aiming not hide away the forces or history that generated the site as “you would lose all the things that made the site extraordinary.”14 The design intention ultimately used the forces of the site to act as participants, an orchestrated representation of land superimposed on these ‘participants’ and vice versa. The result was a creative and responsive design that produced a unique ‘chameleon-like landform’, an innovative earthwork that allowed one to wander from the city to the water’s edge.

Olympic Sculpture Park is exemplary of not only a fantastic utilization of the narrative in design application and conceptualization, but also how they achieved in creating a landscape that was wondrous and exciting as well as rejuvenating and enriching to the city of Seattle.

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Furthermore, both Marion Weiss and Michael Manfredi are undeniable agents of change. They turned an urban eyesore into a successful public amenity and demonstrated, with great dexterity and ingenuity, how a narrative can propel a design into something much more personal, creative, and responsive to its respected site. The narrative of the site’s history and its unique attributes and elements allowed Weiss and Manfredi to alter the landscape in a creative manner in which the park is now recognized and celebrated for. Through their demonstration of great rigor and the fantastic implementation of the narrative, I find this work as well as their subsequent work, incredibly fascinating and exciting.

Also, through their collective interests in a myriad of design responses, it is clear that they are exemplary of agents of change as each of their works are resounding examples of a collective conglomerate of environmental, cultural, social, economical, and educational elements.

Their work represents an admirable totality that is refined elegant, and complete.

Figure 5 Bridging the Gap Narrative © Vincent Tang

T

hroughout my design education, I have made a determined effort in implementing storytelling as a way for formulating a proper conceptual framework to guide my design and fulfill my desire to embody the role of the agent of change. In my studio project, Bridging the Gap, I began developing a narrative of the site in order to ‘map’ the invisible forces acting upon the site.

The map is a holistic representation of the narrative developed through site exploration. Represented through a fantastical narrative, it offers a visual representation of the asymmetrical character of the site. On the left is a representation of the commercial strip adjacent to the St. Norbert Market site. Drawn as a strange, mechanical structure, it represents the alienation of commercial infrastructure in contrast to the St. Norbert context.

The harp-like structure in the middle is to represent the tension created through the high traffic volumes of Pembina highway. On the left are two structures where one represented the community spirit of St. Norbert and the other representing the market itself. The narrative revolves around how these “forces” are all interconnected (represented through a network of cables) and relative to the site location, giving a visual representation of the site’s character and story. The corresponding image (Figure 6) is a the resultant design in response to discoveries in the narrative. As I was working with the design, it became

that much of the design derived its form and spatial functions from what was discovered and explored through the narrative. I truly believe that the design intervention was a much more comprehensive and appropriate design as it responded to all of the sites hidden intricacies.

For example, through my narrative, I was able to reveal the ‘tension’ of Pembina Highway and how high traffic volumes created unattractive walking conditions. To remediate this, a plaza was implemented to act as a connector in aim to reduce the ‘tension’ of the speeding traffic along Pembina Highway. By enforcing a plaza, this allowed people to walk in comfortable distances and roam free as they wish rather than being forced to walk along a strict path close to the exchange of traffic. In an another studio project, Overlay, a narrative was constructed from an overflow surface parking lot in the Forks (Figure 7). The narrative was used to help determine the culprit behind its unfulfilling present purpose. Historical, political, and contextual influences are weaved in an imaginative narrative to tell the story of the site, using storytelling to analyze the spatial condition in an imaginative way.

The conclusion detailed how the evolution of technology shaped our urban fabric, that the transition from the train to the personal vehicle shaped how we perceive and construct our landscape.

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Figure 6 Bridging the Gap, Site Plan Š Vincent Tang

Figure 7

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Overlay Narrative Š Vincent Tang

I

n the end, the most important component of the built environment is what the narrative can encapsulate. Which is everything. I am dedicated to the ideology that designers are the agents of change. We have an obligation to the rest of the world to possess and execute our ability to craft beautiful, sustainable, and functional landscapes for all realms of life. We are environmental stewards of the landscape. Curators of happiness, desire, excitement, pleasure, and wonder.

Creators of a collection of elements, processes, and relationships that sustain the whole. A generator of social and cultural parameters harmoniously coexisting together.

An alchemist that brews a wonderful concoction with an intricate balance. An artist that tell stories. And our medium is landscape architecture.

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Figure 8 Š Vincent Tang

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Figure 9 Š Vincent Tang

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Notes

1.

Wikipedia.com, Chauvet Cave, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chauvet_Cave (April. 3, 2014).

2 - 11.

Herrington Susan ,”Instrumental Imagination”, On Landscapes: Thinking in Action, Routledge Taylor and Francis Group pg. 99 - 100. (April. 3, 2014).

12. - 14.

“Evolutionary Infrastructures - Marion Weiss and Michael Manfredi,” YouTube

video, 1:38:15, posted by “TheHarvardGSD”, Oct. 12, 2011, http://www.youtube.

com/watch?v=mJH_bLPKOAU (April. 3, 2014).

Figure 4 WordPress, “Olympic Sculpture Park” (2014), WordPress.com (http://shank13. files.wordpress.com/2012/08/before-and-after.jpg) (April. 3, 2014).

Figure 1 - 3, 5 - 9 Photography By Vincent Tang

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