Geuze, Adriaan

Adriaan Geuze studied landscape architecture at the University of Wageningen. After graduating in 1987 he founded the West 8 design office. Geuze sees himself as having engineering in his soul. He is associated with the theory of landscape urbanism. This has two strands. The first is 'a classic civil engineering approach' to creating landscape (ie based on utility and necessity). The second is concerned with landscape as symbols - both cultural symbols and as symbols of landscape processes. Geuze states that 'the real future in today's debate about sustainability lies not in a political or philosophical dialogue about what we are protecting or how we are going to 'sustain' it, but rather how to actively create new ecologies. Creating land and then painting it: in many ways, this is the soul of Dutch culture'. West 8's work includes:

Madrid Rio Manzanares River
Arganzuela Park
Theatre Square, Rotterdam 
Governors Island, New York
Toronto Central Waterfront