Comments on: History of Asian garden and landscape design book

By: Tom Turner

Tom Turner — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 14:51:27 +0000

Here is the publisher’s answer http://www.routledge.com/books/Asian-Gardens-isbn9780415496872 and it should be possible. I have seen the edited copy but not the page proofs.
I did not know about the Garden History Society symposium. It sounds interesting.
Far too many garden historians have dealt with the history of EITHER Japanese OR Chinese gardens, which is about as sensible as writing a history of Spanish or French gardens without giving a thought to Italian gardens. Perhaps it is even as unwise as trying to write a history of Roman gardens without regard to Tuscan gardens.
Blinkers are useful if you want a horse to walk in a straight line but I do not recommend them for garden historians!

By: Marian

Marian — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 12:21:32 +0000

When is this book coming out please Tom? Are you involved in the upcoming Symposium at the Garden Museum on The Wind from the East: Learning from Chinese and Japanese Gardens on
Mon 7th Dec?

By: Tom Turner

Tom Turner — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 19:35:57 +0000

Sian: I suggest contacting the firm Arnold Weddle founded: http://www.weddles.co.uk/

By: Sian Harris

Sian Harris — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 22:55:45 +0000

Hello,
The Arnold Weddle you quoted in this blog may be related to me. I am tracking down my family tree and I know that this is completely off the subject but it would really help me out. Did Arnold have a wife called Beryl? Any information or storied you could tell me would be fantastic.
Thanking you in advance
Sian

By: Christine

Christine — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 03:04:36 +0000

You are right. According to this timeline http://www.idealcity.org.au/timeline.html Griffin submitted the competition entry approximately Jan/Feb 1912 and visited the site for the first time in August of 1913. He and Marion moved to live in Australia in May of the following year.

By: Tom Turner

Tom Turner — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:02:55 +0000

I agree about the influence of ‘paperworks’ with the tradition extending back to Ledoux and Palladio, so it would be great to have an e-works tradition for the future. I think Canberra was designed without Walter Burley Griffin having been down under, in which case it could be regarded as a paperwork transformed into a realwork.

By: Christine

Christine — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 06:10:51 +0000

Seems to me there is so much potential to be explored in the garden city concept…http://ar-chi-tect.org/garden-city-and-city-beautiful-movement-theory/... that doesn’t need to be the sole activity of the architect.

Architects have a long history of ….& some of the best/most influential ideas are….paperworks. For example Archigram’s Walking City
a) http://www.joerobson.co.uk/history_02.html
b) post on Archigram on a graphics blog http://noisydecentgraphics.typepad.com/design/graphic_design_consultancies_creative_companies/

No reason not to start an e-works trend. If Tom is in agreement lets explore the multi-disciplinary possibilities of the city over the e-waves! And may the best collage/drawing/multi-media mash-up triumph!

By: Tom Turner

Tom Turner — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:45:05 +0000

I would not want ‘urban design’ to be be regarded as a category of fine art – though I would certainly want to have a ‘fine art’ and ‘art history’ input to urban design. The attractive thing about ‘urban design’ is that it involves a multitude of disciplines and professions. Should any one of them ‘own’ the subject and the activity it would surely die.
A particular interest of mine is ‘garden design as a crucible for urban design’. There are few opportunities to handle outdoor space at the city scale but many at the garden scale. So gardens can be for urban designers rather what flight simulators are to pilots.

By: Christine

Christine — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 02:55:50 +0000

Wolfgang Sonne is his paper ‘The Birth of Urban Design History out the Spirit of Multidisciplinary’ says;

“Urban design history, or more precisely: historiography, seems to emerge as a typical disciplinary product of art history. In 1920, art historian Albert Erich Brinckmann published the first general history of urban design with the title The Art of Urban Design: Historic Sections and Contemporary Goals.”

He goes on to say that for Brinckmann the program of artistic urban design is;

“…..to bring building masses and spaces into a relationship and to develop them from each other.”

This is an interesting and important definition and historical genesis for urban design. The definition does not seem to reflect a full understanding of contemporary meanings of the term. For example;

1) it seems to tip the focus more towards architecture and less towards landscape
2) it encompasses the scale of an urban design project rather than the idea of the city as an entity

However it is a useful distinction to consider in the light of the potential of the Parliament House competition. The Parliament House site operates at the scale of an urban design project within a city setting. The original design for Canberra (by Burley Griffin)had the broader scope. It was concerned with the idea of the city as an entity.

When we speak of a more contemporary term ‘human settlement’ it is my belief that we are talking of a wider term again. It encompasses the notion of ‘existential dwelling (perhaps but not necessarily within a community setting).’

How would you define or describe ‘landscape and urban planning’ and its relationship to the project, city and human settlement?

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