Comments on: Will China become a Nation of Gardeners?

By: Christine

Christine — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 04:00:45 +0000

She is most probably washing off the salt water and sand under an outdoor shower.
[ http://www.outdoorshowershop.com/images/outdoor-shower-enclosures.jpg ]
See also [ http://thekidcollective.com/2009/08/ ].

By: Tom Turner

Tom Turner — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 08:30:07 +0000

I think there are some people (eg Princess Di) and some places (eg Giverny) who and which are not very beautiful but are amazingly photogenic. And vice versa. Despite its many blessings, I am doubtful about Australia being photogenic, however beautiful it actually is.
But whatever is the girl in this beautiful photograph doing? http://www.luminous-landscape.com/images-78/balmoral-thumb.jpg

By: Christine

Christine — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 07:00:28 +0000

‘Balmoral Mist’ David Oliver, 2006.
[ http://www.luminous-landscape.com/images-78/balmoral-thumb.jpg ]

Balmoral without the mist…[ http://farm1.static.flickr.com/84/218361884_694dbdf44e.jpg ] and the star amphitheatre
[ http://www.austheos.org.au/star-amphitheatre.jpg ] and the Balmoral Beach Pavilion
[ http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_knHmw4EPfhE/S7GT00GAg-I/AAAAAAAABwg/dFcK4h3bws0/s1600/SydneyBalmoralBeachPavilion.jpg ]

By: Tom Turner

Tom Turner — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 12:56:08 +0000

On one occasion I rode to the pyramids on horseback.
Still not convinced about Australia having a photographer-friendly climate.

By: Christine

Christine — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 04:05:45 +0000

Did you visit the pyramids etc?

You will find great mists at Mt Macedon in Victoria [ http://www.flickr.com/photos/34198579@N06/3330777988 ] and also at McLaren Vale in South Australia [ http://ih1.redbubble.net/work.5540965.1.flat,550×550,075,f.winter-vines.jpg ] as well as many other places in the autumn and winter.

By: Tom Turner

Tom Turner — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 09:38:21 +0000

I think that is when I went to work in Egypt. Everyone I know that has visited Australia has loved it …. but the photographs I looked at did attract me. Maybe Australia does not have a light which is kind to photographers (luminous mists etc)?

By: christine

christine — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 06:33:23 +0000

Melbourne is a great city. You would have enjoyed the experience. What did you decide to do? Perhaps we could bring back the Sabbatical both for academia and practice.

By: Tom Turner

Tom Turner — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 05:29:50 +0000

There is a hecticness to design, in the schools and in practice. Everyone seems overworked, overwrought and underpaid. We probably need a period when must people have time to think because they are unemployed. Such interludes have often been good for design theory. This reminds me that during an economic recession I was invited to apply for a job in Australia (I think in Melbourne) teaching design theory!

By: Christine

Christine — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 02:02:06 +0000

I suppose in practice it is difficult to find time to theorise. Also to gain reflective distance – most problems in practice have an immediacy about them.

It may also be an approach to designing that is not promoted in design schools? Perhaps a priority is given to doing over thinking?

By: Tom Turner

Tom Turner — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 09:24:42 +0000

Thanks re Mick – and for the video link – I like him better as a young man than as the businessman I think he has become.
The first UK course teaching landscape architecture was at the University of Reading, with Thomas Mawson as one of the lecturers. Reading University withdrew from landscape architecture in the 1950s and gave up teaching landscape management a year or so ago, when Richard Bisgrove retired.
I am puzzled by British landscape architects lack of interest in theory.Many American landscape architects are very interested, though I guess they are more teachers than practitioners. Part of the problem in the UK is a crazy lack of historical perspective. The predominant view is that the eighteenth century ‘landscape movement’ was a massive English cultural achievement and the main ‘thing’ to be theorized. It not unlike the related idea that the British Empire was a truly wonderful, virtuous and unprecedented achievement with noble aims and incorruptible glories. George Orwell could tell them the truth, even from his grave.