Since this is a little difficult, I offer two clues (1) it is in Eurasia (2) it is not the city centre! What do you think of my modest proposal for a re-design, below? I think the whole project must have been ‘designed’ by crazed engineers with no knowledge whatsoever of the aesthetic, ecological, functional or financial roles of open space in the urbanisation process.
(left image slightly brightened)
Please guess the continent, the country and the city (and if you know, please don’t give the answer at once!)
Japan was the first Asian country to modernise its industry but always wanted to retain its unique identity. This turned out to be more difficult for buildings than for gardens. Haruko Seki is a Japanese landscape architect based in London. Perhaps for this reason, she has a keen eye for something essentially Japanese which is not sentimentaly ‘Old Japan’ We saw this in her Silver Moonlight Garden at the 2008 Chelsea Flower Show and are pleased to see it again in the above photograph of the Garden of Pine Woods for Niigata Seiryo University Campus, Niigata City, Japan (completed 2010). The courtyard was designed to become a central event stage and a space where everyone can meet. The structural form gleams softly through the shadow of pines, reflecting and enhancing their beauty. There is a Wabi-Sabi combination of purity with imperfection, because the trees do not allow perfectly complete circles. Sitting beneath the colling shade of pine trees is a pleasant activity in the hot humid shade of a Japanese summer. It is a context-sensitive design, functionally, climatically, culturally and aesthetically. The V-sign is also a context-sensitive gesture. In England it symbolises vulgar aggression (with the palm facing backwards) and victory, as in the Churchill salute, with the palm facing forwards. In Japan and much of East Asia, it became associated with peace and happiness, after the 1972 Olympic Games.
Images and information on Garden of Pine Woods for Niigata Seiryo University
Growing Papaver somniferum (right pics) in your garden is legal in the UK but not in the US. Converting it to opium or morphine is illegal in both countries. Erythroxylon coca (left pics) is the source of cocaine, which was a legal ingredient in Coca Cola until 1903. Opium was banned in China, in 1799. The British fought a war to have it re-legalised, which happened in 1860. The disadvantages of opium and cocaine are well known but, one wonders, might their worldwide re-legalisation bring any advantages? Yes: (1) the wicked drug dealers would be put out of business (2) recreational drugs could be taxed, like alcohol, to raise government revenues (as American states are increasingly doing with sales taxes on cannabis) (3) the US and UK prison populations, as examples, could be halved (4) the Taliban could be put out of business and the coalition of the increasingly-unwilling could withdraw from Afghanistan and stop smashing up ancient villages with Predator drones (5) innocent drug users would not be poisoned by impure contaminated drugs (6) countries like Columbia, Bolivia, Brazil, Peru and Mexico would benefit from the demise of their drug cartels, criminal gangs and private armies – the drug trade is immensely harmful to civil society in the producer countries (7) sex workers with a drug habit to fund could turn to healthier and more productive occupations (8) crime could he halved, because funding drug purchases is the predominant motive for property-related crime (9) police relieved from ‘the war on drugs’ could prevent more socially harmful crimes – and police corruption would be reduced (10) with fewer wars to fight, the US and the UK could begin to re-rebalance their budgets.
My own experience of taking dangerous drugs is as follows (1) smoking – and inhaling – tobacco as a student (2) limited use of orally administered alcoholic drinks as an adult (3) I was once given a marijuana joint. If it contained any of the illegal substance I did not notice the effect. But the scene is engraved in my memory. Mustafa, a girl and myself were at the top of a deserted Roman amphitheatre at midnight. The mountains to the north and the glittering sea to the south were bathed in moonlight. We laughed a lot and our voices rang round the marble amphitheatre. The location (Side, Turkey) is shown in Sean O’Sullivan‘s photograph. Though I did not become addicted to drugs, I did acquire a serious lifelong addiction to ancient sites, beautiful landscapes and laughter. Since this blog post is published on Christmas Day, it is worth remembering that the date of Christmas probably derives from pagan celebrations of the solstice (eg the Roman Saturnalia) and that sacramental wine is used at Mass.
Brochs are a unique building form, dating from the 1st century BC and indigenous to Scotland. They had internal wooden floors and they were inhabited. This is clear. But how they were located and why they were built is unclear. Gordon Childe interpreted brochs as fortifications from which chiefs ruled subject populations. Since no evidence for this could be found, this was followed (in the 1980s) by a theory that they were prestige dwellings for important families, but again there was a lack of evidence and it is often the case that brochs are not located in good agricultural land. But many brochs do have significant positions in the landscape, near cliffs, in valleys and by narrow stretches of water. This suggests, to me, that like so-called hill-forts and stone circles, they had a symbolic and aesthetic role in proclaiming that an area of land was in the ownership of a clan of closely related families. Brochs are early examples of Scottish landscape architecture.
Thank you to Maciomhair for his beautiful black and white photograph of Dun Carloway Broch in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides. The building form made good use of local materials and gave a high level of protection from wind and rain. Since travel by boat was easier than travel on land, the west coast of Scotland had relatively good links with Celtic Europe. The crofts on the left of the photograph are a survival of a medieval building-and-farming settlement type. When the brochs were built, other families lived in circular huts with mud or stone walls and thatched roofs.
