Post-modern Garden of Eden

Leave a Reply


Post-modern Garden of Eden

Originally uploaded by allspice1

Christine writes that:

Claus Emmeche and Steven Sampson in ‘The Garden Machine’ describe the effect of Postmodernism on art and architecture (p59);

“Today’s postmodern art and architecture also transcend the modern idea of the creating artistic subject, who in a sovereign fashion generates originals by natural creativity (art as ‘poiesis’). Instead art becomes a simulation where copies enter into a combination of significations that are actually not new, but which respresent small games that can be transmitted onwards in a time infinity of circulating signs….these metaphorical demands on the image are dissolved in a series of rituals that organises the continued simulation of art in the universal media of mass society.”

While there is an overriding sense that the ‘original’ has been lost in the overwhelming proliferation of the simulacrum: this is not necessarily true.

Australian architect Richard Francis Thorpe has an interesting analysis of the problems of Post Modernism in design in his article ‘The [im]possibility of slowness’ in UME Magazine. http://www.umemagazine.com/scrollSpreads.aspx.

LI Landscape Institute Policies

12 Replies

Landscape architects would flourish in a web of enlighted policies for town and country

The Landscape Institute has some policies. There are two of them. One is about Brownfield Skills and the other about Climate Change. So far as I know, neither are major areas of professional employment for landscape architects. My recommendation is that unless and until the LI comes up with something better the Landscape Institute should pluck up its courage and publish the policies which Alan Tate and I helped put together in 1995. They are only 13 years old. As the Credit Crunch evolves into the Recession, the LI should do some good for the environment – and help its members expand their areas of operations. Nothing venture – nothing gain.

The 17.10.08 issue of Vista (‘News, views and analysis from the Landscape Institute’) has an interesting report on how the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) ‘has thrown down the gauntlet to developers and planners with its ambitious new eco-town worksheet on green infrastructure’. I hope this creates lots of work – but who will do it? There is also a report on Northala Fields ‘ a revolutionary new park development in Ealing’ designed by artist Peter Fink with architect Igor Marko of FoRM Associates. The item does not say who the landscape architects were.

The LI  ‘Position Statement’ on Climate Change suggests more Green Infrastructure might help a little and gives the following examples: street trees,  hedgerows, pocket parks, cemeteries, small woodland, city parks, green networks, forest parks, lakes, rights of way, regional parks, rivers and floodplains, long distance trails, reservoirs. The document would sound better if called a ‘Policy Statement’ but even then I doubt if the networks would be clamoring to interview the LI President. The examples of projects are a little better but surely none of them were initiated to combat global warming.

Practical and social benefits of sustainable garden and landscape design

1 Reply

The Garden History Museum and the Landscape Institute are holding a seminar (Monday 1st December 10.30am to 4.30pm) on sustainable garden and landscape design. It will be ‘chaired by television presenter and garden designer, Joe Swift’. What a strange event to have planned. Is it an opportunity for Joe The Gardener, or for the Landscape Institute, to learn about the social benefits of sustainable garden and landscape design? For more details see the Press Release.

Seeking sanctuary: the enclosed garden

2 Replies
The landscape of serenity
The landscape of serenity

The gardens of Chateau de Courances are acknowledged as one of the most integrated examples of an essential relationship between architecture and garden. I would have to agree.

The intricate formal design of the moated parterre garden close to the chateau leading onto the serenity of the pool of water in the garden enclosed by an avenue of trees beyond, gives a gradual sense of dematerialisation from the formal to the natural. This movement from the high artifice of the Chateau with its formal garden to the distant glimpse of what might be the wilderness beyond creates a wistful sense of connection between two differing but equally lovely outdoor environments.

This is a garden for contemplating from windows and for promenading within…but it is best enjoyed in solitude or populated with a profusion of people in a celebratory mood.

 

The gardens at Courances are considered one of the top fifty gardens by Tim Richardson. Tom’s description is at Gardenvisit.

Image: Parterre, Chateau de Courances, France malcolmkirk.com/galleries

Sacred Gardens and Landscapes

3 Replies

Is Avebury Stone Cicle a 'garden' space?

Avebury, Delphi, Ryoanji and Salisbury Cathedral Cloister are sacred places. But are they also gardens? Yes: they are enclosed outdoor spaces; they were designed to be beautiful; they were not made for functional horticulture.

Sun, shadows, water, plants and structures are intrinsic to their design. Ryoanji, you might say, is a dry garden. Yes it is, but moss grows around the famous stones and the play of tree shadows on the gravel is part of the fascination.

According to Wikipedia “Holiness, or sanctity, is the state of being holy or sacred, that is, set apart for the worship or service of gods. It could also mean being set apart to pursue (or to already have achieved) a sacred state or goal, such as Nirvana. It is often ascribed to people, objects, times, or places.” I have one quibble with this definition: the Buddha did not recognize a god and Buddhism is the world religion which has had the most influence on garden design.

In a demythologised sense, if you wish, I believe that sacredness remains a vital concern in garden design. We want to have places which are ‘set apart’ from the everyday world of bustling stress, which fill the soul and solace the flesh. I wish those who plan suburban subdivisions and housing estates had an appreciation of how space can be ‘set apart’ and yet connected.


Lumbini Garden – Buddha's birthplace

3 Replies

I came across this drawing of the Buddha’s birthplace recently and it reminded me what a cruel thing Kenzo Tange did at Lumbini. Like Corbusier, Tange was a gifted designer and a terrible planner.

An ability to design objects (eg buildings) sometimes goes with an understanding of outdoor space, and gardens, but in the case of these two leading architects from West and East it did not. ‘Baroque Buddhism’ is as unwelcome as ‘Baroque Communism’, in politics and in design.

The illustration shows the scene which Fa-hsien described in c400 CE:
“Fifty li east from the city (ie from Kapilavastu) was a garden, named Lumbini, where the queen entered the pond and bathed. Having come forth from the pond on the northern bank, after walking twenty paces, she lifted up her hand, laid hold of a branch of a tree, and, with her face to the east, gave birth to the heir-apparent. When he fell to the ground, he immediately walked seven paces. Two dragon-kings appeared and washed his body. At the place where they did so, there was immediately formed a well, and from it, as well as from the above pond, where the queen bathed, the monks even now constantly take the water, and drink it.”