{"id":1081,"date":"2009-03-14T05:50:35","date_gmt":"2009-03-14T05:50:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/?p=1081"},"modified":"2009-03-14T05:50:35","modified_gmt":"2009-03-14T05:50:35","slug":"asian-landscape-architecture-and-garden-design-in-the-twentieth-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/asian-landscape-architecture-and-garden-design-in-the-twentieth-century\/","title":{"rendered":"Asian landscape architecture and garden design in the twentieth century"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Singapore<\/a>

Singapore skyline by Gyver Chang<\/p><\/div>\n


<\/p>\n

Why were Asian garden design and landscape architecture such a disappointment in the twentieth century? There is much work which looks anti-ecological, anti-contextual, almost anti-human – and far too American or far too European (see note on Chinese context theory<\/a>). Luckily, there are some exceptions, including the twenty-first century landscape designs for\u00a0 King Abdullah International Gardens<\/a> and the Abu Dhabi Corniche<\/a>. Instead of writing an essay (which is is in fact what I have done for the final chapter of Asian gardens<\/a>) I offer the short statement that the problems with Asian garden and landscape design in the 20th century resulted from a poor understanding of design history and theory. There were lacks of appreciation:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. by many landscape architects<\/strong> that their profession’s design theory was at least 4000 years old on 14\u00a0 May 1863 ( Norman T Newton gives this day as ‘the first official use of the title Landscape Architect’ – he knew the art was older but his perception of the theory was post-1863)<\/li>\n
  2. by the Asian clients<\/strong> and designers who believed Asia should be ‘modernized’ by being ‘westernized’<\/li>\n
  3. by the World Bank<\/strong> and associated development agencies which were certain that western is better, because it is based on science , and because science is the ultimate criterion of truth<\/li>\n
  4. by a host of architects, engineers and planners<\/strong> who believed too fervently in ‘master planning’ and therefore fostered the tragedy of feminine design<\/a><\/li>\n
  5. by bankers and property developers<\/strong> who believed that calculation of short term profit was the way to distinguish good projects from bad projects<\/li>\n
  6. by the abstract and anti-contextual nature of international modern design theory<\/strong><\/li>\n
  7. by an inadequate knowledge<\/strong> of Asian design history and theory<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The corrective to these Seven Deadly Design Sins<\/strong> should be gulping that wonderful Asian virtue – HARMONY<\/strong>.\u00a0 History matters, theory matters, science matters, beliefs matter, profit matters,\u00a0 ecology matters, design matters, people matter -we all matter!<\/p>\n

    See also: Previous post on Asian gardens and landscapes<\/a>
    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Why were Asian garden design and landscape architecture such a disappointment in the twentieth century? There is much work which looks anti-ecological, anti-contextual, almost anti-human – and far too American or far too European (see note on Chinese context theory). Luckily, there are some exceptions, including the twenty-first century landscape designs for\u00a0 King Abdullah International […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,10,13,14,16,24],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1081"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1081\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}