LANDSCAPE URBANISM: A GENEALOGY CHARLES WALDHEIM This edition of PRAXIS and its focus on landscape point to one of the more pressing issues facing contemporary designers of the built environment: the relationship between natural environments and processes of urbanization globally. This essay offers an introduction to recent shifts in how architects and other design professionals conceive of this relationship. For many architects, landscape has become the model and medium through which contemporary urbanism is best apprehended. Across a range of disciplines, landscape is the lens through which the contemporary city is represented and the mate- rial from which it is constructed. These sentiments are evident in the emer- gent notion of “landscape urbanism."' Landscape urbanism describes a disciplinary realignment currently underway, in which landscape is usurp- ing architecture's historical role as the basic building block of city making. Among the architects currently advocating such an approach is Stan Allen:Sahn roe —— autIncreasingly landscape is emerging as 2 model for urbanism. Landscape has traitionaly been Getined 2s the att of organizing Porizontal surfaces....By payingclose attention tothese surface condtons-not ony configuration xt also materiality and pertormance-designers ‘an acthate space an produce urban effects without the welanty apparatus of tracitional Tis effcieney-theabily to produce urban effects traditionally achieved through the ‘onstruction of bulidings through the organ ination of horizentalsurtaces-recammends, landscape as a medium for addressing the increasingly common urban conditions of e-densitication and spraw- Inte context of the rapidly transtorming concitions of contemporary urban culture, the "weighty apparatus” of traditional urban cesign roves costly, ton, and inleibe ‘The formulation of “landscape as uroan- ism was first articulated by landscape architect James Corner in his research in the mig-90s. Corner, in partnership with Stan Allen, difeets Fete Operations. prac: tice directed toward developing new syntheses among the various design aisc- plines. Corner argues that only through synthetic and imaginative re-ordering of categories inthe built enviroment might wwe escape our present precicament in the Cukdesac of post-industrial moderity and “the oureaucratic and uninspited tailings” ofthe planning profession *Corner's work 2\s0 offers an explicit critique of landscape architecture's recent professional evalu: tion, which ne claims is marked by many landscape designers engaged in the creation of scenographic screening tor otherwise harshly engineered and prot ‘optimized environments.» Corners critique corroborated by any survey of recent landscape projects that nave receives national awards trom the Rmerican Society of Landscape Architects, for example, oF have been published in Landscape Archi- tacture magazine. While many of these projects are of obvious interest and great value, tne average" work of contemporary landscape arenitecture-tne ubiquitous suburban office parks, the uneritically ‘reprosuced publi plazas, and the anachro: nistic pastoral parks-reinforces discipi nary stereotypes by engaging in stylized and decorative scenography.° Landscape urbanism benefits from the long-standing lineage ot regional environ mental planning-from Patrick Geddes ‘theough Lewis Mumtord to lan MeHarg-yet ‘remains dstne rom that tradltlon’ Comer, himself a graduate student and facuity member at the University of Pennsylvania ‘at the end of McHard’s tenure at Penn, acknowledges the historical importance of MeHarg's book Design with Nature. Yet Corer refects the opposition of nature and city implied in McHarg's regionally scaled environmental planning practice For Corner the narrow ecological agenda that ‘many McHargians subscribe to is nothing more than a rear guard detense of 2 supposedly autonomous ‘nature’ conceived toedsta prior. outside of human agency or cultural construction. Given the face of Slobal urbanization, current-day environ- ‘mentalism and pastoral ideas of landscape ‘appear to many as naive or lrelevant Postmoocanish In many ways, the origins of landscape Uurvanism canbe traced to the postmodern critiques of modernist architecture and planning in the late 1970s and early 80s? These critiques, championed by Charles Jencks and other proponents of postmod- fern architectural culture, tended to indict ‘modernism for its Inability to produce @ “axeaningful” of “veble” public rim. for {ts failure to come to terms with the city as 1an historical construction of collective Consciousness," and for its Inability to communicate with multiple audiences in fact the "death of moder architecture” as proclaimed by Jencks in 1977, coincides ‘almost exactly with the greatest crisis of industrial economy in the US, namely. the ‘shift toward the giversitication of consumer markets" What postmodern architectural scenography didnot, and in fact could not, laaaress were the underlying structural conditions of industaizee modernity tené= ing toware the decentralization of urban form. Especially in North America, this rocess continues apace and has proved remarkably indifferent to the superficial stylsti oseitstions of arnitectualcuture. Civen the enormity ofthe social and env fonmental disasters left in the wake of industriakzation over the course of the twentieth century, postmodern architecture retreated to the comforting forms of nostak ia and seemingly stable, secure, and more permanent forms af urban arrangement. 0 citing European precedents for traditional Urban form, postmodern architects prac: ticed aking of preemptive cultural regres- Sion, designing individual bulaings 10 invoke an absent context, as if neighborly ‘architectural enaractr alone covletuen the tide on a century of urban transformations. The growth of the urban design ciseipline uring this time sought to extend th’ work of urban ordering througn tne aggregation of arcitectural elements into ensembles of ostalgle urban consumption. What ad been planning abdicated altogether, seek Ing rofuge in the ineffectual enclaves of policy, procedure, ard public therapy." The postmodern rappelie 3 ordre Indicted mode ism for the supposed loss of rineteenth-century urban values of peces trian scale, sireet grid continuity and neigh boriy architectural character OF course, as has been weil documentee, the postmodern ‘moment was principally motivated by the ese for communication with multiple ‘audiences and the commodification of ‘arketabie architectural images for sivrs: fying consumer markets. Traditional urban design's dependence upon a steady supply of substantial sympathetically styled, and spatially sequenced architectural objects could not be sustained given the advent of mobile markets, automobile culture, an the ‘decentralization of cultural norms. The very indeterminacy and tus ofthe contemporary city the bane of tracitional European city ‘making, in which buildings provide the basic building blocks of urban order throug” stability and permanence, have come to be precisely the qualities evidenced in emer Gent works of landscape urbanism. This point is perhaps best exemplified in ‘Barcelona's program of public space ang bulking projects inthe 1960s and early 908, hich focused primariyon the center a the {racitional Catalan capital. Today the pushin ‘Barcelona to redevelop the airport, olstical zone, industrial watertront, metropolitan ‘vernays. ana water treatment facilities hasless too with buildings and plazas and alto 0 with larger-scale infrastructural land scapes. Of course, many examples of nine teonth-century urban landscape architec ture integrate landscape with infrastructure with Oimsteds Central Parkin New York and his Back Bay Fens in Boston provicing canonical examples. Contrasting this trad tion, contemporary practices of landscape: anism reject the camoutaging of ecotog ical systems with pastoral images of nature that intend to provide stylistic and spatial! exceptions to the gridded urban fabric Rathor, contemporary landscape urbanisin recommends the use of infrastructural systems and the public lanescapes they engender asthe very ordering mechanisms ‘ofthe urban field itself, capable of shaping {nd shifting the organization of urban settlement rather than offering predictable Images ot pastoral pertection, LA VILLETTE: PROGRAM AS PROCESS Landscape is a medium, as has been recalled By Cotner, Allen, and others, Uniquely capable of temporal change, trans formation, adaptation, and svecession ‘These qualities recommendlandscapeas an analog to contemporary processes of Urbanization and as a medium uniquely Suited to the open-endecness, indetermi racy, and change demanded by contempor rary urban conditions. As Allen putt: landscope is not ony a formal medel for urns ody out perhaps more norte, nde for process Among the first projects to orchestrate urban program asa landscape process was the competition for Pariss Pare ee la Villette. In 1982, la Viltteiovited submis sions fer an "Urban Park for the 2st Century” to.design the 125-acre foxmer site ‘of Paris's largest slaughterhouse. The dma” lition of the peripheral Parisian abattoire ‘and its replacement with intensively programmed public spaces precisely the Kind of project increasinoly found in post Industrial ities aroun the one. Anticpat ing mare recent design competitions in North America (see Downsview and Fresh Kill below), Villette proposod landscape 35 tho basic framowork for an urban trans formation of what had formerly been a working part of the city, et dereict by sites in economies of production and consump tion, The competition began a trajectory of postmodern urban park making In which lanescapeitsel was conceived as 2 complex medium capable of articulating relations among urban intastructure, pub events, and indeterminate urban futures tor large, ostindustil sites (Of the more than 470 entries from 70 countries, the vast majority tended to retrace familar profiles for public parks and typologies forthe recovery ofthe tractional City, while two submissions clearly signaled paradigm shit stl underway inthe recon ception of contemporary urbanism. Bernard Tschumis winning scheme represented a ‘quantum leap inthe development of and: scape urbanism by formulating andscane as the most suitable medium through which to order programmatic and politcal change overtime, especially complex arrangements of urban activities. This continue Teehum's long'standing interest in reconstituting ‘event and program as feitimate arenitec: tural concerns ine of the superficial stylis licisues which had dominated architectural scours in the postmodern era The 70s witnessed a period of renewea Interest inthe formal constitution of the City its typologies and its morphologies. While ceveloping analyses focused on the history ofthe city, thie attention was large devoid of programmatic justification. No analysis addressed the issue of the active ties that were to accurin the city. Nordic any properly address the fact that the ‘organization of functions and events was as ‘much anarciteetural concern as the elabo- ration of forms or styles” Equally significant was the impact of the second place entry by the Offic for Metro politan Architecture (OMA) ang Rem Koo has. Kooinaas's unbult second piace entry Proposed the justaposition of unplanned relations among various park programs as its primary organizing concept. Koolhaas’s by now clienéd organizational conceit of parallel strips of landscape radically juxtar sed irreconcilable contents, invoking the vertical uxtapesition of various programs om adjacent floors of Manhattan skyscrap- fs as described in Delirious New York As Koolhaas conceived i the infrastructure of the park was strategically organized tosupport an indeterminate and unknowable set of future uses overtime: itis safe to predict that during the ite of the park, the program will undergo constant change and adjustment. The more the park works thermore wil bein perpelut state of revision... The underiving principle of programmatic indeterminacy as a basis of the Format concept allows ay shit, moitcation, replacement, osubstutions to occur without ‘eamaging te initial hypothe The projects for la Villette by Tsehumi and Koothaas effectively introduced postmad- ‘ermieas of apen-endedness and indeterri racy and signaled landscape’s emergent role as 9 primary conceptual medium of postmodern urbanism: layered, nonnierar- chical tlexible, and strategic. Both entries olfered a form of nascent landscape urban Ismand advocated open works that endeay ored to accommodate all manner of urban ctivtes, planned and unplanned, imagined and unimagined, overtime Inthe wake a Vette’ intuence, pestmod fxn architectural culture has grown increas Inaly aware of andscape's role as a vlaole framework forthe contemporary city. Across Aagiverse spectrum of cultural postions, and scape has emerged as the only medium with tho potential to construct 2 meaningful and able public ean in North imerican cites, ‘The writing of Kenneth Frampton atests to this awareness. In the 1980s, Frampton lamented the impossibity of making mean- Ingfl urban form nthe context of specula tive capital andthe atomotile: tioned by optimizes techneoay thatthe pos billy of ereting significant urban form has become extremely limited. The restrictions Jointly imposed by automotive distribution ana tne wolatte pay of ane speculation serve to limit the scope of wroan cesion to such adearee nat an incervention tends tobe reduced ener to tne manipulation of elements presetermines tne imperatives of production or toa kind of superic'al masking which modern éevelopment ‘quires or the facition ot marketing anne Over the course of the following decade, Frampton’s argument for architecture as an instrument of local resistance to glonal culture concedes the unigue role of land Scape in providing a mocicum of market based urban order in his ater formulation, landscape, rather than object formalism, affords the greatest (albeit stil sim prose pect of constructing meaningful relations the cetritus of market production: ‘The dystopia ofthe megalopolis aireacy an inrvetsble historical fat: thas ton since Instaieg anew way oe, net to say a new nature... woul submit nat nsead we need to conceive of a remecialiandscane that is capable ot plying acetal and compensatory role in relation to the ongoing, destructive commosiiction ofthe manvmade word OF course, Frampton's int cultura resistance to globalization covla not be further afield rom Kachaas's professed engagement with the very mechanisms of Global capita. Kooinaas's practice of spi: hing a so-called neo-avant gaat position {rom global brands is by now well docu: ‘mented. inspite of their divergent cultural plc, by the end ofthe last decade, Koo has and Framoton nad concurred that lan scape had usurped arenitecture’s role as the only medium capable of ordering urbanism, AAs Koolhaas put iin 1998: Architecture sno longer the primary element of urban order, increasingly urban order fe Given by a thin horizontal vegeta plone Increasingly anoscape isthe primary clement of ursan end Arguably a third significant cultural potion, arealpoltik’ofkisez-faie econemic dee! ‘opment and public-private engagement in planning processes. is articulated ny Peter Rome in Making a Mice Landscape? Inter stingy Rowos conclusions are not ssi advocating acritical ole or the design disc blines in constructing a meaningful ublic feaim cut ofthe exurkan “mile” between raditional urban centers ane 9} ‘Suburbs Frampton summaries andincarpo ales Rowe's position: “Two salent factors may be derived from Rowe's thesis: frst, that priority should now be accorded to landscape, rather than t freestanding built Form, and second, that there is pressing nee to transform certain megalapoltan types such as shopping mals, parking lots, and tice pars ito iandeeapt but forms!LANDSCAPE URBAMISM AS LENS Another dimension of landscape urbanism concerns the use of landscape asa cultural Category oF lens fr describing the conte porary city. Seeminaiy without intervention by designers. and certainly without the benefit of anything that might be thought of as planning, contemporary cities are seen fo emulate natural systems. Again, the work of KooInaas is natable here, bu agains echoed by a host of other authors no deploy landscape as a descriptive ‘metaphor for contemporary urban condi tlons.” An example ofthis tendency can be found in Koothaas's essay on Attanta from SMU Xt ‘Alnta doesnot have the classical symptoms Of the city tis not lense: itis a spars, thin carpet of habitation, a hind of suprematist Composition of tle Fels. its strongest Contextual givens are vegeta and intrasteue tural ores and eoads. lana is nt a yet Isalandseape.® This tendency to use landscape as a repre- sentational ens to descr the contempo- rary city reminds us that landscape first existed as a genre of painting, a way of ‘seeing, belore it became actively engaged ‘neither designing bul environments or ‘reordering natural ones, The description of contemporary metropolitan areas. in ecological terms is most evident in work which appropriates the terms, conceptual categories, and operating methodologies of field ecology: the study of species as tney Felate to their natural environments.” One of the implicit advantages of landscape urbanism over urban desiga or civil engi neering is that it avoids the laeologica| ‘opposition of environmental and infrastruc: tural systems. In ou of modernist engineer: Ing “solutions through the civil engineer- Ing of natural environments, or postead- ernst urban design desires for a mythical return to origins, landscape urbaniem advo cates the contlatian, integration, an Fuld ‘exchange of environmental ang infrastruc: tural systems. Corner describes the poetic 4nd imaginative potential of this aiseiol- nary breaksiown 35 the iyical play between nectar and Nutrasweet, between birdsong and Beast Boys, between the springtime eed surae and rip of tap water, between mossy heats and hot asphaltic suriaces, Between controled spaces and vast, wld eserves... LANDSCAPE PROFESSION iile tendencies to account for uraan conc tions in terms of landscape first emerged in the research and proguction of architects, they are quickly ifilrating the profession of landscape architecture. Although the domi nant, mainstream culture of landscape architecture may stil) marginalize such ‘eas, they are increasingly recognized as a Viable aspect ofthe professions future, This shifts possibiein part, due to fact thatthe lisciptine is prosently benefiting trom the kind of critical reassessment that architec- tural culture experienced in tne wake ot ‘madernisms demise. Landscape fs enjoying renemed and broadened relevance on 2 variety of fronts through the increased amareness of mass audiences with regard to environmental anc urban problems, as well 4 8 critical reexamination of the field's historiesl and theoretical construction. The profession of landscape architecture has Denetited trom this critical recovery and froma newround relevance forthe problems facing cities today. Many landscape acl tectsin the United States haveinerited the professional activities that were once the domain of planners, as planning has largely ‘opted out of physicat design. For exam landscape architects have become increas: ‘ingly activo nthe reclamation of pes indus {tal sites andi the design of infrastructural siles. wile such activities were once the Work of ciuil engineers and land planners the uniaue training ana interdsciptinary sensitivities of landscape architects natu- ‘ally position them to address the most pressing urban issues facing the design Aisciptines. Australian landscape architect Richard Weller describes the landscape profession's newfound relevance: Postmodern landscape arcriecturs has done a boom trade in cleaning up after madecn intra structure as socities-in the fst world at least-shil from primery industry to post Industrial information societies. In common landscape sractic, work is more often than ‘ot conducted inthe shadow of te infas ue tural object. whichis given priority over the field nto which i tobe nserted. Homey, 2s ‘any landscape architect knows, the landscape Its isa media though whicn all ecological transactions must pas, isthe infrastructure othe tutore™ CONTEMPORARY LANDSCAPE PRACTICE The work of many contemporary landscape practices evidences the tendency to use landscape as 2 remedial salve for the wounds of the industrial age, Peter Latz's Work for abandoned industrial sites, such as the Duisburg Nord Steelworks Park in Germany and Richard Haag’s Gas Works Park in Seattle are both primary examples. ‘Many landscape arenitects nave taken up {his work inthe wake of public funging for browntleld remediation in North America, 2 seen in projects by Hargreaves Assoc! tes and Julie Bargman, among athers. ‘Another by now well-established landscape proctce isthe integration of transportation infrastructure with public space, This Is ‘exemplifiod by Barcstona’s program of public space ard peripheral road improve: ‘ents in the late 80s and early 90s, includ Ing the Teintat Cloverleaf Park by Enric Batlle and Joan Roig, and Park Fobienou by Xavier Vendrell and Manvel Ruisanchee. While this genre of work-the use of land Scape in the stitching of infrastructure into urban fabries-has wall-estabished prece- ‘ents, tne Barcelona peripheral roadwork is ‘out intervening in their ecological surround: ings in any substantial way Likewise, West 18% ambitious scheme for the Schiphol Amsterdam Airport Landscape abandons the professional tradition of specifically {detailed plating plans in favor of 3 general botanical strategy of sunflowers, clover and bechives. By avoiding detailed composi tional designs and planting diagrams. the project is able to respond to Schiphot's Programmatic and political futures: land scape is conceived as a strategic partner in the complex pracess of airport planning rather than (2 s usualy the case) simply an unfortunate victim oi. Antner example ot landscape urbanism asa professional ame: work's West a recevelopment plan tor the Borneo and Sporenburg Harbor. This large- scale redevelopment is conceived as an enormous landscape urbanism project orchestrated by West 8 nto whic tne work of numerous ather architects and designers 's organized. The project simultaneously maximizes eiversity of entity through the Insertion of countiess landscaped courts and yards and the commissioning of ume ous architects and designers, Taken together, the diversity of West 8's recent production illustrates the potential for anc scape architecture to overtake planning as the discipline responsible for reordering postindustria urbanism. Several recent international design compet tions for the reuse of enormously scaled industrial sites in North American cities have used landscape as thelr primary ‘medium. Downsview Park, oeated on the site of an abandoned military airbase in Toronto, and Fresh Klis, sited on the wora's largest landfil on Staten Island, New York ‘offer perhaps two ofthe mast fully-formed ‘examples ot contemporary landscape ura Jsm as apoied to the detritus ofthe inaus~ tral city While significant astnetions exist between the two commissions, as do doubts ‘ato their eventual realization, the body of work produced for them represents an ‘emerging consensus that designers ofthe built environment, across dlscipines, would ‘do weilto examine landscape as the medium trough which to conceive the renovation of the postindustrial ity, Schemes for Downsview and Fresh Kills by Corner and Allen/Field Operations, for example, propose the accumation and orchestration ‘of absolutely diverse and atentialy nar: ‘Gruous contents. Typical of this wor, and by now standard fae for projects of ths type. ‘are detailed diagrams of phasing, animal habitats, succession planting, hydrological systems, and programmatic and planning regimes While these slagrams may initially ‘overwhelm with information, they present _anunderstanding ofthe enormous complex ities confronting any work at this scale Perticularty compelling i the complex inter weaving of natural ecologies with the soa cultural, and Infrastructurat layers of the contemporary city ‘ile botn KooInaas/OMA (in partnership with graphic designer Bruce Mau) and ‘schum) suomittes entrlas a5 tinalsts at Downsview, thistine they found their histor «al fortunes mare or less precisely reverse. The iconic and sound bite friendly Kool haas/OMA and Mau scheme “Tree City” was awarded frst prize and the commission, while the moro sublime layered, ang inteloc: tually challenging scheme of the office of Beroare Techuri wit doubtless eno oreater influence within architectural cutee, partic: Lary as te information age transforms our Understanding and use of the natural Tschum's "The Data andthe Coyote” pro ect for Downsview presented an electronic analog this iongrstanding interest in urban events, with richly detailed diagrams of succession planting and the seeding of amb ent urbanity in the mist of seemingly deso late prairies. Tschumni's positions at Downsview and Ia Villette are strikingly Consistent in ther indictments ofthe nine- teenthrcentury Oimstedian model and thelr _advoeation of landscape informed by 3 ube tous, universal urbanism: Neither theme park nor witite preserve, Donnsvien does not seek to ene using the conventions of raitlanal park compositions seh a8 those of le YauK oF Olmsted. The combination of agvanced miltry teemnolies ith watercourses and ows ans downstream suggests another thi, quid dita sensi ty, Aistris, information centers, pubic per formance spaces internet and worldwide meb _cessalpalt toward a redefinition of received ideas about parks, nature, an recreation, ina twenty fest century seting where everythings ‘urban even in the mgt ofthe widernes.22 Each ofthe Downsview and Fresh Kils pro fects is notable forthe presence of lan: scape architects on interaiscipinary tears fof consultants. whereas the la Villette competition named a sinale lead architect to orchestrate the entire projec. Striking ‘and consistent in this regard are the central involvement of ecologists a5 well as infor ‘mation oF communication designers on virtually ail teams. This is clear aistinet {rom the overarching role of architects In previcus regimes of urban design and plan ning, where such periphe c’ltner absent altogether (ecology) or simaly ‘subsumed within the professional practice of the architect information design, While remains unclear if either of the winning schemes by Koatnaas/OMA and Mau for Downsview or Corner and Allen/Fiek! ‘Operations for Fresh Kills is actualy imple ‘mented should be understood as a taiure ‘of politcal imagination ana cultura leader shiprather than ofthe competition processes (or the projects they generated. Taken call tively, these projets and the work of thelr competitors attest to the profound transor ‘mations ofthe dsciptinary and professional assumptions that currently drive the design ofthe built environment, Particularly evident Is the fact that projects of this scalo and significance demand professional expertise at {the intersections of ecology and engineering {and socal policy and politcal process. The -synthsis of tis range of knowledge and its fembosiment in public design processes recommens landscape urbanism sa ascot inary framework for reconceiving where we lveand row welive there. «