Abstract
The values behind the question of landscape appreciation and evaluation also inform the greater question of landscape content. Here the content of landscape architecture is taken as the raw material transformed through design, material from which we may derive pleasure and/or significance. What sort of raw material, its potential and its relevance, is the essay’s subject. Admittedly, structure, space, and pattern may constitute content in and of themselves, a poetics of form and space. But deeper works may result from using these vehicles to embody other types of content, among them the understanding and judicious application of ecological processes (including the immediate as well as larger site over time), and the regard for humans singly and in groups, contemporary and over time. The manner in which the designer addresses these factors may also elevate a physical statement of these concerns, alone or together, to a poetic level. It is admittedly a difficult task, and without doubt, no work is ever perfect in all respects. Nonetheless, several landscape architects currently in practice have produced designs with these considerations at their core. The work of Hargreaves Associates in the United States, and Georges Descombes and Dieter Kienast in Switzerland serve as the prime case studies.
The landscape architect’s project here utilizes the eternalized moment of history to inform the making of physical places. The landscape must succeed in the present—social provisions, construction intelligence, aesthetic interest—amalgamating the voices of the past with those of the “now.”
