Walking and Reading in Landscape

Abstract

In a previous essay (Jacks 2004), the author identified four walking practices—siting, measuring, reading, and merging—that inform the design and perception of the built environment. This article focuses on the practice of reading by considering three examples of spiritual, aesthetic, and psychological walking: walking in the medieval monastery courtyard, walking in the life of the artist Richard Long, and walking in the contemporary lifestyle shopping center. The examples illuminate how we use landscapes to construct our sense of self, identity, integrity, and authenticity. They also show how the act of walking facilitates reading at both the near-at-hand tactile scale and the larger scale of visual and narrative culture. In medieval spiritual walking, monks used the monastery courtyard not only as a living metaphor for the world, but also as a device to make explicit connections between written texts and actual experiences. In contemporary aesthetic walking, the artist Richard Long addresses some of the challenges of living under the vastly altered conditions of modernity. In contemporary psychological terms, developers of lifestyle shopping centers package consumer walking experiences that promise self-fulfillment and self-improvement. In these examples, walking the landscape is more than an alternative to intellectual knowledge: it is essential to knowing.