PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Annemarie Bucher
TI  - G 59: A Manifesto for an Ambivalent Modernism
AID  - 10.3368/lj.26.2.236
DP  - 2007 Sep 21
TA  - Landscape Journal
PG  - 236--251
VI  - 26
IP  - 2
4099  - http://lj.uwpress.org/content/26/2/236.short
4100  - http://lj.uwpress.org/content/26/2/236.full
AB  - The first Swiss Horticulture Exhibition, known as G 59, took place on Lake Zürich in 1959. Despite its horticultural label, G 59 was intended to demonstrate that landscape architecture was a modern profession with defined boundaries, a strong theoretical foundation, and recognizable contemporary aesthetics. However, G 59 was also a contested field between professional landscape architects and gardening trade organizations. In an effort to distance themselves from the more service-oriented discipline, landscape designers established a rapprochement with contemporary art and theory, specifically, Concrete Art and Tachism. This paper investigates the reorientation of Swiss landscape architecture from a profession with roots in horticulture to one with theoretical and aesthetic claims. G 59 can be seen not only as a venue for and an expression of this reorientation, but also as a manifesto through which landscape architects communicated their beliefs to design colleagues and the wider public.