LANDSCRIPT IS A PUBLICATION ON LANDSCAPE AESTHETICS INVITING AUTHORS FROM DIFFERENT DISCIPLINES TO INVEST THOUGHT ON ESTABLISHED MODES OF PERCEIVING, REPRESENTING AND CONCEIVING NATURE. STEERED BY AN EDITORIAL BOARD COMPRISED OF INTERNATIONAL EXPERTS FROM VARIOUS FIELDS WHICH WILL ENCOURAGE A CRITICAL AND CONTROVERSIAL DIALOGUE, ITS GOAL IS TO ACT AS A REVELATOR OF CONVENTIONAL PERCEPTIONS OF LANDSCAPE AND TO CULTIVATE THE DEBATE ON AESTHETICS AT A SCHOLARLY LEVEL. THIS DISCUSSION PLATFORM AIMS AT REKINDLING A THEORETICAL DEBATE, IN THE HOPE OF FOSTERING A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE IMMANENCE OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE IN OUR CULTURE, FOCUSING CRITICALLY ON THE WAY WE THINK, LOOK, AND ACT UPON SITES.

Professor Christophe Girot, Albert Kirchengast (Chief Editors)

Institute of Landscape Architecture ILA, D–Arch, ETH Zürich

EDITORIAL BOARD

Annemarie Bucher, ZHdK Zürich

Elena Cogato Lanza, EPF Lausanne

Stanislaus Fung, UNSW Sydney

Dorothée Imbert, Washington University in St. Louis

Hansjörg Küster, Leibniz Universität Hannover

Sébastien Marot, Ecole d’Architecture Marne-la-Vallee, Paris

Volker Pantenburg, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar

Alessandra Ponte, Université de Montréal

Christian Schmid, ETH Zürich

Ralph Ubl, eikones NFS Bildkritik Basel

Charles Waldheim, Harvard GSD

Kongjian Yu, Peking University

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Manuscript proposals are welcome in fields appropriate for Landscript. Scholarly submissions should be formatted in accordance with The Chicago Manual of Style and the spelling should follow American convention. The full manuscript must be submitted as a Microsoft Word document, on a CD or disk, accompanied by a hard copy of the text. Accompanying images should be sent as TIFF files with a resolution of at least 300 dpi at 8 × 9-inch print size. Figures should be numbered clearly in the text. Image captions and credits must be included with submissions. It is the responsibility of the author to secure permissions for image use and pay any reproduction fees. A brief letter of inquiry and author biography must also accompany the text.

Acceptance or rejection of submissions is at the discretion of the editors. Please do not send original materials, as submissions will not be returned.

Please direct submissions to this address:

Landscript

Chair of Professor Christophe Girot

Institute of Landscape Architecture ILA, ETH Zürich

Wolfgang-Pauli-Strasse 15, HIL H 54.2

8093 Zurich, Switzerland

Questions about submissions can be emailed to:

kirchengast@arch.ethz.ch

Visit our website for further information:

www.girot.arch.ethz.ch

LANDSCRIPT 3

Topology

LANDSCRIPT 3

CHRISTOPHE GIROT

ANETTE FREYTAG

ALBERT KIRCHENGAST

DUNJA RICHTER (EDS.)

TOPOLOGY

TOPICAL THOUGHTS ON THE CONTEMPORARY LANDSCAPE

In this publication, masculine forms are used in the interest of readability. The feminine participles are implicitly included.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword

Wilhelm Krull

How (Not) to Read This Book

Albert Kirchengast

Landscape Theories in Transition. Shifting Realities and Multiperspective Perception

Annemarie Bucher

Faith in a Community

Gion A. Caminada

The Elegance of Topology

Christophe Girot

Landscape and Modernity

Stefan Körner

The Relationship between Plants and Landscape Architectural Design — An Attempt at Repositioning

Norbert Kühn

“Landscapology”

Linking Natural Sciences, Humanities, and Aesthetics

Hansjörg Küster

The City Is Not Landscape

Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani

On The Freedom of Designing Nature and the Limitations of The Arbitrary

Lothar Schäfer

The Sensuality of the Engineer

Joseph Schwartz

Landscapes of Nature and Art

Martin Seel

Some Selected Observations on the Work of Peter Joseph Lenné

Michael Seiler

On Designing Infrastructure Systems as Landscape

Antje Stokman

Function, Fiction, Form, and Feeling. On the “Aesthetic of Pleasantness” in Landscape Architecture

Wulf Tessin

Appendix

Foreword

Wilhelm Krull

“We have walked through the great outdoors countless times and, with varying degrees of attention, observed trees and bodies of water, meadows and grain fields, hills and houses, and thousands of variations of light and clouds—but looking at one thing, or at these or those things together, does not mean we consciously see a ‘landscape.’ Such fragmented content of our visual field is not what should be capturing our attention. We need to be aware of a new whole, an entity that goes beyond individual elements, that is not bound to their specific meanings, and does not mechanically assemble them into a design—that is when landscape happens.”—1

Choosing a holistic perspective rather than viewing individual elements, as emphasized by Georg Simmel in his “Philosophie der Landschaft,” is also an aspect of the theoretical position asserted by Christophe Girot and his colleagues at the Institute for Landscape Architecture at the ETH Zürich. Many current landscape architecture projects, according to their diagnosis, are defined by economic considerations or ecological fashions. But as the contributions in this book emphasize, landscape architects should neither be satisfied with their role as decorators who spruce up the leftover, open spaces around infrastructure facilities, nor with their role as nature conservationists who try to heal landscape or defend it from interventions. Instead, there should be a design-based approach from the beginning, which understands landscape in all its complexity. The topology concept, the term given to the theory of site and topos, precisely characterizes this approach. Working topologically means examining in detail the planned site of intervention, understanding it in relation to other aspects—such as landscape, infrastructure, or built structures—organizing the space landscape architecturally, and considering people. “Space” in this sense is not understood as a mere physical and geographical dimension, but as a multidimensional network generated by culture and in many respects historically variable.—2 Reintroducing aesthetics is essential to this approach, and equal status must be given to economic and ecological factors. Landscape is more than a functional space; the poetic and symbolic significance it possesses is vital to understanding it holistically.

This approach greatly boosts the status of landscape architecture. It no longer responds to the planning decisions of others, but has a fundamental, integrative— topological—function, by connecting a specific landscape’s different dimensions. It is understood, of course, that this integrative capacity can only result from including all participating disciplines as a “partner-based orchestration of institutions and professions that directly or indirectly design the space giving priority to aesthetics.”—3

Through funding initiatives, the Volkswagen Foundation wants to encourage research focused on emerging, high-risk areas, and to transcend boundaries—whether between science and practice, between specific professional cultures, or between different countries. We are happy to support Professor Christophe Girot’s plan to develop a theoretical position in landscape architecture that uses the topology concept to cross the borders between disciplines and methodologies. This is even more the case, because the declared objective of the project is not only to benefit the discipline through theoretical and critical debates and question its self-image, but also to influence design practice and establish a new and fundamental, “landscape-oriented” attitude in urban planning, which will hopefully have a sustainable effect on the quality of our urban life. The mission statement should be a design concept that is holistic and rooted in our daily life, and which also connects scientific and cultural aspects.

One of the cornerstones for this project was the workshop entitled “Topologie—Zur Gestaltung der gegenwärtigen Landschaft” (Topology—On Designing Landscape Today) held from October 11–13, 2012 in the Semper Aula of the ETH Zürich. The main lectures of the conference, which defined the project, were revised and are now available as collected essays in this book. Numerous experts from various disciplines and professional perspectives—ranging from philosophy to history, garden design, sociology, and architecture—were invited to discuss the integrative effect of landscape architecture. They also proposed ways in which a holistic spatial design that integrates the usefulness and the beauty of landscape on equal terms might be achieved. It became clear that contemporary landscape architecture lacks a theoretical foundation, partly due to the fact that academic training has been deficient since the nineteen-seventies. Theoretical professorships have not been not replaced, while fundamental questions and an analysis of new theoretical approaches and artistic design processes have remained superficial or are lacking completely. The consequences are design concepts that are often scarcely reflected theoretically or scrutinized critically. For this reason, Christophe Girot and his team, first and foremost Anette Freytag, but also her colleagues Albert Kirchengast, Suzanne Krizenecky, and Dunja Richter have taken on the ambitious goal of not only shifting aesthetic issues and design to the core of the theoretical debate, but also of anchoring them in academic curricula and improving university education in professional landscape architecture. For this, it is necessary to promote a theory of landscape architecture, architecture, engineering, and urban design, which considers the relationship between various disciplines and merges economical, ecological, and aesthetic factors.

This publication, Topology, forms the basis for an international conference—also supported by the Volkswagen Foundation—held in June 2013 at Herrenhausen Palace in Hanover, among the unique landscape ensemble of the Herrenhausen gardens. Under the title, “Thinking the Contemporary Landscape. Positions and Oppositions,” scientists and practitioners in landscape architecture and related disciplines participated in an inter-, and transdisciplinary dialogue as well as an exchange of fundamental ideas that go far beyond the design of landscape.

My thanks are due to the speakers at the Zurich event who were willing to revise their essays for this publication, as well as the editors of the book, including Albert Kirchengast who was responsible for editing the contributions. “Nothing thrives without care; and the most admirable things lose their value through inappropriate treatment,” wrote the Prussian landscape architect Peter Joseph Lenné. This statement also undoubtedly applies to landscape architecture in general, and I am sure that the authors of Topology are giving it the very best of care.

Hanover, September 2013

1 Georg Simmel: “Philosophie der Landschaft,” in: Die Güldenkammer, 11/1913, pp. 635–644 (my translation).

2 See Hille von Seggern, Julia Werner: “Entwerfen als integrierender Erkenntnisprozess,” in: Hille von Seggern, Julia Werner, Lucia Grosse-Bächle (eds.): Creating Knowledge, Berlin 2008.

3 See the funding application to the Volkswagen Foundation and the publication: Christophe Girot, Anette Freytag, Albert Kirchengast, Suzanne Krizenecky, Dunja Richter: Topologie / Topology, issue 15 of the publication series “Pamphlet,” Zurich 2012.

How (Not) to Read This Book

Albert Kirchengast

The effort of reconstructing all the attempts that have sought to challenge the ideal of a linear flow of reading from the preface to the acknowledgements, undoubtedly deserves attention. This has taken either the form of narration (recently for instance in Jon Fosse’s frugal dialogues and Jonathan Franzen’s complex narrative strategy in his brilliant novel, Freedom), or of a graphic intervention (probably passé among graphic designers), or some “theoretical construct” (which still needs to be seen in print). But the concept of a book in Western culture still maintains that its content, and likewise its physical form should stubbornly unfold accordingly with headings, paragraphs, and other ingredients aimed at keeping the reader on track and entertained.

However, the way in which we understand text is not that linear, nor even direct; we can comprehend things in leaps, do somersaults, and a few loopdidoops too while reading. Some even believe in such a thing as the “decisive moment.” Moreover: what was once practiced half seriously by highbrow hopefuls, as a way of “digesting”, and taking a certain distance from knowledge, may, on the other hand become exposed methodologically, resulting in a break with underlying assumptions. This form of “comprehending” occurs as a paradigm shift, subsequently assuming an absolute distance from what is known, and even has the propensity to reinvent its starting point (see Kuhn).

The potential of such concepts at the onset of what has since become a form of tradition, meaning the constant dismantling and reconstruction of the Old-Modern, Western concept of science, is expressed in roughly the following manner: “Basic scientific and artistic decisions must by nature be made democratically” . Yet, following Paul Feyerabend in his stand, a democratic approach to the ideal of a creative scientist is only one side of the coin. The other side, of course, is the uncertainty brought about when the contours between science, politics, and economics tend to blur . Which is why Karl Popper decided to follow his own path. He too holds nothing sacred. Yet his Critical Rationalism indeed recognizes a necessity for correct knowledge: “Knowledge is the search for truth—the search for objectively true, enlightening theories” . In order to entertain a suspicion against such “truth,” science was obliged to search again and again for the falsification of theories that were valid in the first place. Skepticism in research is a virtue but, then again a concession is made by Popper to these “piecemeal engineers,” who are allowed to feel reassured with an element of certainty “as if”: as if they were holding on to something tangible. Could this mean that a fundamental longing for certainty, originating in our own , undermines the research establishment? This would happily be supported by the newer sociology of scientific knowledge at any time. Yet, there is a true challenge in the idea of generating a creative scientific discussion, which would oscillates between relativism dampening the confidence in “useable results,” and a simultaneous openness towards “negotiations” about an own starting point. The question we now face is how can such an approach to theory be pursued in a more or less theory-unfriendly academic world such as that of landscape architecture?

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