 |
 |
 |
Jeremy Foster
Trained as both an architect and landscape architect, and noted
in the last newsletter, Jeremy Foster has remained in the Department
as the 2003/04 Halprin Fellow. He has taught landscape architectural
design, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, at the Universities
of Pennsylvania, Cape Town and Virginia, and at Virginia Tech.
In one article Jeremy writes: Landscape architects do not, primarily,
make landscapes; they make drawings as a means to making landscapes.
It is essential that we grasp both the consequences and the possibilities
that flow from this fact; how we construe landscape, what it is
cannot be separated from how we represent it. The construct of landscape
– an imageable, discussable portion of the surrounding world
– emerged in Western culture at precisely the time that modes
of representation like mapping and perspectival painting rendered
the world visible in a particular way. This connection means that,
when designing, how we describe landscape can itself be as potent
and imaginative as the crafting of a material intervention in it
(as one landscape theorists remarks, to observe is to begin to design).
Therefore, in teaching, I tend to focus as much on how we “see”
landscape as I do on its material transformation. I place apostrophes
around the word see quite intentionally, because although the construct
of landscape is usually associated with visual images of one kind
or another, we do not, in the first instance, experience it in that
way. The landscape medium refracts an array of psychological, cultural,
social and mnemonic connotations, all of which are rooted in resolutely
corporeal modes of signification – movement, materiality,
measure, rhythm, gesture, scale and orientation – that are
obscured by landscape as visual image. Finding ways of representing
these dynamic corporeal dimensions of the landscape in precise and
yet evocative ways is for me the starting point for all meaningful
landscape design.
Here, though, we come up against the central conundrum of landscape
design: that is largely through representations of various kinds
(and for landscape architects, that invariably means drawing) that
we can explore these non-visual landscape phenomena. For this reason,
I place great emphasis in teaching on the kinds of drawings we make,
and what they can do for us. Because they allow us exteriorize thought,
drawings encourage us to move beyond preconceived forms and images,
and engage in thinking that, metaphorically, asks what if? It is
largely through the reflexive (ie. being aware of the consequences
of ones own actions and constantly modifying those actions accordingly)
use of representations as a site of discovery that we become skilled
designers, and develop the ability to synthesize, experience, imagination
and speculate (ie. to think about various aspects of something,
to meditate or ponder). Usually, the better (and more varied) our
representational skills, the better our ability to imagine and design.
Thus, even more than drawings that record and illustrate things
we already know, I am interested in drawings that help us to discover,
to give birth to something which does not yet exist. This seems
to me to be a vital weapon for landscape architects to have today,
when it is largely synthetic, creative invention that sets them
apart from the other problem-solving professions which address the
physical environment. To the degree that it encourages reflexive
thinking, this critical, inventive approach to representation also
teaches us how to harness our own subjective imagination (arguably,
the source of inspiring design) and weave it together with objective,
intersubjective factors (the stuff of ethical design) within a single
project.
Thus, my abiding interest in the topic of representation links my
design practice (which often addressed with hard-to-trace cultural
practices and natural processes) and my research and writing (which
deals with how people physically and imaginatively use landscape
to forge a sense of who they are). |
|