I've been sitting on this almost finished post for almost two weeks, patiently, then not so patiently waiting for Metropolis to get around to posting their November content online... mainly for this month's great profile about James Corner, and some sweet new pics of the High Line and other work. Finally it's here, and we can properly illustrate this article 'The Long View' and elucidate what Corner means to the profession? 
:: what can YOU learn from this man? - image via Metropolis
This picks up our threads from previous discussions of influence and professional voice... Perhaps Corner is that voice. Not a magazine to shy away from hyperbole, the frontispiece proudly starts out with the simple statement...
"By embracing the city's industrial past - reclaiming landfills, remediating browfields, developing neglected waterfronts - James Corner has helped reinvent the field of landscape architecture."
No small feat, for sure - but I think perhaps it's deserved. And since the intra-professional backbiting of a few years back had died back - perhaps the profession has finally turned that corner (no pun intended) that we all needed to attain some professional validation. I haven't heard much lately about the art versus science debate. Nor is there a bemoaning of ecology as a cop-out to design credibility within the professional dialogue. Seems, as many of us mentioned, you can (or rather have to and certainly want to) have both. And it's refreshing to see the change. Not that we've buttoned up every issue, but there seems some sort of viable platform (to borrow the election term) upon which we exist as a profession and proceed with our work. At the very least we've cracked out of our shells and remembered the importance of not just what we do - but that we need to be visible and vocal leaders in this world as well. There is credit due to a number of players - and one of those is definitely Mr. Corner. 
:: Fresh Kills - images via Metropolis
The article is a good overview about Corner, and his professional work with Field Operations giving a broad timeline of 25 years of professional and academic work that has turned from writing to competitions to realized large scale built works. It touches on some of the foundations, such as Fresh Kills, as well as showing the expansion and evolution of the scope and breadth of FO's work. It's an impressive evolution and interesting to see some visuals of newer work, such as the Lake Ontario Park in Toronto: "Similar to Fresh Kills... a combination of wetlands and uplands on an environmentally degraded site. The design accepts the complicated landscape rather than smothering it with a single-minded vision."
And the Shelby Farms proposal (previously covered by L+U here) which influence the overall role of the profession. As Corner posits, we should occupy that driver's seat in leading these design interventions: "Rather than wielding bushes and trees—the proverbial parsley around the roast of proper architecture—landscape architects are, as Corner sees it, the best prepared to tackle the complex, large-scale, often environmentally damaged sites that have become the hallmark of urban regeneration."
:: Shelby Farms - image via Metropolis
It's also refreshing to see some confidence and candor coming from the profession. One note that stuck in my head from the article: "“I don’t want to be embarrassed to be a landscape architect because we’re thought of as tree people who come in at the end of the day,” he says." It's something we can all support and strive in our practice to promote as well.
:: Fresh Kills - image via Metropolis
The article does spend a lot of time on Fresh Kills, particularly the scale (immense) and the timeline (long) for implementation. As a landscape architect best known for popularizing temporality and duration - it seems even Corner is prone to the antsiness of the designer: "...the slowness grates on Corner. “I think I may have become less patient,” he says. “You go all out, you put a lot into this, and it’s frustrating to see the way and not have it followed.” He went on, “It’s a great profession, a great medium, but I tell you, it’s such a difficult medium to move.” 
:: Fresh Kills Phase One - images via Metropolis
:: Repurposed Diggers as Signage - images via Metropolis
Perhaps some of the long timeline will be abated by the High Line, which is progressing steadily from zoomy renderings to actual reality.
The article has some great new images of the High Line's continually evolving construction and implementation of the High Line... I particularly enjoy the precast fingers... here's a few more.
:: images via Metropolis
As an further endnote... Has anyone noticed Metropolis' coverage of Landscape Architecture lately. Seems as if some of the editors have finally discovered the fair profession since Susan Szensasy's commentary from last year... thoughts?
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Corner(ing) the Market
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Pruning AAgrotecture
Most readers have no doubt seen Alexander Trevi's great quartet of projects in an ongoing series on AAgrotecture over at Pruned. Part of a Vertical Studio from the Architecture Association (AA) in London taught by Nannette Jackowski and Ricardo de Ostos - the purpose was to address a central question: "Can extremes of programmatic effectiveness blend with the fragility of human habitat?"
This complexly simple question illicited a number of interesting responses. The four projects that are featured are worth a thorough reading and viewing... and I won't duplicate Trevi's excellent text, but wanted to show some of the great imagery of these projects... Be sure to check out the full posts via the title links (all images via Pruned):
Kings Vineyard London
Aquaculture
Land Art Influence
As I muddle through the very dense and wonderful book 'Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings', it's continually evident that 1) Smithson was way ahead of his time in thinking of sites within the context of emphemerality and change, and 2) the field of landscape architecture can learn significant amounts from the library of land art - not just in reframing ideas within a landscape context, but in thinking seriously about process. The disappearance and re-emergence of Smithson's Spiral Jetty (1970) is just one example amongst many to ponder.
:: Spiral Jetty - image via Treehugger
Smithson is also one example of a land artist with a significant written documentation to back it up, allowing perhaps a greater glimpse into the mind of the artist at work. I will post a more extensive discussion of the book once I am able to digest it all in a meaningful way, but in the meantime, there's been some interesting land-art news as well as some interesting installations that are worth a look.
Some perils of this large-scale and immovable art... namely potential degradation and removal due to land pressures. One current example is the afforementioned Spiral Jetty, via Treehugger: "Now it, and other such natural pieces are under threat because of real estate development and oil drilling pressures. In this case, an oil company wanted to conduct exploratory drilling into the lake bed. In response a protest was mounted by the Dia Art Foundation and the state of Utah received thousands of complaints. "What we particularly object to is the potential visual impact that drilling might have on the work, as well as the equally important environmental impact it could have on the lake itself and its delicate ecosystem,” says a director of Dia. “An oil spill could be disastrous for the lake, and therefore, the jetty.” 
:: images via Robert Smithson
The work of Michael Heizer got some digital ink as well, including a threat (in the form of a new train route adjacent to his long-term piece 'City' (circa 1970-present):
:: image via Treehugger
And the natural degradation of Double Negative (1969), which "...consists of two trenches cut into the the Mormon Mesa in Nevada. Around 240,000 tons of sandstone was displaced to create the ravines which span 1,500 feet and are each 50 feet deep." While the natural degradation may seem a threat, it was part of the process: "The artist asked that no conservation be undertaken on the piece so the walls of the man-made canyon are slowly crumbling and it is disappearing."
:: image via Treehugger
And via Tropolism, perhaps a way to find the site before it turns from it's present nothingness, and degenerates back into dust... "Greg Allen does the homework and finds one of our favorite works of Land Art, Double Negative, using the GPS device in the car of his in-laws. The large yet simple cut in the earth, famously difficult to find in the era of cars without GPS and the before-time of non-internet, is now super easy to find! He also found it on Google Maps in a really great satellite photo of the work."
:: image via Tropolism
An exhibition that has made the rounds (and is recently housed at San Francisco's de Young Museum) is Maya Lin's Systematic Landscapes. Inhabitat covers the new work in a post entitled "Re-mixed Topographies' which alludes to the idea of mixing the scientific with the representational in these studio works, "...without compromising the wisdom and wonder of studying natural phenomena" The centerpiece is '2x4 Landscape', as well as a few other works included as well.
:: 2x4 Landscape - image via Inhabitat
:: Line - image via Inhabitat
:: Lake Pass - image via Inhabitat
Spanning the gap between the monumental land art and the studio installations, a couple of recent additions include The Sequence by Arne Qunize (via MoCo Loco) and Field of Light by Bruce Munro (via Dezeen). These installations add to our continuum of landscape interventions - often playing off the context of site and in these cases - the adjacent architecture. 
:: The Sequence - images via MoCo Loco
:: Field of Light - images via Dezeen
It looks like land art, landscape-based studio art, and art in the landscape, are all still alive and well in contemporary design society. That, to me, is a good sign.
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