Argument

Landscape

KÁZMÉR KOVÁCS

Composing a magazine dossier on the relationship between landscape and architecture implies from the outset the assumption of certain biases. We refer to some previous such attempts: the "Green" dossier in the recent issue of Dilemaveche1, the issue subtitled "Urban Landscape" of Arhitextdesign2, the one on "Gardens, parks, public space: Landscape and Architecture" of the Budapest-based architecture magazine Magyarépítőművészet3, the "Paysages" dossier of the magazine L'Architecture d'aujourd'hui4, and finally the May 2013 issue of Architectural Design, with the theme "The New Pastoralism: Landscape into Architecture".

The magazines each follow their own editorial tradition. The texts collected in the "Green" dossier take a "journalistic-dilemmatic" approach to the subject, with a diversity of contributions bringing together the garden and the landscape, living and reflection on it. All this in the context of the present times, which are underpinned by multiple crises (economic, identity, ecological...). The contributions as a whole are marked by a welcome anthropological imprint, determined by an interest in "the Romanian's relationship with nature [...], the average citizen, the ordinary man"5.

Arhitext design magazine publishes a number of landscape design projects, introduced by the editor-in-chief's editorial. The conception of the issue is indicated by the statement that "inevitably, contextualism leads to landscape, not in the classical terminology, but in that of the global imagining/perception of a space, a site"6. Thus, nothing could be more natural than for the central place in the debate to be occupied by the development of the "Calea Eroilor de Târgu Jiu" ensemble, which was as topical at the time of the magazine's publication as it is now.

As announced in the editorial, the Hungarian magazine's editorial staff set out to find answers to the question: "What do gardens and parks look like in the eyes of the 21st century city-dweller?"7. To this end, a number of landscape projects or projects with a substantial urban vegetation element are published, all accompanied by appropriate critical comments. The endeavor is supported by the supplement Utóirat [Post-scriptum], with a parallel series of relevant historical or theoretical articles, embracing a broad spectrum of topics, from the archaeology of ancient Roman gardens to land art criticism.

The prestigious French architectural journal takes up, in the same dual garden-landscape register, the debate around the stakes of landscape design in general, placed in a contemporary context and particularized with several case studies. The concept is to critically discuss contemporary landscape gardening against a historical and theoretical background that makes it comprehensible. It is a remarkable attempt to illustrate "the invisible dimension of places. Like a unifying substratum, this dimension sustains the links between near and far, between place and its image"8.

The very recent issue of AD magazine takes up the theme within the now traditional framework of the relationship between today's city-dweller and nature, as mediated by technologically and conceptually ultra-sophisticated architectures, often marked by ecological ideology. Projects are presented that illustrate how the vast means of contemporary architecture "are used to create small, subtle, living spaces that help us remember that we are human"9.

Why, with such preliminaries, propose a different dossier of landscape in relation to architecture?

First of all, the option has been favored to privilege one of the meanings of the idea of landscape, among the many meanings that have taken the right of citadel in recent decades: thus, landscape is considered a culturally and historically determined mental construct, which manifests itself in many forms of representation of the anthropic world. The dominant visuality and abstract character of this idea of landscape has repercussions on the way we perceive, value and change the inhabited environment.

Secondly, architecture is approximated in the broadest sense of the planning and conceptualization of inhabitation, as a technical discipline and at the same time an art of space. Therefore, it seemed that the juxtaposition of architecture with other landscape arts could add additional dimensions to what has already been thought and read on landscape as a visual-affective-aesthetic-philosophical environment of our existence.

Consequently, an attempt has been made to illustrate the landscape dimension of architecture not in a restricted field, but, on the contrary, in a more comprehensive one, while taking the risk of a theoretical heterogeneity, at first sight disconcerting. The contributions to this dossier are only partly architectural discussions. Architecture is always evoked, of course, but often in the company of and through the other visual arts with landscape implications (painting and photography), literature and reflection on landscape dwelling. Thus, alongside landscape architects and urban planners, the authors featured in the review are philosophers, geographers, artists, art and literary historians. The result is not a sum of these diverse contributions, but a colorful and changing "landscape" of the world as seen by our contemporaries which, we hope, succeeds in constituting an avatar, representative of late modernity, of the relationship between architecture and landscape.

Notes:

1. Year X, Number 485, May 30-June 5, 2013, file coordinated by Iaromira Popovici.

2. Year IX, Number 5 (112), May 2002, file coordinated by Constantin Hostiuc.

3. "Kert, park, köztér: táj és építőművészet", issue 45, year VIII, 2008/4.

4. Issue 363, March-April 2006. It still appeared in the series edited by Jean-Michel Place, ending with issue 373, November-December 2007, dedicated to the Oscar Niemeyer centenary. Since 2009, the new series of L'Architecture d'aujourd'hui has been edited by a team coordinated by Jean Nouvel.

5. Iaromira Popovici, "Povești verzi și jardinrești", in Dilema veche, op. cit.

6. Alexandru Sandu, "Landscape - beyond fashion", interview by Arpad Zachi, Arhitext design, op. cit., p. 25.

7. Magyar építőművészet, op. cit., Szabó György, Editorial, p. 1.

8. Axel Sowa, "Editorial", in L'Architecture daujourd'hui, op. cit., p. 38.

9. 'Are used to create small, subtle, alive spaces that help remind us of our humanity', AD, volume 83, no. 3, May 2013, http://www.architectural-design-magazine.com/details/issue/4567801/Volume-83-Issue-3-MayJune-2013.html.