Part 1

Concepts and Overview

Part 1 explores perspectives through which the landscape manager, planner, anddesigner makes landscape decisions. Chapter 1: Landscape Meanings introducesdiverse cognitive filters through which we perceive and attribute landscape mean-ing, and develops sensitivity to the landscape as a dialogue between physical con-dition and individual consciousness. Chapter 2: Peoples, Attitudes, and Percep-tions explores world views, assumptions, and value systems that influence themeanings we attribute to landscape, and the nature of our landscape interventions.Chapter 3: Education and Design Thinking introduces design thinking, includingthe seeds planted by primary and secondary education, and the strengths andweaknesses of formal landscape design education. Part 1 lays the groundworknecessary to pursue, in PART 2: DESIGN INFLUENCES, an in-depth explorationof the forces, influences, and issues that should be considered as the landscapedesigner manages, plans, and designs the landscape.

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Chapter 1

Landscape Meanings

Landscapes are point-in-time expressions of ecolog-ical, technological, and cultural influences. Settingsare specific locations, designed or non-designed,generated by these influences, and experienced bypeople. The individual, for physiological purposesof survival and security, and for psychological onesof community, esteem, and self-actualization, en-codes and decodes meaning from settings. Percep-tual meanings grow from the perceptual character-istics of settings; associational meanings emergefrom the relationship of settings to the observer’s di-rect and indirect experiences. Relationships be-tween designed settings and their context affectmeaning. Systemic design integrates these diverseinfluences, promotes a sense of connectedness, andfacilitates individually associated meanings. It inte-grates with contextual systems that, in turn, becomeprogressively more interactive. Systemically de-signed settings can be experienced in different waysby different people at different times. Through sys-temic design intervention, multiple influences areintegrated into wholes with enriched experienceand intensified meaning, and the landscape becomesricher, and the place (mental construct experiencedin the mind’s eye of the beholder) more alive.

1.1 METHOD OF STUDY

In Peasant, Society and Culture (1956), Robert Red-field distinguishes between the classic or learnedculture and the popular or folk culture in many dis-ciplines (music, religion, and so on). In House, Formand Culture (1969), Amos Rapoport considers therelationships between the learned and popular cul-ture and physical design. He defines the grand tra-dition of Architecture as the creation of monuments‘‘built to impress the populace with the power of thepatron, or the peer group of designers and cogno-scenti with the cleverness of the designer and goodtaste of the patron.’’ He defines the folk tradition, onthe other hand, as ‘‘the direct, unselfconscious trans-lation into physical form of a culture, its needs andvalues, as well as the desires, dreams and passionsof a people.’’ He sees the folk tradition as ‘‘the worldview writ small, the ’ideal’ environment of a people

expressed in buildings and settlements, with no de-signer, artist, or architect with an axe to grind.’’

Within the folk tradition, Rapoport distinguishesbetween primitive and vernacular buildings. Primi-tive buildings (produced by societies identified byanthropologists as primitive based on technologicaland economic levels) are built by the common per-son who is a generalist equipped, as part of culturalheritage, with the limited knowledge necessary tobuild dwellings. Vernacular buildings (produced insocieties with more advanced technologies andeconomies) are built by tradesmen, but the buildingtype, form, and materials are known by everyone aspart of the cultural body of knowledge. The building‘‘type’’ follows the cultural tradition. Individualbuildings subtly adjust the traditional theme to spe-cific conditions (family size, site, microclimate, andso on). Focusing on the vernacular rather than mon-uments of the grand tradition, House, Form and Cul-ture was a seminal study of the built landscape. AsRapoport says,

The physical environment of man, especially the builtenvironment, has not been, and still is not, controlledby the designer. This environment is the result of ver-nacular (or folk, or popular) architecture, and it hasbeen largely ignored in architectural history and the-ory. . . . In addition, the high style buildings usuallymust be seen in relation to, and in the context of, thevernacular matrix, and are in fact incomprehensibleoutside that context, especially as it existed at thetime they were designed and built.

Rapoport’s statement exposes a major deficiency ofmodern architectural education: it has focused onhigh-styled buildings and on form, to the exclusionof popular architecture, contextual forces, andbroader meaning. It has studied architecture as formand object, not as process and integration.

Rapoport was not alone in his concern for theseissues. Others of the period, such as Adolph Rudof-ski (Architecture Without Architects, 1964), RobertVenturi (Learning From Las Vegas, 1972), ChristianNorberg-Schulz (Genus Loci: Toward a Phenome-nology of Architecture, 1980), and Tom Wolfe (FromBauhaus to Your House, 1981), were struggling withthe lack of relevant meaning in modern, and in thecase of the later works, in post-modern architecture.

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However, the ideas these men promulgated were notwidely embraced by the architectural community.The most published designers were not those ex-ploring holistic and cultural meanings, but ratherthose pursuing design theories, movements, andstyles, such as modernism (expression of an indus-trialized culture), post-modernism (visual topologi-cal explorations), and deconstructivism (disman-tling conventional mental constructs whereby thepopulous decode meaning). Integrative building de-signers, including Buckminster Fuller (1930s to1970s), Stewart Brand, Pliny Fisk, and Bill Mc-Donough, have been seen by many as ‘‘rebels’’ at theedge, rather than as leaders of mainstream move-ments. Landscape management, planning, and de-sign have been somewhat more integrative andinclusive—embracing the grand tradition, the ver-nacular, and design integration with context.

More and more design professionals and layper-sons, realizing the need to address the vernacular,are contending that cultural expressions, such as thestrip development or Disneyland, are not inherentlybad. They portray the values, dreams, and aspira-tions of major portions of our heterogeneous culture.However, vernacular expressions that clash withclassical notions of design and form, taught in uni-versities (see Sections 2.2, 3.3, and 9.1), are oftendiscounted by designers. By recognizing the valueof common places and the meanings that non-designers ascribe to landscapes, designers can createlocally relevant aesthetics that convey greater mean-ing to a wider population, resulting in a rich, evoc-ative landscape that functions as an integral part ofculture, and that synergizes designed and non-designed elements for maximum landscape mean-ing.

1.2 MEANINGS

With a rudimentary understanding of the forces thatinfluence form and a belief that design should re-spond to these forces, how does one begin to dis-cover the forces that are in effect at a certain placeand time, and to understand the meaning of formsas expressions of these forces? In other words, howdo we interpret the landscape? What do we inter-pret, and how do we make landscape decisions?

In the Introduction to The Interpretation of Ordi-nary Landscapes (Meinig, 1979), D. W. Meinig statesthat ‘‘environment sustains us as creatures; land-scape displays us as culture’’ and ‘‘landscape is de-fined by our vision and interpreted by our minds.’’

Landscapes that people inhabit are records of, andtransmit meaning about, the culture. According toMae Theilgard Watts (Meinig, 1979), we can ‘‘readthat landscape’’ as we might read a book. Any cul-ture can read its autobiography to discover itself.

The largest portion of the landscape consists ofthe common elements that Rapoport calls the folktradition. The smaller portion is the preconsciouslyconceived, professionally designed elements that hecalls the ‘‘grand tradition.’’ Together, the commonand the grand express two sides of ‘‘who we are’’:our innate self and our overt self. They communi-cate, as Pierce F. Lewis (‘‘Axioms for Reading theLandscape’’) says, ‘‘our tastes, our values, our aspi-rations, and even our fears in tangible, visible form’’(Meinig, 1979). The fact that the vast majority of thislandscape is unself-conscious, that we seldom thinkabout it, results in a landscape that more honestlyreflects the underlying forces to which it responds.

Landscapes are usually quite difficult to read, fortwo reasons. First, they are confusing, and often con-tradictory, as they evolve in response to competing,often contrasting influences, and forces that changeover time. Second, we have been educated to focuson singular and grand issues, not to perceive the ge-stalt of landscape, and not to curiously explore themessy and uncontrolled world around us.

1.3 AXIOMS FOR READINGTHE LANDSCAPE

To design more responsively in any culture, we canbegin by reading that culture’s autobiography—itslandscape. In so doing, it is helpful to keep in mindPierce F. Lewis’s published ‘‘Axioms for Reading theLandscape,’’ which are, as he says, ‘‘essential ideasunderlying the reading of America’s cultural land-scape.’’ These axioms, published in The Interpreta-tion of Ordinary Landscapes, (Meinig, 1979), aresummarized as follows, with some added commentsconcerning the implications of the axioms to land-scape interpretation, design, and design education.

1.3.1 Axiom 1: The Axiom of Landscape asClue to Culture

This axiom asserts that the commonplace elementsin the landscape provide insight as to ‘‘the kind ofpeople we are.’’ There are several corollaries to thisaxiom. The corollary of cultural change says that thelandscape represents a large investment and thatmajor changes to the landscape occur only in re-

1.3 AXIOMS FOR READING THE LANDSCAPE 9

sponse to major cultural changes. The regional cor-ollary says that if one region looks significantly dif-ferent from another, the region varies not only eco-logically, but culturally as well. The corollary ofconvergence contends that as landscapes begin tolook more similar, their cultures are, in fact, con-verging. The corollary of diffusion says that land-scapes will change through imitation and that thedegree of communication affects the rate of diffu-sion. Finally, the corollary of taste says that differentcultures possess different biases as to what theylike/dislike, promote/prohibit, and so on.

As we read the cultural landscape, we shouldkeep in mind whether we are looking at an exampleof the vernacular tradition or the grand one. The firstwill tell us more about the actual culture and com-mon life; the latter, more about the culture’s grandaspirations, as viewed through the eyes of the designintelligentsia.

1.3.2 Axiom 2: The Axiom of CulturalUnity and Landscape Equality

This axiom says that all items in the human land-scape convey meaning and that most convey aboutthe same amount of meaning. According to this ax-iom, a vernacular building communicates about asmuch concerning the culture as does an architec-tural monument of the grand tradition. In areas dom-inated by vernacular expressions, the primary com-munication will be that of the common person. Inareas dominated by the grand tradition, the maincommunication will be that of the design intelli-gentsia.

1.3.3 Axiom 3: The Axiom ofCommon Things

This axiom contends that the bulk of landscape de-sign texts and professional journals communicatethe grand tradition of design, and that there is a lackof scholarly writing about common elements of thelandscape. The corollary is that we can discover theissues that affect decisions made by others than pro-fessional designers by observing the wealth of non-academic literature, such as the writings of TomWolfe and Bernard Rudofsky, trade journals, com-mercial advertisements, travel literature, and booksby people studying cultural geography, environmen-tal psychology, or landscape meaning.

1.3.4 Axiom 4: The Historic Axiom

This axiom addresses the significance of a knowl-edge of history when reading the landscape. On theone hand, our behavior is conditioned by the past,and understanding past decisions can prevent usfrom ‘‘reinventing the wheel’’ as we respond to on-going processes. On the other hand, many artifactsare relics of conditions that have since changed, anda knowledge of history will prevent misinterpretingthese as expressions of active forces. A knowledgeof history helps us ‘‘read’’ the artifact.

This axiom has two corollaries. The corollary ofhistoric lumpiness asserts that major cultural changeoccurs in sudden leaps, and that the landscapechanges little between these leaps. The mechanical(or technological) corollary asserts that leaps of cul-tural change are usually associated with changes intechnology or communication, and that a knowledgeof the level of technology and communication is es-sential for one to interpret an element, or the entirelandscape.

As we apply the historic axiom to reading thelandscape, we should keep in mind that we are read-ing physical elements not as abstract forms, but asexpressions of conditions and influences. We shouldalso be aware that we are currently in a period ofunprecedented cultural and technological change;accordingly, our landscapes are changing at an un-paralleled rate.

1.3.5 Axiom 5: The Geographic (orEcologic) Axiom

To understand the meaning of elements of a culturallandscape, we must study these elements in relationto their geographic or locational context. Our inter-pretation of the elements should be as much a re-sponse to their relation to context, as it is to thephysical characteristics of the elements themselves.

Today, this axiom seems to be lost to a great num-ber of practitioners of the grand tradition of archi-tecture. It has been replaced with the notion that thedesigner’s ‘‘overriding concept’’ gives meaning tothe design. This trend has progressed to the pointthat a great number of projects that receive profes-sional acclaim are communicated during the designphases as an ‘‘uncompromised’’ expression of thebuilding, on a plane of green grass that recedes toinfinity, where it meets a blue sky. However, onceconstructed, the building is perceived in its context.While the element in the drawing might be the ele-ment that was eventually built, the contextual rela-

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tionships are dramatically different, as are the per-ception and interpretation of the element and thedesigned landscape.

1.3.6 Axiom 6: The Axiom ofEnvironmental Control

According to this axiom, cultural landscapes relateintimately to the physical environment, and an un-derstanding of natural systems is essential if one isto read the cultural landscape accurately. Since anylandscape is a point-in-time expression of forces,this axiom implies that an understanding of the ec-ological forces that have created a region is essentialto understanding the meaning of that landscape.

This axiom speaks for a regional attitude towardlandscape design, as well as an appreciation for re-gionalism in design education. The regionalism sug-gested here is not, as is often implied in architecturetoday, the ‘‘reference’’ to an established or relic tra-dition by some design detail or ‘‘abstracted form,’’but rather a systemic and integrative response to themultiplicity of forces that interact to create a givenlandscape. This axiom speaks for regional designtraditions that evolve from, and integrate with, re-gional forces.

1.3.7 Axiom 7: The Axiom ofLandscape Obscurity

While landscapes carry many meanings, they do notconvey these messages in a pure and objective man-ner. Rather, they are somewhat nebulous and schiz-ophrenic. Each statement is subject to many inter-pretations, and each is communicated in dialoguewith a multiplicity of other statements. Discoveringappropriate meanings requires that the landscapedesigner ask the right questions and remain sensi-tive to the multiplicity of landscape expressions.

The landscape designer should be sensitive to theobscure, dialectic character of the landscape, and tothe fact that people prefer ‘‘open-ended’’ landscapesthat enable the viewers to complete their message,and that can carry multiple meanings. We should beaware of the human tendency to reduce complex en-tities to singular statements, and of the reducedlandscape meaning and reduced desirability that re-sults from this tendency. We should seek to designopen-ended landscapes that communicate multiplemeanings as discussed in Christopher Alexander’s‘‘A City is Not a Tree.’’

With the preceding axioms, one has basic tools tointerpret the landscape. As one makes these inter-pretations, it is essential to realize, as Axiom 7 says,

that the process is not passive. Landscape elementsthat convey many meanings through obscure ex-pressions are subject to various interpretations. Ifthe landscape is, as Meinig states, ‘‘interpreted byour minds,’’ then the ‘‘reader’’ of the landscape isintegral to its meaning. Restated, the same landscapemeans different things to different people.

1.4 LANDSCAPE INTERPRETATION

In ‘‘The Beholding Eye: Ten Versions of the SameScene,’’ Meinig (1979) explores ‘‘observer bias.’’ Hestates that ‘‘any landscape is composed not only ofwhat lies before our eyes, but also what lies withinour heads.’’ He suggests an exercise in which a di-verse group of people is taken to a view that in-cludes both city and countryside, and the partici-pants are asked to describe the landscape, and toidentify it elements, composition, and meaning. Inthis seminal article, Meinig then exposes differentbiases that affect landscape interpretation by dis-cussing ten different perceptions of the viewed land-scape. Meinig’s ten versions of the same scene pres-ent an excellent overview of the range of landscapeinterpretations that people are prone to perceive.These ten views are listed below, with commentsand a visual image for each viewpoint. These imagesshould not be seen as physical settings that expressonly this meaning, but rather as the tendency of aviewer to perceive this type of image, often withonly the slightest cue from the setting, and often inthe face of other stronger cues that encourage theobserver to see the landscape from different view-points.

1.4.1 Landscape as Nature

This nostalgic romantic view, that reached its apexduring the Romantic movement of the eighteenthcentury, holds nature dominant and humans subor-dinate. Nature is seen as pristine (a wilderness)without the presence of people (Figure 1-1). Thisconservationist view holds the natural landscape asan entity that should be preserved at all costs, for itsown sake. Proponents prefer decisions that leave thelandscape in an unmodified pristine state. They seeall human works and human gestures in the land-scape as feeble efforts that dim in comparison to themajesty, power, and magnificence of the naturallandscape. The purity, power, and magnificence ofthe natural landscape are the vanguards of this view.Humans are relegated to a secondary, inconsequen-

1.4 LANDSCAPE INTERPRETATION 11

Figure 1-1: Landscape as Nature

tial position and are considered the negative influ-ence in a natural landscape of perfection.

Proponents of this view are prone to remove peo-ple and their visual expressions from the scene.They see the cultural landscape as an aberrant, im-posed, and unreal landscape. The undisturbed land-scape, even though in many cases a relic no longerexpressive of formative influences, is considered thereal and appropriate one. This view is held evenwhen, in many cases, the natural landscape envi-sioned has been physically absent for centuries, andif re-created would not sustain itself in the contextof present forces, which themselves can be seen asinappropriate.

This viewpoint separates people and nature. Ittends, in many cases, to be a reactionary stance thatcomes to prominence in periods of landscape deg-radation, in response to human wholesale environ-mental destruction. Philosophically, it establishes aconfrontational relationship between nature andpeople, with people as aggressors and despoilers ofa legitimate, pure, and pristine natural landscape.

Proponents are often politically active at a grass-roots level. They promote legislation that preservesthe landscape and limits people’s ability to have animpact on the environment. Proponents work ac-tively to create parks and wildlife areas, and to cod-ify ordinances and standards that place constraintson the ability of planners, designers, developers, andothers to have an impact on the environment. En-vironmental impact statements are primary vehiclesproponents of this view promote to encourage de-cisions that will not adversely affect the physicaland ecological environment.

Designers who strongly embrace this view per-ceive their primary societal value to be that of con-serving, nurturing, and protecting the environment.Many of these landscape design professionals workin public service for city, state, or federal govern-ments. Others work with grass-roots environmentalgroups; others, in environmentally oriented privatepractice offices. Still others teach in landscape ar-chitecture or related academic programs.

1.4.2 Landscape as Habitat

In this view, the landscape is a home for human-kind. People are envisioned as working with and al-tering land to increase its productivity and redefineit as a resource, and functioning to domesticate theearth. Nature is the benign provider. People interactwith nature; accept its basic organization, structure,and behavior; and modify nature so as to convert itsmaterials into resources that sustain and enhancethe quality of life. People manipulate the landscapebut are motivated by a desire to harmonize, steward,cultivate, and manage the landscape so as to main-tain its bounty (Figure 1-2).

This view, interrelating people and environment,reached its zenith in this country after the AmericanRevolution, when people embraced the traditionalstructure and spatial arrangement of the agrarianlandscape. Wilderness and cityscape were judgedagainst the agrarian landscape and found to be lack-ing. Landscape as habitat takes its cues from thelandscape, with human gesture responsive to con-dition, and development patterns integrating withnatural ones. Landscape as habitat also pursueslandscape interventions as physical expressions ofecological roots and seeks to modify nature to en-hance its benefit to people. In this view, humankindis one with an environment consciously modifiedfor human benefit. Every landscape is an expressionboth of nature and of culture.

According to this paradigm, quality of life is seento be integrally linked to a healthy habitat, decisions

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Figure 1-2: Landscape as Habitat

that function to maximize the human potential aredeemed appropriate, and the maintenance of a qual-ity, healthy environment is promoted. Decisions thatdegrade the environment are abandoned, and natureheals its wounds.

Perhaps the most well-known proponent of thisviewpoint was R. Buckminster Fuller (Section3.1.2). His world games sessions for exploring‘‘spaceship earth’s’’ carrying capacity, and maximiz-ing its ability to sustain cultures, greatly increasedour understanding of the landscape as habitat.

This is a synergistic view of people integratingwith, and becoming a part of, a managed nature. Ittends to be dominant in vernacular approaches andin low-technology, third-world cultures directly de-pendent on the land for sustenance. These culturesmodify the environment to harvest materials as re-sources but have little ability or desire to change na-ture in a profound manner. The cultures have a di-alectic relationship with the landscape and realizethat to use nature, they must obey it. The underlyingassumption is that nature is a kind and gentle pro-vider that, if respected and nurtured, will sustainlife and provide a healthy, meaningful existence.People who hold this view see their primary societal

role as facilitators, helping nature sustain human-kind.

In third-world and low-technology cultures, ad-dressing the landscape as habitat is often necessaryfor survival. This view has also endured in somefirst-world, high-technology countries. In both cases,the landscapes that have evolved have two positivecharacteristics. First, they tend to be characterizedby a high degree of harmony, with human gesturesintegrating with ecological expressions and provid-ing a person-environment synergy. The culturallandscapes that evolve under this paradigm are of-ten seen to have a strong sense of place (Section13.1) and are preferred by a broad range of people.Many people travel great distances, often at consid-erable expense, to visit the quaint hamlet, remotevillage, or unique neighborhood evolved from thisworld view.

The second benefit is that these landscapes tendto be efficient and self-sustaining. Since human ges-tures are integrated with ecological ones, naturalforces do not set about to destroy these gestures butrather reinforce their condition (Chapter 4), func-tion, and maintenance.

1.4.3 Landscape as Artifact

This anthropomorphic view sees the landscape asan entity created by people (Figure 1-3). The holderof this view sees human expressions everywhere,and perceives the natural landscape as little morethan the stage on which the cultural drama is playedand recorded.

From this viewpoint, nature no longer exists. Theentirety of the landscape is human-created. The soil,for example, is not seen as a human-modified bio-logically active medium, but rather as an entity ‘‘cre-ated’’ by the complex human activities of clearing,tilling, fertilizing, mulching, planting, irrigating,supplementing, enhancing, and so on. Waterwaysare not seen as streams and integral parts of a hy-drologic system, but rather as engineered infrastruc-tural conduits. The quintessential expression of thisview is made-land, whereby coastal marshes havebeen anthropomorphically filled and re-created asmajor metropolitan areas (for example, most of theland area of Boston, Massachusetts). Another ex-ample of this view is the building itself: a humanartifact, complete with a human-created climate andatmosphere.

According to the landscape-as-artifact viewpoint,people have conquered nature and reshaped it totheir purposes, and use it as an expression of self.They no longer need, or desire, to respond to natural

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Figure 1-3: Landscape as Artifact

patterns, because they are irrelevant in the presenceof an all-dominating technology. Human beings canand should re-create a better landscape, free fromthe constraints of natural patterns. In this view, hu-mankind is ecologically dominant and superior tonature, and is the quintessential form-giver. Thelandscape is redefined and reordered in the humanimage. This anthropomorphic order is not an inte-grative one, but rather an overt individualistic one.

Like the other views, the landscape-as-artifactviewpoint is a mental construct that has reoccurredat various times in history. However, until recently,because of limited technology, its expression has of-ten been a rather localized phenomenon. For ex-ample, people could anthropomorphically re-createnature in the garden, but this restructuring could notbe greatly extended in scale. We have recentlyachieved the ability to apply this view on a muchlarger scale, due to a rapidly escalating technology.With this increased potential, we have also come toperceive humankind as the technological re-creatorof the global condition. This view is driving the en-gineer to reshape the landscape physically and thebiotechnologist to redefine life forms and life pro-cesses.

The landscape-as-artifact viewpoint addresses thehuman desire for self-expression, and when com-bined with our massive technology, has had pro-found environmental ramifications. The applicationof this technology to the wholesale re-creation of thephysical condition, without an appreciation for in-tegrating with natural processes, has resulted inwidespread pollution and natural-system degra-dation. This degradation includes problems withgroundwater and surface water quality and quantity,loss of topsoil and soil productivity, ozone deple-tion, and an almost infinite number of other envi-ronmental problems (Chapter 16.2). The landscape-as-artifact view is a short-term, ego-driven view-point that is unaware of, or insensitive to, the prob-lems created by its implementation.

1.4.4 Landscape as System

In this holistic view the landscape is a system con-sisting of interdependent subsystems, with elementsseen as expressions of and cues for understanding,systems and their underlying processes. This is arelatively new, rapidly expanding and evolving

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Figure 1-4: Landscape as System

viewpoint. It began as a reaction to a reductive New-tonian science and to a propensity to study thingsand pieces rather than seeking understandingof complex interrelationships. The landscape-as-system viewpoint has grown rapidly since the emer-gence (1930s) and growing acceptance of the scienceof relativity as the view of reality. This new scien-tific viewpoint is holistic and integrative and seesmeaning accruing not primarily from elements, butfrom interrelationship of elements, with system be-havior, and with generative processes. The land-scape-as-system view also holds that elements ho-listically express the various systems of which theyare a part.

In this mindset, people and nature are expressionsof a systemic oneness. The landscape, as system andsubsystems, is the entity understood and managedfor environmental and human well-being. Land-scape health and wellness are considered essentialto ecological and human health and wellness, andhuman wellness is expressive of a healthy environ-mental system.

From this viewpoint, elements are not things butintegrations of systems. For example, a building isan element within urban experiential, structural,and infrastructural systems. It is an integral part ofa spatial system (seen as mass from the outside andas space from the inside) that is experienced tem-porally as the viewer moves through the landscape.The building is also part of a climatic system andcan be designed for optimal water and energyexchange with the landscape (Figure 1-4).

The landscape-as-system view sees actions in re-lation to system dynamics and life-cycle flows. Hu-

man behavior and design decisions are consideredin their internal and external systemic contexts, andevaluated in terms of reactions (primary, secondary,tertiary, quaternary) and implications to health andproductivity of the landscape as system. Good land-scape decisions are those that promote managementof the landscape and its subsystems and maintainsor enhances carrying capacity, health, and produc-tivity.

This viewpoint’s popularity has grown with in-creased cultural awareness of system breakdownsthat have resulted from our recent history of anthro-pocentric behavior. In contrast to the landscape-as-artifact view, the landscape-as-system viewpointpromotes sustainable, culturally relevant land-scapes, integrates form and function with landscapedynamics, and maximizes long-term health and pro-ductivity of the physical and cultural landscape.

Designers who hold this viewpoint pursue a sys-tems management approach, viewing landscape de-sign, first and foremost, as the management of sys-tems. These designers see design as a creativeresponse to systemic behavior, rather than as the ex-pression of the designer’s ego independent of con-text. People holding this viewpoint function invarious capacities (private professional firms, non-profits, public agencies, academic practice), promot-ing effective management of ecological and humansystems, engaging in ecological and human systemand impact assessment and mitigation, developingsystems-based and performance-based ordinancesand development controls, promoting systems-sensitive planning and design, integrating the deci-sions of diverse people over long periods, and teach-

1.4 LANDSCAPE INTERPRETATION 15

Figure 1-5: Landscape as Problem (From Design with Nature,Ian L. McHarg)

ing others about systems-sensitive urban andregional planning, landscape architecture, and ar-chitecture.

1.4.5 Landscape as Problem

This view sees the landscape, including its naturaland human-made elements, as a situation needingcorrection. Ozone depletion, polluted air, urbancrime, abandoned housing, spoiled beaches, con-taminated estuaries, soiled streams, eroded lands,urban blight and sprawl, congestion, and dilapi-dated buildings are seen as evidence of this prob-lematic landscape. In this view a pervasive andubiquitous presence of ecological, physiological,and psychological illness is the essence of the land-scape (Figure 1-5).

This mindset can include an appreciation for thepreceding four views, including reverence for na-ture, appreciation of landscape as habitat, sensitivityto landscape as artifact, and response to landscapeas system. However, this approach’s underlyingpremise is that all is in disarray. A compelling caseis made for this point of view by Rachel Carson in

Silent Spring (1982), and by the film Koyaanisqatsi(a Hopi word loosely translating to ‘‘life out of bal-ance’’). Like the landscape-as-system viewpoint, thisis a growing view, owing to the rapid rise in tech-nology and exponentially increasing ability to de-grade the landscape and thereby change it from re-source to problem.

Expressions of this view range from a shrill cry ofalarm to a more optimistic view of many landscapedesigners. These designers take a problem-solvingapproach (Section 15.1) and sometimes regard land-scapes as severe problems needing immediate cor-rection, and at other times as merely challenges tocreate a better world. In this later sense, this viewshares ground with the landscape-as-artifact view-point.

The landscape-as-problem view is promoted byeducation addressing landscape design as func-tional, infrastructural, behavioral, or aesthetic prob-lem-solving. It precludes the opinion that ‘‘in thiscase, nothing should be done!’’ This mindset dom-inated most schools of architecture and landscapearchitecture in the 1970s and continues in some to-day.

From this viewpoint the landscape designer ap-plies professional skills, scientific knowledge, andaesthetic sensitivity to the correction of environ-mental ills. Unlike the landscape-as-artifact viewthat sees value in human expressions, the land-scape-as-problem approach emphasizes the prob-lems these expressions represent. This can be ashort-term view (existing situation as problem, littleattention to secondary, tertiary, and quaternary prob-lems) or can focus on long-term problem-solving.

Applied with a long-term focus, the landscape-as-problem view tends to produce landscapes with fewproblems. However, applied with a short-term per-spective, actions to solve immediate problems oftencause reactions even more problematic than theoriginal condition. This viewpoint can also createboring landscapes, characterized by a placelessnessthat fails to provide the enrichment necessary to sus-tain the human spirit and promote psychologicalhealth.

1.4.6 Landscape as Wealth

This view is based upon the perception that people‘‘own’’ land. The primary value of land is its eco-nomic worth; all other landscape measures are sec-ondary to investment potential. Land is a commod-ity whose value is determined in the marketplace,in units of currency (Figure 1-6). This real-estate-appraiser view, seeking ‘‘highest and best use,’’

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Figure 1-6: Landscape as Wealth

highly integrates various influences via the market-place to establish land value, and is continually up-dated in response to new conditions.

This abstract, geographic view translates the land-scape into an economic unit, such as square footageof commercial space or number of single family res-idences. It considers physical land characteristics,market influences, external conditions that influ-ence value, and the intrinsic potential of the land toaccommodate the support systems necessary to ser-vice the site and promote development. Advocatesof this view have a working knowledge of, and ap-preciation for, the landscape and support systems aseconomic inputs. Accessibility and the available ca-pacity of support systems (sanitary and storm sew-ers, electrical and gas service) are often more im-portant than physical characteristics. Sense of place,context, and even the people present are important.Where the rich or poor congregate affect perceivedstatus and economic value; image is a valued eco-nomic resource.

Believers in the landscape-as-wealth view con-sider economic opportunities and constraints intrin-sic to the landscape, and those that can be intro-duced to affect value. They include both landscapeas present wealth, and landscape as future wealth.They are futures oriented because the economicvalue of landscape is, to a large degree, a predictionof its future condition, use, and value.

The landscape-as-wealth viewpoint, stronglyseated in our capitalistic ideology, has driven thedesign of the twentieth-century American land-scape. In our materialistic culture and short-termperspective, this approach has enabled us to exploitthe environment, grow rapidly, and have a profoundimpact on landscape efficiency and sustainability.This perspective makes decisions based on eco-nomic value rather than landscape carrying capac-ity. This view served us well during the period ofresource abundance created by the exploitation offossil fuels. But this approach will serve us poorlyduring the period of resource scarcity, which wehave recently entered (Section 16.2).

1.4.7 Landscape as Ideology

In this view the landscape is seen as a symbol of thevalues, ideals, aspirations, hopes, and dreams of aculture (Figure 1-7). People encode and decodelandscape meanings about the culture, its underly-ing philosophies, and its self-perception. The land-scape is the physical expression of the culture, andits hopes and dreams. It is rich in associations, andtakes on the personality of those who create it. Thisview sees the landscape as the embodiment of val-ues and asserts that if we are to change the land-scape, we must first change the cultural philosophythat creates it.

This mindset maximizes the cultural meaning ofthe landscape. In homogeneous, slowly changingcultures, and when complete landscapes are createdto convey a single ideology, this view can result inlandscapes with a strong and integrated sense. Con-versely, in heterogenous societies and ones thatchange very rapidly, such as contemporary America,this view generates a cultural landscape that is spon-taneous and stimulating. These highly diverse soci-eties can also produce landscapes in which ele-ments relate poorly to one another, and that lack therelatedness necessary to establish a strong sense.Such societies can create overly stimulating, cha-otic, and psychologically unhealthy landscapes.

1.4.8 Landscape as History

The landscape in this view is the complex docu-mentation of the history of natural and human ac-tivities in a particular location. It is the cumulativerecord, documented chronologically. Landscape el-ements have meaning in context to the chronology,events leading to the creation of the elements, andchanges the elements heralded. In this view of land-scape, everything is positioned in time and se-

1.4 LANDSCAPE INTERPRETATION 17

Figure 1-7: Landscape as Ideology

quence. Settlement patterns, urban form, architec-tural style, site detail, and other planned and de-signed characteristics are means for dating elements,and contributing to the chronology (Figure1-8).

In this view, the landscape is layers of history.Sometimes these temporal layers are separated inspace, as when an entire community is settled dur-ing one time period. More commonly, they are in-terwoven spatially, and the landscape becomes anhistorically rich, spatial-temporal mosaic. The his-torical view deciphers this mosaic to develop mentalconstructs of landscape as living history. To do so,the landscape historian decodes the environment;that is, the historian reads and interprets cues andextrapolates from these cues to reconstruct history.In so doing, the historian is sensitive to which cuesnormally survive for long periods (such as settle-ment and urban patterns), and those that are moreephemeral (such as landscape plantings).

The landscape is seen as the record of physicalgestures of many generations of people, and of eco-

logical processes structured in time. Proponentsdecipher this record but usually find it to be an in-complete document. As the landscape historian de-ciphers the record, organizational patterns, materi-als, forms, and details tell something about theculture, subculture, and individuals, as well asabout the natural forces that created the landscape.To understand the landscape and correctly interpretits elements, the landscape historian views thesedata in their historical context and in relation totheir links with the past and future.

Whereas the landscape-as-system viewpoint seeksto understand the landscape as ecological and hu-man processes that build interactive systems, thelandscape-as-history view considers these processesstructured in time to explain and interpret changesto physical elements as landscape gestures, andthereby to build a more complete historical record.Landscape gestures are viewed in relation to the cul-tures and individuals that created them, rather thanpresent-day culture and individuals. Yet, the aggre-gate of these gestures, that is, the contemporary

18 LANDSCAPE MEANINGS

Figure 1-8: Landscape as History

landscape, is the context within which the historicalelement is displayed and interpreted, and withinwhich the current drama of life is performed. There-fore, the current landscape affects our perception ofhistory, and the landscape-as-history view affectsour current perception and behavior. In this inter-active manner, the landscape becomes a living his-tory.

This viewpoint enables us to develop a better un-derstanding of who we are by giving us an under-standing of how we came to be. It reinforces our col-lective consciousness as a culture by focusing on ourshared history. However, in our heterogeneous, rap-idly changing culture, this view can result in anoverly stimulating landscape whose elements lackvisual relatedness and can, therefore, be alienating.Also, if focused only backward, this view does notaddress the relevancy of the individual element tocurrent and future conditions. By looking to thepresent as living history and the future as historyyet to express itself, this view shares ground with

the landscape-as-system mindset and becomes anintegral part of daily life.

1.4.9 Landscape as Place

This phenomenological view sees the landscape assensual experience. It focuses not on elements, buton the sensual (sound, smell, tactile) gestalt. Thisapproach also concentrates on the feel, flavor, andambiance of place; the richness of mental constructsand associations; and the ability of the place to beremembered over time (Figure 1-9).

Holders of this view take pleasure in the immensevariety, uniqueness, and individuality of places.These individuals look beyond generalized under-standing and seek to discover the unique sense andvalue of place that they contend all places have.This can be a powerful view, stimulating numbersof people to travel around the world to experiencea special city like Venice or a region like the Alps.

1.4 LANDSCAPE INTERPRETATION 19

Figure 1-9: Landscape as Place

Adherents of this view believe that the person andthe environment are inextricably bound in oneness,and that sensing healthy places is an essential di-mension of human health and wellness. This view-point has been influenced by the philosopher Hei-degger (1977) and the architect Norberg-Schulz(1980). Placemaking as human expression and con-centration of meaning is seen as one of the essentialefforts of human existence. Section 13.2 pursues thisview as it explores design as psychological healthand placemaking.

This view, often held by the geographer, is con-cerned with the characteristics of places and theanalysis of how places are organized, structured,and spatially arranged to create the perceived land-scape. It is also of value to the environmental psy-chologist, who seeks to understand relationships be-tween place and consciousness. Place is also a basicunit of analysis in the area of study known as en-vironmental perception.

The landscape-as-place approach is communi-cated in many ways. Writers eloquently use wordsto convey ambiance. Photographers, including An-sel Adams, have produced evocative images, and

painters move beyond reproduction to intensify thecommunication of placeness. Geographers developcognitive mapping techniques to communicate themental construct of place, and aerial and locationalmaps to communicate the spatial arrangement ofspecial places in the landscape.

The landscape-as-place viewpoint focuses on thegestalt rather than on the elements. Landscapes gen-erated by this view downplay the designer’s ego andconcentrate on landscape character. They tend to bevisually coherent, exciting, and sensually rewardingenvironments. These landscapes, therefore, sharecharacteristics with ones generated by the landscapeas system view. Individual gestures integrate withcontext. They tend not to be pure responses to singleissues, but rather to be complex expressions that ar-bitrate among a multitude of contextual influences.

The landscapes that emerged in slowly changing,low-technology cultures usually had an integrated,systemic sense because of the limited choices avail-able. With our rapidly changing heterogeneous cul-ture and powerful technology, achieving a coherentsense requires a landscape-as-place emphasis andaggressive management of the experiential gestalt.

20 LANDSCAPE MEANINGS

1.4.10 Landscape as Aesthetic

This view places primary emphasis on the artisticquality of landscape features and the landscape asvisual scene (Figure 1-10). In contrast to the land-scape-as-place view that sees the landscape experi-entially, the landscape-as-aesthetic viewpoint takesa detached, abstract approach. It interprets visualforms on the basis of some language of art, such asline, form, color, texture, rhythm, proportion, bal-ance, symmetry, harmony, tension, unity, variety,and so on (Section 8.1). This view might synergizewith other ones, such as landscape as history, orlandscape as place. However, these considerationsare seen as secondary to the primary message: thelandscape as a vehicle for communicating aestheticrelationships.

The landscape-as-aesthetic approach is a cerebralview of the landscape that holds truth and beautynot to be in function or experience, but as some aes-thetic ideal. Human involvement with the landscapeis intended to be contemplative rather than experi-ential. The landscape is seen as object, and the scene

Figure 1-10: Landscape as Aesthetic

is detached from human behavior. Landscapes areendowed with high viewing value. Whether theyfunction properly or have high cultural meaning isof little importance to this viewpoint.

These ten views, of course, are not a complete listof observer biases. These approaches do, however,provide a comprehensive overview and reveal thecomplexity of landscape interpretation. This com-plexity becomes more evident as we realize thatthese views do not exist in isolation. The observerusually espouses and is influenced by more than onebias simultaneously. The individual’s interpretationof landscape is usually a complex synergism of sev-eral of these (and other) views.

The manner in which we manage, plan, and de-sign the landscape is profoundly affected by how wesee the landscape. How we see is, in turn, based onour world view: our basic assumptions and beliefsabout the potentials and problems of existence, andhow we organize ourselves and act to address thesepotentials and problems. Our world view affects thepotentials we see and those we do not see; it affectsthe problems we solve, and those we exacerbate be-cause they cannot be anticipated through our worldview. Chapter 2 looks at world views in general;Chapter 3 explores how world views are structuredby culture and education.

REFERENCES

Alexander, C. A City Is Not A Tree. Architectural Forum, 122,April, 1965 (58–62); May, 1965 (58–62).

Carson, R. Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1982.Heidegger, M. Basic Writings from Being and Time (1927) to the

Task of Thinking (1964). David Farrell Krell, editor. New York:Harper & Row, 1977.

Koyaanisqatsi. An IRE presentation, produced and directed byGodfrey Reggio, 1983.

McHarg, I. L. Design With Nature (First edition). Garden City, NY:Published for the American Museum of Natural History by theNatural History Press, 1969.

Meinig, D. W., ed. The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes.New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.

Norberg-Schulz, C. Genius Loci: Towards A Phenomenology ofArchitecture. New York: Rizzoli, 1980.

Rapoport, A. House Form and Culture. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:Prentice-Hall, 1969.

Redfield, R. Peasant Society and Culture: An Anthropological Ap-proach to Civilization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1956.

Rudofsky, B. Architecture Without Architects: A Short Introduc-tion To Non-Pedigreed Architecture. Garden City, NY: Double-day, 1964.

Venturi, R. Learning from Las Vegas. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,1972.

Watts, M. T. Reading the Landscape of America. New York: Mac-millan, 1975.

Wolfe, T. From Bauhaus To Our House. New York: Farrar StrausGiroux, 1981.

SUGGESTED READINGS 21

SUGGESTED READINGS

Alexander, C. A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construc-tion. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.

———. The Timeless Way of Building. New York: Oxford Univer-sity Press, 1979.

Eckbo, G. The Landscape We See. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969.

Marshall, L. L. Action By Design: Facilitating Design DecisionsInto the 21st Century. Washington, DC: American Society ofLandscape Architects, 1983.

Meinig, D. W. Environmental Appreciation: Localities as a Hu-mane Art. Western Humanities Review. 25(1971):1-11.

Simonds, J. O. Earthscape: A Manual Of Environmental Planning.New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978.