User:GlOlA/Landscape architecture

History
Main article: History of landscape architecture

For the period before 1800, the history of landscape gardening (later called landscape architecture) is largely that of master planning and garden design for manor houses, palaces and royal properties, religious complexes, and centers of government. An example is the extensive work by André Le Nôtre for King Louis XIV of France at the Palace of Versailles. The first person to write of making a landscape was Joseph Addison in 1712. The term landscape architecture was invented by Gilbert Laing Meason in 1828, and John Claudius Loudon (1783–1843) was instrumental in the adoption of the term landscape architecture by the modern profession. He took up the term from Meason and gave it publicity in his Encyclopedias and in his 1840 book on the Landscape Gardening and Landscape Architecture of the Late Humphry Repton.

John Claudius Loudon was an established and influential horticultural journalist and Scottish landscape architect whose writings were instrumental in shaping Victorian taste in gardens, public parks, and architecture. In the Landscape Gardening and Landscape Architecture of the Late Humphry Repton, Loudon describes two distinct styles of landscape gardening existing at the beginning of the 19th century: geometric and natural. '''Loudon wrote that each style reflected a different stage of society. The geometric style was “most striking and pleasing,” displaying wealth and taste in an “early state of society” and in “countries where the general scenery was wild, irregular, and natural, and man, comparatively, uncultivated and unrefined.” The natural style was used in “modern times” and in countries where “society is in a higher state of cultivation," displaying wealth and taste through the sacrifice of profitable lands to make room for such designs.'''

'''Prominent English landscape designer Humphry Repton (1752-1818) echoed similar ideas in his work and design ideas. In his writings on the use of delineated spaces (e.g. courtyards, terrace walls, fences), Repton states that while the motive for defense no longer exists, the features are still useful in separating "the gardens, which belong to man, and the forest, or desert, which belongs to the wild denizens." Repton refers to Indigenous peoples as "uncivilized human beings, against whom some decided line of defense was absolutely necessary.”'''

The practice of landscape architecture spread from the Old to the New World. The term "landscape architect" was used as a professional title by Frederick Law Olmsted in the United States in 1863[citation needed] and Andrew Jackson Downing, another early American landscape designer, was editor of The Horticulturist magazine (1846–52). In 1841 his first book, A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, Adapted to North America, was published to a great success; it was the first book of its kind published in the United States. During the latter 19th century, the term landscape architect began to be used by professional landscapes designers, and was firmly established after Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. and Beatrix Jones (later Farrand) with others founded the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) in 1899. IFLA was founded at Cambridge, England, in 1948 with Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe as its first president, representing 15 countries from Europe and North America. Later, in 1978, IFLA's Headquarters were established in Versailles.

Relation to urban planning
The combination of the traditional landscape gardening and the emerging city planning combined gave landscape architecture its unique focus. Frederick Law Olmsted used the term 'landscape architecture' using the word as a profession for the first time when designing the Central Park.

Through the 19th century, urban planning became a focal point and central issue in cities. The combination of the tradition of landscape gardening and the emerging field of urban planning offered landscape architecture an opportunity to serve these needs. In the second half of the century, Frederick Law Olmsted completed a series of parks that continue to have a significant influence on the practices of landscape architecture today. Among these were Central Park in New York City, Prospect Park in Brooklyn, New York and Boston's Emerald Necklace park system. Jens Jensen designed sophisticated and naturalistic urban and regional parks for Chicago, Illinois, and private estates for the Ford family including Fair Lane and Gaukler Point. One of the original eleven founding members of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), and the only woman, was Beatrix Farrand. She was design consultant for over a dozen universities including: Princeton in Princeton, New Jersey; Yale in New Haven, Connecticut; and the Arnold Arboretum for Harvard in Boston, Massachusetts. Her numerous private estate projects include the landmark Dumbarton Oaks in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Since that time, other architects – most notably Ruth Havey and Alden Hopkins – changed certain elements of the Farrand design.[citation needed]

Since this period urban planning has developed into a separate independent profession that has incorporated important contributions from other fields such as civil engineering, architecture and public administration. Urban Planners are qualified to perform tasks independent of landscape architects, and in general, the curriculum of landscape architecture programs do not prepare students to become urban planners.

Landscape architecture continues to develop as a design discipline and to respond to the various movements in architecture and design throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Thomas Church was a mid-century landscape architect significant in the profession. Roberto Burle Marx in Brazil combined the International style and native Brazilian plants and culture for a new aesthetic. Innovation continues today solving challenging problems with contemporary design solutions for master planning, landscapes, and gardens.[citation needed]

Ian McHarg was known for introducing environmental concerns in landscape architecture. He popularized a system of analyzing the layers of a site in order to compile a complete understanding of the qualitative attributes of a place. This system became the foundation of today's Geographic Information Systems (GIS). McHarg would give every qualitative aspect of the site a layer, such as the history, hydrology, topography, vegetation, etc. GIS software is ubiquitously used in the landscape architecture profession today to analyze materials in and on the Earth's surface and is similarly used by urban planners, geographers, forestry and natural resources professionals, etc.[citation needed]

'''European nations enabled the widespread circulation of urban planning strategies by transferring landscaping ideas and practices to overseas colonies. The green belt was a popular landscape practice exported by Britain onto colonial territories such as Haifa (1918-1948). Spatial mechanisms like the green belt, implemented through the Haifa Bay Plan and the British "Grand Model," were used to enforce political control and civic order and extend western ideas of progress and development. The Greater London Regional Planning Committee accepted the green belt concept which formed the basis of the 1938 Green Belt Act. The planning prototype demarcated open spaces, distinguished between city and countryside, limited urban growth, and created zoning divisions. It was used extensively in the British colonies to facilitate British rule through the organized division of landscape and populations.'''

Relation to Indigenous Practices
Indigenous land management practices create constantly changing landscapes through the use of vegetation and natural systems, contrasting with western epistemologies of the discipline that separate ornament from function. The discipline of landscape architecture favors western designs made from structured materials and geometric forms. Landscape architecture history books tend to include projects that contain constructed architectural elements that persist over time, excluding many Indigenous landscape-based designs.

'''Landscape architecture textbooks often place Indigenous peoples as a prefix to the official start of the discipline. The widely read landscape history text The Landscape of Man (1964) offers a global history of the designed landscape from past to present, featuring African and other Indigenous peoples in its discussions of paleolithic man between 500,000 and 8,000 BCE in relation to human migration. Indigenous land-management practices are described as archaeological rather than a part of contemporary practice. Gardens in Time (1980) also places Indigenous practice as prehistory at the beginning of the landscape architecture timeline. Authors John and Ray Oldham describe Aborigines of Australia as “survivors of an ancient way of life” who provide an opportunity to examine western Australia as a “meeting place of a prehistoric man.”'''

In the late 18th century, the landscapes created by aboriginal land and fire management practices appealed to English settlers in Australia. Journals from the period of early white settlement note the landscape resembling parks and popular designs in English landscape gardens of the same period. '''In England, these designs were considered sophisticated and celebrated for the intentional sacrifice of usable land. In Australia, the park-like condition was used to justify British control, citing its emptiness and lack of productive use as a basis for the dispossession of Aboriginal people.'''