[the Parana River delta, near Buenos Aires, Argentina]
In her essay “SituatingModern Landscape Architecture” Elizabeth Meyer establishes theory as a
mediating and reconciling practice that is a bridge between seemingly disparate
situations. This work shown here is the
beginning of an attempt to construct a theory of the Pan-American
landscape. Here you will find the
initial findings of a broad comparative analysis meant to suggest that a
radical reframing of the American landscape is not only possible, but offers
great opportunities for significant discoveries within the pedagogy and
practice of landscape architecture in the United States.
[Landscape studies within
the United States have traditionally been oriented along a horizontal axis. This is evidenced by the fact that the
majority of our theory, historical precedent, philosophical approaches, and
travel opportunities have been drawn from or aimed at the European
landscape. In recent generations this
horizontal axis has been further extended with an eye toward China and
India. The effect of this is that our
discipline is interpreted through a northern and European lens. This is not a bad thing and there are very
real reasons for this tendency. However,
the over-reliance on this horizontal axis is limiting, and we might build a
stronger, more appropriate, and more variegated praxis by developing a theory
of the Pan-American landscape.]
[Hemispheric studies is a
body of work that considers the Americas “as a broad system of exchange,
movement, and influence.” More
specifically it “examines the overlapping and dynamic geographies and
cross-filliations between peoples, regions, and nations of the American
hemisphere.” This approach offers the
conceptual tools for more textured and appropriate interpretations of the
political-economic context of the American landscape. Some of these include an emphasis on
difference, modernity, post-colonialism, challenges to dominant cultural
modalities from within, and highlighting the cultural effects of endemic
political and economic disparity. This
can be seen in the work of social theorists such as Mike Davis as well as Latin
American philosophers including Enrique Dusserl and Walter Mignolo, for example.]
[The result of this theory
will not be the eradication of traditional pedagogy but the opening of new
lines of thinking and action along a vertical axis. The next few images show the results of some
quantitative analysis comparing the European, North American, and South
American landscape. For this analysis,
Europe is taken to include all of the countries of the European continent
except for Russia. The analysis presented
is synthesized with a low-level of resolution, meant to suggest starting points
for an understanding of larger patterns that point to the development of an
authentically Pan-American landscape theory.]
[The populations of the
three continents are similar, ranging from 400-600 million, with Europe as the
most populous.]
[The land area of the three
continents is not similar. Here, North
and South America compare favorably, but Europe is much smaller; 1/4 the size
of North America and 1/3 the size of South America.]
[Combining the results of
the previous two slides shows that the populations of North and South America
are almost exactly equal in density- 56 and 57 people per square mile. Europe’s density is nearly five times as
high.]
[When we map the world’s 30
largest metropolitan areas, an even starker contrast is rendered. Despite having a much higher density Europe
has only 2 of the world’s 30 largest cities.
In the Americas there are 9 and they are relatively evenly distributed
geographically. This has ramifications for the planning and design professions
and calls in to question European models of urbanism and landscape design so
frequently cited. For instance regional
high speed networks, or the design of metropolitan landscape types may not
translate to a situation where settlement patterns are so heterogeneous and
exaggerated.]
[If we start to analyze
those same populations for wealth and income disparity we find a rather
surprising result. Using the Gini
coefficient to analyze each nation according to income difference the United
States falls in line with the general pattern seen throughout the Americas- it
is a place of massive income disparity.
Europe is once again a smaller more homogeneous block. The implications of this are potentially wide
ranging, but it is clear that we are talking about a fundamentally different
political-economic context in which projects are conceived of, funded, and
executed. If we organize this data into
a list from greatest disparity to least and color code it, with American
nations in red and European nations in blue, the difference is stark indeed.]
[An analysis of the some of
the geological and hydrological characteristics yields similar results. A point of reference here is the Mississippi
River, which has rightly always been the object of much study, and even more so
since 2005. A comparison of the world’s
35 largest rivers according to drainage basin size shows 9 river systems
scattered throughout the Americas and only one in Europe; the Danube at number
29.]
[Looking at the rivers
carrying the largest sediment load shows the Amazon in a class by itself, 3
other South American rivers at a scale similar to the Mississippi, and 9 total
American rivers in the top 30. The
Danube is again the only European river that registers.]
[Not surprisingly, a
quantitative analysis of flow rate reveals the same pattern.]
[Moving to topographic
difference, by using prominence theory to localize elevations and evaluate
topographic change in the landscape we can see both North and South America are
a series of regionally exaggerated topographic conditions, whereas Europe is a
relatively uniform topography at a smaller scale.]
This quantitative analysis
of social, geological, and hydrological patterns at a continental scale not
only suggests a fundamental difference in the environmental and
political-economic conditions between Europe and North America- an idea echoed
by politicians, poets, and painters for centuries now- it also suggests some
striking similarities between North and South America. This analysis completely excludes any
ethnographic analysis. We want to mention
that this is because limitations of time, not because of a lack of
relevance. Going on a hunch, it is easy
to imagine that when historical and contemporary analysis is folded in the
differences with Europe and the Pan-American similarities will be ever more
striking. One need only consider the
number and variety (some are nasty, some are perjorative, many imply violence)
for racial mixing in the Americas such as creole, mestizo, Acadian, criollo,
mulatto. Or consider evidence such as
the mere possibility of German Chancellor Angela Merkl to declare that “multiculturalism has utterly failed” (and its impossibility here) to guess at the implications
of the ethnographic research.
This analysis points to a
theory of the larger American landscape that will have direct implications for
some of the exciting work that is already underway and has been for some time. Much exciting work on the American landscape
is already begun by individual practitioners and academics, including Ethan
Carr and his work on national parks, James Corner and Alex MacLean’s study of
the effects of technology and policy in shaping the North American landscape, Camilo
Restrepo’s work on urban projects as a catalyst for social justice in Medellin,
Colombia, or Anita Berrezbeita seeking to contextualize the work of Roberto
Burle Marx.
What we are lacking is a
theory of the Pan-American landscape that can situate these lines of research,
bodies of knowledge, and built works in powerful relation to one another. By incorporating hemispheric studies into our
landscape pedagogy, we might construct a lens able to take in wider horizons of
the American landscape and open up a whole range of concepts, ideas, forms, and
techniques that are awaiting discovery.
Much
of this research was initially presented last week at the 2012 Council for
Educators in Landscape Architecture Conference in Champaign, Illinois.
