Lecture: The Death and Life of Great American Landscapes

Alan Brake: The Death and Life of Great American Landscapes
4:00 pm _ CDL 110

Allen, who is the Midwest editor and landscape design correspondent for The Architects Newspaper, has written that among the design disciplines, it is widely argued that landscape architecture is ascendant, and that its practitioners are claiming new professional territory from architects and urban planners. Landscape architects now frequently lead competition teams for masterplans, public space improvements, streetscapes, environmental remediation projects, parks, and community development projects. The rising concern about sustainability and, in the face of a slowed global economy, the waning of the so-called architecture of spectacle, have also bolstered the role of landscape architects, whose skills fuse placemaking and aesthetics with practical ecological needs like stormwater management and reducing urban air pollution. As a discipline, however, landscape architecture is poorly understood by the public. It receives little coverage in general interest publications, and, in the US, only one professional journal serves its practitioners. This lecture will argue for the role of critical writing in embedding landscape-based practice in the cultural, civic, and ecological future of cities, and for continuing to expand the intellectual and professional territory of landscape architects.