Theory I: Histories And Theories Of Landscape and Environment Design, Use, Representation, and Reception

This course introduces students to relevant topics, themes, and sites that help us understand the conception, production, evolution, and reception of designed and found landscapes throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It aims at building an understanding of landscapes as both physical spaces and as cultural mediaand constructionsthat sit at the nexus between art and science and that contribute knowledge about humankind?s relationship with non-human nature. Landscapes are the result of social,political, artistic and intellectual endeavors. The topography, soil and climate of a site also condition its design, use and habitation. As much as designed and found landscapes are a product of their time, they have also contributed to shaping history, both through their physical materiality and through the mental worlds they enable. Embedding found and designed landscapes into their social, political and cultural contexts, the course also pays close attention to the role of expert knowledge and the professions that have contributed to creating them. The course explores the various tensions and relationships embodied, created and represented by designed landscapes; the tensions between nature and culture, practice and use, design and reception, the visualreception of landscapes and their inhabitation, and site-specificity and purposefully ?international? design expressions. Using a variety of sources including texts, illustrations, and film the course offers insights into the development and transfer of ideas between different cultures, countries and geographical regions, and time periods.