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news Peter Walker: ‘The Twin Towers Project is the culmination of my work.’ The American landscape architect Peter Walker has been awarded the Geoffrey Jellicoe Gold Medal by the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA). This medal is the highest possible honour that the IFLA can give a landscape architect. The gigantic voids of Peter Walker Newer Orleans will never forget Katrina On 16 February American and Dutch planning and water management experts met in the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi) to discuss flood disasters. This was in response to the flooding of the American city of New Orleans in the wake of hurricane Katrina. Was the city poorly protected? Did the relief effort start too late? And could a similar calamity strike the Netherlands? The discussion focused on the gap between policy and practice. According to disaster expert Eelco Dijkstra of George Washington University, there is no awareness of disaster in the Dutch collective consciousness, and talk of risks is generally written off as fearmongering. The American participants were somewhat surprised to receive Dutch compliments on the way they Impression of final stage of the design by West 8. deal with threats and disasters. The American speakers complained that their government made one mistake after another during and after Katrina, The Geoffrey Jellicoe Medal will be presented once every four years to ‘a landscape architect whose achievements have had a lasting impact on the welfare of society and the environment’. The Medal was awarded for the first time at the end of last year during the IFLA Congress in Edinburgh. The jury chose Peter Walker from the landscape architects nominated because of the major significance of his many projects, books and lectures.‘Being a landscape architect means everything to me’, Peter Walker says in his first reaction. Eighteen months ago the 73-year-old designer received a similar award from ASLA, the American Society of Landscape Architects. ‘I would like to thank IFLA for this great honour.’ Walker, who is relatively unknown in Europe, is one of the most respected landscape architects in the world. This was highlighted last year when Walker, together with architect Michael Arad, but were full of praise over the way the Dutch have managed to keep their country dry for many centuries. Besides this rather abstract discus- won the design competition for the World Trade Center Memorial in New York. The competition was probably the most discussed and emotionally charged competition ever held for an exterior space in America. Walker and Arad’s winning design, titled Reflecting Absence includes two gigantic voids on the spot where the Twin Towers once stood. In the plan, the impressions of the towers remain empty, whilst the space around them has been designed as a park. Despite all his other projects and successes, this is the project he will be remembered by, Walker knows. ‘This project is the culmination of my work’, he says but he immediately puts this into perspective:‘or the opposite of course, because it may backfire. If many people know about it, you have a lot to gain, but even more to lose. The risk is enormous.’ And yet Walker is aware of his privileged position.‘We are very fortunate to be able to work on this sion, the NAi also hosted the exhibition ‘Newer Orleans’. In addition to the inevitable shocking pictures of the disaster, six plans by American and project. It is a fantastic project and I think it is a very good plan. Unfortunately the circumstances are not easy. New York is a difficult place to build, certainly because everyone is so emotionally involved. But we have another four years to go. We are working on it every day.’ Conviction Walker studied landscape architecture at the Universities of California and Illinois, and completed his master’s degree at Harvard School of Design where Frank O. Gehry was one of his fellow students. After graduating in 1957, he set up the bureau of Sasaki, Walker & Associates together with his mentor Hideo Sasaki.‘The commissions flowed in and after a few years we opened a second office in San Francisco which I was in charge of. We employed more than 250 people at that time.’ After several years, Walker left the SWA group because he had been asked to succeed Sasaki as Head of the Department of Landscape Architecture at Harvard.‘During the twenty years I was Dutch consultancies for rebuilding New Orleans were also on display. Huff + Gooden Architects of Charlston and MVRDV of Rotterdam designed a primary school. UN Studio and Morphosis of Los Angeles produced a design for a multimedia centre in downtown New Orleans. West 8 and Hargreaves Associates were both asked to design a distinctive landscape for the broken city. West 8 took on the former City Park. Their design is built up in three stages. First, the park will function as a temporary relief centre for the many homeless residents, where they can pitch their tents or park their mobile homes. In time, as these people return to their homes in the city, water will be given a more prominent place in the park. But first it will have to be cleaned up. For this, West 8 have designed a system of lagoons called the Jordan, to be built by volunteers, who will also plant two million young trees. Their voluntary efforts will symbolise the hope for a Walker and Arad’s winning design, titled Reflecting Absence, contains two voids which refer to the spots where the Twin Towers once stood. in charge of the department, I started a small experimental bureau, where I worked with various people, including Martha Schwartz and William Johnson.’ The bureau is now called Peter Walker & Partners and is situated in Berkeley. It is a teaching office, says Walker. better future. In the third stage, the area will be restored as a city park. Four main elements in the park will define it as a miniature Mississippi delta. Besides the Jordan, there is the Promenade of Music and the Path of Freedom jogging circuit. And Katrina has not been forgotten: on the Track of Katrina, people will be able to wander past large lily ponds in remembrance of those who died. The design by Hargreaves places New Orleans in a new network of engineering works, with an eye to the urban design and social problems left behind by Katrina. From this infrastructure network the city will be reoccupied by its characteristically rich mixture of cultures and communities. The improved infrastructure has been designed as a medium for restoring the relation between the city’s people and the water. We have predominantly young people working for us; they are the best students from universities in America, Europe and Asia. And they continue their studies with us. The partners are the faculty as it were.’ The way the bureau has been set up is a reflection of Walker’s conviction that developments in landscape architecture are determined by the design practice.‘The leading professionals prepare the way. They are the ones that confront the real problems in the real world. If, for instance, I want to know what is happening in the Netherlands, I look at Adriaan Geuze. For France, I look at Michel Desvigne. I am really interested in what is happening in Europe.’ Pat on the back In the almost fifty years that Walker has been a landscape architect, the field of study in the USA has expanded enormously.‘When I graduated, there were about two thousand landscape architects in the United States. I knew the majority of my most important fellow colleagues personally, like Ian McHarg, Stanley White and Lawrence Halprin. I had no idea at that time that it was such a unique situation. Nowadays with roughly thirty thousand landscape architects in America, this would no longer be possible.’ The Jellicoe Medal this year and the ASLA award last year are not the first prizes notched up by Walker. In the course of his long career, he has received many distinctions and won numerous design competitions. Walker has always been pleased with the attention.‘If you have ever made a design, you will know how difficult it is to make a good plan. Whenever I see a design that I really like, I send a short note to the designer. It is not easy and you don’t get many pats on the back in this profession. The landscape is usually taken for granted.’ Meinoud Hehenkamp Elizabeth Keller More information on Peter Walker and his bureau can be found at www.pwpla.com. The plan for Ground Zero can be found at www.wtcsitememorial.org. 12 ’SCAPE 1 / 2006 1 / 2006 ’SCAPE 13 Mark Hendriks The three development stages for City Park in New Orleans: relief, recovery, use.
news The publication of Meto Vroom’s Lexicon of Garden and Landscape Architecture marks the end of ten years trawling through a vast and varied body of literature for the retired professor. His voluminous book explains more than 300 landscape terms. Meto Vroom was professor of landscape architecture at the Department of Spatial Planning, Agricultural University of Wageningen, the Netherlands, from 1966 to 1995. The idea for a book containing a classification of terms used in garden and landscape architecture stems from an original initiative by the University of Wageningen in 1996. A number of enthusiasts wanted to make a CD-ROM of inspirational landscape projects from the twentieth century. By clicking on a project the user would be able to access descriptive texts, illustrations and background material. Because the plan was to allow users to compare projects, Meto Vroom was asked to work on the Urhahn Urban Design advises London The city authorities of London have commissioned the Dutch firm of urban designers Urhahn Urban Design to examine ways of increasing the building density of ten districts in North London. A recently published report has predicted that by 2016 the British capital will have 800,000 more inhabitants than at present, and the city will need an extra 345,000 houses for them. Urhahn Urban Design presented a catalogue full of design ideas for the ten neighbourhoods. The designers wanted to show with these proposals that intensification does not necessarily mean overfull neighbourhoods Meto Vroom and the language of landscape architecture Leonardo da Vinci’s bicycle. formulation of a clear and unambiguous terminology. ‘It was a wonderful idea,’ reminisces Vroom in his study in Wageningen. ‘A database that would allow you to browse through a whole range of projects. But as is the case with so many great ideas, there was not enough money. The 43,000 guilder subsidy was soon exhausted and the participants pulled out one by one The busy Crouch End district in London. Is intensifcation still possible? with no green areas and no open spaces. Well thought-out additions to because of other commitments.’ Vroom decided to continue on his own and focus his efforts on compiling a workable lexicon for his beloved discipline. Working alone suited him fine. ‘It was a joy to read works from this wonderful and expanding literature. I was a regular visitor to the university library, where I was given a free hand. And I collected many books existing developments can in fact create more vitality and jobs. The at home,’ recounts Vroom, gesturing to the bulging bookcases that line his attic room. Charles Dickens According to the New Oxford Dictionary of English, a lexicon is ‘the vocabulary of a person, language or branch of knowledge’.‘The book’s title is Lexicon of Garden and Landscape Architecture, but it is in fact my own language. If someone else had written it, the contents would undoubtedly have been different.’The book is not a dictionary, although it is almost long enough to be one. Each entry includes a short definition, but this is followed by an extensive explanation and a personal essay. Technical aspects are hardly touched on. Vroom explains:‘When I talk about something I think in terms of perceptions, impressions and references, and what it means to people. The book describes the terms in a context: where do they come from and how are they used? So I did not just read the specialist literature, but also Charles Dickens and the works of Margaret Atwood.’ report does not designate actual locations for the houses, but it does indicate the opportunities where a city can incorporate such numbers, and the preconditions which are important for actually achieving this. According to the study there are three. First, greater densification means that there must be more traffic modalities than the car alone to prevent roads becoming clogged. Second, districts with high-quality public transport hubs must be used as intensively as possible. Third, there must be a merging of functions to maintain the socio-economic level of an urban district. Mark Hendriks Vroom drew inspiration from seven hundred books and the same number of journal articles. This makes the Lexicon not only a reference work but a doorway to a much richer experience. From the philosophical term Arcadia the reader wanders, via the practical word ‘fountain’ and the policy construct ‘nature conservation’, past design terms such as ‘perspective’ and ‘sightline’ to the ideas encapsulated by ‘modernism’ and ‘casco’. Never finished Despite the pleasure he obtained from his work, Vroom also went through periods of uncertainty during his quest. Have I covered everything, do I know enough, am I missing something? He experienced all these doubts. The retired professor found support from his ex students and professional colleagues, who reviewed and commented on his drafts, a task which was later taken over by an editorial board. And then the book was ready. In fact, though, a book like this is never finished. As the literature continues to expand, the lexicon should really continually be updated. Vroom speaks from experience.‘Even when the book was almost ready to be sent to the printer, I came across a bicycle in Berlin that was designed by Leonardo da Vinci. This bicycle illustrated precisely what I had written about the term ‘system’. I hastily took a photograph, which was included in the book. You can say that this project more or less took over my life during the last ten years. Whatever I read, wherever I looked, the lexicon was always in the back of my mind.’ Chaos theory Sometimes Vroom had to draw the line. When preparing his discussion of the term ‘geometry’ he was led into an exploration of fractals, and from there became embroiled in chaos theory. ‘There came a time when I simply had to call it a day. You cannot write about material that is beyond you.’ Neither did he always follow tips given by his regular reviewers.‘As I said, this is my lexicon. I quite understand that other people may think differently about certain topics, that they would scrap certain terms or describe them differently.’The old professor smiled.‘I sincerely hope that my book stirs up controversy. The lexicon is a good starting point for a debate about the terminology used in the profession of garden and landscape architecture.’ Town centre enhancement with new public gardens, art galleries and restaurants, Crouch End, London. Henri Bava Between Barcelona and Venice The word landscape is on everyone’s lips: attractive, flexible and short, it is ‘trendy’. People are falling over themselves for it. Always indispensable, now it has become imperative. For some years now it has even had its own Biennale in Barcelona; just like architecture has its own in Venice. One has just finished; the other is already in preparation. But for anysomeone attracted by these events and debates and wanting to make landscape their profession the question arises: where is it best taught? The answer is not easy because, with the European educational reform known as the Bologna Reform (Bachelor, Master, PhD) cutting education up into small modules, an institution that does not have some landscape in its curriculum is becoming a rarity. Schools and faculties of architecture have almost all without exception added this word to their study programmes, and have most often substantiated it with high standards, considerable attention and detailed information. They have combined it with different disciplines such as urban design, art, and of course architecture. But have they supplanted the ‘landscape’ schools? It is hard to compare the content of what the institutions teach, but the schools have such an appetite for change and such application that at first glance it seems as though the balance of power was has been in their favour. In fact they have set up the encounter – often decisive – between the student and the landscape. Nevertheless, and yet they do not train landscape architects. Conversely, I believe that the essential difference is basically about ideas of duration and motivation. Just like as you do not become an architect in two years, you do not become a landscape designer in this short period of time either. The necessary maturation engenders a desire for conquest that transforms graduates in both disciplines into ‘knights’ passionately ready to engage body and soul to change the world and to prove how fully justified their apprenticeship washas been. With this criterion used as a yardstick, the plethora of European schools suddenly fades away: few teach landscape continuously from the Bachelor’s to the Master’s degree and the doctorate. Or else you can do what the landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted did, or the architects Peter Zumthor and Tadao Ando: start by doing something completely different. Henri Bava is landscape architect, principal of Agence Ter and professor at the University of Karlsruhe. 14 ’SCAPE 1 / 2006 1 / 2006 ’SCAPE 15 Mark Hendriks Meto J. Vroom, Lexicon of Garden and Landscape Architecture. Basel: Birkhauser. Price € 39.90. See also page 77.
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