Landscape Architecture: Landscape Architecture: - School of ...

Edward Hopper, Second Storey Sunlight, 1960
Artistic and architectural works are at the same time both specific and universal. Here, the figures and their setting are
fully intertwined. Landscape, house and human figures are charged with a sense of mystery, drama and anticipation.
The Power of Poetic Logic
The logically inconceivable task of architecture to integrate
irreconcilable opposites is fundamental and necessary. In
fulfilment of this, the essential aims of architecture are bound
to be mediation and reconciliation: the essence of an
authentic architectural work is the embodiment of mediation
and reconciliation. Architecture negotiates between differing
categories and oppositions. Architecture is conceivable in this
contradictory task only through understanding any design as
a poetic manifestation – poetic imagery is capable of
overcoming contradictions of logic through its polyvalent and
synthetic imagery. As Alvar Aalto once wrote: ‘In every case [of
creative work] one must achieve the simultaneous solution of
opposites. … Nearly every design task involves tens, often
hundreds, sometimes thousands of different contradictory
elements, which are forced into a functional harmony only by
man’s will. This harmony cannot be achieved by any other
means than those of art.’ 11
The Architecture of Painting
Speaking of the evolution of Modern architecture, Aalto often
said: ‘But it all began in painting.’ In 1947 he wrote: ‘abstract art
forms have brought impulses to the architecture of our time,
although indirectly, but this fact cannot be denied. On the other
hand, architecture has provided sources for abstract art. These
two art forms have alternately influenced each other. There we
are – the arts do have a common root even in our time.’ 12
Painting is close to the realm of architecture, particularly
because architectural issues are so often – or I should say,
unavoidably – part of the subject matter of painting,
regardless of whether we are looking at the representational
or abstract. In fact, this distinction is altogether highly
questionable, because all meaningful art is bound to be
representational in the existential sense.
Late medieval and early Renaissance paintings are
particularly inspiring for an architect because of the constant
presence of architecture as a subject matter. The early
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