Landscape Matters Issue 4 FINAL - Flipbook - Page 5
indirectly influence our daily lives, our interconnectedness,
our behaviours, thoughts, feelings, relationships and actions,
the world over. And, as we are all too aware, we must face our
fears and collectively seek ways to address them with all of
the aliveness, humility, determination and imagination that we
can muster.
How can a profession do this effectively if it has lost its soul,
its raison d'être, its essence?
No more caps, upped other font. Left
reference smaller though, that ok?
This, quite naturally, includes landscape architects. But here's
the thing, how can a profession that is uniquely placed to
reimagine, create, make, nurture and celebrate the processes
of life, do this effectively if it has lost its soul, its raison d’être,
its essence? Monogram is, in many ways, more than an artistic
statement about the collision and entanglement of man and
nature; to me it represents the multiple tensions, complexities,
uncertainties and inertias that are currently manifest in landscape architecture. Unlike the sculpture, the world is not static
or inanimate. Whilst the profession exists in a quiet and perpetual state of identity crisis and unresolved soul-searching,
others (including some within it) are at the vanguard of innovative creative expression, of understanding the value of meaningful socially-engaged practice, collaboration and shared
learning and embracing the simple complexity that makes
landscape architecture such a potentially rich and rewarding
endeavour. Landscape architecture, in both academia and
practice, is like the trapped goat being throttled by the tyre of
its own making. Whilst it might represent symbiosis, and offer
deeper meanings, it also highlights deeper existential issues
that, unless the goat is set free, are potentially terminal.
Process is more important than outcome.
When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to
where we’ve already been. If process drives outcome we may
not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be
there. (from: An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth. Bruce Mau. 1998)
Repetition is not truth. Or particularly imaginative. Culture
and nature are in a continual process of change. In order to
thrive, landscape architecture needs to commit to exchange
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