Contemporary landscape architecture is progressing towards an appropiate and independent language of its own. Drawing on the potentials of art and architecture, the ever changing relationship between man and nature is given new expression. Ecological concerns and aesthetic aspirations interact in a fruitful dialogue. Particularly Land Art and related art movements become sources of inspiration and innovation. The ground-breakting works of the landscape artists and architects presented in this book reveal the diverse current trends in international landscape design. "This book offers many stimuli to design. Its contents are not just for landscape architects," wrote The architects' journal. With chapters on Dani Karavan, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Bernard Lassus, Peter Latz, Dieter Kienast, Herman Prigann, Peter Walker, Adriaan Geuze and others.
This book explores interventions that are noteable for their creative and sensitive design, planning or management of the landscape. The featured projects aim to promote interaction between people and the environment by responding to a broad range of human habitats and natural ecosystems in diverse social, cultural and ecolological contexts. In their response to context these projects evolve into Land Art, which is to be understood as a fusion between sculpture, architecture, and landscape architecture. The goal is to draw out the emotions of the spectator who is confronted by these determined, composed enviironments. The structure of this book is inspired by the poet's journey in Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy, from which we borrow the narrative structure and symbolic landscape imagery: the circles of Hell, the terraces of Mount Purgatory and the celestial spheres of Heaven.
A comprehensive history of the Earthworks movement provides an in-depth analysis of the forms that initiated Land Art, profiling top contributors and achievements within a context of the social and political climate of the 1960s, and noting the form's relationship to ecological movements. (Fine Arts)
Inspired by the news a poll had voted a garden as the most important work of art in Scotland, photographer Allan Pollok-Morris began a five-year Scottish odyssey in search of new works in landscape design and land art and to learn more from the creators of the works including Andy Goldsworthy, Charles Jencks, Alec Finlay, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Anish Kapoor, and Peter Liversidge, many of whom have written texts for the book. Inside this beautifully designed book are some of the finest works in garden making and land art, alongside many new discoveries. There are over 250 color photographs by Allan Pollok-Morris, a foreword by Sir Roy Strong, an essay by Tim Richardson, and illustration by Gary Hincks. A high-quality finish, 300-page, FSC certified hardback book, this second edition is supported by a large photographic exhibition and film, Close: A Journey in Scotland.
The current environmental crisis calls for a unified practice of landscape and architecture that would allow buildings and landscapes to perform symbiotically to heal the environment. Over the past ten years, a diverse group of architects, landscape architects, and artists have undertaken groundbreaking projects that propose an integration of landscape and architecture, dissolving traditional distinctions between building and environment. Groundwork: Between Landscape and Architecture examines twenty-five projects, on an international scale, that consider landscape and architecture as true reciprocal entities. Groundwork divides the projects into three design directions: Topography, Ecology, and Biocomputation. Topographic designers create projects that manipulate the ground to merge building and landscape as in Cairo Expo City in Egypt (Zaha Hadid Architects), Island City Central Park Grin Grin in Fukuoka, Japan (Toyo Ito & Associates) and the City of Culture of Galicia in Santiago de Compostela, Spain (Eisenman Architects). Ecologic designers develop environments that address issues such as energy climate and remediation, such as I’m Lost In Paris in France (R&Sie(n)), Turistroute in Eggum, Norway (Snøhetta) and Parque Atlántico in Santander, Cantabria, Spain (Batlle i Roig Arquitectes). Biocomputation designers use digital technologies to align biology and design in projects such as the Grotto Concept (Aranda/Lasch), North Side Copse House in West Sussex, England (EcoLogicStudio) and Local Code: Real Estates (Nicolas de Monchaux.) What these projects all have in common is a desire to pay attention and homage to the liminal space where indoors and outdoors meet. The critical connection between natural and synthetic, exterior and interior space, paves the way toward a more inclusive—and indeed more alive—conceptualization of the physical world.
The most comprehensive account available of Michael Heizer's art by a writer and curator who has critical experience with the artist and his work. Michael Heizer is among the greatest, and often least accessible, American artists. As one of the last living figures who launched the Land Art movement, his legacy of works that are literally and metaphorically monumental has an incalculable influence on the world of sculpture and environmental art. But his seclusion in the remote Nevada desert, as well as his notorious obduracy, have resulted in significant gaps in our critical understanding. Michael Heizer: The Once and Future Monuments spans the breadth of Heizer's career, uniquely combining fieldwork, personal narrative, and biographical research to create the first major assessment in years of this titan of American art. Author William L. Fox, founding director of the Center for Art + Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art, has alternately been a sponsor, advocate, and critic of Heizer's work for decades. Fox's understanding of the artist's history and connection to landscape, his time spent with Heizer at the remote ranch where Heizer is finishing his magnum opus--the mile-long sculpture City--and his access to some of Heizer's key associates give him a unique position from which to discuss the artist's work. Fox has also made numerous site visits to Heizer's work--including early pieces in the Nevada desert now largely lost to the elements--to correct the often inconsistent accounts of their locations. Last, Fox imparts a crucial new understanding of Heizer's work by elaborating on the artist's bond with his father, the famed archaeologist and cultural ecologist Robert Heizer, who enlisted his son on important digs in Mexico and Peru, providing the young man with an appreciation of site, landscape, and geology that would thoroughly inform his work. Michael Heizer: The Once and Future Monuments is a long overdue addition to the critical and biographical literature of this major figure in American art.
From Francis AlØs and Ursula Biemann to Vivan Sundaram, Allora & Calzadilla, and the Center for Urban Pedagogy, some of the most compelling artists today are engaging with the politics of land use, including the growth of the global economy, climate change, sustainability, Occupy movements, and the privatization of public space. Their work pivots around a set of evolving questions: In what ways is land, formed over the course of geological time, also contemporary and formed by the conditions of the present? How might art contribute to the expansion of spatial and environmental justice? Editors Emily Eliza Scott and Kirsten Swenson bring together a range of international voices and artworks to illuminate this critical mass of practices. One of the first comprehensive treatments of land use in contemporary art, Critical Landscapes skillfully surveys the stakes and concerns of recent land-based practices, outlining the art historical contexts, methodological strategies, and geopolitical phenomena. This cross-disciplinary collection is destined to be an essential reference not only within the fields of art and art history, but also across those of cultural geography, architecture and urban planning, environmental history, and landscape studies.
Peter Latz and Partners specialize in a contemporary, intelligent use of alternative technologies and the regeneration of industrial wastelands. The trademark of the works of the firm, which was founded in 1968, is its ability to express ecological and social concerns in a strong aesthetic language.
