Michael
D. Murphy
TexasA&M UniversityAn Evolving Body of Thought
LANDSCAPE
ARCHITECTURE
THEORY
(
~ ii==== ====== ~~O'E
;~~
:~:TDy
WAVELAND
PRESS,
INC.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.
(
Robert ~ White
J
For information about this book, contact: Waveland Press, Inc.
4180 IL Route 83, Suite 101 Long Grove, IL 60047-9580 (847) 634-0081
[email protected] www.waveland.com
Copyright © 2005 by Waveland Press, Inc. ISBN 1-57766-357-8
Printed in the United States of America
7 6 543 2 1 \ >.; ~ ~ --.).. ..•..••. 'l' .~
.
Contents
Foreword v Acknowledgments viiIntroduction
Landscape Architecture 2 Values 3 Commodity 7 Landscape 11 Architecture 13 Design 16 Education 19 Professions 22Substantive Theory
Design Philosophy 26 Sustainable Development 28 Environment-Behavior Studies 34 Systems Theory 383
ProceduralTheory
Design Programming 53 Design Process 62 Landscape Planning 75Landscape Suitability Analysis 79
4
The Biophysical Environment
Geophysical Conditions 84 Ecosystems 87
Goods, Services, and Processes 99
Hi
1
25
49
iv
Ecosystem Health 104 Urban Development 108 Site Analysis Factors 109
5 The HumanEnvironment
Cultural Diversity 117 Human Needs 118
Urban Development 124 Access and Movement 129 Site Analysis Factors 134
6 Design Form
Natural Form 144 Designed Form 147 Aesthetics 1537 Design Purpose
Design Intent 160 Quality of Life 1668 Design Practice
Design Technologies 172 Organizational Values 174Changing Characteristics of Professions 176 Professional Services 184
9 Design Collaboration
Design Teams 190 Team Learning 192
Authority and Collaboration 196 The Team Environment 197 Shared Vision 199
Team Leadership 200 Team Size 201
Team Participation 201
Team Member Responsibilities 203 Rules of Engagement 204 Interdisciplinary Process 209
10 Conclusion
Critical Thinking 214 Creative Thinking 218 Summary 221 Glossary 227 References 233 Index 245 Contents115
139
159
171
189
213
Forevvord
Although we visualize the landscape as a place, it is better under-stood if we think of it as a process. The landscape is best described as a complex of biological, physical, and cultural systems engaged in a process of perpetual becoming. Over time the landscape takes different forms, each one expressing the state of these interacting systems at a . particulaI: moment and stage of development. As the landscape and society coevolve, we find that some conditions of the environment conflict with our activities and interests. In conceptual terms, design is. our way of intervening in the process of landscape evolution to eliminate conflicts and improve the human condition. Design is our way of managing the continuing process of change to enhance quality of life and create meaningful and compelling places as settings for human activity. Throughout history, modifying the landscape to improve our lives and express our humanity has been a continuing occupation. Today, as we gain increasing power to change the land-scape we also increase our responsibility to do so wisely, to protect the landscape as a critical resource and invest the built environment with enhanced value and meaning now and into the foreseeable future.
To ensure that our designs lead to durable improvements in the human/landscape condition rather than temporary alterations to its visual form or style, we need to consider all the salient factors of the landscape, including human interactions and the new activities to be accommodated, before deciding what a transformed landscape will become. But the environments we act to transform are not only
dynamic but also complex. To design effectively requires a compre-hensive approach to the identification, acquisition, and integration of the knowledge needed to support sound design recommendations. This enables designers to provide guidance based on a broad under-standing of people's interrelationships with the environment. But our lack of expertise in some areas poorly equips us to take advantage of all the knowledge required to form a holistic understanding of people and the landscape. Sometimes the more committed we become to a particular kind of understanding the less able we are to accommodate other points of view-as expressed in the apparent dichotomies between art and science or between the so called "hard" and "soft" sci-ences. This creates a dilemma for the designer: what knowledge should be used to guide design change and how do we synthesize it to create better informed designs for better formed landscapes?
While the intuitive aspects of designing-creating ideas with com-pelling form and spatial qualities-may be an unknowable mystery of the human mind, the rational aspects, that is, deciding what criteria designs should meet and why, are not. This is particularly evident in landscape designs responsive to a wide variety of requirements, such as those that improve the comfort, convenience, and functional rela-tionships among people and their activities; enhance social interaction and aesthetic experience; and maintain the ecological integrity and vitality of the environment. This examination of theory focuses on the body of knowledge required to inform design thinking and on ways to apply that knowledge to improve the human/landscape condition and enhance quality of life through design performance.
vi Preface
Acknovvledgtnents
In addition to those whose work is cited here, there are others to whom I owe special recognition for their individual contributions. First I thank my wife Doreen for her patience and support during the lengthy period of research and writing. I am deeply indebted to Chris Mulder for the time and energy we invested in developing and testing ,the design. process and interdisciplinary collaboration guidelines, and for his dedication to refining them through application. I also am indebted to Laurie Prossnitz for her skillful editing of the manuscript into a readable text. I thank John Motloch for our many discussions about the direction of the profession over the last twenty years. His critical insights into a comprehensive body of knowledge for the disci-pline have been a major influence on my own thinking. I thank Dieter Holm for his encouragement to write and for his comments on early drafts of the text. I also acknowledge the late Jot Carpenter for read-ing an early version of the manuscript and guidread-ing me toward pro-ductive sources in the literature. I am particularly pleased to acknowledge Laurence Jacobs and Elizabeth Larkin for their assistance in preparing the illustrations. Mostly, I am indebted to the students for whom this text is intended. It would be difficult to imagine this book coming to fruition without the challenging inquiries of many generations of insightful and enthusiastic students.
1
Introduction
Man is a singular creature. He has a set of gifts which make him unique among animals: so that, unlike them, he is not a figure in the landscape-he is a shaper of the landscape. In body and in mind he is the explorerof nature, the ubiquitous animal, who did not find but made his home in every continent.
-Jacob Bronowski,The Ascent of Man
The rise of civilization has been traced as the intellectual evolution of a species with the ability to understand nature, and as a result, the capacity to control rather than to be controlled by the environment. Humankind, through its invention of tools and knowledge, has devel-oped the capacity to mold both its environment and its future (Bronowski 1973:19). By accident as well as intent, human society has become the primary agent of change in the landscape. Design of the landscape is our way of guiding change to improve the human condition. Theory forms the basis for determining how to design well, to bring about successful change in the landscape.
This examination of landscape architecture theory will focus on our efforts to change the landscape as a professional pursuit and on the body of knowledge we require to do so successfully. But landscape architecture theory is in an evolutionary state. What is presented here is a brief introduction to some of the seminal writings and ideas that have informed landscape architecture over the last fifty years. Some of
2
Values
Our values are the ideals and principles we consider important in our lives, the ideas that give purpose and meaning to our thoughts and actions. Although some value judgments are considered universal, different people and cultures differ in the way they comprehend events and assign meaning to them. In general, the values of land-scape architecture fall into three broad categories: aesthetic, ecologi-cal, and social (Thompson 2000:7). Landscape architecture is deeply committed to enhancing the quality of human experience; establish-ing social equity; maintainestablish-ing a supportive, conflict-free functional organization within the landscape; and sustaining environmental quality. The values we hold as a society significantly influence the way we understand reality and serve as the primary filter through which we perceive and interpret events and phenomena. This includes
3
well educated to understand the landscape and the ways people inter-act with it, and well trained to apply design process and implementa-tion technology. They also need a sound theoretical base to structure and inform professional education and training and to guide their application in ways that are effective, useful, and valued by society.
The overarching goal of the profession is to create order and har-mony in our relationships with the environment. These relationships are expressed by the ecological, functional, and aesthetic characteris-tics of the places we create to facilitate human activity and to improve our use, experience, and understanding of the landscape. We alter physical conditions and processes in response to society's dynamic growth, development, and extension into the landscape. Attending the dynamics of human development is the challenge to continually reform the landscape in ways that better accommodate people's evolving requirements. These requirements include the provision of economic support, physical space for activities, improved satisfaction with and appreciation of the physical setting, enhancement and sus-tentation of environmental and human health, and expression of cul-turally and environmentally specific sense of place and community. To achieve these multiple objectives designers need a clear understanding of human and environmental processes and the ways in which they mutually interact to shape the landscape. To understand these pro-cesses designers also need to be aware of some of the factors that influence the way we comprehend and interpret the world around us. To better understand how we understand, we need to consider the influence of culture and values. Our cultural values have an impor-tant influence on the way we define the landscape and the actions we take to change or protect it.
Introduction Chapter One
the writers are landscape architects, but many more are thinkers from a wide variety of fields whose ideas have illuminated the search for a theory of landscape architecture. This text attempts to bring the ideas of some of the most important of these writers together to present a broad view of a critical but still developing body of knowledge. The treatment of the material is introductory. Ideas are summarized to describe their essential characteristics and reveal their relationships to one another. For a more comprehensive treatment, readers are encour-aged to return to the original sources and to read the rapidly expand-ing contemporary literature for a more complete understandexpand-ing.
To begin this introduction to theory we need a few definitions to clarify some of the principle issues. These issues are discussed to intro-duce you to the body of knowledge and to describe some of the major influences on its central themes. The themes described here are confined to the distinct knowledge areas-and their underlying values-that inspire the changes we impose on the landscape, inform our reasons for doing so, and guide us in reaching these decisions. 1Wocritical areas of knowledge are not addressed in this examination of theory: history and technology. History of landscape architecture has been well docu-mented for many years and is not necessarily germane to the future form of the landscape. Neither building technology nor information technology will be covered, primarily because these are complex topics that are covered adequately elsewhere. The first consideration here is to provide a general definition of landscape architecture.
There are many ways to describe landscape architecture. The description used here is intended to be inclusive of a broad range of practice and research areas and provide a definition that most practi-tioners and academicians share. Landscape architecture is the disci-pline devoted to understanding and shaping the landscape and, as a profession, provides site planning, design, and management advice to improve the landscape for human benefit. The purpose of landscape planning and design is twofold: to guide change in the character of the landscape that will create and sustain useful, healthful, and enjoyable urban, suburban, and regional environments; and to protect and enhance their intrinsic physical, cultural, and ecological qualities. Pro-fessional practitioners provide advice in the form of planning and design services to individuals and groups actively engaged in modify-ing the landscape to improve its utility and value.
Landscape architecture as a service profession is called upon to advise on the disposition and management of society's most valuable resource: the landscape. To do this effectively practitioners need to be
4
wealth than as an existing condition. For many years social commen-tators have remarked on our attitudes about natural wealth:
A Great Promise of Unlimited Progress-the promise of domina-tion of nature, of material abundance, of the greatest happiness for the greatest number, and of unimpeded personal freedom-has sustained the hopes and faith of the generations since the begin-ning of the industrial age. (Fromm 1976:1)
One of the defining characteristics of Western society, and indeed of modern societies everywhere, is the concept of ownership. Accom-panying the promise of industrialism's increasing control over nature (as the repository of wealth-generating resources) has been the paral-lel notion of possessing it. As such, nature is defined as a commodity that we consume in exchange for increased wealth and an improved standard of living. Over half a century ago Aldo Leopold, regarded as one of the founders of the environmental movement in the United States, observed that "we face the question whether a still higher ,standard of living' is worth its cost in things natural, wild, and free" (Leopold 1949:xvii). The question remains relevant today.
Control of resources for survival and prosperity is a universal concept. The concept of territoriality and the domination of space and resources is widely observed in nature and well documented for all forms of animal life (Ardrey 1966; Hall 1966:51), although it is not clear that territorial behavior is necessarily related to resources. Terri-torial behavior may be as important as a way of defining the individ-ual and organizing the group as it is a way to assure their survival (Ardrey 1966: 170). There seems to be a consistent link between terri-t()riality and reproductive success. Nevertheless, the idea of owning nature or parts of it for personal benefit and enrichment appears to have developed as a natural evolution of human thought. It was a rel-atively short time ago that we abandoned the concept of owning peo-ple, and only then after a struggle. The concept of women as chattel is no longer legally sanctioned, but women's ability to exercise indepen-dent authority over family property without the consent of their hus-bands is relatively new in U.S. legal history. We are only slowly moving away from the concept of possessing others, not only as a means of controlling resources but also as an important way of defin-ing ourselves. It is apparent that some of these more contemporary ideas regarding possession and ownership have not advanced to the same extent in all parts of the world, or even in the United States regarding our relationships with the landscape.
In contemporary society our status is established to a large extent by what we possess-particularly the possession of things that increase or display autonomy and power over others. Territory and artifacts serve as symbolic representations of power. For over a century, owning Chapter One
our understanding of professional values, which may be broadly con-ceived as the values of a design subculture.
To help separate reality from our perceptions of it, this investiga-tion of design theory begins with an inquiry into our core beliefs about the nature of the world. A number of provocative questions may be asked: What are the fundamental values of our society and how do they influence our individual and collective perceptions and behavior? Do we, for example, believe in the principle of democracy, by which the most correct decisions are those supported by the largest number of people (as expressed by politicians)? Or, do we believe in the correctness of informed opinion as expressed by a well-educated elite (such as landscape architects) as the most appropriate determinants of action? Are we, as we believe, a free people and if so, do we have the freedom to think or act independently of the way prominent social and political leaders think and act? Do we value freedom of thought and action to the extent that we are tolerant of others if they do not think and act as we do? Do we grant ourselves the freedom to think thoughts others might not understand or approve? If we value freedom, do we believe that it comes with responsibilities? If so, to whom and for what are we responsible? Do we value social progress? If so, what do we mean by social progress? Does it mean that conditions progressively improve for the welfare of individuals and society at large? Or, is improvement only appropriate for those (such as the well educated) who control resources? At what levels and in what areas do we intend and measure improvement? Do we measure improvement by the accumulation of wealth and goods, or by the quality of our interrelationships with one another and the environment, or the opportunities we provide for our children-the inheritors of our society? These questions may be diffi-ctilt to answer, but they deserve examination. Some historical perspec-tive may be helpful as a point of departure.
In the development of the United States, Americans advanced from a frontier society where survival was a daily struggle to a stage where enough control was established over the environment and its resources to assure survival on a predictable basis. We eventually reached the stage we enjoy today, where our needs have been satisfied in abundance. We are able to take from the environment enough not only for survival, but for the accumulation of sufficient reserves to increase control over our lives as well as the environment. Once sur-pluses were assured, the values of society began to change from those based on the satisfaction of daily needs to the accumulation of wealth. This shift affected all aspects of society, including political, economic, and technological power and prestige, to the extent that today our regulation of untapped resources, in the form of potential wealth, dominates our attitudes about and relationships with the landscape (Rodiek 1978). The landscape is more valued for its potential as future
6
Commodity
basis for the benefit of society collectively. We have persistent prob-lems in affording the expense of good schools for example, or univer-sal health care, or environmental protection, or public recreation facilities that are equally available to all members of the community. Our values seem to be inclined toward the individual rather than the community. There is a perception that little individual status accrues from the improved quality of community life. But in reality we are motivated to act on both individual and communal values. It is society that provides the opportunities we require to function as individuals. We must exist as an individual if we are to function as a thoughtful member of society. The survival of an open, democratic society requires thoughtful individual participation from its members. Both these motivations need to be understood and accommodated in the way we organize society and the shared landscape.
7
The fundamental structure of free enterprise, capitalistic society is based on the continuing production and consumption of goods-pro-duction beyond the level required for a comfortable life. We are con-stantly encouraged to buy things, not because they are particularly necessary in a utilitarian way and not because of their benefits to the environment or community, but because they are new and available for sale as a means of creating wealth. Just as the Communists defined themselves as workers, we happily define ourselves as consumers, consumers of resources as well as "products." The process of produc-tion and consumpproduc-tion must be continuous if our naproduc-tional economy is to grow and maintain the ability to support society and improve our standard of living-which seems to mean the accumulation of goods. This is one way the value structure of corporate capitalism shapes our concepts of ourselves, our relationships to one another, and our rela-tionship with the environment. This is important to an investigation of design theory because it helps us understand how we as a society value the landscape. The landscape is important primarily because it is a commodity that can be exchanged in the marketplace, and as the source of raw materials from which products can be manufactured. The influence of these perceptions may be seen in our actions.
Weabuse land becausewe regard it as a commoditybelongingto us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may beginto use it with loveand respect.(Leopold1949:xviii)
Many educated people understand the concept of ecological com-munity as a group of mutually interdependent organisms interacting Introduction
Chapter One symbols of power has been referred to as "conspicuous consumption" (Veblen 1899). A place or an object has value and symbolic significance only if others are aware of and impressed by our possession of it. Sig-nificantly, these symbolic possessions tend to be highly consistent with those things possessed by other people we wish to associate ourselves with. Not all groups use the same symbols: to use vehicles as an exam-ple, one group may use Harley-Davidson motorcycles, another may use Chevrolet Suburbans, and another Mercedes Benz. Those in one group are rarely impressed by the symbols of those in another. Within social groups, however, the advertising communications system has been highly successful at defining for us what to prefer and purchase to achieve and denote status within the community of our choice.
In addition to the ownership of property, another of our most cherished values is individual liberty. We feel strongly that individual-ism and the protection of individual rights are among the most noble of human endeavors and that the protection of collective social values should be secondary to that of individuals. At times we make connec-tions between behavior and individuality that may be difficult to understand upon careful examination, but seem quite reasonable when viewed through the filter of our social values.
On the one-hundredth anniversary of the Harley-Davidson Motorcycle Company, George F. Will, editorial writer for Newsweek
magazine, reported that sales for the year accounted for $3.3 billion with earnings of $435 million for 261,000 motorcycles. In addition, 650,000 Americans paid $40 annual dues to be members of the Har-ley owners group and 300,000 of them rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, every August. In 2002 bikers and enthusiasts spent more than $1 billion on Harley gear with the company label on it. Will quotes Jeffrey Bluestein, the CEO of Harley-Davidson, as saying that motorcycling means "freedom, adventure, individual expression." To which Will added, '1\8does America" (Will 2002).
Exactly how adventuresome, individualistic, or liberating it is to purchase vehicles and accoutrements identical to those purchased by hundreds of thousands of like-minded people was not explained. What may be more clearly revealed is our underlying value for shared experience, what Thorsten Veblen called a "propensity for emulation," even if we have to purchase it. Perhaps it is because we have pur-chased it, or because we are able to, that we value the experience so highly. Will noted that the average Harley purchaser earned $78,000 per year and paid, on average, $15,000 for "his machine." The exclu-sivity of the experience, as might be presumed from the purchase price, seems to increase its value and meaning because most Ameri-cans cannot afford to participate.
This value on the purchase of individual status may also account for our reluctance to spend even modest amounts on an individual
8
That the aim of life is happiness, that is, maximum pleasure, defined as the satisfaction of any desire or subjective need a person may feel; and that egotism, selfishness, and greed, as the system needs to generate them in order to function, lead to harmony and peace. (Fromm 1976:5)
There is room for serious debate about the incompatibility of greed and peace. Or even that greed is the real motivator behind capi-talism, even though it may often appear so. The acquisitive nature of capitalism may be better explained as a process of continual challenge and achievement rather than greed. It may simply be that acquiring wealth is the most universally accepted means of measuring success. But there can be little dispute that the satisfaction of unlimited acqui-sition requires immediate and often reckless exploitation of resources, irrespective of the consequence to those "downstream" in regard to their position in the economic order, the physical order of the land-scape, or as future generations.
Under the production and consumption paradigm, even people are considered a "resource" for industry-rather than the other way around. We do not even consider it odd that Texas A&M University, like most large corporations, has a Department of Human Resources. In fact, there is a national Society of Human Resource Management with offices in Alexandria, Virginia, that provides services to those in the business of managing humans as a resource. Some contend that we have so commodified our relationships with the environment and one another that even the most sanctified aspects of life derive their primary value from the marketplace. Consider the home.
Home is that place where the family, the most important institu-tion in human society, collectively and spiritually resides. The home is the sheltered setting for an array of interpersonal relationships. It is a place that provides the basic source of nurturing for the individual and the nuclear or extended family-the ultimate refuge from the uncertainties of the outside world. It is the place where you are loved and protected. As Robert Frost said, "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in" (1915). In our society we think of the home as being in a building, a dwelling. Some people think of it as the building. It is well understood that developers build and real estate agents sell "homes," not houses, and the public recorder transfers deeds for the sale of "property," not land.
These issues raise fundamental questions: Where does the land-scape fit in this paradigm? Does it have value to us in any context other than economic? If it has value, can we enhance and protect the value of the landscape through design? Do we as designers-as shapers of the landscape-have a responsibility to the landscape, or only to its owner and those who are to occupy it, those we call "users"? These are the questions you will either answer over the Chapter One
in a shared physical setting. Most people, however, do not regard humans as a component of an ecological community. We tend to see ourselves as set apart, above this level of ecological organization. We reserve a special status for humans and define ourselves in rather dif-ferent terms. The ecosystem is considered to be an environment we control, not one we are a part of.
We do not, as a general rule, define ourselves asbeing at all, but as
having (Fromm 1976). We do not say that we work, but that we
"have" a job. We do not say that we are educated, but that we "have" a college degree. These "possessions" have symbolic currency for the purchase of status in the social marketplace. On the basis of education and employment we are able to "have" wealth. In spite of our ability to enjoy a lifestyle unknown to even the most wealthy only a few generations ago, there is increasing evidence that our "way" of life is not only unsustainable in the long term, but also fails to meet our most fundamental human needs today. For over a quarter of a cen-tury many have believed, as Eric Fromm noted:
• Unrestricted satisfaction of all desires is not conducive to well-being, nor is it the way to happiness or even to maximum pleasure.
• The dream of being independent masters of our lives ended when we began awakening to the fact that we have all become cogs in the bureaucratic machine, with our thoughts, feelings, and tastes manipulated by government and industry and the mass communications that they control.
• Economic progress has remained restricted to the rich nations, and the gap between rich and poor nations has widened. • Technical progress itself has related ecological dangers and the
dangers of nuclear war, either or both of which may put an end to all civilizations and possibly to all life. (1976:2)
It is virtually impossible to hold the view that we possess land and at the same time to conceive ourselves as part of it. It is almost unthinkable that we would belong to the land rather than the other way around. A few, in reaction, have said that they do not own the land but that they have borrowed it from their children. The funda-mental values we hold, the paradigmatic filter through which we view reality, denies to many in our society (although not to all) the opportunity to achieve a sense of belonging or wholeness with the environment. The intellectual structure of our relationship to the world is better characterized as ownership and domination than stew-ardship. We define land as a commodity belonging to individuals (Lahde 1982:9). Land defined as "property" has "value." Fromm believed that the industrial system had failure built into its two main psychological premises:
course of your professional life, or they are questions you will let society answer for you. It is important to note that the answers soci-ety provides will be useful for the way socisoci-ety is currently organized and not necessarily for any other purpose. That is to say, the defini-tion is framed to reinforce the status quo rather than design change. Each society will answer these questions in a different way. Over time societies will change their answers as understanding and social values evolve. For now there is the question of how this relates to an under-standing of landscape architecture theory.
Theory of landscape architecture addresses fundamental questions regarding the meaning and purpose of our activities to impose design change on the landscape: What is it that we do? Why do we do it? How do we do it? How do we determine when it has been done well? While the questions are simple enough, the answers tend to be both complex and elusive. These are the kind of questions that have per-plexed philosophers of all societies in all ages and we are unlikely to answer them definitively here. But that does not mean we should not try. To become educated means that we have assumed the responsibil-ity to try to answer questions that will accompany us throughout our life. Likewise, in the search for design theory, it may not be the desti-nation but the journey that is most important to understanding.
Because our world (physically, ecologically, culturally, aestheti-cally, and intellectually) is in a process of perpetual becoming, the landscape is continually changing and evolving in response to ongoing natural and human processes. As a consequence, the considerations for intervening in that process of change are likewise in a continual state of flux. In the search for understanding, meaning comes not just from the discovery of definitive answers to the questions but prima-rily from our individual and collective search for them. The future of the design disciplines and the quality of our professional lives will be defined by our examination of the issues and the conclusions we reach. In a service profession, it is always important to understand how our society perceives the need for the services we provide and how it values the advice it receives.
If we understand the world to be in a process of perpetual change, and if our questions therefore cannot be answered definitively, it is reasonable to ask whether it is valuable to pursue these questions at all. Can we provide enduring answers to evolving questions? Almost certainly we cannot. It is not the answers but the principles that issue from them that may be more enduring. If we seek continuing improvement through design, our theories about why and how we design may need to change as rapidly as conditions if they are to remain relevant. The main questions may be: What is the condition of the landscape today? How does that compare to what we knew, or thought we knew, about the past and what does it mean regarding
11
10
Chapter One Introduction
how we gain and apply knowledge to improve the quality of the land-scape of the future? We live in a society and in a time when knowledge has become the primary motivator and determinant of thought and action. We trust knowledge and technology, sometimes even when we should question it the most. And since knowledge is not static, the process of understanding will require that we ask these questions con-tinuously. Like the landscape, knowing is a process of continual change and improvement. The questions remain the same. It is only the answers that change. We will only know what the acceptable answers are if we continually pose the questions.
Landscape
Another important consideration is to define what we mean by landscape. The traditional definition of landscape is an area of the earth's land surface that has been modified by human activity (Jackson 1984:5). This is from the Germanic root landschajt, as "a small collec-tion of buildings as a human concentracollec-tion in a circle of pasture or cul-tivated space surrounded by wilderness" (Motloch 2001 :3), and its English transliteration. Some expand the definition to include natural areas, such as wilderness, that do not evidence human modification. This seems appropriate since, in reality, there is virtually no place on earth that has not been influenced by human activity of some type-through direct settlement, husbandry, deforestation, or by inadvertent actions such as acid rain, air pollution, or chemical contamination of the earth's soil and waters (Berleant 1992:3). Consequently the tradi-tional definition is inclusive, encompassing all contiguous land areas of a definable character. The traditional definition is applied here since the designed landscape is, by definition, subject to human influence even though the physical evidence of that influence might not be obvious.
Landscape is a broad term encompassing the totality of our phys-ical surroundings: environment, place, region, and geography to name a few. The landscape is observed, visualized, and perceived dif-ferently by people in different situations and from different land-scapes, conveying a different meaning to each of them. The landscape is an entity that is defined by our senses and interpreted by our intel-lect. It reflects prevailing cultural, social, and economic values and expresses the character of a society as it has developed over an extended period of time. When understood, the landscape may be comprehended as one of the most accurate indicators of a society, its values, its technology, and its aspirations. But because it is constantly changing, the landscape requires constant attention if we are to decode its fundamental meanings and gain a clear understanding of who we are and where we are going as a society (Meinig 1979:1).
13
12
Chapter One People have always altered the landscape to make it more respon-sive to their needs. Today we provide guidance for those anticipating landscape change as a specialized design profession: landscape archi-tecture. Until very recently designs to transform the landscape as an entity were inadvertent, in response to actions to meet people's spe- ' cific needs, such as clearing a forest for agriculture or to build a town, flooding a valley for water supply or creating spaces for recreation. Contemporary design requirements are more complex. We now understand that there are indirect as well as direct needs to be addressed by design: maintaining the health and diversity of ecosys-tems; sustaining the landscape's intrinsic character, function, and productivity; and satisfying statutorily mandated codes and develop-ment standards.
The complexity of contemporary design requirements continually increases as expanding knowledge advances our understanding of the landscape and human influences on it. Our efforts to design in ways that respond to this complexity and satisfy growing performance requirements accentuate one of contemporary society's most difficult problems: our inability to fully comprehend and manage increasingly complex technical, cultural, and biophysical systems (Senge 1990; Hutchins 1996). Because landscape or environmental issues exist pri-marily as a vast network of interacting features and processes, they belong to a class of problems that resist purely scientific or technolog-ical understanding and solution (Soule and Press 1998). Our continu-ing requirement to change the landscape to meet new needs and respond to new opportunities creates a situation where, as Albert Ein-stein noted, "Imagination is more important than knowledge." He may have overstated to make the point, but it should be clear that the two are complementary and equally important. Either in the absence of the other is of limited value, and as will be described below, poten-tially dangerous when it comes to changing the landscape.
Contemporary approaches to landscape design are intended to address this complexity: to maintain balance in the environment as we alter its form and use, to provide for people's immediate needs while simultaneously maintaining the richness and vitality of ecologi-cal and cultural systems. It is in response to these interrelated pro-cesses of landscape change that the environmental design disciplines have evolved. Each discipline-architecture, engineering, landscape architecture, planning-addresses a different kind of process and employs a different theory, knowledge base, and technology. Each dis-cipline provides answers for a different type of development problem, such as buildings, infrastructure, or landscape. One of our most important avenues of inquiry is to determine the areas of responsibil-ity of these different disciplines so that we can better manage
success-Introduction
ful interaction and synergy among them. One of the disciplines most closely allied to landscape architecture is architecture.
Architecture
No discussion of landscape architecture theory would be complete without reference to architecture. In the past a great deal of the the-ory of landscape architecture was borrowed from our older sister (perhaps mother) profession. In landscape architecture the term
archi-tecture is used in its generic sense as the process of applying design
thinking to determine a desired future outcome. Originally, not only the process but also the principles of architecture were applied to the design of the landscape. But architecture as a discipline or profession is principally about the design of buildings. Landscape architecture on the other hand is principally about place making and only occasion-ally concerned with buildings. While it is useful to understand and respect the values and theory of a closely allied discipline, it is also important to know where to draw distinctions. Although architecture and landscape architecture address the world through a common design paradigm, and both fields approach design in a similar way, what these two disciplines design, the knowledge bases they apply, and the values they hold are quite different.
There are many ways to define architecture. One of the classic def-initions is from the Swiss architect known as Le Corbusier: 'J\rchitec-ture is the masterly, correct and magnificent play of masses brought together in light." This definition is both poetic and profound. Unfor-tunately, this kind of definition, which is not uncommon, casts little light on the subject. The uninitiated need a more concrete definition for fundamental understanding. Unless we can define, in a compre-hensible way, what architecture is, there is no reason to suppose that we know what it is or, for that matter, whether it is being taught at the university. The same, of course, is true for landscape architecture.
Architecture is a design discipline concerned with the creation of physical structures to shape, shelter, and facilitate specific, and usually concentrated, human activities. Landscape architecture is also concerned with facilitating human activities, often different kinds at different times in the same place. In addition, landscape architecture is equally concerned with the celebration and conservation of the environment where those activities take place. Architecture is likewise concerned with the celebration of building. Architecture also is concerned with express-ing itself and its context, referential to both itself and its culture in space and in time. In architecture it is almost unthinkable that the structure, as the tangible manifestation of human influence, is not a conspicuous and distinctive physical expression. In landscape architecture, on the
15
14
Chapter One other hand, it is not uncommon that the touch of the designer is so restrained and the expression of design so subtle that the place appears almost untouched, as if in a "natural" state. Indeed, since the seamless integration of new activities into the larger framework of the landscape is one of the landscape designer's most difficult challenges, imposition of a subdued or naturalistic expression, consistent with the character of the existing landscape, is a common design strategy.
The need for design change develops in response to society's dynamic growth and expansion into the landscape and to address our constantly evolving patterns of activity and technology. As society grows and changes we need more building and a revised landscape in which it occurs. Architectural responses tend to reveal the interplay of contemporary technology and style as a physical design expression. Landscape architecture, on the other hand, serves to make connec-tions: between buildings and human activities. The landscape, because it is more enduring, also serves as a bridge over time, from our past to the present and eventually into the future. The basic role of landscape architecture is to continually reform the normally slowly evolving landscape to better accommodate these rapidly changing requirements for economic support, to provide space for new activities and, as a cumulative result, express a culturally specific sense of place.
Unlike the architect, who can begin with designs for a new build-ing with each commission, the landscape architect must return to the same material and, in a sense, the same place for each project. Each project is, in a broad sense, a refinement to the same common .place. Through the conscious imposition of ideas to shape the form of the environment and its elements, the design disciplines collectively seek to arrange the features, processes, and character of the urban and regional landscape to improve their overall utility and value and reflect the underlying social and ecological order.
This process of change reveals an important consideration regard-ing Fromm's distinction between "beregard-ing" and "havregard-ing" as a way to define ourselves and our relationships with one another and with the environment. An intrinsic characteristic of the concept "to be" is the aspect of "becoming" (Fromm 1976:25). If we shift our focus from having to being, the next step is the concept of becoming. This is a critical consideration in design. Design is often described as creating form, with the very clear assumption that this is a formal change; that the form created is to be permanent and unchanging. This tradi-tional architectural assumption is fundamentally· inconsistent with the reality of the landscape. All aspects of nature are in a state of per-petual evolution. They are constantly changing in both form and sub-stance. Ecosystems tend to become increasingly complex, trapping and passing along more energy as a result of that complexity. The same is true for the landscape of urban systems.
Introduction
Cities constantly grow and change, breaking down old roads and buildings to make way for new. Likewise, each day we as individuals change; we become older, more experienced and, we may hope, more happy and wise. Each day also brings us nearer to our death, to dust and eventual reincorporation through the recycling of elements into the ecosystem via another generation of plants and animals; the pro-cess of which, coincidently, is the basic activity of the landscape. In effect we are becoming, at least in our elemental constituents, what we originally were-a part of the landscape. In a physical sense we come from and are becoming landscape. In a spiritual sense, however, we remain individual and distinctive. And for the moment, we are content to hold on to our distinctive existence. Architecture is much more reflective of that spiritual aspect of individual distinctiveness, and as such is quite different from landscape architecture, which is more reflective of dynamic process and becoming.
Each day we are, a little more perfectly, whatever it is we are capable of becoming as a person. The same may be said of the land-scape. The landscape we see is a point-in-time expression of interact-ing ecological, physical, and cultural processes, a momentary snapshot of what exists today. And, if we conceive human society as a system supported by many individuals maintaining and passing along the spark of life, our individual lives may be understood as part of a continuum of human life, sustained over time by successive gen-erations. If we conceive of the world as constantly becoming, rather than being, .our understanding of the landscape and our responsibili-ties to intervene in the process of changing it will respond to and per-haps more closely approximate the reality of our evolving world. Architecture, however, tends to remain in its original form, particu-larly if it is architecture that we consider valuable as an expression of who we are, or who we would like to be.
Our past concepts and theories of design have been inherited from the arts and architecture, which are oriented primarily toward the cre-ation of formal, and static, artifacts. Classic examples of Western art and design have included such enduring physical artifacts as Egyptian pyramids, Greek temples, and Roman coliseums. We have inherited the formal design paradigm where the designer strives not just to create but sustain form over time. But the world is not static. To understand landscape design we need to begin with the concept of landscape as perpetual change within dynamic systems-process-and see the role of the designer as that of intentionally intervening in that process to effect improved systemic relationships. To achieve improvement through design we need to change the landscape in ways that are demonstrably beneficial. One of those benefits is to preserve the health and working order of the landscape, which implies an ability to con-tinue the process of change and improvement, not to arrest it.
16
disorder and accident. Therefore it signifies a human need and quali-fies man(kind)' s thinking and doing" (1977: 75). Design is the process of forming things or places to bring about improvement-to make them more useful, economical, or beautiful, for example. Unfortu-nately, there is a growing body of evidence that the quality of the environments we collectively create, as well as those left unaltered, is declining rather than improving; in part because they have been con-ceived, executed, and maintained as static features embedded in the dynamic matrix of a fluid environment. But there is another consider-ation. All too often the design disciplines address problems of the landscape's subsystems, not problems of the landscape as a whole system. Our design solutions are only partial while the problems of the environment present themselves as interrelated wholes.
The way we change the landscape negatively impacts many of its natural systems simply because we do not understand what these systems are or how they function. On a broad scale our designs are bringing about disorder in many aspects of the landscape. For exam-ple, our farming and forestry practices have almost eliminated many species because the complexity of these environments, and their habi-tat, is being lost. The relationships between what we create by design and all other interrelated aspects of the environment determine the overall quality of the landscape, and by extension, the quality of our lives. One of the clearest examples of these relationships may be seen regarding our ability to increase the human population (Kohnke and Franzmeier.1995:145). Through improvements in medicine and sani-tation we have seen significant improvements in survival rates among the world's populations. These increased numbers of people have, in turn, had a significant impact on the quality of the environment:
In the six secondsit takes you to read this sentence,eighteenmore peoplewill be added.Eachhour there are 11,000 more mouths to feed;eachyear more than 95 million.yet the world has hundreds of billions fewer tons of topsoil and hundreds of trillions fewer gallons of groundwater with which to grow food crops than it had in 1968. (Ehrlichand Ehrlich1990:9)
As the population increases, demands on the landscape grow. Both our population and our lifestyle are rising. A rising lifestyle means we have more resources at our disposal. Each day we require more from the landscape. And although these demands are growing, the land-scape is not. We constantly extend and change the way we use and manage the environment to increase our ability to extract needed resources. The basic challenge in designing the landscape is to syner-gize biophysical and cultural processes to accommodate the dynamic requirements of both without critically compromising either. The way we define design and how we apply that definition to changing the Chapter One
If we fail to understand that landscape is process, our designs will fail to integrate with reality in continuing and meaningful ways; they will fail to become an integral part of the landscape as a process. With-out this temporal/conceptual integration our design ideas will remain rooted in the static concepts of discrete architectural artifacts, and we' lose the opportunity to contribute to continuing change and improve-ment, to the evolution of the built landscape as a systemic process.
In architecture the product of design is not just a shelter, it is also a cultural artifact. In landscape architecture the product is not so much an artifact as it is an interactive environment. In landscape architecture the product is a process. Although architecture and land-scape architecture may employ the same design process of determin-ing change, the changes they determine do not result in the same kind of product. The landscape expresses itself as place. But this expression is not always a representation in the architectural sense, in that it may be documented and recorded with the expectation that the form of the place will remain static, recognizably the same, after an extended period of time. There should be every expectation that a well-designed-that is, living-landscape, in addition to its ability to promote enhanced human activity and experience, will also retain its capacity to evolve in response to changing demands from the environ-ment or from those who use it over time. A living landscape is a growing and changing landscape, in part because we ourselves are changing and constantly placing new demands on it. .
Within this dynamic environmental matrix, some landscapes express the moment just as is the case in architecture. Architecture is a temporal expression of what we as a society believe and how we build at a given moment. Some landscapes also express society and the envi-ronment in this way. But not all landscapes follow the temporal archi-tectural model. Each form of expression is equally important. In a society such as ours, it is important that both temporal and dynamic designs are created. The icon is important as a statement of who we are and where we have come from. Design of the landscape as a dynamic system is important to provide a setting, or place, in which the icon exists. Architecture, with its paradigm of the artifact, provides one of the critical models and a basic underpinning for an important aspect of landscape architectural practice and landscape architecture theory. But there are also other models of design to be considered.
Design
The artist Josef Albers said, "To design is to plan and organize, to order, to relate and to control. In short it embraces all means opposing
18
Education
To prepare landscape architects for careers to address these com-plex issues as practitioners or disciplinary researchers, the profession requires that they receive a comprehensive education. Universities playa number of integrated roles in the process of professional
prep-19
• ecological sustainability • economy of construction • ease of maintenance
• comprehension and wayfinding • aesthetic experience
• sense-of-place expression • access to resources
shelter from elements functional organization comfort and convenience • social interaction
human health and safety
hope will result in benefits that do not presently exist. It is interesting that among the common purposes of design we do not typically include the need to ensure a capacity for future change. Even though we know that change is the only constant in the environment, we continue in our tendency toward the creation of fixed or static form of the landscape.
To create conditions of comprehensive environmental improve-ment, design change needs to protect the critical characteristics of the present condition as well as to bring about improvement in as many of these categories of design intention as necessary. To do this success-fully we need to institute systemic change in the environment whereby each of these aspects will be improved and also bear a benefi-cial influence on all the others (Mitroff and Linstone 1993). By invest-ing environments with value and meaninvest-ing on multiple, mutually reinforcing levels, designs increase their functional and perceptual sig-nificance for the people who occupy and use them. Consequently, it is in the broad range of categories in which improvement is sought that designs may be evaluated to assess their quality (Churchman 1982). Thus, designs can only bring genuine improvement when they favor-ably influence the entire range of conditions in which improvement is needed. If significant areas of concern are ignored, no matter how well we design those that have been addressed, the overall result will be deficient. The quality of a design, like a chain, is only as strong as its weakest link.
Introduction Chapter One
landscape is directly related to whether our efforts result in improve-ment or merely bring about change for its own sake. Design has been defined in a number of ways, typically as an activity:
• To initiate change that will transform existing conditions into preferred ones (Jones 1966)
• To envision "a desirable future and invent ways to bring it about" (Ackoff 1981 :62)
• To determine a safe path to a desired future condition (Weisbord 1992)
• "The conscious and intuitive effort to impose meaningful order" (Papanek 1984:4)
The fundamental meaning of the order imposed is the improved util-ity, comprehension, satisfaction, and sustainability with the designed object or place. The principal characteristics of design action are pur-poseful change and improvement.
Change may be imposed on an existing condition or it may address the process of change itself, sometimes to alter conditions in the environment, sometimes to preserve them. For example, New York's Central Park was originally a derelict wasteland that was transformed by design into a beautiful wooded park. On the other hand, at Yosemite National Park the original setting was so magnifi-cent that the national government set about to preserve it. The image we see today is intended to be the same as that found by riders enter-ing the valley on horseback in the early 1900s-the process of change has been arrested by design to preserve the desired form.
For some, design includes the act of shaping the product, such as in pottery where the designer shapes the vessel directly. For others, and this includes most work by landscape architects, the act of shap-ing the product is indirect. Designers determine what the new form will be and others (contractors) execute the work on the basis of instructions from the designer. Design, then, is the process of deter-mining the future form of the object or place, directly or indirectly. Design is defined here as the process we employ to guide intentional change in the environment to improve its value and fitness.
Through design we act to improve the landscape in many ways, to transform the conditions we find lacking into those we desire. Some of the more important of these areas of change include those listed in box 1.1. Although these conditions describe the goals of design, they are not the "things" we design, the physical changes we impose to alter the social, ecological, functional, and spatial systems we seek to influence. What we design is different from why we design. We impose change in the composition, arrangement, and form of things to create improved relationships among them, relationships we
21
20
Chapter One aration. They assume three primary responsibilities: teaching, research, and service to the community. In landscape architecture, the greatest amount of time among these is allocated to teaching, which is primarily studio based. Studio-format education is based on a process of learning by doing. As Aristotle said, "For the things we. have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them"
(Nico-machean Ethics, Book II, chap. 1). The most important factor to
solv-ing design problems, and learnsolv-ing from the process, is critical thinking. Design is essentially a process of relating all the operational factors into a comprehensive whole (Sasaki 1950:159). The develop-ment of independent, critical thinking is the primary goal of studio education. The secondary goal is to provide experience in addressing certain types of problems.
Essentially all design schools are based on this approach to design education. Students learn by trial and error how to harness their indi-vidual creative potential by working under the constant eye of the design tutor whose role is to guide the development of the individual student's skill and insight. To a large extent design education is focused not on what we design, or why, but how-on the process of examining, making, and defending sound design decisions.
For instruction to remain relevant, however, it must be continu-ously nourished by contemporary knowledge and technology. While the creative energy is individual, it is expressed in relation to the context in which it is applied. Since the context is evolving, we must continually bring our understanding of the design context-the technology, the landscape processes, and the human processes that take place within them-up to date with current knowledge. This is achieved through ongoing research. The teaching faculty engage in research to create new knowledge and integrate it into the learning experiences of students through subject courses and studio exercises. In addition to the acquisi-tion of knowledge, professional educaacquisi-tion is organized to provide three kinds oflearning opportunities (Steinitz 1988:136):
1. To build competence in changing or conserving the landscape 2. Tobuild experience and confidence in doing so
3. To build theory as the foundation for the first two
Accredited university programs in the United States provide the content mandated by the Landscape Architectural Accreditation Board (LAAB)under the auspices of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA).Curriculum requirements include:
• landscape planning, design, and management • design implementation
• landscape architecture history • professional practice
Introduction
Accreditation standards also require instruction in areas related to landscape architecture. These areas of instruction are intended to sup-plement and enrich the educational experience and ensure well-rounded preparation for professional practitioners. They include:
• history, art, and communication • natural, cultural, and social systems
• landscape planning, design, and management theories and pro-cesses
• plants as design materials and their applications • construction materials and techniques
• professional practice methods and ethics
• public and private office practice procedures and methods • computer systems and advanced technology
• contact with allied disciplines such as architecture and planning The content of professional education is intended to provide stu-dents with the necessary and comprehensive background preparatory to entering the public or private practice of landscape architecture. This preparation is intended not so much to provide education as to
prepare for it. Education is a lifelong process. Regarding theory,
pro-fessional education does not provide a design theory for students to adopt, but rather provides individual students with the tools to create and develop their own philosophy to guide their education and orga-nize their professional activities.
Theories about what you should do and how you should practice, it is hoped, will flow from the intellectual processes of learning, expe-rience, and reflection. These processes will be stimulated by the chal-lenge of ideas-some familiar, some unfamiliar, and a few unwelcome. By confronting these ideas, it is believed that you will be better able to form your individual theory of the life of design and better able to enrich the meaning and purpose of your professional life.
One of the most satisfying aspects of design practice, or any endeavor, is in knowing that the quality of what we have achieved is high. Education and theory provide a basis for measuring design qual-ity. The educational content of curricula investigates some of the major factors to be considered in evaluating the quality of the design changes we impose on the landscape. In addition, it describes consider-ations relevant to the process of developing and examining ideas and imposing change in ways that are based on sound scientific and tech-nological evidence; evidence to improve the likelihood that the changes we propose will yield the benefits we intend.
An examination of landscape architecture theory must include a discussion of how its practitioners are organized into a professional body. A profession is an organizational entity that has as its purpose the delivery of a service to society for which its members are compen-sated to derive their livelihood. A profession is a social entity struc-tured around a value system its members hold in common. As in any social organization, the behavior of its members is monitored by the group and policed to maintain consistency with their commonly held values. This means that, to its members, an important indicator of the success of design activity is judgment by the internal values and stan-dards of the profession. The benefit of this is that the profession sets and maintains standards of performance that society may rely on. The disadvantage is that standard performance is not exceptional. Exceptional performance must come in spite of the profession's requirement for standard performance.
The profession of landscape architecture, as with other profes-sions, exhibits typical characteristics.
• It possesses a knowledge base as the foundation of its com-monly held values and the services it provides.
• It employs established procedures and techniques to apply its knowledge base.
• The knowledge and procedures (sometimes referred to as the sci-ence and art) it employs can be learned and are taught to initiates. • The knowledge and procedures it employs are rendered in the
form of services to clients and users.
• The services are rendered to provide a practical and useful pur-pose, to satisfy the needs and desires of those served.
• The services are rendered to promote the general health, safety, and welfare of society.
• The services rendered are typically provided for a fee as the basis of compensation.
• The standards of education and performance of the members are established by consensus of the professional body.
• The professional behavior of members is self-regulated by the professional body.
From this it should be evident that the character of the profession has a profound influence on the nature of both theory and practice. The education the professional organization requires for applicants and the values that emanate from it provide the basic paradigm
through which we view the world, and as a consequence, shape the conclusions we reach. Our commonly shared knowledge base, values, and experiences create a unique perspective for comprehending reality. Although we believe that our point of view is correct and makes valu-able contributions to society, it is important to remember that this is not an objective view, nor is it a view that is widely shared.
We need to be constantly vigilant if we are to maintain a sense of objectivity about what we learn and what we do as designers. The ability to limit the influence of prejudice on our perceptions is one of our most difficult tasks. The influence of prejudice on design can be highly destructive. Design may be described as a process of inventing new and more effective ways of doing things. Prejudging the outcome of actions may result in our discounting other possible courses of action before they have been openly investigated, with the result that some courses of action-perhaps the most effective ones-may not be considered at all. These other possibilities are then beyond our reach since we will never really consider them if we prejudge their suitability and focus our attention elsewhere. When we judge the success of our designs only by our preestablished (conventional) internal standards, we limit the influence of knowledge or values other than our own and thus eliminate the possibility that our designs will satisfy broadly inclu-sive performance criteria: criteria that are used by others (who may include clients and users) to evaluate design performance and success.
Finally, it should be noted that professional practice is licensed by state registration. Licensure of landscape architects, as for practitioners in all professions, is legally mandated by state law for one purpose: to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the people of the state. Our the-ory must include consideration of this important social responsibility.
23
Introduction Chapter One
Professions
22Substantive Theory
Theory: The body of generalizations and principles developed in association with the practice of a field of activity and forming its content as an intellectual discipline. The coherent set of hypotheti-cal, conceptual and pragmatic principles forming a general frame of reference for a field of inquiry.
-Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary
Theory of landscape architecture is based on the premise that quality of life for individuals and society benefits from the creation of harmonious and mutually supportive relationships between people and the environment. Given the speed and complexity of contempo-rary development, it is widely believed that such relationships may best be achieved through holistic, rather than single-purpose, inter-vention in the continuing process of landscape evolution. Theory of landscape architecture is becoming increasingly diversified to encom-pass the environment as a totality, but it is a work in progress. A half century ago Garrett Eckbo remarked:
The great problem and the great opportunity of our times is to rebuild, on an infinitely higher plane, the unity and solidarity between man and nature which existed and still exists in primi-tive communal societies, and which was broken and shattered by the great sweep of history through slavery and feudalism to cap-italism. This we can work toward every day on every job and
