The Shape of the Land: Aesthetics and Utility

The primal human impulse to ground ourselves, literally and figuratively—to shape terrain for purposes of survival and pleasure—was at the core of this two-day symposium at the University of California’s College of Environmental Design. Sponsored by the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning with support from the Beatrix Farrand Endowment Fund, an esteemed group of scholars and design professionals reflected on the function, meaning, and representation of topography.

The symposium took place one week before Californians were ordered to shelter in place due to the spread of coronavirus. Although 2 of the 12 invited speakers were unable to participate, the auditorium was filled to capacity. Louise Mozingo welcomed participants and acknowledged the indigenous peoples on whose land the campus stands.

Marc Treib established a broad context for the subject and presented a visually rich overview of the additive and subtractive processes by which humans, animals, and natural forces create and re-form land. “Topographic acts” of extraction and displacement are essential to meet our needs for shelter, food, infrastructure, and spiritual fulfillment, he noted; “digging, piling and shaping” are fundamental to the practice of landscape architecture.

Speakers’ frames of reference on the role of to-pography in landscape design and environmental perception ranged from pragmatic considerations of grading and drainage to more oblique perspectives on topographic depiction. Many began their presentations by citing the etymology of the word “topography,” originating from the Greek terms for “place” and “writing.” These metaphors prove useful in distilling two main contexts within which speakers at the symposium examined the subject of topography: how people shape the land, and how the land shapes people.

We Shape the Land . .

The topographical transformation of the English landscape by Humphry Repton at the turn of the 18th century is a prime example of shaping land for picturesque effect, yet Repton’s concerns extended beyond the scenic. In “Repton for Real: Picturesque Landscape, Practical Topography,” Stephen Daniels, emeritus professor of cultural geography at the University of Nottingham, discussed the evolution of Repton’s ideology “from page to stage.” Daniels illustrated the social and economic narratives as well as performative qualities in Repton’s work and demonstrated how he valued utility as fully as aesthetics.

Function and beauty were obvious priorities for Bay Area landscape architect David Meyer, who discussed his firm’s stunning design for a greenway and stormwater master plan project in Nebraska. In his presentation “Working with Earth, Moving Emotions,” Meyer explained the legacy and significance of understanding topography as a sculptural medium in his approach to landscape design. His meticulous crafting of a series of landforms and “vessels” combined with a choreographed sequence of trees formed a breathtaking composition—a work of art intended as a flood control measure and public amenity.

With similarly uncompromising attention to detail, Belgian landscape architect Bas Smets presented his approach to urban design and planning in “A Tool for Transformation.” Working in a region defined by its horizontality, Smets sought to determine the natural “logic of the site” in his projects with rigorous mapping of systems, patterns, and networks. He illustrated levels of topographic complexity with site sections and expanded on the analogy of the section as being representative of the biospheric layer between “geologic reality and meteorological change” where humans (and all natural things) live.

“Landscape architecture starts with engineering,” noted Adriaan Geuze, founding principal of West 8 landscape architects. In “The Art of Landmaking” he emphasized the importance to the Netherlands of reclaiming “land stolen by water.” Geuze presented a timeline of historical and contemporary methods for making land and commented on how these constructed geometries imposed a logic on the land. His firm’s design for the Grand Egyptian Museum project merged landform and building form with a similar sensitivity to context.

Elissa Rosenberg, who delivered her presentation remotely due to restrictions on international travel, also spoke about reclamation, but in the context of a fourth order of nature where nonlinear disturbance models reframe one’s understanding of the postindustrial landscape. In “Trash Topography,” Rosenberg, who is professor of urban design at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design...