The Authority of Nature: Conf lict and Confusion in Landscape Architecture (original) (raw)

Gardens are shaped by rain and sun, plants and animals, and human hands and minds. Whether wild or clipped, composed of curved lines or straight, living plants or plastic, every garden is a product of natural phenomena and human artif ice. It is impossible to make a garden without expressing, however unconsciously, ideas about nature. For thousands of years, nature has been both mirror and model for gardens, has been looked to for inspiration and guidance. Designers who refer to their work as “natural” or “ecological” make ideas of nature central and explicit, citing nature as authority to justify decisions to select some materials or plants and exclude others, to arrange them in particular patterns, and tend the result in certain ways. Appealing to nature as the authority for landscape design has pitfalls which are often overlooked by advocates of “natural” gardens. To describe one sort of garden as natural implies that there are unnatural gardens which are somehow different (and p...

Sign up for access to the world's latest research.

checkGet notified about relevant papers

checkSave papers to use in your research

checkJoin the discussion with peers

checkTrack your impact