Figure 1. Neoarchaicism: California Scenario, Costa Mesa, California, 1984, Isamu Noguchi.

Beneath the seeming sculptural abstraction

46 Landscape Journal
Must Landscapes Mean?: Approaches to
Significance in Recent Landscape Architecture
Marc Treib

Marc Treib is Professor of Architec- Abstract: A renewed concern for meaning in landscape architecture--and the ways by which
ture at the University of California meaning can be achieved resu~faced during the early 1980s after an absence in professional
at Berkeley, a practicing designer, and publications of almost half a century. This essay examines the sources of significance in land-
a frequent contributor to architecture scape design and the possibilities--and limits--of designing meaning into landscape architec-
and design journals. He has held Ful- ture. Six approaches currently employed are discussed." the Neoarchaic, the Genius of the Place,
bright and Japan Foundation awards the Zeitgeist, the Vernacular Landscape, the Didactic and the Theme Garden. Meaning, it is
and was an advanced design fellow at argued, results less from the effects of a particular design than from the collective associations
the American Academy in Rome. He accrued over time. Questioning the absence of a more active pursuit for personal pleasure in the
is the co-author of A Guide to the Gar- landscape, the author suggests that pleasure could help link individual experience with a
dens ofKyoto (Shufunotomo, 1980); the broader cultural grounding for creating significance.
editor of, and a contributor to, Modem
Landscape Architecture: A Critical Review
(MIT Press, 1993); and the author of
Sanctuaries of Spanish New Mexico (Uni-
versity of California Press, 1993). He
currently serves as a senior fellow for
the Landscape Architecture Studies
program at Dumbarton Oaks. His The
Philips Pavilion, Le Corbusier, Edgard
Vargse will be published in Fall, 1995,
by Princeton University Press.

I.
the visitor a message as well as a sen- essays were somewhat neatly ar-
D uring the last decade, the
amount of writing pur-
suous impression. Within the garden
confines, the visitor would take pause,
ranged under the headings of idea,
place, and action. In a 1988 essay
porting to deal with meaning in land- and perhaps ponder the meaning of titled "From Sacred Grove to Disney
scape design has grown impressively,l existence or at least his or her part World: The Search for Garden Mean-
Landscape architects now write of of it. Since the visitor, owner, and ing," Robert Riley also tracked the
their attempts to imbue designs with maker tended to share class and cul- search for meaning--and its loss over
significance by referring to such con- ture, intelligible communication was time--and concluded: "Gardens have
ditions as existing natural forms or to feasible. been a locus of meaning in many cul-
the historic aspects of the site. Cul- These are only a few examples tures, but not in modern America.’’4
tural geographers, calling upon a col- of the interests that have surfaced in What are we to make of all
lective body of study that extends the last decade and that have ap- these renewed attempts to discern
back well over half a centur% inter- peared in numerous publications. meaning in landscapes? Is it really
pret ordinary landscapes by first look- Principal among them, The Meanings possible to build into landscape archi-
ing at the world around them; in of Gardens, edited by Mark Francis tecture a semantic dimension that
their eyes, meaning congeals in set- and Randolph Hester, Jr., in 1989 communicates the maker’s intention
ting, dwelling, and use--and not collected a series of essays that ranged to the inhabitant? If so, how? In addi-
alone from the designer’s intention.2 in topic from religion to pop culture, tion, should we try to reveal meaning
Historians of gardens and landscape from sex to pets, and geographically in environments, and if so, why?
architecture tell us of those makers from Israel to Norway.3 In the book, Where does the audience enter the
of places past who tried earnestly to authors drawn from diverse disci- process? Admittedly, this is notori-
create landscapes in which meaning plines questioned the significance of ously treacherous territory, and every
would be apparent and understood. the landscapes we create; there were author begins--and often ends---by
At times relying on iconography and no generic conclusions, although the hedging his or her bets. Laurie Olin
inscription, the creators of these gar- stressed the "daunting" task of defin-
dens and parks sought to convey to ing meaning and suggested that

Treib 47
there were two broad categories in significance belonged to other places architecture had accumulated over
which the term was positioned. The and other times.9 time, to Gideon its quest had ulti-
first he termed "natural" or "evolu- Rose, probably borrowing from mately been spatial rather than sty-
tionary": "Generally these relate to the Canadian-Englishman Christo- listic, and as such it reached a fru-
aspects of the landscape as a setting pher Tunnard, argued for what he ition in the modern era. Because he
for society and have been developed termed a "structural" use of plants: found space more central to architec-
as a reflection or expression of hopes vegetation selected for a given cli- ture than either iconography or hu-
and fears for survival and perpetua- matic zone, but configured to create man affect, Gideon was more focused
tion.’’5 More simply stated, signifi- spaces to be used from within rather on architectonics (that is, an architec-
cance accrues through use and cus- than to be viewed from without.~° A tural syntax) than on semantics. Or
tom. Olin’s second category, and the continuing theme in Eckbo’s writings perhaps he saw as synonymous signif-
arena in which most designers oper- well into the 1950s was the condem- icance and the means of spatial pro-
ate, concerned synthetic or invented nation of the axis, which had "run out duction. Eckbo’s Landscape for Living
meanings, and it is these to which he of gas in the 17 th century."~ ~ Like of 1950 provided the modernist argu-
devotes most of his essay and criti- Rose, Eckbo envisioned an enriched ment with its text and laid out the
cism.6 My own effort will probably be landscape configured for use, rather concerns and parameters for modern
no different from that of almost all than one restricted to a linear spatial landscape architecture.~5 More fully
previous writers in that I will discuss structure based on formal principles. developed in breadth and depth than
the question of significance without There was little or no discussion earlier writings by either Tunnard or
precisely defining it.7 To some degree of meaning in these writings, as there Rose, Eckbo’s work reinforced the need
this lacuna is problematic, in other was--quite remarkably--no argu- for reflecting time and place and hu-
ways it may not be so troublesome.8 ment for any specific vocabulary. Sig- man presence in landscape archi-
I would like to think that we can dis- nificance derived from forms and tecture: but there was no discussion
cuss the meaning of meaning in land- spaces appropriate to their use and of what it meant.
scape without a definition applicable times; meaning was a by-product, or In many ways, the next major
to all landscape circumstances. Or at so the text implied. Although the ideological and highly polemical tract
least I will operate under that prem- zigzag was a popular feature in the was Ian McHarg’s Design with Nature,
ise. We can at least establish a broad gardens of Eckbo and Thomas Church, published in 1966. Focused on the
theater in which meaning is taken and the biomorphism of Jean Arp and evolving study of natural ecology
simply as an integral aspect of human Isamu Noguchi informed much post- and rooted in landscape manage-
lives, beyond any basic attachment to war California garden design, no pub- ment, McHarg cited the natural
the land through familiarity. Meaning lished texts connected these idioms world as the only viable source of
thus comprises ethics, values, history, with either modern art or the modern landscape design. His text provided
affect, all of them taken singly or as a era--or argued for their significance.~2 landscape architects with sufficient
group. In fact, very little was written specifi- moral grounds for almost completely
We could first try to establish cally about syntax--that is, the rela- avoiding decisions of design-~if de-
why the pursuit of meaning has resur- tionship between the elements-- sign be taken as the conscious shap-
faced at the close of the 20th century. much less about semantic production. ing of landscape rather than its stew-
One reason might be the rejection of Landscape writings of the ardship. No talk of meaning here,
history, and all the baggage it carried, period paralleled--almost always only of natural processes and a moral
by those formulating a modern(ist) with a bit of a time lag--discourse imperative.~6 Olin, among others, has
American landscape design in the on modern architecture. Sigfried pointed out that design decisions nor-
late 1930s. Unlike their European Gideon, the central theorist for what mally derive from a greater complex-
colleagues, who continually confronted came to be termed the International ity of factors than those of ecology
history in the world around them, Style, rationalized the new architec- alone, among them social and cul-
American designers often started tural vocabulary by setting it against tural issues including aesthetics, and
with a relatively clean slate.James spatially vital architectures past53 he cautions: "[T]his chilling, close-
Rose and Garrett Eckbo, among other The modernist art critic Clement minded stance of moral certitude is
writers, aggressively challenged the Greenberg saw painting first and hostile to the vast body of work pro-
value of history as a lexicon of styles foremost as marks upon a canvas and duced through history, castigating it
or typologies to be unquestioningly found its culmination in nonobjective as ’formal’ and as representing the
applied to contemporary problems works; Gideon saw in modernist dominance of humans over nature.’q7
and projects. Like their architectural building the culmination of architec- McHarg mixed science with evange-
contemporaries, they looked forward ture as space.~4 In so doing, he actu- lism--a sort of eco-fundamentalism
to solving problems of open space and ally recast history to accord with a as it is sarcastically known by some
form, and not backwards to any book 20th century vantage point. In an- parties--taking no prisoners and al-
of given solutions. The received body thropological terms, he was etic ra- lowing no quarter.
of historical landscape architecture ther than emic, that is, looking at the The McHargian view was
was taken as meaningless because its subject from beyond its cultural lim- focused to the point of being exclu-
its rather than on its own terms.
While a vast repertoire of Western

48 Landscape Journal
sive, confusing two rather different
arenas of landscape intervention-
modulation as if they were one.18 To
manage a region without thorough
"scientific" investigation and analysis
would be fatuous, if not dangerous.
Viable design begins with study and
analysis. But the planning process
rarely requires the active form mak-
ing that is central to landscape archi-
tecture. Reams of analysis and over-
lays will establish the parameters for
making a garden for a suburban back-
yard, but they will hardly provide the
design. McHarg’s method insinuated
that if the process were correct, the
form would be good, almost as if an
aesthetic automatically resulted from
objective study. Presumably, meaning
would accompany the resulting land-
scape. The 1960s and the 1970s were
dominated by attempts to rationalize
the practices of architecture and Figure 2. Viet Nam Memorial, Washington, D.C., 1982+, Maya Lin. Much of the contro-
landscape architecture, giving favor versy over the memorial’s design stemmed from the public’s difficulty in finding meaning
to social utility rather than the pur- in an abstract, that is nonfigurative, form. The power of the 55,000 names of the fallen
suit of form or meaning. By the end engraved on the walls was inescapable, however, directing the reading of the monument
of the decade, however, the limits to as if captioned. To many, significance is commonly associated with identifiable represen-
this way of thinking, coupled with an tation: a figurative statue of soldiers was added to the grounds.
emerging desire by younger land-
scape architects to again become visi-
ble, began to generate a reaction to ter. George Hargreaves spoke of a landscape architects referred directly
the anti-aesthetic and anti-semantic perceptually complex space at Harle- to neolithic sources, or only to the
climates of the preceding decade. quin Plaza in Inglewood, Colorado, sculptors who had drawn upon them,
Admittedly, this is a cursory from 1984, although he shied away is impossible to determine. Perhaps
explanation of a professional condi- from making direct claims about its they tapped both resources. But in
tion that derived from a complex meaning(s). The emerging genera- neighborhood playgrounds and in
series of interrelated factors. Land- tion of designers displayed a new suburban office parks, one began to
scape architecture is, after all, part interest in making form; and many encounter hills coiled with spiral
of a cultural, technical, and social of them claimed that these new forms paths, cuts in the earth aligned with
milieu and as such is informed by a would be meaningful. In reviewing the rising or setting sun (or the sol-
multitude of factors and considera- landscape architecture from almost stice), circles of broken stone and
tions. But... two decades, I have found it helpful clusters of sacred groves. Granite
to classify five roughly framed ap- steles evoking the stone circles of
II. proaches to landscape design and, ancient Scandinavia--or was that
During the 1980s, declarations by extension, to significance, used England’s Salisbury Plain or Easter
of meanings began to accompany the by the makers or their critics: the Island?--appeared in backyards and
published photos and drawings of Neoarchaic, the Genius of the Place, plazas. Myriad versions ofJai Singh’s
landscape designs (Figure 2). At con- the Zeitgeist, the Vernacular Land- 18th century astronomical observato-
ferences, landscape architects would scape, and the Didactic. ries at Delhi andJaipur popped up
describe their intentions, their sources, A sort of primitivism consti- like mushrooms, including one rein-
and what the designs meant. Some tuted one attempt to retrieve that terpretation in a fine garden by the
authors merely claimed they were which had been lost at some unspeci- master Isamu Noguchi19 (Figure 1).
touching base once again with the fied point along the way to modernity. One can almost hear designers say-
vernacular matrix in which High Borrowing from approaches that ing, sotto voce: "If they meant some-
Style design was embedded. Martha ranged from the body works of Ana thing in the past (of course, we have
Schwartz, for example, reexamined Mendieta to the stone markings of to like them as forms...), then they
the materials of the ordinary land- Richard Long to the theories of will mean something again to us to-
scape and the typologies of the small, entropy proffered by Robert Smith- day." Gary Dwyer’s proposal to link
private garden and the shopping cen- son, landscape architects began to the two sides of the San Andreas
reconfigure the land in a manner we
could term Neoarchaic. Whether the

Treib 49
 metal plaque normally provides its
meaning to the residents with credits
to the designer, the sponsoring body
(usually a benevolent foundation for
Green America), and of course the
mayor in office at the time. Still,
passersby wonder quietly to them-
selves: "When are they going to cut
that lawn? I’m sure there are rats and
Lord knows what else living in it. And
they should water it; it looks dead."~3
The presence of the genius is
a bit more obvious in undisturbed
land, but there is precious little of
that around these days; the genius
is hardly unaffected by changes in
atmosphere and climate. Still, the
genius provides major support for
landscape design and its rational-
ization today. Technically, studies of
vegetation, hydrology, soil conditions,
and the like are indeed the basis of
Figure 3. The Genius of the Place: Suzanne Dellal Dance Center Plaza, Tel Aviv, Israel, design. But do these suggest a signifi-
1990, Shlomo Aronson. Sharing a similar climate and addressing similar environmental cant form for the design? If there is
constraints, this recent plaza design recalls the patios of the oranges at both Cordoba and a stand of oaks, do you plant more
Seville: pragmatic irrigation furnished the point of departure. oaks? Or should the stand be comple-
mented by another species that even
to the untrained eye appears to be
Fault in California with crisscrossed "the place" had been so disturbed foreign to the site?24 So much of land-
topographic band-aids curiously over the centuries by industrial devel- scape architecture in the past has
developed from the Ogham writing opment. While writers such as Chris- been created to overcome what the
of the Celts is extreme to be sure-- tian Norberg-Schultz based their dis- genius of the place offered the "unim-
and a bit difficult to support with cussion of the genius and place in the proved" land for example, by bring-
rational argument--but it was not at phenomenology of Maurice Merleau- ing water to the desert or by con-
all that bizarre in the context of con- Ponty, and others decried the rise of structing conditioned enclosures to
temporary projects.2° As Catherine placelessness, designers often adopted grow oranges in colder climates--
Howett once aptly phrased it: "By the a more superficial approach to con- that it is obvious that the genius’s
early 1980s, every landscape architect nect human inhabitants to their land- ambiguous advice can be taken rather
student project had been equinoxed scape setting.2~ freely. In instances such as the Patio
to death.’’21 History became an image to be of the Oranges in Seville, the human
If archaicism was one school of dusted off and applied to any current contrivance of irrigation was elevated
semantic creation, the worship of the proposal as a means to validate it. In to an art form, creating a garden of
Genius of the Place marked a second. a glance over the shoulder of history, exceptional pleasure, refinement, and
Alexander Pope had enjoined Lord the tiny urban park was planted with calm. Needless to say, this was not an
Burlington to consult the spirit of the prairie grass to show what vegetation approach to xeriscape using native
place as a means of rooting landscape had once thrived there. Like the plants; admittedly, it was collective
design in a particular locale. A gar- caged animal in the zoo, however, an and religious, rather than an anony-
den was not a universal concept to be urban prairie is hardly a prairie at all; mous, private, vernacular garden. But
applied uninflected upon all sites. In- it is an urban garden planted with un- this courtyard, like other pieces of
stead, the garden revealed the partic- mown grass and little else. Since the greenery and water in arid climates,
ularities of its place as well as the frame for reading--that is to say its nevertheless illustrates that, while
profundity of the garden’s idea. Long context--has been so drastically al- one should consult Genius & Com-
driven underground by the onslaught tered, the subject of view is not easily pany, one need not accept the advice
of urbanity, suburbanity, and modern understood as a reference to the past in precisely the manner it was given.
technology, the genius was a bit hesi- by contemporary citizens. The grass Like any consultation, the informa-
tant to reemerge into the 20th cen- has been reduced from an inherent tion must be evaluated and some
tury sunlight and, as a result, came and meaningful component of early decisions need to be made, including
out squinting. A renewed cult figure, settlement to a design, or at best those of form (Figure 3).
the genius--or what was left of him museological, element; a plastic or Buried within this approach to
or her--could be consulted in many shaping the landscape is the belief
places in only a desultory way, since that reflecting a preexisting condi-

50 Landscape Journal
 tion creates a design more meaning-
ful to the inhabitants. But I’m not
sure. Many of them were not even on
the planet at the time the land was
pristine. I recently heard a project
presentation that noted that as the
principal concept for a natural pre-
serve the designers and clients had
recently restored the historical ecol-
ogy and its pattern. That they had
also created a pond where none had
existed--assumedly as much for the
visitors as for the birds that were to
be lured to this reserve--was passed
over without question. It is difficult to
fault the good intentions of restoring
disturbed wetlands. But why does the
original pattern need to be "restored,"
when in fact the reserve serves as
much for human recreation as it does
for open space preservation? Is it be-
cause the "natural" pattern, mas-
querading as nature, is less open to
Figure 4. Zeitgeist: Tanner Fountain, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1984,
question by client and visitor alike? Peter Walker. The use of rocks recalls the materials of Carl Andre’s Stone Field Sculpture;
Or could it be that the designers their configuration, the work of Richard Long.
somewhat defensively do not believe
that the natural pattern can be im-
proved upon and brought into greater
accord with the new uses and the drift
of the times? Or is it a conscious or
unconscious harking back to received
picturesque values? Does the genius
really grant significance or just point
out the easiest path to follow, what in
the zoological world is called a "tar-
get of opportunity"? (This will be dis-
cussed further in part III below.)
Approach number three bor-
rows from related disciplines, which
suggests a belief in the Zeitgeist (that
is, "the spirit of the times") as a de-
termining force for any aspect of con-
temporary culture. If artists, and the
battery of cultural critics who support
and explain their work, have pro-
duced a body of work deemed illustra-
tive of the spirit of our times, then
landscapes designed with contempo-
rary artlike elements must share that
significance. Such an approach inter-
sects at times with the Neoarchaic,
particularly in recent years when a
new regard for prehistory has in-
formed at least one major strain of
art making.25
The boulders that constitute
Peter Walker’s Tanner Fountain at
Harvard from 1984 bear a striking Figure 5. Stone Field Sculpture, Hartford, Connecticut, 1977, Carl Andre. Taking a cue from
resemblance to those Carl Andre the Genius of the Place, Andre selected boulders that represented the types of stone found
had neatly arranged in his Stone Field in the areas surrounding the city; they are arranged in a rigid, nounaturalistic grid.
Sculpture in Hartford, Connecticut,

Treib 51
 the noncomposition recalls too closely
the bland and amorphous open spaces
of Paris’s grands ensembles (housing
projects) of the 1950s and 1960s (Fig-
ure 6). La Villette’s red follies, while
intriguing as investigations of archi-
tectural form, do little to energize the
park’s sensual appeal beyond the
visual. Ultimately there is precious
little of genuine, that is to say experi-
ential, interest as landscape architec-
ture on the site. Basically, the land-
scape comprises some lawn and some
trees38 The ideas used to conceive
the park are rich and evocative; the
experience on site is limited and spa-
tially uninteresting, however. At what
point does concept end and experi-
ence begin? Is an intriguing concept
sufficient to create meaning in the
minds of the beholders? What of the
beholder not privy to the designer’s
Figure 6. Zeitgeist: Parc de la Villette, Paris, 1988, Bernard Tschumi. In spite of the trend- convoluted explanation? The Parc de
iness and photogenic quality of the follies and the intrigue of their architectural form, there la Villette illustrates the problems
is precious little of experiential interest within the landscape. The designer’s description that plague borrowing parallel ideas
is far more provocative than the experience on site. or forms from other disciplines, and
the distortion that often accompanies
translation. In this particular Parisian
some seven years earlier (Figures 4, proach is the 1988 Parc de la Villette example, what has been written about
5). Andre, in spite of his ultramini- in Paris, won in competition by Ber- the project is far more intriguing
malist proclivities, had actually con- nard Tschumi. Bounded on one edge than what one encounters on site.~9
sulted the genius in creating the by the P6riph6rique (ring road), de- The success or failure of such land-
work, choosing a range of stone types scribed by architectural historian scape designs does not ultimately
from the surrounding area as the Norma Evenson as the concrete moat derive from their intellectual origins,
basic material of the installation. that surrounds Paris,26 the site was but whether they "work" on their own
(Because the rocks had been removed offered little by the Genius Loci, and merits as places and landscapes with-
from their native context, however, a Didactic (see below) approach would out recourse to jargon and verbal ex-
this fact required a written or verbal have demanded a strong evocation of planations. One might also ask in the
explanation.) Walker’s stones are all the site’s history or even the reinsti- end: What is the nature of the plea-
more or less the same size and species, tution of the slaughtering that once sure they provide?
and their circular configuration--like existed on the site.27 Instead, Tschumi Like architects such as Robert
certain elements of his IBM Solana, used ideas of cinematic sequences Venturi and Frank Gehry, landscape
Texas, campus--cites rather directly and poststructural theories concern- architects such as Martha Schwartz
the work of sculptor Richard Long. ing the fragmentation of postmodern also look at the Vernacular Landscape.
Certainly an aesthetic transformation culture as sources for the park’s de- This is a hip glance at the Genius of
has resulted; neither the fountain nor sign. The "outmoded" concept of the Place, of course, but the genius is
courtyard design is plagiarized. But park was supposedly dissolved by this culturalized and the selections suave.
much of their novelty and appeal, at new idea, instead producing a design The vernacular is a rich source of ma-
least at the time of their initiation, that effaced the boundary between terials and forms; after all, it consti-
derive from their seeming correlation city and park and eliminated the hard tutes the "real" world in which we
with art forms of the times. From line between built and green zones. dwell. But just as the meanings of his-
sculpture, the designer receives both The drawings used to explain torical landscapes are affected by re-
the instigation of ideas and, to some the competition design were bril- framing, the Vernacular Landscape is
degree, of validation. Landscape ar- liantly conceived and included an inevitably transformed when bor-
chitecture becomes in the process a exploded axonometric view that mas- rowed by design professionals. And
part of the ethos of the era, and its terfully conveyed the design concept when vernacular elements reappear
own identity as an art is confirmed. of point, line, and surface--a visual in High Style projects, they have se-
Perhaps the most prominent equivalent of a sound bite. Unfortu- mantically virtually nothing in com-
recent example of the Zeitgeist ap- nately, parks are rarely seen from the mon with their sources. They have
air, and even less frequently as ex-
ploded entities. In fact, as a totality,

52 Landscape Journal
 been reframed. The vernacular envi- Joel Garreau in Edge City is that one ural or urban process with an as-
ronment is treated by designers as a names a place for the features that sumption-which I have since come
quarry for raw materials to be recon- have been destroyed to make room to suspect--that designs revealing
figured and thus transfigured. The for the new development.32 Shady these processes are both more viable
unselfconsciousness, the appropriate Hills Estates commemorates the and more meaningful. I don’t think
sense of the makeshift and the ac- trees that were cut to build the the answer is quite that simple.
cepted transience of vernacular build- houses, and the natural undulations Didactic thinking provides a good
ing are usually lost along the way.30 A that were flattened to make construc- point of departure for the work, but
glass gazing ball optically enlarges tion less challenging; and inciden- the success of the place ultimately
the confines of a small backyard gar- tally, the houses are hardly estates. hinges on the skill and care with which
den, while serving as a sign of neigh- But like the photo caption, the name the design is made and on what it
borly propriety. When it is extracted of the development directs our read- offers the visitor. Didacticism per se
from the backyard, repeated at length, ing of the place and asks us to com- is not enough. (In these two instances,
and arranged in a grid, however, only plete that which is missing in the pic- however, the final success of the re-
the basic reflective properties remain ture. A design didactically conceived, sulting works did not depend on its
unaffected (Back cover). Similarly, a like the photo caption, is both informa- Didactic aspects alone.)
concrete frog accompanying a cement tive-possibly normative--and cer- And then there is the Theme
deer and perhaps a gnome are tender tainly directive. The "factual" base is Garden. It is curious to me how many
companions in an intimate setting. intended to validate the designer’s work. people deride the world’s Disneylands
Multiplied by the hundreds and A Didactic landscape is suppos- and other theme parks, and then pro-
painted gold, they are no longer the edly an aesthetic textbook on natural, pose Theme Gardens. A theme, in
common vernacular element they or in some cases urban, processes. A1- this context, constitutes a perceptu-
once were, but fodder for High Style exandre Chemetoff’s sunken bamboo ally apparent idea used to fashion the
designers. This is not to say they pos- garden at La Villette purposefully al- garden’s form. Roses, Mother Goose,
sess no merit of their own, they do; lowed the elements of urban infra- the color yellow, or even electric light
but the meaning is no longer vernac- structure to remain, reminding the could all be used as themes, and I imag-
ular. Like fine wine, significance does visitor that this small, green respite ine that all of them have been used as
not travel very well, and wine is dif- was actually but a fragment of an ur- such somewhere at some time. One
ferent from grape juice. ban agglomeration that to exist re- could argue that the gamut of themes
The fifth approach to "con- quired massive amounts of servicing deriving from horticultural or envi-
structed meaning" goes down the (Front cover). Water mains, sewer ronmental ideas or cultural borrow-
Didactic path. This is the one I have pipes, .and electrical ducts crisscross ings are inherently more genuine
found most appealing, and one that the site; the retaining walls are con- than the contrived imagery of a theme
has formed the only more or less sta- structed ofprecast concrete elements park created in plaster or plastic, but
ble leg of anything our office has commonly used to support the walls they are themes nonetheless.33
tried to design. In fact, it was the of adjacent sites during excavation A theme, it must be admitted, is
observation by a friend while examin- for new construction. The landscape not necessarily an argument for sig-
ing a current project that made me architect did not leave these elements nificance, but there is an underlying
realize that much of what we do is a of infrastructure untouched, however; assertion of validity that accompanies
somewhat desperate search for mean- the scheme itself developed in rela- any obvious concept. Even today, the
ing in landscape.31 The Didactic ap- tion as a give-and-take between the landscape professional can accept a
proach dictates that forms should tell didactic exposure of services and its Chinese garden, for example that by
us, in fact instruct us, about the nat- aesthetic complement in wispy green Fletcher Steele at Naumkeag, or the
ural workings or history of the place. and gold foliage. Sculptors--who al- copper tents at Frederik Magnus
This is related--as all the approaches most by definition are allowed to con- Piper’s 18th century Haga Park in
are to some degree--to the Genius sider the aesthetic parameter in iso- Stockholm. Perhaps we use the word
Loci school, but the Didactic is usu- lation-have also created places "charming" rather than "beautiful"
ally more overt in its intentions. Not structured on the Didactic dimension. to qualify them. If well done, in fact,
only should we consult the genius At the National Oceanographic and the effect of the pavilion or cultural
about its basis, but our resultant proj- Atmospheric Administration in Se- borrowing is far greater than its se-
ect should render an exegesis on what attle, Washington, for example, mantic theme. It can be pleasant,
the genius told us. Douglas Hollis’s A Sound Garden calming, restful, stimulating in its
Curiously, we often try to re- (1983) captured the wind to activate own right; that is, it can affect us.
store what has been previously de- an environmental organ; the vanes Which tells us something about the
stroyed. Perhaps a stream long cul- aligning the field of erect pipes into experiential dimensions of the garden.
verted and buried is restored to its the gusts added a visual signal of The white garden at Sissing-
"original" state (of course, it really wind direction. Here, the presence of hurst is a well-known example of
isn’t--everything has changed around the wind was thus given both aural color used as a subject, but the themed
it). One of the rules formulated by and visual expression (Figure 7). approach is widespread in time and
In these two instances, the work
of landscape art addressed either nat-

Treib 53
 batics and subtle chromatic mixtures
even with a single color range.
Gilles Clfiment, the landscape
architect for a considerable section
of the park, has also applied his idea
of a "garden in movement" to one of
its riverside zones. Here, a score of
wild flowers and grasses has been
planted with little regard as to where
or to which will survive. Paths through
these meadows will be determined by
human movement rather than by for-
mal design; the paths will fix the
traces of occupation and use. This
Darwinian approach to park design,
which joins the Didactic and the
Theme with instructive aesthetic con-
sequences, addresses both the social
issues brought to the fore in the 1960s
and aspects of urban ecology. While
these parts of the park will evolve in
terms of horticultural species--and
over time run the risk of looking like
a vacant lot--they suggest the hu-
man presence only through a rela-
tively few wooden seating platforms
raised slightly above the ground. The
idea of replicating evolution to estab-
lish an appropriate urban landscape
is engaging, although the form may
not be attractive at all times. But do
such replications mean anything to
anyone today?34

III.
Is it really possible to imbue a
place with meaning from the outset?
It would seem that history tells us
yes, if the users possess sufficient
experience in common. For one, sig-
nificance is culturally circumscribed
and, ultimately, personally deter-
mined.35 If we examine a Chinese
poem executed in ink on silk, as non-
readers of the Chinese language we
are denied access to the poem’s lin-
guistic dimension. Should we be un-
initiated into Chinese calligraphy,
and the propriety and taste conveyed
Figure 7. Didactic: A Sound Garden, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administra- by the chosen style, the marks will
tion, Seattle, Washington, 1983, Douglas Hollis. The metal vanes, which keep the pipes have even less meaning to us. We can
aligned with the air flow, visually reinforce the aural presence of wind. appreciate the work solely on its for-
mal dimension, of course, as fluid
black marks on a white ground. It is
place. The recently opened Parc An- erty of horticultural invention or an obvious, however, that possessing lin-
drfi Citrofin in Paris includes "black" overly zealous pursuit of minimalism guistic abilities in Chinese would en-
and "white" gardens, although in (Figure 8). It can also, of course, cre- rich both our understanding and our
both gardens green seems to be the ate a garden of stunning beauty, em- pleasure: the two-dimensional writing
predominant color that meets the ploying incredible horticultural acro- on the page would acquire multiple
eye. One could argue that the restric- semantic dimensions.
tion to a single color suggests a pov- The same is true of gardens.

54 Landscape Journal
 The uninitiated may or may not ap-
preciate a dry Zen garden for its for-
mal properties alone, for the pattern
of its raked sand and the composition
of its rocks, but the meanings of the
garden will remain communicated
imperfectly at best. The absence of
many of the elements that say "gar-
den" to members of foreign cultures
denies access to meaning, as the
mores deny access to physical entry.36
The Zen garden provides a valu-
able case study for considering the
construction of meaning.Japan’s cen-
turies of cultural homogeneity fos-
tered an attitude towards simplicity
as the compression of complexity
(rather than its reduction or elimina-
tion, as it has been in the West). One
could say, with perhaps only a little
exaggeration, that until recently a
Japanese of a certain class-educa-
tional level could understand the in- Figure 8. Theme garden: Parc Andr6 Citroen, Paris, 1992, Gilles C16ment, landscape
tentions behind the making of the architect (for this part of the park). There are a number of theme gardens within the
garden. He or she could appreciate park, among them the garden of grasses and the "garden in movement." The theme is
the framing of the space, the nongeo- probably more important to the designer’s instigation of ideas than to the visitor’s per-
metric order within the enclosure, ception of the landscape, however.
the quality of the rocks and their ar-
rangement, the shaping of shrubs,
the almost complete absence of bril- Japan’s most outstanding shoreline ing, differentiated in time. The first
liantly flowering species. Unless a landscapes (Figure 9). The shorn regarded the production of meaning
person is initiated into Zen doctrine, bamboo-covered slope at Koraku-en used at the time of the garden’s cre-
however, the meaning as the embodi- in today’s Tokyo, on the other hand, ation and its effect(iveness) on the
ment of religious belief, and as possi- specifically invoked the Mountain of visitor. The second concerned the
bly intended by the gardenist, would the Chinese Immortals. Unlike the greater orbit of meaning that is part
remain beyond comprehension. And abstract Zen landscapes that were in- of the garden as institution and semi-
since Zen reflects continually back on tended to summon a multitude of (ul- otic constellation. "Gardens, too,
the self for understanding and ulti- timately personal) interpretations mean rather than are," claims this
mately enlightenment, there is an and associations, the aristocratic villa garden historian. "Their various signs
implicit denial of meaning within the gardens often established intimations are constituted of all the elements
garden itself. Instead, the garden of legend and land. Meaning accrued that compose them--elements of
stimulates individual contemplation; from allusions to real or mythic geog- technical human intervention like
it can be seen as a vehicle for under- raphy outside the immediate landscape. terraces or the shape of flowerbeds,
standing the self rather than the John Dixon Hunt has cogently elements of nature like water and
place. The meaning of the garden is argued that the world of the English trees---but they are nonetheless signs,
nonmeaning. In Zen belief, the place landscape garden, like many garden to be read by outsiders in time and
bears no meaning per se, but it can traditions before it, was a coherent space for what they tell of a certain
perhaps evoke a call for meaning system of signs devised to be legible society.’’39 Hunt also states, at first
within the individual. to both maker and visitor.~8 Here the seemingly in contradiction with what
Allusions to worlds beyond the signs were made tangible: a temple he has written earlier in the essay,
garden in place and time have ap- based on a Roman predecessor, a vale that even the most specific of refer-
peared with some regularity in the with mythological reference, an archi- ences (probably textual ones) become
polite traditions of landscape design tectonic emblem of Englishness. Ref- time worn and lose their significance:
in both East and West.37 Replicas or erences could be manifest in a land- "Castle Howard and Rousham pro-
recollections of Roman temples often scape feature, a structure, or even a vide excellent examples of garden
appeared in the English landscape written inscription to reduce ambigu- experience we have totally lost. We
garden. At Katsura Rikyu in Kyoto, a ity. Although falling under the com- no longer see a representation of
small spit of water-worn stones was mon heading of signification, they English landscape; we just see it.’’40
intended to cast the visitor’s musings actually concern two structures of mean- Any symbolic system demands
toward the peninsula of Ama-no- education and the comprehension of
hashidate, long regarded as one of both the medium and the message.

Treib 55
Figure 9. The Ama-no-hashidate peninsula, Katsura Rikyu, Kyoto, 17th century. Although using natural, unworked stones, the peninsula as
a totality functions as an abstraction, a sign, for the true landscape found on the northern Japanese coast. Meaning is transferred from an
actual scenic place in Japan to the constructed garden.

One might understand, for example, the garden may have only minimal almost immediately communicative,
that Diana was the goddess of the impact in the beginning, and even and communicative over long periods.
chase and even know of her associa- less in years to come. On the other Because their connections between
tion with the moon, but still might hand, the designer does have power form and intention are understood
have absolutely no idea why her like- over the artifact and its immediate within the culture and evolve only
ness stands in the garden. Were we effect on the senses--and its poten- slowly over time, it is possible for the
unaware of Louis XIV’s self-associa- tial to mean. makers, the people, and the meaning
tion with the sun, would we not be- Communications theory tells us of place all to remain in contact.42
lieve Versailles to be a glorious hom- that the two parties in conversation The Woodland Cemetery out-
age to cloudy France’s sunshine lost must share a common semantic chan- side Stockholm, designed between
or to Apollo himself?. We have lost the nel or there will be no communica- 1915 and 1940 by Gunnar Asplund
ability to read the original intentions, tion; no meaning. Can the garden and Sigurd Lewerentz, tapped into
but we can still decipher the original operate as such as channel, and does the religious and value systems of the
garden elements on our own contem- the designer possess the power to cre- Swedish Lutheran congregants. This
porary terms. That these two worlds ate a significant landscape, especially landscape of remembrance has re-
of meaning mutate over time sug- given the multitude of communica- mained both meaningful to its parish-
gests that meaning is indeed dynamic tion channels in today’s pluralistic ioners and appreciated by them from
and ever-changing.41 It also suggests world? When a society is relatively the time of its realization. The tri-
that the meaning with which the de- homogenized, the task is far easier umph of the cemetery lies not only in
signer believes he or she is investing because the designer shares the val- its magnificent joining of architec-
ues and belief system of the people.
Folk cultures produce places that are

56 Landscape Journal
Figure 10. Woodland Cemetery, Enskede, Sweden, 1915-1940, Gunnar Asplund and Sigurd Lewerentz. A nearly perfect balance of the
found and the created, the architectural and the natural, and the pantheistic and the Christian. The architecture and landscape designs
constitute an embodiment of shared cultural and religious values and were relatively successful in creating a meaningful landscape.

ture and landscape, and the modu- Swedish population in quite the same tion of contemporary American soci-
lated juncture of re-formed land with way.43 Not that it was ever easy; but it ety, and especially with its current
the existing pine forest; but also in its was easier earlier in the century. The emphasis on difference, the concord
ability to conjure a sense of sanctity communication channels are no longer necessary for instant meaning is, to
without relying on overt Christian so few, nor are the elements of the say the least, deficient.
iconography. Perhaps the power of Swedish landscape so simple. Since a commissioning body
this funereal landscape ultimately To summarize: might include meaningfulness as part
derives from an almost animistic feel- Can a (landscape) designer help of its brief, why commission a (land-
ing of pre-Christianity that addresses make a significant place? Yes. scape) designer?
the forest, the land, and the heavens Can a (landscape) designer Of course, there are the prag-
as a primeval setting (Figure 10). Per- design significance into the place at matic aspects of design that can best
haps the design also tapped into some- the time of its realization? No, or let’s be addressed by those with an educa-
thing basic to Swedish religion and say, no longer. tion, technical knowledge, and expe-
culture. It might still be possible to When the society was homoge- rience. One also hopes that the land-
create a landscape equally attuned to neous and shared a common system scape architect possesses equal skill
its time and place today, when Swed- of belief, when the symbolic system in understanding people and culture,
ish society is far more diverse. But it was endemic, when the makers of as well as horticulture and form. Cre-
would be far more difficult to devise places operated unselfconsciously ating significant landscapes remains
the forms and symbols that would fully within the culture, it was possi- a quest of the profession, as well it
resonate within the contemporary ble.44 But even then, meaning was should. But calling attention to Celtic
enriched through habit and the pas-
sage of time. Given the fragmenta-

Treib 57
 In historical garden literature, a
considerable amount of text describes
the pleasure of the garden, that is, its
comfort, its delight, its sense of well-
being. The pleasures of the imperial
palace garden backdrop the rather
limited action and plot development
in the 12th century Tale of Genji. Plea-
sure and its appreciation were so
much a part of gardens in the past
that we can well wonder why land-
scape architects today seek signifi-
cance rather than pleasure. Could it
be that pleasure is trite, hedonistic,
and ephemeral, while meaning is
deep and long-lasting? Or perhaps
pleasure seems to be too solitary an
enterprise, while meaning is taken as
collective embodiment of values? Or
is it that meaning is the dimension
that distinguishes landscape architec-
ture from mere "gardening"?
Figure 11. Man on the rocks, San Francisco, 1975. A primal marking of territory, acknowl-
Roland Barthes argued that to
edging the climate and creating limited comfort. The fantasy is provided by the reading
material, however, not by the landscape design. read is to seek the pleasure of the
text. He tells us that, to provide plea-
sure, "The text must prove to me that
it desires me" (italics in the original).46
inscriptions, solar alignments, the The design itself constitutes Knowledge, a magnificent use of lan-
spirit of the place, the Zeitgeist, the a filter that creates the difference guage, plot, linguistic constructions
vernacular landscape, or even a between what the designer intends all contribute to the ultimate goal:
didactic lesson in the derivation of and what the visitor experiences. the pleasure of reading. Is it not pos-
form does not create meaning. Pro- This is the difference between the sible to believe that pleasure is one of
viding symbols is not the same as cre- intended perception and the per- the necessary entry points to signifi-
ating meaningful places, although it ceived intention. Differences in cul- cance (certainly, horror would be
may be one point along the path. To ture, in education, in life experience, another as the sublime school once
my mind significance lies with the in our experience of nature will all believed, but our quotidian world
beholder and not alone in the place. modify our perception of the work of seems to provide enough of that)?
Meaning accrues over time; like re- landscape architecture. While this It seems curious to me that, in
spect, it is earned, not granted. While transaction between people and place most professional design publications,
the designer yearns to establish a is never completely symmetrical, I do the aspect of pleasure is almost com-
landscape that will acquire signifi- believe that we can circumscribe the pletely missing from the discourse,
cance, it is not possible to use pat range’ of possible reactions to a de- while it thrives in popular gardening
symbols alone as a means to trans- signed place. We cannot make that magazines and in seed catalogs. This
mute syntax into semantics, that is, place mean, but we can, I hope, insti- is not to say that pursuit of pleasure
tectonics into meaning.45 gate reactions to the place that will is not a part of professional work; one
Familiarity and affect are not fall within the desired confines of assumes that park design, for exam-
quite the same as significance, al- happiness, gloom, joy, contemplation, ple, is to a large degree predicated
hough they can serve as vehicles for or delight. This range of possible re- upon the contented use of its grounds.
its creation. To recall the site of one’s actions, while tempered by cultural But a discussion of pleasure is rarely
first camping trip, or the park where norms and personal experience, is a part of trade and academic writing.
the football championship was won, still physiologically dependent on the Professional publications often talk of
or even the flowers of one’s family human body The limits of thermal com- the site, the client, the plant materi-
home ground establish associations fort, the olfactory faculty, the capabil- als, perhaps the particular ecological
among place, act, and form that co- ity to perceive chroma and natural system or cleverness on the designer’s
here in landscape meaning. If these process, and our basic size are charac- part in solving a particularly thorny
places were designed by landscape teristics shared by virtually every hu- drainage problem. More recently,
architects, all well and good. Meaning man inhabitant of the planet. Could we some discussion of the alignment of
condenses at the intersection of peo- not start with these physical senses
ple and place, and not alone in the rather than with the encultured mind?
form the designer’s idea takes. Could we not make the place pleasur-
able?

58 Landscape Journal
Figure 12. Preparing for a wedding reception, 1990; California Scenario, Costa Mesa, California, 1984, Isamu Noguchi. While the landscape
provides abundant fantasy and visual provocation, it offers little amenity and respite from the afternoon sun. It is the caterer, not the land-
scape designer, who overlays the garden with a layer of chairs and umbrellas for comfort and habitability. Perhaps to those who were wed
there, the landscape will possess a special meaning different from that of the workers who look upon the space daily.

the garden’s axis to the summer sol- link between the senses and signifi- phone lines have superseded Icy
stice or its relation to some geoman- cance, or is meaning necessarily re- lines--but of trying to understand at
tic construction might also come into stricted to the rational faculties (Fig- what level our experience can be
play. The lay publications, in contrast, ure 1 1)? Barthes would argue that shared by others. Not as an abstract
discuss the delight of the garden and there is a connection. "What is signif- symbolic system referring back to
that making one is so easy--like sum- icance?" he writes; "It is meaning, Celtic times, but places--and ideas--
mer cooking recipes--you can do it insofar as it is sensually produced" (italics that acknowledge our time, our sensi-
in, or to, your own backyard. Color in the original).47 tivities, and our people. This takes
and fragrance and delight are givens; When an interlocutor once more than a pseudosignificant land-
and it is the perfect place for a barbe- accused Charles Eames of designing scape loaded with the designer’s ex-
cue. Magazines such as Sunset have furniture only for himself, the de- planatory voice-over, or captions built
expanded the world of the house and signer openly admitted that he did. into the landscape itself. It would
the garden to the world of lifestyle. But he did not design for what was seem that a designer could create a
Today might be a good time to idiosyncratic to himself alone, but for landscape of pleasure that in itself
once more examine the garden in re- a self indicative of the greater popu- would become significant. "Art should
lation to the senses, while putting lation of chair users. Why not try to not simply speak to the mind through
conscious mental rationalizations on reinject the same sense of pleasing the senses," wrote Goethe, "it must
the back burner--to create a mixed the individual or self into the land- also satisfy the senses themselves.’’48
metaphor. Although the world’s peo- scape design? I do not talk here of There are various arguments
ples vary greatly in terms of linguistic Gaia and other forms of touchy-feely for a concern for pleasure in garden
and cultural matrices, we do share expression that constitute yet another design.49 For one--at running the risk
roughly similar human senses, al- form of Neoarchaicism--since tele- of sounding too Californian--plea-
though admittedly these can be honed sure can be a valuable pursuit in it-
or dimmed by culture. Is there not a self, as valid as the pursuit of mean-

Treib 59
ing. Even Vitruvius constructed his called "Nature, Form, and Meaning," was de- nor do they imply that linguistic theory is ap-
triad of desirable architectural quali- voted to just this subject. As might be ex- plicable in any form to the making of landscape.
pected, the range of approaches to the subject
ties on commodity, firmness, and was broad, and the resulting interpretations 8. For example, I am told that, like landscape
delight.5° In the past, sensory plea- broader still. meaning, there remains no clear definition of
sures have served to condition mean- electricity. This has not hampered our ability to
ing. Consider the expression of taste 2. See D. W. Meinig, ed. (1979), The Interpreta- understand, produce, modulate, and utilize the
tion of Ordinary Landscapes. Like anthropologists, resource, however. Louis Armstrong is sup-
in the selection and arrangement of cultural geographers read the landscape as a posed to have said that if he had to explain jazz
cut flowers in Japan or the ecstacy of text and are relatively reticent to make judg- to people, they would never really understand
religious experience that underwrote ments about it, much less those of aesthetics. it. This just may be true of meaning as well.
so much Counter-Reformation art Others, like W. H. Hoskins, however, may decry
and architecture. Sensory experience the modernization of the English landscape 9. That this stance is problematic seems obvious.
and may appraise these residues of culture
moved the viewer, causing him or her process on the base of personal values. See also 10. Tunnard’s essays that would constitute his
to reflect upon religious meaning as W. H. Hoskins (1955), The Making of the English 1938 Gardens in the Modern Landscape appeared
well as one’s position in the uni- Landscape and compare withJ. B.Jackson serially in Architectural Review, starting the pre-
verse-powerful stuff indeed. Third, (1970), Landscapes. vious year. About the same time,James Rose
despite the influence of culture, indi- contributed a series of articles to Pencil Points,
3. Mark Francis and Randolph T. Hester, Jr. the predecessor of today’s Progressive Architecture,
vidual physiological characteristics, (1989), The Meaning of Gardens. The book, devel- including one essay titled "Plants Dictate Gar-
and even transitory psychological states, oped from a conference held at the University den Form," written in 1938. The conclusions
pleasure is still more predictable than of California at Davis in 1987, should be distin- that Rose reached in this essay closely paral-
meaning. As in the past, and despite guished from the previously released typescript leled those of Tunnard. Both included a list of
the collapse of collective social norms, and unillustrated proceedings. plant materials suitable for modern conditions.
pleasure may provide a more defined 4. Robert B. Riley (1988), "From Sacred Grove 11. Conversation with the author, June 1988;
path towards meaning than the eru- to Disney World: The Search for Garden Mean- but he still says it.
dite approaches to landscape design ing," p. 138. Whether Riley’s statement encom-
discussed earlier in this paper. passes history as well as contemporary life was 12. The notable exception was the work of
not spelled out. The author’s hesitation to as- Roberto Burle Marx, who would frequently be
Significance, I believe, is not a sign meaning to gardens may stem from the characterized as a "painter in plants" who drew
designer’s construct that benignly pluralistic and multicultural composition of the on the shapes of modern, often nonobjective,
accompanies the completion of con- contemporary American population. One could art. See Marc Treib (1993a), "Axioms for a
struction. It is not the product of the add, somewhat desperately perhaps, that this Modern Landscape Architecture."
admittedly diverse population appears to be In a series of articles published inArchi-
maker, but is, instead, created by the bent on expressing its constitution of differing tectural Record at the beginning of the 1940s,
receivers. Like a patina, significance cultural groups, rather than examining the Rose, Eckbo, and Dan Kiley linked the physical
is acquired only with time. And like a shared characteristics of all human beings. and social environment from the intimate to
patina, it emerges only if the condi- regional scales as a prerequisite of responsible
tions are right. 5. Laurie Olin (1988), "Form, Meaning, and landscape architecture. They did not talk of
Expression in Landscape Architecture," p. 159. significance, however, but implied that mean-
The problems that develop from dividing the ing accompanies an intelligent design, or that
production of meaning into distinct categories it was just not an issue. These articles have
are obvious to the author of the article as well been republished in Marc Treib, ed. (1993b),
as to its readers. I imagine that Olin would Modern Landscape Architecture.
All photographs by Marc Treib. agree that meaning ultimately derives from
both categories operating simultaneously. 13. In Gideon’s eyes, space was the primary
quest of modern architecture, the realization
6. Olin’s classifications roughly parallel the two of an adventure he traced back to Baroque spa-
categories I had once proposed in discussing tial planning in Rome under Sixtus V and the
the idea of formalism in the landscape. The undulating facades of Francesco Borromini.
Acknowledgments first, trace, was the unintentioned marking or See Sigfried Gideon (1938), Space, Time and
making of space through use. The second, Architecture. The quest reached an apogee in
ForJ. B.Jackson. intent, concerned conscious spatial definition Bruno Zevi’s Architecture as Space (1957).
I wish to thank Doroth~e Imbert,J. B.Jackson, and/or construction that considered dimen-
Karen Madsen, Robert Riley, Simon Swaffield, sions beyond that of function; that is, the 14. For a representative collection of Green°
Brenda Brown and Landscape Journal’s anony- semantic as well as the syntactic aspects of berg’s ideas and writings, see Clement Green-
mous reader for their perceptive and helpful landscape design. Marc Treib (1979), "Traces berg ( 1961), Art and Culture: Critical Essays.
comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Given Upon the Land: The Formalistic Landscape."
the elusive nature of the subject, however 15. Garrett Eckbo (1950), Landscapes for Living.
I doubt that I was able to address all of their 7. The library on meaning in philosophy is vast See also Reuben Rainey (1993), "’Organic
questions and must take responsibility for and makes trying reading. The award for the Form in the Humanized Landscape’: Garrett
any shortcomings in both the argument and most provocative title should probably be given Eckbo’s Landscapes for Living," pp. 180-205.
writing. to Cambridge dons C. K. Ogden and I. A.
Richards (1923), The Meaning of Meaning. If one 16. Ian McHarg (1966), Design with Nature.
accepted their definition of meaning in lan- Despite his predominant polemic and pervasive
guage and extended it to landscape architecture, rationale, McHarg admits moments of poetry
one would have to agree that it was indeed pos- and suggestions of meaning: "The best symbol
sible to design meaning into landscapes: "The of peace might better be the garden than the
Notes meaning of any sentence is what the speaker dove" (p. 5).
1. For example, the fall 1988 issue of this jour- intends to be understood from it by the lis-
nal, guest edited by Anne Whiston Spirn and tener" (p. 193). The authors, obviously, make
no such claim for landscape design, however,

60 Landscape Journal
17. Olin (1988), "Form, Meaning and Expres- 23. My anecdote is a paraphrase of a citizen your actions." Next, "The Keith Severin Corol-
sion in Landscape Architecture," pp. 150-151. reaction I overheard in 1990 when photograph- lary: "All subdivisions are named after what-
ing an urban triangle in Washington, D. C., ever species are first driven out by the con-
18. To my mind, one of the real burdens of planted by Oehme/Van Sweden. My kibitzer struction. E.g.: Quail Trail Estates." Edge Cities
landscape architecture is that two professions read my taking of photographs as documenting (1991), pp. 461-471.
are combined under the same name, as if their a deplorable urban condition, presumably as
interests and goals were coincident. Landscape evidence to have the wrong righted as soon as 33. Sir GeoffreyJellicoe’s proposal for the
architecture is concerned with forming, as well possible. This was in spite of the fact that num- Moody Gardens in Galveston, Texas, was
as planning, a landscape; landscape manage- erous plaques identified the various grasses essentially a landscape theme park, evoking
ment or planning, with its regulation. Obvi- and cluing, at a second level, that the wild look (but not copying) historical garden types. Land-
ously, they overlap in their concern with living was intentional. scapes of Civilization (1989).
systems, but landscape architecture requires
active, formal intervention in a way that re- 24. I realize, of course, that there are far more 34. There is some indication that they do. Par-
gional planning does not. This is not to say, considerations bearing on these decisions than ticularly in good weather, the less formal areas
however, that they both do not have conse- the aesthetic alone. But at some point in the of the "gardens in movement" are highly uti-
quences in the form of the landscape. process, aesthetic questions must be addressed. lized, perhaps because they provide some of the
only truly private--and shaded---spaces in
19. In his 1984 California Scenario plaza-garden 25. "If one wishes to work on the cutting edge what is otherwise a highly structured ensem-
in Costa Mesa, California, Noguchi appears to in either fine art or design," writes Martha ble. In that way, they resemble the country in
have adapted a wedge-shaped fragment of the Schwartz, "one must be informed of develop- comparison to the city.
astronomical observatory for use as a water ments in the world of painting and sculpture.
source. While this element can also be read as Ideas surface more quickly in painting and 35. I realize that there is quite another school
a modernist abstraction of a hill, the form sculpture than in architecture or landscape of thought that regards both human experi-
bears a striking resemblance to its Indian pred- architecture, due to many factors including the ence and significance as more or less universal.
ecessor. Noguchi’s program for the garden immediacy of the media and the relative low This belief has produced "pattern languages,"
encompassed the various ecological zones of investment of money required to explore an among other theories, derived from a selective
California, from mountain meadow to desert: idea." "Landscape and Common Culture potpourri of peoples and places, with the as-
an attempt at evoking the genius loci and cre- (1993)," p. 264. As is often the case, however, sumption that the proper blend (selected and
ating meaning? by the time art ideas are applied to landscape structured by the authors) will perfectly suit all
design, they are a bit tired and worn. For a pas- of humanity--certainly at least 20th century
20. Gary Dwyer (1986), "The Power Under Our sionate argument for the Neoarchaic in art-- America. My own experience through travel
Feet," pp. 65-68. The choice of Ogham as the one source of landscape architecture in the and reading, supported by historical study, sug-
script with which to inscribe the fault line was 1980s--see Lucy Lippard (1983), Overlay. gests quite the opposite; that is, that values are
based on its formal properties alone: it is writ- not universal, but are instead particular to a
ten as cross marks across a linear spine. Dwyer 26. Norma Evenson (1978), Paris: A Century of people, place, and time. Perhaps this could be
himself asks the critical question: "How can an Change. Or taken at rush hours, as a round and appropriately termed "cultural relativism"--
ancient Celtic language have anything to do linear parking lot. and it probably has been so termed by someone
with the San Andreas Fault?" And replies: somewhere.
"Aside from its development by a primitive 27. In fact, one of the slaughterhouses, la Halle
people who were rhythmically allied with the aux Boeufs, was renovated into an art space by 36. Thus Japanese gardens built outside Japan
forces of nature, Ogham began like all lan- Reichen and Robert in 1985; a modern recent are mere shadows of their referents because
guages with the mark, with ’naming the un- structure for animal dispatch was heroically they lack their native cultural matrix. They
knowable.’" To my mind, the substantiation recast as the City of Science and Industry by become ’~]apanesque" and expose physical fea-
remains unconvincing. Adrian Fainsilber in 1987 and is the park’s tures as a photograph captures an image but
principal attraction. only rarely the essence of subject.
21. After an exhaustive search and a telephone
call to the author, I have been unable to find 28. The notable exception is Alexandre Chem- 37. "Polite," like the term Monumental or
the exact source of the quotation, or even etoff’s Sequence IV or Bamboo Garden. Given High Style, is used in this essay in (near) oppo-
whether this was the exact quotation. If not its sense of path, its enclosure, and its Didactic sition to the Vernacular tradition of landscape
precisely those words, the spirit of Howett’s revelation of subterranean services, the bam- making and building. It implies neither a rank
observation is captured by them. boo garden is both a lesson and respite from ordering of one above the other nor any partic-
the city and the other parts of the park at la ular character, except that the Polite tradition
22. Christian Norberg-Schulz determined three Villette. As of June 1993, however, it had be- will normally approach environmental design
ways in which man-made places relate to na- come overgrown and is in need of pruning and far more self-consciously than the Vernacular.
ture. The first regards rendering the natural reformation.
structure "more precise"; in the second, con- 38. "It is doubtless a difficult notion to appreci-
struction complements the natural order, while 29. Much of what has been written perpetuates ate toda~ but in the eighteenth century all the
the third symbolizes it: "The purpose of sym- the designer’s original claims; many of the fine arts were deemed to have representation
bolization is to free the meaning from the im- authors seem never to have visited the actual at their center, and gardening aspired to beaux-
mediate situation, whereby it becomes a ’cul- park, and their writings are discourse about arts status."John Dixon Hunt (1991), "The
tural object,’ which may form part of a more discourse. Garden as Cultural Object," p. 26.
complex situation, or be moved to another 39. Ibid, p. 28.
place." Genius Loci, 1980, p. 17. Edward Relph’s 30. According toJ. B. Jackson, expediency is a
Place and Placelessness (1976) constitutes, in hallmark of vernacular building. Defining the 40. Ibid.
some ways, the complement to Norberg- Vernacular Landscape (1984).
Schulz’s more natural oriented vision. Relph 41. In his or her notes, the reader anonymously
also includes the symbolic as part of the triad 31. This friend, who happens to be French and reviewing a draft of this essay for Landscape
of factors that create the sense of place: "The writes about modernist French gardens, wishes Journal wisely noted two categories of meaning:
identity of a place is comprised of three inter- to remain anonymous. ’~A. Systems of Signification/Representation in
related components, each irreducible to the 32. Garreau offers two "laws" that govern the the landscape (metaphysical, narrative, alle-
other--physical features or appearance, ob- naming of developments. First, there isJake gorical, symbolic), and B. Circumstances of en-
servable activities and functions, and meanings Page’s Law of Severed Continuity: "You name a
or symbols" (p. 61). place for what is no longer there as a result of

T~eib 61
gagement with the landscape (experiential, sen- 47. Ibid. ¯ 1980. The Necessity for Ruins. Amherst:
sory, physical);" This might be interpreted University of Massachusetts Press.
broadly as a meaning that accrues perceptually 48.j.w. von Goethe, "The Collector and His ¯ 1984. Defining the VernacularLandscape.
as opposed to meaning that accrues conceptually. Circle," Propyltien ii (1980 [ 1799]), p. 70. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
Press.
42. Folk cultures have been described as those 49. My own thoughts on this subject have been Jellicoe, Geoffrey. 1989. Landscapes of Civiliza-
that are geographically delimited, developing greatly augmented by suggestions from Robert tion. Woodbridge: Garden Art Press.
only slowly over time. Mass culture, in contrast, Riley, for which I am grateful. Lippard, Lucy. 1983. Overlay. New York: E. P.
is more broadly ranged and changes rapidly. Dutton & Co.
50. Vitruvius, of course, spoke Latin, not En- McHarg, Ian. 1966. Design with Nature. Garden
43. Or as Robert Riley put it: "Such a lack of glish. This particular rendering of the Latin City, N.Y.: Doubleday.
shared symbolism does not rule out the garden original is by Henry Wotten. Meinig, D. W., ed. 1979. The Interpretation of
as a carrier of powerful meaning but it does Ordinary Landscapes. New York: Oxford
discount the likelihood of meanings that speak University Press.
strongly to the whole society." "From Sacred Norberg-Schulz, Christian. 1980. Genius Loci.
Grove to Disney World" (1988), p. 142. New York: Rizzoli.
Ogden, C. K., and I. A. Richards. 1923. The
44.J.B. Jackson, among others, has pointed References Meaning of Meaning. New York: Harcourt,
out that the visual-centric garden is a Renais- Barthes, Roland. 1975. The Pleasure of the Text. Brace & World.
sance development and that during the medi- New York: Hill and Wang. Olin, Laurie. 1988. "Form, Meaning, and
eval and earlier ages the correspondences Dwyer, Gary. 1986. "The Power Under Our Expression in Landscape Architecture."
between plant and cosmos were firmly estab- Feet." Landscape Architecture 76(3): 65-68. LandscapeJoumal 7(2): 149-168.
lished. The form of the plant or its fragrance or Eckbo, Garrett. 1950. Landscapes for Living. New Rainey, Reuben. 1993. "’Organic Form in the
its name suggested its value through associa- York: Reinhold Publishing. Humanized Landscape’: Garrett
tions. A yellow plant might be appropriate for Evenson, Norma. 1978. Paris: A Century of Change. Eckbo’s Landscapes for Living." In Modem
curing jaundice; a round one might assuage New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Landscape Architecture: A Critical Review,
headaches. Those who cared about such things-- Press. edited by Marc Treib, pp. 180-205.
admittedly, a small community--were bound Francis, Mark, and Randolph T. Hester, Jr. 1989. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
together in a common belief system through The Meaning of Gardens. Cambridge, Relph, Edward. 1976. Place andPlacelessness.
Christianity. The Necessity for Ruins (1980), Mass.: MIT Press. London: Pion Limited.
pp. 37-54. Riley, Robert B. 1988. "From Sacred Grove to
Garreau, Joel. 1991. Edge Cities. Garden City,
N.Y.: Doubleday. Disney World: The Search for Garden
45. Robert Riley cited Mary Douglas’s term Gideon, Sigfried. 1938. Space, Time andArehitec- Meaning." Landscape Journal 7(2):
"condensed symbols" that "carry not just one ture. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni- 136-147.
meaning but accretions of many meanings, lay- versity Press. Schwartz, Martha. 1993. "Landscape and Com-
ered upon each other and over time. They are mon Culture." In Modem Landscape Archi-
Goethe,J. W. von. 1980 [ 1799]. "The Collector
symbols that are commonly agreed upon, not tecture: A Critical Review, edited by Marc
and His Circle," Propyliien ii. In Goethe on
designer-chosen, that connote deep affective Art, edited by John Gage. Berkeley: Uni- Treib, pp. 260-265. Cambridge, Mass.:
meaning, not quick cleverness, and that are versity of California Press. MIT Press.
integral to a context that is culturally agreed Greenberg, Clement. 1961. Art and Culture: Crit- Treib, Marc. 1979. "Traces Upon the Land: The
upon as appropriate." "From Sacred Grove to ical Essays. Boston: Beacon Press. Formalistic Landscape." Architectural
Disney World" (1988), p. 142. Hoskins, W. H. 1955. The Making of the English Association Quarterly 1 (4):28-39.
Landscape. Harmondsworth: Penguin --. 1993a. "Axioms for a Modern Land-
46. Does our involvement for publication enter Books. scape Architecture." In Modem Landscape
here? While neither meaning nor pleasure can Hunt, John Dixon. 1991. "The Garden as Architecture: A Critical Review, edited by
be photographed, there can be pleasure de- Cultural Object." In Denatured Visions, Marc Treib. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT
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itself can provide pleasure, of course. Roland Wrede. New York: Museum of Modern --, ed. 1993b. Modern Landscape Architecture:
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York: Horizon Press.

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