Lecture 1 LANDSCAPE ARCHI FALL 2021

What Is landscape?

The definition is extremely diverse throughout history.

In the first picture is taken from a movie of Woody Allen, a filmmaker whose movies are shot in NYC.
These movies built a specific image of what Manhattan is: They make the ambiences and landscape of
cities more familiar. Youssef Chahine did the same in Cairo, you feel as if you visited the city.

They make the landscape of cities more familiar even before internet and the access to images. This
image shows the scale, the overwhelming and crashing scale of the bridge. It shows an organization the
space, the actors and the bridge.

The image of the atomic bomb/explosion is landscape as well. Actually it is problematic because usually
landscape is referred to something positive while here it is put in an image of total destruction and
negative. But it is part of the image as a whole.

The image of the flower is not a landscape but an element and an object without context, floating. But
the ambience in the flower that is generated is a landscape. For example, the blueish ambience that
cannot be touched I landscape. We will see it more in the ides of space.

The industrial landscape is one of the problematics we are facing in our cities since the second half of
the last century. The industries are inserted in the wrong places. They should place in the outskirts of
cities, in places that people do not see and where they do not affect the lives of people as they are
generating pollution especially in Lebanon where they are places next to settlements, Zouk, Chekka.

Mont Saint Michel, Normandie west of France. It is a mountain inside the sea. It is a landmark that is
forming a specific relationship with the landscape. It is an image for the country (Raouche in Leb for
example).

Image of the Cedars in Lebanon, a typical place in Lebanon. We can find the indication of the “Lebanese
Cedars” wherever in the World known by its shape, and relation with the geography that indicates that
you are in Lebanon and not elsewhere.

The next image is of the Cathedral of Santa Maria, Renaissance in Florence: an urban Landscape.
Landscape doesn’t always imply that we have greenery. It is a challenging aspect, form of landscape that
we always deal with (cities France, Florence, Amsterdam) that are historical, respected cities. While in
Lebanon for example Burh Hamoud that is a growing city created by the settlements and different
communities building one on the other creating an urban chaotic context, without clear spaces where
we can create public spaces, gardens, piazzas. It is an issue worldwide.

The next picture is a painting by William 18 th century. Paintings are important medium to develop a
landscape vision of the world. We see boats, buildings. It depicts an aspect of London during the
industrial revolution that changed the face of cities, morphology of cities (social) migrating people from
villages to cities, transportation. What’s important is the term of representation, it is how we project an
image of something and making an interpretation. All paintings present some sort of “reality” with the
ego and interpretation of the painter. It depends on the consciousness and expression of what one sees
in his own way. Pope can have different interpretation of the same place, cz it is personal, a memory
and consciousness representation. The aim and role of LA and Architects is to try to preserve some sort
of general relation between people and landscape, otherwise it is alienation and we are in the unknown.
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It is not only garden design; this is a minimal task. The landscape is built within the form of a city and
places and territory, we cannot fill and limit. It is extremely fluid and elastic. It depends on the culture
and more than just design.

Paintings, Photography: informative or artistic

It is important to understand representation. We have to be careful how the society and people.

Sometimes it is a landscape that has no identity it is distorted and dislocated because of several
components that are not in relationship with each other.

Usually highways have their own problems in terms of landscape, they have this aspect of the unknown
and ambiguous.

The next picture is a map. It is not considered a landscape. Map of the city of paris showing the location
of different components. It allows to understand a lot of things. Unless it is an aerial view.

SPACE

 Raw material of our esistance

 Where our daily life happens
 Volume
 Plane
 Room
 Apartment
 Road
 City……

LAND - SCAPE (shape of the land): Deeply rooted to the formation of territory, highly connected to the
place of territory.

It started to be part of discussion during the Renaissance late 17 th, early 18th but it wasn’t present in
paintings unless for example the painting talking about annunciation.

On the other side it has been developed thanks to the Dynasty, Family Da vinci who were planting big
gardens to create a poetic approach but yet not establish as we see it today but it started since the
Renaissance.

In the Greek area there is a relation with the landscape but wasn’t called Landscape and didn’t have the
same understanding.

Forest oceans desert were seen as places of fear, it was not until the 19 th century where they started
being exploited and to serve the people and started to become a place of leisure for the urban
population, it is linked to the industrial revolution that created light so these places started getting lit
and are no longer in the darkness. We started having a life in the city in the darkness. It Is not anymore
the garden between walls but a public park for the people. Most of the royal parks had been open to the
public. This is when we discovered the beauty of the landscape.
Lecture 1 LANDSCAPE ARCHI FALL 2021

 Painting of Auguste Renoir: La Balancoire 1876

In this painting we see the girl in the forest, having fun when it became a leisure and a place for the
public and no longer a place to the unknown.

The space is represented to us under two categories:

1- The idea of space

2- The idea of magnitude (size)

The PLACE

 Idea of location
 Locating the world in relation to me (how things are situated in relation to me)
 Locating myself in relation to the world (when I pass thru a place)

Two contrasting approaches of Place and see how they are formed:

a) Wanderer above the sea of fog

b) and the aerial view of the city of Marrakech

b- it shows a specific morphology that follows a specific geography we can see that roads are directed to
the left upper side. We can understand that in this urban settlement we have an informal orientation of
the buildings following the geography. We do not have a grid but a specific typology and similar units.
Introverted houses, vernacular following a specific typology because of the culture. It is a typical Islamic
culture construction, it has conceived introverted houses, open to the inside contrary to the Christian
houses and this is not random but due to religious practices and beliefs. Can be found in other countries
like Syria. to create a fresh ambience inside and designed b=by an interior garden with a fountain. It
directly shows the social identity that is not the same everywhere in the world.

a- The painting by the German Romantic Caspar David Friedrich that shows a man facing the landscape
and it was the first time where Men is facing the landscape with power, his back to the observer. It was
the first time where we see the impact of the industrial revolution, how it transformed our perception
on places and landscape, how I allowed this monopolization of drawing, invasion of places to access all
places and be appropriate to population.

On the right we have an enclosed and limited understanding of the landscape while of the left the
beginning of a new approach and facing the landscape with much more confirm way.

What is the difference between place and space?

A space is generic, something that can be open without limits or not. When we conceive a building we
are limiting the space with boundaries (walls). We can measure it.

The place has an identity, a spirit that’s why it cannot be measured, it is not limited. Outside borders.
Lebanon and Syria are two different places but similar cultures and food… it cannot be limited. It is
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related to the culture, geography, orientation… How people settled, how they are living, how they are
appropriating the place, it is reflected in the architecture and other factors…

The magnitude:

The idea of magnitude is the geometric space, the geographic space. It is the notion of quantitative
need, the empty physical space that we fill by our thing.

Human beings, in their immediate experiences, cross in each moment the location of the spaces as well
as the magnitude pf space

To the concept of space correspond two metric concepts: the field and the volume: you can see the
settlements and the houses of a community and for example decide and see how much trees you can
plant between the houses.

They interfere with each other by the notion of piling, the accumulation of successive volumes and
layers.

They form sequence of spaces which suggest the idea of changing the place, changing the point of
reference.

The space as volume implies the spatial capital, the measurable territory (the wealth of a farmer is
measured according to the area of his field.)

The implicit idea that each volume, each surface is generator of richness means and their flow
establishes an economic relation between man and the world. For example, Andre Le Notre in La
renaissance or maybe after in the Classical era was invited to design the Gardens of Versailles for the
king Louis 14. It was acting as an economic power projected by the king. It was extremely powerful with
the huge pond and beautiful scenery: Look at my power as I am the owner of this.

When the space is a landmark or point of reference it refers to the contact with the world.

It reflects the opposition between the here and there. When we are designing a landscape we are
always creating, consciously or not a relation between here and somewhere else.