Gardens without meaning

Authors

  • Rod Barnett

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.34900/lr.v3i2.43

Abstract

In a number of recent texts devoted to history and theory in landscape architecture the assertion has appeared that modernist landscape architects emphasised form over content in their work. This is reflected in the widely held and more general claim that landscape architecture of the modern period was not interested in meaning. This paper counters this claim in two ways. First, it attempts to show that modernist landscape architects were indeed interested in meaning, but that their interest was expressed in ways which have not been appreciated in critical commentary. Secondly, it argues that the essentialist model of landscape meaning which has been deployed in the justification of the above claim is inadequate both for the purpose to which it has been put, and as a theoretical foundation for contemporary practice in general. An alternative model of landscape meaning is proposed. This model is derived in the first instance from contemporary readings of related disciplines in the social sciences (sociology, cultural geography, anthropology) and in particular from the interpretative methodology known as hermeneutics.

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Published

01-10-1997

How to Cite

Barnett, R. (1997). Gardens without meaning. Landscape Review, 3(2), 22–42. https://doi.org/10.34900/lr.v3i2.43

Issue

Vol 3, No 2 (1997)

Section

Reflection

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