Landscape architecture and architecture are two fields that exist in
close proximity to one another. Some have argued that the two are, in
fact, one field. Others maintain that the disciplines are distinct.
These designations are a subject of continual debate by theorists and
practitioners alike.
Here, David Leatherbarrow offers an entirely new way of thinking of
architecture and landscape architecture. Moving beyond partisan
arguments, he shows how the two disciplines rely upon one another to
form a single framework of cultural meaning. Leatherbarrow redefines
landscape architecture and architecture as topographical arts, the
shared task of which is to accommodate and express the patterns of our
lives. Topography, in his view, incorporates terrain, built and unbuilt,
but also traces of practical affairs, by means of which culture
preserves and renews its typical situations and institutions.
This rigorous argument is supported by nearly 100 illustrations, as well
as examples of topography from the sixteenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth
centuries, through the heroic period of early modernism, to more recent
offerings. A number of these studies revise existing accounts of
decisive moments in the history of these disciplines, particularly the
birth of the informal garden, the emergence of continuous space in the
landscapes and architecture of the modern period, and the new
significance of landform or earthwork in contemporary architecture. For
readers not directly involved with either of these professions, this
book shows how over the centuries our lives have been shaped and
enriched by landscape and architecture.
Topographical Stories provides a new paradigm for theorizing and
practicing landscape and architecture.
