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Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Welcome to the class blog!
Welcome to the LA 607 blog! Please post your repsonses to the weekly readings here so that your classmates and I can read and react to them prior to the in class discussion. Also, please make sure that your identity is somehow known to me so that I can make certain that all are participating (if you are using a screen name, please drop me an email to let me know what it is).
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Thanks for setting this up, Stan. I'm the first commenter! Woohoo!
ReplyDeleteMike Weir
ReplyDeleteReading: Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning
In reading this article I found myself nodding in agreement when the author lauded the potential benefits of advocacy and pluralism in planning, namely the resultant creation of numerous, varied plans beyond the official one of the planning commission. Also, I agree with how this can spur healthy debate and discussion on the merits of each plan. I liken this environment to the concept that competition in the market often has the benefit of creating a better product that is less expensive. Companies that cannot compete in quality, features, or general value lose out, hence there is tremendous market pressure to achieve those characteristics in the most desirable combination to the consumer; they benefit directly from these forces. I also enjoyed learning more about planning commissions, their history, and why they need to change: to better represent the opinions and proposals of the communities their projects invariably impact. It seemed a natural extension to me that city planners themselves need to retool their occupation to be more inclusive, more aware and sensitive to the socioeconomic realities of urban centers and their inhabitants. To that end, I fully support the author’s conclusion that city planners need to expand and deepen their knowledge of the forces that affect urban communities and integrate this knowledge into their practice in the form of advocacy and pluralism.
Mike Weir
ReplyDeleteReading: Form, Meaning and Expression in Landscape Architecture
This reading was interesting to me because of its focus on historical precedence in landscape architecture and how many of the major names in the field did not necessarily make new breakthroughs with new materials, technologies, etc., but had the ability to look upon the traditional elements of the profession (namely materials and technique) with unique, fresh perspectives. They strived successfully to wrestle from history new interpretations of time-tested approaches to conveying meaning in their projects. I can see how the author would be annoyed by the habit of mainstream landscape designers / architects to perpetuate long-standing, rather convenient executions of form versus pushing themselves to look upon their design challenges from bold new perspectives like the masters he spoke of.
Mike Weir
ReplyDeleteReading: Beyond Belligerent Compliance
This brief article was a pleasure to read. It set the stage well right out of the gate and got me fired up as I have family and friends who use wheelchairs to explore the public spaces in their respective cities. On that note, I think John Stilgoe is taking a very close-minded approach to critiquing the impact of the ADA legislation. He makes it sound like the landscape design profession has to stoop down to accommodate the needs of people with disabilities and that this is somehow compromising the caliber of the resultant works. In my opinion, this confirms that Mr. Stilgoe is a lazy person, comfortable with the deliberate discounting of the needs of an entire community of public space users…a.k.a. an exclusionist…all for the sake of advancing what he considers to be good design. I think the author’s example of the Amphitheater at the UO EMU building is a simple and clear example of why Stilgoe is wrong. If he would cease to be a lazy landscape historian, perhaps he would see that designers can accomplish great works that are ADA compliant while still pushing the boundaries of the profession. If anything it represents a healthy challenge to all designers to be inclusive, not exclusive, in their designs.
Mike Weir
ReplyDeleteReading: Nature as Community: The Convergence of Environmental and Social Justice
I enjoyed reading this article because it was very hopeful and optimistic versus many of the articles we have read which felt pessimistic. The environmental justice movement outlined in the article resonates with me more than that of mainstream environmentalism, which now seems to be myopic at times concerned with addressing trivial symptoms of this sick earth and not the causes of its countless ailments. Along those lines, I agree with how the environmental justice movement views nature and man as interrelated and connected versus separate and distinct. It is a reasonable endeavor to envision what the world would be like in the absence of multinational greed and land rape, environmental racism, and socioeconomic inequities. That combined with the man/nature interconnectedness mentioned above could very well alleviate mainstream environmental concerns such as saving the whales and rainforests. I am impressed by how effectively environmental justice groups have been able to mobilize their members to come together, recognize disparate opinions and cultural value systems, and create an articulate, succinct manifesto. In addition, they have been able to translate those accomplishments into tangible acts, such as successfully blocking the LANCER solid waste incinerator project. Needless to say, this is all very motivating, especially in the face of rampant corporate greed and ignorance.
I regret being unable to find a specific link or reference to it, so I will paraphrase a story recounted by a former professor that came to mind when I was reading the Olin article. It tells of Sen No Rikyu, often regarded as the "father of tea ceremony", who cut down all the flowers from his impressive garden after hearing that the emperor wished to see it. Upon visiting and seeing the garden devoid of flowers, the emperor, feeling deliberately insulted, demanded an explanation from Sen No Rikyu, who said (in much simpler and elegant language than I can convey) that the emperor could only appreciate and understand the true meaning of the morning glories through a single instance of a flower, one carefully selected by Rikyu (not for its flawless beauty, but for it's ability to represent the idea of a morning glory). Considering that emperors of his time were seen as near-deities, Rikyu's actions were a poignant criticism of the emperor himself, who had a penchant (and the only one with the wealth/power necessary) for "owning and controlling" nature on a grand scale, as evidenced by the numerous beautiful private gardens in his massive estates.
ReplyDeleteI cite the above story because having seen Versailles, I am not as impressed as Olin is with either it's design, or it's effects upon the viewer. While it does not try to re-create nature and while I do consider it to be beautiful I cannot divorce the space from its cultural and historical context. To me, its obvious focus is to placate an emperor (or Sun King) and as such is less daring or thoughtful than Rikyu's approach, which was designed to stir awareness and set the tone for self-reflection in the most powerful and egoistic person in his country. My feelings of Versailles might be an anomaly, but I think the more logical explanation is that there are cultural obstacles standing in between the viewer and the space that neither I nor anyone else can overcome, both because we no longer live in an era of widespread, overt inequality, and because the space was never intended to be public. So at best, we are left with a diluted version of Versailles. The tension that Olin describes between nature as art and the accessibility of its meaning in a changing society is present everywhere at Versailles, and tension is the best word I can find to describe the Versailles experience.
This brings me to Stanton's article concerning fully accessible public spaces. It is no surprise to me that Europe is cited by Jon Stilgoe as a beacon of creativity, unencumbered by the American need to adhere to codes and regulations, and his view that to make a space more accessible is somehow to lessen it's impact or importance. Modern-day Americans might be lazy and loath to expend extra energy, but not more so than modern-day Europeans. To make his comparison of Americans and Europeans accurate, he would have to compare modern-day Americans to past generations of Europeans, a both silly and futile task. Almost exclusive to American cities is sensitivity to inclusiveness and equality that is missing in the much older cities of Europe. Most of this might be due to the social realities present at construction of these spaces. It would be a nightmare to make major European cities ADA compliant, and those Europeans excluded from them might be a small minority, but they exist, and this might bring Europeans some discomfort. I cannot help but think of European criticism of ADA-compliance as a symptom of their envy because they cannot espouse "liberte, fraternite, egalite" without ignoring the obvious lack of egalite present throughout their spaces. Americans might not always succeed in making a space accessible, but designers in the U.S. have more options, not fewer, available to them than their European counterparts and this is perhaps what prompts harsh criticism by others and leads them to the trite straw-man view of Americans as lazy and stupid.