On specificity

The recent exhibition at the University of Pennsylvania was the occasion to review more than 40 French projects over the last two decades. Beyond the diversity of the designs themselves, we could think about the question that the French philosopher Gilles Tiberghien raised in his recent book Nature,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Studies in the history of gardens & designed landscapes 2003-10, Vol.23 (4), p.340-346
Main Author: Coignet, Philippe
Format: Article
Language:English
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The recent exhibition at the University of Pennsylvania was the occasion to review more than 40 French projects over the last two decades. Beyond the diversity of the designs themselves, we could think about the question that the French philosopher Gilles Tiberghien raised in his recent book Nature, Art, Landscape: What makes the specificity of the relationship between landscape architects and landscape? Rather ambitious, this question helps us to trace some common denominators between French landscape architects and clarifY the investigative tools they use to survey the landscape: words like 'underscoring', 're-qualifying', 'inscribing' and 'revealing' were often encountered in the project descriptions. 'Re-qualifying' is, for example, a strategy that increases the degree of specificity of a place in order to make its qualities more apparent. Re-qualifying is not so nmch building an identity for a site as it is the finding of one, through a complex operation of digging, un-earthing, sorting of landscape elements that best address the project's needs.
ISSN:1460-1176
1943-2186
DOI:10.1080/14601176.2003.10435306