Prof. Van Valkenburgh’s “ecological urbanism” to revitalize Toronto waterfront; lectures on 21st-century park
New York-based landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh, whose firm has devoted nearly three years to the Toronto waterfront, calls it “ecological urbanism.” [He says] the idea is to assemble a “huge team of experts,” including some very sophisticated computer modellers, that can recreate nature as it might have existed.
[Toronto Star; May 8, 2009]
Professor Van Valkenburgh spoke recently about the 21st-century park at a panel organized by the Forum for Urban Design and held at the Museum of Modern Art’s education center in New York City. Van Valkenburgh addressed the “universal quality of parks” and started his talk with his admiration for Olmsted and his “appropriated romantic imagery.” Van Valkenburgh wondered how Olmsted, with no design education, could create such masterpieces, and cited his “supple, evolving practice.” Van Valkenburgh sees “landscape as an agent of urbanism,” and concurs they have great economic benefit. He cited Tom Stoppard’s play, Arcadia, and the “migration of ideas” to explain how landscape architects aren’t “derivative,” but put ideas into practice.
[The Dirt/ASLA; May 14, 2009]