Charles Waldheim (John E. Irving professor and chair of the department of landscape architecture) recently presented at the Thinking the Contemporary Landscape – Positions & Oppositions international conference in Hanover, Germany. This conference was convened by Christophe Girot, chair of landscape architecture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, and hosted by the Volkswagen Foundation at Herrenhausen Palace.
Waldheim presented his paper titled “Landscape as Digital Media: Notes toward a Digital Landscape 3.0” within the Positions and Oppositions in Landscape Architecture topic moderated by Antje Stokman from Stuttgart University.
The conference served as a critical debate among renowned international thinkers and practitioners focussing on three main topics: Science and Memory, Power and Terrain, and Method and Design. Among the participants were James Corner, Adriaan Geuze, Kathryn Gustafson, Kristina Hill, David Leatherbarrow, Alessandra Ponte, and Saskia Sassen as well as a wide audience of over 200 specialists and students of landscape architecture discussing the scientific and emotive qualities of a landscape, its characteristics as a mirror of society and its cultural perception. Revisiting the definition of landscape from its Dutch and French origins, the conference functioned as an exploration of the contemporary intelligence of the field and its varied contradictions.
Visit the conference website.