Histories of Landscape Architecture II
Histories II: Palimpsestic, Peripatetic, and Plotted Landscape Histories
Following in the footsteps of Aristotle’s Peripatetic School (from the ancient Greek, meaning to walk about) this course strolls conceptually and bodily through landscape history, tracing the deep roots of modern design history. Our investigation will begin with questioning the archive and the concept of who’s history. This meandering approach allows us to read land as palimpsestic text, and to thus juxtapose the traditional “canon” with historically excluded narratives, new research on environmental history, a fieldwork-based approach to design, and the underlying relevance of time to all of these concepts. The artifact, be it the site, the plan, or the text, is central throughout the semester. To be able to consider the artifact first and foremost, we will stroll and visit Harvard collections (the Peabody, Pusey, Harvard Archives, and Art Museum) and outdoor sites (rain or shine) across campus where we will learn about and experience spaces corporeally. In addition to on-campus site visits, class field trips also include Mount Auburn Cemetery. Assignments include active learning exercises during class time, a visual representation and textual description explaining how landscape/plant/environment/place knowledge has been passed down within your family or community of choice; a series of video recordings practicing public speaking skills; and for the final project a professional cover letter written in the guise of a historical figure of choice that will require historical research as well as study of contemporary professional documents.