Dear all,

Welcome to the course Landscape architecture: history, theory and practice! We are looking forward to seeing you on August 28, at 13.00 in Ateljén, Ulls hus (for directions, see below).

A preliminary schedule is posted here on the course site, and you will also find the literature list.

This year, we will attend the IFLA conference (International Federation of Landscape Architects) in Stockholm (https://www.ifla2023.com/), on September 28–29. You will not need to sign up for the conference before the course starts: we will do this for you at the first day of the course.

All the best,

Anna and Burcu

Map over campus: https://www.slu.se/globalassets/mw/org-styr/univadm/karta-ultuna2.pdf. Floor plan Ulls hus, on page 2: https://internt.slu.se/globalassets/mw/stod-serv/campus-och-hus/ulls-hus/ullshus-husguide-plan-1-6-m.plantext.pdf)

The course evaluation is now closed

LK0313-10007 - Course evaluation report

Once the evaluation is closed, the course coordinator and student representative have 1 month to draft their comments. The comments will be published in the evaluation report.

Additional course evaluations for LK0313

Academic year 2024/2025

Landscape architecture: History, theory and practice (LK0313-10153)

2024-09-02 - 2024-10-31

Academic year 2022/2023

Landscape architecture: History, theory and practice (LK0313-10035)

2022-08-29 - 2022-10-31

Academic year 2021/2022

Landscape architecture: History, theory and practice (LK0313-10116)

2021-08-30 - 2021-11-01

Academic year 2020/2021

Landscape architecture: History, theory and practice (LK0313-10178)

2020-08-31 - 2020-11-01

Academic year 2019/2020

Landscape architecture: History, theory and practice (LK0313-10034)

2019-09-02 - 2019-10-31

Academic year 2018/2019

Landscape architecture: History, theory and practice (LK0313-10054)

2018-09-03 - 2018-11-11

Theme 1

Contemporary debates and current topics

The first part covers the role of history and theory in landscape architecture and the second part focuses on the contemporary debates in landscape architecture.

Part 1: History, theory and practice in landscape architecture

This section elaborates the role of history in landscape architectural theory, criticism and practice, introduces some of the critical views on history in landscape architecture and discusses the implications of those views on the theory and practice.

Compulsory readings

Boone, K. (2020). “Notes Toward a History of Black Landscape Architecture”, Places Journal. https://doi.org/10.22269/201028

Giannetto R.F. (2013). “The Use of History in Landscape Architectural Nostalgia“, Change over time, vol. 3 no. 1: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/504756.

Hunt, J.D. (2004). Historical Ground: The role of history in contemporary landscape architecture. Routledge & CRC Press. (introduction)

Swaffield, S. R. (2006). “Theory and Critique in Landscape Architecture: Making Connections”, Journal of Landscape Architecture, 1(1), 22–29. https://doi.org/10.1080/18626033.2006.9723361

Upton, D. (1991). “Architectural History or Landscape History?”, Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), 44(4), 195–199. https://doi.org/10.2307/1425140

Way, T. (2020). “Why History for Designers?” (Part 1), PLATFORM. Retrieved June 16, 2022, from https://www.platformspace.net/home/why-history-for-designers-part-1+ Part 2

Recommended readings

Angelo, H. (2021). How Green Became Good: Urbanized Nature and Making of Cities and Citizens, Chicago U. Press (Introduction: pp.1-26)

Duncan, J. S., & Duncan, N. G. (2001). “The Aestheticization of the Politics of Landscape Preservation”, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 91(2), 387–409.

hooks, bell (1991) “Theory as Liberatory Practice”, Yale Journal of Law & Feminism, Vol. 4: Iss. 1, Article 2. Available at: http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/yjlf/vol4/iss1/2

Lipsitz, G. (2007). “The Racialization of Space and the Spatialization of Race Theorizing the Hidden Architecture of Landscape”, Landscape Journal, 26(1), 10–23. https://doi.org/10.3368/lj.26.1.10

Mitchell, D. (2016). “Cultural landscapes: The dialectical landscape – recent landscape research in human geography”, Progress in Human Geography, https://doi.org/10.1191/0309132502ph376pr

Mitchell, W. J. T. (Ed.). (2002). Landscape and Power, Second Edition. University of Chicago Press. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/L/bo3626791.html (introduction)

Taylor, D. E. (2009). The Environment and the People in American Cities, 1600s-1900s: Disorder, Inequality, and Social Change. Duke University Press.

Part 2: Contemporary debates

This section discusses some current theories in landscape architecture that reflect various social and environmental concerns, criticisms, and directions and how they are relevant for the issues of sustainability.

Compulsory readings

Brenner, N. (n.d.). “The agency of design in an age of urbanization—dialogue with Daniel Ibañez,” in Neil Brenner, Critique of Urbanization. Basel: Bauwelt Fundamente Series, Birkhäuser Verlag, 2016, 224-236.

Carlson, D., & Collard-Arias, M. (2022). “Trajectories of practice across time: Moving beyond the histories of landscape architecture”, Landscape Research, 47(1), 25–34. https://doi.org/10.1080/01426397.2021.1989393

Hutton, J. (2020). Reciprocal Landscapes: Stories of material movements, Routledge. (Introduction + one additional chapter that will be decided at course start).

Yiğit-Turan, B., et.al. (2022). “Landscape architecture criticism in the Anthropocene”, Journal of Landscape Architecture no 3. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/18626033.2022.2195222?needAccess=true&role=button

Recommended readings

Bélanger, P. (2020). “No Design on Stolen Land: Dismantling Design’s Dehumanising White Supremacy”, Architectural Design, 90(1), 120–127. https://doi.org/10.1002/ad.2535

Dang, T. K. (2021). “Decolonizing landscape”, Landscape Research, 46(7), 1004–1016. https://doi.org/10.1080/01426397.2021.1935820

Decolonizing the Green City: From Environmental Privilege to Emancipatory Green Justice. (n.d.). https://doi.org/10.1089/env.2021.0014

Erling Björgvinsson, Nicholas De Genova, Mahmoud Keshavarz & Tintin Wulia (2020). ’Migration’ Retrieved June 20, 2022, from PARSE https://parsejournal.com/Issue 10—Spring 2020 Editorial

Fleming, B. (2021). “Frames and Fictions: Designing a Green New Deal Studio Sequence”, Journal of Architectural Education, 75(2), 192–201. https://doi.org/10.1080/10464883.2021.1947673

Gould, K. A., & Lewis, T. L. (2017). “The Environmental Injustice of Green Gentrification: The Case of Brooklyn Prospect Park”. In A. Gould and Tammy L. Lewis. New York: Routledge,

Hood, W. and Mitchell Tada, G. (2020). Black Landscapes Matter, University of Virginia Press. (several chapters)

Rothenberg, J., & Lang, S. (2017). “Repurposing the High Line: Aesthetic experience and contradiction in West Chelsea”, City, Culture and Society, 9, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccs.2015.10.001

Scott, E. E., & Swenson, K. (Eds.). (2015). Critical Landscapes: Art, Space, Politics (1st ed.). University of California Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctv1xxxgv

Spencer, D. (2017). “Agency and Artifice in the Environment of Neoliberalism”, in E. Wall & T. Waterman (Eds.), Landscape and Agency (1st ed., pp. 177–187). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315647401-14

Theme 2

Site explorations

In this section, we will discuss a variety of theories and approaches that are utilized in site and place explorations. In addition to this, we will elaborate on different points of view about representation, mapping, and cartography.

Compulsory readings

Corner, J. (1999). “The Agency of Mapping: Speculation, Critique and Invention”, in Mappings, edited by Denis Cosgrove. 213-52. London: Reaktion.

Kahn, A and Burns, C. (2021). Site Matters: Strategies for Uncertainty Through Planning and Design. Routledge (chapters 14, 15, and 16 + Afterwords)

Amoo-Adare, E. (2011). “Engendering Critical Spatial Literacy: Migrant Asante Women and the Politics of Urban Space”, in O. Oyĕwùmí (Ed.), Gender Epistemologies in Africa (pp. 101–118). Palgrave Macmillan US. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230116276_6

Cuff, D., Loukaitou-Sideris, Todd Presnerr, Maite Zubiaurre, and Jonathan Jae-an Crisman (2020)* Urban Humanities: New Practices for Reimagining the City. *MIT(Introduction)

Recommended readings

Halder, S. Michel, B. (2018) This is not an atlas: A global collection of counter-cartographies (First edition). (2018). [Map]. Transcript Verlag. Introduction pp. 12-37, https://www.transcript-verlag.de/shopMedia/openaccess/pdf/oa9783839445198.pdf

Theme 3

Place

Part 1: place

The various theories of place will be discussed in this section, along with a critical analysis of the relationship between these theories and the politics of places.

Compulsory readings

Hayden, Dolores. (2009). “Urban Landscape History: The Sense of Place and the Politics of Space”, Understanding Ordinary Landscapes, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009, pp. 111-133. https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300185614-010

Tuck, E. and McKenzie, M. (2015). Place in Research: Theory, Methodology and Methods, Routledge (pp.1-48)

Pred, A. 1997. “Somebody Else, Somewhere Else: Racisms, Racialized Spaces and the Popular Geographical Imagination in Sweden”, Antipode 29 (4): 383–416. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8330.00053.

Recommended readings

McKittrick, K. (2006) Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle (introduction: Geographic Stories) Minnesota University Press

Lipsitz, G. (2011). How Racism Takes Place. Temple University Press. (sections 1, 2, 5) http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/slub-ebooks/detail.action?docID=660533

Hayden, D. (1995). The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History. MIT Press.

Pred, A. (2000). Even in Sweden: Racisms, Racialized Spaces, and the Popular Geographical Imagination, University of California Press.

Part 2: Place making/unmaking

The concept of 'place' will be discussed in this section, along with its use in urban planning and design practices, as well as the criticisms directed toward these practices. Additionally, it will provide alternative understandings of place in planning and design that focus on the healing of neglected and oppressed populations rather than on their exploitation.

Compulsory readings

Abrams, K. (2017). “Hijinks in Harlem: The Whiteness of ‘Place’”, Avery Review 24 (June 2017), http://averyreview.com/issues/24/hijinks-inharlem.

Davis, Ujijji, “The Bottom: The Emergence and Erasure of Black American Urban Landscapes”, Avery Review 34 (October 2018), https://www. averyreview.com/issues/34/the-bottom.

Anguelovski, I., & Gottlieb, R. (2014). Neighborhood As Refuge: Community Reconstruction, Place Remaking, and Environmental Justice in the City. MIT Press. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/slub-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3339756 (chapter 6)

Yigit Turan, B. (2021). “Superkilen: Coloniality, Citizenship and Border Politics”, In Landscape Citizenships. Tim Waterman, Jane Wolff, and Ed Wall (eds.). New York and London: Routledge.

Recommended readings

Björgvinsson, E., Keshavarz, M. (2020). “Partitioning Vulnerabilities: On the Paradoxes of Participatory Design in the City of Malmö”, in Dancus, A., Hyvönen, M., Karlsson, M. (eds) Vulnerability in Scandinavian Art and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37382-5_12

Theme 4

Subjectivity

Part 1: positionality, power and privilege, reflexivity

This section will explain how subjectivity and positionality relate to investigating sites and places, carrying out design practice, and writing. Both of these notions are typically kept hidden in landscape architecture processes, and this section will expose you to how they work and to think how they should be reflected on.

Compulsory readings

Schmidt, S.J. (2017) “Hacked Landscapes: Tensions, Borders, and Positionality in Spatial Literacy”, Journal of Geography, 116:3, 99-108, DOI: 10.1080/00221341.2016.1257046

Parikh, A. (2020). “Insider-outsider as process: Drawing as reflexive feminist methodology during fieldwork”, Cultural Geographies, 27(3), 437–452. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474019887755

Richards, M-L (2019). “Out of Line. Erasure and vulnerability as sites of subversion”, Future Architecture Library, (n.d.). Retrieved March 5, 2021, from https://futurearchitecturelibrary.org/archifutures-articles/volum-6-agency/out-of-line/

Rose, G. (1997). “Situating knowledges: positionality, reflexivities and other tactics”, Progress in Human Geography, 21(3), 305–320. https://doi.org/10.1191/030913297673302122

Warf, B. (2010). “Positionality”, in Encyclopedia of geography (Vol. 1, pp. 2258-2258). SAGE Publications, Inc., https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412939591.n913

Recommended readings

The Unbearable Whiteness of Being: The Racial Production of Architecture and Architects. (n.d.). Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. Retrieved June 23, 2022, from https://www.acsa-arch.org/chapter/the-unbearable-whiteness-of-being-the-racialproduction-of-architecture-and-architects/

Lykke, N. (2016). “Passionate Disidentifications as an Intersectional Writing Strategy”, in Lykke, N. (2016) Writing Academic Texts Differently: Intersectional Feminist Methodologies and the Playful Art of Writing. Routledge

Part 2: alternative modes of practice, co-production and agency

This section will introduce various design practices that originate from critiques of the capitalist mode of socio-spatial production and professional practice and will discuss alternative ways of connecting design practices with the social realm.

Compulsory readings

Petrescu, D. and Torgal, K. (2017). The Social (Re)Production of Architecture: Politics, Values and Actions in Contemporary Practice. Routledge (chapters 10 and 11)

Mitrasinovic, M. (2016). Concurrent Urbanities: Designing Infrastructures of Inclusion. Routledge (chapter 14)

Recommended readings

Dobraszczyk, D. (2021). Architecture and Anarchism: Building without Authority. Paul Holberton Publishing

Mitrasinovic, M. and Rendon, G. (editors) (2017) “Cooperative Cities”, Journal of Design Strategies, Vol. 9, Fall 2017. Parsons School of Design, New York. (several articles)

Wall & T. Waterman (Eds.), (2017) Landscape and Agency. Routledge. (chapter 14) https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315647401-14

Theme 5

Reflecting on history

This section will discuss the power structures that have an effect on what histories of architectures become visible, which representations of history become accepted by the general public, and what emerging revisions there are to such histories in landscape architecture and the architectural field in general. There will be a particular emphasis on 'archives.'

Compulsory readings 

Andersson, T. (1994). “To Erase the Garden: Modernity in the Swedish Garden and Landscape, in Marc Treib (editor) Modern Landscape Architecture. MIT press

Fabiola López-Durán. (2018). Eugenics in the Garden Transatlantic Architecture and the Crafting of Modernity, https://utpress.utexas.edu/books/lopez-duran-eugenics-in-the-garden. (introduction and epilogue, dive into any chapter you find interesting)

Lipsitz, G. (2011). How Racism Takes Place. Temple University Press. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/slub-ebooks/detail.action?docID=660533 (sections 3: visible archives, and 4: invisible archives)

Richards, M-L (2017). “Hyper-visible Invisibility: Tracing the Politics, Poetics and Affects of the Unseen”, field: 7(1), 39–52. https://www.field-journal.org/article/id/74/