LANDSCAPE EDGES

Edges in landscape are everywhere,.. overly common, yet at times incidental.  Each landscape space offers different programming, functions or physical characteristics. At the boundary of each space is an edge...these are the transitional spaces from one landscape or space to the next (i.e.:  the entrance into a city park, the bridge to a connecting highway, the riparian zone linking biota).

Landscape edges are transitional linear places where one space or landscape becomes part of another. Often neglected in design, edges are considered primary structural components of landscapes because of their integration and social functions.1  They offer not only physical change, but emotional and psychological transitions as well.

Edges can be where the picturesque meets the pastoral, built meets unbuilt, city meets country. Woodlands edges, wetlands, beach fronts are considered strong edges, and can also be referred to as "ecotones" - physical transition zones between two ecological systems.  These edges and corridors strongly influence landscape biodiversity, and in many situations when designing them -- the suggestion is that the "lightest hand" is the hand that designs best.

 Delphi Theatre/ toursofathens.com

Some edges are purely physical (a building meeting terra firma) while others are visual and symbolic (earth or sea meeting sky). Some edges are abrupt while others are smoothly drawn out and richly complex (i.e.: a woodland edge, a waterfront).

New Jersey Meadowlands/flicker.com

As an urban dweller, I am most cognizant of the juxtaposition between two systems that are forced to co-exist within a city- the built form and the natural form.  John Motloch, speaks of the "dynamic nature of natural systems versus the static nature of architecture." Natural systems are point-in-time expressions of ongoing environmental processes: site and living organisms continually experience change.  Conversely, architecture consists of relatively static elements.  Architecture changes little over time. Buildings do change expression - from transparent, to reflective, to opaque - from day to night. Plant materials, on the other hand are living organisms and mature over time.  Even senility in the landscape can be one of the most sensual aspects of landscape design."2

Within these edges are "thresholds"*, uniquely centered entities within the linear form of an edge.  The Collins English Dictionary defines threshold as “the starting point of an experience, event or venture; a psychological point at which something would happen or would cease to happen, or stimuli would take effect.” 

These thresholds provide tremendous opportunities for designers to create gateways within them and experiential transitions within that journey.  "A gateway denotes a threshold, a place of passage, a garden gate that opens and closes, a bridge point of entry into a city, a harbor of access to some hinterland. A gateway can have many forms, a literal gate, an avenue of trees, an entrance into a building... yet they all have the same function --to mark the point where a path crosses a boundary and help maintain the boundary.  All of them are 'things' - not merely holes or gaps, but solid entities.  In every case, the crucial feeling this solid thing must create is the feeling of transition." 3 

Central Park, lookout point as a threshold

Saarinen's Gateway Arch.  

St. Louis on the edge of the Mississippi River is known as the "Gateway to the West"

wikipedia.com

Edges are also topographic.  Perhaps simple and smooth with gradients and rhythmic sequences or textural and rugged, spurred, ditched and jagged, natural or built with sub-spaces or steps.  Of particular note on a grand scale is the Isthmus of Panama - a narrow strip of land where geological tectonic plates meet, the landscape changes often and dramatically.  It became a major inspiration for Frederick Law Olmsted in developing an aesthetic for public parks as he crossed it in 1863.


1. Form and Fabric in Landscape Architecture; Catherine Dee.
2. Introduction to Landscape Design; John Motloch
3. A Pattern Language: Alexander/Ishikawa/Silverstein.

OBLITERATED LANDSCAPE

In sorrowful images and video the world watches a landscape obliterated, the health and well being of Japan and its citizens in peril. 

The images above were acquired by the German Optical RapidEye and radar TerraSAR-X satellites. They show Torinoumi on the eastern coast of Japan before the disaster on 5 September 2010 and after the tsunami on 12 March 2011. The German Aerospace Center, DLR, is responding to the disaster through its Center for Satellite Based Crisis Information, ZKI, to provide information for the International Charter. Credits: RapidEye AG, DLR, Google Earth. Map produced by ZKI

The map above shows a comparison of RapidEye pre-disaster data acquired on 5 September 2010 and post-disaster data acquired on 12 March 2011. The images focus on the city of Soma and the surrounding region, which was badly affected by the tsunami. Credits: RapidEye AG, DLR, Google Earth. Map produced by ZKI

One thought that resonated for me as I am bombarded with this imagery of an altered landscape are films I watched years ago as a teenager.

The atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States in 1945. As Japan rebuilt itself afterwards as a nation it carried the scars of the past war. Japanese filmmaker Ishiro Honda and Toho embodied the nation’s psyche and culture within the Godzilla (monster/sci-fi) genre of films. The original Gojira, (Godzilla) was a very serious, dark film created in 1952.  (The re-edited Americanized version in 1954 still held a cautionary tale, but others that followed seemed to lose the original message.) This film spoke to the potential casualties of playing with nuclear fission, the havoc that could be wrought, an allegory for the anxiety held by a country and a foreboding message to future generations.  The film ends with a thoughtful massage and prayer.  So, again.

GHETTO

A couple of weeks ago I wrote of a “hortus conclusus” -- the enclosed or walled garden of the ruling class, which emerged in the Middle Ages. Perhaps the antithesis of this confined verdure within an urban environment would be the “ghetto”.  The juxtaposition here is that it is not inhabited by the ruling class, but in effect an “abandoned” landscape by the ruling class. The Urban Dictionary1 defines ghettos as “a section of a city to which an entire ethnic or economically depressed group is restricted; as by poverty or social pressure or political power. An impoverished, neglected, or otherwise disadvantaged residential area of a city.”

The “architecture” of the ghetto within society was introduced hundreds of years ago in Europe.  William Shakespeare uses the ghetto as a setting in The Merchant of Venice. Jews had been expelled from most of England during his time, but literary scholars believe he was aware of the Venetian Jews through the reading of the Jew of Malta by Christopher Marlowe written in 1589.  At that time Jews lived in a constricted segregated enclave. In the 1500’s Venetian Jews were forced to live on an island, within a walled area. As it was counter to their beliefs, Christians at this time were not able to lend money and charge interest (usury).  Jews were prohibited from most careers, limiting competition within the general economy, however they were able to lend money.

AlPacino, "Hath not a Jew eyes?" soliloquoy from Merchant of Venice

Only two gates allowed Jews to leave after sunrise and return before dark. From sunset to morning the doors were locked.  These areas were never expanded, so that the natural increase in the Jewish population created a filthy slum with large numbers of people living in tight quarters. There was disinvestment from the Venetian government, lack of clean water and no sanitation services.  Jewish housing had to built upward into buildings several stories high (six), as they could not develop outward.2

Ghetto Nuovo, Venice / traveltribe.com

Ghetto Nuovo, Venice  / museumplanet.com

The etymology of the word “ghetto” comes from the Latin word “ghet” or the verb “gettare” -- to pour or cast.  The reference pertains to the early Venetian ghetto, which was erected next to an iron foundry.

The ghetto system in Italian cities remained enforced until the era of the French Revolution.  It had a clear purpose: to enable Jews to take part in economic life, while setting strict limits on their participation in social life.

1. Urbandictionary.com

2. Shylock: A Legend and It’s Legacy; John Gross