Sunday, December 4, 2011
CITY AND LANDSCAPE
Mediate on two oxen as the sun and moon, on the plough as the Boar God(Varaha -Vishnu) and on the builder as the Bramha” – Manasara (ancient Indian ritual for starting a city wall)
This above Ritual from Manasara an ancient Indian text on architecture is symbolic of the inherent duality between the landscape and the city. It starts with the act of plaguing, an agricultural act and also a symbolic act of starting a landscape but then it sows seeds of a city and not of any tree, grass or crop. It is a ritual to initiate building of a city wall. So when we mention the city, what exactly we mean? Is it the conglomeration of objects that are different from countryside in their values and visual clues? And when we speak of landscape what we exactly mean? Are we hinting at the natural realm and if that is so then is city is a natural system? In all cultures we find that there are specific rituals that mark the act of making a new city or construction of a city wall. Cities can be termed as one of the most original innovations that has came out of human genius. A concept of demarcating settlement or a space different from the surrounding land is very important leap symbolically, in human history. Earliest city found in turkey “Göbekli Tepe” points to this shift from agrarian mode of living to formation of organized religion and in the process formed first of the cities. Most of early cities started at the edge of water, it is their first relation with the landscape, yet the simple act of construction of city wall defines a space that is different from the surrounding landscape. It proclaims the different nature of its inhabitants, different character of its space and different way of life. In essence walls became first mediator between city and the wilderness outside. Interestingly the term landscape is relatively new, it was first recorded in 1598, was borrowed as a painters' term from Dutch during the 16th century (when Dutch artists were pioneering the landscape genre). The Dutch word landschap had earlier meant simply "region, tract of land". Landscape Architecture as a profession was unheard off even 100 years ago. Till late 17th centaury one finds that landscape is not a part of city, its shifting meaning from earlier wilderness towards the 17th centaury picturesqueness is very interesting to see how a relation between the city and surroundings have evolved continuously. Word city can be traced back to 13th Century and word town to the Celtic times. Word Town is believed to have come from Celtic term Dunom and Dun, which mean a fortified enclosure. Word city signifies larger scale of things, also the word comes from Latin Civitatem (n. Civitas) and means as condition or rights of a condition that is living in a city. This means that city by its vary nature is an object where a dweller is entitled to certain rights. This act of building an enclosure around towns and cities is a significant gesture that in one stroke differentiates what is inside and what is outside. Generally the notion of what is outside of walls was considered as profane, not civilized, Even the word ‘country’ in Latin means land laying opposite, the one that’s against the city, from the word contra. A city was always considered as a sacred space, in all cultures ancient traditions insisted that cities are ‘designed’ in the sense they are intentional product, its sacredness was due to the fact that in many cultures a city represented model of cosmos, which led to ordered geometries, ritual properties of orientation, gate locations etc. and meant that it is an artificial product constructed in the face of ‘natural’ difficulties. As kelvin lynch puts it cities don’t grow or change on themselves, it is human purpose and willfulness that drives making of cities. Till the renaissance we find this mediation between sacred and profane present in western cities. The first contact of Landscape and city is through the agriculture, most of the cities had a agricultural belt around them, and still do. This allows them to free up the land optimizations for many other uses. This concept of agriculture and city is logical evolution of village idea. In cities that were planned and constructed as symbols and capitals this demarcation was always present in form of city wall, when landscape was allowed to enter the city it was modified in a way to make it a human product in form of controlled nature. The natural features that affected the city plan were incorporated into the mythical imagery and concepts of city. Ghats, on Banaras is the most interesting example. Its also a mythical wall or city of Banaras. A wall created by landscape and by notion that the land across the river not the city. This thinking of using nature as wall is also seen in ancient Egyptian cities where west of Nile is area for life after death. In Greece the landscape was often a backdrop for city building. Greeks used the landscape as a setting and not as an object. One way of mediation between nature and city was achieved by country houses, hunting lodges and later in French hotel courtyards. This gave rise to two distinct approaches towards accommodating landscape in city. One was French – ordered designed and controlled landscape and second one was English - designed natural. In the era of renaissance also the idea of controlled nature was predominant. There was a distinct difference between then city and landscape. At times the shades of meaning in the word landscape suggest that it is whatever that is outside the city. But in course of time the vary nature of cities, their density their vitality and buzz was the reason that power centers started to shift, In France Louis XIVth moved his capital to Versailles which earlier a hunting lodge. Here Andre Le Notre created best of formal French gardens. This was obviously influenced from Italian renaissance sources. Defense of cities also played a major role in dictating the landscape and urban structure relation and as the gunpowder and inventions in warfare gradually overtook the designs of fortifications that defensive landscape was slowly got integrated into the city fabric. One can see this integration into the earlier plans for cities like Dresden, Paris, and Rome. Villa Lante in Bagnaia, Italy is one of the most noteworthy example in this process Villa Lante is a figurative head of dense urban settlement, Villa itself composed of two identical Cassini’s and garden of villa is designed as a mediator between the hunting garden and urban settlement After Industrial revolution the concepts of space and their ownership ideas started to change drastically, this attitude is reflected in the changed nature of gardens. Public gardens were once the Deer Hunting gardens of royalty. The term Commons also hits towrods the historical references for the areas of land marked for cattle grazing by the serfs. As cities started to grow rapidly the then planners were faced with the problem of accommodation the large influx of migration, creating open spaces (as the workers area were highly dense and due to unstable social nature were unsuitable in terms of control) this led to the first ever landscape intervention in city as a boulevard. It reached its peak in the Hussmann’s Designs of Paris (the avenues and boulevards were also fulfilled a military function to facilitate the troop movement suppress the rebellion if there is any). Initially the landscape was introduced only as an aesthetical element in the city and it never was present as the organizing system of the city in visible sense. Since then landscape has shifted from the Controlled and man made to Designed natural in English tradition. Present and Future The landscape came into city in a resurgent way in Modern town planning, if one sees the drawings made by Le Corbusier for the radiant city (La Ville Radieuse) it illustrates sculpture garden urbanism that sits in landscape with people strolling in natural looking garden yet one wonders from where these people are coming and where they are going. This empty landscapes were soon to became part of all the western cities, some cities like Brasilia are even structure on the basis of their landscape where the ground is a vast continuous landscaped entity owned by the government and one can only build on subsequent floors above with ground floor open as a through walk-able garden. We are in a phase today that talks about various things, urban farming, landscape urbanism and ecological systems. We have to realize that cities are products of buildings, a city is a city because of the optimization of space it offers so that one can conduct multitude of uses other than agriculture. But today Urban farming is a reality, can there be ways of organizing natural systems in urban environment in such a way that they shape our cities like the built environment has done over last 2000 years. What promise technology holds, so as to make landscape as a main organizing principal of urbanism? Are we really asking this question the right way?
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