Unearthed - Karen M'Closkey Penn Studies in Landscape Architecture

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but rather are seen as a series of fragments that do not add up to a more basic or underlying condition. In other words, any combination of map layers is an equally “truthful” account of the context. The usefulness of his practice is that it focuses on the techniques and conventions by which architecture gets made, foregrounding the fact that the “theoretical assumptions of functionalism are in fact cultural rather than universal.”26 Even though they are ideologically opposed (McHarg would be characterized as a positivist, and Eisenman a poststructuralist), both discount subjective experience. McHarg did so in favor of quantifiable criteria about which there is presumed agreement, whereas Eisenman claims to ignore sensual or programmatic opportunities, believing both to be rooted in a humanism that he rejects. So in the end, the design proposals that result from their respective methodologies are described primarily as a snapshot of process.

      SITE

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      The means are important, but only as to the end they lead to. I have not abandoned process, but rather learned where it belongs through the act of building.27

      —GEORGE HARGREAVES

      Although Hargreaves helped usher in the process-driven approach, equating open-endedness with the unfinished work, he later criticized this approach, as is evident in the above quotation. In other words, Hargreaves does not utilize an unyielding design methodology (where the process is valued over the result) but shares in the ambitions of a “geological” approach that integrates diverse physical and temporal layers. Others have noted Hargreaves’s affiliation with Halprin because of Halprin’s references to geomorphology. In terms of design method, however, Hargreaves Associates’ use of drawing layers gives rise to organization in a way more closely aligned with Eisenman’s Cities work than with Halprin’s notational drawings. The former are plan-based drawings that overlay multiple layers taken from past points in time; whereas the latter represents temporal processes with a series of marks that capture fleeting or anticipated movement (as in a dance performance).28 And though Hargreaves was not directly influenced by the processes engaged in by either McHarg or Eisenman, the combination of the two distinct ways of using information—material constraints and formal innovation—characterizes Hargreaves Associates’ work. This combination of approaches results in a fundamentally different type of practice than either method employed on its own.29

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      FIGURE 5. A grading plan for Renaissance Park, Chattanooga. Hargreaves Associates’ design can be seen with respect to the underlying survey conditions.

      In his first published writing, “Post-Modernism Looks beyond Itself” (1983), Hargreaves argues that postmodernism should turn its attention to the physical external reality represented in the map rather than the internalized autonomous space of the grid.30 As the comparison of McHarg and Eisenman clearly illustrates, maps do not represent reality, they represent a particular reading of it; likewise, Hargreaves’s evocation of the map is meant to reference more than the underlying material conditions of a site. He notes the importance of mapping in the form of data collection in McHarg’s work, but argues that this resulted in “imitative naturalism” when applied to individual sites.31 Later, and more in the spirit of Eisenman, Hargreaves describes the firm’s approach as a multiscalar “abstract archeology.”32 In other words, the information unearthed from site research is used to give form to the already “given form” of the site, such as when a former artifact or material condition inspires a new organization. This approach accepts that certain material aspects inherent in the site must be considered relative to fitness (such as appropriateness to subsurface conditions, such as soil or saturation levels that will support certain types of vegetation but not others) but that the misfits—formal innovations that cannot be tied to existing conditions—open opportunities for producing new grounds and, subsequently, new experiences and patterns of use. Hargreaves Associates’ work thus engages a site’s material and cultural histories without using them to reproduce an existing order.

      As I emphasize in the next chapter, this approach is utilized as a means to recover “place” in the spaces that economic processes have literally and figuratively leveled. This is not to be misconstrued as an essentialist “genius loci,” but rather to foreground that landscapes are temporally and materially multilayered, having gone through continual transformation, especially, and radically, during industrialization. Thus reading a site is not a distillation of its “essence” but rather a projection of possibilities. Transforming the types of sites that landscape architects face today means engaging in an immense amount of research and strategic planning due to a myriad of factors: extant infrastructure and buildings; phasing requirements due to incremental funding; local, state, and federal laws pertaining to contaminated sites; and the multiple and conflicting interests that arise when adapting a site for public use. These physical, financial, and regulatory constraints provide limitations on, and opportunities for, how and where to act. Accordingly, mapping multiple layers of information remains a necessary process for sites of this complexity. However, this alone will not create a unique or memorable environment. Many of these sites are devoid of the natural features that gave character, spatial interest, and temporal depth to the parks of the nineteenth century. Because of this condition, the grounds for the project must be largely manufactured, and this requires great facility in working the ground.

      FORM

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      HARGREAVES PLACES considerable emphasis on complexly graded topography, where the conspicuous articulation of the ground organizes movement, orientation, and different zones of use. In many of the firm’s projects, the earthwork is predominant. Some landforms are characterized by geometrically nameable forms, such as cones or spirals, some are inspired by natural formations, some from past uses on the site, and others have no referent at all; however, in all cases, such forms are clearly humanmade. Landscape historian John Dixon Hunt notes that in our current intellectual milieu, which includes an increased awareness and concern for humans’ impact on the environment, we witness a return to the prominence of geomorphological representations in landscape architecture. Hunt warns that we should be careful not to mask the “fictions” of our creations because “it is precisely in that modern, ecological instance that we confront once again what may be called the Brownian fallacy. By insisting on naturalistic design, landscape architects run the risk of effacing themselves and their art.”33 Likewise, even though Hargreaves Associates’ work utilizes earth, water, and vegetation as the primary structuring elements (in conjunction with all the unseen physical supports that make these landscapes possible, such as retaining and utilities), the firm’s approach to molding the ground reflects an effort to resist naturalization.

      This tendency is supported by a working method: the firm relies heavily on physical models made from clay. Working with such material enables the designer to bypass the limits of drawing and develop a facility for working the ground in complex ways. Clay models are not images in the way that drawings or diagrams are. The clay is not notational or pictorial; rather, it is a transformable, malleable, and homogenous substance. Rather than representing movement through notational drawings, or representing temporality through indexing past traces, the clay enables the designer to focus on the form of the ground and the importance of sectional change for guiding movement—of people and water—and creating spaces. Though Hargreaves Associates designs are now also developed through computer modeling, the firm continues to use clay, especially early in a project’s formation. When Hargreaves was chair of the landscape architecture department at Harvard, the clay landform workshop was a mandatory part of the curriculum, and involved molding the ground into precise, measured forms. Students were asked to utilize multiple forms in configurations where they would abut, intersect, and overlap so as to compel the student to understand the complex intersections of different slopes and shapes. As noted by Kirt Rieder, an associate at Hargreaves Associates who ran the workshop for eight years, “the emphasis on distinct forms and pronounced intersections between these surfaces runs counter to the prevailing attitude in landscape architecture to ‘soften’ or blend grading into the existing

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