Landscape Architecture as an Art of survival

文献来源：Kongjian Yu, Dihua Li, Landscape Architecture as an Art of survival[M].Teaching Landscape with Architecture, Paris,196-199,2009

We want to make it clear in this article that the way teaching landscape architec- ture has been thought about is completely wrong, or at least heavily biased by the intellectual ivory tower built in the past centuries. We are inclined to believe that landscape architecture evolved from the art of gardening, because all the history books trace our profession to the origin of gardening. Most of the influential programmes of landscape architecture worldwide evolved from ornamental horticulture and gardening, plus architecture as ornament, and scenery. This intellectual genealogy leads us to think more aesthetically and visually about landscape architecture, and less about the issues of working and production.

It is a mistake to consider landscape architecture as descended from high- culture gardening,from the noble classes. If we keep on this track, we are doomed. because this high culture leads only to embellishment and superficiality,and can not meet the challenges of today's environmental problems. High and low culture sees survival very differently.Thinking has to be redirected,and this redirection is deemed to be revolutionary.

The revolutionary way of thinking about the profession of landscape archi- tecture is to redefine landscape architecture as an art of survival.It is an art of working and functioning, the art of field making,irrigation,agricultural planting, dealing with flood and drought, selecting sites for cities to avoid natural disas- ters, selecting sites and orientating houses for people to make use of the land while avoiding the non-beneficial forces of nature.If we can follow this track, makinglandscape productive, making our cities adaptable and one with the land, and making our buildings hold their place on the land, and making our selves feel at home(meaning being connected to the land, the community and the past), the landscape is deemed to be safe and healthy, productive, and beautiful. Following this track and to make us someone playing a significant role in facing the contemporary challenge of survival, we need to get out of the beautiful ivory tower and let it become“world heritage", we have to redefine the profession of landscape architecture as an art of survival,and we need to restructure the educa- tional programmes to make younger generations prepared for the challenges of survival.This revolutionary thinking in educational programmes began in China in the late 1990s.

The chronological brief of landscape architecture education evolution in China:Along the conventional track

Gardening as craft: The Chinese tradition

As traditional crafts, both architecture and gardening were for a long time in China learnt by doing, master-handing-on-to-apprentice crafts. Gardeners and architects(builders)were kept as members of servant teams of noble fami- lies.Loyal architects,like Master Lei in the Qin Dynasty, designed both gardens and buildings, the garden being part of the building compound, or buildings as part of the garden, carefully arranged to create a scene.The master-apprentice way of learning-by-doing successfully kept alive the skills of making gardens and structures for thousands of years.The traditional skills and art of gardening, including the making of rockeries, water features, plant arrangement and maintenance, garden buildings, such as pavilions, temples and tea houses, etc. The only text book was compiled in the Ming Dynasty by a gardener called Ji Cheng.

The  birth  oflandscape  architecture  education  within the modern education system

Following the establishment of a western education system in the late 1800s and early 1900s,horticulture and architecture studies began.In 1902,the first programme in architecture was drafted and issued at Peking University(estab- lished in 1898),but not implemented due to thelack of architecturaleducators It was not until 1923 that the first architecturaleducation programme was estab- lished and offered by Suzhou Industrial School.Asearly as  1912,one of the earliest horticulture programmes(including ornamental horticulture) was estab- lished.Between 1949 and 1951,these two programmes, namely architecture and horticulture, merged and the first gardening programme came into being.

One can see how the gardening programme was influenced both by the location of Suzhou City(the garden city with most classical Chinese gardens), and the fact that south China was the centre of applied sciences and technolo- gies from the 1920s untilthe 1940s.In China since 1949, the building of collective units of working and living made gardening a profession to green the exterior of buildings, therefore, it is understandable that from 1951 until the mid- 1980s; horticulture was dominant in the gardening programme.

Since the gardening programme was established in 1951 in China, it has undergone many ups and downs, heavily biased away from modern landscape architecture education, due to the closed policies before the late 1970s,and heavily influenced by traditional Chinese garden heritage.

Landscape education for sceniclandscape+ public gardens and urban green

After the end of the Cultural Revolution, the nascent gardening and landscape gardening programme in China were again taken care of. For virtually twenty years, from the early 1960s to the early 1980s,little urban development  and construction was carried out, therefore there was little call for architecture, landscape architecture, and even planning. Not until the first list of Scenic and Famous Spots was announced, and was put under the administration of the  Ministry of Construction, the official patron of landscape architecture education,  and landscape architects(if we can call them)employer.Suddenly, these desig-  nated scenic landscapes became part of what were recognized by the“client” (the Ministry)of the landscape architecture profession, and which reasonably was added to the former scope of landscape as"public gardens and urban greens" The renaming of gardening into landscape gardening programmes followed, from 1984 until1987.Programmes transformed from ornamental-horticulture-domi  nated single programme into two programmes: ornamental horticulture(and  gardening),and landscape design and planning. Unfortunately(or rather fortu- nately),in 1997,the landscape gardening programmes were officially eliminated  by the Ministry of Education, symbolizing the end of conventional landscape education evolution, which also gave birth to a new concept of landscape architecture initiated in the late 1990s.

A revolutionary breakthrough since 1997:The redefinition of landscape  architecture

With the ending of the traditional track of landscape architecture educa- tion by its official elimination by the Ministry of Education in 1997,a redefinition of landscape  architecture  occurred  in  the  late  1990s.Intensive  arguments occurred between the contemporary and traditional approaches,forming two distinct camps in China.A dramatic change lies in the understanding of land- scape based on the definition of geography:landscape as the holistic totality of land,and elements on theland.Accordingly,landscape architecture is defined as the planning,design and management of the holistic system of land and arrange ment  of elements  on  the  land.Architectures  and  cities  are  considered  as "elements"on the land,and part of the landscape systems.