Landscape Architecture profession in 1960s-70s through archival studies

Online attendance is possible through Zoom

The presentations will examine the LA profession during the 1960s-70s in various countries/regions through the archival research on individuals, organisations, projects and so on. Key questions to explore are such as:

• Does your archive or your research contains materials related to IFLA in 1960s-70s? What are they? What were the focus of discussions/debates? Who were the key figures? What other disciplines/professions and countries were involved? … What trends did these archival materials tell?
• Does your archive or your research have LA projects, educational or research materials focusing on urban areas in 1960s-70s? What are they? What were the focus of discussions/debates? What were the purposes of these projects, education or research? … What trends did these archival materials tell?
• Do you see a changing trend of the profession (roles of landscape architects, types of projects) in 1960s-70s in your country through your archival collections or through your research? Could you illustrate the trends with some case projects?

Program

12:00-12:15: INTRODUCTION

12:15-12:30: Niek Hazendonk, Development of the Attention of Landscape and Environmental Planning reflected in the international Relations between IFLA and Organizations like IUCN, FAO and ADL

12:30-12:45: Ulrike Krippner, The early 1970s: Green Impulses for Vienna

12:45-13:00: David Jacques, Christopher Tunnard as a planner

13:00-13:20: DISCUSSION

13:20-13:30: BREAK

13:30-13:40: Bernadette Blanchon, Jacques Sgard, a pioneer in large scale landscape project in France

13:40-13:50: Nina Marie Andersen, Time of refraction – treating the landscape gentle and bold

13:50-14:05: Jan Woudstra, Colin Buchanan’s planning cities for the car

14:05-14:20: Indra Purs, Modernity visions and movements in landscape architecture of Soviet Latvia

14:20-15:00: DISCUSSION & WRAP-UP

Abstracts

Niek Hazendonk, Development of the Attention of Landscape and Environmental Planning reflected in the international Relations between IFLA and Organizations like IUCN, FAO and ADL

Around the same time with the founding of IFLA other international organisations like UN UNESCO IUCN FAO and ADL come into being. Roelf Benthem, a renowned Dutch landscape planner, is a central figure in some of these. As president of the Landscape Planning Committee of IUCN he plays a key role in the 60s as the ecological crisis start to be recognized worldwide and landscape architects try to find their role. Archives of CIVA, IUCN, Cambridge University, International Institute of Social History, Stiftung Naturschutzgeschichte and Mr. Benthem’s  personal archive can open up this history.

Ulrike Krippner, The early 1970s: Green Impulses for Vienna

A period of social unrest and ecological concern followed the economic euphoria of the post-WW II, which resulted in a critical reflection on the relationship between man, nature and open space. The new professional self-image was spurred on by a number of international competitions and large-scale projects, e.g. the Vienna International Garden Show WIG 74, Karlsplatz and the artificial Danube island. The spirit of this new “green” era was reflected in the IFPRA–IFLA congress “Environment in accord with nature”, hosted in Vienna in 1974, and motivated students to initiate an irregular academic program in landscape ecology and landscape design at BOKU Vienna. 

David Jacques, Christopher Tunnard as a planner

Christopher Tunnard is well known for his Gardens in the Modern Landscape (1938), but the following year departed for the Harvard Design School where he found that town planning was the arena in which his social goals could be put to best use. Transferring to Yale, he promoted the causes of townscape and historic areas, injecting human values into cost-benefit analysis of town and highways planning, and world heritage. His ideas are spelt out in a series of much acclaimed books from the 1960s and 1970s. His archive is held by the Sterling Memorial Library at Yale.

Bernadette Blanchon, Jacques Sgard, a pioneer in large scale landscape project in France

The Landscape architect Jacques Sgard (born 1929, Grand Prix du Paysage 1994) followed the new training created in Versailles in 1945 and completed his studies at the Institut d’Urbanisme de Paris. With a grant for an internship, he developed his thesis (1958, Pr. Bijhouwer, codir) about « Recreation and green spaces in the Netherlands ». Since this discovery of landscape planning, he has been the main promoter of large-scale landscape architecture in France in teaching and in practice. The presentation will evoke the context of the time and situate this figure and main steps in practice and dissemination.

Nina Marie Andersen, Time of refraction – treating the landscape gentle and bold

The profession went through great changes in the 1960’s. In Norway, this was essentially linked to the large-scale development of hydropower stations, where ‘garden architects’ were seen as not needed. Instead, landscape architects entered the scene “to save the landscape”, as the 90-year-old Norwegian landscape architect Bjarne Aasen puts it in recent conversation. This presentation gives a glance of the changing landscape architecture profession in Norway in the 1960s-70s.

Jan Woudstra, Colin Buchanan’s planning cities for the car

When Colin Buchanan wrote his Mixed Blessing: The Motor in Britain (London, 1958), it was the culmination of years of fighting the progress of the car in urban areas, and formed the first publication that provided a critical perspective.  When asked to look at policies he generated schematic plans that would be able to save the city from the car and its effects. His Traffic in Towns (London 1963) provided national guidance, and this talk explores the way the plans were received and applied. What was the evidence-base for these policies, and what was the documentation that supported and promoted the car as the main driver for transforming urban regions? What type of plans were generated as a result? Where do they survive?

Indra Purs, Modernity visions and movements in landscape architecture of Soviet Latvia

Following the post-war period of Stalinism and socialist realism in occupied Latvia from the mid-1950s by the Khrushchev Thaw, enabled openness in soviet ideology and some freedom in arts and exchange with foreign countries. The soviet lifestyle and soviet culture experienced an upswing and hope for a future that resulted in inspiring soviet modernity also in landscape architecture. These times initiated the rebirth of landscape architecture – networking, conferences, field trips, books, projects, education, research – within Latvia and beyond with cooperation with USSR regions.

Background information

This workshop is part of the ‘Workshop Three’ in the project IFLA 75: Uncovering hidden histories in landscape architecture funded by AHRC.

Workshop Three, entitled ‘Landscape Planning in Urban Areas: (changing) profession of landscape architecture in 1960s-70s’, is organised by Historical Archive of Norwegian Landscape Architecture (ANLA), Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) in February 2024.

‘Workshop Three’ contains two workshops and one public symposium. The workshops address the changing profession in the 1960s-70s through archival studies and oral histories. The public symposium ‘Landscape architects as an Environment’s Healer?  Before and Now’ connects historical archives with contemporary debates on the role of landscape architects in a time of crisis, and communicates knowledge with a broader audience. The title of the symposium echoes the 13th IFLA Congress held in Brussels in 1972, ‘The gardener of the Earth is the environment’s healer’. At that time, the Norwegian landscape architect Olav Aspesæter, then working at NMBU, was IFLA president (1970-1974).

You can read this blog article for more information of the IFLA75 project