Contemporary Landscape Theory

Graduate core history & theory seminar
Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, University of Toronto
2021

Landscape architecture is cultural production, and the development of theories within the discipline cannot be separated from the debates, events and values of society at large. The links between design and culture have emerged clearly in a surge of publications on landscape theory over the last fifteen years. A commentary on the discipline’s evolution (explicitly or implicitly), this literature borrows from other intellectual practices with a stake in landscapes, and it tracks scientific, sociological, political, ethical and aesthetic questions playing out in the contemporary environment. Its contents are simultaneously mirrors of the moment and directives about how to navigate it.

Contemporary Landscape Theory examines a selection of texts from recent publications in landscape architectural theory and allied subjects as a way to understand the discipline’s themes, ambitions and practices from the turn of the twentieth century to the present. By putting forward a range of views about topics that have often been taken for granted, the course aims to shift discussion away from assumptions and toward questions about landscape architecture and its possibilities.