Mapping Territory

Paisaje or Landscape in Spanish, comes from the word pais, which translates to country or homeland. Peruvian architect Wiley Urquizo Ludeña asserts, that the word ‘pais’ is also symbolic of a territory or boundary. Similarly, British geographer Denis Cosgrove emphasizes the American concept of landscape as an 'idea' or ‘invention’ that stems from the need of early colonizers to set territories and domination over land.  The American 'idea/invention' of landscape was formed through boundaries, mapping, and domination of space. Referring to James Corner and Alex Maclean's project of analyzing the American landscape in aerial view, Cosgrove tells us that this territorialized concept of space changes from this view to reveal the complexities of the American landscape.

Julian Hinds Pumping Plant , California (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 

Today, in the U.S. much of our landscape has been transformed into spaces of production or extraction. There is often the juxtaposition of technology and nature, and it is only from aerial view that we can see this relationship more clearly. The way landscape was territorialized and controlled contrasts with the harmonious relationship the Inca had between nature/landscape and society. The Inca viewed the landscape through a mythological-religious lens. In this case, the landscape was not a product of violence or domination, but a place where form and nature worked together. Every tree and mountain not only embodied a spirit, but the landscape was also the spirit of a place. Ludeña then asks, how could the Inca have built a space set against nature with this kind of spiritual connection with the landscape? If the early colonizers had the same type of harmonious relationship with nature, perhaps the America landscape would look different today? Instead the American landscape was transformed so that we controlled all its aspects. We have even exercised control over the landscapes’ most ferocious aspect: water. Cosgrove talks about the how the scale of rivers was unlike anything European settlers had ever seen. Over the years as our cities and populations grew, we put up dams where we wanted water to move and if water did not naturally occur in an area, we built canals to pump it over mountains.

The Colorado River Aqueduct   (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 

We have mimicked the landscape in its massive scale with equally massive projects like the 242-mile long Colorado aqueduct pumping water supply into California. Despite our efforts to control and establish dominion over the landscape, we see, from the air, (through Alex MacLean’s lens) that landscape is complex, multi-layered and much more than what we experience on the ground. As Landscape Architects, Planners and Designers, how do we work with such grand scales and yet represent this complexity? We must work past the view that landscape is a space we own, extract from, and dominate. As those who form landscape, we must work to represent its’ complexity.