Small Scale Landscapes

In a previous post I focused on the large-scale manipulation of landscape in the Americas (as seen in our highways and dense urbanizations of our cities). Throughout history the push and pull of these large scale spaces or systems versus the small-scale landscape such as personal gardens or community parklets are often placed opposition or at odds with the other. Small-scale landscapes in the context of large-scale systems of oppression or mass urbanization have much to offer in terms of landscape theoretical inquiry. We often study the spaces of small-scale landscapes, looking at its form and function. Less often discussed are the practices that happened in these spaces.

Anthropologist Catherine Benoit studies this very concept in her comparative study of Caribbean and African American slave dooryard gardens. These spaces present the concept of the production of culture and construction of self in the context of domination. These gardens were characterized by a diversity of plants and vegetables in comparison the large-scale single-crop forced work spaces. As the development of these small scale landscapes required skills and techniques that differed from the large-scale plantation agriculture, a unique and original aesthetic developed in these spaces. By the practice of personal dooryard gardens, inhabitants of these spaces were creating culture and cultural practices. The comparison and interaction of the large-scale monoculture space with the small-scale dooryard garden reminds me of Taussig’s thesis in his exploration of the issues that existed among South American tin mine workers in Peru and Bolivia in the early days of Spanish conquest. He asserts that the practices of these small-scale communities such as kinship ties that defined these South American communities were "disrupted" by the oppressive ways of European conquest and large-scale ideas of Capitalism. On the other hand, a case can be made for the small-scale dooryard garden “disrupting” or acting as a symbol of retaliation in the context of large scale oppressive, dominant spaces. This leads me to question if practices of small-scale landscape are always in opposition or retaliation to those of large-scale systems of oppression and domination? Certainly in the case of dooryard gardens.

A detail with PETROBRÁS Building with Marx's surface and suspended gardens

Burle Marx, gets us closer to creating a balance between small-scale gardens with that of large-scale systems of dense urbanization in his “experimentation” and implementation of native flora in his designs. In a transcribed speech by Marx, he emphasizes the challenge of this balance: . “..as space began to disappear, as the buildings which were the contractor’s delight began to spring up selfishly, tightly packed around Copacabana Bay, what scope was there for a landscape gardener in Brazil?...I began to experiment.”(202) Marx was unique in his experimentations of small-scale gardens in the large-scale urbanized spaces. He would choose plantings that would act as a “volume in motion” against the static architecture. His use of plantings was a means of expression to create a link with infrastructure and architecture that would act in compliment to eachother instead of in opposition. 

Hybrid Landscapes

The theme of a hybrid identity is a concept commonly found in the American landscape; one that is a “self reflection” of a hybrid culture identity. This supports Dussel's thesis from my first post where Europe's confrontation with the "Other" was central to the birth of modernity. In North America, Europe defined itself as discoverer, and colonizer of Americas. Dussel would agree the american landscape is a product of this “encounter”, of two worlds and the repercussions of their meeting. Similarly, landscape theorist Anita Berrizbeita, when talking about Venezuela, says that Latin American modernism, springs from this hybridization of indigenous, Spanish colonial, African and European cultures. Berrizbeita uses Brazilian Landscape Architect Burle Marx’s Parque de Este in Venezuela to demonstrate this concept.  And what better way to demonstrate her thesis than in the work of Roberto Burle Marx.  

Marx did what no other landscape architect had done at the time: play up the abstraction of a common material and elevated it to that of art. Marx is famous for his import, discovery and hybridization of tropical plants in his landscape designs. These imported plants became referent of these spaces. According to Berrizbeita, the plants and courtyards at Parque de Este represented one of the components that reflected Marx's understanding of the complexities of the Venezuelan cultural condition: a continually developing hybrid identity. It is easy to see how the use of plants and courtyards alluded to this hybrid identity. However did Marx truly understand the complexity of the Venezuelan cultural condition? What about the cruel aspects of this so called utopia? Berrizbehita certainly does not talk about the darker social aspects of  Venezuela's cultural condition. This landscape was also formed by societal struggles of contestation and violence.  

Marx's promenade in Rio is said to also express this harmonious view of hybrid identity.  As Berrizbeita points out in Parque de Este, Marx's use of pavement juxtaposed with greenery was symbolic of a mixing of colonial and indigenous cultures.  Marx's design for the promenade in Rio includes red, black and white Portuguese pavement that is said to represent the three races that shaped Brazilian culture. This harmonious view of the the difference cultures and races in Brazil could not be further from the reality of this space which has be historically characterized by race riots and class warfare (Freeman, 2002). 

www.exphilip.com11408_im_grande.jpg

Although purposeful in some of Marx's designs, the theme of a harmonious hybrid identity in landscape shows up throughout the Americas. Designed landscape spaces tend to avoid the darker aspects of this theme. While European influences are clear, along with a mix of local influences, it is harder to find examples of landscape spaces that represent contestation and violence. This brings me of spaces of memory.  Are our monuments and memorials successful in their representation of the darker aspects of hybrid identity? How are they played out? At least in North America these spaces are often removed from the space where contestation actually occurred.The landscape of the Americas are spaces of contestation, mobility and production of both indigenous and colonizing culture. Does that make our designed spaces imported or referent? Invented or discovered? Today, these aspects are evident (at a much bigger scale) in our cities, parks, and transportation landscape.