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). 

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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.