Modern & Contemporary Landscape Architecture (M/CLA) covers landscape architecture practice, including built projects and theoretical currents, from the large park movement of the late 19th century to early 21st century themes.
Weekly topics, related to landscape discourse through time, structure the course. In one sense the topics form a linear history of landscape architecture; at the same time, the course draws connections and criticisms among texts, projects, and frameworks. Each week, the course provides a number of critical perspectives on landscape architecture, including your own perspective.
Together, instructor and student will analyze a predominantly Western history of landscape architecture, questioning what has been included and what has been excluded in dominant narratives. The course surveys primary sources and secondary sources, with an interest in their scholarly lineages, but interrogates the notion of lineage in the production of landscapes. We will look at how global transformations in social, environmental, economic, and technological realms have affected landscape discourse and practice.
M/CLA requires critical reading and writing, independent research, and analysis through drawing.
From the Seminar: The Variant We Want: Landscape Architecture in the COVID-19 Pandemic