Before landscape architecture was firmly established as a profession, individuals had to build up an educational framework themselves. For example, Bodfan Gruff ydd in the 1930s began a gardening course at the Royal Horticultural Society at Wisley, Surrey, UK before going to New Zealand to work as secretary of the New Zealand Town Planning Institute. He then returned to Britain and completed a horticulture course at Bangor in Wales. He applied to become a member of the Institute of Landscape Architects during World War II and built up a private practice in landscape architecture, first in Wales and then in London. In the early 1950s he became landscape architect for Crawley New Town and in 1961 was involved in establishing the landscape architecture course at Cheltenham. Later he became president of the Institute of Landscape Architects and masterplanned Telford New Town. Such ‘learning on the job’, usually with a horticultural or architectural base, was typical of landscape architects in England in the 1940s and 1950s. Nowadays there are specific courses in landscape architecture in many countries. These typically last five years, a model established at US Ivy League universities at the beginning of the twentieth century and consisting of a three-year Bachelor’s degree followed by a two-year Master’s. This is now the standard model in most countries. The model is slightly different in the UK, where three-year Bachelor’s degree courses are followed by a single-year professional Diploma or Master’s. Four-
Digital design is nowadays taught both formally and as an outcome to other design units. 158
year degree programmes are also to be found at the Fachhochschulen, also known as the Hochschulen für Wirtschaft und Umwelt (Universities of Applied Sciences), in Germany. One interesting variation is that of the Akademie voor Bouwkunst in Amsterdam, which offers a four-year part-time Master’s degree (the staff work on it on a voluntary basis). There is also a more conventional twoyear International Master’s (or IMLA) run by the Hochschule für Wirtschaft und Umwelt Nürtingen-Geislingen (HfWU) in Baden-Württemberg and the Hochschule Weihenstephan-Triesdorf (HSWT) south of Munich in Bavaria. As mentioned earlier, graduates can also change to landscape architecture by means of a two- or three-year Master’s ‘conversion’ course, though this is more typical of the US and UK than elsewhere. In the US these conversion Master’s are known as MLAs (Master’s of Landscape Architecture). There are only a few such conversion courses in continental Europe, such as at the Hochschule Anhalt in Köthen in Saxony-Anhalt (with English and German language teaching). There is also a one-year Master’s at the Zurich ETH, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, which is limited to graduates in architecture and landscape architecture. The University of Florence in Italy likewise offers a two-year conversion Master’s to architecture graduates. What course to choose? The best advice is to look at the work of graduates (as on websites and any annual exhibition), to visit the school, and to check university listings. Courses vary from those that are
very scientifically based (many Polish and Russian courses are like this) to design-based schools often in art or architecture schools, to places where horticulture forms the basis. Russian schools emphasize forestry, of course, one of the Moscow schools is in the Forestry University. It is also worth seeing whether any research is conducted at a school because this may benefit the teaching, for instance, in Europe, Wageningen, Sheffield and Zurich ETH are known for their research as are Harvard, MIT and Berkeley in the US. It is best to talk to current students when you visit. Guides to university education are available from many national associations of landscape architecture. Details of these national associations are listed on the website of the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA): www.iflaonline.org/. There are also fairly comprehensive listings of European Schools on the website of the European Council of Landscape Architecture Schools (ECLAS) http://www.eclas.org/universities.php and there is a list of North American schools on the website of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) http://www.asla.org/schools.aspx covering the US and Canada (linked). The nearest to a worldwide listing of schools, though by no means complete, is on the Le Notre website (a Europeanbased network of schools) http://www. le-notre.org/public/member-schoolsuniversities.php Otherwise go to each national association for advice.