LA+ ICONOCLAST/FALL 2019 5
ICONOCLAST editorial This issue is devoted entirely to the results of the LA+ ICONOCLAST competition conducted in late 2018. Literally defined, iconoclasm means “the action of attacking or assertively rejecting cherished beliefs and institutions or established values and practices.” The iconoclast is then someone who becomes a catalyst for theological or socio-political revolution or, in the case of the arts, the birth of new iconography. In this respect, art history can be understood as a tension between long periods during which the hegemony of certain icons are consolidated, and short revolutionary phases where icons are overturned and replaced. From the late 19th century onwards, this simple pattern is significantly complicated by the fact that under the aegis of modernism, iconoclasm itself was institutionalized as a form of orthodoxy, something postmodernity wrestles with to this day. But if we have come to expect the iconoclastic in art, in landscape architecture it is the very opposite. While landscape architecture did have its own relatively gentle form of modernism in the mid-20th century, its most “cherished beliefs, institutions, values, and practices” have—at least since Alexander Pope’s epistle to Lord Burlington in 1731— remained remarkably consistent. Over this time, landscape architecture has consistently reaffirmed nature as good, sought its beatification through genius loci, and represented this in picturesque form. So, what this competition effectively asked is whether this venerable tradition should now be attacked or assertively rejected? And, if so, why?
today and how might issues of aesthetics on the one hand and performance on the other coalesce into what Olmsted described as “a single work of art”? Our rationale for facilitating this iconoclastic moment was to see what would happen when the paradisiacal, pastoral, and ecological aesthetic baggage that landscape architecture is otherwise so heavily burdened with, were momentarily relinquished. While we wanted to make the competition easy to enter, it was not our intention to make iconoclasm look easy. For, while there might necessarily be some violence in the iconoclastic act, mere histrionics is not good enough; iconoclasm requires an unpacking and an expose of the icon in question – in a word deconstruction, not just destruction. The competition received 193 entries (382 entrants) from over 30 countries. Chaired by Richard Weller, the jury comprised Charles Waldheim (Harvard GSD), Beatrice Galilee (Metropolitan Museum of Art), Lola Sheppard (Lateral Office), Jenny Osuldsen (Snøhetta), Geoff Manaugh (BLDBLOG), and Richard Weller (PennDesign). In this issue we try to do justice to the rich array of entries by documenting the awarded entries, as well as, in the Salon des Refusés, almost all the work which for one reason or another piqued the jury’s interest. We also try to avoid the usual mysteries of adjudication surrounding competitions by publishing interviews with several of the judges. Finally, to critically interpret the results and what they might mean for contemporary landscape architecture we have solicited a review essay by the co-author of Large Parks, Julia Czerniak.
Which of course brings us to Central Park. No designed landscape is more iconic than Central Park. It is lodged in the public imagination as a preferred image of nature, and upheld by the profession as an enduring masterpiece, in equal measure art and instrument. Its co-author, Frederick Law Olmsted, sits atop the landscape architectural pantheon: rarefied as a visionary and upheld as a model of everything the good landscape architect should be.
Ultimately, this issue of LA+ raises the question of whether a new aesthetic of landscape will emerge at the dawn of the Anthropocene, and asks to what degree iconoclasm is a prerequisite for that emergence to occur.
The attack we launched on all this is described in the fake news report previous page, which in part constituted the competition brief. In short, as the story goes, eco-terrorists destroyed the Park as a protest about global deforestation, making way for a competition concerning its reconstruction. This placed contemporary designers in the interesting position of having to decide just how iconoclastic to be. More specifically, entrants were asked to convey a contemporary aesthetic of nature: what is the role of a large urban park
Tatum L. Hands + Richard Weller Issue Editors
Opposite: An homage to Banksy's "Girl with Balloon," iconoclastically shredded by the artist immediately following its sale at auction for $1.4 m.
You be the judge.