Landscape Architecture: Science or Art?

The old slow art of the eye and the hand, united in service to the imagination is in crisis . . . no other medium can as yet so directly combine vision and touch to express what it’s like to have a particular mind, with its singular troubles and glories, in a particular body.2

Another worthwhile topic to consider as we set out to explore the profession is whether or not landscape architecture is an art or a science. The short answer—as you probably will guess—is both. Since it is in fact both, this is the underlying reason that people choose to become landscape architects. Landscape architecture is arguably not readily considered an art form, as is the work of a studio artist, for reasons we will briefly review. Landscape architecture is considered a profession, whereas A artists see their work as a calling, not a profession. The word profession suggests someone who provides a service to others and indeed, landscape architects do perform a range of design and planning services for others as their prime endeavor. Artists, on the other hand, do not normally work to serve others except when a commission is involved. Still, landscape architects produce designs that follow their creative instincts and ambitions as an artist might in applying paint on canvas or creating sculpture from stone or metal. It is probably much more challenging for a landscape architect to produce a work of art than an artist, considering the former must incorporate such practical matters as user safety, zoning and regulatory criteria, and functional design standards (such as vehicle turning radii). The artistic expression is manifest in the choices the landscape architect makes in creating (designing) the physical forms and spaces inspired by their artistic sensibilities. The two garden walls shown in Figure 1.2 are very different aesthetically. The wall in Figure 1.2A provides a straightforward division between two spaces. The wall in Figure 1.2B not only provides the desired separation between two spaces, but also it can be accepted as a sculptural piece, visually attractive in addition to serving its functional intent.

Most landscape architects consider what they do and how they approach their work as having characteristics of both art and science. They see their discipline enabling them to be both creative and inventive as well as incorporating pragmatic and scientific interests to inform their work. While the words art and science appear on different pages in a dictionary, their application is anything but mutually exclusive. And the successful practitioners

Figure 1.2 Two very different wall designs: A: Parc André Citroën, Paris, designed by landscape architects Gilles Clément and Alain Provost, and the architects Patrick Berger, Jean-François Jodry, and Jean-Paul Viguier; B: Garden wall in Scottsdale, Arizona, by Steve Martino, landscape architect.

apply their artistic (creative) and scientific (pragmatic) skills, knowledge, and experience to what they do and the work they produce. Design is another component in the equation that can add clarity to the definition of what a landscape architect is. The result of their efforts is that something physical is to be made: they make things and make places. As we will see in a moment, the act of design is guided by the word intent. Design intent guides much of a landscape architect’s creative work.

It is any one or a combination of the triumvirate (art, science, and design) that attracts people to study landscape architecture. Landscape architects are makers of things (landscapes) and the making requires the acquisition of a body of knowledge and specific skills honed by experience that are applied, using one’s creative imagination in creating places of beauty and utility. The American designer Charles Eames states: “Art resides in the quality of doing [making]. Process is not magic.”3 What Eames means by “process is not magic” is that art is a process that can be learned. One can learn and follow a series of steps or tasks toward discovery, finding truth, and gaining knowledge to organize what is learned to solve problems or create logical relations, such as functional relationships that result in producing a garden, a skateboard park, or a public plaza. The artistic component of the design is made by applying one’s skills to produce something that can be appreciated by others as beautiful or that expresses important ideas or feelings. What is created is much more than functionally appropriate. What is created must also appeal to the senses. In the case of a designed landscape, a place is created where one can enter, move through or partake in some programmed set of activities. The created place feels comfortable to be in and perhaps one feels inspired walking through. In marketing these are called value-added features. The made place or object offers far more than just utility or functionality. Elbert Hubbard further ties together art, the making of art, and the importance of process: “Art is not a thing––it is a way.”4 In other words, art is not simply a made object but also a creative process. Landscape architects apply the process of design that includes phases of research, discovery, synthesis, and eventually place-making, to create gardens, parks, recreation and sports facilities, college campuses, residential and mixed-use communities, arboreta, walking and bicycle trail systems, and urban spaces and streets.

When Frank Lloyd Wright says: “Art is a discovery and development of elementary principles of nature into beautiful forms suitable for human use,”5 he is really talking about design. Design implies a function or utility, while art generally does not. When Wright talks about discovery and development of elementary principles, he is describing the process of gathering and analyzing data and applying the scientific method to arrive at some truth or set of facts.

Returning to the original question: is landscape architecture an art or a science? Why not both: art and science? The creative activities of landscape architects are informed by scientific knowledge and their own observations and experiences. They apply their knowledge to understand what they do. Through their creative ambition, landscape architects produce built works that are not only functional but are also