ARTH 2292 Artificial Natures

Humans have long exerted precise control over our surroundings in order to achieve practical, political, religious, and aesthetic goals. In the modern era, however, our control has continually intensified and expanded, and now more than half the planet can be characterized as the built environment. In this class, we address this condition by digging into the history of Western landscape architecture, studying how the theory and practice of shaping outdoor spaces has changed from the 17th century to the present. Topics include: prior Classical and Christian models of the garden; constructed landscapes as statements of power and assertions of property; the colonial science of botany and the founding of botanical gardens; reciprocal interactions between visual, textual, and spatial landscapes; the creation of urban green spaces from cemeteries to public parks; sculpture in the landscape and landscape as sculpture; and the design of new landscapes in an era of climate change.