BY
SENJUTI MANNA
As
I was preparing to pen down this blog, I received the shocking news of
Professor Mohammad Shaheer’s sudden demise. He was one of the finest landscape
architects of contemporary India - a designer par excellence; but at the same
time he was also a philosopher, an author and most importantly, a teacher of
multiple generations of landscape architects. He was the Head of the Department
of Landscape Architecture in School of Planning and
Architecture, New Delhi during my post-graduation studies there and I was
fortunate enough to be taught by him. The news of his death flooded me with
memories of my interactions with him and I was reminded of his unfaltering
confidence on the role of landscape profession in shaping the practices of spatial
planning and developments in modern India. I began to wonder if he was right in
his assessment about the power of landscape in shaping the modern perception of
nature and culture, especially, in the rapidly transforming socio-cultural
context of 21st Century India. I think he was correct in believing
that landscape architecture has an important role to play in the sustainable
transformation of Indian societies into a nation which respects its nature and
culture.
Photo 1: Professor Mohammad Shaheer, photo
courtesy: LA! Indian Journal of Landscape Architecture
Landscape Architecture: Shaping the Outdoor Spaces
Before
I discuss the role of landscape in contemporary Indian societal developments,
it is necessary to have a quick review of what the term landscape means. In common-sense understanding, landscape means a
natural scenario- either in the form of paintings or in real-life settings. As
most of the landscape historians observe, the concept of landscape emerged in
17th century as part of painting tradition, especially, that of the
Dutch, which referred to paintings depicting inland sceneries. The focus of
these landscapes was to produce images
of ideal or idealised places of natural beauty.
The
18th century landscape gardeners took inspiration from these
paintings and recreated these idealised spaces of pure natural beauty by
carefully manipulating natural elements such as earth, stone, water and
vegetation. However from the beginning of 20th century, the meaning
of landscape took a geographical turn when the term began to mean a tract of land with its distinguishing characteristics
and features, especially, as a product of modifying or shaping processes and
agents (usually natural).
Landscape
architecture means the organization of natural and man-made elements to modify
the features of a tract of land and its surrounding environment. Landscape
architects design these compositions of natural and artificial materials by
utilising artistic and technical knowledge gained through academic training as
well as practical experiences. They produce master plans and planting plans to
propose the landscape changes which are then transferred on the ground by
horticulturists and landscape construction contractors. Based on these
understandings, Maggie Roe claims that the term landscape should mean, ‘a tract
of land shaped over time by geological and biological processes and by human
occupation and agency and by human
imagination’ (Roe 2007: 3).
Photo 2: A landscape drawing is transferred on the ground to produce the final development, Source: Author
In
India, Landscape Architecture is taught as a post-graduate specialization
course and one needs to have an Architecture undergraduate degree to be
eligible for the Masters’ in Landscape Architecture. There are only 4
institutions in the country currently offering the course which means there are
about 70 professionals joining the field annually. This gives the profession the
disadvantageous tag of small-scale operation
and many times landscape architects struggle to establish their credentials
within the more dominating fields of architecture and horticulture.
Here,
one may ask about the difference between horticulture and landscape
architecture. According to American Society of Landscape Architects’ website,
horticulturists are trained in the science of growing and producing plants. They are excellent nursery
workers and have extensive knowledge about various plant species and their care
processes. On the contrary, landscape architects work with what is known as the
built environment. They are primarily
concerned with the design and use of
outdoor space and the land. Even though landscape architects use different
types of plants in their design, unlike the horticulturists, they are not
experts of only plant biology. In fact, the scopes of landscape profession are
extensive and include, but not limited to, site planning, town or urban
planning, park and recreation planning, regional planning, garden design and
historic preservation.
Photo 3: Landscape Master Plan of Rajarhat Eco Park, Photo courtesy: Pradeep Sachdeva Design Associates, New Delhi
Landscape as Nature-Culture Hybrid
In
recent years, designed landscapes have received much attention, especially from
scholars working in the field of geography. This is due to the renewed effort
from cultural and environmental geographers in the last couple of decades to
engage in debates about the relationship between nature and society at an
ontological level. Until recently, nature
and society had been seen as completely different ontological domains even
though their influences on each other were greatly recognised. Furthermore,
modern academic divisions of ‘natural’ science and ‘social’ science strengthened
the idea of this dichotomised approach. However,
genetically modified agricultural foods, cloning of human genomes and
advancement of biotechnology along with mass deforestation, global warming and
climate change have brought the question of human-influenced changes in natural
systems to the centre stage which in turn have brought the society- nature
relationship under limelight.
Designed landscapes contribute in this debate and it can be
claimed that they are artefacts which symbolise what Bruno Latour calls hybrids. Much like Donna Haraway’s cyborgs, hybrids are mixtures of nature and
culture. These are neither pure natural nor pure socio-cultural. Authors such
as Noel Castree and Bruce Braun claim that hybrid
nature always has multiple
dimensions- mythic, textual, technical, political, organic and economic- which collapse into each other in a knot of
extraordinary density. Designed landscapes have similar presence- they are natural
elements but are organised; based on cultural values and functional
requirements of the end users. They provide spiritual fulfilments and are
underpinned by symbolic meanings. They also inherit aesthetic qualities which
provide users with recreation and visual delight.
Thus,
designed landscapes are much more than mere decorative gardens and can help us
understand how a particular society treats nature and environment at a
particular point of time. They embody material realities of the socially
constructed ideas about nature. Landscape designers can influence the societal understanding of material nature and thus,
in-turn, can dictate human interventions on natural systems to produce sustainable
future. Unfortunately,
Indian landscape thinkers are yet to fully fathom the importance of their works
and are mostly concerned with the external looks of these designed environments.
Many discussions of Indian landscape design revolve around whether the design
should look traditional or modern, formal or informal, more greenspaces or more
hardscapes and so on. These debates, even though important from a design
perspective, render the professional thinking rather superficial and miss out the
deeper concepts about society-nature dualism and their implications.
Photo 4: Formal gardens of Rastrapati Bhavan, New Delhi, Photo courtesy: Internet
Photo 5: An informal terrace garden at Chennai, Photo courtesy: Internet
Thoughts on Future Landscape Debates
At
this point it is necessary to quickly point out the drawbacks of purely form or
aesthetic based discussions on designed landscapes. If landscapes are
considered valuable only for their visual appeal, it makes the society to
believe that nature has only one function to perform - which is to provide
recreation and cosmetic value addition to our living spaces. This attitude
in-turn commodifies nature and environment - a phenomenon that can be observed
in India to a large extent. Especially after India’s economic liberalization,
landscapes are now seen as value addition to commercial developments such as
shopping malls, five star hotels, and corporate office campuses of MNCs etc.
Large sum of money is spent in landscape beautification of these developments
of modern era. Even urban development practices are adopting landscape
beautification as a strategy to package a city as an ideal destination for national
and foreign investments. Another aspect of contemporary Indian landscape design
is that in many cases traditional
designs are incorporated in places of tourist interest in order to attract
foreigners. These designs try to recreate traditional landscape features such
as ghats, sacred groves and Mughal gardens in urban areas which are completely
out of context. These practices further commodify nature and culture and can
demote the value of ecology and environment.
Photos 6 and 7: Carefully created traditional landscapes at Sanskriti Kendra near Delhi (Above) (Photo: Internet) and Dakshinchitra in Chennai (Below) (Photo: Author)
Indeed,
tradition and culture play vital roles in the dynamics
of contemporary Indian societies. As these societies try to find their root in pre-colonial past, they also, at
the same time, try to incorporate modernisation and western lifestyle through
globalization and economic liberalization. For landscape architects, it is very
important to strike the right balance between tradition and modernization through
appropriate design approaches. To achieve that, designers need to adopt the
right philosophy and consider landscapes as hybrid artefacts. In this way and
by following Latour, they can incorporate social
and political relations and understandings within the concepts of designed
landscapes. This will help in developing a holistic understanding of
society-nature dualism and the designers then will be able to guide a social
transformation which will respect nature not only for its aesthetic qualities
but also for its intrinsic ecological values.
Author's Bio- Note:
Senjuti
Manna is a Landscape Architect currently pursuing her PhD at University
of Reading, UK. She did her Architecture under-graduation from Anna University,
Chennai and Landscape post-graduation from School of Planning and Architecture,
New Delhi. She worked as a lecturer in Manipal Institution of Technology,
Karnataka and practiced as a landscape consultant in Kolkata before moving to
the UK in 2009. She can be reached at Senjuti@gmail.com
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