Susannah's Reflections

Reflection on Rowe and Slutzky’s Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal

 

This article begins with a disclaimer of sorts apologizing in advance for its pedantry.

It’s not their pedantry that bothers me, but their wordy style of writing which often left me confused.  Despite the difficult read I believe that I deciphered some idea of the difference between literal and phenomenal transparency.

 

In this article Rowe and Slutzky attempt to define the concept of transparency within the realm of art and architecture.  There are two aspects to transparency: literal and phenomenal.  Literal transparency is fairly obvious.  It is materially transparent.  Within traditional painting the term refers to something that is translucent, like a veil, and in architecture transparency can be found in windows and plastics.  Within Cubism though, transparency implies a “shrinkage of depth”, indicative of phenomenal transparency.  All the layers of a landscape may be present in a painting, but the space between, say, a mountain and an ocean would be removed.  It is more difficult to articulate phenomenal transparency within architecture than painting.  Le Corbusier’s “Garches”, according to the authors, successfully achieves phenomenal transparency with its “contradiction of spatial dimensions”.  It is here that I became confused.  Perhaps with good, clear photographs of some architectural examples I would be able to better understand the concept of phenomenal transparency within architecture.

Reflection on Marx’s The Machine In The Garden, chapter 1

This chapter discusses how American writers before 1860 responded to industrialism through their work, and how the symbolism they manifested continues to hold meaning today.  Because the writers to which Marx refers, Hawthorne, Emerson, and Thoreau were alive as industrialism developed, their responsive voices had to develop as well.  At first they realized their rejection of industrialism through symbolic imagery, such as the steam engine representing power, the future of the U.S., and man’s dominance of nature.  But they did not out right denounce industrialism, or speak directly about the Industrial Revolution, as it was yet undefined.  Instead they expressed their emotional response to their vast country being connected by rail and telegraph, and therefore disconnected of its valued.  The same tools that were going to make life easier like the sewing machine and the steam engine simultaneously symbolized a conqueror: of nature, and a beloved lifestyle.

 

Hawthorne, Emerson and Thoreau all expressed a depressed feeling of a disconnection with nature and society resulting from industrialization.  These authors’ attachment to nature represented an “indispensable source of life’s meaning” to them.  As a future landscape architect I intend to recognize this response to a lack of nature in today’s world and the emotional ramifications that follow.  Especially as our environment faces more and more crises, the desire for a connection with land and nature is ever important, and it can be partially resolved through intelligent landscaping.

 Reflection on Czerniak’s Challenging the Pictorial: Recent Landscape Practice

Czerniak rejects practicing landscape architecture based on “pictorial” guidelines.  She believes that the pictorial is an outdated custom limited to three basic concepts.  First, the pictorial landscape practice primarily views the landscape as a one dimensional, flat, picture.  Like a painting it is something to be looked at and admired.  Although aereal photography intended to reject pictorialism by revealing the grand scale of how landscape is organized from above, it was criticized as objectifying landscape as once again flat and just two dimensional.  However the process found success when juxtaposed with Corner’s map drawings, including satellite images, photos, and maps.  This technique unites different aspects and views of the landscape.  Secondly, the pictorial assigns a set of conventions found in landscape paintings, such as how the land should look according to such aesthetics found in this traditional medium.  In contrast to this ideal Czerniak cites Hargreave’s project Byxbee Park, which turns the tables by stressing concept over composition wherein the “viewer” or park goer is called on to question the field of telephone poles which symbolize the trees that can’t grow there because the park is built upon a land fill.  Lastly, the imagery found in one dimensional art from postcards to paintings not only declares what is beautiful landscape, but it determines our way of processing thought about landscape.  The project Duindoornstad reverses the order of building a city, allowing it to evolve on its own, instead of building the new city based on a final plan.

 

By exploring a series of monographs critical of the pictorial practice, Czerniak illuminates her view of the pictorial practice and the direction in which she believes landscape architecture should take in rejection of it.  It is very important that as new landscape architecture students we explore all options of “seeing”.  Although we live in a time where projects such as the above mentioned exist, we have to seek them out.  The norm is still very much the pretty garden of pictorialism.  In drought ridden Southern California you can drive around and see plenty of “pretty English gardens” which sap the natural resources of the region.  It is to our benefit environmentally as well as socially and aesthetically, to branch out and study ways of thinking and practicing landscape architecture that we have never before heard of.

Devlin's Responses

Challenging the Pictorial: Recent Landscape Practice – Julia Czerniak

In Challenging the Pictorial: Recent Landscape Practice, Julia Czerniak argues both sides of the effectiveness and values of two-dimension representation of landscape. Ms. Czerniak points out that the two dimensional representations can be useful to the audience for pointing out certain characteristics about the landscape by accurately representing and highlighting those characteristics. However, there are many times that the representation can overshadow or misconstrue other important characteristics that could only be seen through viewpoints such as actual photography or aerial views as seen being used by Mr. Hargreave along with several other types of models and views including clay, planned views, and views of built work.
Several other examples by other landscape architects and theorists include Adriaan Geuze with a pictogram of natural elements and sketches showing rhythmic changes in a Dutch city, and Mr. MacLean offers aerial photographs to show what Corner and Cosgrove consider to be excellent ways to represent landscape and show view points which are not commonly able to be seen of the landscape. These examples show how effective other types of representation can be for landscape architects. Two dimensional representations is not the only way to represent a landscape.
All in all the main point that Czerniak is working to show is that the two dimensional representations can be great ways to show highly expressive representations of a site that actual photographs could never really show. However, the sketches and two dimensional drawings can also miss a lot of technical information that photographs, aerial or otherwise, can show the viewer. Additionally, diagrams can also help to represent those characteristics that can be seen in the drawn representations.

Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal Colin Rowe & Robert Slutzky

In Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal, Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky explain the different types of transparency, where they are used, how they are effective, and the different techniques used to represent transparency. The types of transparency help to show different types of spatial organization and there effectiveness in representation of time, space, and other three dimensional organizations versus two dimensional rendering. Garches and the Bauhaus even represent the mediums and transparencies differently and use them in different ways. “At Garches the ground is conceived of as a vertical surface transversed by a horizontal range of windows while the Bauhaus gives the appearance of a solid wall extensively punctured by glazing.
Ultimately the expression of transparency is represented throughout the cubist movement and the article shows how the two types are different and how they interact with and without each other.

Machine in the Garden: Leo Marx

Machine in the Garden, by Leo Marx, explains the relationship of authors in the 19th century, their connection to the industrial revolution, and their ultimate connection to the landscape and what nature means to those who were experiencing the changes brought on by the Industrial Revolution. While mentioning authors like Thoreau, Emerson, and Melville, Marx more specifically looked at the work of Hawthorne. Hawthorne wrote a story about a man named Ethan Brand.
The story of Ethan Brand revolves around emotions that include “a sense of loss, anxiety, and dislocation,” which ultimately comes from the setting of the book. The setting being his return from the great American West where all is nature except for a few towns and the huge mechanic railroads that transports the people to these towns. The people in these towns were frightened due to the “Machine in the Garden.” The Machine in the story is the railroad and the Garden represents the great outdoors. Ultimately people found a great disconnect from the natural environment as a result of the Machinery and in the end the importance of nature becomes apparent.

Audrey Whisenhunt's Response

Audrey Whisenhunt


The Machine in the Garden by Leo Marx.

Leo Marx is trying to demonstrate in this essay how the Machine Revolution transformed the demeanor of American literature. He states that essentially the start of the first significant American literary movement began at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, which unbeknownst to the writers at the time, played a significant role in their work. Hawthorne and Melville used symbols to try and convey the images they saw. Their understanding of the affects of the revolution were not yet addressed because they were unaware of them at that time.
The images of machine were used to show America's future and progress. These emblems were seen as "man's new power over nature." The once vast American landscape was overcome by steam and allowed machines “to occupy the virgin land”. Emblems such as fire, the garden, the railroad, and steam engine were used to convey these emotions and ideas. They had not yet grasped the affects of the machine and the garden, but was aware of the conflict.
Marx uses Hawthorn's "Ethan Brand" as an example of a literary work written in the 1830's that does not refer to revolution at all, but that had to influence Hawthorne's emotions and ideas. In “Ethan Brand” the emblem, fire, destroys the landscape and “cripples man”. The emblem, sun, rids man of anxiety and evil and makes man one with nature again. Imagery is used to show the conflict between machine and nature. The writers are aware of the machine’s presence in nature. The garden is used to show nature’s significance and beauty, while fire is used to show man’s destruction.

Audrey Whisenhunt's Response

Audrey Whisenhunt

Challenging the Pictorial: Recent Landscape Practice by Julia Czerniak, addresses a contrast of various ideas as well as an overlying method to convey a message through the use of various tools; specifically, use of juxtaposing to deviate from “archaic” means of landscape architecture to a more modern framework.
The first step is to define the object of the work. This may be through simple processes such as identification of the object or common knowledge in a certain field to capture the image portrayed. Secondly, how does “the object or portrayal fit in” What is the meaning behind the object? Third, is how culture and history is used to tie the former two together.
Czerniak discusses each step briefly adding the most emphasis on picture versus process.
This method evaluates the utility of gathering a message from a painting (picture, drawing, sketch) in contrast to the portrayal of an actual landscape. The article does not favor the” 2D” pieces and does no lead the reader to believe they are sufficient to portray an efficient and intelligible landscape architecture model. An idea formed that some refer to as “landscape as a process” is one that may best capture the most efficient model thus far. As technology advanced more developed forms of the “process” was integrated, such as arial photography. A method preferred among landscape scholars and practitioners is the use of juxtaposing or juxtapositioning. As covered in this article, juxtaposing is useful in presenting multiple ideas on one plane to convey a more broad model not limited to previously used, inefficient 2D models. It is gathered that although the landscape process is probably most easy to understand and realize in 3D form, the evolution of different "non 3D forms" can be equally effective with some knowledge and skill on behalf of the viewer.

Emily's Responses

Response to “Challenging the Pictorial: Recent Landscape Practice”



In Julia Czerniak’s article, “Challenging the Pictorial,” the author criticizes pictorial representations of the landscape used by many landscape practitioners and artists since the early 18th century. She believes there are three main reasons why these pictorial or picturesque techniques limit the representation of landscapes and nature. She argues that “pictorial landscape favors appearance over function, embraces conventionalized compositional techniques, and, through particular cultural visions and venues, conditions our way of seeing nature.” Czerniak goes so far as to say that there is a need to “challenge the tyranny” of the pictorial and do away with the “cult of the pretty picture.” Towards this end, she examines the work of several landscape architects who are developing and attempting to utilize alternative techniques to represent nature and the landscape. Czerniak applauds the work of these landscape architects for utilizing techniques that show the landscape in alternative ways. One practitioner combines aerial photography with map-drawings to overcome the pictorial and provide a perspective of the landscape not visible to the average person. Another attempts to capture the landscape as a process and as a functional ecosystem that includes the cultural, economic and ecological concerns of the site using a more abstract representational style.

There is no single landscape architect with which Czerniak is entirely impressed. She finds flaws in each body of work, but celebrates the strides being made towards a less pictorial representation of the landscape. I have a new appreciation for how my perception of nature has been formed by almost entirely one system of representation and its underlying politics and culture. I agree with Czerniak that there is a need to expand our options and ways of seeing and also to take care in what informs and influences our representations of the landscape. However, I think that challenging the “cult of the pretty picture” will be a lengthy process of change, met with resistance and will run the risk of being misunderstood by fellow practitioners and the public for a long time. The solution that will meet everyone’s needs, and the least criticism, needs to involve a compromise between the pictorial and many other styles of representation that work together to capture all the dimensions of a landscape.

Response to “The Machine in the Garden”


In his essay, “The Machine in the Garden,” Leo Marx discusses the influence of the Industrial Revolution on literature written from 1830 to 1860 and specifically examines Hawthorne’s short story “Ethan Brand” to support his argument. Marx seeks to demonstrate that the literature of the period was not expressly about the Industrial Revolution because authors as yet had not come to fully understand what it was, however their writing is heavily laced with the imagery, symbols and emotions that resulted from it. Marx sites steam, the railroad, the steamship and the telegraph as examples of these industrial symbols found in literature. Inevitably, they stood for the future, man’s power over nature and “carried a sense of violent break with the past.” This last point, I believe, is the heart of the matter. Marx asserts that during this period Americans were grappling with this monumental change in their landscape. America had been thought of as an untouched, new “ Garden of the World,” but “the sudden appearance of the Machine in the Garden deeply stirred an age already sensitive to the conflict between civilization and nature.” During this period two conflicting experiences with nature were emerging in America: living with nature or dominion over it. Marx clearly points out references to this struggle in the literature of the time. The main causes of evil are often associated with science, technology and fire, all man-made creations. It is in turn the sun, symbol of the natural world, which sets things right and brings peace again.

Marx does an excellent job bringing to light the deeply emotional struggle that went on between man and nature during the Industrial Revolution in America as documented by great writers of the time. He points out that these writers were predicting the “irreconcilable conceptions of America’s destiny, as indeed of all human experience.” This struggle continues to be a recurring theme in literature, and life, with no likely end in site. Marx illustrated that people were feeling this conflict at the very beginning of the Industrial Revolution even before they had a complete sense and understanding of what was happening or what was to come. This shows intuitiveness that humans can have about nature and the innate concern they feel about what will happen if they try to alter it.

Response to “Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal”


The essay, “Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal,” by Colin Rowe and Robert Slutsky seeks to explain and educate about the quality of transparency in art and architecture. The authors take great care in defining the term with which they are going to analyze their examples. Transparency, it seems, can be defined on many different levels: material, intellectual, physical, linguistic, etc. However, the authors go into more depth about two distinct types: literal and phenomenal. The literal form being derived from cubist painting and the “machine aesthetic” and the phenomenal form only from cubist painting, the authors elaborate, “transparency may be an inherent quality of a substance…or it may be an inherent quality of organization.” Many examples of cubist paintings are then drawn upon to further illustrate this concept. However, the reproductions of the art being discussed leaves much to be desired and the language of the article is fairly technical which leaves me more confused about the distinction than when I started.

After the discussion on paintings and transparency, begins the discussion of architecture and transparency. The authors assert that because of the three-dimensional nature inherent to architecture that “literal transparency can become a physical fact…phenomenal transparency will, for this reason, be more difficult to achieve.” They embarked on the writing of this article specifically because of the challenge and because most critics limit transparency in architecture to the literal form. A comparison of several of Le Corbusier’s works is made in order to distinguish between literal and phenomenal transparency, but leaves me quite baffled. Again, without a base knowledge of these specific references it is difficult to imagine the concepts they refer to. This article is cerebral, abstract and, frankly, it makes it clear why most critics leave the subject of transparency in architecture to its more obvious nature.

Robert's Response to Paul's Post

Robert’s Comments on “Paul’s Response”:

Challenging the Pictorial: Recent Landscape Practice by Julie Czerniak

This reader developed parallel conclusions to the poster regarding Czerniak’s holistic view of landscapes.   Landscapes (by design and implementation) should take into account the complex environments that they interact with and eventually help to define.  Additional insight was gleaned by this reader as to the driving force behind Czerniak’s  article.  This reader judged it solely as a book review.

The Machine in the Garden by Leo Marx

A focused concise review of a review.  This reader found the deductions made by the poster to be fairly synonymous with his own and the other bloggers on this site.

Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal by Rowe and Slutzky

This reader appreciated Paul’s reasoning as to the apparent complexity behind Rowe/Slutzky’s submission.  However this reader believes the article was intentionally pedantic.  The blog does help to clarify the gist of the article.  While it is obvious that Rowe/Slutzky opened new avenues of thought to Paul (and this reader) in regards to Transparency, the concept as a whole is not presented clearly (no pun intended) to Paul or anyone else on this blog.  Paul’s final thought pretty much sum’s up this reader’s (and the classes according to an informal poll) opinion on the article.

Review of Diagramming Articles

Challenging the Pictorial: Recent Landscape Practice

In the article, Challenging the Pictorial: Recent Landscape Practice, Julia Czerniak questions the traditional practice of the pictorial portrayal of landscape and examines alternative methods for representation and communication of ideas within the landscape. The representation of nature with “pretty pictures” contributes to the objectification of nature and the misunderstanding of nature’s many roles and functions. Techniques established in the field of landscape painting constrain and confuse the development of built landscape and impart cultural ideas and attitudes which manipulate our perception of nature.
In Taking Measures Across the American Landscape, Alex MacLean’s pictorial aerial photographs are juxtaposed beside James Corner’s map-drawings, which portray invisible aspects of the landscape to represent nature as a process. George Hargreaves’s Process: Architecture discusses the representation of landscape through abstract depictions rather than naturalistic illustrations. Adriaan Geuze challenges the convention of representing the landscape as a park or garden by depicting green area as a necessary and active system within the city. In reading this article I have come to better understand the notion of representing invisible aspects of the landscape to make visible the essence of the landscape. The article has illuminated the importance within the field of Landscape Architecture of abandoning traditional strategies of landscape representation to render the landscape’s function. The landscape should be presented as a dynamic process not a static picture to be admired for its aesthetic quality.


The Machine in the Garden

Leo Marx, in The Machine in the Garden, effectively explores the impact of the Industrial Revolution and the mechanization of society on American writers. Marx considers the inability to associate a literary work’s underlying theme with its physical and temporal setting and the difficulty of proving an author’s intent but also suggests a connection established in response to imagery employed. While it is extremely difficult to prove Hawthorne’s intentions, Marx addresses the evidence of symbolism in “Ethan Brand” which suggests an association between the short stories traditional theme and the changes taking place in Hawthorne’s time. The Industrial Revolution further provoked the conflict between civilization and nature.
While “Ethan Brand” contains no mention of industrialism or the massive factories which began polluting the landscape, I agree with Marx’s interpretation of the story as a response to the situation. Characters of the story are represented as victims of change with the responsible “separator” being technology. The representation of the kiln as a source of evil juxtaposed against the golden sun further supports Marx’s claim. We recognize the identical theme in Melville’s Moby Dick, published three years later. In my interpretation, Hawthorne and Melville view man and technology as serious threats to nature and the pastoral, and perhaps in fear of breaking convention, use symbolism to communicate their concerns regarding the conflict between technology and nature.

Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal

In this article, authors Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky explore the idea of transparency in respect to two very distinct meanings of the word. The first, literal transparency, refers to the idea of being able to see through something that is translucent, such as glass or plastic. Phenomenal transparency, on the other hand, is a concept which, to me, is quite a bit more difficult to explain. I understand phenomenal transparency to be either the same or very similar to the idea of “slippage.” I believe it to refer to the space or area or form created through an actual absence of form altogether, or a void. Though the idea is explained through the use of various examples of Cubist paintings and modern architecture, I was not able to fully wrap my head around the idea.
The final paragraph I found most helpful in clarifying the difference between literal and phenomenal transparency. Here I was presented with the metaphor of space within the two buildings represented by water. Rowe and Slutzky describe Le Corbusier’s League of Nations as a dam tunneling, containing, embanking, and then depositing water, while the Bauhaus is presented as a reef, washed over by a quiet tide. Also useful was the comparison between Moholy-Nagy’s La Sarraz and Leger’s The Three Faces. Rowe and Slutzky explain Moholy’s focus on materials and light (literal transparency) in contrast to Leger’s emphasis on structure and form (phenomenal transparency).

Robert's Reflections:

The Machine in the Garden

I drew a little from this article. The author shed light on the feelings of early American Romantic authors towards nature and mechanization.  These opinions are widely discussed.  The latter half of the article seemed to be a summary of a short story pointing out key allusions Hawthorne makes in regards to the main character and society, nature, mankind, etc.  These noted romantic American writers often described man’s folly against nature usually delivered via technological innovation or or use of technology especially mechanization and industrialization.  I have never read the short story Ethan Brand.  The only work from Hawthorne that I am familiar with is the Scarlet Letter.  The Scarlet Letter was much less a commentary on industrialization and its effect on the cumulative “human soul” than this article makes Ethan Brand out to be.  I would probably have gotten more out of this article if I had read the short story, or if I had read Machine in the Garden by Marx.  The only conclusions which I can draw are te ones laid out by the article’s author  (and they are logical conclusions).  Once the unpardonable sin (mechanization) is expelled the relatively happy little puritan valley is pretty and peaceful again.  It is obvious to the reader that the author of this article believes that Hawthorne is making a direct statement against the unregulated and rampant industrialization of his day, in a cryptic and un-literal fashion which romantic authors love to beguile 21st century high-school students with. 

Transparency:  Literal and Phenomenal

I tried to enjoy this article.  I feel it is a little over my head (or intentionally pedantic).  I muddled through the first section that verbally illustrated 2 types of transperency and their artistic resumes.  Honestly, I was going to try and skip to the end when things got a little spicy.  I did enjoy the direct comparisons to modern architecture (design, layout, and texture).   I did appreciate the the visual aides placed and and clearly labeled.  This article would have been a nightmare for me had I not been able to compare the buildings with their Cubism roots described in the section above.  Being a tired Landscape Architecture student; I did not appreciate the importance of the first section (why the Rowe was so concerned with labeling the and illustrating different artists’ styles of transparency) until the author took things home with the second and last section.  The connections Rowe made were well supported and described.  

I went back and reread the first section once I was sure which way this article was going to gain a better concept of the middle and last sections.  While the title is pretty straight forward, an abstract would have been extremely helpful.

I had never really thought about it, but in our field transparency is often displayed as a function of organization.  If something is transparent on a drafted set of plans it is because a landscape architect drew it that way (unless the material being drafted is 

inherently transparent).  A sense of transparency can also be achieve in modern Landscape architecture by arrangement just as was being discussed in the Bauhaus structural design, to provide the feeling of transparency(the idea of transparency) not just the actual physical attribute of clear glazing.

Challenging the Pictorial:  Recent Landscape Practice.

In her article Czerniak describes 3 contemporary landscape architects/firms that are bucking the convention of pictorialism.  She partially defines pictorialism as having its roots in the English Garden/Pastoral form of landscape architecture.  I agree with her.  The fundamentally aesthetic values that pictorial landscapes contain are subject to that lineage.  

I was not excited to by the prospect of reading 3 book reviews, however I did like the way she put 3 very different practitioners of a similar visual experience together.  All authors were adept at expressing views visually and through juxtaposition.  Their arrangement of designs and images to express the shared themes of the “gestalt” project or landscape was stimulating.  

I found it interesting that all architects viewed their various projects as open ended.  Never finished, always evolving after initial completion.  Even the arial photos/renderings added a “greater whole” or “no clear boundaries” aspect to their models.  I do not know if “open-endedness” is a fundamental aspect of this anti-pictorial movement; but I feel like it is worth mentioning.  

Of the 3, I found the first book description the most intriguing .  I liked the idea of an arial photograph to give a holistic view of a landscape and using hand renderings to reduce (diagram) information the architect (artist) wanted to convey to the reader about certain landscapes.  Ancient peoples have been making landscapes that can only be taken in as a whole from a birds eye view, without such a vantage point.  I find it fitting that we are now using that same vantage point to rediscover architecture that was made to taken in from the ground level perspective and re-explore the idea of the entire landscape.  

Reflections on Articles

Reflection on Czerneck’s Challenging the Pictorial: Recent Landscape Practice

I found Czerneck’s review to be tedious and wordy. I found myself having to reread sentences three to four times just to get a grasp on the information she was trying to get across. She reviewed several books by different landscape architects and wrote about all of them in this one, short thesis. The subject matter on each book was relatively unrelated, making her piece seem disorganized and fragmented. Transitions between subjects are almost nonexistent, making the review a trying piece of work to read. I would not, most likely, recommend this article to anyone.
This review, however, did open my eyes to some of the many theories behind purposeful landscape architecture. The ideas and methods that lie behind the architects’ works are all definitely unique. On the subject matter, I believe that a medium must be found between the picturesque and functionality of a design. Nature itself is inherently beautiful. In trying to reproduce this beauty on a smaller scale, one must be compelled to find out the processes that make it so. Whether this be by aerial images, discovering the ecological implications of the site, or figuring how to include it in urban environments, is all relative to the architect. I don’t believe there can be conventions on this matter.


Reflection on Marx’s The Machine in the Garden

I really enjoyed this article by Marx that looks at the effects of industrialism on literature of that time. It was thought provoking and interesting, and it made me want to reread some of the pieces he mentioned in his article to find the parallels which he cited. I agree with Marx in thinking that the writers of that day felt the effects of Industrialism. I do not believe that these authors, especially the transcendentalists, could leave such an emotionally arousing theme out of the pages of their many stories, articles, and books.
I think his argument on the industrial symbolism in these writers’ works seems plausible. Looking at the way he figured fire as representing evil and disconnection from nature, and sun as representing nature and goodness, all makes sense when reading the evidence he sets up for his case. Looking at Marx’s piece from the year of 2008, one can see that industrialism has, in fact, distanced the human population from nature. To me, this is a very sad circumstance.


Reflection on Rowe and Slutsky’s Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal

This essay did happen to be a very pedantic article; the authors called it in the introduction and they were correct in this prophecy. It was, however, more legible than the Czerneck article. I really enjoyed finding the written descriptions in the pictures that Rowe and Slutsky were writing about. Some I understood more than others. The Cezanne description was more easily discernable than the Picasso and Braque. I had trouble finding the depth and shallowness which they discussed in the article. The majority of the time, though, I could interpret the literal and phenomenal transparency described in these pictures.
Transitioning into architecture gave me more trouble. Literal transparency through transparent materials, whether tangible or imagined, can be perceived in the photographs of the Garches house and garden. Finding the phenomenal transparency required more laborious searching of the house photos and floorplans. Even after dissecting this article, I am still not sure that I understand the meaning of phenomenal transparency as it is used in architectural descriptions.

Paul's Response

On Challenging the Pictorial: Recent Landscape Practice by Julie Czerniak

This article posits an interesting question in landscape architecture, should landscape be designed for the purpose of stimulating our eyes? The author’s critique refers to three books which challenge the ideal of the picturesque as a means of designing landscapes. The limited scope of such a design process invariably reduces the complexity of actual functioning landscapes which is the author’s main argument against it. Landscapes are highly complex environments which include a multitude of uses, purposes, and interrelations which must be taken into account in order to create a modern landscape. A tree should not be chosen solely based on its photogenic qualities, but for the types of beneficial wildlife it would attract, or, in the case of Adriaan Geuze’s planting of birch trees near an airport, deter.

The article is reminiscent of Ian McHarg’s book, Design with Nature, which completely changed the way I looked at designed landscapes. It was the idea that the land, with the use of countless overlays of maps of use, geology, soil, etc., would in fact define the entire design process which influenced me. In fact, looking at built landscapes, I find it difficult to detach myself from the ideas presented in that book. It seems that so much design today not only continues to focus on the picturesque, but also continues to focus on design artistically without much emphasis on the original identity or composition of the land. Czerniak argues against the picturesque, because it does not take into account all of the complexities needed to design a landscape.

In response to The Machine in the Garden by Leo Marx

The garden has been fouled by the intrusion of machines into the landscape. Both the writers of the golden age of American literature, and many of the leading scientists of today would agree with this statement. The writers were first experiencing the transformational power of industrialization and struggling to cope with it. Perhaps it is not surprising that in a time period when the effects of uncontrolled mechanization have begun to severely alter the climate of the garden, we still struggle to cope with that initial befouling. It is in much the same feelings of alienation and detachment that many of the characters of Hawthorne, Melville and Emerson, we find ourselves immersed today.

My favorite Kentucky author, Wendell Berry, has been writing about the benefits of a return to an agrarian form of life for years, both in terms of the environment and in terms of strengthening communities to reduce such feelings of detachment. We have become detached from the land, and have no idea of it. But, we still feel it emotionally. We proclaim the benefits of gardening or spending time in nature on our health, and in some way recognize the disconnect. Softening or even erasing the lines of mechanization which separate us from the garden is the main reason I became interested in landscape architecture. Designed landscapes are a means to bridge the gap, perhaps not returning us to our agrarian past, but at least providing opportunities to reconnect.

On Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal by Rowe and Slutzky

A difficulty I found over the course of studying literature and language as part of my earlier education was that words alone cannot convey a succinct message. That is to say that words are abstractions which attempt to, as closely as possible, approximate that which we wish to describe. The word dog has nothing to do with the animal, it is simply a collection on phonemes which we relate to an image and to memories embedded in our minds. I mentioned that this caused a difficulty for me because I am a visual and experiential learner. Thus, while the article postulates differences between literal and phenomenal transparency, the overabundance of vagarities and intellectualisms fails to connect these with an image in my brain.

The works of Picasso and the Cubists have clearly defined examples of phenomenal transparency. There is the complex creation of a shallow depth, the play upon the definition of space and overlapping of planes. However, the contrast between the works of Le Corbusier and Gropius is not so clear. Obviously, the Bauhaus is a perfect example to discuss literal transparency, but the explanation of Le Corbusier’s works leave me to believe that phenomenal transparency is little more that a breaking up of planes by providing differing depths and by obscuring the vision. I know that I have not completely comprehended the application of phenomenal transparency in architecture. Perhaps it is the perpetual problem of using words to describe what would very easily be described using diagrams and images. I wonder if fewer people would be turned off from the study of art if its critics and scholars could see the value in using more transparent forms of communication rather than words.

Review of articles

"The Machine in the Garden" by Leo Marx

      This article investigates the divorce between man and nature, which was most evident in the wake of the Industrial Revolution.  The widespread use of manufacturing, expedited by the steam engine, improved production facilities, advanced tools and machines, and complete disregard to their affects on the landscape, all contributed to the this separation.  This divorce was prompted by man's attempt to dominate nature.  Marx cites several authors of this time, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville, in order to illustrate this point.  In several of Hawthorne's works, fervent Puritanism is associated with iron; the Industrial Revolution might also have been dubbed the age of iron.  In "Moby Dick," Melville personifies the characters Ahab and Ishmael as agents of industry.  While Ahab becomes consumed by it, Ishmael is saved like Jonah in the Old Testament, to warn others not to share Ahab's fate.  "The natural sun" references an association with God and all things natural.  By embracing and respecting the natural forces, salvation is attained.

      Marx's writing is logical, enjoyable, and easy to digest.  His navigation of the subject matter combined with the clear and direct language allow his thoughts to be easily accessible to the reader unfamiliar with history or literary criticism.  Marx's intent is to inform the reader rather than pontificate from an academic soapbox.  Bravo.

"The Concept of Transparency" by Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky

      Authors Rowe and Slutzky examine the concept of transparency as an artistic and design element in art and architecture.  Transparency, as defined by Grygory Kepes, is a conundrum or paradox.  When the viewer is confronted with two overlapping objects occupying the same place, the objects simultaneously share the space and meld to become one without the destroying one another.  In this process, they become transparent.  Examination of the cubist paintings, literature, and modern architecture further expound this idea, specifically Picasso's "The Clarinet Player," Barque's "The Portuguese," writings by James Joyce, as well as the Bauhaus and League of Nations buildings.  A dichotomy between an implied sense of transparency, cubism and Joyce's writings that are full of double and triple entendre, and a real or more apparent transparency, such as glazed or reflective building materials, creates a rich scenic feast for the viewer to consume.

      Within the context of landscape architecture, the title of this article alone is enticing.  However, a neophyte in the fields of heady architectural and artistic criticism quickly finds themselves out of their league when reading Rowe and Slutzky's work.  The discussion of the Bauhaus and League of Nations buildings is easier to follow and visualize than the examination of the cubist paintings.  This is due to the inherent differences of the two media.  Architecture, at some point, must become real and tangible in three dimensions.  A painting, while it too is real, may be so steeped in layers of concept, metaphor, obscure symbolism, double entendre, etc. that it is accessible only to the elite of the art world and completely incomprehensible to the layperson.  Perhaps if this article was in the format of a lecture accompanied with multiple images of the works cited, a reader with little to no exposure to art and architecture would better glean the knowledge imparted by Rowe and Slutzky.

"Challenging the Pictorial: Recent Landscape Practice" by Julia Czerniak

      Czerniak begins this article by looking at the established conventions of landscape architecture, especially the eighteenth century English garden.  What is lacking in most cases is a deficit of transition from the existing landscape to the contrived landscape of the garden.  Almost all of the tried and true practices to execute and define a space are exhausted and weak.  This succinct, scathing, and sweeping judgement sets the tone for the rest of the review.  Czerniak evaluates the merit of the three books, "Taking Measures Across the American Landscape," "Hargreaves: Landscape Works," and "Adriann Geuze: WEST 8 Landscape Architecture."   In "Taking Measures Across the American Landscape," James Corner presents multiple representations of the same subject in aerial photographs and various maps, sometimes successfully, other times distractingly.  Hargreave's book showcases his works, landscapes that have a commitment to the historical and ecological implications that are specific to each site.  Czerniak is complimentary of the work itself, but not of the layout of the book.  Her examination of "Adriann Geuze: WEST 8 Landscape Architecture" reveals an abandonment on Geuze's behalf to explain and correlate the diagrams, maps, and photographs of his Dutch landscape architecture.  While the work itself is thorough and excellent, she is displeased with the work of Geuze as an author, rather than Geuze the landscape architect.

      A reader that has only read Czerniak's review to determine whether they should spend their time reading the books cited would speculate that her criticism is valid but harsh.  While she does acknowledge credit when it is due, Czerniak's criticisms far outweigh her praise.  The jabs at Geuze's character, while they may be accurate, are off-putting to the reader.  This mudslinging accomplishes nothing, as it makes the reader reluctant to read Geuze's work and and reduces Czerniak's credibility as a unbiased judge.  Her analysis of these works raises the question, Ms. Julia Czerniak, how many books cataloging your own work have you published and is your work without flaws?