Landscape Paradigms and Post-urban Spaces

240 Pages·2019·6.66 MB·English

by  Roberto Pasini

The Urban Book Series
Roberto Pasini
Landscape
Paradigms and
Post-urban
Spaces
A Journey Through the Regions of
Landscape
The Urban Book Series
Series Advisory Editors
Fatemeh Farnaz Arefian, University College London, London, UK
Michael Batty, University College London, London, UK
Simin Davoudi, Newcastle University, Newcastle, UK
Geoffrey DeVerteuil, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK
Karl Kropf, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
Marco Maretto, University of Parma, Parma, Italy
Vítor Oliveira, Porto University, Porto, Portugal
Christopher Silver, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA
Giuseppe Strappa, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
Igor Vojnovic, Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA
Jeremy Whitehand, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
Aims and Scope
The Urban Book Series is a resource for urban studies and geography research
worldwide.Itprovidesauniqueandinnovativeresourceforthelatestdevelopments
in the field, nurturing a comprehensive and encompassing publication venue for
urban studies, urban geography, planning and regional development.
The series publishes peer-reviewed volumes related to urbanization, sustainabil-
ity, urban environments, sustainable urbanism, governance, globalization, urban
and sustainable development, spatial and area studies, urban management, urban
infrastructure, urban dynamics, green cities and urban landscapes. It also invites
research which documents urbanization processes and urban dynamics on a
national, regional and local level, welcoming case studies, as well as comparative
and applied research.
The series will appeal to urbanists, geographers, planners, engineers, architects,
policy makers, and to all of those interested in a wide-ranging overview of
contemporary urban studies and innovations in the field. It accepts monographs,
edited volumes and textbooks.
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14773
Roberto Pasini
Landscape Paradigms
and Post-urban Spaces
A Journey Through the Regions of Landscape
123
RobertoPasini
Departamento deArquitectura
Universidad deMonterrey
SanPedro Garza García, Nuevo León
Mexico
ISSN 2365-757X ISSN 2365-7588 (electronic)
TheUrban Book Series
ISBN978-3-319-77886-0 ISBN978-3-319-77887-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77887-7
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2018945077
©SpringerInternationalPublishingAG,partofSpringerNature2019
Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsarereservedbythePublisher,whetherthewholeorpart
of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission
orinformationstorageandretrieval,electronicadaptation,computersoftware,orbysimilarordissimilar
methodologynowknownorhereafterdeveloped.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publicationdoesnotimply,evenintheabsenceofaspecificstatement,thatsuchnamesareexemptfrom
therelevantprotectivelawsandregulationsandthereforefreeforgeneraluse.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the
authorsortheeditorsgiveawarranty,expressorimplied,withrespecttothematerialcontainedhereinor
for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to
jurisdictionalclaimsinpublishedmapsandinstitutionalaffiliations.
Printedonacid-freepaper
ThisSpringerimprintispublishedbytheregisteredcompanySpringerInternationalPublishingAG
partofSpringerNature
Theregisteredcompanyaddressis:Gewerbestrasse11,6330Cham,Switzerland
Nature: - Thinkest thou then that the world
was made for thee? It is time thou knewest
that in my designs, operations, and decrees,
I never gave a thought to the happiness or
unhappiness of man. If I cause you to suffer,
I am unaware of the fact; nor do I perceive
that I can in any way give you pleasure.
What I do is in no sense done for your
enjoyment or benefit, as you seem to think.
Finally, if I by chance exterminated your
species, I should not know it.
—Giacomo Leopardi
Dialogue between Nature and an Icelander
tr. C. Edwardes, Trübner and Co. 1882, p. 78
[1827]
I wrote this book in Mexico.
It is dedicated to all the Adelitas
betrayed by the revolution.
Foreword
The book, Landscape Paradigms and Post-urban Spaces, immediately puts its
proverbial finger on the existential character and necessity of contemporary urban
circumstancesboundupwithlandscapes,namelytheinevitablebinarythatappears
to exist, often in multilayered form, between natural circumstances and the artifice
ofconstructedlandscapes. Tobesurefor theauthor theyaremultilayered,butit is
intheprocessofunpackingthemthatsome paradigmssucceed whereasothersfall
short.Inhisopeningexplorationofnaturalandman-madesystemsincontemporary
landscapes, Pasini explodes this intriguing multilayering into an intellectually
challengingjourneythatisattimesbreathtaking,idiosyncraticasitshouldbeandin
the end acerbic and insightful. His commentary is never flagging, mundane, or
superficial.Movingintothetreatmentofthecompositethatemerges,variousterms
areevokedandconceptsareraised,largelyfromotherdisciplinaryfieldsfordealing
withtheinherenttwoormultisidedcharacterofrealorimaginedoverlappingurban
landscapes.
Moreover,successiveconceptsbecomemorecomplexandintertwined.Tobegin
with, miscegenation derived from the Latin miscere and genus literally means to
mixandwasfirstcoinedintheUnitedStatestorefertoinbreedingamongpeopleof
different races. Back in those earlier days, it usually carried some weight of dis-
approvalofthepractice,evenifinotherculturalsettings,thisadmixingwasseento
bepotentiallystrengthening.Thisisfollowedbythecreole,largelyfromlinguistics
and commonly referring to someone from the Caribbean of mixed European and
African descent speaking and identified by a language that was stable even if
deriving from a mixture of languages—a mother tongue, if you will, formed from
the contact of two languages largely through an early pidgin stage, according to
most dictionary definitions. Nevertheless, the bifold character of creole does not
remain pidgin but evolves into something more complex and the equivalent of a
normal language, whereas it transcends a simple hybrid by becoming sufficiently
disconnected fromasource language.Lateron,wecometoFoucault’sheterotopia
andplacesandspacesthatfunctioninnon-hegemonicconditions,largelyasspaces
andplacesofsome‘other’.Certainly,theseareplaceswithmorelayersofmeaning
in relation to other spaces than meets the mind’s eye and are in their dual or
ix
x Foreword
Fig.1 ViewofatrailcrossingthematorralsubmontanointheSierraMadreOrientalofMexico
(photorp)
multiplemeaningsseguesintoanecessarilysymbolicrealm.Towardstheend,atest
is made of such a symbolic field, including its derivation, through an intriguing
construct in the Sierra Madre Oriental of Mexico (Fig. 1). There an itinerary is
charted through the natural terrain, with points along it at which travelers are
confronted with objects which challenge them by re-framing their perceptions.
Consequently, they cometoknowaplace differently and,inacumulativemanner,
the trail they are on takes on a multiplicity of novel meanings. The symbolic
landscape acts on the natural landscape and vice versa.
Frombeginningtoend,thisjourneysatisfiesone’sintellectualcuriosityaboutits
subject, challenges often preconceived ideas and concepts about various forms of
landscape‘isms’,andfinallypushesdiscussionwhereitshouldbeintheguiseofa
project and a symbolic field. As a wise colleague of mine once said when talking
about architecture, now I want to talk about the unspeakable or undiscussable.
New York, USA Peter G. Rowe
2018 Raymond Garbe Professor of Architecture
and Urban Design and Harvard University
Distinguished Service Professor, Harvard GSD
Preface
Brief Synopsis and Structure of the Text
Thisbookexploresthemergingofnaturalandman-madesystemsincontemporary
space. It proposes to interpret the entirety of the contemporary continuum through
the lens of a landscape paradigm combining scientific and cultural layers. The
theoretical elaboration results in the formulation of a ‘symbiotic landscape
construct’.
The synthetic Introduction of Chap. 1 summarizes theoretical themes and
practical issues approached throughout the book and lays out the symbiotic field
notion.Thebookisfurtherorganizedinthreeparts.PartIoffersarecentpanorama
of the space-making disciplines dealing with the contemporary continuum. Part II
discusses the relevance of the notions of composite and miscegenation in the
analysis of the process of spatial formation at a local as well as geographic scale.
PartIIIillustratesalandscapeinstallationimplementedintheSierraMadreOriental
ofMexicoasaspatialtranscriptionofthetheoreticallandscapeconstructandcasts
scenarios for future research and design work on the built/natural continuum.
Abstracts, keywords, and partial conclusions are provided for each chapter.
Part I
The first part traces a disciplinary panorama of the recent transition from a
Greco-Roman conception of spatial organization, based on the idea of confined
urban space, to a contemporary condition characterized by the diffusion of
anthropicnetworksovergeographicextents.Theoverviewinterplayswithabundle
of individual and collective trajectories, the ideas of people and groups who have
variously engaged the challenges posited by the interpretation of incrementally
extensive dwellings on Earth.
Thebooksetsouttoexpose therelicsofobsolete spatialcategoriesandnotions
intheglobaldiscourseonthegeographicprospectsofthehumanhabitattosiftout
the attributes of a novel kind of diffuse ‘urbanity’ emerging in an all-embracing
mixed landscape.
xi