Photoscapes : The Nexus between Photography and Landscape Design. PDF
Preview Photoscapes : The Nexus between Photography and Landscape Design.
Photo scapes Edited by Frédéric Pousin The Nexus between Photography and Landscape Design Photo scapes Birkhäuser Basel 7 Acknowledgments 8 Milestones for an Intercultural Approach Frédéric Pousin 14 72 Filling in the Picture: Order and Ambiguity A Broader Perspective The Urban Landscape in J. B. Jackson’s on National Park Photography Magazine Landscape Timothy Davis Bruno Notteboom 36 88 1994 Seeing is Believing/ A Decade of Photographic Looks are Deceiving Missions in Town and Country Photography in American Landscape Planning Institutions Architecture Practice, 1950–2000 Raphaële Bertho Laurie Olin 52 100 J. B. Jackson, Photography The Photographic Discourses and the Quickening of Gilles Clément of Cultural Landscape Studies Frédéric Pousin Chris Wilson 118 From Photorealism to Post-Photography: The Imagined Landscapes of Bureau Bas Smets Marie-Madeleine Ozdoba 136 When the Camera Sticks its Lens into the Landscape Project. Gérard Dufresne and Alain Marguerit – a Thirty-year Collaboration 201 Sonia Keravel Biographies 154 206 Après Strand, an Anatomy Credits of Bertrand Carrière’s Photo- graphic Project Franck Michel Photographers' Portfolios: 210 173 Alexandre Petzold Photographers' Conversation The Peuple de l’Herbe Park Alexandre Petzold, Édith Roux, 218 Geoffroy Mathieu Édith Roux and Bertrand Stofleth, Scalo Farini photographers, Pascale Hannetel, 228 Valérie Kauffmann Geoffroy Mathieu and Catherine Mosbach, The Principle of Rurality landscape architects, with Marie-Hélène Loze, Raphaële Bertho, 238 Sonia Keravel, Bertrand Stofleth Cristina Ros and Rhodanie Frédéric Pousin 246 Debora Hunter Holding On and Letting Go: Material Culture at Work in Taos, New Mexico 6 Acknowledgments This book is the result of a research their advice and encouragements dur- program funded by the French National ing the three years it took: Henri Bava, Research Agency, entitled “Photography Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, Claire Lise and Landscape: knowledges, practices, Benaud, Emmanuelle Blanc, Gilles projects” (ANR 13-BSH3-0008-01). Its Clément, Matthew Coolidge, Katya publication was made possible through Crawford, Denis Delbaere, Sabine the financial support awarded by the Delcour, Sabine Ehrmann, Miguel research unit AUSser CNRS, the Depart- Gandert, Brian Goldstein, Jérôme ment of Culture and Communication, Goze, Paul Groth, Laura Harjo, Helen the IPRAUS – National School of Archi- L. Horowitz, Aurélien Humm, Andreas tecture Paris-Belleville and the Kofler, Lin Chi-Ming, Lucy Lippard, LAREP – National Landscape School Richard Longstreth, Chester Liebs, of Versailles, each of which deserves Caroline Maniaque, Aude Mathé, my sincere thanks. Kymberly Pinder. I also want to thank the institutions Special thanks to those who spared which have hosted the various study no effort and tremendously helped the days of this program: the University accomplishment of this work: Sylvie of New Mexico in Albuquerque, and Archaimbault, Cristina Ros Ballester, especially the vice president in charge Morgane Hamon, Sonia Keravel, Marie- of international relations, Virginia Joy Hélène Loze, Chris Wilson. Scharff, the Potager du Roi in Versailles, its director Antoine Jacobsohn, Finally, I wish to express my gratitude Nathalie Lancret, the director of the towards my editors, Françoise Arnold research unit (UMR) AUSser, the and Valérie Thouard, who have dared National School of Architecture in to create something that adapted itself Nancy and the landscape teaching wonderfully around the never-ending unit headed by Marie-José Canonica. motion of this work. The touch of Line Celo and Clémence Michon, graphic Our perspective, which was to inter- designers, must also be applauded. weave landscape architects’ and pho- tographers’ approaches to landscape, The texts have been translated from was challenging in its arrangement. French to English by Christopher May the authors, landscape architects, Hinton and Nicolas Carter: I wish to and photographers who lent them- thank them for their great efficiency selves to this demanding exercise find and professionalism. here the expression of my gratitude. I also wish to express my thanks to each and every person who has Frédéric Pousin contributed to this intellectual adven- ture and has pushed it forward through 77 Milestones for an Intercultural Approach Frédéric Pousin The aim of this book is to explore the subtle links nauté de communes (a grouping of local author- woven between photography and landscape ities), a nature park or a département (county). But projects. Following on from a three-year joint re- a landscaping project is characterized by the search project, it attempts to consider the role overall vision and coherency that it channels, and that photography plays in the management and by the convergence of opportunities for action transformation of landscapes and in the debates that it organizes within a region. The objectives that may ensue. Changes to the countryside often that it sets itself are developed and discussed at reflect changes in society, be they economic, so- length; landscape projects thus generate argu- cial or cultural. For Augustin Berque, geo grapher ment and debate – a debate that has many differ- and expert on Japan, landscape ex presses the re- ent forms of expression and in which photo- lationship between a society and its environ- graphy is taking an ever-increasing part. ment.1 Yet perception of a landscape is also an The role of photography is of course eminently eminently subjective reality, often emotionally variable, depending on the cultural context and charged: whether we think of familiar, politi- the historical period. From its very beginnings, 1 See Augustin Berque, cal or even wartime landscapes. And finally, photography was solicited for regional planning Les raisons du paysage. it is a living reality that continuously evolves purposes. Was the purpose of the first aerial pic- De la Chine antique aux environnements de synthèse, and changes. Landscape projects are the re- tures taken by Nadar not to help in the creation of Hazan, Paris, 1995. sult of foresight, of a vision that guides ac- a land registry?3 In the United States, photography 2 See Charles E. Beveridge tion so as to meet a need or a desire for was used in geological and geographical missions and Paul Rocheleau, transformation. Historically speaking, they commissioned by the Government, to take ac- Frederic Law Olmsted, Designing the American were rooted in garden design and then in ur- count of the progress in prospection and explora- Landscape, Universe banism, with parks becoming urban and pub- tion during the second half of the 19th century. The Publishing, New York, 1998. lic. Park projects were major levers for town role that photographers played in the creation of 3 development, as can be seen from the exem- natural parks is well known,4 particularly that of Stephen Bann, “La vue aérienne de Nadar”, plary works of Olmsted: his first plans for a Carleton Watkins, who was the first person to in Mark Dorrian and park system for the city of Buffalo in 1868 or arouse national interest in the Yosemite Valley. Frédéric Pousin (eds.), Vues aériennes. Seize études the creation of Jackson Park on the shores of Photographic reportages proved crucial in the pour une histoire culturelle, Lake Michigan in Chicago2 inspired the promotion of conservation policies. The same MétisPresses, Geneva, 2008, p. 69–78. thinking and projects of numerous French was true of William Henry Jackson’s pictures with 4 landscape architects, from yesteryear’s Jean regard to the creation of Yellowstone Park in 1872, See Jamie M. Allen, Pic turing America’s National Claude Nicolas Forestier to Michel Desvigne and the emblematic works of Ansel Adams in the Parks, George Eastman today. Closely linked to town and country 1930s. Photography also accompanied the con- Museum, Rochester, New York, 2016. planning, the scale of landscaping projects struction of railways and roads, and parkways5 5 has grown – in France, to that of a commu- in particular. See Timothy Davis, National Park Roads. A Legacy in the American Landscape, The University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville, 2016. 9 At the turn of the 20th century in France, photo- Bertho established a dividing line between com- h c a graphers were also involved in a context of de- missions that call upon technicians and those o pr fending and preserving sites and landscapes – that appeal to creative artists for their unique per- Ap urban in particular – as can be seen in the Casier spective and viewpoint.9 However enlightening it ural archéologique et artistique de Paris et du département may be, this dividing line nonetheless merits cult er de la Seine, implemented by the Commission histor close examination, in terms of the historical and nt n I ique du vieux Paris between 1916 and 1928.6 With a social acceptation of the notion of creative artist. or a dual objective of study and preservation, several In France in the 1980s, the Mission photographique s f e n thousand photographs were taken to document de la DATAR (DATAR Photographic Mission) called o st e buildings or complexes under threat. The dossiers upon highly renowned photographers in a cul- Mil compiled in this way were used to develop plans tural context who were endeavoring to gain artis- for the future expansion of Paris. The inventory of tic recognition. Two historical antecedents were all of the city’s components, landscapes included, used: DATAR’s prestigious Heliographic Mission covered not only Paris but also the municipalities and the no less famous commission from the that made up the Greater Paris of the future. Farm Security Administration (FSA), which had In such situations, photography participates come into being in the late 1930s in the United in the development of an archive that serves to States, at the time of the Great Depression when create inventories which in turn serve heritage photographers were struggling to achieve artist policies. The archive is not, however, the sole ob- status. In inaugurating a commission for art- jective of these commissions. In France, after the ist-photographers, DATAR triggered numerous Second World War, public commissions were in- initiatives, including that of the landscape pho- tended to serve a national land policy. Ensuring tography observatories in France, most of which the promotion of the reconstruction and moder- were implemented within regional nature parks. nization of the country, photography found itself being integrated into modes of communication We have chosen to explore certain historical mo- targeting the general public – such as the Salon ments and representative processes of the role des arts ménagers (houseware exhibition) in Paris. that photography has played in the manufacture of landscapes: above and beyond viewpoint or the These various photographic productions related production of documents, it is a question of a pho- to various commissioning situations, which tography expanded to include commissions, the should not be confused with one another. The ini- photographer’s perspective, and vectors of dis- tiative of a photographer such as Eugène Atget – semination. who sells his pictures to a private clientele, to American national parks are an excellent lab- municipal institutions and to museums – is dif- oratory for observing the diversity of photo- ferent from a public commission – such as that of graphy’s functions and uses, as well as the status the Commission des Monuments Historiques, which of the photographers themselves. Timothy Davis in 1851 asked five well-known photographers to explores an underappreciated period between document an inventory of the country’s architec- the discovery of the national parks (the creation tural and artistic heritage.7 And this mission un- of the NPS) and the growing influence of Ansel dertaken by artist-photographers, which remains Adams during the 1930s – that particular moment famous under the name of Mission héliographique, when the parks’ commercial and salaried photo- cannot be equated to the case of technician-oper- graphers were endeavoring to express a popular ators working for an institution – such as the perception of nature that would henceforth be- Eaux et Forêts engineers in the Service de restaura come the official perception. The NPS’s strategy tion des terrains de montagne (department for the for disseminating pictures made use of various restoration of mountain lands) – who between media so as to create a symbol proper to Ameri- 1866 and 1940 took series of photos which were ca’s national parks. essentially intended for professional use in the In the history of photography and landscape, field of landscape management.8 photography has often been solicited to accom- In a comparative study of photographic mis- pany and promote projects. But its value cannot sions in France and the United States, Raphaële be limited to this instrumental function, because 10
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