Iwan Baan Illustrates Manifesto #1:  “Nostalgia for the past and utopian dreams for the future prevents us from looking at our present.”  Who:Iwan Baan, photographer Location: Image of Teshima from above Can you tell us about why you chose this image?  Nostalgia for the past and utopian futures was so much what I felt in Teshima; these Japanese islands where time stood still. It is exactly the nostalgia for the past which is everywhere present in these villages, everything is about history and how beautiful Japan was, the landscape, the villages. What is interesting is that the contemporary art- and architecture projects are also present. The architecture is completely contemporary, new, utopian spaces, spaces you’ve never experienced before. However they often also relate to the historic context in the open and transparent way they’re built. For instance in this new Art Museum by Nishizawa and Rei Naito, you find yourself in a completetly empty white bubble, you are so disconnected from everything; but you hear the rain, the wind, the trees the birds, and the sounds of the island. You are putting a book together on the contemporary architecture of this island ; do you think the architecture promotes a sort of Utopia?  Yes there is a sort of feeling that they want to recreate their own a paradise on earth. The person behind all the art and architecture projects is Mr Fukutake who is the Director and Chairman of the Benesse company who is building his oasis on and around Naoshima and the other islands including Teshima. He is creating this place where people of the big cities can relax, and it’s all about nostalgia, and he wants to keep people dreaming about the past.

Iwan Baan Illustrates Manifesto #1: 
“Nostalgia for the past and utopian dreams for the future prevents us from looking at our present.” 

Who:Iwan Baan, photographer

Location: Image of Teshima from above

Can you tell us about why you chose this image? 

Nostalgia for the past and utopian futures was so much what I felt in Teshima; these Japanese islands where time stood still. It is exactly the nostalgia for the past which is everywhere present in these villages, everything is about history and how beautiful Japan was, the landscape, the villages.

What is interesting is that the contemporary art- and architecture projects are also present. The architecture is completely contemporary, new, utopian spaces, spaces you’ve never experienced before. However they often also relate to the historic context in the open and transparent way they’re built. For instance in this new Art Museum by Nishizawa and Rei Naito, you find yourself in a completetly empty white bubble, you are so disconnected from everything; but you hear the rain, the wind, the trees the birds, and the sounds of the island.


You are putting a book together on the contemporary architecture of this island ; do you think the architecture promotes a sort of Utopia? 

Yes there is a sort of feeling that they want to recreate their own a paradise on earth. The person behind all the art and architecture projects is Mr Fukutake who is the Director and Chairman of the Benesse company who is building his oasis on and around Naoshima and the other islands including Teshima. He is creating this place where people of the big cities can relax, and it’s all about nostalgia, and he wants to keep people dreaming about the past.

1 year ago  1 note View high resolution

Vicki Karlan Illustrates Manifesto #9: 
“New landscapes can become niches for species forced out of their original environment.” 

Who: Vicki Karlan, MPH - Community Health Evaluation Specialist

Location: Los Angeles

To me these photos offer examples of how human architecture directly impacts animal habitat. To take it a step further, builders change the world and the changing landscape also changes the builder, with the potential for either growth or degradation.  By increasing the complexity of habitats animal and human architects can enhance biodiversity.  On the other side of the coin, destroying or narrowing the range and complexity of habitats has the potential to reduce biodiversity and the overall success of the species.  These dynamics may also apply to human landscapes and the planned built environment. 

1 year ago  1 note

Kathleen O’ Grady Illustrates Manifesto #17: 
“We can heighten the desire for new interactions between humans and nature where it is least expected: in derelict spaces.” 

Who:  Kathleen O’Grady, Landscape Designer, Brooklyn

Location:  Lot Bed-Stuy Brooklyn   

This space certainly looks derelict.  It is an access or ventilation point for NYDEP Water Tunnel No. 3 an engineering marvel and one of the largest capital construction projects in New York’s history.  Though difficult to discern why people are prohibited from the space, let’s assume due to security concerns, no one can be allowed to physically interact with the space.  Why, though, can’t it be designed to function as part of a green corridor serving as habitat for birds and insects just as it is designed underground to serve and support the human habitat?  In the growing season the lot is left fallow just long enough for ‘weeds’ like Milkweed, Clover, Sumac, Queen Ann’s Lace and Chicory to begin to flourish before the whole space is mowed down-continually stunting biological systems that by nature want to establish. 

There is an interesting cultural juxtaposition going on as well.  Many apartment buildings, with the implicit invitation to make the area home, are going up or being newly renovated.  More people are being encouraged to live in this formerly industrial area.  Even if children cannot play in the space or the elderly cannot have a place to enjoy the outdoors, how much more welcoming would the whole neighborhood be by having a designed natural system that perhaps brings plant and animal life back to a place where they may have once thrived?  

1 year ago  1 note

Yen Trinh Illustrates Manifesto #18: 
“Emerging Landscapes are becoming brand new actors on the political stage.” 

Who: Yen Trinh, Urban Designer

Location: Community garden, East Village, NYC   

This is a photo of the community garden on my block in the East Village.  It is one of many that flourish in the neighbourhood today.

My roommate has lived in the area for over 25 years and tells me stories of its urban development and political and social change. He describes these landscapes as part of a citizen movement to improve abandoned lots that were rife with trash and drug dealing in the 1980’s.  

Contests for how urban space is used or transformed will always involve the community and New York City government - and therefore always seems deeply political.   The original creation of community gardens was a grass-roots political action and through its history has continued to play a role on the political stage, especially when they came under threat by developers.  In 2002, New York City agreed to protect many of these spaces from developers, but in 2010 the debate has been reignited with that agreement expiring and being revised as of September 17, 2010.

Click here for more information.


1 year ago  2 notes

Monica Hernandez Illustrates Manifesto #8: 
“Landscape—through new landscapes—enters the city and modifies our way of being in it.” 

Who: Monica Hernandez, Designer, Balmori Associates

Location: Indoor garden in Jackson Heights, NY  

I placed this particular Manifesto point on a crate box that I have in my house that stores a collection of indoor plants. It is my connection to landscape and nature where I can see transitions, growth and change as a part of my environment.

It is my own controlled urban landscape magnified and glorified in my small Queens apartment, as a sort of condition that the city imposes since I cannot have an outdoor garden. As light, heat and humidity change outside, my indoor landscape is affected and therefore they are always connected. 

1 year ago  2 notes

Iwan Baan Illustrates Manifesto #1:  “Nostalgia for the past and utopian dreams for the future prevents us from looking at our present.”  Who:Iwan Baan, photographer Location: Image of Teshima from above Can you tell us about why you chose this image?  Nostalgia for the past and utopian futures was so much what I felt in Teshima; these Japanese islands where time stood still. It is exactly the nostalgia for the past which is everywhere present in these villages, everything is about history and how beautiful Japan was, the landscape, the villages. What is interesting is that the contemporary art- and architecture projects are also present. The architecture is completely contemporary, new, utopian spaces, spaces you’ve never experienced before. However they often also relate to the historic context in the open and transparent way they’re built. For instance in this new Art Museum by Nishizawa and Rei Naito, you find yourself in a completetly empty white bubble, you are so disconnected from everything; but you hear the rain, the wind, the trees the birds, and the sounds of the island. You are putting a book together on the contemporary architecture of this island ; do you think the architecture promotes a sort of Utopia?  Yes there is a sort of feeling that they want to recreate their own a paradise on earth. The person behind all the art and architecture projects is Mr Fukutake who is the Director and Chairman of the Benesse company who is building his oasis on and around Naoshima and the other islands including Teshima. He is creating this place where people of the big cities can relax, and it’s all about nostalgia, and he wants to keep people dreaming about the past.

Iwan Baan Illustrates Manifesto #1: 
“Nostalgia for the past and utopian dreams for the future prevents us from looking at our present.” 

Who:Iwan Baan, photographer

Location: Image of Teshima from above

Can you tell us about why you chose this image? 

Nostalgia for the past and utopian futures was so much what I felt in Teshima; these Japanese islands where time stood still. It is exactly the nostalgia for the past which is everywhere present in these villages, everything is about history and how beautiful Japan was, the landscape, the villages.

What is interesting is that the contemporary art- and architecture projects are also present. The architecture is completely contemporary, new, utopian spaces, spaces you’ve never experienced before. However they often also relate to the historic context in the open and transparent way they’re built. For instance in this new Art Museum by Nishizawa and Rei Naito, you find yourself in a completetly empty white bubble, you are so disconnected from everything; but you hear the rain, the wind, the trees the birds, and the sounds of the island.


You are putting a book together on the contemporary architecture of this island ; do you think the architecture promotes a sort of Utopia? 

Yes there is a sort of feeling that they want to recreate their own a paradise on earth. The person behind all the art and architecture projects is Mr Fukutake who is the Director and Chairman of the Benesse company who is building his oasis on and around Naoshima and the other islands including Teshima. He is creating this place where people of the big cities can relax, and it’s all about nostalgia, and he wants to keep people dreaming about the past.

Vicki Karlan Illustrates Manifesto #9: 
“New landscapes can become niches for species forced out of their original environment.” 

Who: Vicki Karlan, MPH - Community Health Evaluation Specialist

Location: Los Angeles

To me these photos offer examples of how human architecture directly impacts animal habitat. To take it a step further, builders change the world and the changing landscape also changes the builder, with the potential for either growth or degradation.  By increasing the complexity of habitats animal and human architects can enhance biodiversity.  On the other side of the coin, destroying or narrowing the range and complexity of habitats has the potential to reduce biodiversity and the overall success of the species.  These dynamics may also apply to human landscapes and the planned built environment. 

Kathleen O’ Grady Illustrates Manifesto #17: 
“We can heighten the desire for new interactions between humans and nature where it is least expected: in derelict spaces.” 

Who:  Kathleen O’Grady, Landscape Designer, Brooklyn

Location:  Lot Bed-Stuy Brooklyn   

This space certainly looks derelict.  It is an access or ventilation point for NYDEP Water Tunnel No. 3 an engineering marvel and one of the largest capital construction projects in New York’s history.  Though difficult to discern why people are prohibited from the space, let’s assume due to security concerns, no one can be allowed to physically interact with the space.  Why, though, can’t it be designed to function as part of a green corridor serving as habitat for birds and insects just as it is designed underground to serve and support the human habitat?  In the growing season the lot is left fallow just long enough for ‘weeds’ like Milkweed, Clover, Sumac, Queen Ann’s Lace and Chicory to begin to flourish before the whole space is mowed down-continually stunting biological systems that by nature want to establish. 

There is an interesting cultural juxtaposition going on as well.  Many apartment buildings, with the implicit invitation to make the area home, are going up or being newly renovated.  More people are being encouraged to live in this formerly industrial area.  Even if children cannot play in the space or the elderly cannot have a place to enjoy the outdoors, how much more welcoming would the whole neighborhood be by having a designed natural system that perhaps brings plant and animal life back to a place where they may have once thrived?  

Yen Trinh Illustrates Manifesto #18: 
“Emerging Landscapes are becoming brand new actors on the political stage.” 

Who: Yen Trinh, Urban Designer

Location: Community garden, East Village, NYC   

This is a photo of the community garden on my block in the East Village.  It is one of many that flourish in the neighbourhood today.

My roommate has lived in the area for over 25 years and tells me stories of its urban development and political and social change. He describes these landscapes as part of a citizen movement to improve abandoned lots that were rife with trash and drug dealing in the 1980’s.  

Contests for how urban space is used or transformed will always involve the community and New York City government - and therefore always seems deeply political.   The original creation of community gardens was a grass-roots political action and through its history has continued to play a role on the political stage, especially when they came under threat by developers.  In 2002, New York City agreed to protect many of these spaces from developers, but in 2010 the debate has been reignited with that agreement expiring and being revised as of September 17, 2010.

Click here for more information.


Monica Hernandez Illustrates Manifesto #8: 
“Landscape—through new landscapes—enters the city and modifies our way of being in it.” 

Who: Monica Hernandez, Designer, Balmori Associates

Location: Indoor garden in Jackson Heights, NY  

I placed this particular Manifesto point on a crate box that I have in my house that stores a collection of indoor plants. It is my connection to landscape and nature where I can see transitions, growth and change as a part of my environment.

It is my own controlled urban landscape magnified and glorified in my small Queens apartment, as a sort of condition that the city imposes since I cannot have an outdoor garden. As light, heat and humidity change outside, my indoor landscape is affected and therefore they are always connected. 

About:

'A Landscape Manifesto' is a new book by Diana Balmori that presents her theory and practice of urban landscape design as an art that spans the divide between culture and nature, while combining the science of ecology with formal aspects of aesthetics.

This timely Manifesto - consisting of 25 points - advocates a new language for landscape, reflecting the shift in our understanding of nature and how it interacts with "the city".

A Landscape Manifesto is much more than just a book to read, enjoy and set aside –– it's intended to spark a conversation about the infinitely changeable nature of our world, and how we might effect positive transformation where we live, work, sleep and play. A starting point for discussion, Post-It Landscape invites you to look up, look down, look all around, and be inspired to take action today.

In the coming weeks, we will begin to dissect this new idea, as we share our perspectives on nature, the city, and the intersections in between.

ABOUT DIANA BALMORI
Diana Balmori is an internationally recognized landscape and urban designer. She teaches at the Yale University School of Architecture and the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Balmori also serves as a senior fellow in Garden and Landscape Studies at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and on the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, both in Washington, DC. She lives and works in New York City.

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