CALL FOR PAPERS
A meeting of universities and schools about the teaching of history for landscape architecture to be held on 8 and 9 September 2022, organised by Jan Woudstra and Robert Holden, FOLAR
Within the past couple of years, the perception of the profession of landscape architecture and its contribution to the environment is more and more coming to reflect societal issues and environmental justice. This extends to the stories we tell. Within the field of landscape architecture it has been customary, after explaining the various terms and exploring the origins of the word landscape, to narrate the development chronologically. But rather than investigating trends in the vernacular landscape, we tend to concentrate on what happened in and follow the fashions of the gardens of nobility. That is until the nineteenth century, when we can investigate the making of public parks, and we continue to diverge into public landscape of cities when we move into the twentieth century. This seemed to reflect the order of things, but also the source material available. While ‘gardens’ within ‘landscape architecture’ have often been derided, they have continued to be a way to express the notion of styles in historic narration; Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Augustan, Brownian, Picturesque, Reptonian, Victorian, Arts and Crafts, Modernism, etc.
As with other aspects in society the Me Too, Black Lives Matter and decolonisation have in the last couple of years brought the focus onto landscape histories also, and aspects accepted as a matter of fact previously are now critically questioned. The houses and gardens of nobility are male and white and are now presented as an expression of colonial exploitation and suppression. Their use in historic narrative ought to be carefully considered; should it be restricted? Clearly it is not whether we should respond to these international trends, but how: How then should we (re)present the history of landscape design? In addition, the climate urgency has put a new perspective on the profession which puts past designs and practices in a different perspective. Some schools have avoided these issues altogether and have stopped teaching of history for landscape architecture, an act of defiance which in the current context can also be interpreted as unacceptable, but it unfortunately reflects a general trend where student interest in history is waning. Yet history is important as a basis to any profession, as a point of reference, and in our case, as an inspiration for new design, and no self-assured profession should avoid facing up to its past. Should we not use learning from the past as a prerogative to improve future landscapes and make them more sustainable?
So, this brings us to some crucial questions that we would like to discuss more widely to attempt to come to some sort of consensus:
• What history should we narrate in the education of landscape architects?
• How should we engage the students in the history of their chosen profession?
• What methods and tools can be devised to improve student engagement in history teaching?
• What resources do we need to improve history teaching?
The proposed meeting is aimed at those involved or interested in delivering the history of the profession. It seeks to provide an opportunity for discussion to enable guidance to be articulated, and provide ways to reinvigorate engagement with history, not just to benefit students and professionals, but also to provide a more in-depth perspective for the benefit of and closer connection with society more generally.
FUTURE HISTORY: Teaching history in landscape schools
CALL FOR PAPERS
A meeting of universities and schools to discuss history teaching for landscape architecture to be held at the University of Sheffield on 8 and 9 September 2022,
organised by Jan Woudstra and Robert Holden for FOLAR
The conference will run over two days; the first day -Thursday 8 September- will consist of an exploration of different philosophies and ideas in teaching of history. We are inviting abstracts of no more than 500 words for papers (40 minutes). We would particularly like you to explore aspects of the questions posed above, but welcome additional thoughts or ideas.
The second day -Friday 9 September- will primarily consist of focussed discussions. These discussions will be organised by theme, to enable sharing of best practice and in-depth exploration of issues. We would like to precede each discussion with a short positioning paper (up to ten minutes). If you have any ideas or experiences that could commence a discussion on a particular aspect, please contact us. Again, we welcome short abstracts, thus enabling us to select the most appropriate range of topics.
The conference will be preceded by with a series of three online lectures hosted by Landscape Matters and FOLAR, that will provide a background to the challenges we currently face and how these have affected history education of landscape architects.
We think it is important to organise this conference as a physical event but have had requests to hold it online as well, so we will adopt a hybrid form, of both attendance and presentation.
We are contemplating different ways of publishing the proceedings of the conference as a set of edited papers that would be useful for anyone involved with teaching history.
Please submit your ideas and abstracts by 15 February 2022 to:
j.woudstra@sheffield.ac.uk and robertholden13@aol.com
