The 2019 ASLA conference questioned US identity in troubled times. A Congressional Report The term “elephant in the room” has a nice double meaning. On the one hand, it describes something important that is known to everyone but not explicitly addressed. On the other hand, it also describes a huge, trampled something that can dismantle given structures without much sensitivity. In this […]
The 2019 ASLA conference questioned US identity in troubled times. A conference report
The term “elephant in the room” has a nice double meaning. On the one hand, it describes something important that is known to everyone but not explicitly addressed. On the other hand, however, it also describes a huge hitchhiking something that can dismantle given structures without much sensitivity. In this ambiguity, the current US President Trump was precisely the elephant at this year’s annual conference of the ASLA, the American Society of Landscape Architects, in San Diego. There was little explicit mention of The Donald and his sometimes elephantine policies. But their consequences for the American present played an implicit role again and again.
Of course, this applied most directly to the many panels and presentations dealing with the consequences of climate change. The environmental politician and researcher Gina McCarthy laid the atmospheric foundation for this, so to speak. In her rhetorically brilliant presentation, she made it clear that the Obama administration has launched many concrete legislative initiatives. Not all of these have yet been revised – and it is unlikely that they can all be withdrawn. “The train is running”, was her ultimately optimistic message. The audience acknowledged this with standing ovations, but as a fact-oriented European, it took some getting used to McCarthy’s mass preaching style.
A kind of moderate basic ecological optimism almost inevitably emanates from events such as the ASLA conference, because they deal with concrete steps towards improvement. One field session, for example, presented the regeneration of the San Diego River ecosystem. Other panels presented solutions for areas in the hot and dry southwest of the USA, some of which are becoming uninhabitable due to global warming, or landscape architecture approaches for better air quality. The impression is that landscape architecture is aware of its responsibility and accepts it even in a harsh political climate.
However, this political and social climate also played another role. Many discussions addressed the identity-shaping and negotiating role of spatial planning. The USA (and not only the USA) appears today as a country in search of its “identity”. There is a kind of existential insecurity in society as a whole. The space in which we live can take on an orientation function – for entire societies, for smaller cultural units, but also for individuals and their immediate social environment. In this context, a panel on US post-war squares was very exciting.
The head of the “Parks Conservancy” of the city of Pittsburgh presented the careful redesign of Mellow Square in Pittsburgh. Ken Smith, a well-known landscape architect in the USA, presented three different redesigns from New York and San Francisco, including the outdoor space in front of Mies van der Rohe’s iconic Seagram Building in Manhattan. It was clear from all the plaza projects presented that US-American collective memory is being negotiated here. Post-war modernism was formative for US culture – and must be treated with corresponding care. “It’s about spatial integrity, but also historical integrity,” says Charles Birnbaum, head of the Cultural Landscape Foundation.
The elephant “La Frontera”
The question naturally arises as to who ascribes integrity or to whom it applies. After all, the idea of society as a homogeneous unit is disintegrating, and not just in the USA. Accordingly, it is important to unite different perspectives in landscape planning or at least allow them to have their say. Allowing heterogeneity was the overarching theme of many panels. “Landscapes with an edge” could be created, was the tenor of a discussion on the importance of subculture in planning. “Allow provocation, create spaces for subversion”, was the plea of planner and podcaster Michael Todoran (he runs the podcast “LArchitect”). The question is where subculture, where provocation ends and where mere commercialization begins. Whether, for example, the eScooters that are also filling the streets in the USA can be considered a subculture, as suggested in the panel, is open to debate.
Nevertheless, the cultural sensitivity of this year’s ASLA conference was high. However, one culturally charged topic that would have been obvious given the San Diego venue was unfortunately largely left out: Mexico and the planning challenge of the border. A (quickly booked out) field trip to Tijuana did take place. But the border was hardly mentioned in the content panels. And this despite the fact that the new ASLA President Wendy Miller told Garten + Landschaft in an interview that the planners had the planning dimensions of “La Frontera” in mind (you can read the interview in full at www.topos-magazine.com). But perhaps that border also represents a kind of elephant in the mental room of US culture. It’s there, it’s huge, but it’s being hidden as much as possible.
