The first major event to do with 'landscape urbanism' was the Landscape Urbanism conference sponsored by the Graham Foundation in Chicago in April 1997. Speakers included Charles Waldheim,
Mohsen Mostafavi,
James Corner of James Corner/Field Operations, Alex Wall, and Adriaan Geuze of the firm
West 8, among others. The formative period of Landscape Urbanism can be traced back to RMIT University and
University of Pennsylvania in the late 1980s, at a time when Peter Connolly,
Richard Weller, Ann Spirn, James Corner, Mohsen Mostafavi, and others were exploring the artificial boundaries of
landscape architecture, urban design, and architecture, searching for better ways to deal with complex urban projects. Their texts cite and synthesize the ideas of influential modernist methods, programs and manifestoes that appeared in the early twentieth century, rediscover the methodologies of seminal landscape architects and planners Frederick L. Olmsted and Ian McHarg, ad build on the work of contemporary architects of the time such as OMA-Rem Koolhaas and Bernard Tschumi. The Charles Waldheim,
Anu Mathur, Alan Berger,
Chris Reed, among others, were students at the
University of Pennsylvania during this formative period for Landscape Urbanism. After the Chicago conference, European design schools and North American design institutions formed academic programs and began to formalize a field of Landscape Urbanism studies, including the
University of Toronto,
Harvard Graduate School of Design, Oslo School of Architecture Urbanism and landscape,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Landscape+Urbanism at MIT, Catholic University in Leuven, Belgium Landscape Urbanism – KU Leuven, the
University of Illinois at Chicago and London's
Architectural Association.The development of an operative response to the broad and often vague concepts surrounding landscape urbanism was largely developed at the Architectural Association in London. Prior to this period of design exploration, landscape urbanism had never been clearly developed as an actual design practice. Today, much of the design culture that has come to be associated with landscape urbanism was initiated and developed in the AA Landscape Urbanism program during its early formative period and its influence persists in many educational institutions. A number of practices that have chosen to adopt the design and conceptual approach towards urbanism have also adopted many of these design strategies.
Landscape Urbanism and New Urbanism Both the theories of Landscape Urbanism and New Urbanism emerged as responses to modernist architecture and planning practices. Both intended to address the rigidity of the existing urban form as well as the lack of environmental consciousness informing urban design. New Urbanists prioritize interconnectedness of the neighborhood through well-defined streets that generate
walkability. Landscape Urbanists place the importance of urban order on a “thin horizontal vegetal plane”, using the concept of green-space as the base for urban planning as opposed to the streetscape. In this way, Landscape Urbanists wish to circumvent the inflexibility and “uninspired failings” of postmodern urban planning practices. At its core, the theory of Landscape Urbanism addresses problems of urban sprawl, de-densification, and environmental change in what is referred to as “a disciplinary realignment… in which landscape is usurping architecture’s historical role as the basic building block of city making”. It is primarily this principle that is debated between New Urbanists and Landscape Urbanists. == Themes ==