Bruno Gadrat - octobre 1998 - Conférence CELA98
Traduction de John MacLeod - Ce
texte en version française
In this presentation I would like to demonstrate the numerous
possibilities of the use of the established sciences in the
formulation of knowledge related to the landscape.
At the same time, I would also like to demonstrate the inefficiency
of these same sciences in generating knowledge of the landscape
itself.
The term 'landscape' is used here in its usual definition of the
indissociable entity formed by an expanse of land, its observer(s)
and the relation of the observer(s) to the land.
I want to place these sciences in a non-linear, self-constructive
approach to the creation and communication of landscape
information.
Before going any further, it is important to show you several
images of familiar Québec landscapes so you will have an idea
of our normal reference to nature.
(Slides of summer, fall and winter, without commentary)
I will take the exceptional and memorable landscapes created by
the ice storm which ravaged Québec in January 1998 as my
principal example.
I live in the region which became known as the 'Triangle of Darkness'
(in French "Triangle of Ice"), in the heart of the zone that was
affected by the unprecedented phenomenon of six consecutive days of
freezing rain.
The original text for this presentation was written during this
intense period, as a witness to the genesis of a landscape created by
the freezing rain and in order to preserve this knowledge for
teaching and research purposes.
The 1998 ice storm allows us to identify clearly the central question
concerning the formulation of knowledge of the landscape.
I will also use my research into 'plant-generated landscape
information' to support my conclusions in this presentation,
particularly the case of the lynx of the Côte-des-Neiges (Snow
Hill) in Montreal. This research is ongoing and serves as a basis for
a masters- level course at our School.
The lynx of the Côte-des-Neiges is certainly one of the
elements of the response to our questions about the nature of the
knowledge of the landscape that we generate.
Before going any further, here are several initial thoughts on the place and the role of landscape and the landscape architect which allow us to establish the context in which my January text was developed.
By definition, the observer is implicated in the landscape. Having worked very hard to understand what landscape is, and having become a landscape architect, I was realy upon leaving university to hold the monopoly, along with my collegues, on the formulation or invention of landscape knowledge. However,the professional and social context quickly showed me very clearly that I was not its only observer. Anyone, including those who had never received the slightest training on the subject, could find the means to describe the landscape phenomena they were seeing.
The landscape is claimed by everyone. Our Specific abilities lie
elsewhere. The landscape architect is a planner and a builder. A
landscape project certainly requires specific knowledge which cannot
be elaborated by other than the specialists of this profession.
But the situation is not simple.
The temptation to overstep the bounds of our competence is great.
Multidisciplinary work is only possible within clearly defined
structures and limits. The reality of landscape architecture projects
is often quite different than this, with small professional teams and
the unforeseen and unexpected popping up at any moment.
The multiplication of landscape knowledge by the diverse sciences ends up logically and inevitably in contradictions. Each phenomenon or thing can become something else as soon as it is placed in context. A fine branch of Betula pendula (European birch) is red, but it becomes black when silhouetted against the sun, and pinkish white if covered with ice in early morning light. By trying to come up with a unique and non-contradictory description of this reality we push each science outside its sphere of validity. Each coherent system of observation offers a different way of appreciating reality. Each of these "realities" taken on its own thus becomes imperfect and relative.
In reacting to the functionalist approach wich taken up too much room in our design, we are seeking to win back the sensitivity of perception we have lost in both professional landscape projects and teaching. This sensitivity is not a logical thing, rather it is the result of a process of learning the individual perception of each observer of the landscape (including, first of all, the professionals). This sensitivity is developed through slow and repeated interaction with the landscape in the company of someone who can show us what must be seen. In the process of perception, the role of the brain is as important as that of the eye.
"Grass is green!", cries our brain.
"If it is not green, then it is not grass.
If it is grass, it has to be green."
And our brain is insistent "What our eyes are seeing is false!".
Succeeding in silencing our brain in order to let our hands
capture the sensation of grass is very difficult.
Landscape which has become perceptible is neither quantified nor
quantifiable, it simply is.
Scientific studies accumulate pieces of our understanding of reality. Site visits and work on studio projects enable us to develop our sensitivity and perceptiveness. With recognized effectiveness, we make use of these scraps of diverse logic as the fundamental bases for teaching our future professionals in landscape architecture.
This will certainly no longer be sufficient in the information-overloaded virtual universe of the internet and the tactile supercharged tangible universe which is its corollary. In fact, logic and meaning are favored in information space where material constraints cannot invalidate them. Real space devoid of the meaning which allows us to foresee it becomes purely physical, causing us to confront reality and its risks and hazards directly without any possibility of avoiding it trough the use of our cognitive filters.
The existence of differents and simultaneous coherences between a virtual world and a real one does not satisfy us. Confusion and dangerous interference are too easily produced between the two. Discordance between thought, emotions and relations with the external world have a medical diagnosis: schizophrenia. The need for coherence in the landscape is increasing. The simple accumulation of increasingly numerous diverse bits of knowledge is leading us to a system which appears to be disorganized.
As well, it is urgent that we master the simultaneousness of landscapes in order to keep them from destroying one an other.
Proposition of an Self-expansive Process
These elements lead me to propose the hypothesis that the formulation of landscape knowledge clearly must leave the linear form of our usual proofs and demonstrations with their predictable conclusions, in order to satisfy the need for multiple levels of landscape appreciation.
The new proposed form is comprised of images of the landscape that
is to be experienced and also of questions based on easily grasped,
scientific and cultural points of view.
This form must be repeated as often as is necessary to teach
oneself.
To respond to one or the other of the questions enables a student for example, to situate himself with regard to one of the known systems of reference.
The choice of the question to which he must respond is dependent on those wishing to experience, to become acquainted with this landscape. This particular approach will not lead to knowledge of the landscape but rather to the proof that a particular kind of knowledge can contribute to the landscape. Responding to all of the questions would produce the effect, which we are attempting to avoid, of the disintegration of knowledge.
Particular signs, indicators and other works that's similar produce feelings or reactions with regard to the landscape in question allow that landscape to be known. They also render landscape production possible subsequently through the act of planning and design, and then through the observer's own subsequent experimentation, and the process repeat itself.
Perhaps you have noticed that i don't speak English. The summary of the presentation which is the heart of what I want to communicate was written in French and it is important to me to deliver it in its original language in order to better communicate its subtleties without bothering you with my faulty English pronunciation. In order for you to follow my remarks more easily, the English translation with be projected on the screen.
Petit verglas sur les ramures aux premiers rayons du soleil.A thin layer of ice is glued to delicate branches in the first light of morning.
Quelles branches? quelle glace? quel soleil? Betula, Forsythia, Spiraea, givre, glace, verglas. Soleil du matin ou du soir.
Which branches? What ice? Betula, Forsythia, Spiraea, hoar frost, freezing rain.
Climatologie, botanique?
Botany or climatology?
Deux journées de pluie verglaçante de suite.
Le flou des petites brindilles scintillantes devient un graphisme épais qui se mouille et s'arrondit à la chaleur grise du jour.Two consecutive days of killer freezing rain.
The blur of glistening twigs becomes a design wettened and engorged by the gray warmth of day.
Comment fixer cette connaissance si subtile sans la détruire dans un concept symbolique de base de donnée.
La précision de cette connaissance est nécessaire à son utilisation ultérieure, mais la diversité des petits matins brillants fera vite éclater l'enveloppe logique dans laquelle on voudrait les placer.How do we "catch" this subtle knowledge without destroying it in the depths of a data base?
Comment ne pas fixer cette connaissance si elle est à la base d'une des multiples beautés du pays, sa beauté sauvage.
De ce sauvage qui se laisse apercevoir en compagnie d'une personne initiée.Do we have the right to ignore this potentially fundamental element of wildness: wildness first perceived in the company of a guide?
Des traces ou un contexte favorable et puis attendre et patienter encore pour enfin profiter de minutes éternelles.Tracks, favorable conditions, then patient waiting to seize fleeting eternal moments.
La beauté sauvage du paysage relève-t-elle de la criminologie, de l'écologie ou de la science de la patience?This wild untamedness in the landscape, does it belong to criminology, ecology or the science of patience?
Voir, revoir et revenir encore pour peut-être s'apprivoiser.To see, to see it again, then to return again perhaps to tame it.
La pluie verglaçante a continué de tomber, invraisemblable, démesurée, sauvage.
De cette sauvagerie qui vous arrête, figé dans la peur d'être dévoré, broyé.Freezing rain continues to fall, improbably, immoderately, wild. The savageness stops us short, frozen in fear of being devoured or mauled.
Esthétique du sublime ou contrôle social d'une panique statistiquement probable?Esthetics of the sublime or social control of statistically probable panic?
Les arbres cassent, les branches tombent, les troncs brisent sous le poids de la glace accumulée.Trees snap, branches fall, trunks fail under the weight of built-up ice.
Quels arbres? Acer, Tilia, antennes de télévision, pylônes électriques.What trees? Acer, Tilia, hydro-electricity pylons, television antennas.
La nuit des nuages jaunes est morte.
La nuit est redevenue sauvage à faire briller les étoiles,The nights of sodium-yellow clouds are dead. Night has come alive again, wild with the undisturbed shining of a million stars.
les arbres se taisent enfin et la lumière de lune transperce les manchons boudinés et glacés de chaque herbe.The trees finally silent, moonlight pierces the luminescent mantles of the blades of yellowed grass.
Quelles herbes? la hampe florale desséchée d'un Hosta, la tête ronde d'un Sedum spectabile.
Deux millimètres de tige et dix centimètres de glace lui servent de compagnon.What grass? A Hosta's dried flower stalk, a Sedum spectabile's rounded head. Two millimeters of stem thickness and ten centimeters of companion ice.
Audiologie, optique, génie physique?Optics, acoustics, strength of materials?
Comment apprécie-t-on la beauté du paysage sauvage quand sa sauvagerie a détruit le pays?
sociologie, éthologie, écologie?How do we appreciate the beauty of the wildness of the landscape when this savageness has destroyed the countryside?
Sociology, ecology?
Toutes ces connaissances scientifiques sont-elles nécessaires et suffisantes, pour constituer les bases avec lesquelles nous inventerons notre paysage sauvage, sans nous priver de notre pays.Is all of this scientific knowledge a sufficent basis for us to create landscape wildness without giving up the country
Un pays au minimum viable mais aussi confortable avec électricité et eau chaude à tous les étages?- a minimally livable country but one that comes with electricity and hot water on each floor?
Il a neigé à gros flocons toute la nuit, sans vent.
La neige tombe encore, la visibilité est restreinte.
It snows huge flakes all night, visibility is drastically reduced.
Le lynx, biologiquement disparu de la région Montréalaise, pointe son nez sur un lambeau d'écorce relevée au centre de la fourche faite par deux grosses branches d'un Acer saccharinum de la Côte-des-neiges.The lynx which was biologically extinct from the Montreal region shows up in the snow-sculpted bark of the forked trunk of an Acer saccharinum in the heart of the city.
Le paysage sauvage est là, visible aux initiés, parfaitement sécuritaire, sans nuire aux rares lynx vivant au pays.The wildness of the landscape is there, visible to the initiated, perfectly safe, with no danger to the rare lynxes living elsewhere in the country.
Le jardin, n'est-il pas la façon la plus efficace et rigoureuse pour constituer la connaissance des paysages?Is the garden not the most rigorous and efficient means of generating this knowledge?
B. Gadrat
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