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Ten Ways to See a Landscape

Page history last edited by PBworks 17 years, 2 months ago

Adapted from D. W. Meinig, "The Beholding Eye: Ten Versions of the Same Scene," in D. W. Meinig, ed., The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979).

1. Landscape as Nature

What would the landscape look like without human presence? What is the terrain, the climate, the light? How has nature shaped the land?

2. Landscape as Habitat

How have humans adapted nature to their needs? How have they worked with nature, by farming, for example, or building with natural materials?

3. Landscape as Artifact

Have humans gone beyond adapting nature to conquering it? Do straight lines obliterate natural contours? Do humans avoid the climate by spending all their time indoors?

4. Landscape as System

How does one landscape suggest a larger system? A river implies a hydrologic cycle; a warehouse implies a trading network. What can a sample tell us about a larger whole?

5. Landscape as Problem

What needs fixing? Is the natural environment degraded? Is the built environment unpleasant? Who should fix the problem, a democratic people or a few design experts?

6. Landscape as Wealth

What is the monetary value of the landscape? What elements do or could detract or enhance that value?

7. Landscape as Ideology

What values does the landscape display? How does it express “freedom, individualism, competition, utility, power, modernity, expansion, progress,” or other ideals?

8. Landscape as History

“Every landscape is an accumulation.” How has the past shaped the land? How must today’s residents live within inherited constraints? What does the landscape tell us about people who came before?

9. Landscape as Place

What is unique about this landscape? How does being here, rather than someplace else, shape people’s lives?

10. Landscape as Aesthetic

Is this landscape attractive in artistic terms? How can we evaluate it in “the basic language of art . . . color, texture, mass, line, position, symmetry, balance, tension”?

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