***LK0313 Landscape architecture: history, theory and practice / 2025 ***

This course explores the history, theory, and practice of landscape architecture. It is intended for masters-level students in the landscape architecture professional program (LA) and beginning students in the Master in Sustainable Urbanization (LASU). Space permitting, the course is also open to students in any other master program at SLU or other Swedish university. The course is conducted in English.

The course main objective is "to provide deep understanding of different landscape architecture and design theories and viewpoints through history and their relation to landscape architecture practice." This year, the course is organized along five different themes, where "history, theory and practice" as different perspectives/approaches to landscape architecture as a profession, an area of research, and as an object will be intertwined. There are lists of readings for the themes, along with lectures and introductions, to support your work during the course.

According to the course syllabus, the course includes the following learning objectives:

Knowledge and understanding
- understand theories and concepts in landscape architecture and design
- analyze major fields of landscape architecture research, their methodology and relation to other design disciplines
- discuss key theories and case studies of landscape architecture history in Sweden and internationally; critically relate these knowledges to the development of modern society
- elaborate practical implications from theories in landscape architecture and design
- discuss main theoretical viewpoints in today’s landscape architecture and its relation to sustainability

Competence and skills
- apply key landscape architecture theories and historical precedences into a landscape architecture design concept

Judgement and approach
- reflect on a personal approach in the field of landscape architecture and future professional role
- decode contemporary landscapes and reflect on them from a personal point of view concerning design and ethical standpoints.

Theme 1

Contemporary debates and current topics

The first part covers the role of history and theory in landscape architecture and the second part focuses on the contemporary debates in landscape architecture.

**Part 1: History, theory and practice in landscape architecture **

This section elaborates the role of history in landscape architectural theory, criticism and practice, introduces some of the critical views on history in landscape architecture and discusses the implications of those views on the theory and practice.

Compulsory readings (Each student should choose 2 of the readings to write reflection)

Boone, K. (2020). “Notes Toward a History of Black Landscape Architecture”, Places Journal. https://doi.org/10.22269/201028

Foster, J. and Schopf, H. (2017). Mineral Migration: Extracting, Recomposing, Demolishing, and Recolonizing Toronto’s Landscape. In Material Culture (edited by Jane Hutton). Berlin: Jovis.

Giannetto R.F. (2013). “The Use of History in Landscape Architectural Nostalgia“, Change over time, vol. 3 no. 1: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/504756.

Hirsch, A. (2025). Is Landscape Elitist? In Landscape Is…! Essays on the Meaning of Landscape (edited by Gareth Doherty and Charles Waldheim. Routledge: London and New York

Hunt, J.D. (2004). Historical Ground: The role of history in contemporary landscape architecture. Routledge & CRC Press. (introduction)

Swaffield, S. R. (2006). “Theory and Critique in Landscape Architecture: Making Connections”, Journal of Landscape Architecture, 1(1), 22–29. https://doi.org/10.1080/18626033.2006.9723361

Swaffield, S. R. (2002). Theory in Landscape Architecture: A Reader. Penn Studies in Landscape Architecture. University of Pennsylvania Press (introduction and conclusion + review the chapter titles).

Upton, D. (1991). “Architectural History or Landscape History?”, Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), 44(4), 195–199. https://doi.org/10.2307/1425140

Way, T. (2020). “Why History for Designers?” (Part 1), PLATFORM. Retrieved June 16, 2022, from https://www.platformspace.net/home/why-history-for-designers-part-1+ Part 2

Zewde, S. (2017). Transatlantic Memory: Material and Immaterial Design at the Valongo Wharf, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In Material Culture (edited by Jane Hutton). Berlin: Jovis.

Recommended readings

Angelo, H. (2021). How Green Became Good: Urbanized Nature and Making of Cities and Citizens, Chicago U. Press (Introduction: pp.1-26)

Corner, J. (2000). Recovering Landscape: Essays in Contemporary Landscape Theory. Princeton University Press.

hooks, bell (1991) “Theory as Liberatory Practice”, Yale Journal of Law & Feminism, Vol. 4: Iss. 1, Article 2. Available at: http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/yjlf/vol4/iss1/2

Lipsitz, G. (2007). “The Racialization of Space and the Spatialization of Race Theorizing the Hidden Architecture of Landscape”, Landscape Journal, 26(1), 10–23. https://doi.org/10.3368/lj.26.1.10

Mitchell, D. (2016). “Cultural landscapes: The dialectical landscape – recent landscape research in human geography”, Progress in Human Geography, https://doi.org/10.1191/0309132502ph376pr

Mitchell, W. J. T. (Ed.). (2002). Landscape and Power, Second Edition. University of Chicago Press. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/L/bo3626791.html (introduction)

Taylor, D. E. (2009). The Environment and the People in American Cities, 1600s-1900s: Disorder, Inequality, and Social Change. Duke University Press.

Part 2: Contemporary debates

This section discusses some current theories in landscape architecture that reflect various social and environmental concerns, criticisms, and directions and how they are relevant for the issues of sustainability.

Compulsory readings (Each student should choose 2 of the readings to write reflection)

Brenner, N. (n.d.). “The agency of design in an age of urbanization—dialogue with Daniel Ibañez,” in Neil Brenner, Critique of Urbanization. Basel: Bauwelt Fundamente Series, Birkhäuser Verlag, 2016, 224-236.

Spencer, D. (2017). “Agency and Artifice in the Environment of Neoliberalism”, in E. Wall & T. Waterman (Eds.), Landscape and Agency (1st ed., pp. 177–187). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315647401-14

Hutton, J. (2020). Reciprocal Landscapes: Stories of material movements, Routledge. (Introduction + one additional chapter that will be decided at course start).

Reisinger, K. (2024). Two Mining Areas: Spaces of Care amid Extraction. Architecture and Culture, 0(0), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/20507828.2023.2219115

Yiğit-Turan, B., et.al. (2022). “Landscape architecture criticism in the Anthropocene”, Journal of Landscape Architecture no 3. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/18626033.2022.2195222?needAccess=true&role=button

Recommended readings

Bélanger, P. (2020). “No Design on Stolen Land: Dismantling Design’s Dehumanising White Supremacy”, Architectural Design, 90(1), 120–127. https://doi.org/10.1002/ad.2535

Dang, T. K. (2021). “Decolonizing landscape”, Landscape Research, 46(7), 1004–1016. https://doi.org/10.1080/01426397.2021.1935820

Decolonizing the Green City: From Environmental Privilege to Emancipatory Green Justice. (n.d.). https://doi.org/10.1089/env.2021.0014

Erling Björgvinsson, Nicholas De Genova, Mahmoud Keshavarz & Tintin Wulia (2020). ’Migration’ Retrieved June 20, 2022, from PARSE https://parsejournal.com/Issue 10—Spring 2020 Editorial

Fleming, B. (2021). “Frames and Fictions: Designing a Green New Deal Studio Sequence”, Journal of Architectural Education, 75(2), 192–201. https://doi.org/10.1080/10464883.2021.1947673

Gould, K. A., & Lewis, T. L. (2017). “The Environmental Injustice of Green Gentrification: The Case of Brooklyn Prospect Park”. In A. Gould and Tammy L. Lewis. New York: Routledge,

Hood, W. and Mitchell Tada, G. (2020). Black Landscapes Matter, University of Virginia Press. (several chapters)

Rothenberg, J., & Lang, S. (2017). “Repurposing the High Line: Aesthetic experience and contradiction in West Chelsea”, City, Culture and Society, 9, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccs.2015.10.001

Scott, E. E., & Swenson, K. (Eds.). (2015). Critical Landscapes: Art, Space, Politics (1st ed.). University of California Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctv1xxxgv

Theme 2

Site explorations

In this section, we will discuss a variety of theories and approaches that are utilized in site and place explorations. In addition to this, we will elaborate on different points of view about representation, mapping, and cartography.

Compulsory readings (Each student should choose 2 of the readings to write reflection)

Corner, J. (1999). “The Agency of Mapping: Speculation, Critique and Invention”, in Mappings, edited by Denis Cosgrove. 213-52. London: Reaktion.

Hutton, J. (2017). Material as Method, In Material Culture (edited by Jane Hutton). Berlin: Jovis.

Kahn, A and Burns, C. (2021). Site Matters: Strategies for Uncertainty Through Planning and Design. Routledge (chapters 14, 15, and 16 + Afterwords)

Amoo-Adare, E. (2011). “Engendering Critical Spatial Literacy: Migrant Asante Women and the Politics of Urban Space”, in O. Oyĕwùmí (Ed.), Gender Epistemologies in Africa (pp. 101–118). Palgrave Macmillan US. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230116276_6

Recommended readings

Halder, S. Michel, B. (2018) This is not an atlas: A global collection of counter-cartographies (First edition). (2018). [Map]. Transcript Verlag. Introduction pp. 12-37, https://www.transcript-verlag.de/shopMedia/openaccess/pdf/oa9783839445198.pdf

Theme 3

Place

Part 1: place

The various theories of place will be discussed in this section, along with a critical analysis of the relationship between these theories and the politics of places.

Compulsory readings (Each student should choose 2 of the readings to write reflection)

Hayden, Dolores. (2009). “Urban Landscape History: The Sense of Place and the Politics of Space”, Understanding Ordinary Landscapes, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009, pp. 111-133. https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300185614-010

Tuck, E. and McKenzie, M. (2015). Place in Research: Theory, Methodology and Methods, Routledge (pp.1-48)

Pred, A. 1997. “Somebody Else, Somewhere Else: Racisms, Racialized Spaces and the Popular Geographical Imagination in Sweden”, Antipode 29 (4): 383–416. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8330.00053.

Recommended readings

McKittrick, K. (2006)* Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle *(introduction: Geographic Stories) Minnesota University Press

Lipsitz, G. (2011). How Racism Takes Place. Temple University Press. (sections 1, 2, 5)

http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/slub-ebooks/detail.action?docID=660533

Hayden, D. (1995). The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History. MIT Press.

Pred, A. (2000). Even in Sweden: Racisms, Racialized Spaces, and the Popular Geographical Imagination, University of California Press.

Part 2: Place making/unmaking

The concept of 'place' will be discussed in this section, along with its use in urban planning and design practices, as well as the criticisms directed toward these practices. Additionally, it will provide alternative understandings of place in planning and design that focus on the healing of neglected and oppressed populations rather than on their exploitation.

Compulsory readings (Each student should choose 2 of the readings to write reflection)

Abrams, K. (2017). “Hijinks in Harlem: The Whiteness of ‘Place’”, Avery Review 24 (June 2017), http://averyreview.com/issues/24/hijinks-inharlem.

Davis, Ujijji, “The Bottom: The Emergence and Erasure of Black American Urban Landscapes”, Avery Review 34 (October 2018), https://www. averyreview.com/issues/34/the-bottom.

Anguelovski, I., & Gottlieb, R. (2014). Neighborhood As Refuge: Community Reconstruction, Place Remaking, and Environmental Justice in the City. MIT Press. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/slub-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3339756 (chapter 6)

Yigit Turan, B. (2021). “Superkilen: Coloniality, Citizenship and Border Politics”, In Landscape Citizenships. Tim Waterman, Jane Wolff, and Ed Wall (eds.). New York and London: Routledge.

Recommended readings

Claesson, R. (2017). “Doing and Re-doing Cultural Heritages: Making space for a variety of narratives”, (ed.)., in Meike Schalk, Thérèse Kristiansson, Ramia Mazé (Ed.), Feminist Futures of Spatial Practice: Materialisms, Activisms, Dialogues, Pedagogies, Projections (pp. 43-56). Paper presented at: AADR, Spurbuchverlag

Björgvinsson, E., Keshavarz, M. (2020). “Partitioning Vulnerabilities: On the Paradoxes of Participatory Design in the City of Malmö”, in Dancus, A., Hyvönen, M., Karlsson, M. (eds) Vulnerability in Scandinavian Art and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37382-5_12

Theme 4

***Subjectivity ***

**Part 1: positionality, power and privilege, reflexivity **

This section will explain how subjectivity and positionality relate to investigating sites and places, carrying out design practice, and writing. Both of these notions are typically kept hidden in landscape architecture processes, and this section will expose you to how they work and to think how they should be reflected on.

Compulsory readings (Each student should choose 2 of the readings to write reflection)

Schmidt, S.J. (2017) “Hacked Landscapes: Tensions, Borders, and Positionality in Spatial Literacy”, Journal of Geography, 116:3, 99-108, DOI: 10.1080/00221341.2016.1257046

Parikh, A. (2020). “Insider-outsider as process: Drawing as reflexive feminist methodology during fieldwork”, Cultural Geographies, 27(3), 437–452. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474019887755

Richards, M-L (2019). “Out of Line. Erasure and vulnerability as sites of subversion”, Future Architecture Library, (n.d.). Retrieved March 5, 2021, from https://futurearchitecturelibrary.org/archifutures-articles/volum-6-agency/out-of-line/

Rose, G. (1997). “Situating knowledges: positionality, reflexivities and other tactics”, Progress in Human Geography, 21(3), 305–320. https://doi.org/10.1191/030913297673302122

Warf, B. (2010). “Positionality”, in Encyclopedia of geography (Vol. 1, pp. 2258-2258). SAGE Publications, Inc., https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412939591.n913

Recommended readings

The Unbearable Whiteness of Being: The Racial Production of Architecture and Architects. (n.d.). Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. Retrieved June 23, 2022, from https://www.acsa-arch.org/chapter/the-unbearable-whiteness-of-being-the-racialproduction-of-architecture-and-architects/

Lykke, N. (2016). “Passionate Disidentifications as an Intersectional Writing Strategy”, in Lykke, N. (2016) Writing Academic Texts Differently: Intersectional Feminist Methodologies and the Playful Art of Writing. Routledge

** Part 2: alternative modes of practice, co-production and agency**

This section will introduce various design practices that originate from critiques of the capitalist mode of socio-spatial production and professional practice and will discuss alternative ways of connecting design practices with the social realm.

Compulsory readings

Mitrasinovic, M. (2016). Concurrent Urbanities: Designing Infrastructures of Inclusion. Routledge (chapter 14)

Wall, E. (2017). Post-Landscape Or The Potential of other Relations with the Land. In Landscape and Agency E. Wall & T. Waterman (Eds.). Routledge.

Recommended readings

Akama, Y., Hagen, P., & Whaanga-Schollum, D. (2019). Problematizing Replicable Design to Practice Respectful, Reciprocal, and Relational Co-designing with Indigenous People. Design and Culture, 11(1), 59–84. https://doi.org/10.1080/17547075.2019.1571306

Dobraszczyk, D. (2021). Architecture and Anarchism: Building without Authority. Paul Holberton Publishing

Mitrasinovic, M. and Rendon, G. (editors) (2017) “Cooperative Cities”, Journal of Design Strategies, Vol. 9, Fall 2017. Parsons School of Design, New York. (several articles)

Wall & T. Waterman (Eds.), (2017) Landscape and Agency. Routledge. (Introduction+chapter 14) https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315647401-14

Theme 5

Reflecting on history and archives

This section will discuss the power structures that have an effect on what histories of architectures become visible, which representations of history become accepted by the general public, and what emerging revisions there are to such histories in landscape architecture and the architectural field in general. There will be a particular emphasis on 'archives.'

Compulsory readings (Each student should choose 2 of the readings to write reflection)

Andersson, T. (1994). “To Erase the Garden: Modernity in the Swedish Garden and Landscape, in Marc Treib (editor) Modern Landscape Architecture. MIT press

Fabiola López-Durán. (2018). Eugenics in the Garden Transatlantic Architecture and the Crafting of Modernity,https://utpress.utexas.edu/books/lopez-duran-eugenics-in-the-garden. (introduction and epilogue, dive into any chapter you find interesting)

Lipsitz, G. (2011). How Racism Takes Place. Temple University Press. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/slub-ebooks/detail.action?docID=660533 (sections 3: visible archives, and 4: invisible archives)

Richards, M-L (2017). “Hyper-visible Invisibility: Tracing the Politics, Poetics and Affects of the Unseen”, field: 7(1), 39–52. https://www.field-journal.org/article/id/74/

Schalk, M. (2017). Old News From a Contact Zone: Action Archive in Tensta. In The Social (Re)Production of Architecture. Routledge.

Yigit-Turan, B. (2025) Is Landscape Colonial? In Landscape is …! Essays on the Meaning of Landscape Gareth Doherty and Charles Waldheim (eds.). New York and London: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781003148142-4

The literature seminars

For each seminar, you will hand in a written assignment, see below. For some seminars, you will prepare a presentation and/or opposition of one of the texts. When applicable, you will hand in both/all assignments as one pdf-document (with appropriate headlines: Summary, Presentation, Opposition). You will be informed when, and what text, you will present/oppose.

Thecourse involves compulsory literature seminars on different themes. You are expected to read all the texts for each seminar under “Compulsory reading”. In addition, we provide you recommended literature (“Recommended reading”), where you can find other literature elaborating different aspects addressed in the lectures or seminars further. The texts critically discuss the themes and concepts from different perspectives and give historical and philosophical background to the concepts and themes.

The aim of the seminars is to support you in acquiring a thorough understanding of the different concepts and themes. Written assignments on and oral presentations of the texts (see further information below) together with discussions in groups at the seminars all aim to enable an active, in-depth and critical understanding of texts. We will encourage you to share your insights and inspiration as well as your struggles with understanding the texts or if you are critical to the text in some way or the other. The texts are written in an academic style and the written assignments, oral presentations and the discussions in the group will also help you to learn to “translate” the content of the texts into a language that is more accessible to you.

Oral presentation and opposition

While you are expected to have read and be prepared to discuss all of the compulsory reading for each seminar, each of the compulsory texts will be presented by one student in each seminar, and there will be also an opposing student who underlines different angles regarding a text. The texts will be divided amongst the students: who will present/oppose what text when will be posted on Canvas.

*Presentations *seminar 1 should be about 5 minutes. It is crucial that you stick to the time limit so there will be enough time for discussions following the presentations. Your presentation should not just be a summary of the text. You should also say something about how it relates, or does not relate, to your own professional or academic interests, previous understanding, and the practice of landscape architecture. You should use your presentation to help generate a discussion. Other ways to do this could be to share your struggles with understanding parts of the text or describe if there were, for example points, of departures or conclusions with which you did not agree. The presentation should be supported with (not more than) a handful of slides, to make the structure of the summary and the analysis easier to grasp for the other students. This could be done with for instance PowerPoint or Prezi, by sharing your screen. For seminar 1, post a summary of your presentation, approx. 1 page, on Canvas the day before the seminar.

Opposition should raise forgotten aspects about the text, or an interpretation, or a critique. You could formulate an opposition based on other texts or media, and/or on your own experience. Your opposition should be grounded and well prepared. For seminar 1, it should be about 3 minutes. The opposition (approx. 1 page) is to be posted on Canvas the day before the seminar.

Witten assignment

The written assignments are primarily a pedagogic tool to make you really engage with the readings, and to make you take notes of the texts. These notes will be useful in writing the course essay.

For each literature seminar you are expected to send in a **summary **of the compulsory reading, which outlines the main arguments of the texts and your reflections on a total of 1 page. The assignments should be posted on Canvas the day before the seminar. This will help you get the most of the discussion in the group, enhance your understanding of the texts, which in turn will help you with finding a theme for and writing your final essay. You can use the discussion at the seminar as a source of inspiration for your notes.