The Landscape Approach

Bernard Lassus

216 pages | 10 1/4 x 9 1/2 | 54 color, 103 b/w illus.
Cloth 1998 | ISBN 978-0-8122-3450-3 | $49.95s | £32.50 | Add to shopping cart
A volume in the Penn Studies in Landscape Architecture series

"Lassus seeks something other than the bland schemes we hurry through and past—a more replete landscape, in which our senses, intellect, and imagination are all brought into play."—Andrew Mead, The Architect's Journal

"In his writings, which are poetic and persuasive, Lassus often reminds us that landscape is 'a cultural reading . . . a construction of the mind. . . . Physical qualities may be more or less fixed but not their meaning, from which Lassus makes an important inference: 'To suggest a landscape, it is not therefore always necessary . . . to plant a number of trees or to widen a river.'"—Peter Jacobs

A familiarity with the work of Bernard Lassus, the leading French landscape architect, is essential for anyone seriously interested in contemporary landscape experience and design. Now, with this first collection of his writings to be translated into English, the contributions of Lassus can finally be fully appreciated by a wider audience.

Perhaps best known for the speculative base that sustains his work and thought, Lassus is an artist whose philosophical concerns precede and determine his design work. For him, attention to the interactive nature of the landscape underlies all projects. He approaches each site in pursuit of the particular opportunities and challenges it presents and is ever mindful of the way in which observers will experience the space. He does not allow experience to be relegated to by-product of design. Instead, as one of his close collaborators explained, for Lassus "form is not primary, it is induced from the articulation of intention."

The essays in The Landscape Approach afford readers a look into some of Lassus's most important projects—the Butterfly Bridge at Istres, the highway rest area at Nimes-Caissargues, the Park of Duisburg-Nord, the Garden of Returns for the Corderie Royale at Rochefort, and the Tuileries in Paris—and furnish provocative insight into Lassus's unique bonding of theory and practice. As is the case with his garden designs, Bernard Lassus's volume is a true experience. It is sure to become a classic in the field.

In addition to his extensive work on landscape projects throughout Europe, Bernard Lassus is currently head of postgraduate research in "Gardens, Landscapes, Territories" at both the Paris-La Villette School of Architecture and Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales and is Adjunct Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. He has received numerous awards, including the 1996 National Award for Landscape, presented by the French Ministry of the Environment, and the National Award for Heritage, from the French Ministry of Culture.

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