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This content downloaded from 212.36.206.6 on Thu, 11 Feb 2016 13:32:22 UTC
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Anotheraspectof our Contemporarycity landscape that resemblesthe Baroque is a fresh emphasis on the spectacular,the representational.
The impactof advertisingis by no meansconfined
to the printedword;it not only lines our highways
with billboards,it lines our streetswith elaborate
commercial or promotional architectureinstitutionalizingcommercialfirmsand humanizingpublic institutions.
Finally, there is a growing revival of mass
pageantry-world's fairs, monster rallies and
sporting events. I question the possibilityof reviving the Baroque street scene in the USA because the public is no longerthe same. For better
or for worse, the averageEuropeanor American
has become largelyindependentof the street.The
notionthat we can lead any significantpart of our
lives in public is an agreeableone but unrealistic.
This is not to say that public gatheringplaces are
not needed, but they must be adaptedto our less
extrovertsociety.
The solutionas I see it is not a seriesof pedestrian malls or more parks or sidewalk cafes or
shoppingcenters or any neo-Baroquerevivalbut
a totally new kind of public gatheringplace. We
are not a homogeneousgroup;we do not derive
pleasurefrom people as such, but ratherwe tend
instinctivelyto formgroupsof compatiblepersons.
I strongly suspect that the new kind of public
gatheringplace will be highlyspecialized,enclosed,
well-defined areas, excluding by some kind of
psychologicalbarrierthe enormousheterogeneous
public.
Thereare two aspectsof our Romantictradition
THE ECOLOGY
OF THE CITY
I
by lan Mc Harg
Chairman, Dept. of Landscape Architecture, University of Penn.
101
Cities are probably the most inhumane environmentsever madeby man for man. It is taking
the best efforts of modem medicine and social
legislation to ameliorate the abuses which the
physical environmentimposes upon us.
With all the improvementswhichhave occurred
duringthe last centuryin the social environment,
the physical environmenthas not proportionally
improvedbut has absolutelyretrogressed.We plan
with a surfeitof economicand social determinism
and not enough other criteria. I would not
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102
There is one largerprocess which is less complete than the examinationof the dunes; i e, the
examination of a region. Confronted with the
necessity of land-use planningfor the Delaware
River Basin, our study group selected the cycle
of wateras a device for examination.Besides the
cycle of evaporationand precipitation,one can
specify places where horizontalmovementof the
water occurs. The intrinsicfunctions of the forested uplandsponge,the agriculturepiedmont,the
estuarymarsh,the undergroundaquafer,the aquafer rechargearea,the rivers,the streams,the flood
plains and the riparianland can be identified,
their areas can be demarked.Each is expressive
of its particularrole or process. One could immediately conclude something about the degree
of permissivenessor nonpermissivenessof these
particularfunctions,relativeto otherfunctions.
If you take an area like the Delaware River
Basin and locate all of these areas, suddenlyyou
findthatyou havecoveredsomethingin the nature
of fifty or sixty per cent of the whole region and
you also find that you have producedsomething
like a negative development map. Before you
locate new towns and developmentsanywhereyou
like on the basis of some economic determinism,
let's add this parameterto your planning!Look
and see what intrinsicfunctionsactuallyoccur in
this supposedlyundifferentiatedgreen space and
see the degree to which these intrinsicfunctions
can co-existwith the developmentwhichyou propose.
I have a sense that if the best commonknowledge of biology,ecology and oceanography,which
has permeated landscape architects like myself,
This content downloaded from 212.36.206.6 on Thu, 11 Feb 2016 13:32:22 UTC
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103