Copy and paste landscapes

Abstract

‘Copy and paste’, or copy-paste, is a term that’s so familiar these days that we tend to hardly think about it. The action of copypaste may be judged sarcastically or derogatorily, but it is seldom critically questioned, whether it is employed in designs themselves or in the texts and images that are used for representation. What do we find if we scrutinize our own profession through the prism of copy-paste, in particular in imaging/visualizations? In an era in which images and ideas are reproduced at great speed and circulate endlessly, what are the effects of visual hyper-circulation? Does it broaden the profession’s spectrum by making available an immense wealth of inspiration sources, or does it induce approaches disconnected from site thinking? To take an iconic example, imitations of New York’s High Line seems to have sprung up all over the world, in copies that are sometimes hard to differentiate from their famous model. This copy-paste mentality is strengthened by the amnesia that reigns among the design ranks. Projects and designs are predominantly presented in historical isolation, in particular when they are popular. That the concept of transforming an urban railroad into a recreational area or route is not new in itself is often overlooked.1 Besides the qualities of the design of the New York project, the fact that it is regarded as ‘original’ may have contributed to its star status. Rather than its concept, its structures, shapes, objects and materials are copied from images, and in doing so, its reputation. With each copy, a little bit of ‘High Line character’ is reflected in other designs. Are these designs still meaningful within their concrete, immediate surroundings, the substrate of the place, or do they tend to become shapes devoid of meaning? What kind of effects do the created meanings conceive? These questions are not new. Models have circulated over the centuries, crossing borders and cultures, being absorbed, transported by travellers and books, transformed and constantly reinterpreted. How does a project become a model? How does systematization in planning work? How do systems and models influence the way we view and envision our projects? The historian Françoise Choay has already studied these questions in relation to urbanism and architecture.2 Phenomena such as absorption, reinvention, and transculturation have influenced garden art and landscape architecture for centuries. Taking a look at nineteenth-century pattern books is particularly enlightening—one can trace genealogies of forms circulating throughout Europe and beyond. Famous British books like the ones by William Chambers were—at least partly—published in French and later disseminated in many countries; the French treatise of Édouard André travelled as far as Japan. The diffusion of shapes and ideas is thus clearly nothing new.