Landscape Architecture Now!

What exactly is landscape architecture? I asked myself when spending time looking at the exquisite pictures in this tome. It is, the publisher informs me, "one of the hottest areas of contemporary design" and its objects are "the green areas around houses, stadiums, or corporate headquarters." Wikipedia calls it "the design of outdoor public areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioral, or aesthetic outcomes."  This means that landscape architecture includes urban design, site planning, town planning, parks and recreation planning ... in short, pretty much anything that surrounds us and can be an object of design, planning and management.

Maya Lin: Eleven Minute Line, Wanäs, Sweden

"For the purpose of this book," writes Philip Jodidio, "landscape architecture is defined not only as the formation of gardens but also of buildings that have an intimate relation to nature, that in some sense spring from the earth and give meaning to space and materials." I'm not really sure in what sense gardens and buildings can "spring from the earth and give meaning to space and materials," but the examples found in this work are more than just extraordinary, they also make one admire the creativity and skills of their creators.
The list of contributors is impressive and includes (my selection is rather arbitrary) Zaha Hadid (Eleftheria Square Redesign, Nicosia, Cyprus), Steven Holl (Vanke Center / Horizontal Skyscraper, Shenzhen, China), and Yoshiaki Nakamura (Miho Museum Gardens, Shigaraki, Shiga, Japan).

John Pawson: Sackler Crossing, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London

For somebody like me, who isn't familiar with landscape architecture, this book offers discoveries abound. One of my favourites is the work of the Officina del Paesaggio, run by Sophie Agata Ambroise, and especially her Community Gardens in Chiasso, Switzerland - a space, as she points out, not only for cultivation but also a place to meet and relax. I'm sure, one of my next trips will be to Chiasso ...

Philip Jodidio 

Landscape Architecture Now! 

(English, German, French) 

Taschen, Cologne 2012

Tomas van Houtryve

Copyright @ Tomas van Houtryve

Der allererste Eindruck beim Durchblättern: ganz wunderbar, diese Farben. Der Eindruck bleibt auch nach mehrmaligem Verweilen bei den einzelnen Aufnahmen bestehen - es sind vor allem die Farben (und nicht etwa die Motive), die mich in diesem Werk überzeugen, an denen sich meine Gefühle orientieren, die mir im Gedächtnis bleiben.

Tomas van Houtryves "Geschlossene Gesellschaften" zeigt als erstes Bild einen Mann, der durch einen Vorhang in einen Saal hinein blickt. Man merkt die Absicht - ein Blick hinter die Kulissen - und ist etwas verstimmt ob dem allzu Offensichtlichen. Dem Bild ist übrigens keine Legende beigegeben, diese findet sich auf Seite 58 und lautet: Ho-Chi-Minh-Museum, Hanoi, Vietnam 2009.

Die Unsitte, Fotos, die soziale Gegebenheiten dokumentieren sollen, ohne Bildlegenden zu präsentieren, ist leider weit verbreitet. "Geschlossene Gesellschaften" macht dabei keine Ausnahme, hier finden sich die sehr klein geschriebenen Legenden jeweils zusammengenommen auf der letzten Seite des porträtierten Landes (Nepal, Nordkorea, Kuba, Moldawien, Laos, Vietnam).

Copyright @ Tomas van Houtryve

Wie gesagt, es sind die Farben, die diesen Band für mich speziell machen. Van Houtryve bringt es fertig, das farbenprächtige (ich war oft dort, ich weiss, wovon ich rede) Kuba düster und trostlos wirken zu lassen. Doch der kubanische Alltag ist beileibe nicht so trist, wie uns diese Aufnahmen glauben machen wollen. Die Vermutung, van Houtryve habe die Bilder in seinem Kopf fotografiert, drängt sich auf. Andrerseits: tut das nicht jeder Fotograf? Sicher, doch nicht immer so einseitig.

"Geschlossene Gesellschaften" enthält nicht nur Fotografien, sondern auch gute und informative Texte (die jedoch keinen direkten Bezug zu den Bildern haben); zudem eine gelungene Einführung von Tzvetan Todorov, der fragt: "Warum lässt die Vision von Gerechtigkeit und Gleichheit, für die jedermann spontan empfänglich ist, sich nicht auf dem Wege freiwilliger Zustimmung umsetzen?" Seine Antwort: "Weil der Entwurf eine ganze Reihe von menschlichen Eigenschaften nicht berücksichtigt, nämlich den Wunsch nach Macht und Reichtum, nach Ehrungen und Auszeichnungen, nach Glaubens- und anderen Freiheiten, nach Verweigerung und Ausbruch."

PS: Wenn man denn schon meint, in einem deutschen Text fremdsprachige Ausdrücke verwenden zu müssen, sollte man diese auch richtig zitieren: die Kubanerinnen, die ihren Körper an Touristen verkaufen, heissen nicht jinateras, sondern jineteras.

Tomas van Houtryve

Geschlossene Gesellschaften

Eine fotografische Reise durch kommunistische Länder

Vorwort von Tzvetan Todorov

Benteli Verlags AG, Bern 2012

In La Chaux-de-Fonds

Recently, I went to see again the city of La Chaux-de-Fonds. It was my third visit, I wanted to check whether some of my mental pictures of the place were accurate. They were, well, more or less - I remembered a glass cupola of the Migros, for instance, discovered however that it wasn't really a cupola, and not exactly of the Migros but the very special glass-roof of a shopping center with lots of different stores.

I do not know another Swiss town in which streets run at right angles to each other - and that surely is part of what I like about La Chaux-de-Fonds. And, although I'm perfectly aware that I'm in Switzerland, I do not really have the feeling that I am.

Near the train station, I came across a building on which was written "Stadtmission" and in the city centre there was a market where I saw fruit and vegetables and smelled fish. I also spent some time in a park but apart from that I was simply walking up and down some streets, concentrated on my body, let my eyes wander and enjoyed the sunny day.

Back home again, I began to wonder where I had actually been. Wikipedia informed me that La Chaux-de-Fonds is located at an altitude of 1000 m, a few kilometres south of the French border and the third largest city of the French-speaking part of the country, with a population of (as of December 2010) of 37,523.

"The city was founded in 1656. Its growth and prosperity is mainly bound up with the watch making industry. It is the most important centre of the watch making industry in the area known as the Watch Valley. Completely destroyed by a fire in 1794 La Chaux-de-Fonds was rebuilt following a grid street plan, which was and is still original among Swiss cities."

Tadao Ando

Tadao Ando, I learn from the book jacket, is the only architect to have won the discipline's four most prestigious prizes: the Pritzker, Carlsberg, Premium Imperiale, and Kyoto Prize. He has designed award-winning private homes, churches, museums, apartment complexes, and cultural spaces throughout Japan, and in France, Italy, Spain, and the USA. This book brings together his complete works to date.

Lee Ufam Museum, Naoshima, Kagawa © Shigeo Ogawa 

Among the private homes that Ando built is the studio and private residence of the Fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld in Biarritz. It is divided into a private residence, and a guest area and atelier; a pond is set between the two elements. What we get to see, however, is not the real building but the design. "The Invisible House" is another private residence by Ando, it is located in Treviso, Northern Italy. Ando explains: "The only request presented by the client was the total protection of privacy, from adjacent streets as well as from the perimeter of the site. I have explored the image of a house connected to mother earth and responding to the surrounding environment, in keeping at maximum with his modest wish, and have come up with the idea of an 'invisble house' half buried underground." Fortunately, this time we get to see not only the (from the outside) visible part of the house but also photos of the interior.

Serenity Coast Art Museum and Performing Arts Center

I have virtually no knowledge of architecture and thought it rather peculiar to be told (from the introduction by Philip Jodidio, a former Editor-in-Chief of the French art journal 'Connaissance des Arts') that Ando, who was born in Osaka in 1941, "was self-educated as an architect, largely through travels in the United States, Europe, and Africa (1962-1969)." I still do not know how exactly he did do that and, unfortunately, the book doesn't really give an answer. Anyway, his works are unique and truly stunning, and the fact that he was self-taught might have quite a bit to do with that.

In what way do I consider Ando's buildings unique and stunning? It has to do with his handling of space that I find very Japanese – cleverly organised, that is. Words that come to mind: pure, simple, unadorned, geometric but varied.

Moreover, Ando is a true master when it comes to combining the old and new. The renovation of the Punta della Dogana in Venice illustrates this perfectly: his subtle intervention (an example: brick walls that contrast perfectly with an elegant steel-and-glass stairway) makes one sense a very modern atmosphere in this old (a 15th-century old structure renovated in the second half of the 17th century) building.

PS: As interesting and fascinating as the designs are, the photographs of the finished constructions are simply fabulous and merit alone the acquisition of this beautifully done tome.

Philip Jodidio

ANDO

Complete Works 1975-2012

Taschen, Cologne 2012

World Press Photo 2012

Cover Photo by Samuel Aranda

Dieser schön gestaltete Band überzeugt (abgesehen von der Gliederung) in jeder Hinsicht und führt exemplarisch vor, was gute Pressefotografie leisten kann: Aufklärung.

Die erste Rubrik trägt den Titel "Menschen in den Schlagzeilen" und beginnt mit einer Fotoserie über Fukushima. Ein Erdbeben der Stärke 9.0, 70 km vor der Nordostküste Japans, löste am 11. März 2011 einen Tsunami aus, der riesige Überschwemmungen und Zerstörungen zur Folge hatte und über 340'000 Menschen obdachlos machte. Die eindrückliche Serie von Yasuyoshi Chiba beginnt mit der Aufnahme eines zerschellten Zuges, der über einem Friedhof hängt.

Die zweite Rubrik, "Reportagen", beginnt ebenfalls mit einem Bild (des schwedischen Fotografen Lars Lindquist) über den Tsunami im Nordosten Japans und zeigt eine völlig surreale Szene mit gestrandeten Schiffen im Hafen von Ishinomaki.

Copyright @ Adam Pretty, Getty Images

Dann folgt die etwas eigenartige Kategorie "Harte Fakten", die wiederum mit Aufnahmen des japanischen Tsunami eingeleitet wird. Als weitere Kategorien figurieren dann "Aktuelle Themen", "Alltagsleben", "Porträts", Kunst und Kultur", "Natur" und "Sport". Ich fand diese Einteilungen einigermassen willkürlich und gelegentlich schwer nachvollziehbar, doch einfach ist es ja wirklich nicht aus 101'254 Einsendungen diversester Art 161 Bilder für ein Jahrbuch auszuwählen und dafür auch noch geeignete Kategorien zu finden. Trotzdem: Sinnvoller wäre gewesen, die Gliederung den Ereignissen anzupasssen (also ein Kapitel über den Tsunami, ein anderes über den arabischen Frühling), anstatt nach recht bedeutungsleeren Themen ("Aktuelle Themen", Alltagsleben" etc.) zu ordnen, nicht zuletzt, weil man dadurch die sonst unvermeidlichen Wiederholungen (bei jeder Tsunami-Bildserie wird der Tsunami erklärt) hätte vermeiden können.

Copyright @ Vincent Boisot, Riva Press

Im Gegensatz zu einer illustrierten Geschichte des Jahres 2012 (wo die Bilder den Text ergänzen), stehen bei diesem Band die (durch informative Texte ergänzten) Bilder im Vordergrund. Da wir uns, wenn wir uns erinnern, sowieso eher an Bilder als an Worte erinnern, ist dieser kommentierte Bildband so recht eigentlich allerbeste Geschichtsschreibung. Man wünschte sich mehr solch eindrückliche und hilfreiche Werke!

PS: Der Titel der Publikation (World Press Photo 12) ist irreführend, da die hier versammelten Bilder alle aus dem Jahre 2011 stammen.

World Press Photo 12
Benteli Verlag, Sulgen 2012

BOGOTÁ D.C.

Guadalupe Ruiz' Bogotá is a nicely done book, in a rather unusual format (235 x 160 mm), edited by Joerg Bader, and with a text in English, French, Spanish, and German, from which I learn: "Guadalupe Ruiz Cifuentes travels between two worlds: South America, where she was born, and Europe, where she lives; or, to be more precise, Colombia, where her family - whom she sees regularly - is based, and Switzerland, the country that gave her her artistic training and her first exhibitons. Thus she also travels between two cultures: the Latin world of the Americas, marked by the Baroque and Catholicism, and the European world of austere Nordic culture, marked by Calvinist Protestantism."

Well, I must admit that I find it a bit peculiar to describe Switzerland as an "austere Nordic culture, marked by Calvinist Protestantism", just think of the Ticino or of Obwalden, but maybe the author was referring to Geneva ... the book was done in cooperation with Éditions de la Photographie Genève.

.

 How do you visually document social and economic inequalities of a city?
Guadalupe Ruiz opted for a rather unique approach: she decided to photograph the houses, apartments, streetscapes, interiors, and furniture of residents from Bogotá's six different taxation classes. Does it work? Do you really come away with a pretty good idea/picture of the social and economic inequalities that govern Bogotá? I'm not sure. First of all: Had I not been told, I wouldn't have known that these pictures were taken in Colombia, they could have been taken almost anywhere in Latin America. Secondly, I wonder what showing, for example, different kinds of beds in different houses can possibly tell me of a city except, of course, that some people can afford nicer beds than others.

Nevertheless, I've enjoyed spending time with these photographs because I find it interesting to see in what surroundings people live. It felt a bit like peeping through a keyhole.

Editor Joerg Bader aptly observes that "an unashamed fondness for kitsch" is shared by all social classes, and that not one of the homes photographed lacks a television set. Unfortunately, he then proceeds by stating: "While the photographs of TV sets do not occupy the central column in Guadalupe Ruiz' hanging, television does in fact function as a vertebral column in the lives of all these residents" and goes on to elaborate on the importance of the telenovelas in South America. True as this may be, it has absolutely nothing to do with the photographs in this book.

It is on purpose that I do not tell you from what taxation class the above pictures are. Have a guess! Should you then want to know whether you've guessed correctly, check out the book - it is worth it.

Guadalupe Ruiz

BOGOTÁ D.C.

Scheidegger & Spiess, Zurich 2012

Audrey Hepburn

Copyright @ Taschen

Audrey Hepburn (1929 – 1993) was a Belgian-born British actress and humanitarian.

In 1953, Bob Willoughby had been sent to photograph her at Paramount in Hollywood. Hepburn had just completed the filming of Roman Holiday and publicity photographs were needed. „I really didn't know what quite to make of Audrey when I first saw her. She certainly was not the typical image of a young starlet ... that radiant smile hit me right between the eyes, warming me inside like a shot of whisky.“

"I decided, very early on, just to accept life unconditionally", she once said. And that is, I believe, what her pictures show.

Copyright @ Taschen

What do I associate with her? Most of all her 'Bubikopf' (pixie cut) and the fact that she was often wearing drainpipe trousers. The movies? The Nun's Story, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and My Fair Lady come to mind.

Looking at pictures of her always means to be filled up with positive feelings for what she seemed to personify was joyfulness, curiosity, and self-assuredness. She comes across so naturally that I often wondered whether she was actually posing - and of course she was.

It is useful to keep in mind that a photo is a photo is a photo: a two-dimensional reduction of a three-dimensional physical reality that neither smells nor sounds and that has always been only as real as a picture on a page can be. At the same time however — and that is what makes them so intriguing and special — photos radiate something magical. As Maureen Dowd penned in the New York Times: "... in Hollywood, couples who have chemistry on screen often don't like each other off screen, and ones who are involved off screen often don't have any chemistry on screen."

Copyright @ Taschen

There are photographs of private moments and from movie sets to be found in this tome. Bob Willoughby writes: "While many of these photographs of Audrey are well known, they have never before been seen together as a complete collection."

It is an impressive collection of beautiful photographs of a beautiful woman. They emanate, it so seems, who and what she is. In the words of Hubert de Givenchy: "She was an enchantress, inspiring love and beauty. And fairies never quite disappear altogether."

Bob Willoughby

Audrey Hepburn

Photographs 1953-1966

Taschen, Cologne 2012