The Emergence of Landscape Urbanism: A Chronological Criticism Essay

Abstract

Scholars and practitioners have great interest in topics related to spatial patterns and the organization and properties of space. Landscape urbanism is one of these topics of interest. This essay, in the form of chronological criticism, presents a broad historical overview of the rise of landscape urbanism, primarily from a landscape architectural/geographical/ecological perspective, comparing the normative theories derived in the Western traditions embedded in urban design and architecture with the general values of landscape urbanism. In part, the essay employs the metaphors of Euclidean/Cartesian mathematics and fractal geometry to illustrate these differences. At the conclusion of the article, the reader should understand the historical context in which the planning and design community derived the emergence of landscape urbanism.

Keywords

• urban design
• landscape first
• post-postmodernism
• landscape history
• urban ecology
• plant ecology
• context-sensitive design
• landscape theory
• urban geography