The architecture of landscape

In 1994 Clemens Steenbergen took over as professor from Frans

Maas. Intent on bringing the formal-spatial and artistic dimensions
of the discipline to the fore, he renamed the chair Landscape Archi-
tecture. In his acceptance speech, Symfonie van water, land en lucht
[Symphony of water, land and sky], Steenbergen built on the work of
his predecessors, but hinted at three major new themes: the conquest
of the natural landscape by means of architecture, the technique of
the cultural landscape, and the urban landscape as interplay between
topos and cosmos.10
Together with associate professor Wouter Reh, Steenbergen built
the group into a sizeable team of research and teaching staff. The
group published several books on the fundamentals of the profession
along three research trajectories termed ‘architecture and landscape’,
‘metropolitan landscapes’ and ‘Dutch polder landscapes’.11 These
themes would later lay the basis for the thematic foci of the first year
programme of the Master track.
The first theme continues Maas’s fascination for estate landscapes,
based on the conviction that understanding their compositional logic
was the key to the principles, tools and techniques of landscape ar-
chitecture. This conviction held that the core business of a landscape
architect is the creation of spatial compositions, regardless of shifts
in context and problematique, and that gardens are the laboratory of
the discipline. Two decades of typological research on the classical
gardens led to the development of the formal layer analysis method,
providing a toolbox for designers to understand, and design with,
landscape architectural compositions. Using the theoretical model of
architectural composition developed by Paul Frankl (1914)12 as the
starting point, the concept of landscape was elevated from its status
as a surface upon which to project architecture to the object of archi-
tecture itself. The method breaks down the formal characteristic of
a landscape composition into four layers: the rationalized and acti-
vated topography (basic form); the architectural elaboration of three-
dimensional landscape space (spatial form); the metaphorical images
referring to the natural, cultural and urban landscape (image form);
and the use and experience of the landscape (programme form).
The second research theme, ‘metropolitan landscapes’, explored
10 the formalization and development of an integrated approach to land-
Clemens Steenbergen, Sym- scape and city. It elaborates the evolution of cities from a landscape
fonie van water, land en lucht
(1994). architectural perspective, following the transition from the city as a
11 more or less contained artefact in an open landscape to an open and
Clemens Steenbergen and dynamic metropolitan landscape as a carpet of urban and landscape
Wouter Reh, Architecture and
Landscape: The Design Experi- fragments.
ment of the Great European Gar- The notion of the physical landscape as the most important depar-
dens and Landscapes (Berlin: ture point for design, together with the search for the modern charac-
Birkhauser, 1996); Clemens
Steenbergen and Wouter ter of the Dutch landscape (as opposed to the still prevailing romantic
Reh, Metropolitan landscape and nostalgic images that cling to the notion of landscape), came
architecture: Urban parks and together in the third research theme of the Dutch polder landscapes.
Landscapes (Bussum: THOTH
publishers, 2011); Wouter Here the ‘grammar’ of reclaimed wetlands (polders) was introduced,
Reh, Clemens Steenbergen interpreting the efficiency of polder building as a designerly way of
and Diederik Aten, Zee van thinking.
Land: De droogmakerij als atlas
van de Hollandse landschap- The Faculty of Architecture was reorganized yet again in the
sarchitectuur (Wormer: Sticht- 1990s, with a management layer of departments added between Fac-
ing Uitgeverij Noord-Holland, ulty and the various chairs. Landscape Architecture was incorporated
2005).
12 as a chair in the newly formed Department of Urbanism, with conse-
Paul Frankl, Die Entwicklung- quences not only for management but also for education and content.
sphasen der neueren Baukunst Like the theory and history chairs, the Chair of Landscape Architec-
(Leipzig, Berlin: B.G. Teubner,
1914). ture had spread its teaching role across both architecture and urban-

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