Holding to the highest standards of technical craft to create problem-solving landscapes that attain artful expression, Peter Walker and Partners (PWP) is responsible for some of the most beautiful and iconic works of landscape architecture in the world.
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26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
An expression of interest,
This review is from: Peter Walker Partners: Landscape Architecture: Defining the Craft (Hardcover)
Peter Walker and Partners.
Landscape Architecture: Defining the Craft. Thames and Hudson 531 Illustrations and diagrams 431 in colour. 2005 London ISBN-13 978-0-500-34207-7 Based in Berkeley, Peter Walker and Partners (PWP) is, in conventional terms, a fantastically successful practice and this book documents their signature projects since 1997. Although with only three open competition wins to their name, the practice has received an extraordinary 110 industry awards since 1960. Not only that, everyone knows Peter Walker is a champion of quality, a leader who has bridged academic and professional spheres and networked the world to his practice. In Australia, as elsewhere, Walker is greatly admired; indeed, he is called upon to preface our books and help us design things like the Sydney Olympics. That we couldn't do this alone is not his problem. These are the halcyon days of Walker's career. As described in his first monograph "Minimalist Gardens" (1997), Walker somewhat unconvincingly indebts his work to the mid to late 20th century art movement, Minimalism. He also acknowledges the influence of Japanese gardens and (environmental) artists such as the late Isamu Noguchi as well as drawing a line between himself and the 17th century French master, Andre Le Notre but anyone buying this book out of interest in these connections or Walker's intellectual or creative maturation in general will be disappointed. Despite this being implicitly his book, Walker, insofar as one can tell, doesn't contribute a single reflective word. Like a corporate annual report, this book has no identifiable author except the generic entity, PWP. Perhaps, as an established figure, Walker feels he no longer has to speak too much about the work. Maybe he has nothing new to add to his well publicised views. Or perhaps, after years of arguing for landscape architecture to be appreciated as a meaningful art he's changed his mind and concluded that- as this book's title suggests -it is now craft that really matters; and craft, unlike art, speaks for itself. But he (i.e, PWP) couldn't have played into the old squabbles between art and craft unconsciously, and yet such things are not addressed. There is, in fact, only one theme in this book and that is that PWP delivers quality. Accordingly, this book looks and feels like an Expression of Interest, in other words- an ad, albeit one with the imprimatur of Thames and Hudson. Having said that, what text there is, is relatively lighter on spin than we have become accustomed to. There are 37 posh projects collected in this volume and they are categorised into: Recently Completed Projects; Projects in Progress; Site Planning and Urban Design; and Competitions. The projects are prestigious, big and lush, an extraordinary range of work amassed over just a few years. Accompanying each project is a straightforward (if not reductive) explanation of the brief and PWP's subsequent design strategy. This is where the consumer of this book, if he or she unpacks each design, stands to learn something of value because, irrespective of whether you like or dislike their styling, PWP projects are exemplary in terms of accurately responding to a project's priority needs. Typical to the corporate monograph there is a perfunctory essay up front by Jane Brown Gillette. Rather than engaging with Walker's oeuvre or matters aesthetic, her essay is essentially a cursory description of the mechanics of the practice. She toasts PWP's loyal workers (apparently the best students from the best universities) and lauds its diplomatic project managers. Her essay reads not as if written for the international landscape community that PWP has so effectively used as it's global conduit, rather, the essay seems directed at prospective clients. She forewarns but also allures them to the culture of excellence that is PWP and makes that excellence seem user friendly. Apart from a brief notation of the firm's position in North American landscape architecture and the occasional but typical landscape architectural inanity such as telling us that PWP can make "nature visible and meaningful" there is nothing critical, analytical, theoretical, insightful or even polemical in this book. In this regard, academics or anyone interested in the intellectual "craft" of landscape architecture will have no use for this book. In Gillette's essay there are references to, and quotes referring to "ideas" in the designs, but for mine they are not actually ideas; they are solutions. More often than not these solutions rely on a somewhat formulaic geometric elegance which creates structure, followed by superimpositions of pattern to form surface. To be "ideas" they need to have meaning, not just efficacy, and meaning is a question this book ignores. For Walker, minimalism has been a way around the problem of representation, but, at some level, there is no way around representation, no way around meaning. Since the text in this book is so lazy, the images of the PWP craft have to do most of the talking. Hence, the book is literally stuffed full of super gloss photos, 531 to be exact. But many are cliché's, relatively vacuous images of greener-than-green trees, sparkling water, and an awful lot of nice people generally looking content in PWP's sanitised, high-resolution Arcadia. Although they have reason to be, PWP doesn't come across as smug. As Gillette says, if there is one word that describes the practice its "earnest". Be that as it may, one also gets the feeling that despite having a studio full of the best people the office culture of PWP might lack internal critique. Of course, it is an exceptional achievement to have created a global practice and maintained such high standards; but, the book, in failing to offer anything but promotional material, feels disingenuous. Apart from an excess of photos the book doesn't really explore or zoom in on the details of construction and project management that PWP are so good at. In other words it doesn't deliver what it promised - a `definition of the craft". So, whilst it will no doubt bring in more work, it wont go down well in history and therefore I think we can expect a third monograph on Mr Peter Walker et al.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing quality,
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This review is from: Peter Walker Partners: Landscape Architecture: Defining the Craft (Hardcover)
amazing graphics along with pictures of the designs. if you like peter walker, you'll love this book.
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