An exploration into the use of Goethean science as a methodology for landscape assessment: the Pishwanton Project

Abstract

Landscape comes about through the stream of a complex interplay of past and future events, some natural, some less so. Whatever is done or happens in the landscape (industrial or agricultural, architectural or natural) consciously or unconsciously seems to take on the character of that place leaving the landscape with, or adding to it, something of its essential being. This active expression in landscape was known in the past as the ‘Genius Loci’ (‘spirit of the place’). In our modern age of multiple systems analysis it is just this factor which appears so elusive to our experience and description of ‘value’ in landscape assessment. A sequence of landscape studies (based on the Goethean scientific method) over the last few years has led to the development of a technique of landscape assessment which combines the more usual analytical approach with an acknowledgement of the Genius Loci. This paper explores the journey into the study and appreciation of landscape as a possible method for use in landscape assessment within diverse environmental situations.