Stewardship Now?: Reflections on Landscape Architecture's Raison d'etre in the 21st Century

Abstract

Written on the occasion of the centenary of landscape architectural education at the University of Pennsylvania (1914–2014), this paper is a wide-ranging reflection upon landscape architecture’s highest ambition: to serve as the agent of large-scale landscape stewardship leading to an ideal state of sustainability. Stewardship, as conceived by Ian McHarg, is critically examined, with discussion of how nature and ecology are constructed in McHarg’s worldview and how this legacy continues to inform landscape architectural discourse. Reactions to and extensions of McHarg’s planning methodology are summarized with particular emphasis on the lineage of thought emerging in large part, but not entirely, from the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Landscape architecture (UPenn). As it emerged out of the rift between planning and design that opened up in late 20th century landscape architecture, landscape urbanism is discussed and situated within the deeper and broader concept of stewardship, as is the emerging interdisciplinary field of Geodesign. The theory of stewardship is then related to the current global crisis of biodiversity depletion and the research directions in this regard being undertaken at UPenn’s landscape department are outlined.