The landscape architecture profession, young as it seems, is backed up by a long line of planners, practitioners, and academics, connected in chambers, networks and local contexts. However, landscape architecture still sees a problem with the profession’s visibility. This is contrary to Susan and Geoffrey Jelicoe’s prediction in 1975 that:

“the world is moving into a phase when landscape design may well be recognised as the most comprehensive of the arts”,

landscape architecture finds itself in the gap between “the discipline’s own perception of its potential for addressing many of today’s societal challenges and the actual way in which landscape architecture is viewed by society in general”.

We are speaking with Elke Mertens from Neubrandenburg University of Applied Sciences (DE) and Richard Stiles from TU Vienna (AT) about the strategy needed to take, and address the ‘hidden infrastructures’ that need to be invigorated in order to put landscape architecture at the heart of society’s discourse by leaving the safe-zone bubble.

Where does the LA Visibility initiative come from? Who is working in the background, what institutions and associations are involved, and who are the individuals participating in this endeavour to put the landscape architecture profession at the forefront?

This is still a small initiative trying to grow larger. It can be traced back to discussions the editorial team of the Teaching Landscape books had. We wish to point out ‘invisible infrastructure’, namely the way in which professions are embedded in their societal context. This eventually led to a joint paper. While there is no-one working in the background, almost everyone who we have talked to agrees that there is a real problem with profession visibility, especially at a time of the climate and biodiversity crises.

When you say taking the LA profession on the Moon, you mean focusing attention on it vertically — from the power and influence zone, politics, wider society, the immediate local surroundings, and academia, working in different sectors. What are the steps to connecting all these dots?

The reference to ‘the Moon’ is not to be taken literally. It echoes the ambitious ‘Moonshot’ project started by US President Kennedy at the beginning of the 1960s – to put Americans on the moon. He said: “we do this not because it is easy but because it is hard” – which is what addressing the visibility issue will be! The use of the term is in the sense the book: Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism by Mariana Mazzucato. The key characteristics of ‘moonshot’ projects are that they are large in scale, they are about vision and ambition, and there is no clear and pre-defined way to reach the goal – this has to be worked out en route. Successfully achieving the outcome is more important than, for example, worrying about the details of how exactly one is going to get there or how much it may cost, ‘it’s about getting the job done’.

This challenge cannot be met by a couple of people or even a small group – it needs to support and efforts of the profession as a whole. It needs to be broadly based and include all countries in Europe. We are waiting for concrete commitments from ECLAS and IFLA Europe. But, it is not a matter for us to tell people what they need to do in detail, as the needs and situation will vary from country to country, so many local initiatives are called for. However, we feel it would be beneficial to start with a broad debate involving as many people as possible about the nature of the profession, in order to try and find a common approach.

One of the profession’s problems is an unregulated work system and unequal development in national countries and continents. In addition, due to linguistic differences and roles, there is an endless debate within the profession about what landscape architecture is. It seems that the profession needs to leave its safe-zone bubble to assert itself.

Regulation of the profession is a sub-issue in its own right, but a very important one. We need to start with those countries where the profession is best developed and well-recognised and use their experience to help improve the situation in other countries. This is also tied up with the issue of the EU Professional Qualifications Directive and the efforts to have a Common Training Framework adopted by the Commission. This would result in the automatic recognition of professional qualifications across the EU. Before we can achieve this, we need to find an agreed vision of what the profession is and does.  When we have achieved this for landscape architecture, we can start pushing out of our ‘comfort zone’.

When you say ‘put landscape architecture at the heart of society’, what would that be in concrete practice?

The result to achieve is not to have to explain to everyone you meet what a landscape architect is, and to have our participation in projects of all kinds requested by politicians and developers, not to mention to have more top school leavers wishing to study to become landscape architects.

How can people join and support the LA Taskforce?

Anyone can join the group, can visit this group: https://groups.google.com/g/lavisibility10
We are planning to have a website with the Le:Notre Institute, and also become present in social media. The taskforce needs volunteers to support this as well as an active discussion in the group. But this should not be about passively joining a mailing list, but about contributing ideas and becoming an active part of the ‘task force’.

Visibility Taskforce Manifesto

Putting Landscape Architecture on the Moon

A project for the coming decade?

To paraphrase the words of the Council of Europe Landscape Convention: “Landscape is the environment as perceived by people“, and landscape architecture is the profession whose sole focus is the planning, design and management of the cultural landscape for the benefit of current and future generations. Never before has society needed landscape architecture more!

While the discipline has a long and illustrious history in the design of parks, gardens and open spaces, over recent decades it has expanded its focus to encompass the wider environmental and cultural issues associated with many of today’s pressing societal challenges. 

The increasingly acute nature of these challenges, many of which are addressed by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and which manifest themselves in the landscape, mean that society’s potential to benefit from landscape architecture has never been greater. However, the profession must face up to what is a very worrying dilemma: despite the potential that landscape architecture has to offer society, there appears to be a deep-seated lack of awareness on the part of the public, the media and politicians, in some cases even of the very existence of the profession, let alone the contributions it can make.

The challenges facing the landscape architecture profession manifest themselves in a number of ways, including student recruitment problems and the availability of suitable jobs for graduates due to the shortage of adequate public and private sector employment opportunities. Furthermore, while there is ample public awareness and media coverage of the impacts of the sort of societal challenges referred to above, little or no reference is made to landscape architecture and what it can contribute, and as a consequence, much of this coverage is naive and ill-informed.

To address this situation we believe that there is a need for urgent action by the profession as a whole in order to increase its visibility and the public awareness of its role, and of the potential contributions it can make. Otherwise, there is a real danger of landscape architecture drifting into effective irrelevance. At best, it will remain a small, but largely insignificant, niche activity, punching far below its weight. 

So, it is because we fervently believe in the potential of landscape architecture to make an important difference, that we are proposing this initiative to establish a ‘visibility taskforce’ to complement and support the work of both IFLA and ECLAS. We are therefore looking for colleagues who share both our concern and our commitment to the discipline, to help shape a campaign to put landscape architecture back into the key societal role in which it belongs. Only in this way can the profession achieve its full potential in addressing today’s pressing challenges.

We are, however, keenly aware that this will be no easy task, nor is it something that can be achieved ‘overnight’. Instead, it will call for a long-term and carefully conceived strategy to raise the status and visibility of landscape architecture in a way that is deeply rooted within society as a whole and therefore sustainable. It will be a marathon and not a sprint. Luckily, there are important precedents for such projects. When John F. Kennedy spoke of his vision for the Apollo moonshot project in 1962, he stressed that “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard…” Maybe this can be our inspiration. 

Will you join our ‘moonshot project’ – a decade for landscape architecture – to put the discipline, not on the moon, but rather at the heart of society?