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C. Ronzani and A. Freytet
in reading a novel or a poem. And there is no need to be a grammarian for that. To
avoid the risks of reading in fragments, i.e. deciphering and dismantling minimal
units in the landscape, a landscape designer’s method is subjective, an empirically intuitive choice. Because the object leaves no other choice. A landscape designer does
not practice a landscape science. Landscape design aims to run counter to scientific
method, even though, in other respects, perception and the perceptive phenomenon
that landscape represents may be studied scientifically.
7.2.5 Landscape Designer: A Scout and Reader
of “Landscape Indicators”?
This standpoint as intuitive readers deprives landscape designers of a comfortable
“specialist” position based on developed knowledge or an instantly transmissible or
imitable method. They are rather like a special kind of observer and scout. Since
the perceived area that we call “landscape” generally contains no organised sign or
conveys no intentional message in the shapes visible, and that we could “read” if
only we knew the codified rules or “words”, then what do we actually read? At worst,
nothing. At best, “indicators”. The words of landscape designer Corajoud speak for
themselves: “each and every configuration and thing right down to the slightest and
least significant”
12 . In landscape, certain elements can make sense to someone looking for some particular thing or seeing into them. They are not stable, conventional
units like words. So what is an indicator? “An immediately discernible fact, that
suggests something about another fact which is not immediately discernible”
13 . A
footprint in the mud is an indicator of an animal, the Northern Star of the north, and
smoke of fire. An indicator is a “natural sign”
14 outside all pre-established code; it
only makes sense in a given situation, to a given observer: in landscape, only hunters,
naturalists and herbalists for example see certain elements, specific to their knowledge of the area and their aim. Each one “reads” something in their particular register,
allowing them to choose from the realm of possibilities they know. The specific tracks
of an animal, the nest of a bird, the soil propitious to certain plants, etc. The same is
true of the “signs” that landscape designers try to “read” in the landscape. Elements
indicate things that may still be invisible in the immediate landscape, but are decisive for the future or elsewhere (a substratum, the inclination of a rock, the recent or
former presence of water, etc.). These indicators refer to others which will lead not
only to the most unusual places of a landscape but also to the origin, the future or the
key principles of the appearance or dynamics determining the space or the resulting
12 Cf. supra.
13 Cf. G. Mounin, “Sémiologie de la communication” in Introduction à la sémiologie, Éditions de
Minuit, Paris 1974.
And Prieto, op.cit.
14 The word, by Greimas, is obviously contradictory as its challenges the limits of the concept of
sign. Refer to J. Greimas, “Conditions d’une sémiotique du monde naturel”, in revue Langages no
10. Paris 1968.
C. Ronzani and A. Freytet
in reading a novel or a poem. And there is no need to be a grammarian for that. To
avoid the risks of reading in fragments, i.e. deciphering and dismantling minimal
units in the landscape, a landscape designer’s method is subjective, an empirically intuitive choice. Because the object leaves no other choice. A landscape designer does
not practice a landscape science. Landscape design aims to run counter to scientific
method, even though, in other respects, perception and the perceptive phenomenon
that landscape represents may be studied scientifically.
7.2.5 Landscape Designer: A Scout and Reader
of “Landscape Indicators”?
This standpoint as intuitive readers deprives landscape designers of a comfortable
“specialist” position based on developed knowledge or an instantly transmissible or
imitable method. They are rather like a special kind of observer and scout. Since
the perceived area that we call “landscape” generally contains no organised sign or
conveys no intentional message in the shapes visible, and that we could “read” if
only we knew the codified rules or “words”, then what do we actually read? At worst,
nothing. At best, “indicators”. The words of landscape designer Corajoud speak for
themselves: “each and every configuration and thing right down to the slightest and
least significant”
12 . In landscape, certain elements can make sense to someone looking for some particular thing or seeing into them. They are not stable, conventional
units like words. So what is an indicator? “An immediately discernible fact, that
suggests something about another fact which is not immediately discernible”
13 . A
footprint in the mud is an indicator of an animal, the Northern Star of the north, and
smoke of fire. An indicator is a “natural sign”
14 outside all pre-established code; it
only makes sense in a given situation, to a given observer: in landscape, only hunters,
naturalists and herbalists for example see certain elements, specific to their knowledge of the area and their aim. Each one “reads” something in their particular register,
allowing them to choose from the realm of possibilities they know. The specific tracks
of an animal, the nest of a bird, the soil propitious to certain plants, etc. The same is
true of the “signs” that landscape designers try to “read” in the landscape. Elements
indicate things that may still be invisible in the immediate landscape, but are decisive for the future or elsewhere (a substratum, the inclination of a rock, the recent or
former presence of water, etc.). These indicators refer to others which will lead not
only to the most unusual places of a landscape but also to the origin, the future or the
key principles of the appearance or dynamics determining the space or the resulting
12 Cf. supra.
13 Cf. G. Mounin, “Sémiologie de la communication” in Introduction à la sémiologie, Éditions de
Minuit, Paris 1974.
And Prieto, op.cit.
14 The word, by Greimas, is obviously contradictory as its challenges the limits of the concept of
sign. Refer to J. Greimas, “Conditions d’une sémiotique du monde naturel”, in revue Langages no
10. Paris 1968.