The curious case of Landscape Case Studies

The Monday last, was the culmination of a "know a landscape architect/ artist" exercise, titled "Ideas and Mediations". The reason this exercise is emphasized in the Landscape studio is because it is the best way to acquire a "world view" on the subject.

The thoughts and works of 20 dramatis personae were put out for examination under a specific framework offering a fair amount of flexibility including that the studies be carried by groups of 2. That the framework was not even read by most candidates- evidences the cockiness that comes with doing too many Powerpoint presentations about architecture. Maybe no one likes to be told "the best way to ...".

The fact that certain (exciting) names were not taken up in the list came to light only in the course of the presentations. While the class missed out knowing about them, I missed out on knowing what students think about them. Whose loss is bigger, we will never know. So why did we have Groups of 3 and 4 when there was an emphasis on pairing up for the work? The answer to me is "The Easy way out" which cannot be disproved.

There was a component of Critique and Cross-comparison in this exercise, which many refused to address. I don't think it was out of a fear of being labelled right/wrong. It was just their smug comfort of "knowing that they don't know" that got my goat. How could you not WANT to know, when you are studying?

Briefly stated- the study was also an attempt to gauge readers' interpretation of the relevance of the IDEAS to current times, and its sustainable interpretations (in the most basic sense of the most misused word in current times) in the Indian context through postulations such as:

The work of West 8 and the Eastern Waterfront of Mumbai
The role of Abstraction and Metaphor in the works of Ned Kahn, Jellicoe and Halprin
What is Ecology? what comprises Environmental Design?
What is the role of Time in Landscape design? do landscape interventions have to be rigid and imperishable?
What could have happened to Mumbai had the Mill lands incorporated ideas like Peter Latz's portfolio?
What about our mangroves, garbage dumps and nallahs?
Any Similarities in the work of Barragan, Correa, Bawa and Ando?

The questions are all floating in air. You just need to ask them for yourself. The advantage of asking these and better ones along with the simple, is that Landscape Architecture is a platform to examine the notions of architecture and terrain interventions without being bogged down by numbers and spectacle, while remaining grounded despite the occasional romanticism. To be able to do that it is necessary to understand that being in Architecture schools is different from being in the 10th Std where everyone had to learn things by rote from a textbook just to get by.If you topped...you were better at rote-learning than most, that's all.

This is where Case studies come handy.

Case studies help us scrutinize, postulate, critique and sieve out the data into many grades of information and even Knowledge. Aprt from being grading devices, they are a fantastic learning tool if done in the right spirit. Nowadays, Case studies about projects display an overbearing reliance on the internet, which is not a bad thing, if one knows how to sieve out Knowledge from Information.

Sadly much of the information on the Net does not have a standing unless it has the pedigree or backing of pedagogy or societies. What I have been hearing thus far in my classes is Information, and that too incomplete. The Internet is full of forums that debate and examine Art, Philosophy, Theory, Design, but my guess is that people are content with what Google throws up. So there is no Analysis.

Discovering...or the effort it takes to try and discover, is an increasingly rare feature on the part of the learners. Not long ago, was a time when Architecture students understood that the work we do, is our own. It is not for anybody else. Not for faculty, not for friends, not for brownie points/ marks. It is this aspect that I find missing in classrooms today. Perhaps the curriculum and those who conduct it are to be blamed equally if not more.

With each passing batch, I wonder how long will it take them to realise that Knowledge is not copy-pasting Internet data. I was blessed enough to have good and patient teachers and the Internet as a luxury. They don't- atleast with the likes of me around passing off as faculty and what with the Internet getting more and more complex. I want them to explore whether Knowledge is the probable sum total of what one does not understand, what one is required to understand, augmented by questions, informed criticism, debate etc. brought about by the capacity for man to think for himself. I am relying on Case studies to do that proverbial "shining the light on one's path".

Someday they will learn that Learning about Landscape Architecture is not uncool, no one is too damn good for it nor it does not demand that you be politically correct, black or white/ right or wrong. But attempting it to just pass and fence-sitting to just get by robs the fun that the subject can be.

And that's because it is not even necessary to become a landscape architect to understand it, unlike architecture, medicine and engineering. That's the best thing about the subject...and perhaps its greatest weakness.