Start semester
60 412 Landscapes in print
Open to Architect students and Landscape Architect students.
Basic Adobe InDesign.
Basic Adobe InDesign
The Oslo School of Architecture is recognized for instigating and safeguarding a particular sensitivity to landscape. Originally as a unique and enduring way to engage with architecture, and more recently, as a sensitivity that evolved into a landscape architecture program.
When we discuss landscape as a medium for design at the school, what kind of print visual material and references do we often use? What do we own in the library and our archives that contribute to making our school special regarding the intimate relationship between architecture and landscape? Is it possible to discuss this unique aspect of the school just by judging what we own in the library?
In an attempt to break through the myth of the architect and landscape architect exclusively looking at natural scenery, we will unravel and expose the best landscape specific drawings in original print form located in the AHO library and archives.
Secondarily, after almost two years of limited traveling or library visits, the students will focus on what renown designers collected when they traveled. What did they see in distant landscapes, which landscapes were they compelled by, how were they documented and contained in print media? The elective will privilege descriptions and drawings done by designers describing geographies and designed landscapes away from home. The exercise will not only reveal and curate a collection of drawings and texts, ultimately the elective aims to teach students how to discuss landscape drawings as meaningful intellectual contributions.
Advance use of library resourses
Capacity to evaluate and curate visual material found in different print sources
Introduction to research methods useful in pre diploma, diploma and other projects that require the critical evaluation and organization of visual material.
Understanding the relationship between architecture and landscape through the critical evaluation of visual material that directly addresses landscape media.
Understanding the artistic merit of landscape representations from different printed sourses
Conversations about weekly findings
Setting up a final exhibition of findings.
The elective meets in the library every Tuesday. Each student will spend one hour discovering drawings and one hour discovering texts based on suggestions arising at the end of the previous class. The found material must directly address the ground, rocks, vegetation, trees, water, soil, or animals with a high degree of artistic merit.
The drawings and texts focus on how architects and landscape architects engage with the representations of what was unfamiliar landscape elements to them; therefore artistic merit will privilege over scientific accuracy.
We will only focus on the post-WWII period. The exercise is deliberatively undisciplined, as the range to cover and geographic locations are broad. Rapid visual curation will privilege over scholarly rigour.
Half of the designers to be researched are suggested by Luis Callejas at the beginning of the semester. In contrast, the other half is discovered over the multiple visits to the library. At the end of the semester, the course will produce a compilation of the best and most interesting landscape representations and descriptions available in the AHO library. In addition, we will propose a new wish list for library acquisitions.
| Form of assessment | Grouping | Grading scale | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Other assessment method, define in comment field | Individual | Pass / fail | individual final booklet and contribution to final exhibition |