Animating the Built Environment More-Than-Representational Approach to Landscape Analysis

“Our human landscape is our unwitting biography, reflecting our tastes, values, and even our fears in tangible, visible form.” Lewis 1979, 12

“…the landscape is not innocent.” Schein 2003, 203. “To change life, however, we must first change space.” Lefebrve 1991, 190

“Representational Theory” Questions -What does the built environment reveal about society? -How do landscapes work to normalize discourses? -How do landscapes work as means of inclusion and exclusion? -How do landscapes work in identity- formation?

Approaches Marxist Lie of the Land. Don Mitchell Harvey, David “Monument and Myth”, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 69, 3: Landscape –as-text/ Semiotics The City as Text: The Politics of Landscape Interpretation in the Kandyan Kingdom. Duncan Sidorov, Dmitri “National Monumentalization and the Politics of Scale: The Resurrection of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 90(3):

More than Representational Theory Performance Enactment Everyday life/ practices Consumption Hoskins GC Materialising memory at Angel Island Immigration Station, San Francisco. Environment and Planning A, 39: Lorimer H. 2005, ``Cultural geography: the busyness of being `more- then-representational‘” Progress in Human Geography (9) Lorimer, H. and Wylie, J LOOP (a geography) Performance Research, 15, 4-11 Rose, M Landscapes and labyrinths. Geoforum 33(4) pp

“MTR” Questions How do people interact with spaces in unintended ways? How are discourses produced or subverted through everyday interaction with places? Are they? What roles do materiality or aesthetics play in spatial practice?

Gruffurd’s Approach to Reading Buildings/ Landscape Analysis (2003) 1) What: selecting the area of study 2) When: archival research 3) Style: architecture, materiality 4) Who: builders and audience 5) Layers of meaning: symbolism, discourse analysis, performance (can involve representational or MTR approaches)

Shifting to More-Than-Representational Analysis: “Towards a Critical Geography of Architecture” “Instead of asking what the library means, I began also to consider what it does. What takes place within (and without) the library? How are dominant (and not so dominant) social practices and relations performed?” Lees 2001, 71

“Architecture is about more than just representation. Both as a practice and a product, it is performative, in the sense that it involves ongoing social practices through which space is continually shaped and inhabited.” Lees 2001, 1.

Weaknesses of the Approach Getting lost in the narration (Gruffudd 249). Confusion on how to interpret enactments or performances (Lees 2001). What does studying performance offer that is distinct from participant-observation in ethnography? Do “representational” approaches really not address the new questions of MTR approaches/ is representational theory set up as a straw man from which MTR theory to position itself against?

Works Cited Duncan, J S, 1990 The City as Text The Politics of Landscape Interpretation in the Kandyan Kingdom. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Forest, B and J Johnson “Unraveling the Threads of History: Soviet- Era Monuments and Post-Soviet National Identity in Moscow” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 92 (3): Gruffud, P “Building sites: Cultural geographies of architecture and place-making.” Cultural Geographu in Practice. Blunt et al. Arnold Publishers, London Harvey, D “Monument and Myth”, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 69, 3: Hoskins GC. 2007a critical geography of architecture.” Cultural Geography 8(1) Materialising memory at Angel Island Immigration Station, San Francisco. Environment and Planning A, 39: Lees, L “Towards

Cont. Lefebvre H, The Production of Space. Blackwell, Oxford. Lewis, P “Axioms for reading the landscape: Some guides to the American scene. “ The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes Meining. New York: Oxford University Press Lorimer H, 2005 “Cultural Geography: the busyness of being ‘more-than- representational’” Progress in Human Geography Lorimer, H. and Wylie, J LOOP (a geography) Performance Research, 15, Mitchell, D The Lie of the Land: Migrant Workers and the California Landscape (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996) Rose, M “Landscapes and labyrinths.” Geoforum 33(4) : Schein, R “The Normative Dimensions of Landscape” C. Wilson and P. Groth, eds., Everyday America: Cultural Landscape Study after J.B. Jackson Berkeley: University of California Press,: Sidorov, Dmitri “National Monumentalization and the Politics of Scale: The Resurrection of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 90(3):