Ian McHarg
Ian McHarg | |
---|---|
Born | Clydebank, Scotland | 20 November 1920
Died | 5 March 2001 | (aged 80)
Nationality | Scottish |
Alma mater | Harvard University |
Occupation | Architect |
Awards | Japan Prize (2000) |
Ian L. McHarg (20 November 1920 – 5 March 2001) was a Scottish landscape architect and writer on regional planning using natural systems. McHarg was one of the most influential persons in the environmental movement who brought environmental concerns into broad public awareness and ecological planning methods into the mainstream of landscape architecture, city planning and public policy.[1] He was the founder of the department of landscape architecture at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States. His 1969 book Design with Nature pioneered the concept of ecological planning. It continues to be one of the most widely celebrated books on landscape architecture and land-use planning. In this book, he set forth the basic concepts that were to develop later in geographic information systems.
Biography
Formative years
His father was a manager and later a salesman in the industrial city of Glasgow, Scotland.[2] McHarg showed an early talent for drawing and was advised to consider a career in landscape architecture. His early experiences with the bifurcated landscapes of Scotland—the smoky industrial urbanism of Glasgow and the sublimity of the surrounding environs—had a profound influence on his later thinking.[2]
It was not until after his term in the
Soon thereafter, McHarg began teaching at the University of Pennsylvania, where he developed the department of landscape architecture, and developed a popular new course, titled Man and Environment in 1957.[4] The course featured leading scholars whom McHarg invited to his class to discuss ethics and values, as well as other ideas ranging from entropy to plate tectonics. In 1960, he hosted his own television show on CBS, The House We Live In, inviting prominent theologians and scientists of the day to discuss the human place in the world, in a style similar to the one he honed teaching "Man and Environment."
In 1963 Ian McHarg and
As the first-wave American environmental movement swept across American college campuses in the 1960s and early 1970s, McHarg became an important figure, linking a compelling personal presence and a powerful rhetoric with a direct and persuasive proposal for a new integration of human and natural environments. Through the 1960s and 1970s, his course was the most popular on the Penn campus,[3] and he was often invited to speak on campuses throughout the country.
Design with Nature
In 1969, he published Design with Nature, which was essentially a book of step-by-step instructions on how to break down a region into its appropriate uses.
Design with Nature had its roots in much earlier landscape architecture philosophies. It was sharply critical of the French Baroque style of garden design, which McHarg saw as a subjugation of nature, and full of praise for the English picturesque style of garden design. McHarg's focus, however, was only partially on the visual and sensual qualities which had dominated the English picturesque movement. Instead, he saw the earlier tradition as a precursor of his philosophy, which was rooted less in aristocratic estate design or even garden design and more broadly in an ecological sensibility that accepted the interwoven worlds of the human and the natural, and sought to more fully and intelligently design human environments in concert with the conditions of setting, climate and environment. Always a polemicist, McHarg set his thinking in radical opposition to what he argued was the arrogant and destructive heritage of urban-industrial modernity, a style he described as "Dominate and Destroy."
Following the publication of Design with Nature,
Later career
In 1971 McHarg delivered a speech at the North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference in Portland, Oregon, called "Man: Planetary Disease". In the speech he asserted that, due to the views of man and nature that have infiltrated all of western culture, people are not guaranteed survival. Of man, McHarg said, "He treats the world as a storehouse existing for his delectation; he plunders, rapes, poisons, and kills this living system, the biosphere, in ignorance of its workings and its fundamental value."[7] To this end man is a "planetary disease", who has lived with no regard for nature. He discusses how in the Judeo-Christian traditions, the Bible says that man is to have dominion over the earth. McHarg says that for man to survive, this idea must be taken as an allegory only, and not as literally true. Lest this statement be construed as anti-religion, he cites Paul Tillich (Protestantism), Gustav Weigel (Catholicism), and Abram Heschel (Judaism) as noted religious scholars who are also in agreement with him on this point.
Ian McHarg was the original co-designer of The Woodlands, Texas, an unincorporated community in Montgomery County, Texas. This community was developed from timberland located thirty miles north of Houston, by George P. Mitchell, who hired McHarg to consult on the project and, as a result, the original plans featured many of his unique designs. Due in part to concerns of flooding, McHarg identified the water system as the most critical aspect of the site. The natural drainage system the firm designed was successful at limiting the runoff with which McHarg was concerned, and was also much cheaper than a conventional drainage system would have been. In 1998, in his collection To Heal the Earth, McHarg wrote that the Woodlands is one of the best examples of his ideals. Most of the actual work was done by a large team while McHarg was still there, and by many others in the years since he left. The Woodlands continues to be a successful ecological community even today.[8]
McHarg's own plans for urban expansion projects also were more 'English' than 'French' in their geometry. He favoured what became known as 'cluster development' with relatively dense housing set in a larger natural environment.
In 1975, WMRT began the planning phase of a project for the
Awards
McHarg was the recipient of numerous awards, including the Harvard Lifetime Achievement Award, the Pioneer Award from the American Institute of Certified Planners, and 15 medals,[10] including the 1990 National Medal of Arts,[11] the American Society of Landscape Architects Medal, and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Architecture from the University of Virginia.[10] In 1992, he received the Neutra Medal for Professional Excellence from the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.[12] In 2000, he received the Japan Prize in city planning, which is presented to scientists or researchers who have made a substantial contribution to the advancement of those fields.[10]
McHarg also received an honorary doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 1992.[13]
Legacy
In 1980 McHarg left the firm he founded and the firm changed its name to Wallace Roberts & Todd (WRT).
In 1996, McHarg published his autobiography A Quest for Life. He was also instrumental in the founding of Earth Week, and participated on task forces on environmental issues for the
McHarg died on 5 March 2001 at the age of eighty from pulmonary disease.
Ian L. McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology
In the summer of 2017, the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design launched a new, interdisciplinary research center in McHarg's honor. Anticipating the 50th publication anniversary of his text Design with Nature, the McHarg Center's[15] public launch took place in June 2019 as a part of an event, exhibition, and book project known as "Design with Nature Now". Its mission is to build on The Weitzman School's position as a global leader in urban ecological design by bringing environmental and social scientists together with planners, designers, policy-makers, and communities to develop practical, innovative ways of improving the quality of life in the places most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.[16]
The center is led by co-Executive Directors Frederick Steiner and Richard Weller. Its founding Wilks Family Director is Billy Fleming.
Books
- To Heal the Earth: Selected Writings of Ian L. McHarg 1998 ISBN 1-55963-573-8
- A Quest for Life: An Autobiography Ian L. McHarg 1996 ISBN 0-471-08628-2
- Design with Nature Ian L. McHarg 1969 ISBN 0-471-11460-X
- Ian McHarg: Dwelling in Nature: Conversations with Students 2007 ISBN 1-56898-620-3
- The Essential Ian McHarg: Writings on Design and Nature Frederick Steiner 2006 ISBN 1-59726-117-3
See also
- Garden real estate
- History of gardening
- Landscape ecology
- Land Ethic
- Loren Eiseley
- Ecology
References
- ISBN 9780415252256.
- ^ ISBN 0471086282.
- ^ a b c Steiner, Frederick. "Healing the earth: the relevance of Ian McHarg's work for the future." Philosophy & Geography Feb. 2004: 141+. Academic Search Complete
- ^ Ian McHarg, A quest for life: an autobiography, John Wiley and Sons, 1996 pp.157–8.
- ^ Wenz, Philip (6 February 1995). "Design with Nature by Ian L. Mcharg". ecotecture.com. Retrieved 21 February 2016.
- ^ a b Schnadelbach, R. Terry, et al. "Ian McHarg 1920–." Fifty Key Thinkers on the Environment (7 December 2000): 228–241. Environment Complete
- ^ McHarg, I (1971). Man, Planetary Disease. Vital Speeches of the Day (October). p. 634–640.
- ^ Forsyth, Ann. "Ian McHarg's Woodlands: A Second Look." Planning 69.8 (August 2003): 10–13. Environment Complete.
- ^ "پارک جنگلی پردیسان - Wikimapia". Wikimapia.org. Retrieved 3 March 2019.
- ^ a b c University of Pennsylvania Prof. Ian McHarg Dies Archived 31 October 2005 at the Wayback Machine, Penn News, 6 March 2001. Retrieved 26 April 2009.
- ^ Lifetime Honors – National Medal of Arts Archived 4 March 2010 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "The Japan Prize Foundation". www.JapanPrize.jp. Retrieved 3 March 2019.
- ^ "Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh: Honorary Graduates". www1.HW.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 18 April 2016. Retrieved 5 April 2016.
- ^ "Death: Ian McHarg of Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning – Almanac Between Issues 3/8/01". Upenn.edu. 8 March 2001. Retrieved 15 August 2012.
- ^ "Welcome - The McHarg Center". mcharg.UPenn.edu. Retrieved 3 March 2019.
- ^ "The Ian L. McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology | The McHarg Center". mcharg.upenn.edu. Retrieved 23 April 2018.