28229 - History of Gardens and Landscape

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course unit the student acquires the basic notions in the field of the history of gardens and landscape, with particular attention to the main historical styles (the monks, Islamic, Italian, and French garden, etc.). Moreover, the student acquires notions about man manipulation on landscape, about landscape historicizing and recent landscape damaging, useful to understand the past and contemporary landscape design. The student acquires the main theoretical references related to the concept of landscape and to landscape analysis, diagnosis and design. In particular, the student is able to identify the main styles of historic gardens and the basic elements necessary for the analysis of landscape at different scales.

Course contents

The course intends to provide the basic training on the disciplines of garden and landscape architecture through the study of history, propedeutic to the subsequent development, within the specific design courses, of a design culture of open spaces. The objective is to create the premise for the maturation of a critical / interpretative apparatus suitable for understanding the complexity of functional, social, symbolic, aesthetic values in the idea of garden and landscape, observed by the villa as a belvedere or created through Rigorous modeling so that the design of green areas and the layout of vegetation is conceived as a part or time of a wider creative process designed to define the structure and image of the sites in their multiplicity of components and the relationship indispensable with the Context, architecture, city and its fringes towards the extraurban territory, the rural, natural environment.
The contents are articulated in a chronological monographic part (the garden from antiquity to the nineteenth century, with attention to the themes of the formal garden and landscaped gardens to the contemporary gardens) and a revolt to specific thematic episodes such as the public garden, the big european and mondial parks, with targeted visits to the territory.
The lessons are part of a systematic part and in a historical part that follows, in large measure, its chronological development (from the garden of Babylon to the Egyptian, Greek and Roman gardens, as well as the religious and public ones from antiquity to today) .

SISTEMATIC PART

The basic tools for studying the historical landscape:

• Landscape Analysis: Purposes and Methods;
• the regulatory framework: in Italy, in Europe and in global (Unesco);
• sources for research: written sources and figurative sources;
• territorial artifacts;
• the organization of research;
• landscape morphology: the forms of the environment and the forms of the habitat.

HISTORICAL SIDE

The development of landscape and garden from antiquity to modern age:

• landscape structures: landscapes of the sacred, labor, power;
• the archetypal garden idea as a closed / separate place. The ancient treatises on botany and agriculture;
• heritage of Roman civilization: centration, urbanization and road networks; The gardens in the ancient world;
• medieval times: castles, agrarian organization, church system on the territory; The medieval garden: the biblical model, the monastic gardens and the peoples-arabic, the artistic and literary images: Dante and Boccaccio;
• the modern age: the development of the villa and landscape painting (Ut pictura hortus - Botticelli); The Renaissance garden, the French garden, the romantic garden. Cultural influences and new conception of landscape garden;
• the birth of the public park: Folies, jardins spectacles, pleasure gardens. Open spaces as a system: utopias, experiments, design models since the 19th century;
• the great fracture: the industrialization and transformations of the territory, the environment and the landscape. The evolution of hortus conclusus;
• ex-tempore. Landscaping and landscaping techniques.

Readings/Bibliography

Essential bibliography

Moreno Daini - Una storia tante storie, Nuovo diario messaggero 2020

D'Angelo P. - Filosofia del paesaggio, Quodlibet, 2014

Panzini F. - Progettare la natura. Architettura del Paesaggio e dei giardini dalle origini all'epoca contemporanea, Zanichelli, Bologna 2005.

Zoppi M. - Storia del giardino europeo, Alinea, Firenze 2009.

Impelluso L. - Giardini, orti e labirinti. Collezione “I dizionari dell’Arte”, Electa, Milano 2005.

Grimal P. - L'arte dei giardini. Una breve storia, Donzelli Editore, 2005.

David E. Cooper - Una filosofia dei giardini, Castelvecchi, 2012.

Robinson W. - Il giardino naturale, Tarka, 2016.

Zoob C. - Il giardino di Virginia Woolf - La storia del giardino di Monk's House, L'Ippocampo Edizioni, 2018.

Other reference texts

Aben, R., Wit S., De, Enclosed Garden, The History and Development of the Hortus Conclusus and its Reintroduction into the Present-day Urban Landscape, 010 Publishers, Rotterdam 1999.

Mosser, M., Teyssot, G. - L'architettura dei giardini d'Occidente. Dal Rinascimento al Novecento, Electa, Milano 1990.

Panzini, F. - Per i piaceri del popolo. L'evoluzione del giardino pubblico in Europa dalle origini al XX secolo, Zanichelli, Bologna 1993.

Tosco C. - Il paesaggio come storia, Il Mulino, Bologna 2007.

Tosco C. - Il paesaggio storico: le fonti e i metodi di ricerca, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2009.

Tosco C. - I beni culturali. Storia, tutela e valorizzazione, Il Mulino, Bologna 2014.

Mancuso S., Viola A. - Verde brillante, Giunti, Firenze 2015.

Articles and documents

Barba i Casanovas, R., 1995, Argumentos, practicas y trabajos en el proyecto del paisaje. GEOMETRÍA”, n. 20, Paisaje (I), Málaga (España). Traduzione in Italiano: Enrica Dall'Ara 2006, in “ RI-VISTA. Ricerche per la progettazione del paesaggio”, Anno 4 - n. 5 - gennaio/ giugno 2006, Firenze University Press.

Unione Europea - Convenzione europea del paesaggio, Firenze, 2000.

Venturi Ferriolo, M., Etiche del paesaggio, in “ RI-VISTA. Ricerche per la progettazione del paesaggio”, Anno 1 - n. 1- gennaio/giugno 2004, Firenze University Press.

Teaching methods

The didactic activity consists of frontal lessons relating to the theoretical contents of the course as well as guided tours on the territory and a graphic return of a design proposal.

Assessment methods

Teaching is part of the Integrated Course "Landscape and Drawing History", along with the following other lessons: "Design and CAD for Green Design". Therefore, the evaluation of the integrated course takes into account jointly the level of knowledge and skills acquired by the student regarding the contents of all the aforementioned teachings. The knowledge and skills of this teaching are evaluated through an oral question and an elaborate presentation of the techniques of representation of the garden and the landscape.

Teaching tools

Bright board, PC, video projector. Frontal teaching activities by the teacher will be carried out through the projection and discussion of graphic, photographic and textual materials. The lectures provided by the lecturer cover essentially the whole program so the texts are only for insights and clarifications. Dues will be included in the AMS Campus at the end of the lessons. The lesson slides will be placed in the AMS Campus at the middle and at the end of the lessons.

Office hours

See the website of Moreno Daini