Journal of Landscape Architecture

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Ethics ≠ Aesthetics

Marc Treib

To cite this article: Marc Treib (2018) Ethics ≠ Aesthetics, Journal of Landscape Architecture,
13:2, 30-41, DOI: 10.1080/18626033.2018.1553391

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Ethics ≠ Aesthetics
Marc Treib University of California, Berkeley, USA
Abstract
The resistance to a broad adoption of responsible landscape design derives
in part from the confusion of ethics with aesthetics, that is, equating moral
values with beauty_a conflation that hampers the pursuit of a beautiful
expression for sustainable landscapes. Beauty results not from ethics, but
instead from a skilful interweaving of form, space, proportion, light, and
colour, the embrace of seasonal change, growth, a knowledge of vegeta-
tion, and a host of other natural processes. Stressing performance or eth-
ics alone abrogates the landscape architect’s responsibility to design truly
appealing landscapes.
A potential vehicle for achieving both ethical and aesthetically engaging
landscapes is the Japanese mixing of formalities_shin-gyo-so (formal, semi-
formal, informal)_not by simple juxtaposition, but instead by entwining
and embedding one within the other. Having high morals is laudable yet
insufficient; one must know a language in order to write poetry.
Ethics / aesthetics / sustainable design / Japanese gardening
30 Journal of Landscape Architecture / 2-2018
Ethical landscape design practices have been adopted at broad scale only
resentfully through legislation, or more happily from the public’s accept-
ance of landscapes they deem attractive and worthy. Acceptance has been
neither rapid nor without effort, as experience and history have shown
that changes in taste and broad acceptance result only gradually, when
the new forms are regarded as beneficial by both the individual and soci-
ety. Too often, and especially today, individuals believe that any public
benefit can be achieved only at their personal expense, and vice versa. To
date, continued arguments and proposals for a sustainable aesthetic by a
select group of academics and professionals have been unconvincing and
have consequently languished. Some proponents hold that our notions of
beauty must change to be in closer accord with present and future dan-
gers, while others attempt to find responsible designs within the exist-
ing canons of beauty. Even within the landscape architecture profession
itself acceptance, much less adoption, has been far from universal. In most
cases the dismissal of sustainable design does not result from any viable
ethical position, but rather in response to more expedient factors such as
increased care and expense. Another significant stumbling block resides
in the conflation of aesthetics with ethics, a confusion that equates moral
values with those of beauty and appreciation. In reality, although admit-
tedly often related, ethics and aesthetics reside in separate camps that may
stand at a considerable distance from one another.
In her article ‘Sustaining Beauty: The Performance of Appearance: A
Manifesto in Three Parts’, Elizabeth Meyer claimed that the ‘particular
beauty’ of an urban landscape by her University of Virginia colleague Julie
Bargmann ‘is found in the re-use of tons of on-site demolition rubble’. 1
In realizing that project, the Urban Outfitters Corporate Headquarters in
Philadelphia by DIRT Studio and MSR (Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle), ‘the
materials of a prior US Navy shipyard’, such as concrete, were broken ‘and
arranged with crushed stone and trees to create a pervious field . . . Its
Figure 1 Latz+Partner, Landschaftspark Duisburg-
Nord, Duisburg, Germany, 1989
beauty is particular to the former site conditions and material resources
found there, and not dependent on an a priori sense of form.’ 2 While
applauding Meyer’s much-needed ‘reinsertion of aesthetics into discus-
sions of sustainability’ and the general argument presented in the arti-
cle, I would dispute her attribution of the quality of beauty solely or even
primarily to the use of recycled material, or to a landscape appreciation
independent of broadly held aesthetic values. Reusing materials does not
automatically guarantee an achievement of beauty_or social apprecia-
tion_which instead issues from the consequential shapes, spaces, col-
ours, textures, and configuration of the materials, and a host of other fac-
tors. Physical characteristics such as these may be experienced as ugly or
beautiful depending on the culture and individual, and within any given
constituency these readings are often based on a priori beliefs which are
transferred within a culture over decades.3 Latz+Partner’s transforma-
tion of a derelict industrial site in the German Ruhr Region into a vibrant
parkland truly merits the adjective masterful, but few would regard the
landscape as beautiful in all but a few more ‘politely’ designed areas.
Instead, they would be moved by other sensations and readings_the scale
and form of the relic industrial structures and the intrusion of the volun-
teer vegetation_the overall impression being one we might call the ‘toxic
sublime’ (Fig. 1).4
In a 2016 article published in Landscape Research, Susan Herrington
identified_but did not necessarily herself embrace_three concepts of
beauty current in discussions by aestheticians.5 One of these, contex-
tual beauty, asserts that our pleasure and appreciation of a flower we find
beautiful for its form or colour will dissipate_or evaporate completely_
should we learn that the species is invasive. I do not believe this to be true
for any but the most avid botanist or native plant enthusiast, however. For
most of us the admiration of the flower’s beauty will remain, although we
may choose not to continue planting this species when considering the
negative ecological consequences that could result. The immediate loss of
appreciation for the flower is an ethical assessment that would probably
have little influence on the continued delight of the non-specialist.
Journal of Landscape Architecture / 2- 2018 31
Figure 2 River of Grass, Everglades National Park, Florida
This confusion of ethics with aesthetics muddies the pursuit of a suita-
ble, hopefully beautiful, expression for a sustainable landscape. A land-
scape must do more than perform responsibly or use recycled materials if
it aspires to achieve any state of attractiveness, or its appreciation by more
than a small segment of the population. Philosopher Roger Scruton holds
that ‘[w]e appreciate beautiful things not for their utility only, but also for
what they are in themselves_or more plausibly, for how they appear in
themselves.’ He also contends that a work of art like a novel_and may we
also say a landscape?_ is ‘something presented through the senses, to the
mind’.6 The beauty of designed landscapes then, to my own mind, does not
result from ethics_although it may be one factor. Instead it derives from
a skilful interweaving of form, space, proportion, light, and colour, paired
with the embrace of seasonal change, growth, a knowledgeable selection of
vegetation, and a host of other natural processes that will guide the evolu-
tion of the new landscape. Of course, given our fragile planetary situation,
we must design responsibly and ethically, and in the arena of landscape
architecture that involves sustainability, resilience, emergence, environ-
mental justice, Gaia, and whatever the current concerns, buzzwords, and
related practices may be. Stressing performance alone, however, abrogates
the landscape architect’s responsibility to truly design aesthetically attrac-
tive landscapes. A functional stance assumes that if the landscape per-
forms well or uses the correct species it will be deemed beautiful. How-
ever, declaring that we need 10,000 new trees to combat air pollution or
the heat island effect says nothing of which species of trees should be used
or how they should be disposed_the qualities from which beauty derives.
Sustainability is a functional measure not an aesthetic property.
32 Journal of Landscape Architecture / 2-2018
Some writers, like landscape historian Louise Mozingo, believe that it is
primarily through the widespread appreciation of a landscape that its
endurance can be assured.7 This appreciation may derive from a host of
differing factors. Perhaps a significant historical event occurred on the
site, an event that should be commemorated in some way through pres-
ervation. Perhaps the site is the sole remaining landscape to host a cer-
tain species, like the Joshua tree in southern California’s Mojave desert.8
Or perhaps it is land deemed critical for maintaining a balance with, or
contributing to, a greater ecosystem. Acceptance for the first two reasons
is more easily won than for the third, whose immediate value is less appar-
ent at the local and at times even national scales. We may then ask: is there
some way that we can enfold the ethical and environmental issues of the
third category with the appreciation more easily secured for the first two?
For over a century we have legislated the establishment of protected
landscapes regarded by the public to be of great historical, scenic, and/or
ecological value. In England, regions such as the Peak District have been
legally established as national parks, although in that specific case, a
number of existing villages and extensive farmlands were enfolded within
its mandated boundaries.9 Japan’s nomination of worthy sites, considered
nationally to be of outstanding scenic value, stems back almost a millen-
nium, and of course the United States National Park system was one of
the earliest legislated programmes of this type and is today more than a
hundred years old (Fig. 2). Forces must be garnered for the nomination
and election of these places. And one key ingredient of any such declara-
tion and safeguard is beauty.

Admittedly, there are no universal standards for beauty held by all peoples
in all places at all times; universality exists only as an aspiration or in phi-
losophy. History has shown that the appreciation of any particular form
or colour or space varies with location, people, and time, and that what
might be held as beautiful by one group of people in one era can appear as
ugly or repugnant to another in a different time. Cultural norms and soci-
etal pressure generate an expectation of what is appropriate and accepta-
ble, and when these are not met the response is often one of rejection. For
example, in the United States the colour_or term_‘red’ probably holds
a far different connotation from its regard in China. Consider as well the
term Gothic, originally a term of derision by Renaissance humanists who
had rediscovered classical aesthetics of order, proportion, and the archi-
tecture of ancient Greece and Rome. Today, it is primarily an art historical
categorization free of any negative connotation and the beauties of Gothic
architecture and sculpture are appreciated internationally (Fig. 3). Another
example: early Western visitors to Japan were mystified by the reduced
vocabulary of the elements in the country’s dry gardens; little within the
temple’s wood and earthen walls suggested the floral abundance of coeval­
Victorian gardens in England and America. They termed the gardens ‘curi-
ous’ rather than beautiful and a broader appreciation of their ‘peculiar’
aesthetics and an admiration of their beauty came only after decades of
exposure, experience, and education. Writing in 1890, eminent British
scholar Basil Hall Chamberlain explained:
Ethics ≠ Aesthetics Marc Treib
Figure 3 York Minster, York, England,
thirteenth to fifteenth centuries
A garden without flowers may sound like a contradiction in terms.
But it is a fact that many Japanese gardens are of that kind, the object
which the Japanese landscape-gardener sets before him being to pro-
duce something park-like_to suggest some famous scene, in which
flowers may or may not appear, according to the circumstances.10
Beauty is more than places pretty to the eye, as established in Scruton’s
quotation cited above. Immanuel Kant defined beauty as a surplus qual-
ity derived from disinterest, and suggested that only objects or situations
removed from use could be called beautiful. Over time, however, scholars
have disputed Kant’s definition as being misconceived or too narrow.11 And
even if his definition were valid when applied to scenery or art, it seems
inapplicable to architecture and landscape architecture, where function is
not a surplus value but an inherent aspect of the work. While I must leave
the final word to philosophers and art historians, I can nonetheless state
that to me beauty involves a pleasure or inspiration derived from spaces
and forms, perhaps supported by light, thermal properties, colour, fra-
grance, and supporting factors. However, my mention of the word beauty
is intended primarily to encourage design professionals to seek a level of
quality that surpasses mere function_that is to say, satisfying function is
only a base camp in the quest for a mountain summit of beauty. American
photographer Edward Weston once wrote: ‘Do not photograph for what it
is, but for what else it is.’12 That something else is the elusive quality to be
sought, whether beauty, or some other word is used to describe it. Or as
the sculptor Isamu Noguchi held: ‘Call it sculpture if it moves you so.’13
Journal of Landscape Architecture / 2- 2018 33
Ethics ≠ Aesthetics Marc Treib
Figure 4 Hedgerows, Canterbury Plain, South Island, New Zealand
In the mid-eighteenth century, British philosopher Edmund Burke pro-
posed two distinct appreciative categories: the beautiful and the sub-
lime. 14 Things of beauty, Burke held, please the senses, perhaps com-
forting us, perhaps even edifying us. The sublime, in contrast, stands
beyond immediate human comprehension; it is often characterized by an
immensity of scale and a sense of the unknown that may instil in us a
sense of mild awe or even terror. The sublime, at least in centuries past,
was an aesthetic category shared across the arts, including landscape
design where it was held in high regard. Aspects of the sublime have even
endured into the twentieth century in sculpture and painting. American
painter Andrew Wyeth (1917–2009) once stated: ‘I don’t think that there is
anything that is really magical unless it has a terrifying quality.’15 On the
other hand, I suspect that today we tend to look for comfort in our land-
scapes rather than dread, and for a form of magic lacking horror rather
than being propelled by it.
In contrast to the ‘smoothness’ of the beautiful, at the eighteenth cen-
tury’s end, and into the decades that followed, landscape philosophers
such as Richard Payne Knight and Uvedale Price confronted the land-
scapes characteristic of Capability Brown by proposing a third category:
the picturesque.16 In art, the category picturesque referred to subjects wor-
thy of being portrayed in paintings; when enacted in the landscape, how-
ever, the meaning and use of the word took a different, more particular
turn. Now the picturesque roughness of overgrown or incomplete sub-
jects replaced the smooth and pleasant surfaces of the grassed meadow or
mound, or the composed tree clumps characteristic of the Brownian land-
scape. With properties such as these, picturesque subjects were deemed
34 Journal of Landscape Architecture / 2-2018
more likely to instigate a deeper engagement with the landscape and per-
haps induce contemplation. Seeing imperfection as worthy of note, the
picturesque was, without doubt, the product of a Romantic age. Of course,
the beautiful landscape is not the only vehicle for the appreciation of a
sustainable landscape. The fear of natural disaster might also have a pow-
erful influence and effect. But creating beauty and the need for an aspira-
tion beyond function constitute the central theme of this paper, and fur-
ther philosophical discussions are beyond its scope.
A key factor contributing to the appreciation of beauty in landscape
architecture is that of perceived intention. The viewer must read and
understand in some way that a landscape departing from an established
norm must demonstrate the intention behind the new look, and that
the perceived form has not resulted from unintentional neglect alone.
Egoz, Bowring, and Perkins described how farmers in New Zealand dis-
played difficulty in accepting organic farming practices that, among other
environmental benefits, support resident bird populations.17 The uncut
hedgerows and shrubbery that offer improved avian habitat counter the
established practice of shrubbery neatly clipped as a sign of caring and
social propriety (Fig. 4). How then can the ethics of sustainable practice be
reconciled with the divergent aesthetic norms that may result? And can
they be brought into accord?
Not all sustainable landscapes need be messy, but they do need to be
thoughtful, and perhaps even aim to be beautiful. Sustainable is not anti-
thetical to beautiful, nor is beautiful antithetical to sustainable. Carefully
designed and detailed landscapes can also represent sustainable practices,
an approach well represented by the Patio de los Naranjos (Courtyard of

Figure 5 Patio de los Naranjos, Seville, Spain, twelfth century, 1930s
the Oranges) in Seville, Spain.18 To insure that the orange grove_which
occupies the former forecourt of a mosque_would thrive in Seville’s hot
climate, its makers devised a system of narrow channels to irrigate the
trees using minimal volumes of water while restricting evaporation (Fig. 5).
The courtyard’s design was not based solely on a practical irrigation net-
work: the configuration of the functioning rills lined with clay brick also
structured the courtyard in an elegant and intriguing manner. As we
experience the space today, the ordering of the trees on a grid is regu-
lar and homogenous; unlike its sister patio in Córdova in which some
palm trees have intruded, the Seville patio includes only orange trees.
The white marble bowls of the central fountain and its four smaller sib-
lings enliven the tawny tones of the brick paving while granting both vis-
ual animation and the potential for relief from thirst. In conceiving the
orange grove its makers avoided any replication of the natural landscape of
Andalucía, and instead created a walled, perfected world very much in con-
trast to the outer world around it. Perhaps they wished to achieve the level
of the sacred, perhaps even to configure a terrestrial paradise graced with
shade, water, and golden fruit. In all, the design of the Patio de los Naran-
jos demonstrates responsible practice elevated to a high aesthetic level.
Several vehicles for achieving an appropriate aesthetic for the sustaina-
ble landscape might develop from Joan Nassauer’s idea of ‘messy ecosys-
tems’ structured by an ‘orderly frame’. According to this thinking, due to
culturally guided expectations the orderly frame signals that any aspect
of the landscape first appearing merely unkempt has actually resulted
from an intentional act (Fig. 6).19 This idea, although intriguing, is not
Figure 6 Lawrence Johnson, Hidcote Manor, Chipping Campden,
Gloucestershire, England, 1907–1914. Red borders
the only possible approach_actual neglect alone may have its benefits.
Frederick Law Olmsted wrote of a conversation he once had with French
landscape architect Edouard André, the designer of many of the Parisian
parks constructed under the directorship of Adolphe Alphand in the later
nineteenth century. While walking together in Parc des Buttes-Chaumont
(1867), Olmsted pointed to a ‘certain passage’ of the landscape that lay
before the two men:
‘That, to my mind, is the best piece of artificial planting, of its age,
I have ever seen,’ [said Olmsted to his host]. André smiled, and said,
‘Shall I confess that it is the result of neglect? I had planted this
place most elaborately, with a view to some striking effects which I
had conceived, and others, to be ultimately obtained by thinning. I
had just worked out my plan, when the war came, and for two years
I did not see again see the ground . . . When at length, I came back
to it, expecting to begin my work over again at all points, Nature
had had one summer in which, as well as she could, to repair all the
damages; and I declare to you, that, on arriving at just this point, I
threw up my hands with delight, for in spite of some yet unhealed
wounds, I saw at once that in general aspect there was a better work
than I had been able to imagine.’20
Alas, stories about unkempt landscapes do not always end with such a
positive conclusion.
Journal of Landscape Architecture / 2- 2018 35
Ethics ≠ Aesthetics Marc Treib

Figure 8 Ordered frame, messy interior;

messy frame, ordered interior

Figure 7 Oehme Van Sweden, Federal Reserve Board garden,

Washington, DC, 1977

In their 1977 landscape for the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, DC,
landscape architects Oehme van Sweden used grasses and flowering plants
to invigorate the borders of a triangular site planted with a lawn at its cen-
tre (Fig. 7). The intention, in this case, was artistic rather than sustaina-
ble. Although each of the plants in the border was tagged with its com-
mon and scientific name, many people read the look of the landscape as
resulting from a lack of maintenance. While I was taking photographs, one
passer-by, thinking I was officially surveying the site in some way, told
me: ‘Good; it’s about time they did something about that.’ Despite the
many signs, including linguistic, the passer-by still regarded grasses and
plantings with varied and exuberant textures as unmaintained. Adjust-
ing public tastes to accept roughness and visual disorder will not be eas-
Figure 9 PCC parking lot, Portland, Oregon,
ily achieved, even if the efforts are carefully framed and even captioned.
Despite any difficulty in reading the intentions behind it, the Federal
Reserve Board landscape suggests a different approach, one that inverts Attaining a visually attractive sustainable landscape might also derive
Nassauer’s proposition to frame a messy landscape with an ordered enclo- from applying the Japanese aesthetic use of mixed formalities, in Japa-
sure: that is say, to use a ‘messy’ frame to render a politely maintained nese termed shin-gyo-so.21 Historically, this intermixing of formalities
landscape more biodiverse (Fig. 8). The key aspect, the source of its aes- has informed the small-scale Japanese arts such as calligraphy and flower
thetic presence, is the contrast between the rough and the ordered, each arrangement, and at a larger scale garden design and even the planning
defining the other through difference. One could envision the herba- of temple compounds. Rather than a simple juxtaposition of the crude
ceous border, the mainstay of the British garden tradition, transmuted against the polite, shin-gyo-so practice embeds the three degrees of for-
into a messy ‘border’ or ‘frame’, reconceived as a bioswale, and planted mality within one another, often resulting in landscapes of impressive
to attract insects or provide appropriate habitat for birds. Whether it richness. Shin describes a formal mode, for example the central upright
achieves a level of beauty will depend on proportion, configuration, and stem of a flower arrangement or writing executed in a block style: in the
of course the selection of plants. There is no reason that an approach such West, an example might be the Roman letters of architectural inscriptions.
as this could not also be viable in terms of both sustainability and beauty. So elements, in contrast, are informal and fluid, the free cursive form of
Projects such as the PCC parking lot in Portland, Oregon, demonstrate handwriting, or the garden’s more natural areas of planting. These infor-
that achieving an ecologically appropriate landscape does not guarantee mal elements are set against the wooden structural bays of temple or res-
a landscape that is aesthetically appealing_at least as I see it (Fig. 9). A idential architecture that in themselves comprise a shin framework. The
better considered selection of plants would help; but also, more critically, gyo, or semi-formal mode, lies between the two and is the most difficult
needed is a strong idea of what else could be achieved using ecologically to categorize. Most often elements termed gyo are simply those that are
viable principles. neither shin nor so (Fig. 10).

36 Journal of Landscape Architecture / 2-2018

Figure 10 Kobori Enshu, Joju-in, Kyoto, Japan, early 1600s.
Mixed formalities in stone and vegetation

Figure 11 Daitoku-ji sub-temple entrance, Figure 12 Kobori Enshu, Raikyu-ji, Bitchu-Takahashi,

Kyoto, Japan, remade in the twentieth century early 1600s. Stones and plants, mixing formalities
and materials

Journal of Landscape Architecture / 2- 2018 37

Ethics ≠ Aesthetics Marc Treib

Figure 13 Crop planting, Graubünden, Switzerland, 1998

Large-scale examples of this aesthetic manner can be found in the overall ify as shin in their overall aspect, there are in fact at least three variants
planning of Buddhist temple precincts, and on a small scale within a sin- within this greater category due to the different formalities of their com-
gle garden path. At major Zen complexes such as Daitoku-ji and Myoshin- ponents. Could we not create landscapes with zones fashioned to foster
ji in Kyoto, the principal buildings and gates are axially arranged and biodiversity played against those more managed, both within the infor-
induce an air of rigour and symmetry. The plans of the individual sub- mal zone and beyond it (Fig. 13)? By mixing the ordering of zones, set as
temples depart from this shin severity with a semi-formality signalled by adjacencies and insertions, the design may address its uses, accommodate
entry gardens that eschew the rigidly straight path by employing a bent the relevant species, and produce a landscape rich in textures, planting,
walkway or stones set on a diagonal (Fig. 11). Within the temple garden, and spatial variation.
which is essentially an informal so zone, shrubbery clipped into geomet- In Japanese garden design the mixed modes of formality interplay with
ric volumes contrasts with the irregularity of the natural rocks; paths may the more natural greater landscape, creating a visually energized equilib-
curve and wander, or follow a straight line (see Fig. 10). Stepping stones rium through simultaneous contrast. Of course, I am not suggesting that
often mix formal orders to facilitate movement within the garden while the expansive landscapes of the West or those in our densely populated
simultaneously choreographing the play of views. The landscapes, and cities be treated as a microcosmic Japanese garden; obviously, some his-
especially the pathways, of seventeenth-century Japan are rife with this torical practices are applicable only at small scale. But shin-gyo-so thinking
interplay of mixed formalities. A path may be formal in overall aspect and suggests an approach beyond the formal frame with a messy infill. Rather
formal it its constituent parts. In contrast, another may use semi-formal than only a two-part play between frame and framed, it allows for com-
or informal stones to configure a unit formal in its overall order. Or the plex compositions that mix ‘polite’ designed elements with those shaped
individual stepping stones, almost all of them left unworked, may com- by ecological necessity. If correctly executed, the informal infill can within
prise the path. By mixing plants and stones, the living and the inert, an itself contain ordered elements that add greater complexity and richness
even greater complexity and richness can be achieved, all within the over- to the design. The application of these principles in the design of sustain-
all shin framework (Fig. 12). Thus, although all three walkways may qual- able landscapes also promises works of intricate beauty.

38 Journal of Landscape Architecture / 2-2018

Figure 14 SUPERPOSITIONS (Georges Descombes,
ADR et al.), The renaturalization of the River Aire,
Geneva, Switzerland, 2004–2017. September 2016

The renaturalization of the River Aire by the SUPERPOSITIONS consor-

tium has already demonstrated a number of these principles without any
conscious reference to Japanese materials or forms. The construction of
the canal confining the River Aire began in the late nineteenth century
and was completed in the early decades of the twentieth. Its banks and
ranks of poplars provided the primary structure against which the design
team reconfigured the new riverbed and floodplain; within it, the pre-
existing and planted vegetation supplied its informal properties. The pop-
lars growing along one bank of the former canal provided a shin structure,
as do the new periodic insertions of concrete steps, terraces, and other
architectural features (Figs. 14 & 15). And the landscape is sustainable. The
instigating forces behind the renovating of the Aire were thwarting the
menace of potential floods while accommodating recreational uses along

Journal of Landscape Architecture / 2-2018 39

Figure 15 SUPERPOSITIONS (Georges Descombes, ADR et al.),
The renaturalization of the River Aire, Geneva, Switzerland,
2004–2017, August 2012

its banks. Yet in the execution of the programme, George Descombes and To many landscape architects, the ethics of sustainability demands a
his colleagues created a new, designed landscape of considerable beauty_ recreation of natural conditions, or at least its ‘look’, that existed prior
not because the river is now more ‘natural’ or ‘sustainable’ in itself, but to human intervention and habitation. But the conditions of both the
because a designed topographic structure lies beneath the existing and immediate site and the world around it have changed, and so too must
introduced vegetation, enhanced by the superimposition of architectonic the design and its aesthetic. One cannot turn back the clock. In addition,
elements. It is the integration of these aspects, and the care with which nature often works in terms of large tracts of land and has many years,
they were designed, that make the project notable_and to many people, even centuries and eons, in which to develop. Landscape architects are
beautiful. The challenge facing landscape architects today, then, is: how rarely faced with similar conditions in dimension and time. Designing
to achieve beauty within an ethically planned environment? with mixed formalities may provide one approach to joining ethics and
aesthetics, with results beneficial to both. Having good morals is laudable
yet insufficient; one must learn a language in order to write poetry. Hav-
ing the vocabulary and urge to write are insufficient. Similarly, having
the ethics without a suitable design aesthetic may render the design still-
born. To succeed, one needs the intentions, knowledge, and means to pro-
duce the beautiful sustainable landscape; any of these taken in isolation
will be insufficient, however laudable_least of all, ethics alone.

40 Journal of Landscape Architecture / 2-2018

 Ethics ≠ Aesthetics Marc Treib

NOTES

1 Elizabeth Meyer, ‘Sustaining Beauty: The Performance of 20 Frederick Law Olmsted, ‘Spoils of the Park (1882)’, in: Fred-
Appearance: A Manifesto in Three Parts,’ Journal of Landscape erick Law Olmsted, Jr. and Theodora Kimball (eds.), Forty Years
Architecture, 2/Spring (2008), 6–23: 14. of Landscape Architecture: Central Park (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1973), 144.
2 Ibid.
21 For a discussion of this aesthetic practice see Marc Treib,
3 ‘Without design is confusion and deformity.’ William
‘Modes of Formality: The Distilled Complexity of Japanese
Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty, 1753 (reprint, Ronald Paulson,
Design,’ Landscape Journal 12/1 (1993), 2–16.
ed., New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 28.
4 The term was coined by Carol Diehl in her review of an exhi-
bition of photographs by Edward Burtynsky. See Marc Treib, All photos by Marc Treib
‘Foreword: An Industrial Sublime,’ in: Peter Latz, Rust Red:
Landscape Park Duisburg-Nord (Munich: Hirmer, 2016), 9–11.
B I O G R A P H I C A L N o te
5 Susan Herrington, ‘Beauty: Past and Future,’ Landscape
Research, 41/4 (2016), 441–449. In the article Herrington Marc Treib, Professor of Architecture Emeritus at the Univer-
reviewed recent views of beauty proposed by others. She made sity of California, Berkeley, is an architecture and landscape
no statement about whether she herself accepted them or not. historian and critic. Recent books include Austere Gardens:
Thoughts on Landscapes, Restraint, and Attending (ORO, 2016);
6 Roger Scruton, Beauty (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
Pietro Porcinai and the Landscape of Modern Italy, co-editor
2009), 17, 25.
(Ashgate, 2016); and Landscapes of Modern Architecture: Wright,
7 Louise Mozingo, ‘The Aesthetics of Ecological Design: Seeing Mies, Neutra, Aalto, Barragán (Yale, 2017). Forthcoming is Doing
Science as Culture,’ Landscape Journal, 16/1 (1997), 46–59: 58. Almost Nothing: The Landscapes of Georges Descombes (ORO, 2018)
8 The site was declared a National Monument in 1936,
a National Park in 1994.
CO N TAC T
9 This inclusion may be due to the creation of the Peak
Marc Treib
District National Park as late as 1951. Removing a resident
mtreib@berkeley.edu
population would no doubt have met with great resistance.
10 Basil Hall Chamberlain, Japanese Things: Being Notes on
Various Subjects Connected with Japan for the Use of Travellers and
Others (London: John Murray, 1890 / reprint, Rutland, VT:
Tuttle, 1971), 205.
11 Immanuel Kant, Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful
and the Sublime (1764), translated by John T. Goldthwait
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960).
12 On this thinking, see Edward Weston, The Daybooks of
Edward Weston, edited by Nancy Newhall (New York:
Horizon Press, 1966).
13 Isamu Noguchi, The Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum
(New York: Harry Abrams, 1987), 285.
14 Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origins of Our
Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (London: Robert and James
Dodsley, 1757 / reprint, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).
15 ART QUOTES ‘Andrew Wyeth Quotes’, www.art-quotes.
com/auth–search.php?authid=935, accessed 29 November 2017.
16 On the picturesque see John Macarthur, The Picturesque:
Architecture, Disgust and other Irregularities (London: Routledge,
2007); William Gilpin, Observations on the River Wye
(1782 / reprint, London: Pallas Athene, 2005); and John Dixon
Hunt, Gardens and the Picturesque: Studies in the History of
Landscape Architecture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992).
17 Shelley Egoz, Jacky Bowring, and Harvey C. Perkins, ‘Mak-
ing a “Mess” in the Countryside: Organic Farming and the
Threats to Sense of Place,’ Landscape Journal 25/1 (2006), 54-66.
18 While the patio, as the forecourt of a mosque, is said to date
to the ninth century, its current form stems from a major
renovation in the early decades of the twentieth century.
19 Joan Nassauer, ‘Messy Ecosystems, Orderly Frames,’
Landscape Journal 14/2 (1995), 161-170.

Journal of Landscape Architecture / 2- 2018 41