Lorn Clement, J.D., ASLA Landscape Architecture Kansas State University

1. Lorn Clement, J.D., ASLA Landscape Architecture Kansas State University New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston

2. Narrative Tropes Expanding a conceptual framework Narrative theory and figurative language as a means of constructing meaning Stories (content and expression) create impressions, organize experience, and create memories Design strategies Naming Sequencing Revealing & concealing Gathering Opening Realms Story Inter-textual Discursive

3. Tropes Four major tropes in LN (shortlist) metaphor metonymy synecdoche irony Forms of transference, ‘carrying over’ meaning from one term to another, ‘turning’ our language from the literal to the figurative … Utility of expanding the list: more concepts, strategies, ideas precision in communication

4. Parallels Bernstein, The Careful Writer Thirty one entries in list of “rhetorical figures and faults” allegory and alliteration to zeugma Parallels of thought and expression in the visual and literary arts Layout of slides: Verbal definition and example Visual example and explanation

5. Analogy Aristotle, Poetics, ‘proportional metaphor’ Comparison of components in parallel, relationship is key Usually used for explanation: “The garden walls surround space in the same way that a parent’s arms hold a baby.” Distinguish simile, which uses ‘like’, consider metaphor to be one implied Zipper walks at Nelson Atkins Museum; Dan Kiley Functional concern: linking major parts of the spatial composition

6. Juxtaposition of opposites Pope: “The learn’d is happy nature to explore; the fool is happy that he knows no more.” Hegelian dialectical reasoning: thesis, antithesis, synthesis Antithesis Bloedel Reserve; Richard Haag Spatial sequence (garden of planes); moss garden; reflection garden Intellect … gut … spirit … zen experience / transcendence

7. Irony Incongruity between expectations or appearance, and reality … In-betweenness Subdivision names (toponyms) for the natural resources lost by development Splice Garden; Martha Schwartz Gene splicing, green plastic … questioning traditional notions … manipulation of Nature Discrepancy b/t ideal and real Greater diversity; less consistency in the interpretive community: ironies abound Photo by Alan Ward

8. Metaphor Direct substitution and identity Comparison without word “like” Intellectual illumination with emotional response Fewest parts “Life is a dream” Poetic vs. prosaic purpose Aristotle, three fundamental categories of language: • Logic (to explain, to be clear) • Rhetoric (to persuade) • Poetry (to inspire) Holocaust Memorial in Boston; Stanley Saitowitz Six; steam rising; glass; Krystalnacht

9. Metonomy Uses concrete or tangible terms to convey abstract or intangible states • ‘the heart’ for ‘the emotions’ Dominant trope in landscape architecture Association by location • Historic preservation of sites (events, periods, people, styles) Magnolia leaf for Bessie Smith Ross’s Landing, TN; S.I.T.E., EDAW, Stan Townsend Double-entendre

10. Oxymoron Nonsensical or self-contradictory pairing • “Conspicuously absent” • “bittersweet” or “chiaroscuro” Polarity … dynamic equilibrium? Humor Shuttlecocks at the Nelson-Atkins; Clas Oldenburg Scale jump Reflection

11. Paradox Seemingly contradictory or absurd, but well-founded or true “Don’t it always seem to go, you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til its gone …” Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi Unity of Opposites? Gas Works Park, Seattle; Richard Haag Recreational amenity and/or environmental threat?

12. Personification Endowing lifeless objects or ideas with human form or characteristics Treib: “… long driven underground by the onslaught of urbanity, suburbanity and modern technology, the genius [loci] was a bit hesitant to reemerge in the 20th century sunlight, and as a result, came out squinting.” • Portal Building, Wagner Park, NYC; Machado and Silvetti • Embodying “a private contemplative individual … with a set of references to the body … to support the inscription of the individual in the park.” • Berrizbeitia and Pollack Drawing by Machado & Silvetti

13. Synecdoche Fragment represents the whole, or … vice versa • hands for workers • wheels for cars • indicator species in LN Relating individual phenomena into a more integral whole versus a literal or reductive nature (metonymy) Walls as moving thresholds, boundaries KSU campus; reflection on the growth of the institution over time

14. Cautionary note Bernstein … dangers in use of allegory: • Obscurity, • Unskillful presentation, or • Obviousness Increasingly diverse interpretive community Increasingly a-literate culture

15. Cautionary note Terence Hawkes on the expansion of lists: “Of course it would be possible greatly to extend and complicate the list… But it is doubtful whether much is to be gained from this when it comes to the practical application of them …” “The distinctions between the categories become so finely drawn … it becomes impossible to use them without a simple-minded ‘reduction’ of the work they are intended to illuminate.”

16. Conclusion More tropes: more strategies, concepts, ideas … stronger critical thought; more precise communication; and better criticism Places are palimpsests, over-written texts Hirsch on reading poetry: Making, constructing meaning: a collaborative process between writer and reader (Treib, Must Landscapes Mean?) Evolution of meaning and inevitable change do not preclude a profound experience of place

17. Conclusion Concentrate on the activity and doing of projects versus an array of verbal categories Rely on intuition as much as intellect Engage design processes fully, freely, with numerous iterations, multiple drafts Describe, analyze, and interpret carefully, be the purpose to: e x p l a i n p e r s u a d e i n s p i r e _______________________________________

18. LiteratureCited Bernstein, Theodore M. 1968. The Careful Writer: A modern guide to English usage. New York: Atheneum.  Berrizbeitia, Anita and Linda Pollack. 1999. Inside Outside: Between Architecture and Landscape. Gloucester, MA: Rockport.   Burke, Kenneth. 1969. Essay entitled “Four Master Tropes” in A Grammar of Motives, Los Angeles, U.C. Press.  Chatman, Seymour. 1978. Story and Discourse: Narrative structure in fiction and film, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.  Harmon, William. 2000 A Handbook to Literature, 8th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.  Hawkes, Terence. 1972. Metaphor. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd.  Hines, Susan. 2004. “Back to the drawing board: Diana Balmori urges landscape architects to rediscover the language of ideas,” Landscape Architecture Hirsch, Edward. 1999. How to Read a Poem. New York: Harcourt.  Potteiger, Matthew and Jamie Purinton. 1998. Landscape Narratives: Design practices for telling stories. New York: John Wiley and Sons.  Saunders, William S., ed. 1998. Richard Haag: Bloedel Reserve and Gas Works Park, Landscape Views I, New York: Princeton Architectural Press with Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

19. Bloedel Reserve: Zen Garden that replaced the Garden of Planes designed by Richard Haag