The University of Greenwich will open the academic year with a one-day conference to include landscape architect Martí Franch (Estudi Martí Franch: Arquitectura del Paisaje) and architect Ian Ritchie (Ian Ritchie Architects). Franch won the Rosa Barba European Landscape Prize at the European Biennial of Landscape Architecture in 2012 for the Cap de Creus project in Cadaqués.

The conference is free and open to the public and will take place from 10.00 until 16.00 on Friday 25 September in the Tessa Blackstone Lecture Theatre in the University of Greenwich’s Stirling Prize shortlisted building at Stockwell Street, Greenwich.

The Dark Side: Subverting Architecture and Landscape

‘It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the paramount axis of cultural conflict in Los Angeles has always been about the construction/interpretation of the city myth, which enters the material landscape as a design for speculation and domination.’

Mike Davis, City of Quartz (1990:23)

Architecture and landscape are easily subverted. Owen Hatherley (2015) suggests that the work of architects in London facilitates social cleansing, simultaneously the design of new landscapes is strategically formed to enhance property values and accelerate gentrification. The dark side of landscape, as critiqued by John Barrell (1980), points to concealed agendas which inform the representation of the landscape, in turn reinforcing the ideology. Barrell’s dark side exposes imperial ideologies, through the 18^th century painting of pastoral scenes, which are claimed to still co-opt a scenographic design practice today (Corner 1999). Simultaneously, there are opportunities for alternate subversions, from ecological inventions to ludic ambitions, which could reimagine forms of practice.

The continual subversion/revolution of our disciplines is the subject of the 2015/16 conference at the University of Greenwich’s Department of Architecture and Landscape.

Conference:

10:00               Nic Clear (University of Greenwich)

10:45               Bethany Gale (BDP) and Sarah Tolley (Levitt Bernstein)

11:15               Marti Franch (Estudi Marti Franch: Arquitectura del Paisaige)

12:00               Professor Neil Spiller (University of Greenwich)

12:45               Lunch

14:00               Ed Wall (University of Greenwich)

14:45               Ed Gant (Arup), Sarah Tolley (Levitt Bernstein), Arlene Decker (LDA Design)

15:15               Tim Waterman (University of Greenwich)

16:00               Ian Ritchie (Ian Ritchie Architects)

18:00               Reception and private view of MA Landscape Architecture & MSc Advanced Landscape & Urbanism design works.