In recent decades “landscape” has taken on an expanded definition in architecture. In the first half of the 20th century, the architectural avant-garde celebrated autonomy from nature, and architects devised utopian schemes for creating urban realms ex novo, with little consideration for their surroundings. More recently, however, the challenges of a threatened environment and rapidly expanding cities have fostered a revised understanding of landscape. Harmony between the spatial, social, and environmental aspects of human life has become a priority in political thought, and this has had profound reverberations in both architecture and landscape design. “Landscape”—no longer understood merely as nature untouched—now encompasses complex interventions by architects and landscape architects in urban and rural surroundings. In Situ: Architecture and Landscape draws from the rich collection of The Museum of Modern Art to examine the diverse attitudes toward landscape over the last hundred years.
Organized by Andres Lepik, Curator, and Margot Weller, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Architecture and Design.
