GEOGRAPHERS’ LANDSCAPES

Alvin W. Urquhart

Department of Geography University of Oregon Eugene, Oregon 97403

Geographers view landscapes in two distinct ways: as tangible, sensible phenomena that are tied to a particular location, and as elements in abstract systems that are only incidentally tied to other elements in a particular place. These views need to be combined to get a better understanding of the meaning of landscape. Key Words: palpable landscapes, abstract landscapes, landscape geography.

GEOGRAPHERS’ LANDSCAPES

Landscapes have long been of concern to geographers. An older way of looking at landscape is as a view of an area or, more broadly, the sensible or palpable character of an area. As Carl Sauer wrote in 1925, Landscape “may be defined…as an area made up of a distinct association of forms both physical and cultural” [4, p.31]. More recently Donald Meinig elaborated this perspective in his article, “The Beholding Eye: Ten Versions of the Same Scene” [2, pp. 33-48]. His emphasis is on what is seen and upon the scene, itself.

A second and more recent perspective of the concept of landscape has grown up with the development of explicit geographic ideas concerning the spatial organization of economy. For example, Richard Morrill wrote that  “the wide variety of landscape patterns and the theories constructed to account for them can be unified by three common principles guiding man’s use of space. …Man uses land efficiently to get maximum return (or productivity), for the least possible effort. …tries to maximize trade and communication among people and places at the lowest cost or for the least effort, …and usually locates related activities as close together as possible.

The application of these principles tends to produce predictable patterns and order in the landscape”[3, pp. xi-xii]. “Landscape refers here to the systematic human pattern of occupance”[3, p. 258]. Merrill illustrates his concept of landscape with a reproduction of Isaard’s 1956 “composite agricultural landscape”[3, p.52] and with his own “gradient hierarchy landscape”[3,p.212]: both abstract geometric patterns. My point is that landscapes, seen by geographers explicitly developing ideas of spatial organization, have become abstract geometric configurations of many separate systems of economic, social, or other phenomena which have some unstated tangible effect on the physical features of the earth’s surface.

These are geographers’ two major views of landscape: on the one hand, an area or palpable source of discovery or experience and on the other hand, an abstract systematic arrangement of a particular set of phenomena (most often economic) which has its own spatial order or pattern.

The two views reflect the topics of interest of their holders. Palpable landscapes have largely interested cultural and historical geographers of simpler societies and of more remote areas or times. They have also interested many physical geographers who often use the word landscape to refer to areal associations of tangible natural systems. Abstract landscapes have appealed to economic and urban geographers of modern societies that have been dominated by economic and technological concerns. Cultural and historical geographers have had difficulty coming to grips with modern landscapes, doing so usually with feelings of uncertainty or nostalgia for the less well-trodden parts of the world or for the past. The reason is that modern landscapes are rarely the creation of their current occupants or their ancestors. The geographers of spatial organization have different difficulties in coming to grips with modern landscapes. Many abstract systems– which are their landscapes–are neither areally contiguous or spatially coincident; they span vast spaces. Any one locality or place is seen by them merely as a point, or is made up of fragments or isolated pieces of several systems that happen to intersect. Therefore a place is not a whole thing to be sensed but is a collection of parts of larger functional systems, which themselves cannot be sensed directly.

These two geographic concepts of landscape may be viewed differently by

looking at the processes and decisions which create places. Let us consider three situations: natural landscapes; humanized landscapes of spatially-restricted societies; and humanized landscapes of modern societies.

First, physical and biological processes alone form natural landscapes, which have localized areal expressions. To illustrate this in simplest terms, I ask you to

consider a wilderness–an area untouched by humans. Here the natural processes may be seen to be grouped systematically into certain ecological communities, which have limited or bounded areal expression. Usually the limits of ecological communities or systems are, by definition, tied to some steep gradient in one or more physical or biological phenomenon such as water availability, slope, critical temperature, soil acidity, or type of soil, rock, or organism. That ecologic communities are part of the tradition of sensible landscapes, I think, is obvious. The very bases for their discovery or definition are data collected directly by humans in field observation or indirectly by measurement of sample materials.

Second, human decisions and cultural processes modify natural ecologic communities giving form to a humanized or artificial landscape. Let’s look at the landscape of a spatially-restricted society [3, p260]. By definition a spatially- restricted society is focused more on its own interrelated activities than on connections to outside peoples; whether the outsiders are similar in their organization of life or are greatly different makes no difference to my point. The view I stress is of discrete cultural cells each of which is functionally distinct no matter what its internal make-up. As an example, imagine a small tribal territory within which almost all economic, political, social, cultural, and religious activities take place. These activities will be reflected in the creation of a humanized landscape which is confined to the tribal territory. Whoever makes decisions will be under direct local control; conflicts of uses will be resolved locally; the resulting sensible landscape will, as Philip Wagner [6] says, communicate, through the sensitivities of its occupants, with the local community and will help sustain it culturally and psychologically. Largely because of its occupants’ isolation, changes in their landscape occur slowly and allow for great continuity culturally and personally. One major focus in life is on locality and place.

Third, by contrast, in the landscapes of modern, urban societies most decisions are made in terms of their probable result on a very specific set of cultural processes, commonly those of corporate image or profitability, of governmental interpretations of security, economy, health, or education, or of individuals’ views of their many distinct societal roles or their rights and freedoms to travel, to manipulate private property, or to consume whatever their personal affluence allows. Decisions are rarely made in terms of local integration of place or with regard to the sensitivities of a whole person or an areally localized group in society.

The result is a vast series of systems and systems within systems which support or are created by corporations, governmental bodies, and individuals acting both collectively and individually. That each of these systems has palpable expressions in particular localities is seen by looking at all sorts of corporate or governmental buildings and areas, at social and religious structures, as well as at the farms, houses, and yards of millions of individuals and families. To look at several of the more obvious examples, simply consider McDonalds or K-Mart; or think of the Interstate Highway system, a state’s park system or a particular chain of supermarkets–I think of Safeway with both current stores and several discarded models of earlier times scattered throughout its spatial landscape. And ponder the elaborate systems that come together in creating a modern American suburban residence; American, certainly, but reflecting the genius loci, scarcely.

The problem in looking at modern landscapes for students of tangible landscapes is that the major systems in today’s urban society only coincidentally come together in particular localities or places. Sure, some are located by the same guiding principles, such as access to a freeway interchange, but the decisions that result in built landscapes, such as franchise stores, are rarely much modified locally. Except accidentally, the resulting sensible landscapes do not represent local spirits; rather they are simply reflections of national or international thinking. Further they

are extremely unstable because the systems which leave their artifacts are constantly changing, each system at its own rate and in response to its own pressures, usually not of local origin.

The problem for students of spatial organization is different; the scale at which they understand systems is spatially extensive. They can actually experience their landscapes only with great difficulty, expense, and travel. To consider how one senses landscapes becomes unimportant to them.

These two traditions of landscapes must be joined if we are to understand better our modern urban societies and the landscapes they create. Some cultural/historical geographers can learn better to study modern urban landscapes by identifying the built forms which are repeated over and over again throughout vast areas and finding out where, why, how, and by whom the decisions were made to create them. On the other side, some spatial geographers can come to recognize and identify the tangible forms which result from the operations of the systems they describe.

As Edith Cobb so carefully expressed (in a different context),

“Neither of these approaches [one emphasizing sensory experience and the earth, the other, linear, time-conscious, intellectual structure dominated by the sciences] can function effectively without the presence of the other. Intuition remains guess work until given shape by intellect; intellect, unless it is serviced by sensory experience and intuition levels, becomes mechanized, computerized memory–colorless and dehumanized”[1, p.49].

I believe that our sensory experiencing of landscapes often suffers from not being informed by intellect. Much of what passes as landscape art suffers from not being related to the physical and cultural systems which should sustain it. However, I also believe that our physical landscapes have become less colorful and more dehumanized because our abstract ideas are often little tempered by positive sensory experience. We have let intellect override our senses in the name of efficiency, economy, or practical expediency.

To be healthy humans we must know who we are and as Paul Sheppard wrote:

“Knowing who you are is impossible without knowing where you are. But it cannot be learned in a single stroke”[5, p.32].

All of our landscapes should give us the signs and scenes to help us know where we are. They must survive to give sustaining continuity to our lives. And geographers of landscape can better understand these signs and scenes if they combine the experience of both their senses and their intellects. The goal is a rich, full life embedded in mind, body, society, and the living earth.

Literature Cited

1. Cobb, Edith. The Ecology of Imagination in Childhood. New York: Columbia University Press, 1977.
2. Meinig, Donald. “The Beholding Eye: Ten Versions of the Same Scene.” pp. 33-48 in Meinig, Donald, ed. The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, l979.
3. Morrill, Richard. The Spatial Organization of Society. 2nd Edition. North Scituate, Mass.: Duxbury Press, 1974.
4. Sauer, Carl. “Morphology of Landscape.” pp.315-350 in Leighly, John, ed. Land and Life. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963.
5. Sheppard, Paul. “Place in American Culture.” North American Review. Fall, 1977, 22-32.
6. Wagner, Philip. Environments & Peoples. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1972.

ALVIN W. URQUHART is a Professor of Geography at the University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403. He is a past president of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers and former director of the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Oregon.