Category Archives: Uncategorized

Landscapes…people…the Way of St James

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It is the mystery we all face…understanding…the landscape we all walk through…the strange bifurcation…spirit…material…search…discovery…and search again…and again…not sure…still looking…tired…still looking.

St James, the first disciple of Jesus to be martyred…somehow his body ended in Northern Spain…a landscape with a history of people that defies, that predates everything we know…the land influenced by people whose roots are mysterious–Basques, Berbers…

Why do people travel this landscape, the way of St James…the Camino de Santiago…the landscape of hope, of discovery?

Yeah sure, to tick a box…but the others…the others…the video below by an Irish Pilgrim captures the others, captures an essence of the search for discovery.  It captures the thrill of hope in the journey through the landscape and it captures the melancholy sadness of arrival at the destination and still finding a mystery yet to solve.

That is our life.

And that is why I write landscape stories.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOMMl33Ot5Q?rel=0&w=640&h=360]

…on a landscape journey…

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Winter path

On a path within a landscape journey…and up ahead, around the corner…

Nobody truly knows just what may be around the next corner…can’t see, can’t hear, don’t know…such are our limitations.

Friday, 24Jan2014, I was, on foot, taking a landscape journey–a split second of which is in the above photograph.

As I took the photo, I thought just as we do not know what lies around the next corner at anytime, we do not know either the time of death or thereafter…but we put the best shine on it.

So I took the photograph, smiled and continued walking.

It was beautiful on the day…and the memories still are beautiful!

Crystal Vision, Beta Edition, 26Sep2013

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Crystal Vision is a landscape story.  It is a novella, literary fiction.

The past reaches for today

In Crystal Vision, George Moleson, an emerging professional, leaves his landscape architecture roots in Southern California, to build his international career, becoming a key person on a huge new town project located just near the Tropic of Cancer, on the Red Sea in Saudi Arabia.

After six cosseted years on that project, a quick succession of personal and professional events batter George.  They untether him; and he embarks into the labyrinthine mists of landscapes…landscapes the nature of he had never ever imagined.

Read Crystal Vision preface and the ten Episodes’ summaries.

From Bern to Bernese Oberlands Jungfrau Region

Mountains, Plants, Water, Sky

Humans in the Mountains

Then please tell me if you like it or have any questions about it.

Thank you for your time and interest in the landscape.

Crystal Vision and Labyrinthine Mists

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As I move toward the completion of my second landscape story, Crystal Vision, I have updated the novella’s story line.

Labyrinthine Mists is the landscape through which the main character moves.

Geo was from LA.  He was a young and successful landscape architect; yet he sensed…an unease.  He took an offer to work in Saudi Arabia, an excellent challenge where he would have exponentially larger responsibilities.

During his six years on the Red Sea in Saudi Arabia, his professional and social life evolved inside a bubble, a cultural bubble protecting him from uncertainty…until…the bubble burst.

He lost his tether to ‘reality’ and began a blind journey into a landscape labyrinth.  A labyrinth by definition does not have an end; but Geo sensed…an obligation and something important to find.  And so, he embarked upon an exploration of labyrinthine landscapes he had never before imagined.

Public Realm

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Bonigen Alpabzug

 

What is urban landscape and what is public realm?

This is a September 2013 view of main street in the center of Bonigen, a Swiss town of roughly 2,000 people.  It is a town that has been for centuries.

Every summer the Bonigen farmers take their cows on a journey to the high Alp ‘pastures’.  The above view shows the festival of the cows’ return journey (Alpabzug) from the high Alps.  The cows and other grazing animals are feted.  Plants and flowers make up head dresses for the cows.  And all the residents come to cheer for them as they are paraded down main street.

The urban landscape, the public realm overflows with landscape and agricultural realities–the realities of inter-relationships among people, plants, animals and landscape.

People connecting with landscape via…

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…music.

Most North Americans are overwhelmed by the convenience and connectivity of the various forms of public transport in Switzerland.  It is an effectively interwoven network that begins at the airports and train stations where it is most dense.  Then it gradually thins out as you travel higher into the mountains and further away from the cities.

At the final destination, you can find Swiss people in blissful contact with the landscape, as the following images demonstrate.

How much do you think access to this landscape pleasure is worth in any urban design?

Look at the faces of these people 2,250 meters above mean sea level…transcendental enjoyment if I have ever seen it!  Music, people, landscape.

The landscape above

The landscape below

Alphorns

Alphorn painted details

Alphorn craftsmanship

Landscape, alphorns, people

Landscape, people, music

People and music

People and music

People in the landscape

Washington Irving…

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…writing in the 1820s Tales of the Alhambra, about the palace of the Alhambra:

“…externally it is a rude congregation of towers and battlements, with no regularity of plan or grace of architecture…giving little promise of the grace and beauty which prevail within.”

Might there be a design lesson hidden in that observation regarding something seen from a distance?

Might there be an essential outside vs inside experience?

Might there be seeing when the viewer is moving vs seeing when the viewer is still?

…outside? …inside?

Awkward Beauty: The 23 Club

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I have updated a teaser to the landscape novella I have written, The 23 Club.  Please take a look at it and tell me if it is attractive.

Not sure?

Well, if you like landscapes, gardens, plants, international adventure, problem solving, a dose or two of emotional uncertainty, and a good smile every once in a while…you might just give this teaser a try.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaLU30-1Y_k?rel=0&w=560&h=315]