Tag Archives: landscape

Crystal Vision, Beta Edition, 26Sep2013

by

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

The past reaches for today

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

by

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

by

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…

by

…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…

by

…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

by

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]

Gnomes, Chelsea 2013 or otherwise…

by

In 2013, the Royal Horticultural Society admitted Gnomes to the Chelsea Flower Show, but only by caveat that they be used to help grow funding to encourage younger people’s interest in horticulture.  This fit nicely into British tradition, well delineated by David Bowie’s 1967 single, The Laughing Gnome, available here on YouTube.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyQxTWDLZ8o?rel=0&w=400&h=300]

But the last word is, in a true Germanic sense, very serious, written by Franz Hartmann 1895, Among the Gnomes, An Occult Tale of Adventure in the Untersberg.  The Untersberg is a mountain on the border of Germany and Austria.  Within the Untersberg are unterwegs connecting…connecting to…Bonigen, Switzerland, where…

 

 

I discovered these fellows doing their duties.