Axioms

The Axioms reading focuses at one point on Jens Jensen, dean of the prairie landscape, in which he compares contemporary art, in the landscape, and then the more European style of gardens. In this, you can see the shift from once using landscapes as a symbol of the social status of power to a shift where the landscape is purely for the people and is not meant to have/take on any sort of symbology other than being for the people. Jens Jensen said that "straight lines are copied from the architecture and do not belong to the landscape. They have nothing to do with nature... The landscape must follow the lines of the free-growing tree with its thousands of curves." This is definitely something I can agree with but in some cases when talking about addressing the building and creating a space that converges the concrete-built architecture with nature that belief that Jens Jensen shared is wrong, in my opinion. I believe the integration in the work that Martha Schwartz does, at least in the conversation of how to integrate nature with the built urban environment is the correct approach. In that article, there is one part that says "Given the nature of our built environment, the use of geometry in the landscape is more human than the disorientation caused by the incessant lumps, bumps, and squiggles of a stylized naturalism." I think there is a happy medium between the two, one that focuses on the more naturalistic side of things, while the other relates and makes the connection to the concrete built environment.