Cultural Landscape

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Initially introduced by the geographer Otto Schluter in 1908 into the field of geology, cultural landscapes were defined as a term to denote the symbiotic results of human activity and surrounding environments, whether intentional or not. Cultural landscapes were differentiated from original landscapes, which were landscapes that had not yet been changed by human activity: cultural landscapes were produced out of original landscape – the first lasting activity being plant domestication for agriculture. The concept was further clarified in 1927 by Carl Sauer who stated that cultural landscapes are created through alteration of the physical environment by human cultural activity; physical environments are the medium through which human cultures act.¹
        Cultural landscapes can be recognized across a wide spectrum – such as human settlements to pastoral fields– that share little commonality in the conventional contrast of the “natural” and “artificial or man-made.”² Nonetheless, the concept is rooted in the notion that the landscape is the combined product of many processes and actors and is not attributable to only one; its entanglement ensures a richness of its value and implies a complex network of mutual responsibility, interdependency, and collaboration.
        In the disciplines of Architecture and Landscape design, the concept of the cultural landscape was promulgated through the magazine Landscape by publisher J.B. Jackson in the 1950s. Influencing thinkers like Denise Scott Brown, the term’s adoption by the architectural community mirrors the increasing interest in ordinary and everyday features of the built environment.³

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