Landscape Genres: Towards a Taxonomy of Contemporary Landscape Architecture

Contemporary landscape architecture lacks a systematic way of classifying and discussing design projects according to their underlying design philosophies as well as the forms they take. This paper presents a provisional taxonomy of contemporary landscape architecture through the use of 11 genres. These genres are as follows; Genius loci, Iconoclasm, Spectacle, Cyborgs, Digital Natures, Indeterminism, Caretaking, Activism, Resilience, Landscape Urbanism and Big Plans. The purpose of this is not to try and organize all the types of work landscape architects do into definitive categories, rather, it is to highlight types of work with certain identifiable characteristics that the author believes to be important, not only for a given project but for the discipline of landscape architecture in the 21st century more broadly. Each genre is therefore formulated as a potential linguistic tool to help shape further discussion of contemporary design and also as a way of identifying certain themes which designers might self-consciously seek to further develop in their creative work into the future. In this sense the genres are beginnings not ends.