Temporality in Designed Landscapes: the theory and its practice in works of some major landscape designers 1945-2005

This study analyses temporality in designed landscapes. The meaning of temporality is explored, taking us beyond common conceptualisations of time. Temporality, invariably poorly understood in a landscape context, and previously acknowledged as being important, but with only limited explicit discourse, is examined through the lens of a fresh theoretical articulation of temporality pertaining to designed landscapes. A phenomenological approach becomes imperative; and is employed in probing the work, through writing, of several eminent landscape designers between 1945 and 2005.
These designers’ works are analysed through the texts, and with support from images of the works, for characteristics of temporality. Textual material offered a broad range of verbal articulation of these characteristics. Some designed landscapes are described with explicit verbalisation of their temporal qualities: others require analysis to discover their temporal qualities from text that is only mildly suggestive.
The heterochronous characteristics of temporality expressed in these designers’ works are named and ordered within five themes: tempo, process, duration, imagination and layers. Theoretical understanding of temporality builds with identification of its applications in designed landscapes.