70年国际风景园林教育与展望

在风景园林作为一门学科在大学的课堂上被系统教授之前，人类早已经历了漫长的城市与园林营建的历史。充满诗意的古代城市、城郊风景以及城内园林都彰显着传统的营造智慧。那些建造于19世纪以前，至今仍为人们所知晓甚至完好保留的古典园林和建筑，大都是特定阶级所有。这些作品的设计和建造者，往往以非正式的方式接受教育和训练，他们通过家族的传承、做学徒和自学等方式获得精湛的技艺，成为今天所说的建筑师和造园家。

当代风景园林学成为系统的职业，作为一门学科走入大学课程，与200余年人类社会经济发展所产生的实践需求密不可分。从18世纪中叶第一次工业革命开始，西方国家用了100余年的时间，完成了生产技术、经济结构到社会体制的全面改革，伴随大量人口涌入城市，巨大的居住、工作、交通、运输的需求促使现代城市迅速发展，随后，城市公园被视为解决环境污染、居住环境恶化的“良药”而发展。在这样的环境下，建筑学首先发展成了一个“高度组织化的职业”。1857年，理查德·莫里斯·亨特（Richard Morris Hunt）等建筑师发起了美国建筑师协会（AIA），影响了美国最早的一批大学开设建筑专业。同年，美国国民经济在恐慌中陷入萧条。劳动密集型的城市公园建设作为失业人员再就业的手段之一被政府纳入公共复兴计划。园林建设正在逐渐摆脱为少数富裕阶层服务的局限，设计师开始将工作重点转向公共园林建设和城市综合整治。弗雷德里克·劳·奥姆斯特德（Frederick Law Olmsted Sr.）作为1857年中央公园设计阶段的主要负责人，在此后30余年中担当了美国风景园林学的奠基人角色，其家族的约翰·查尔斯·奥姆斯特德（John Charles Olmsted）于1899年创立了美国风景园林师协会（ASLA）。1900年，小弗雷德里克·劳·奥姆斯特德（Frederick Law Olmsted Jr.）和 阿瑟·阿萨希尔·舒尔克里夫（Arthur A.Shurcliff）在哈佛大学创立了世界上第一个风景园林学位项目，开启国际现代风景园林教育的篇章。

两次世界大战之间的20年间，西方世界正值短暂的平和发展时期，一部分欧美院校开始设立风景园林专业，如美国宾夕法尼亚大学、挪威农业大学，英国的雷丁大学；丹麦皇家艺术学院在此期间开展了北欧地区的风景园林“暑期课程”。1948年，国际风景园林师联合会（IFLA）的创立重建了由于世界大战而中断的国际交流机制，更多的院校集中在“二战”后设立风景园林项目，包括爱丁堡大学、谢菲尔德大学等。在教学内容方面，“二战”结束后的经济复苏和繁荣带来新城镇的建设风潮、20世纪60年代工业城市对于生态环境的破坏日益凸显、20世纪70年代欧美经济结构的变革释放出大量亟须再利用的后工业场地，这些社会经济变化对风景园林行业实践提出了变革需求，进而影响到美国和欧洲风景园林学科教育的形式和内涵。

中国现代风景园林的教育起源于对西方风景园林与建筑学科的吸纳和借鉴，并融入传统的营建特色。20世纪20年代，中国处于破旧立新的时代交点，大学和学科制度广泛系统地建立，大批学生远渡重洋学习西方的哲学思想和科学知识。1924年，梁思成、童寯等赴美进入宾夕法尼亚大学学习建筑，他们归国后投入中国现代建筑的教育与实践，1945年梁思成在创办清华大学营建系的蓝图中提出设立“庭园计划”专业；中华人民共和国成立后，国家恢复建设百废待兴，1951年汪菊渊和吴良镛在梁思成的支持下汇集北京农业大学（现中国农业大学）园艺系和清华大学营建系的力量，合办“造园组”，后于1956年转入北京林学院（现北京林业大学）正式建系，设置专业，同时从全国调入陈俊愉、孙筱祥等众多园林专家强化师资建设。中国风景园林学科肇始兼具工科与农科交叉之特色。回首70个春秋，风景园林教育由一代代教育和实践者艰难深耕，其发展起落浮沉。伴随着改革开放后中国经济的飞速发展及社会的变革，中国风景园林的教育、研究和实践得以不断进步，取得今日兼容并蓄的开阔局面。2021年是“两个一百年”的历史交汇点，也是风景园林一级学科设立10周年和风景园林专业教育诞生70周年，在国家繁荣富强、社会文明进步的大背景下，风景园林学科发展也将继续焕发出蓬勃的生机。

风景园林，一直会是一个协调人类和自然关系的综合性学科。宾大首任风景园林系系主任罗伯特·威尔莱特（Robert Wheelwright），同时也是美国Landscape Architecture Magazine创办人，曾清晰地描绘了风景园林专业独一无二的复杂性：“只有一种职业，主要目标是将人类的创造与既已存在的自然相协调，那就是风景园林。风景园林需要解决的问题的复杂性，涉及工程、建筑知识、土壤、植物材料、生态等，再加上审美，一个没有受过高等教育、没有一定文化程度的人，是难以承担这项职业的。”随着人类社会价值观念和生活方式的改变，以及自然环境的变化和科学技术的进步，未来风景园林教育所面临的复杂性挑战将与日俱增，在应对气候变化、全球公共健康、保护地球生态的世界大势中，在生态文明、美丽中国等国家战略需求下，如何拓展风景园林行业和教育的增长空间、发现前沿学术问题以及改进教学和研究的技能？全球风景园林教育者需要持续耕耘这些重要议题，为世界人居环境的健康持续发展做出更伟大的贡献。

International Landscape Architecture Education in the Past 70 Years and Future Prospect

Before landscape architecture was systematically taught as a discipline in university, human beings had already had a long history of urban and garden construction. The poetic gardens and landscapes in ancient cities and suburban areas all demonstrated the traditional construction wisdom of Chinese people.Most of the classical gardens and buildings which were built before the 19th century and are still known to people or even well preserved today were used to be owned by specific classes. The designers and creators of these gardens and buildings often received informal education or training. They obtained exquisite skills through family inheritance, apprenticeship or self-learning, and gradually became the architects or gardeners that we call today.

Contemporary landscape architecture has become a systematic profession and included in university curriculum as a discipline, which is inseparable from the practical demand for the more than 200 years’ social and economic development. Ever since the First Industrial Revolution in the mid-18th century,western countries have spent more than a century to comprehensively reform the production technology, economic structure and social system. As a great number of people pouring into cities, the huge demand for residence, work, commuting and transportation has promoted the rapid development of modern cities. Later,urban parks were regarded as a “medicine” to remedy environmental pollution and deterioration of the living environment. In this context, architecture first developed into a “highly organized profession”. In 1857, architects, such as Richard Morris Hunt, founded the American Institute of Architects (AIA), which influenced the earliest universities in the United States to start the architecture major. In the same year, the American national economy fell into depression in panic. As one of the means of re-employing the unemployed, the labor-intensive urban park construction was quickly included in the government’s public revival plan. Landscape construction was gradually getting rid of the limitation of serving only a few rich people; and designers started to attach importance to public garden design and comprehensive urban renovation. Frederick Law Olmsted Sr., as the person in charge of the Central Park design stage in 1857, played the role of the founder of American landscape architecture for more than 30 years. In 1899,John Charles Olmsted from the same family founded the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA). In 1900, Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. and Arthur A.Shurcliff co-founded the world’s first degree program in landscape architecture at Harvard University, which henceforth opened the chapter of international modern landscape architecture education.

In the 20 years between the two world wars, the western world had undergone a short period of peaceful development. Some European and American universities, including The University of Pennsylvania in the United States, The Agricultural University of Norway, and The University of Reading in the UK, began to set up landscape architecture majors. For example, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts carried out a “Summer Program” in landscape architecture in northern Europe during this period. In 1948, the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA) was founded to reestablish the international exchange mechanism interrupted by the world wars. An increasing number of universities set up landscape architecture programs after the World War II, including The University of Edinburgh and The University of Sheffield. The programs focused on the construction trend of new towns brought about by the economic recovery and prosperity after the World War II, the increasing destruction to the ecological environment in the industrial cities in the 1960s, and the reform of European and American economic structure in the 1970s which released a large number of post industrial sites that need to be reused. These socio-economic changes have raised the requirements for reformation regarding practices of the landscape architecture industry, which further influenced the form and connotation of landscape architecture education in the United States and Europe.

Started from the absorption and reference of Western landscape architecture and the architecture discipline, the education of modern landscape architecture in China integrated the traditional characteristics of construction.In the 1920s, when China was experiencing a transition from the old era to a new era, the university and discipline systems were widely and systematically established, and many students traveled abroad to study western philosophy and scientific knowledge. In 1924, Mr. Liang Sicheng, Tong Jun and some others went to the University of Pennsylvania in the United States to study architecture. After they returned to the homeland, they dedicated themselves to the education and practice of Chinese modern architecture. In 1945,Liang Sicheng proposed to establish the major of “Gardening Program”in the blueprint for establishing the Construction Department of Tsinghua University. After the founding of PRC, construction was resumed in the country and everything needed to be reconstructed. In 1951, with the support of Liang Sicheng, Wang Juyuan and Wu Liangyong gathered the strength of the Department of Horticulture of Beijing Agricultural University (Today’s China Agricultural University) and the Construction Department of Tsinghua University to jointly set up the “Garden Group” which was later transferred to Beijing Forestry College (Today’s Beijing Forestry University) in 1956 to officially become a department with newly set-up majors. At the same time, a group of garden experts, such as Chen Junyu and Sun Xiaoxiang,were transferred from all over the country to the department to strengthen the faculty. From the very beginning, landscape architecture in China was incorporated with the characteristics of both engineering and agriculture.Looking back on the 70 years, the generations of educators and practitioners have been nurturing the landscape architecture discipline with great difficulties and times of ups and downs. With the rapid development of China’s economy as well as the social changes after the reform and opening up, the education,research and practice of landscape architecture in China have made continuous progress and eventually achieved the inclusive and open situation today. The year of 2021 is another historical intersection of “two centenaries”, and also the 10th anniversary of the founding of the first-class discipline of landscape architecture and the 70th anniversary of the birth of landscape architecture professional education. In the background of national prosperity and social civilization and progress, the development of the landscape architecture discipline will continue to prosper with vigorous vitality.

Landscape architecture has always been and will continue to be a comprehensive discipline to coordinate the relationship between human and nature. Robert Wheelwright, the first director of the Department of Landscape Architecture in The University of Pennsylvania and the founder of the American journalLandscape Architecture Magazine, once clearly described the unique complexity of this major: “There is but one profession whose main objective has been to co-ordinate the works of man with preexistent nature and that is landscape architecture. The complexity of the problems which the landscape architect is called upon to solve, involving a knowledge of engineering,architecture, soils, plant materials, ecology, etc., combined with aesthetic appreciation can hardly be expected of a person who is not highly trained and who does not possess a degree of culture.” With the change of people’s core social values and lifestyle, as well as the change of the natural environment and the progress of science and technology, the complex challenges faced by future landscape architecture education will sure to increase day by day. How to expand the growth space of landscape architecture industry and education, find cuttingedge academic problems and improve teaching and research skills in the global trend of dealing with climate change, maintaining public health and protecting the earth’s ecology against the country’s strategic demands of ecological civilization and the Beautiful China has become an important topic for global landscape educators to continue further exploration, so as to make greater contributions to the healthy and sustainable development of the global living environment.

Editor-in-Chief: Professor ZHENG Xi

Sep 28, 2021