The artist and landscape architect Isamu Noguchi’s (1904–1988) interests and production spanned an exceptionally broad terrain from furniture and lamps to courtyards and gardens. Although his gardens include several of the twentieth century’s most iconic landscape designs, Noguchi nonetheless occupies a place removed from the normal practice of landscape architecture. As an artist, he relied more on intuition than on objective analysis, and he shaped his landscapes as sculpture, with space as their primary vehicle.
In his comprehensive and richly illustrated study of Noguchi’s gardens, noted landscape historian Marc Treib describes and critiques projects that date from Noguchi’s early, unrealized projects for playgrounds and monuments to a large park in Sapporo, Japan, whose construction was completed only posthumously. The story begins with the discussion of Noguchi sculpture that relate in some way to actual landscapes, then moves to the dance set designs for Martha Graham, finally entering the realm of actual landscapes with his gardens for the Reader’s Digest offices in Tokyo.
Marc Treib, Professor of Architecture Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, is a historian and critic of architecture and landscape architecture who has published on a wide variety of modern and historical subjects in the United States, Japan, and Scandinavia. His most recent books include The Landscapes of Modern Architecture: Wright, Mies, Neutra, Aalto, Barragán; The Aesthetics of Contemporary Planting Design; Serious Fun: The Landscapes of Claude Cormier; The Shape of the Land: Topography and Landscape Architecture; and most recently, Poodling: On the Just Shaping of Shrubbery.
This May 2 webinar is sponsored by the Garden Conservancy and is $5 for members, $15 for nonmembers. Register at https://www.gardenconservancy.org/education/education-events/virtual-talk-landscape-as-sculpture A recording of this webinar will be sent to all registrants a few days after the event. We encourage you to register, even if you cannot attend the live webinar.
