{"id":528423,"date":"2010-04-15T10:00:22","date_gmt":"2010-04-15T14:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/?p=42850"},"modified":"2010-04-15T10:00:22","modified_gmt":"2010-04-15T14:00:22","slug":"boulders-that-bowl-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/528423","title":{"rendered":"Boulders that bowl over"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some rocks \u2014 as small as pebbles or as big as houses \u2014 are called \u201cerratics,\u201d since they were scattered over continents thousands of years ago by receding glaciers or rafts of ice. They look different than the native rock they come to rest on, and so they seem random and strange.<\/p>\n

Those same qualities, over time, were turned to artistic purposes. Landscape painters of the 19th century used erratics to illustrate the strange majesty of nature. By 1857, when surveys began for what would become Central Park in Manhattan, erratics already on the site were incorporated into the design.<\/p>\n

The science of geology \u2014 erratics and all \u2014 was a required subject in the nation\u2019s first formal training program in landscape architecture, started at Harvard in 1900.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew Englanders hated a boulder. They blew them up,\u201d declared Harvard geologist Nathanial Slater in a lecture that year. \u201cBut the modern landscape architect does not do this. In general, we are to appreciate rock surfaces.\u201d<\/p>\n

That appreciation has taken some strange turns, from modest public fountains to faux cliffs to monumental fiberglass \u201crocks\u201d lit from within. Many examples are on view at \u201cErratics: A Genealogy of Rock Landscape<\/a>,\u201d an exhibit at the Harvard Graduate School of Design<\/a>\u2019s (GSD) Gund Hall through May 12.<\/p>\n

You get a sense of the past from the cases of drawings, photos, manuscripts, and rock specimens on display, all from Harvard collections. Included are recent offerings such as Harvey Fite\u2019s \u201cOpus 40\u201d (1935-76); Michael Heizer\u2019s spooky pile \u201cAdjacent, Against, Upon\u201d (1976); and James Pierce\u2019s long, winding \u201cStone Serpent\u201d (1979).<\/p>\n

The exhibit\u2019s extensive wall display of photos, diagrams, plans, and text provides a sense of the present as well as the future. Rock and other landscape elements, it seems, can be playful and plastic.<\/p>\n

One section, \u201cErratics in Practice,\u201c looks at projects by GSD faculty and affiliated practitioners. \u201cThe title simply means built projects that use rocks or the form of erratic boulders as a central element,\u201d said exhibit curator\u00a0Jane Hutton<\/a>, a GSD lecturer in landscape architecture.<\/p>\n

Of immediate interest is the Tanner Fountain in front of the Science Center, a 1988 installation comprising 159 erratics, each around 4 feet wide, gathered from western Massachusetts. At dusk, it is a \u201ccool white mass\u201d that reflects light, the notes say, and after a rain \u201cthe center of the fountain glows like a warm cloud.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cStock-Pile\u201d (2009) is a more recent Harvard addition to the tradition of rock in landscape architecture. Conical piles of stone, aggregate, sand, and soil \u2014 designed and installed in seven days \u2014 are \u201cpoised to subside,\u201d the notes say. A year after the installation, the points have softened.<\/p>\n

Most of the examples, though, point up rock\u2019s near permanence. An erratic is displayed in a spare open house in China; tall volcanic rocks loom like giant tombstones in California; a walkway of basalt is set into an ancient streambed in the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n

On fullest display is the work of Canadian landscape architect Claude Cormier<\/a>, a 1994 GSD graduate. His whimsical work includes explicit use of rocks. \u201cSugar Beach\/Jarvis Slip,\u201d an urban beach being built on Toronto\u2019s industrial waterfront, plays off a nearby sugar factory. A large erratic will be candy-striped in red and white.<\/p>\n

A short essay on Cormier appears on one wall, written by the chair of GSD\u2019s department of landscape architecture, Charles Waldheim<\/a>, the John E. Irving Professor of Landscape Architecture. \u201cIn an era when the discipline of landscape architecture has shifted its attention away from a concern with the visual in favor of landscape\u2019s operational potentials,\u201d he writes, \u201cCormier\u2019s work offers a counterproposal: that landscape is itself historically inseparable from questions of visual perception.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other work by Cormier takes our perception of landscape a step further, creating works that mimic the real thing. \u201cLipstick Forest\u201d (1999-2002) is a forest of large artificial trees \u2014 glossy and pink \u2014 in Montreal\u2019s Convention Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlue Stick Garden\u201d (2000) used scans of blue poppies to create a bed of blue sticks that are now on permanent display in Montreal, \u201cnot as a contemporary installation in a garden,\u201d Cormier\u2019s Web site says, \u201cbut a garden itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Using rocks in landscape architecture has created whimsy too, as in the Nishi Harima Science Garden City in Japan (1994). Monumental fiberglass rocks there \u201cglow like giant lanterns,\u201d according to the exhibit card.<\/p>\n

The \u201cRoof Garden\u201d (2005) at the Museum of Modern Art is a rock garden with few real rocks. Hollow plastic shapes of white and black, eerily uniform, are bolted to runners and set off by beds of crushed glass, shredded tires, and white stone.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the future will echo Waldheim\u2019s view of Cormier\u2019s creations as \u201cconstant preoccupation with games of visual perception.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Electric<\/p>\n
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Electric blue<\/p>\n

While looking like something biological — DNA or coral, even — this is actually artificial tree branches stretching into an equally blue sky. Once a diseased tree in Napa Valley, Cormier gave it new life — with 75,000 Christmas balls.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Lipstick<\/p>\n
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Lipstick forest<\/p>\n

Artist Claude Cormier avoided using live plants, which he said he would fight to keep alive against the unforgiving local climate. Here, 52 concrete trees, painted lipstick-pink to celebrate the city\u2019s flourishing cosmetic industry, are not your average houseplant. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"My<\/p>\n
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My blue heaven<\/p>\n

Created in 2000 for the inaugural season of the M\u00e9tis International Garden Festival in Quebec, one of Cormier’s inspirations was the Himalayan blue poppy, which was painstakingly adapted to the region’s microclimate. Here, folks stroll through the reeds. A real garden, indeed.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"D'Youville\"<\/p>\n
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D’Youville<\/p>\n

Once the site of Canada’s Parliament, D’Youville’s sidewalks have been overlaid with wood, concrete, granite, and limestone, and jet between access points for the city museum, offices, restaurants, and residences on adjacent street facades.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Photo slideshow:<\/span> ‘Erratics: A Genealogy of Rock Landscape’ at Gund Hall<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some rocks \u2014 as small as pebbles or as big as houses \u2014 are called \u201cerratics,\u201d since they were scattered over continents thousands of years ago by receding glaciers or rafts of ice. They look different than the native rock they come to rest on, and so they seem random and strange. Those same qualities, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4175,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-528423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4175"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}