Landscape architects are not funny. On the rare occasion that I meet one who is, I find that their humour almost never flows deeply into their practice. After being part of this discipline for more than 20 years, most people I’ve come across are sincere, earnest and deadly serious. Why is this so? Why are so many of us lacking a funny bone? Is it the chicken or the egg? Are serious kids attracted to the clarion call of landscape architecture, or do our stern elders beat any humour out of their impressionable joy-filled protégés? Do jokers just go elsewhere? Or have the Millennials just turned everything beige?

Of course, there are notable amusing exceptions. However, the fact that most of our work does not elicit even the slightest of chuckles is fascinating as it reveals how we see ourselves, how we like other people to perceive us and what we believe landscape architecture can and should do.

We’re not in the funny business

There are some excuses for why landscape architects are not funny. But are they sufficient? The foremost is simply we are not in the funny business. Laughs don’t sell. We don’t need comedians to ensure retaining walls stand, baby plants thrive, or paths are disability access compliant. Our job is to make things work, ensure they are safe, don’t die and last for a long time. This is a fair point. Some firmly state that landscape architecture is ‘creative problem solving’.

But is that it?

The other people we work with, including engineers, ecologists, politicians and community champions, all have the ability to solve problems creatively. If landscape architecture were simply the innovative and optimal resolution of a clearly defined problem, equivalent problems should produce equivalent landscapes. This could not be further from the truth.

There needs to be more.

Instead, to paraphrase Deyan Sudjic, landscape architecture is the language that society uses to create landscapes that reflect its purposes and values^[1]. Our chosen design discipline, more than, say, engineering, opens the door to the messy thing we call ‘culture’, in all its horror, celebration, disgust, injustice, triumph and humour.

The world is ending

One might also say that, with the world descending into chaos, there is no time to be light of heart. Aside from this being muttered throughout history, regardless of whether a real crisis was nigh, this is a tell-tale sign of someone without a funny bone.

I have struggled with particularly serious branches of landscape architecture: those that turn our work into a dry, quantified science of performance^[2], position landscape architecture as the most important ‘mother of all arts’^[3], or argue that it should be the fundamental organisational structure of urbanity^[4]. At some point, a kind of stern and wilful ignorance is needed to believe in our global dominance. This is not to deny we do meaningful, transformative work. Yet earnest, well-meaning individuals through their actions imply “Don’t just sit there, landscape architect! There is no time to waste in the quest to save endangered species, eroding coastlines!”^[5]. Or worse, at times they explicitly proselytise about our quest to save the world. Hearing grand-daddy Ian McHarg recite “A Poem to the World’s Children” reveals this is no exaggeration^[6].

Being funny is frivolous

We may not be a humorous bunch because we think that it is the same as being frivolously unprofessional. We worry that being funny is carelessness, and we will lose money, clients and respect. Cracking a joke is a risk with little reward. To a degree, this is also fair.

Making a gaffe in an inappropriate context may destroy potential meaning a landscape may hold. Nevertheless, is believing a jovial outlook to be unprofessional nothing more than unspoken bias?

Raconteurs

Many will object that there are funny landscape architects. And yes, there are some valiant exceptions. One cannot look past Martha, Claude Cormier or Ken Smith for a particular joyous spirit. Martha’s son, Jacob Walker, is riotously wild.^[7] Across Europe, TOPOTEK 1 and some Dutch designers have an approach to working in the Anthropocene that is both radical and mischievous^[8]. In Australia, Richard Weller and Vladimir Sitta’s work as Room 4.1.3 was novel in ways that could produce a healthy giggle.

Others may retort that those practitioners are enabling thoughtless post-modern indiscretions. Nothing but colourful, worthless garbage. But let’s tentatively trace a lighthearted irreverence back through history to see the tongue-in-cheek of the American Modernists^[9], the whimsy and trickery of 18th century English gardens^[10] or the bizarre, grotesque monsters of the 16th century Italian Renaissance^[11].

Closer to home

At home in Melbourne, there are some examples that are close to my heart. Landscape architect and artist Cass Chilton has long practised with an idiosyncratic wit. Trawling through the refuse of Australian cultural banality, she plays liberally with kitsch, cliché, feminist prerogatives and Aussie identity. One often joyously laughs at the strange bricolage she uses to create novel Australian landscapes^[12].

Similarly, Bede Brennan’s long standing Shit Gardens experiment on Instagram, is arguably the first and still the best example of landscape architecture embracing meme culture. At first glance, the posts appear as cheap gags, nothing more. Yet, when one is familiar with the content a subversive landscape architectural agenda of improving biodiversity, fighting against monotony and embracing culture in all its manifestations is quietly revealed^[13].

Being unserious

If we accept that landscape architecture is more than just creative problem solving, and instead it is the tool we use to reflect society’s terrestrial purposes and values then we must absorb the widest of influences. If we agree that technology, production, economics, culture, desire, symbolism, fashion trends and aesthetics are par for the course then there is no reason why humour should be left off the table. Accepting this, we unlock a mountain of playful possibility^[14].

Laughing helps us to process trauma. With an ecological apocalypse and fracturing communities all around, we deal with these tragedies in different ways. Some deny, others lament and mourn^[15], while others crack jokes. Dark humour, or black comedy is in every culture^[16] and we laugh at terrible things, not to diminish or trivialise the horror, but as a way to process difficulty, facing the insurmountable^[17].

We may resort to sly subversion when we find ourselves in situations that are immoral and unjust, with no public mechanisms for expression. A quiet hidden protest may be the only way to bypass authorities and say what needs to be said^[18].

Sometimes, we must dethrone the serious to defend fragile places. For many, liminal landscapes look strange, unpalatable or even disgusting. When we are at the vanguard of aesthetics, we can translate weirdness into endearing and disarming characterisations. Diminishing monsters, creating cute names and fanciful stories can turn the normies from sceptics to vehement advocates^[19].

Finally, letting in humour liberates us from the tyranny of the rational^[20]. Serendipity, inference, intuition, happenstance and coincidence are all healthy terrain for the playful. To sometimes be mischievously irreverent with one’s choices, is to fly in the face of an industry that demands our motives to be ever more comprehensible and accountable. When one is tired of sifting, analysing, comparing and optioneering, the throwaway gesture becomes potently symbolic^[21].

Is it worth it?

If being funny is bad for business, selfish in the face of a collapsing world and liable to make us appear unprofessional to our contemporaries, why bother? What does a humorous outlook afford us that a serious one cannot?

To finish, I’ll attempt to say it as simply as possible:

Landscape architecture is made by people.
People wrestle with the world.
The world is horrible, beautiful, terrifying, wondrous, cruel, generous, indifferent, intimate, enchanting, unjust, and absurd.
To jest is to find solace in these unsolvable contradictions.
So, to be genuine and true to our craft sometimes we must laugh such deep belly laughs, so much so it may bring us to tears.

References