The third event of the Landezine LIVE lecture series, titled ‘Read/Write Landscape’ will explore the architecture of imaginative and physical landscapes with the help from renowned international experts; Georges Descombes (Geneva) – landscape architect, Klaske Havik (Amsterdam) – architect – editor – professor, Pavel Gantar (Ljubljana) – urban sociologist and Chris Eckman (Ljubljana – Seattle) – singer-songwriter and writer. ‘Read/Write Landscape’ will happen on Tuesday, February 13th, at 5pm in the Old Power Station in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Georges Descombes is a renowned Swiss landscape architect. He will present his poetic project Renaturalisation of River l’Aire near Geneva that offers a practical example of how to deepen our thinking about the environment and our role in changing it. To a question “What is idle place?” Descombes answeres “A place that you love enough to maintain it”. He compares his design approach to the river l’Aire to writing in a Proustian manner; it happens between what is felt and what is real. superpositions.ch

Klaske Havik is associate professor of Architecture, Methods&Analysis at Delft University of Technology.  She has developed  a distinct research approach relating questions about the use, experience and imagination of place, to literary language. Her book Urban Literacy. Reading and Writing Architecture (2014) proposes a literary approach to architecture, landscape and urbanism, introducing the three notions description, transcription and prescription. Other publications include Writingplace, Investigations in Architecture and Literature (2016) and Architectural Positions: Architecture, Modernity and the Public Sphere (2009, co-edited with Tom Avermaete and Hans Teerds). As editor of the Dutch-Belgian peer reviewed architecture journal OASE, she edited, among other issues, OASE#91 Building Atmosphere (2013), OASE#85, Productive Uncertainty, (2011) and OASE 70 Architecture and Literature(2007). Havik’s literary work appeared in Dutch poetry collections and literary magazines. 

Pavel Gantar is an urban sociologist, focused on social conflicts and theory of planning. He was a lecturer at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana and has written a number of books, articles, participated at panels and conferences internationally. He was active in various important social, cultural and political movements throughout the 80’ and 90’, especially in the times of Slovenian Spring. He was also a Minister of Environment and Spatial Planning (1994-2000), Minister of Information Society (2000-2004), and President of the National Assembly (2008-2011) of Slovenia. Pavel Gantar will speak about the social significance of spatial planning as a cultural discipline and about the bonds between places and society beyond what is absolutely necessary. Are aesthetics and poetics in the design of spaces still relevant in the times of eruptive environmental and social challenges?

Chris Eckman is an American musician, singer-songwriter and writer based out of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He is most known for being a founder and front-man of the The Walkabouts and co-founder and manager of internationally successful world-music record label Glitterbeat. In Eckman’s works, landscape is firmly embedded, moving between abstract and physical and acting as a catalyst, ambience or concept. Chris will read selected excerpts from his ‘Imaginative Geographies’ series and we will talk with him about how landscape influences his creative processes. chriseckman.net