Interpreting the popular English landscape

The sixth Annual Lecture of the Landscape Research Group was given by Professor Brian Goodey at the London School of Economics on 8 December 2016, entitled “Interpreting the popular English landscape.”

Brian has a long and distinguished career exploring questions of perception, townscape and interpretive practice. He reflects on current issues raised by popular concepts of ‘landscape’ and aspects of individual and community engagement.

Do the demands of Landscape Urbanism to abandon the binary division between ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ have a popular foundation, and do professional practice and research boundaries inhibit quality in design and use? How have the ever-extending ‘media’ re-structured a world which, at the outset of the LRG, was controlled by professionals? Modes of cognition and interaction have modified landscape and townscape appreciation, yet long promoted and admired images endure. Do the ‘Arts’ play a significant role? What value can we put on place discovery, and who might be interested to a point of investment? Is ‘Countryfile’ an answer, and should there be a ‘Cityfile’?

Below is the full text of the lecture, from Academia.edu.