Your solution to the Parabola question is the more elegant for being a
critique of the website activity. Hamilton Finlay is exactly right: all
that wisdom presented simultaneously, monumentally and ironically.

Actually, I think we are not so far apart. I have been puzzling over my next
problem, which is to clarify for the competitors in the spring what it is
that I want my new garden to reflect. This needs to take a rather concrete
documentary form.

Prompted by your letter, I now see that this document already exists in the
form of everything posted on the website. I’ve always felt that the
commentary and correspondence should be valued in the same way as the
Foreign Office proposal; both elements should be taken as our ‘Guidance
Notes’ for competitors.

Almost any interpretation of this information would produce a list of the
issues that the Parabola designs have to address. Given how equivocal the
response to Foreign Office, and how diffuse the written responses
themselves, these issues can never be completely resolved in any design. But what isnt’t said, or isn’t addressed, now can only be a deliberate decision, in itself integral to a particular design approach. I am thinking for isntance of the competitors who might decide to plant out any views to the landscape beyond the wall. By this process genius of place acquires a status appropriate to any landscape project, as something that can be ignored but can’t be denied.

Do you think all this represents challenge enough?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007 at 1:32 am and is filed under Correspondence. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.