I find James Corner's argument at the beginning of his essay "Representation and Landscape" to be a rather bizarre and banal discussion of the obvious. Perhaps I am being naive, but is it not somewhat apparent that a landscape architectural drawing is not a sufficient stand-in for that landscape itself, and further that it is a generative tool rather than a purely representational one? This also begs the question: how is this any different from an architectural drawing?

He states that "the phenomenological qualities of landscape space, time and material present unsurmountable difficulties for drawing and representation”, yet how does this jibe with the oft-repeated mantra in the halls of architecture schools that your idea is only as good as your representation of it? Clearly it is not possible to accurately capture the phenomenological attributes of space in a 2 dimensional art form, be it landscape, cityscape, or enclosed building. Is this not the challenge that we, as designers, most relish and strive to rise above?

It seems that Corner is attempting to put some distance between the profession of landscape architecture and the long tradition of landscape painting in order to give landscape architecture a greater academic and intellectual weight. It seems to me that we could all—architects and landscape architects alike—learn from the manner in which masterful landscape painters are able to evoke poignant sensations through time and space so that they are legible to onlookers hundreds of years later.