Is landscape design a process of creating artificial landscape or a process of managing nature? As early as the 1870s, there was a big controversy in the field of landscape planning and design, that is, "is landscape design a process of creating artificial landscape or managing nature". This debate has continued to today‘s landscape planning and design industry.

 ▲  Before transformation

▲  After transformation

Perhaps the most famous gardener in Britain is Humphrey Repton (1752 ~ 1818). He has a very good idea, but at the same time he has a very bad idea. The good idea is that he believes that each project should be displayed with two pictures, one is the landscape before the transformation, and the other is the landscape after the transformation. Ripton watercolor paintings are made into folding pages to show the planning. When you open a page, the results of the design will be shown. Ripton uses this to express the transformation of the original landscape. His second very bad thought is an idea about cultural ideas, which comes from Burke‘s lofty thought. In other words, he believes that the design must be fake and artificial, and large-scale planning is just a lack of imagination.

At about the same time, the Frenchman Jean Marie Morel (1728 ~ 1810)) wrote a book "theory des Jardins". One of his important positions is that design is the management of natural processes. He has done many famous landscape designs in Ermenonville near Paris. The last picture is a landscape design he has done, which makes full use of the hydrological, vegetation and other natural processes of the site.

Note: the picture comes from the Internet