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Finding Valued Landscapes by David Lowenthal University College London 1978

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Finding Valued Landscapes by David Lowenthal University College London 1978 Finding Valued Landscapes by David Lowenthal University College London 1978 Working Paper Number 4 i PREFACE Environmental Perception Research is a series of Working Papers on research in progress. The papers are intended to be used as working documents by the international group of scholars involved in perception research and to inform a larger circle of interested persons. The series will serve as a means of disseminating results and ideas quickly, especially the research activities of the Working Group on Environmental Perception of the International Geographical Union, and for work relating to the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Programme Project No. 13, Perception of Environmental Quality. The series is coordinated through the Perception and Policy Working Group of the Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Toronto, and support is being provided by the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Programme. Further information about the research programme and this series is available from: Anne Whyte, Ian Burton, Coordinator, Chairman, Environmental Perception and I.G.U. Working Group on Perception Policy Working Group, of the Environment, Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Toronto, Toronto M5S lA4, Ontario, Canada. ii WORKING PAPER SERIES 1. Macrocosm and Microcosm: An exploration of the perceived alchemical environment; John B. Robinson, 1978. 2. The Measurement of Landscape Aesthetics; Carol Wilson-Hodges, 1978. 3. The Ins and Outs of Environmental Hazards; Philip W. Porter, 1978. 4. Finding Valued Landscapes; David Lowenthal, 1978. iii Contents I. INTRODU CTlON: AIMS AND DIFFICU LTIES 1 Why identify highly valued landscapes 1 Types of evidence and varieties of taste 2 Variables that affect attachment to landscapes 3 Why esthetic principles cannot explain landscape tastes 4 Attachments to landscape as scenery and as social milieu 5 Distinctions between landscapes and places 9 Professional and public landscape preferences 10 II. EXISTING EVIDENCE ABOUT VALUED LANDSCAPES 13 Landscape attachments that are presumed to be unique 13 Literary and historical evidence for landscape attachments 16 An example: mountain scenery 17 An example: appreciation of Welsh landscapes 21 Modern landscape at.tachments and tastes 24 Landscape attachments derived from professional and public inquiries 26 Landscape evaluation su rveys 27 Surveys of public preference 32 III. PROSPECTIVE RESEARCH: UNDERSTANDING HOW LANDSCAPE ATTACHMENTS VARY 34 What "landscape" means 35 Landscapes seen as pictu res 36 The complex nature of landscapes 37 Physical features and esthetic qualities 39 Identifying the components of favored landscapes 40 Classifying landscape types 41 An example: the lure of the moors 42 Preferences for wild and cultivated landscapes 43 Landscape qualities seen as inherently desirable 44 How landscape attachments vary with expe rience and perspective. 45 iv Landscape feelings vary in intensity 45 Novelty and familiarity enhance landscape attachments 48 Distance and memory alte r images of favored landscapes 49 Actual landscapes differ from pictu res of them 52 A sense of crisis intensifies attachments to landscape 55 How people differ in their response to landscapes 56 The effect of personal sensiti vity 56 The effect of training and experience 57 Uniquely favored national landscapes 60 Ways of eliciting national landscape preferences 61 IV. CONCLUSION 63 Bibliography 64 - 1 - FINDING VALUED LANDSCAPES I : ~NTRODUCTlON AIMS AND PROBLEMS WHY IDENTIFY HIGHLY VALUED LANDSCAPES This paper introduces a new collaborative enquiry; which aims to identify landscapes people regard as highly desirable and to determine what qualities make such landscapes specially valued. The project is one of two (the other deals with the perception of environmental hazards) undertaken by the International Geographical Union Working Group in Environmental Perception, under UNESCO MAB auspices. What is the pu rpose of this project? Environmental satisfaction is often thought an important aspect of life, yet it is hard to identify the landscapes and places that elicit strong attachments. National and cultural differences in envir- onmental taste are still less understood: Britain, France and the United States celebrate and protect unlike landscapes, yet little is known about their differences. An understanding of uniquely favored landscapes could enhance the benefits derived from scenic, historic, and other sites. But policy applications are premature. The "goals at this stage are to increase knowledge about our affective links with land- scape and places, and to compare the environmental attachments of different peoples and epochs. To focus exclusi vely on highly valued landscapes and locales may occasion concern, lest concentration on the uniquely desirable adversely effect how we treat the everyday landscapes in which we pass most of our lives. Indeed, the "neglect of the general in favor of a single focus of me rit" has obvious disadvantages in the - 2 - American landscape where, as I have noted, "the featu res most admi red are set apart and deluged with attention) the rest of the count ry is consigned to the rubbish heap" (Lowenthal 1968, pp. 84-85). In the United States these perceptual habits tend to blind people to the ordinary and the familiar. But a greater awareness and understanding of what places and featu res most please us may eventually stimu- late public interest in the everyday landscape too and thus help to enhance its fabric. One precursor of this enquiry is Younghusband's Royal Geographical SOCiety prestdenttal address of 1920. "Knowledge of jj;eautil is the knowledge about the Earth which is most worth having:' he declared. "The more natural beauty we see, the more there is to see. What men naturally do, and what I would suggest Geography should deliberately do, is to compare the beauty of one region with the beauty of another so that we may realize the beauty of each with a greater intensity and clearness" (Younghusband 1920, pp, 4, 7). Like Younghusband, I aim to discover and compare sources of landscape beauty throughout the world. But esthetic satis- faction is only one of many pleasures taken in landscape; our attachments have other roots as well, and these too must be identified and analyzed. TYPES OF EVIDENCE AND VARIETIES OF TASTE The identity of uniquely valued landscapes and locales is often taken for granted, but is in fact little known. History, folklore, gardens, parks, literature, painting, photography, all suggest the popularity of this or that generic landscape type, this or that country or city. But differing perspectives, changes of taste and fashion, varied explanations for preferred attachments seem to defy generalization. Can we say how far mountains or valleys, Seashores or deserts, let alone their constituent parts, command the interest or affection of mankind, when mankind - 3 - includes Chinese and Caucasian, city-dweller and countryman, romantic and pragmatist, medieval and modern? Nor do particular localities elicit unswerving affection: places themselves change th rough time, as do the tastes of residents and visitors. Though Paris may be no less beloved now than a century ago, the reasons it is loved are in large measure different. Attractions of landscape and attachments to localities have stimulated an abundant literature. Novels, paintings, travel guides, philosophical treatises, histories of art, planning reports, landscape architecture and the social sciences all offer explanations about preferred landscapes and places. But because the premises employed are so various, the conclusions are diverse and often contra- dictory. Some explanations depend on a priori judgments, others on professional expertise, others on attempts to take the public pulse. The reasons landscapes are thought to be preferrep are equally various: some inquirers think the choice purely esthetic, others ecological, moral, economic, or dependent on mood and perspecti ve. A survey of the literature leaves one doubting the possibility of developing principles of landscape preferences, yet understanding why many feel impelled to find them. "The scenic quality of rural landscape has been seen as something to conserve. But agreed criteria {arfi] absent. .. The demand from planners -- for answers, almost irrespective of their correctness has overtaken the researcher's ability to provide them" (Penning-Rowsell et a1. 1977, p. 1).. VARIABLES THAT AFFECT ATTACHMENT TO LANDSCAPES The diversity of criteria used to identify and explain landscape preferences reflect the fact that three clusters of variables -- landscapes, people, inte ractions -- - 4 - are involved (see Craik 1971). Landscapes and localities themselves are myri ad , non-discrete, and constantly altering, both in their components and in their appearance. Exposure to an ever wider range of landscapes, in travel and in pictures, requires ever more elaborate c1assif icati ons to encompass the whole experienced world (Greenlaw 1973, p. 10). Landscape observers -- residents, visitors. and armchair travelers -- are no less heterogeneous in what they experi- ence and prefer. And the context of interaction between man and milieu depends ou mood and circumstance. weather and light and time of day, views from on foot or in a vehicle, stationary or in motion, deliberately chosen or accidentally come upon. Finally, the viewer's purpose helps determine how well he likes what he sees; places may be highly regarded as the sites of enterprise, as homes, as localities for pleasure and recreation,
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