A CASE STUDY IN HYDROLOGY AND CULTURAL IDENTITY: 2,500 YEARS OF LANDSCAPE-MAKING IN MENDOZA, ARGENTINA DAVIS, BRIAN Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, United States,
[email protected] 1 ABSTRACT 2 INTRODUCTION Through an analysis of the Parque General San On the western edge of the city of Mendoza, Martin in Mendoza, Argentina, this paper Argentina there is a large park whose origins examines the work of 19th century landscape date to the late 19th century. In the park a sinuous designer Carlos Thays alongside the material lake and verdant forests and lawns combine contributions of the indigenous Huarpes people to with tennis courts, soccer fields and cultural consider the discipline of landscape architecture as monuments, all set against the sheer wall of the part of a long line of landscape practice in the Andean Cordillera rising just to the west. From challenging environment of western the interior of this landscape a visitor can see the Argentina. Mendoza, Argentina is a modern city of great, jagged heights of the mountains and sense nearly one million inhabitants situated on the border the expanse of the arid semi-desert that surrounds between the great agricultural plains of Argentina the city in all other directions. While dramatic, and the desert foothills of the Andes from inside Parque General San Martin these feel Mountains. Historically it has been a frontier far enough removed to impress without settlement of utmost strategic importance, existing overwhelming. variously at the southern edge of the Incan Empire, In this paper I explore a simple hypothesis: that the the eastern edge of colonial Chile, and now the Parque General San Martin, and the modern western border of Argentina.