Prominski & Koutroufinis_FoldedLandscapes

Folded LandscapesDeleuze's Concept of the Fold and Its Potential forContemporary Landscape Architecture

Martin Prominski and Spyridon Koutroufinis

ABSTRACT Landscape architecture is a design profession withunique potential for stimulating dialogue with contemporarycultural issues of change, open-ended ness, and complexity. Aninspiring metaphor for this dialogue is the concept of the fold asinterpreted by Gilles Deleuze in his 1993 book. The Fold: Leibnizand the Baroque. He traced the concept back to the Baroque—when some transformations to garden art had already beenmade—and concluded that a contemporary interpretation ofthe fold, which emphasizes the transmutation of formal objectsinto temporal unities, could be of similar inspiration today. PeterElsenman and Laurie Olin's Rebstockpark in Frankfurt am Mainand Charies Jencks and Maggie Keswick's Garden of CosmicSpeculation are two endeavors that have made the transitionfrom concept to project in distinct, but formalistic and limitedways. Aiternate models within contemporary landscape architec-ture show the potential of the discipline for working with the foldin a more rigorously conceptual way through continually infoldingand unfolding events as opposed to designing static forms.

KEYWORDS fold, open-endedness. compiexity, process philos-ophy, contemporary landscape architecture

THE CONCEPT OF THE FOLD

Cliange, uncertainty, and complexity are among themost striking characteristics of late 20th and early

21st century culture. For a culturally engaged landscapearchitecture, the exploration of conceptual and formalexpressions of these contemporary developments is anongoing task. In working to meet this challenge, design-ers may benefit from a close dialogue with other cul-tural fields such as philosophy, art. and ecology.

A concept with considerable potential for this dia-logue is Gilles Deleuze's interpretation of the Baroquefold. In his 1988 book Le pli. Leibniz et le baroque (in

English, The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque), the French

philosopher referred to the continuous changes anddissolution into infinity as expressed in folded objectsfrom the Baroque era. In applying this idea to our time,Deleuze concluded, "The new status of the object nolonger refers its condition to a spatial mould—in otherwords, to a relation of form-matter—but to a temporalmodulation ihat implies as much the beginnings of acontinuous variation of matter as a continuous devel-opment of form" (1993,20).

The transmutation of formal objects into tempo-ral unities as described by Deleuze with the metaphor

of the fold bears upon contemporary debates in tlielandscape architecture profession on process, open-endedness. and change.' An examination of Deleuze'sconcept of the fold and the relationship between theBaroque and todays world provides a basis for the ex-ploration of various approaches and expressions in-spired by the fold.

The Origin of the Fold as an Operative Concept

As indicated by the title of Deleuze's book, the Ger-man philosopher and scientist Gottfried Leibniz washis main reference in developing a contemporary con-cept of the fold. During Leibniz's lifetime (1646-1716),a new European philosophy and mathematical physicsemerged. Working independently, Isaac Newton andLeibniz invented infinitesimal calculus, which becamethe foundation of mathematical physics and celebratedits first success in celestial mechanics. From that mo-ment, rational operations with infinity underpinnedthe explication of finite cosmic processes—what earlierhad been regarded as the expression of divine order.

This was a major ontological shift: from ihe daysof Plato to Renaissance Neo-Platonists, man had beenembedded within the divine cosmos, with its harmonicorder of species and celestial spheres, where infinity ap-peared as an ahyss of chaos and unaccountahility. Withthe new mathematical physics, a restless, dangerouscosmos, populated by multifarious accidental entitiesand events, invaded the earlier worldview—a trans-formation from the reign of ideal forms to the reign ofnatural law. Form and proportion retained only second-ary significance; they were degraded into mere effectsof natural laws.

Leibniz tried to reconcile the old rationalism oforder with the radical dynamization of the cosmos, at-tempting to capture the infinity of natural processeswithin the notion of the fold. He envisioned the dy-namic forms of physical processes as the results of theunfolding of infolded relations of a strictly notional andatemporal order. Indeed, he assutned the existence ofelementary notions or ideas as an essential elementof the rationalist tradition founded by Plato. Complex

Rgure 1 . Baroque broderie parterre: infolding into infinity.Herrenhausen Gardens, Hannover. Germany. Photo by author.

ngure 2. Central axis with the Grand Canal at the horizon, reflectingtlie 'infinite sky.' Versailles, France. Photo by author.

ideas appeared as the result of combinations of suchnotions; elementary notions were ultimate, indefin-able logical entities that served as the basis for the defi-nition of more complex notions (Leibniz 1714, §46).Leibniz called these smallest elements monads. In his"Monadology and the Rational Principles of Nature andGrace," Leibniz expanded on the idea that all elementsof the world, hoth animate and inanimate, consist ofultimate, indivisihle particles, of in-dividuals in thestrictest sense ofthe word: "These monads are the trueatoms of nature and, in a word, the elements of things"(1714, §3).̂

On this hasis, Leibniz developed a metaphysics ofinfinity: the universe, an infinitely wondrous artifact,is infinite, and each of its parts, down to the infinitelysmall, is infinitely structured withinitself (1714, §64-67).The facts ofthe created world, then, arejblds infolded

in folds, precisely ordered by God, himself the centralmonad of the universe. The significance ofthe Leibniz-ian fold is to allow that the individual monad's micro-cosm mirrors the macrocosm of all the other monads bythe infinite infolding into itself "•

This philosophy in its essence reflected the opti-mistic stance ofthe Baroque worldview. Although manwas banished from the physical center of creation as aconsequence ofthe Copernican revolution—that mostprofound intellectual crisis of the West—he gained thecertainty that nature is ruled by an order structured ona divine rationale of logic and mathematics and that heis able to understand the laws of this logic. Thus, thecosmos is contained within scientific rationality.

According to Deleuze, the conceptual importanceofthe fold for these intellectual transformations cannotbe overestimated: "The criterion or operative conceptof the Baroque is the Fold" (1993. 38). This metaphor,which stands for the rationalization of infinity, foundmany aesthetic expressions beyond philosophy or sci-ence, for example, in Francesco Borromini's architec-ture and Gian Lorenzo Bernini's sculpture. Baroquegarden art addresses infinity with the fold in many ways.The endlessly infolded spirals of the parterre de broderiemay be a reference to the infinitely small (Figure 1 ) .•" An-dré Le Nôtre's water surfaces refiecting the sky in Vaux leVicomte, Versailles, and Ghantilly (see Weiss 1995, 79ff)are means of infolding the infinitely large (Figure 2). InHerrenhausen Gardens in Hannover, which attainedtheir final form hetween 1696 and 1714 under the di-rection of Electress Sophia of Hannover and her Frenchmaster gardener Martin Charbonnier (Leibniz contrib-uted some hydrotechnical calculations), at the end ofthe central axis is found the most impressive fountainofthe age, aspiringvertically towards infinity (Figure 3).The great fountain also reads as an impressive means ofdynamizing the fold: folds of falling water masses evokethemajestic wave of a giant curtain.

In summary, many parallel reflections ofthe spiritof an epoch searching for the infinity ofthe cosmos andits logic are evident in the concept ofthe fold in Baroquescience, philosophy and arts. Deleuze wrote of this as

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inspiration for tbe modern world, wbicb, of course, isalso different.

The Fold Today

Current mathematical-dytiamical thinking, originat-ing in tbe 17tb century, is far removed from any tbeisticpanlogism as derived from Leibniz. The elementary en-tities ofthe universe are not the realizations of eternal,divine notions. Modern physics reveals the continualformation and destruction of new elementary particles,a process tbat seems essentially spontaneous. Imagin-ing tbese to be physical realizations of logical structurescontained in a divine mind would be anachronistic—not just because of today's secularized mindset but alsobecause of an increasing awareness of tbe limitationsand relativity of logic. After Kurt Gödel's 1931 proof oftbe incompleteness of large formal systems, an elementof uncertainty clouded even pure matbematics andlogic. Mathematics and logic have been pulled fromheaven to eartb. Tbe creativity of human practitionersof mathematics and tbeir freedom to invent formal sys-tems bave replaced tbe atemporality and absolutenessof the divine mathematician.

Tbe present situation is far more complicatedtban the 17th century; the Copernican humiliation totbe primacy of man was followed by two equally fun-damental bumiliations: Darwin's discovery of the ori-gin of humankind in the animal kingdom and Freud'srealization of the great power of the unconscious overconsciousness, dealing a blow to tbe idea of freedom ofthe will. Additional discoveries, such as the limitationsof computability in quantum theory and beyond, wereexperienced by many contemporary intellectuals as adimunition of human primacy.

This cursory recapitulation of today's scientificallydominated worldview is sufficient to higbligbt tbe dif-ferences between tbe present situation and tbat of theBaroque. Wbereas modern man possesses infinitelymore powerful scientific-matbematical formulae andtecbnical tools, be is unable to generate an integratingpicture of tbe whole. Faced witb uncertainty and com-plexity, Deleuze quoted Alfred North Whitehead in The

Figure 3. The Great Fountain at the end of the central axis: a dynamic,vertical striving for infinity. Herrenhausen Gardens. Hannover, Germany.Ptioto by author.

Fold (Deleuze 1993, 86) as the heir to Leibniz and pro-vided an interpretation inspirational for contemporarydesign, as will be demonstrated later. With his processphilo.sopby dating from the 1920s and 1930s, Whitebeadinvented tbe greatest metaphysical system of tbe 20thcenttiry. While for a long period a relatively small circleof scholars studied that system, it has gained widerpopularity in recent years, and Whitehead is one amongthe small group of great thinkers sometimes known asthe "process philosophers." Others include CharlesSanders Peirce, William James, Henri Bergson, SamuelAlexander, Jobn Dewey and Charles Hartstborne. IfLeibniz, guided by tbe spirit of traditional metapbysics,included all events constituting a monad's life into itssubstance, process thinkers are reversing tbis relationto assume the primacy of tbe event: all that appears tobe substantial is but a momentary glimpse of univer-sal process.

Modern metaphysical approaches, led by Wbite-beadian process pbilosopby, transpose tbe Leibniz-ian interlacing of monadic eventuality and monadicfold into a new relation of event and active folding

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(Whilehead 1937, 1979). The monad, ceasing to be asubstance, has been turned into a process of active re-flection ofthe macrocosm in the unfolding microcosmof a monad-event. Deleuze was well aware ofthe greatpotential of Whiteheadian metaphysics to radically re-new the Leibnizian concept of the monad. His effortbridges tbe Baroque fold and process-philosophical in-folding. Deleuze's book has moved matiy architects andlandscape architects to deepen their understandingof the relation of event and folding. It may well be tooearly to attempt a comprehensive overview of artisticresponses to the event-theoretical reading of the ideaof the fold, but a glimpse of some current projects willprovide an impression ofthe range of these responses.

CONTEMPORARY ADAPTATIONS OF THE CONCEPTOFTHE FOLD

Deieuze's ideas regarding the fold were eagerly taken upin architectural theory soon after the initial French pub-hcation of Le pli. Leibniz et le baroque ( 1988]. Examplesinclude Unfolding Frankfurt (Gelb and Kohso 1991)with lohn Rajchman's contribution. "Perplications"(Rajchman 1991), Architectural Oesign'a special issueFolding in Architecture (1993) edited by tîreg Lynn, andCharles Jencks's The Architecture of the Jumping Uni-verse (1995). in which he sketched a new paradigm forarchitecture. The quick absorption of Deleuze's ideason the fold was due to their potential to classify andconceptually clarify trends in architectural theory andpractice dating back to the 1980s.

Two ambitious examples of the simultaneity ofphilosophical writing, architectural and landscape ar-chitectural theory and built practice are Peter Eisenmanand Laurie Olin's Rebstockpark in Frankfurt am Main,Germany, and Gharies Jencks and Maggie Keswick'sGarden of Gosmic Speculation in southern Scotland.

PETER EISENMAN/LAURIE OLIN; REBSTOCKPARK

In his introductory text for the design of Rebstockpark,Peter Eisenman formulated the idea that the world is

witnessing "a paradigm shift from the mechanical tothe electronic" in all areas ofthe design arts (1991, 9).Today's media are destroying the essence of an objectand creating their own realities as a synthesis of newmedial environments. The substantiality of objectsdissolves into events. Eisenman concluded: "Archi-tecture must now deal with tbe problem of the event"{1991, 9). He aimed lo overcome the traditional con-trast of the two static aspects of urban design—figureand ground—with the aid of the notion of the event.His frame of reference was the Leibnizian notion ofthefold as reintroduced by Deleuze. Of special importancefor Eisenman was the fact that the fold, as interpretedby Deleuze, is "neither figure nor ground, but containsaspects of both" (Eisenman 1991, I4f); it is thus not adialectical synthesis of figure and ground but a redefi-nition ofthe essence of both, a viewing of everythingthat might appear on a terrain within a new context.In this way he attempted to create non-classical ar-chitectonic structures to be read as "open systems,"that is, as "self-aggregating or evolving systems." Thisself-aggregation or openness results from the contin-ual transition between figure and ground; it remainscategorically incomplete, continually reinterpreted asunfolding events

The design concept for Rebstockpark. Peter Eisenmanand Laurie Olin's winning entry for the design of theRebstockpark site in Frankfurt in 1990 was an attemptto put the theoretical considerations of events and foldsinto the practice of contemporary urban design (Fig-ure 4). The competition involved creating housing for4,500 persons, office space for 5,500 workers, and a parkwith an overall area of 27 hectares (65 acres).

The design aims at an innovative combination ofrepetition and individuality of urban elements, usingthe fold as a single, unifying design principie. A contin-uous modification ofthe surface and building forms re-places the traditional repetition of rectangular buildingblocks in modern urban design. The classical principlesof urban structuring—figure and ground—dissolve intothe continuum of the fold (Eisenman 1993, 25).


ngure 4. Rebstockpark: overview of Peter Eisenman and Laurie Olin's design. Frankfurt, Germany, 1990. ©Eisenman Architects.

The folding of the terrain in Rebstockpark wasachieved through a highly abstract, formal method in-cluding elements from the mathematico-physical ca-tastrophe theory developed by ReneThom in the 1960sand 1970s, While emphasis here is on the inner area ofthe construction site, the process is similar for the larger"planning area." The design process was described insix steps (Rebstock Projektgesellschaft 2003):

1. The irregular perimeter-line ofthe construction sitewas tangentially circumscribed by a rectangle.

2. The circumscribing rectangle was subdivided intoa raster of 6 x 6 segments by drawing seven linesvertically and seven lines horizontally across tbeconstruction site, in accordance with the favoringof the number seven from René Thom's catastrophetheory (Figure 5a).

3. The 6x6 raster from tbe circumscribing rectanglewas also applied to tbe area of the actualconstruction site. Since this had an irregularshape, the second raster became twisted into atwo-dimensional net with continual curvature. Tliecorresponding raster points of each of tbe two netswere connected, and a folded, three-dimensionalform appeared (Figure 5b).

4. The third dimension, height, was achieved byassigning height coordinates to each rasterpoint. Tbe height coordinates bad to correspondwitb the maximum number of floors chosen byEisenman, 1 he application of a diagram knownfrom catastropbe theory continued tbe folding ofthe net (Figure 5c). (The drawings for this step arebeautifully complex, but they lack the logic of tbeprevious steps. Arbitrariness was used creatively byEisenman in tbis phase of the design process)

5. The projection of generic, rectangular building formsonlo tbis folded three-dimensional net gave tbem atrapezoidal form—their final folding.

6. The footprints of tbe buildings, as well as tbecurvature of streets and paths, were defined bymapping tbese distortions back onto theground plan.

Using this process Eisenman and Olin succeededin connecting figure and ground—if only in the sensethat the shape of the construction site, tbat is, its ir-regular perimeter line, left an imprint on the shape ofeach ofthe buildings through various transformations.Additionally, the local specificity of the asymmetrical

prominski & Koutroufinis 155

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Rgure 5a. (above left) Rebstockpark: first two stages of the designprocess. Rectangles are first drawn around the amorphous perimeteflines of the smaller construction site and the larger planning area, andthen divided into a raster. ©Eisenman Arctiitecis.

Figure 5b. (above right) Rebstockpark: third stage of the designprocess. The amorphous surface area of the construction site gets atwisted 6 x 6 raster corresponding to the 6 x 6 rectangular raster of theprevious stage. Raster points of the rectangular and the twisted rasterwith the same number are connected by a line—a folded landscapeappears. © Eisenman Architects.

Figure 5c. (left) Rebstockpark: fourth stage of the design process. Theslightly folded landscape undergoes several transformations towards amore complex Fold of ridges and valleys. ©Eisenman Architects.

shape of the construction site influenced the foldingof the buildings, thus giving every place on the terrainan individual topological form of its fold. From identi-cal, rectangular forms of huildings arose differentiated,folded forms, each of which could inhabit otily the spe-cific spot from which it arose (Figtire 6).

Critique. The whole Rebstockpark constitutes an over-all landscape, folded according to one principle, inte-grating buildings, roads, canals and open spaces. Thecontinuum of this mathematico-formal folding thusdominates the individual huildings and exterior spaces;they are merely parts of a folded continuum. But if onewere to follow Leibniz's concept of the monadic fold,each of the buildings and exterior spaces, to qualify asan individuality, would have to possess its own specificinner principle of folding to refiect on the other build-ings and the whole complex from its ovm perspective.Tlie differentiation of the outside appearance is not suf-ficient ground for individuality. Leibnizian individual-ity consists of an internal dimension as the basis for anactiue perspectival relation of the monad to the outsideworld. The folds of Leibniz are monads, that is, living

i'of activity.

A monadic aspect might be conceded, tbough onlyin a philosophically vague sense, to Rebstockpark as awhole. Yet the individual buildings and exterior spacescan hardly be considered monads; they would have toparticipate more actively in the shaping of the overallfold. The super-Ordinate continuum of the fold, gov-erned by a single formal-algorithmic principle, dictatedtheir form. Additionally, given its arbitrariness, the pe-rimeter line of the project, which is the basis for the sixstages of design, must be said to have acquired a rathertoo important role in determining the form of the exte-rior spaces and, therefore the buildings. The individualunities did not partake actively in defining their mutualrelations; instead, these were largely determined be-forehand just by the perimeter line. This single "prin-ciple of design" is a burden to them.

The exterior spaces and the buildings are degradedto weak structures whose essence consists of adapta-tion. Since tliey are not centers—as such they wouldpossess individtial principles of folding whose validitythey would be tending to expand to the outside. Theyare not monads, and therefore neither are they folds ina Leibnizian sense. It should not he overlooked that, forLeibniz, the significance of the fold lay in the harmonic


interaction of outside conditions and internal striving.The outside conditions of a monad consisted in othermonads' behavior towards them; they constituted thetotality of the macrocosm. But the inner striving of themonad was the specific way in which the microcosmactively and perspectivally reacted to the macrocosm.The significance of the monadic fold lays precisely inthat it allowed the microcosm to meet with the worldautonomously and actively, rather than degrading it toa mere static refiection. The Rebstockpark design doesnot include such autonomous activity. If a monadicfold had been the guiding principle in planning, the de-sign might not have followed a mere mathematical ab-straction and the incidental form ofthe perimeter line.A monadic fold would, by contrast, have exhibited astrong centrifugal striving towards the world, an aspectwell exemplified (despite its imperial impetus) by theBaroque garden's water fountains or the orientation ofits axis towards infinity. Eisenman and Olin's plan doesnot imply such an aspect of active relation to the worldbeyond the site (which, of course, today could not havethe absolutist style ofthe Baroque); it is introverted. Inaddition, the huildings are as static as in classic urhandesign—they did not become an event, which Eisen-man proposed as a primary goal. Thus, we cannot agreewith the usually positive critiques of Rebstockpark, forexample that of lohn Rajchman, who attributes freedomand openness to the project: "What Rebstock wouldgive to be seen is rather a displacement or 'un-placing,'that would be free and complex, that would in.stigatewithout founding, and that would open without prefig-uring" (Eisenman 1991. 54).

In summary, there is much ambivalence in theRebstockpark proposal, lt certainly succeeded in its de-sign of a project with considerable formal variety heldtogether by a coherent overall form. But the theoreticalexplication of the strategy contains a number of inco-herencies, especially a total lack of "infolded time"—themain conceptual goal.' Furthermore, the generation offolds from the site boundary and arbitrarily set con-struction heights are trivial concepts compared to themanifold cultural foundations of Baroque designs. The

Figure 6. Rebstochpark: Perspective view. ©Eisenman Architects.

project might better have refrained from theoretical ref-erences to the fold.

Charles Jencks/Maggie Keswick; The Garden ofCosmic Speculation

Architectural theorist Charles Jencks and his late wifeMaggie Keswick. a historian and specialist in Asian gar-dening, also attempted to translate theoretical ideasahout the fold into landscape architectural design. In1988 they began laying out their Garden of Cosmic Spec-ulation in southern Scotland. Their initial plan was todevise a kitchen garden, but over the years it grew into agarden of about 120 hectares, a microcosm symbolizingthe universe. Ofthe two designers, Jencks laid specialemphasis on the invention of forms of waves and foldsas a new grammar for landscape architecture capableof expressing the basic elements of nature discoveredby recent science (lencks 2003, 17). Throughout thegarden, Jencks offered direct illustration of the highlyabstract forms of physics, originally generated understrictly controlled laboratory conditions, using them toform specific park elements (Figure 7). He transferredahstract formulas one-to-one into garden forms, thusconflating the abstract and the concrete.

In his 1995 book The Architecture of the JumpingUniverse. Jencks proposed complexity theory as a newbasis for architectural theory, devoting a whole chap-ter to the question ofthe fold. Remarkahly, his argu-ments on the fold did not take Deleuze or Leibniz astheir starting point but were based on René Thom'scatastrophe theory. Here, catastrophe means variousforms of phase transitions. lencks picks out the "cuspcatastrophe" for special consideration, whose diagramThom rendered as a folded or undulated plane: animminent decision follows for a while the crest ofthewave and then unforeseeably and suddenly falls to oneof the sides.

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Figure 7. Garden of Co&imcsoliton waves. Charles Jencks, 1990s. ©Weilactier.

gates shaped like

Figure 8. Garden of Cosmic Speculation. Scotland: folded hills pro-posed as a transition between the central lake and the great meadow.Charles Jencks. 1990s. ©Weilacher.

Jencks deemed two qualities in tbis scientific the-ory applicable in architecture: the fold "can represent asudden change of direction, assumption or mood....Conversely it can resolve differences in a way . . . dis-tinct from tbe otber architectural methods of dealingwith pluralism, such as collage. Tbis is by enfolding, byconnecting that whicb is different in a smooth transi-tion" (lencks 1995, 53f). Jencks mentioned tbe build-ings of Zaha Hadid to exemplify another property ofthe fold, which Eisenman and Olin bad also used inRebstockpark: It works "as a connective device to createunity. Difference is enfolded into a continuity" (Jencks1995,57).

Critique. lencks made use of tbese two aspects of tbefold in his Garden of Cosmic Speculation by creatingun-dulating, folded hills as a transition between tbe cenual

lake and the great meadow (Figure 8). But did he reallyneed tbese spectacular hill sculptures to achieve the fu-sion of the two realms? They seem to disrupt more thanthey connect. Eacb of Jencks's folded eartb sculpturesis merely one of a number of individual objects witbina garden tbat migbt more fittingly be called a contem-porary "physics tbeme park." Here, new tbeories areillustrated didactically witb rather naive symbolisms.*^The fold remains one formal object among otbers, andnowhere does it reacb the goal of connecting elementas Jencks interpreted it in Hadid's or Eisenman's proj-ects. His strategy of illustrating the overall phenomenonof tbe fold tbrough the direct formal representation ofafold did not succeed and should be considered a "for-malistic fallacy"—tbe error of mistaking tbe abstractfor the concrete, wbicb Wbitebead called tbe "fallacy ofmisplaced concreteness" (1937, 75).

OUTLOOK

In view of tbese formalistic examples, wbat is tbe po-tential for the fold in contemporary design? Can we for-mulate a more precise version ofthe idea of the fold andits focus on event-ness and on change as proposed byDeleuze?

For tbe Baroque, the fold functioned as a symbol ofthe rational explication and control of infinity—it wasanother element in the quest for certainty. But Deleuzebrought the fold into a contemporary context, connect-ing it with acceptance of tbe categorical unpredictabil-ity of natural processes. The divine preordained order,wbicb Leibniz considered capable of harmonically in-tegrating all "incompossibilities— was unacceptable toDeleuze. With reference toWliitehead's process philos-ophy, he offered tbe following sketch of the contempo-rary situation:

For Whitehead . . . bifurcations, divergences, incom-possibilities, and discord belong to the same motleyworld that can no longer be included in expressiveunits, but only made or undone according to . . . vari-able configurations or changing captures. In a same


chaotic world divergent series are endlessly tracingbifurcating paths. It is a "chaosmos".... Even Goddesists from being a Being who compares worlds andchooses the richest compossibles. He becomes Pro-cess, a process that at once affirms incompossibilitiesand passes through them. The play of the world haschanged in a unique way. because now it has becomethe play that diverges ¡t is a world of captures in-stead of closures. (Deleuze 1993.92)

As a consequence, Deleuze stated, the dissolutionof formal objects into temporai unities is characterizedby a "modulation that implies as much the beginningsof a continuous variation of matter as a continuous de-velopment of form" (1993:20).

This continual and endlessly variable modulationis the contemporary aspect of the fold. It integrates theplurality ofthe world and the categorical unpredictahil-ity of its course. This event-ness, this "fluidity", consti-tutes a great challenge for spatial design disciplines.

There is a great discrepancy between the builtfolds and the concept put forward by Deleuze in thecontemporary context of Western landscape architec-ture. This is unfortunate, because the fold remains anintriguing concept with its emphasis on event-ness andits ability to in-fold contradictions. The purely formal-mathematical applications like those of Eisenman andOlin or jencks and Keswick are insufficient. Yet, thereis great potential within landscape architecture forinspiring realizations of the idea of the fold. With itsliving materials, it is able to design places of change—open unfoldings that allow for unforeseeable, creativedevelopments. In conclusion, three projects from land-scape architecture provide an idea of the spectrum offolded landscapes possible in a contemporary, Deleuz-ian sense.

Carlos Ferrater and Bet Figueras: El Jardi Botanicde Barcelona

The new hotanical garden in Barcelona (JBB) is a foldedlandscape proposed by architect Garlos Ferrater andlandscape architect Bet Figueras in a 1988 competition.

three years before the Rebstockpark competition. Be-cause of the 1992 Olympic Games and funding dif-ficulties, construction started only in 1999. Similarto Eisenman and Olin's Rebstockpark, this design forBarcelona's new botanical garden is characterized bya unifying structure of folded surfaces. Nevertheless,there are significant differences. The logic ofthe formalstructure does not derive from an ahstract theory anda perimeter line but from the "inner" necessities ofthesite and the program. The 17-hectare site on Montjuïchas a height difference of 50 meters and slopes of upto 30 percent. The designers started with a regular gridtypical for botanical gardens but soon decided that anirregular triangular grid, adapted to the morphologicalconditions ofthe site, was a more appropriate solution(Figure 9). At the same time, the evolving surfaces withtheir different conditions offered a structure for filling infuture botanical collections of varying vegetation types(Eigure 10). Marti Eranch summarized the advantagesof this approach, illustrating well the correspondenceto Leibniz's and Deleuze's ideas ofthe fold:

The resulting lot system allows for a very flexible andcreative planning of the phytoepisodes. Eormally. thedesign appears as a whole, where themes from thegrand scale are echoed on ihe smaller scale. The frac-tal geometry ofthe triangulation plan is reinterpretedat the smaller scale, in the zigzagging, faceted layoutofthe path system, in the pavement, which is dividedinto small trapezoidal shapes, and in the "broken" vol-umes ofthe entrance buildings. (Franch2007, 186)

The parts and whole of the IBB are in mutual rela-tion. Each part has its own individuality—not only is itslogic determined by the overall structure but also thespecific conditions of each part determine the way ofplanting and each part is an individual reflection oftheoutside world of plant communities. At the same time,the triangulation grid is a ilexihle spatial strategy al-lowing change and extension, some determined by thegrowth of the plants themselves, while preserving thegarden's overall identity.


Rgure 9. Botanical Garden Barcelona: Plan with triangulation grid. ©Ferrater,

Figure 10. Botanical Garden Barcelona: impression shortly after inauguration in 1999. ©Bagué.


The Jardí Botanic de Barcelona has a folded ap-pearance, but in terms of achieving the conceptual po-tential of the fold, its formal language is not decisive, asis also the case in the two examples following.

Schweingruber Zulauf: Administration ofCanton Zug

The Swiss office Schweingruhcr Zulauf Is currently oneof the most ambitious firms in dealing with unpredict-ability and processes. Well-known projects such asOerliker Park in Zurich, its initial phase built in 2000,and the Schweingruber Zulauf proposal for the ligniteopencast mine in Schöningen, Germany, awarded theNeuland landscape art prize in 2005, clearly express thefirms interest in "a continuous variation of matter as acontinuous development of form" (Deleuze 1993). Oneof its smaller projects—The Administration of CantonZug—expresses what can be understood as a land-scape architecture unfolding unpredictably while con-tinually infolding contextual conditions. In Zug, threepublic buildings—the canton administration, the localcourt, and the prison—share one connected site. Theopen space surrounding the buildings consists almostentirely of the roof of an underground garage. LukasSchweingruber and Rainer Zulauf did not want to hidethis artificial condition and proposed a design creatingcoherence through the use of a repetitive element onan open field of grey gravel: spherical plant-containersof blue polyester fabric ibat appear to be placed ran-domly on a grid "are not artificially watered and havebeen planted with sprawling plant types such as winterjasmine, summer lilac, dog rose, matrimony vine andVirginia creeper" (Wirz 2006, 52). From their startingposition, these plants break out and grow across thegrey gravel in an intentionally uncontrolled way [Figure11). Their formal development is dependent on climate,competition, walking routes, and so forth. Thus, theyare not a static feature but rather fluid matter reactingunpredictably to manifold conditions.

Figure 11 , Administration of canton Zug/ Switzerland: sphericalplant containers made of blue plastic, planted with creeping species.Schweingruber Zulauf, 1999. ©Schweingruber Zulauf.

Transformer

Between 1995 and 2000 the Vilaine River flooded anindustrial area in Redon, France, five times. In 2004, agroup of landscape architecture students from the Ver-sailles Ecole Nationale Supérieure du Paysage, led byMarc Rumelhart and Gabriel Chauvel, began work togive this centrally located area of 10 hectares a new fti-ture. They devised a strategy involving transfomiationalprocesses on many levels, consequently naming itTransformer (Rumelhart and Blanchon 2005). Nothingwas to he removed from or brought into the area—onlyintelligent permutations of materials already presenton the terrain were allowed. An important element ofthe project was participation by the local population,who actively contributed ideas and physical work.

An overview of the transformation of a storage hall,a small part of the overall project, will suffice here. Theold hall with its metal shelf racks was renamed MetalForest (Figure 12). Some of roof elements were removedto permit rain inside the hall, and palettes with soil andwooden waste were placed on the shelves (nicknamedBig Macs, Figure ! 3). These as well as other elements inthe racks were successively colonized with plants (Fig-ure 14). The concrete floor was partly ripped open andalso populated with plants from tbe margins of the site(Figure 15). The interplay of elements is complex andtheir evolution unforeseeable.

• Characteristically, the transformer strategy infoldsand unfolds given components of the place. New struc-tures arise but are not fixed. Their vagueness and flex-ibility combined with the autonomy of plant growth


Figure 12. Transformer: former storage haii as 'Metal Forest" withpartly opened roof to let rain into the hall. Initial phase before filling theracks. ©Rumalhart

Rgure 13. Transformer; racks filled with a mixture of waste wood andsoil as 'Big ^4acs,' initial phase. ®Rumelhart.

Figure 14. Transformer: succession of piants in the racks.©Rumefhart.

permit the infolding of further events in unforeseeableways. Despite its dynamism and openness, this foldedlandscape is not oriented to a cosmic frame like the Ba-roque. The landscape remains local, with specific en-tanglements in each place.

CONCLUSION

The three examples above offer only initial inspirationfor contemporary theoretical applications of the foldshort of formalistic fallacies. In comparison to the Ba-roque fold, these contemporary folds are modest. Theydo not hint at any kind of rationalization of infinity. In-stead of fixed, spatio-symbolic systems, tliey are foldingphysical events, and are prepared for further unforesee-able unfolding.

Rgure 15. Transformer: parts of the concrete floor are drilled andplanted ("Green dynamite'). ©Rumelhart.


All three examples express tbat a specific form isnot Ibe most important factor. Folded landscapes mightappear folded, as in the IBB, but tbey cotild look com-pletely different. More important than form is a mutualrelation between parts and wbole in a Leibnizian senseand a structural openness to in- and unfold changes.Ihere is a range between determination and openness,yet botb aspects are always addressed.

As an answer to dealing witb uncertainty, contem-porary folded landscapes give meaning to significantcultural developments. Currently, unfolding metapbys-ics have shed tbe traces of classical rationalism (forexample, of Leibniz), wbicb assumed tbat uncertaintycould be categorically overcome. The insights of quan-tum theory or cotnplexity theory, as well as an increasedawareness of process philosophies from tbe past cen-tury, allow a radically new approach to issues of tbe ab-sence of absolute certainty. Increasingly, this absenceis perceived not as the meaninglessness and contin-gency of human existence but as tbe positive force ofspontaneous, uncontrolled creativity—the signatureof a metaphysical principle in nature and society. Witbincreasing awareness of tbe force of spontaneous, cre-ative folding, tbe profession of landscape architecturehas tbe potential to refiect this contemporary culturalawareness in its work. Tbis may, in tbe near future, allowtbe fold to appear in yet another, original transforma-tion. Perhaps this is wbat Deleuze tbougbt of in writingthe final sentence of The Fold: "We are discovering newways of folding, akin to new envelopments, but we allremain Leibnizian because what always matters is fold-ing, unfolding, refolding" (1993, 158).

NOTES

I. According to lames Corner, "A truly ecological landscapearchitecture might be less about the construction of fin-ished and complete works, and more about the design ofprocesses, strategies, agencies, and scaffoldings—catalyticframeworks that might enable a diversity of relationships10 creatf, emtrrgt-, network, interconnect, and differentiate"(1997. 102), or "A good strategy is a highly organized plan(spatial, programmatic, or logistical) that is at the same

time flexible and structurally capable of significant adapta-tion in response to changing circumstances" (2004, 32). Inhis discourse on Landscape Urbanism. Charles Waldheimwrote: "Ijindscape is a medium .. . uniquely capable of re-sponding to temporal change, transformation, adaptation,and succession. These qualities recommend landscape asan analog to contemporary processes of urbanization andas a medium uniquely suited to the open-endedness, inde-terminacy, and change demanded by contemporary urbanconditions" (2006,39).

2. Monads iire metaphysical entities; ihey cannot themselvesbe physically observed, but they function as tbrmative ele-ments of obsetTiabie pbysical entities, living or dead (I^ibniz1714. §2). Leibniz understood tbese Monads to be inten-tionally active mental entities, endowed with autonomouspurposefulness. They were individuals with actions directedtowards the achievement of specific goals. In other words:livery monad has a mental side and can thus behave teleo-logically. that is, in an aim-oriented or purposeful way (Leib-niz 19t4. §16, §19). As a direct consequenceof Ihe simplicityof the monad, tbat is of the fact that as an aiom it has noparts, none of its processes can be triggered externally, forit is impossible to change tbe place of anything in it or toconceive in it any internal motion thiil could be excited, di-rected, increased, or diminished therein, although all thisis possible in the case of composites, in which there arechanges among the parts (Leibniz 1914. §7).

Because of the absence of an internal structure of com-position from simpler elements, monads are not susceptibleto external iniluences: "Monads have no windows, throughwhicb anything could enter or leave" (l.eihniz 1914, §7). Tbisis why Leibniz assumes "the natural changes of monadscome from an internal principle, since an external causecannot influence it internally" (Í914, §11). Every monadunfolds a stream of co«i//i«fl/activity derived from its innerprinciple. Monads, therefore, are centers of autonomous ac-tivity (1914. §14. t.^).

Thus the whole life of a monad is infolded within it, and itis continually unfolding in time. The existence of an infinitenumber of monads, unable to influence one another hecausethey are windowtess. demands some kind of overall harmo-nizing principle. Thus t-very monad contains in its internalprinciple of activity the unfolding of every other monad, andthis "means that each simple substance has relations tbat ex-press all tbe others, and. consequently, tbat it is a perpetualliving mirror of tbe universe" (Ixibniz 1914, §56).


3. This radical perspectivism may be one reason for the attrac-tion that Leibniz's metaphysics still exen in the East Asiancountries. The idea ofthe perspectival presence ofthe wholein each ol" its parts is also current in Western mysticism, butit has found significant expression in the East Asian mind.

An example relevant to the monadoiogical view ofthe foldis that of the Japanese gardens of meditation, for example,Ryoanji: each stone constitutes a powerful microcosmiccenter unfolding the principle of its form through expandingwave formations. All individuai principles harmonize, andtogether they constitute a complete whole. Nonlocal, su-perordinale perspectivity results precisely from developinglocal individual-transindividual characters through mLitualperspectivity and anticipation. This is why the creations andspaces of meditative spirituality inspire such admiration inWestern viewers, regardless of the great lemporal and cul-tural distance. They offer living examples of a synthesis ofperspectivity and folding.

4. Ursuia Erichsen-Firle analyzed the geometry of these spiralsand found them similar to the logarithmic spiral (Erichscn-Firle 1971, 74ff), The proportions of this spiral are close tothat of the Golden Section. Why this aesthetic preference?A possible answer couid be that the Golden Section ex-presses infinite growth processes as exemplified in shellfishor snails. According to Gyoi^i Doczi, the Golden Section isobserved in nature by almost all growth processes whatevertheir size, length, thickness, and so forth. Thus the GoldenSection assigns order to processes that theoretically extendtowards infinity—a fact that must have fascinated Baroquedesigners.

5. "Folding in rime" is the title of lii.senman's IH93 article in Fold-ing ill Architeciiire (AD Profile 102] as well as the subtitle of theRebstockpark book edited by Volker Fischer (Olin 1992).

6. Other projects by lencks have similar shortcomings, as Cath-arine Ward I hompson points out in "Complex Concepts andControlling Designs," a comprehensive critique of Jencks'sLandform IJeda in Edinbui^ {Ward Thompson 2007).

REFERENCES

Corner, James. 1997. Ecology and landscape as agents of creativ-ity. In Ecological Design and Planning, ed. George Thomp-son and Frederick Steiner. New York: Wiley & Sons, 81-107.. 2004. Not unlike life itself. Harvard Design Magazine 21(Fall/Winter): 32-34.

Deleuze, Gilles. 1993. The fold: Leibniz and the Baroque. London:Athlone. Orig. pub. 1988.

Eisenman, Peter. 1991. Unfolding events: Frankfurt Keh.stock andthe possibility of a new urbanism. In Utifolding Frankfurt,ed. Judy Geib and Sabu Kohso. Berlin: Ernst & Sohn, 8-17.. 1993. Folding in time: The singitlarity of Rebstock. InFolding in Architecture IAD Profile 102), ed. Greg Lynn.I^ndon: Academy.

Hrichsen-Firle, Ursula. 1971. Geometrische Kompositionsprin-zipien irt den Tlieorien der Gartenkunst des J6. bis 18. Jahr-hunderts. Ph.D. dissertation, Universität Köln,

Franch, Martí. 2007. Case study: Jardi »otanic df Barcelona. InEuropean Umdscape Architecture: Best Practice in Detail-ing, ed. Ian Thompson, Torben Dam, and lensBaJshyNielsen. Oxon: Itoulledge, 185-211.

Geih, Judy, and Sabu Kohwo, eds. 1991. Utifolding Frankfurt, Ber-lin: Ernst & Sohn.

Jencks, Charles. 1995. The Architecture ofthe Jumping Universe.London: Academy.. 2003. The Garden of Costnic Speculation. London: FrancesLincoln.

Leibni?., Gottfried Wilhelm. 1714. Monadologie/ïrana. RohertLatta. rev. Donald Rutherford. bttp://philosophy2.ucsd.edu/-rutherford/l.£ibniz/monad.hlm. IFebrtiary 20081.

Lynn, Greg, ed. 1993. Folilingin Architecture [special issue]. Ar-chitectural Design. London: Academy.

Olin, Laurie. 1992. Landschaftsgestaltung am Rebstockpark.In Frankfurt Rebstockpark: Folding in Time, ed. VolkerFischer Munich: Prestel Verlag, 25-35. (Pub. in Germanonly; trans. Prominski and Koutroufinis.)

Rajchman, lohn. 1991. Perplications: On the space and time ofRebstockpark. In Unfolding Frankfurt, ed. ludy Geib andSabti Kohso. Berlin: Ernst & Sohn: 18-77.

Rebstock Projektgesellschaft. 2003. Rehstockpark ParkFrankfurt: The New Neighborhood for Visionaries,wvnv.rehstockpark-ffm.de.'rebstockpark.eisenman.e.htm. |l7July|.

Rumelhart. Marc, and Bernadette Blanchon. 2005. Bringinglandscape forward in situ trying out: "TheTransformer." InLandscape Change, ed. Department of Landscape Archi-tecture, Ankara University, Proceedings of ECLAS Confer-ence 2005,305-306.

Waldheim, Charles, ed. 200B. The Landscape Urbanism Reader.New York: Princeton Architectural Press.

Ward Thompson, Catharine. 2007. Complex concepts and con-trolling designs: Charles Jencks' Landform at the ScottishNational Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh. Journal ofLandscape Architecture (Spring): 64-75.


Weiss. Allen S. 1995. Mirrors of Infinity: The French Formal Gar-

deti and 17th-century Metaphysics. New York: Princeton

Architectural Press,

Whitehead, Alfred North. 1937. Science atid the Modern World.

New York: Simon & Schuster. (Orig. pub, 1925.)

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Wirz, Heinz, ed. 2006. Schweingruber Zulauf. Zurich: Quart Verlag

(German/English).

AUTHORS MARTIN PROMINSKI has been Professor in the Fac-ulty of Architecture and Landscape at the Leibniz University Han-nover. Germany, since 2003. He holds a Diploma in LandscapePlanning from the Technical University of Berlin and a Master inLandscape Architecture from Harvard University. He worked as

a landscape architect for Atelier LoidI in Berlin and HargreavesAssociates in Cambridge. MA. From 1998-2003 he taught de-sign studios and theory classes at TU Berlin and completed hisPhD thesis. He is a founding editor of the Journal of LandscapeArchitecture (JoLA).

SPYRIDON KOUTROUFINIS is working on a research project aboutthe relevance of process phiiosophy to contemporary biologyat the Department of Philosophy. Technical University of Berlin(TUB). He studied Mechanical Engineering in Germany white alsocompleting an additionai course of studies in Theoreticai Physics.His PhD thesis at the Humboldt University in Berlin (HUB) was aphilosophical exposition of the basic assumptions of the selfor-ganisation theory in physics. Between 1995 and 2002. he taughtphilosophy seminars at HUB and TUB.


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