Designed in the mid 1850s by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted and architect and landscape designer Calvert Vaux, the aesthetic and socio-political ideals of health, beauty and democracy that underpin the design of Central Park continue to heavily inform the profession of landscape architecture today.
Participants in the Iconoclast competition are invited to imagine a present in which Manhattan’s iconic public space has been devastated by eco-terrorists, requiring the redesign of the site with regard to the park’s extraordinary history – as well as its potential future. In doing so, participants are encouraged to reflect upon a variety of questions including the role of large urban parks in contemporary conditions, aesthetics and the disappearance of nature, and the relationship between aesthetics and performance in landscape design.
The LA+ Iconoclast competition will be presided over by six judges, including Richard Weller, professor and chair of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania; partner and director of Snøhetta, Jenny B. Osuldsen; Charles Waldheim, professor and director of the Office for Urbanization at Harvard University Graduate School of Design; Lola Sheppard, partner at Lateral Office and associate professor at the University of Waterloo, Canada; freelance writer, blogger and former director of Studio-X NYC run by Columbia GSAPP; and associate curator of Architecture and Design at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Beatrice Galilee.
Submissions for the LA+ Iconoclast competition close Wednesday October 10, 2018 at 11.59 EDT (New York, USA time). For full competition details, access the LA+ Iconoclast competition website here.