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'A
% THE GARDEN OF CHARLES JENCKS
*>(
created
y.
irchitectural critic
and
*:;He
his late wife
;ape. that, after her "
)
death
a larger project, ao
Jc elements
of
'
r
_Th'the Borders are ^
tlosmic Speculationi^^conceived ^ ^Stplore certain 'i.
What
are
fundamental aspects of
atoms made
How does DNA make
^nceive of them?
panism and why garden?
^
In
and how
of
is
it
essential to
dialogue with eminent
cosmologists, and biologists, including
physicists,
Paul Davies, Lee Smolin, and Steven Rose, Charles
Jencks has created a series of new, expansive,
visual
metaphors that challenge misleading and frequently misunderstood concepts, such as the "Big Bang"
and the
"Selfish
Gene."
The garden uses nature intellectually
sense
to celebrate nature, both
and through the senses, including the
of humor.
What emerges
is
a
new language
of
landscape design based on twists and waves, optical
and sudden
illusions,
universe
the
quite
presents a view of
surprises.
It
different
from the standard
show
mechanistic model; the complexity sciences to
it
be more dynamic and creative than previously
conceived.
The garden abstracts cascade
a terrace
shows
isitor
matter, '
^11
new world
view.
the distortion of space
caused by a black V
this
A
water
of steps recounts the story of the universe,
hole, a
and time
"Quark Walk" takes the
on a journey to the smallest building blocks of
and a series f.-^^tqt
of
sweeping landforms and lakes
geometry while echoing
visually
the
'tish hills.
-al,
"
and questioning, the Garden of Cosmic ^ull
of ideas
and games, associations
Jencks weaves together larden's creation of
his personal
and an investigation
recent
science,
ght on the
using
new ways
r
dlL-TIB 712. 6094147 Jencks 2003 The g specurfftro
,^^31111022729527
./
THE GARDEN OF COSMIC SPECULATION IS A LANDSCAPE OF WAVES, TWISTS, AND FOLDS, A LANDSCAPE PATTERN DESIGNED TO RELATE US TO NATURE THROUGH NEW METAPHORS PRESENTED TO THE SENSES. Landscape of Waves
—Linearism. mixed media, 30 x 40
in.,
1995.
•* »:.i
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V
-'^
^M%
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IT IS
PARTLY BASED ON THE
NEW SCIENCES OF
COMPLEXITY DEVELOPED WITH THE AID OF THE
COMPUTER OVER THE LAST TWENTY YEARSSTRANGE ATTRACTORS THAT ORGANIZE SUCH THINGS AS THE FLOW OF WATER, THE MOVEMENT OF
SOIL,
THE PATTERNS OF WEATHER. The Snake Mound
with the
Henan
Attractor inscribed.
."Mm-
'
m U
:i
A
9^
U
^-
DNA UNDERLIES ALL
LIFE
AND COMES
IN
SEVERAL STATES, SUPERCOILED OR CONGESTED AND UNFOLDED BEAUTIFULLY IN THE DOUBLE HELIX.
WE HAVE SHOWN THESE OPPOSITE
QUALITIES BECAUSE THEY EXIST
IN
NATURE AND
ARE NOT MERE HUMAN PROJECTIONS.
«^^
.^^.^t^ljp-:-
'h
\ '^*^
WORKING WITH SCIENTISTS, GARDENERS, CRAFTSMEN, AND FRIENDS WE HAVE DESIGNED ELEMENTS THAT CELEBRATE DISCOVERIES OF OUR TIME— SUCH AS DNA— WHILE ALSO QUESTIONING THE REIGNING METAPHORS DERIVED FROM THEM, SUCH AS THE SELFISH GENE. A GARDEN SHOULD NOT ONLY PRESENT THE NEW WORLD-VIEW BUT ALSO HEIGHTEN OUR RELATIONSHIP TO THROUGH THE SENSES. IT,
DNA Garden
of the Six Senses, aerial perspective, Liane Wilcher
and Charles Jencks.
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laid
Long Walk, an
>9w*;j^
v--yr^v.
u/
Clare's
'
eclectic Paradise
Garden
out as an undulating path hidden from the
house, bordered by rhododendrons, hostas, of the valley
the lawn thick
is
and flowering shrubs. At the end
many
a bank with
different
lily
of
types of
moss. ,v
jt4
^Jei?^
,
r'p.^
Af^
4-i
':.;yri^
llo\\inj^ Taoisi
mouiuanis
loiio
srrinj^ thr local laiidscaiic in
loi'
Siollaiul
ol
pail
'I'his
Ills.
low,
aiul
\alli.'\s.
iiuiaphor
a liiiiiiri apt
(ill
li(|uid |aws,
those
bigger water dragon. The earth eaten b) the water.
arbitrar), but the
it
It
forms have siibset|uently been absorbed by
riotous nature.
Because bulldozers so easily produced linear and drop-hke
we conceived
shapes,
be revealed.
what
is
or
I
Or
w
sketches of the
I
hole
site,
form which had an underlying
metaphor
new language of Partly it came out of
slugs or, better than any image, a
the site and earth -moving a
when drew
that, at least,
thought: there emerged eight or nine blobs, or serpents,
worms, or
abstract
the area as having a hidden order waiting to
that
and
partly, as
was beginning
to
logic. I
shall explain,
form
my mind,
in
came from
it
"a landscape
of waves."
During those long summer nights, when I
we would
1:30,
it
stayed light
till
argue over which way the program should go. In
the back of Maggie's
mind was
a radical plan for
of Portrack around and approaching
with
it
turning the layout
a long,
meandering,
tree-framed avenue that would pass on one side of the Dragon Lake.
She had heard Anthony Archer- Wills give
and
artificial
waterfall
at
along with
lakes
on water gardens
and got the idea of having him construct
Portrack. This she did, overseeing the
Hugh
composed them
work
a
carefully
Hastings and his team of earth-movers. They
gingerly put in place
little
a talk
at:iont
as if they
ten large Dumfrieshire boulders
and
had always been there, and then created
island that also looked eternal.
a
"The Land of the Immortals"
was the Chinese reference, but one would hardly recognize the allusicjn
unless
it
was pointed
Maggie always favored
out.
OPPOSITE, top: Maggie's sketch of Cluden Mills river in
which
waterfall
.
we swam,
opposite, center:
that
became
and
Falls,
The Dragon Wall
in
the Yu Yuan, Shanghai, with
a figurative head at the end of an undulation.
In
spite of the fact that
Chinese connoisseurs considered such explicitness sculptural rocks give
welcome punctuation
with other metaphors.
dinosaurs, have subsequently
As
if
vulgar,
images and
to a garden, above
the undulating dry-stone wall at Portrack,
coded
1987, a nearby
a model for her excavations and
and elsewhere,
and
this
lef-t: In
image
is
to confirm the idea, birds, ancestors of
made
nests
in
our dragon heads.
33
understatement and, where appropriate, conventions. This led to our
was bored with
she,
major disagreements.
first
Scottish
to
sensitivity I,
more than
however convincing
traditional design,
its last
exemplars had been, and saw no reason to repeat anything done well for three hundred years. "Don't reinvent the Georgian spoon, buy approach. She, by contrast, wanted one of the great
my
one," was
Leon
radical traditionalists,
Krier, to
do an extension
main
to the
house. He, a good friend, was not only drawing seductive city plans to reconstruct a fragmenting Europe, but also leading a vast
army of
followers, including Prince Charles, in his charge back to the past.
In fact,
Leon
sacrifice
something of
is
themselves to an idea he
When we
stern lawgiver.
and
a visionary
also part
is
Don
Quixote, part the
have our periodic, heated discussions
him
"Ayatollah," a designation he accepts because he
his
criticism
drawing
and inventiveness. Krier
style and, as
who
prophets
like all
we
will see, she
knows
I
call
I
value
influenced Maggie's
also
was not
go very
to
from
far
the traditional view until after she started painting with Cecil CoUins
and worked on
from
In any case,
invention has
my
at least
programmatic gets tired. So
scheme with Frank Gehry.
a
—
background,
I
main
that
we had
a tentative
which might be brought
novel have one plot, or
The
First Plot
are
made
went
to
work on
new
five or
into a narrative. Should a
over time, gardens create the stories by
made, and what
garden on the
a
agreement over the
many?
a
is
garden,
we
of the senses, a heightening of the way
Imagine
I
the other
—The Senses of Sensual Knowledge
Because they are
which they
when
either can drive design forward
now
areas
that architectural
two opposite sources: the formal and the
wormlike grammar of the Dragon Lakes, six
knew
moon
or
on
a
or Mars, with only a few colors. There
if
not the celebration
perceive the universe?
dead planet, such is
nothing
much
as
Venus
to
touch
except hard, dusty surfaces, and no scents except the occasional stench of a volcano. Minimalism, sensory deprivation, nothing to perceive,
little
growth of the mind. By
contrast, the earth
seems
to
be designed to stimulate every nerve ending and external organ that can pick up a signal. Flowers clearly amplified the senses of smell
and sight when, some 140 miUion years ago, they came on the scene. Their strong
polychromy contrasting with
green background, would have startled
all
the predominantly
the sentient creatures had
they been keeping records and, to further the fantasy
stimulated
new
them
and longer,
to look harder
briUiance.The same shock of the
by the new power of perfume;
it
as if
it
might have
hypnotized by the
new would
have been created
would have dominated
smells of rotting flesh and inert matter. Since flowers
perform
a sexual function, they
senses, for instance, hearing
—
the
performing their frenzied dances. 34
must
also have
sound of
the usual
came
to
heightened other
insects buzzing
and
—
lookm^^
piool thai
tiiriluT
toi'
Us
|irmiai>
lluni^^hi
1)1
i>h\i()Us
(.oiulusion
Ird
no
is
dial
t|iu'siioii
llu'
li'diii
ihr
iiosr
sense ol lasir
Thus,
iiul.
iiisiruiueiu
mil)
\\
on
ima^iiu'd
I
iiioudi, hand, ears elc.
ihis
— reaching
hree/e like insect feelers. Later
in
as
ii
is
of
tor an
lo lie us sensually
is
organs
j^ianl
j^usl
program
iiiiiial
made
—
out, perhaps lightly
nose, eyes,
waving
in the
understood the extraordinary way
1
our senses transform impulses of energy into feelings, and
Madelon Vriesendorp drew
friend
and
kililicii
a
foolstep or a
a
die
Ix'
1
T'liis
iiioiilh,
\\\v
siiur, loiuinrl)',
hose major fimction, inherenll),
cosmos.
die
food.
ol
cck'hraU'd
is
siiu'll
senses could
five
ilu'
lo
sriisoriuni,
kiuluMi v^aiik'n.Tlu'rr
plaiiiu'd: a
Willi lu'ihs dial ivlcasr llu-ir ihtIhiiu's
w
hiiill
tiillivalion
[hv sense of
vjartlon aloiiv^ wiili
a
ilir
UmI al\\a)s
soiiu'diiny^ dial Maj^vjir
is
lion,
liiiii.
nu'
a ^^ardrii
image
surrealist
a
of
my the
magnified senses. Tiie question
became how
extend the senses on to
to
plane, to the level of thought, logic,
with
and understanding. One night,
thesaurus in hand, Maggie and
a
whole
We
site.
found
it
was possible
on
hii
1
program
a
to relabel
all
and
also a different use of the
garden became, quite place
by
where you grow what you high walls of
its
became its
the
logically, the
dark,
a
tree cover
Garden of
eat.
the kitchen
Sense, the
court, surrcninded
Crow Wood, because of behavior of its mad crows, became
The
and the
All these
Thus
Common
The tennis
existing
Garden of Taking Leave of Your Senses,
and confusions.
"sense."
abnormal
fast-growing cypress that Maggie hated,
the Sense of Fair Play. tall
word
for the
the existing
functions, and parts of the garden, with a normal and sense,
a larger
a place of illusions, tricks
puns "made sense"
in
terms of their use
and thus we had two different codes, two related programs. There was the narrative of the
and more, and the sense.
The
five senses, later
faculty of the
augmented
mind analogous
to six
to a physical
uses had a lot of applications in a garden: the vague
latter
impression of giving "a sense of security." hi halian gardens the surprising
jet
standing over
of water which the gardener releases it
(gia d'aqua)
ycni are
heightens the "sense of humor." Then
one could imagine the discernment and the meaning of a word
when
its
(^f quality,
"sense."
The
the "sense of value,"
logic
was compeUing,
leading quickly from one area and subject to another. As the
site
plan on the next page reveals, these different "senses" divided
up
the landscape into overlapping gardens.
top: Flowers
and
birds
worid an escalation collage
is
in
sensuality:
million
years ago, bringing to a green
polychromy, scent, and sound. This
a step on the Universe Cascade (see page 218), painted by
Jencks. far
waves
emerged 140
into
left:
A General Sense
of Anticipation.
Lily
Senses transform energy
neuronal events of the brain that have to be interpreted by the
mind, left: Drawing of the senses by Madelon Vriesendorp.
35
THE N1TH
The whole garden, with its
underlying metaphor
later
and
Common
DNA Garden;
the
is
visible
here with
—a landscape of waves.
In
the
The New Kitchen Sense Garden, the Six Senses
middle, reading from right to
Garden, the
work,
Sense
left,
are:
of Fair Play (tennis court);
Below the tennis court is the Universe Cascade, Symmetry Break Terrace, Black Hole Terrace, and Soiiton Waves. the Sense of Twist (Snake Mound).
Crow Wood, where
Sense and sensibility, sense and nonsense. In a
thousand crows make their nest in large sycamores and elms,
there a
in
1
was
atmosphere
a bizarre, eerie
that
reminded us of Bomarzo,
6th-century Italian garden. This strange landscape has sculpted,
huge stones on the
site,
of the Titans, the open jaws of
a battle
Hades, an elephant with a castle on leaning
such an acute angle that you lose balance. Maggie and
at
had gone there
1970s before
in the
came upon stone
evoked the wilderness
we
heart
its
thrown
being
as
to create a
James
been on show
at
program
the
model building
mock-up of
London
in
Crow Wood. To continue
and
a bizarre stair for
the
theme of
climbing up to
we
poem by
a
disorientation,
I
put
and nature
The symbolism of
—
coding As
few
I
was
we
if to
prove
"cosmogenic
lintel,
from
a
—words,
building,
an idea carried throughout
—
a first
first
sculpture,
example of
cross-
art."
The Nonsense
its title.
and
christened the
medium somewhere between
and landscape
to christen
silver
Thus the structure was an important
step in creating a hybrid architecture,
media
different
interact in surprising ways,
the rest of the landscape.
literature,
it
and displace the meaning of
Baudelaire, both underline
the pavilion.
Neue
on
"The Nonsense." Words covering one
folly
was
deck. Because this
its
platform was unusable in a conventional sense,
whole
that
his
designed an abstract columnar screen in alternating black,
our
in 1986. Since they
did not have a use for this fragment of a building, plinth in
for
it
exemplar of post-modernism, had
Academy
the Royal
sort of love tussle
new form of disorientation.
Stirling's
Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart, that
undergrowth and
garden called "Taking Leave of
a
re-erected part of a
out.
the
some
in
wildness. Thus
woodland of crows became
Your Senses." This was At
engaged
giants
I
had been cleaned up and
it
we pushed through
sanitized for tourists. As
strange
back, and a tipped house
its
suffered, over the years, a
One day Leon Krier and his wife Rita Wolf came Maggie and me, so we took them to Crow Wood to see the
indignities.
to visit
building, a structure Krier might have had a very oblique role in creating. Krier
in the late
1
had been
970s but,
as
a key
draftsman in James
was well aware, they had
I
several issues including design credits
on Prince
Charles.
fallen
the public thought of his housing
like "a
1930s wireless"
H^Mb^^^HI^^^^B^'TI-—,^ri^^^^^^^HB»
(that
and had
. *
.-?.,-•
London, saying the
is,
.
an old-fashioned
commissions. The
him
"
and the leaning house, are some
of the
many
esoteric
1,
A
•
•'.
I-
•
.'
architect
Bomarzo Garden, c.1560, created by Count Orsini near Viterbo, Italy. The hell's face with its quote from Dante ("All Hope Flees"), the battle of the Titans,
-
and popular
* 1
themes mixed 38
in this
L
^
-v
^•^
British
i
out over
radio set). And, as far as Stirling thought, the Prince had kept
from getting any more
'^
Stirling for not caring
tried to stop Stirling's project for the center of
scheme looked
Stirling's office
and the influence of Krier
The Prince had attacked
enough about what
il^m^BH^^HK. ;//
sensual garden of mysteries.
1
comparing
(.Duntori'd h)
Style
Wars
Whrn what II
a
was picked up on
iluu
Kur,
c\pei.iril. Pulling; a lon;^
iliuMibs
Wood,
pa^^t's oi
down. A week
lali'r,
as
sa)iiiv^
"How
There was The Nonsense, wilh
smashed through glass.
The
rool, a tangle
its
Ayatollah's
deeonsirut lion
he
t)l
broken wood,
Thumbs Down was
dishkeil
the broken braneh fitted like base.
But
what was
offending branch had
worried about
imagine
that
it
ilie
moved its
its
would be
the
one below
becomes
a
its
its
Maggie and
that
was I
the
the
The way
that
the
had always did
would score
reconstruction, and so
it
we
a bull's
settled
nature has
time more kindly, putting up shoots ihrcjugh a
major theme
garden, co-creation with nature always in itself
Judgment, catastroptie, co-creation. Leon
thumbs down. A week
It'd,
little
original pristine tangle. Subsequently
words. In
in
wa)';
pedinu'iu o\er die
nonsensical
it
hraiith
leaves, metal,
iilarl)
branch above The Nonsense,
in again, this
falling
reall)
uphill!
lallen
eye. Luckil), insurance [laid for
back into
new angled
a
("row
motor
a
irei'
detonslriu
further
h
gave
In-
lo
like
had had
ealastrophe was, liowi'ver, (|uile beautitul. panic
tlassital
ugl),"
lonv^
a
tlir
miu
prril)
was walkin^^ owv
I
in
lahloids.
liie
was
heard an explosive noise ihai sounded
I
aeeideiit.
and
ilu- Iroiit
sliiiwrd KrierTlu' NoiisiMisr his respoiisr
1
1
tMiailcs lo Hitler, an rscalaiioii
later
the
struck the building. Today nature
first is
Krier
gave The Nonsense the
of several catastrophes at Portrack
slowly taking over.
39
Sl§
*
:X„:
amk r\
'IT':
'^ti^jS;^
/
T^ f
I
•
^OfSSO *^
p
AVER
THE NONSENSE The
front of
Stirling
The Nonsense was designed by James
from fragments of the Neue Staatsgalerie
designed by Charles Jencks, was
Stuttgart; the back,
based on a
triangular geometry. Stirling's pavilion
never intended to be used, so lookout
was
makes
its
was
conversion into a
functionally nonsensical; for instance,
reaching the top, the view also
sitting difficult.
is
blocked by a
The steep
steps,
beam
on
that
designed
stair is
while the syncopating
for single
alternating
squares
gray also disorient the sense of balance.
in
in
The words are from a poem celebrating the confusion
of
senses,
the
Charles
Baudelaire's
"Correspondences," which describes forest of
symbols
that mix
reality
as a
up the senses:
La Nature est une temple ou de vivants
piliers
Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles;
L'homme
y passe a travers
des
forets
de symboles
Qui I'observent avec des regards familiers
Les parfums,
Confusion,
les
.
.
.
couleurs et les sons se repondent.
synaesthesia,
between everything
in
or the
the world
correspondences
—and
yet a crystal
order.
top:
James
Stirling,
CJ, Maggie, and Eduardo Paolozzi.
41
Common Sense through the The Nonsense and
the time
form of disorientation,
common sense, the of Hume and the
common
problem with that
is,
to
be
even
is
that
it
Yankee
the
first
program
Maggie and
up
I
all
as if the plot
can become too
were
The
derivatives.
you
common, growing
are
a laboratory.
marked
Such was
for the kitchen garden, but hardly the last one.
produced
six or
seven layouts,
of which
all
we ended
rejecting because of their conventional nature.
However, one of these concept of nationhood:
I
became
was
it
particularly
is
a tradition
fond
of, a
play
on
the
new
of Scottish landscape
design which recaptures the wild, romantic countryside of the Highlands,
it
conceptually not that different from the English
is
Picturesque and, as far as
garden
been
that has
could determine, there has never been a
I
and
entirely
distinctively Scottish. At the
same
time, there are paradoxes to our perception of tradition. As the
historian
Hobsbawm
Eric
customs, coined
at
has
the time of
written,
Queen
many
stone slabs which
a grid
relatively
Victoria, have
wove through each
plants, like a tartan. This
"national."
known
It is
clan patterns
—
or
we
recent
been accepted,
recalls
artifact.
how
at least
an
1
rocks, concrete, brick
other,
and
coupled to the weave of
could claim to be indigenous, even
that the Scottish invented
made them
Walter Scott. Instant tradition
one
made up of
itself
fashionable
most of the
—
tartan,
about the time of
has a long tradition, especially
if
8th-century hoax turned into a real cultural
This was the confabulation of nationalist pride
Poems of Ossian,The Son of Fingal concocted
materials,
—
known
and fauna
flora,
so
were
there
based
instructive
The Ambiguous Words of Natvire Regression or spur to invention
as The
by the poet James Macpherson
—you
could think of instant
two ways. Curiously enough the
tradition in
played a role in one of our designs
many
had
tartan pattern
When we
years earlier.
were reconstructing our London honie, according
to an iconographic
program, Maggie got fed up with symbolism cluttering surfaces, distorting shapes, or simply taking too long to design.
Among
other
fashioned an abstracted book for the face of her
I
library door, but she said emphatically, "This time
symbolism stops
my door!" Ironically, however, when own desk and filing system, she covered
to designing her
at
family tartan, so is
OK
quite
repartee as
long as you are doing
as
we pushed on with our
said, "Enotigh!
On
corners."
—
occasion
and
care.
red
way
the bricks
It
was
called on, particularly
it
gocjd use
skills
[
skill tor
had reached stalemate.
should be stone tartan
slab,
We
them with
he has ruled over ihe other
like
notable
explosions of
1
of
tlie
and
around the
leads tours
luimor
ihal
were
reached an impasse, as
later on it the acceptability
we of
Scottish virtue of patience that he
the next few years because
could not
a
We who
of a building team,
when he
round rock or
remained half-born,
— she
might have made him
head
when Maggie and
was the southern
had to exercise with
in
go around these
among
producing,
did here over the merits of brick, or concrete. But
of the kitchen
and balanced character,
diplomacy and wry sense
his
symbolism
see,
Portrack and he tends
a corporation rather than the skills to
of the
'ceil
Alistair Clark.
in horticulture,
years
thirty
at
His wide-ranging
flares.
he puts his social gardens.
Trained
i
Such was our amicable
an unusual array of begonias that look
features,
head of
a trompe
different versions
intelligent, attractive,
greenhouses for
little
with
had non-negotiable opinions.
she
constructed most of the gardens great love
came
of the tartan pattern was
after half
don't like the
I
an
it
it."
debated in front of the head gardener, Alistair is
it
pointed out rather smugly, "You
I
garden, until one day
mistakenly, as ancient and British. Bearing these contradictions in
mind we worked out
local
appropriate signs,
the idea of turning the plot into a
Although there
"Scottish Garden."
a national vernacular
of
virtues
food. Crops are laid in straight lines, logical categories
the
produced some original work by deriving
precedents for pseudo-tradition leading to real breakthroughs.
predictable. Yet this also can be positive if
—
its
designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh
the
Later
identity.
Scottish Enlightenment. Practicality,
sense
"carrots, peas, potatoes"
by
set off
national
on
and no-nonsense are
straightforwardness
out of ancient Celtic poetry. These proved fruitful in constructing
great virtue of British philosophy at
hard-headedness,
functionality,
— Skottish
wilderness garden, Taking Leave of Your
this
Senses, are a planned
opposite,
Six Senses
c]uite agri'c-
brick,
residual
Maggie and
on which areas
and so the idea of the
which ffirmed the
pattern
structure of later plans.
The Garden
of
linear planting
partly
Common Sense
as a Skottish Tartan.
on Maggie's family
relating to the basic
(see
42
and
sensible grid with
framed by paths that weave through each other; tartan.
The geometry, word play and
opposite words had three more transformations:
Garden,
A
finally
pages 48-49).
first
into a
laws of the universe, then the the
Ambigrammi Game,
still
is
it
Isased
pairing of
Physics Garden
DNA and
Six
Senses
under construction
What we did
those dragon walls a
on was an undulating
agree
we both admired.
new garden game and
called
word
a set ot
ambigrammi. These
.\\\d
this
plays
wall, descendant of
became
the spur iov
and word plo)
are amazingly designed
words
ihai are
s
be read two ways, right side up and upside-down. The) sliow
the
symmetry underlying
words
surprising since
is
social constructions that are accidental, fortuitous
sense, usually of arbitrary length.
Why
geometrical patterns with trees and our body?
man whose
are mostly
connexions of
should they share
Symmetry has been BC,
when
well proportioned body
would
the codified route to beauty since the
Vitruvius envisaged a
that
the universe also underlies signs and
conventional signifiers. This
sound and
lan
thai
first
century
generate circles, squares, and, by extension, temples.
S>Tnmetry means more than the or of Renaissance gardens.
remains
It
after transformation. If
well-designed
certain
transformed, they can
means an you
that
letters
a
down, or back
rotate, shift or mirror-reflect
remain the same when thus
word. Ambiguous from
to front, they are at the
same time very
formal perspective.
An example would be
HA. The H can be
flipped and rotated through
remain the same, while the
and remain meaningful
—
A can
unless
to
I
semantic
clear
the capitalized 1
from
AH
.
.
a .
80 degrees and
only be flipped on a vertical axis
it is
ambiguously redesigned
as a
be read upside-down, based on some designs by John
Langdon. The symmetry of these and. as
a
all
It
half a crossbar. In this case the 180-degree rotation
say,
Ambigrammi
that
whether they should be read right side up, upside-
perspective,
with,
pattern
invariant
become symmetrical ambigrammi.
depends on whether they form
V
of our body
bilateral similarity
was
to discover,
its
letters mirrors
symmetries
in
the universe
important principle: symmetry breaking (see
pages 178-181). 43
HV
would become
.
.
AH, which would be formally
.
but not
semantically meaningful. Several ingenious mathematicians and
designers such as Douglas Hofstader, Scott Kim, and John Langdon
have recently developed a few ambigrammi, and one can imagine
One
the corpus being slowly extended.
exploited
ambigrammi
combined
are
differently
when
into phrases. For a garden art
where
of epigrams
that
is
area that has not been
symmetry and asymmetry
read
that
always
are
opportunities open up. For instance, as one walks a path one
way "no
says "turn on," the other
constantly reverses direction
what
more
is
Words,
landscape, an idea
such
as Ian
a
symbols should reverberate throughout
a
and negative
common
Hamilton
going both ways, and
says "reversal"
to
reversal, thus
48-9 and
(see pages
letters, signs,
it
where one
a gate
at
way
becoming
in positive
ambigrammo
double
it
turn";
many
themes,
basic
179).
Chinese gardens and poet-gardeners
Finlay. In a
garden not
from Portrack he
far
has used single words and short phrases to intensify the feeling of a place or view, or to
in
form
with
a contrast
As Baudelaire
it.
"Correspondences," (see page 40) "Nature
confused words ... except,
for
the
a forest
temple ... of
a
is
of symbols." This idea
enlightened,
was possible
it
insists
also biblical
is
overcome the
to
symbolic confusion. Words, things, and symbols are
perceived
all
united in a garden as they were in the Bible: "In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and
That
is
Word was God."
the
quite a symbolic unity.
There are obvious parallels between gardening and creating a
He
cosmos.
God
cutting
up undifferentiated nature into
rightly:
"And God
exactly
named
created the universe as
called the light Day."
the other major aspects
did the garden of Eden, by
and naming them
parts
He brought
—
that
into being
"the night," "the
is
firmament," "the seas," and "the beast of the earth
and the
kind"
cattle after their
(i.e.
and
after his kind,
the categories were logically
and empirically cogent). Then "God formed every beast of the field,
and every fowl of the
what he would
call
air
them." In
effect.
who could also "And Adam called
nomothete-in-chief, the
names
correct:
she was the mother of implies that scientific
heaven and
that
ambiguous position
gave
and order by getting
create
his wife's is
Eve; because
interesting because
such
On
right or
Duchamp and
portrait).
and names them, and by the parts they
44
A
gardener
this act confers
would not have
if
lays
the
right,
somehow hidden The Search
for the
of sciences,
sucli
divided
"river,
"cloud"
out areas, grows
an ontological status on
they had just occurred by chance.
fiinjiLKiqc,
as
has led attidenially to a
modern
all
"
shoun
into
—
as
parts if
a
given
words and signs
God and Adam may cf)nvenlional
its it
power
series
not have
— terms
tomes "tree,"
to be tcjuntered or
(see page 48). Al Portrack
are beginning to accrue to each design, each area.
are evocative as in a Chinese garden,
confusing as in
in
divine creator were speaking sentences
enhanced by words placed against
that
whole
the world's elements, the existing landscape
throtigh discrete things. Each has
some
of Eve
And how does my
linguistics.
digression relate to gardening? While
already
(the
name
the nature of things.
in
Pcrfal
one hand,
would
getting the
This creation by correct namintj, as UinlnTto Eco has
the
Picasso
Adam
gardener has to discover an order already existing,
named
brings them into being, just the as
the other hand, like a scientist or
thus in the
invent an object and category of correctness in one act
Readymade, the Cubist
it
On
is
of a garden,
that the Bible indicates. it
name
either get Eve's
like the creator
artists
name
pre-exist together in a kind of
one can
authenticates things as
way seminal modern
He
living." This
names and things
wrong. The nomothete,
naming
all
Adam to see Adam the job of
and brought them unto
a synaesthetic
poem, some
that are
some
tliat
are
ambiguous
as
—
Willi
\aiuuis plans,
ilu'sr
Conunon
kiu
llir
Scnsr, hc^aii lo ^^row ilillrmit iiuwniii^^s likr haniacles
accreting over generations. Aliliouv^h Maggie aiul il
because of thr laiian iiKidmi. \\r had agreed
had come
1
imporianl
an
to
how we nu'an" we
Think
>.oiii[iri.'lu'nsion
use the sense ol
— seeing
what )ou are saying"
luiii
second sense
is
is
woman
siglit, a
One does sa)',
"You
through her
not regularly
me"; so
toLiili
"You appeal
say, "I
touch
more acceptable "You're permeate
senses
you were
want
certain conditions: "I
shows
tlial
to a
And
the
(hat
then there
man through
to
tcil
is
a
Ins
say, "I smell
But you can
a dog.
can
)()ii
natural nu'taphor of
You would never
say,
under
up" (possess you), or the
)
•d
•^^si^;
^^
.^
^J^l
If^v*
».
•
Hr^.
*
* -V,
1^^
i^-.'
t-^*^"-^ rfi'-^
I-
-
V*-,
' "«!;;»•;"'!-
..">%^;=
kjj^'
f«f^'
£^
i'*^^
UNDULATING WALLS Within an undulating wall,
I
..-
designed three windows focused on three
r*x.
ll\\.-
or six players
game
will
like all
Above two other windows, on is
signs that are appropriate for
was
built
was
both
axes,
t* '^*^fe->^*VC
will start
are
are cut the
and KITCHEN JUSTICE— inevitably
harmony by a this,
it,
PHYSICAL REASON
parallel
HARMONY
a kitchen garden. Reason
square, justice by a triangle,
wail itself
built into
competitive games, nasty. The players
oxymoronic phrases EDIBLE since this
rat^.---:
shake a huge die and chase each other over steps, a
from a central door, above which the words written.
.'> >\ -;
that awaits completion. According to plans, four
form of snakes and ladders with various incentives imaginative and,
-
W.
major axes. The windows are surnnounted by contradictory phrases, part of a garden
i-
circle
—
symbolized by a
Ltni^
old Renaissance
the old side of the garden wall. The
by Hugh Drysdale, accomplished
in
the art of dry-
stone walling.
m.
:if^^
AMBIGRAMM As the players move away from the as
it
will
starting point, the
were, toward the future, a pavilion which
cross various words cut
sometimes,
relativity etc.).
in
is
growing
opponent. The winner but the one
who
are crossed. Here
is
will
in
the yew, they
the stones underfoot (ambiguity, symmetry.
Players
will
chase each
and knock each other backward when they land
first,
Renaissance period
other,
as
be the one who not only reaches the
trick. In
croquet.
on, or pass over, the
invents the shortest sentence from the
the
in
science you are rewarded
far pavilion
words
that
for thinking of
the shortest, most simple explanation that can explain complex
reality.
Occam's famous razor cuts away any extraneous meat from over-fat explanations. one picks up words cut in the stone as one crosses them, there would be perhaps a string of ten. Then, when everyone reaches the If
far pavilion, the articles,
of
winner
is
the one who, adding connective verbs and
constructs the shortest sentence that
Common
makes sense. The Garden
Sense.
The ambigrammi can be read upside-down and sometimes backward. If
you are overtaken by a competitor and knocked backwards, you pick up
the penalty of another word.
Someday
the
game
will
be tested.
}WP-Vf.
r
A«
iV
^i
I
\ \ \ \\ \
\
'^ .3to
'"i
jax
f :»>:
?
#N
.>^-^
Clare and the
Zeroroom
For Maggie's mother, Clare, the answer to the big question was
never in doubt. She was brought up
a
convinced Christian in the
very big and very Cathohc Elwes family of Northamptonshire. Her family estate, called Billing,
was
faith that
children,
to
be the backbone of her
her
she,
was an environment
and
sister,
life.
that gave her the
The youngest of eight
brothers led a
six
charmed
life
h centered upon
suffused with music and country house pleasures,
her parents. Her father was the famous tenor Gervase Elwes, and her mother the redoubtable Lady Winefride. Clare became a
consummate
actress
and
storyteller at the age
of five by sharpening
her performances in front of her appreciative brothers. She, like
Maggie, and our daughter
Lily,
was overlaid by
had
a fierce
laughter-lines
determination in her
and
a vivacious sparkle
eyes, yet
it
as if she
might suddenly contradict the very high-minded values
she upheld.
Her
was
faith
tested by tragedy several times.
fifteenth birthday,
when coming home from
On
the day of her
school, she saw a
headline on a newspaper hoarding: "Famous Tenor Killed." Her father,
then on a singing tour in America, had been dragged under
a train in Boston. This
across her
life,
was
the
first
of the three misfortunes
unpredictable catastrophes that
that cut
came out of the
blue.
Her Catholicism and generosity got her through these rough times partly because they tied her to
wider communities
in
which she
could share the grief Clare's public persona might be aristocratic
and
distant
on
occasion, but she
the average egalitarian,
awkward
instance, she
life,
also closer to
by recounting bizarre
which was unusual by
managed
most people than
and she would break through the
social situations
often about her
was
to stay
of her youth by being taught
away from the at
stories.
ice
of
These were
today's standards. For local school for
most
home.
While Clare was firm
A typical family anecdote concerned her when she was at the slightly advanced age of
marriage, in thirty-five.
1940,
Proud of
Maggie was
When
television.
Keswick
Catholic, but
the heart of English Catholicism, Westminster Cathedral.
Three maiden aunts, hard of hearing and carrying ear trumpets, in the front pew. John,
arrived, instead of saying, "Yes,
The three aunts
lent
I
do," he said, "Volo."
forward and whispered loudly, "Did he say no?
Did he say no?" A few days said
Roman religion, had when the moment of
marrying into the
decided to try his vows in Latin. So
commitment
later a
lawyer arrived
at
Because Clare's very long
set
of
first
legally.
Why?
names, Clare Mary Alice
Cynthia Catherine Celia, had been said in the wrong order. After they had office,
John
—
name
made
if
50
and
said: "Clare, if
we
that's that."
a second,
we
now
upright
I
he said of
Lm now
remember
as
his
own
lying in bed
whom we beliefs, "I
am
and repHcd, "Yes, so
L"
we
as well as Scotland
and
on
to
the garden.
one needs
in a
was brought up
a
double
Ikt
Chinese as well
in
"I'm
a
Buddhist
often di.scussed hybrid belief systems such as
me
day Clare asked
gumboots, tennis
both admired, on
said,
those of the emigre priest Father Bede Griffiths,
One
one evening
Because of
Western culture, she could have equally
Catholic," and
established churcii,
tlic
an Agnostic Catholic." Maggie shot bolt
upbringing, in Shanghai
John's office and
marriage had not been consummated,
the
sat
less certain.
watching the author David Lodge,
being a virgin to that age, she had a very public wedding to John at
the faith ol
in
It
held
rackets,
who settled
in India.
to redesign a small passage that led out a
jumbled mess of too many
coals,
garden pots, books, and the brit-a-brac
country house. A
new cloakroom?
I
decided to use
successful attempt, at a registry
have any children they will have one
have a daughter she's called Margaret Keswick, and
abovf: of
a
Capri
portrait of Clare
Elwes by her brother Simon Elwes on the Island
when she was
cloakroom with
eighteen,
1923.
repeated doorhandles and
right:
The Zeroroom; the
tennis rackets.
this
redesign as a pretext for something entirely other, for preparin\^
one
for the
Since the
garden and testing our uncertain place
in the universe.
16th century, and the Copernican Revolution, whuli
much
displaced earth from the center of the cosmos, there has been
anxious speculation
about
our location,
which
it
hcon
has
customary to equate with our significance. According to
He lamented
engenders
is
the
atomism and mechanism. "An Anainni)
doubt/.Aiid element ot
end with, "They see
Atomies. /'Tis mechanistic
expressed in John Donne's
the loss of Christian wholeness implied by the
World," written in 1611, includes the calls all in
all
leail lo
extreme
|is) \
a
poetry
theories of
"hi thr \ast heavens,
eontronting
it
in
philosophy
fire is
that this/Is
Pieces,
lines:
all
revealed
"And new
the
pliilosoph)
quite put out," and nears
crumbled out again
coherence a
ol
world,
gone." The as
Alfred
to his
new-
North
was "a
soniullrss, stnitless,
ihill allair,
ol niattrr, rndk'ss, inraiiingless."The
i) niv;
idrnlil)
l\\v
niodcrnisni,
has
u hen-
whuh
crisis,
rools
iis
dislocation, the loss ot co ordniaics, a di/zying
philosophers, poets, and scientists continue to
The anxiety
thai
ihenu' ot
his
it.
new
onniipreseni
who made
invoke
wmu-,
"loss of scH in Moilriii hu'iaturr,"
though the idea of cosmic location has an
insignificance and, even it,
laiiT
colorless, nu'irU ihr hni
a siiii(iK-
equation the center means importance, and the peripher) iquals
absurd logic to
Whiirheail
is
.\n
i-xlstciuial
in
atfair.
are we.^", an innonMit (|nesrion, can
holoj^ji^al distress.
wager with
Paseah the Cathoht thinker
expressed
also
Ciod,
angsl
his
at
universe whicii expanded on and on, out of scale
with an) conceivable tiiought: "Le silence eternel de ces espaces
("The eternal
infinis m'effraie." terrifies
some.
me.") hifinite spaces are frightening, even nauseating lo
When
infinity.
It
represented
and
telescope
the
sophistication in the
of
these infinite spaces
of
silenei-
I
reached
calculus
certain
a
was no avcMding the
7ih century there
crisis
could be seen, operated on mentally and even
some
in
architecture, for instance
in
Baroque
llu'
churches of Guarino Guarini. By the 19th century the painter Paul
Gauguin made
it
a subject
Que sommes-nous.' Ou
of one of his paintings: D'ou
ailons-nous.'
"Where do we come from, what
where
are we,
are
These are the big questions, and what better place not in the smallest
when
room
confronting grand questions thus
became
among
in place.
positive to negative.
going?"
to face
them
if
Some people
meditate,
pleasing
irony in
is
and
hats
we
a
coats.
The cloakroom
mixture of the everyday and the unlikely:
a strange
march between doorknobs
tennis rackets, in white jackets,
hold them
house?
in the
on the loo and there
do,
they
venons-nous.'
that
Moldings, which look ordinary, dissolve from
And
place in the universe,
aerial
lilt
photos and drawings, showing our
out slightly from the wall lo confront
you, as they progressively lead from the big picture, our galaxy, to the smaller scale of the garden plan, and then, through the door, into the real garden.
some grounding
Science and religion give us
even
in the
contradictory one, but so too do aerial and
if a
photographs. The ultimate grounding
is
our new
eyes.
universe, satellite
They
reveal
new patterns and ways of reconceiving our place in the universe as a zoom of scales. According to a Pascalian reading this new vision shows that the cosmos is out of scale with us, and that we are not at
the center.
How
spacetime that
Nothing
can
we
conceive of the thirteen-billion-year-old
we occupy? How
in daily
experience
is
another reading, every place
can
like is
it.
at
we imagine
this
scale?
Paradoxically, according to
the center of an expanding
spacetime balloon.
There were other lessons from not to understand until
much
this
later,
jump
when
"Universe Ca.scade," but well befcjre ourselves into another project
excavations
I
into the void that
I
was
started to construct the
this,
which was
Maggie and inspired
I
threw
by the
first
we had made. 51
0S^if'
THE ZEROROOM The Zeroroom: a preparation
for entering the garden.
One approaches through a narrow cloakroom rhythmical F>erspective of tennis rackets
through the
that travel strangely
cosmic place
oiir
in
in
a sequence of eight jumps. square to the
shows we
Way
and moldings
To either side,
spacetime
in
and drawings. These zoom
little
wall.
with a
we
First,
are found
in
a
of the galactic center This
left
are located
is revealed in photos on our present location
the "suburbs" of the Milky
in
about two thirds of the way out. Although
used
scientists often
insignificance, to of fate, that
it
this
The second jump
to underscore our
turns out.
is in
and square
scale,
we
are
the top of the globe. The third
zoom
in
a twist
can emerge.
life
Suburban Galaxy.
photo of the earth, shows
Britain, at
further
it
the only place where
is
The only habitable zone satellite
metaphor
mock our pride,
into the region of Scotland.
in
in
the
Great
shows a
Each
aerial
photo, map. or drawing has a square that refers to the
map
tjelow.
mentally zero
Pascal,
Finally,
garden plan, a
in
we know
connected.
into
easy orientation, so that one can on the present space and time. Unlike
for
mirror,
cut into the
these
two
the jumps
in
coordinates scale
are
reach the
Then one looks straight ahead an image of oneself, and also two eyes in color.
door Below them
band
is
printed a continuous
that only makes sense when you read slowly. lUIUIUIUEYEYEWEYEYEWEYEYEW. You look through the holes of the eye and you see a yew tree, and then
the
landscape.
it
Lost
in
space, you are found
spacetime: you open the door into the garden.
in
Heaven-Hell
When
she was young Maggie had discussed with her father the idea
swamp and
of clearing out a
tangle of small bushes that had
south of the London to Glasgow
just
They often took the night
property.
line,
train
which ran through
row of
planted a diagonal
and
it
an eyesore.
poplars to screen out the trains
tall
diagonal line extended almost up to the bridge going over
this
the River Nith,
where he loved
him and
to fish for salmon. For
family the noise and sight of the train was a disturbance
even caused
fires
psychologically. reflected
—and ought was not
It
to
until
we began
idea
was
to see
as a
it
to suppress
sparks
its
much
when Maggie and
later,
hidden opportunity, but
in the garden," at this
stage the
in
an accident while fishing on the Nith.
suddenly sped backwards and pinned him to the ground.
how
could figure out it
and was trying to
in gear
least
of
many
Clare,
both of
weeks. After John's death
spending more time
in trying to
whom
we changed
in the
The accident
suppose
a
crime, for
the pattern of our lives,
who was now Wagg, who lived
Portrack to be with Clare
at
nearby. Maggie, an only child,
was
as
mother was and the shock of
this
never really
the
hump
remained stunned
without other family, except for her niece, Clare
drew
No one
without any completely plausible
no one saw any point
Maggie or
all
over a
lift it
the wheels caught the ground.
a perplexing mystery,
explanation. But
it
he had ended up underneath the car unless
ground when suddenly remained
It
occurrence reminiscent of the way Gervase Elwes had
died. Apparently, while trying to get his small car out of a bog,
he had put
I
it.
John died suddenly a freak
—
the
be blocked out both visually and
on the extraordinary idea of "the machine
that
was
their
along this track in their
journeys to and from the capital, and John considered
He
grown
devoted to her father left her.
as
her
She often ^kV'r''^
rock that was put up as a memorial with an
little
vr,r'
fi
and the simple words
inscription in Chinese, the initials JK, a cross,
y>i
c-Jiy
'/,
"5th July 1982, Here on the Bank of the Nith, shortly before his
76th birthday."
It
was not the
the place to dwell
ones, In
it
changed
on
life at
its
last
tragedy to strike. While this
impact and implications,
like the
is
not
other
Maggie,
Portrack completely.
1989 Maggie and
I
started
work on
clearing the trees south
of the railroad, leaving the poplars, and digging out a pond for
swimming. Our children, Johnny and and nine, joined
Lily,
in the clearing, but the
by Hugh Hastings and
his
convention
team of earth-movers. As they were I
noticed that
had been cut up into regular
is first
then burn them.
to slice the tree into easily
When
I
then eleven
main work was again done
reshaping the small burn into a large pond, the felled trees
who were
cylinders.
I
two-foot-high
was astounded. horizontal
contrasting with the curves and contortions of the growth.
again 54
I
The
movable sausages, and
inspected the results
There they were: perfect,
little
many of
"We
can't
burn these pieces of scuipinn',
row of teeth. "Their
into a stumpery, into a
so
I
them
turn
had rolled oul.
gave Lily and John a lecture on tooth decay, a pick, a chisel, and
a small bribe,
Devil's
and asked them
Teeth,
a
small
overhanging branches,
\\
to get to
huh
work. The
mound
moss
result
(filtered
(ornied, with the sky, a
became
below
dome.
pickled these stumps with the preservative Cuprinol, so ihey
not rot any further, and
now we
more stumperies were
excavations:
a
large
Once
completely encircle a central but because
I
a
built
path,
large Alisiair
would
from the ofTcuis of
hemicycle surrounding
which culminates
ihe
have an cjpen-air circular temple of
trees. Several
slices
thought of Stuart Kauffman's "order for free" and said to
interiors
let's
a
gianl
and twelve upturned tree:
f)ur
sycamore.
rrxjls.
which
Witches' Brcwms on one reading.
was studying the way
a thicket
of neural nelwork.s
is
—
power
ma)
tlie)
and legenerale.
(.iesUX))
Sueli anil)iguilies ol
lile's
double power need expression. "Creative destruction"; dealh
ior
something new.
With such the
image
("hiiu'si'
arched
mind Maggie designed
thouglils in ot the
the
hriilge,
i
and
Immortals; then
ot the
Wa)'
liasy
to
together, ideas
and
Paradise,
and steppnig stones, the Hard Way.
watertall
a hltle island in
were eoming thick and
We
fast
1
designed an designed
sht'
were working
a
wi'll
and complementing
each othir. The Wilderness Garden began lo take shape and then, as it
contirm our speculation,
to
tree alter
h iilm disease struck
and one
In sjiiie of the objections
of Clare,
l^titi
another crashed down.
and the advice of gardeners, we decided
one against another. They form
leaning
giants
to preserve these fallen
graveyard. Contorted, dead sculptures shoot
and
knobbly arms
their
growing background of
riotously
legs against a
up
spectacular
a
ferns
and
rhododendrons. Maggie had planted gunnera, which, with their
menacing
giant floppy leaves, are
death and a symbolic netherworld started to
and
honey fungus. By
primeval give
Et in Arcadia,
Ego
Maggie and
contrast,
landscape
forest, the first
a literary
it
come
together Clare
had visions of
I
a
the beginning of time and, to
at
theme, the famous painting by Nicolas Poussin,
("Even in Arcadia,
I"):
Death. This area of fallen and
regenerating nature became Heaven—Hell and so
There was one more
had imagined two positive
eat you. Real
however, were worried about the spread of another
Alistair,
disease,
might
plants that
trick nature played
mounds of
tiny
one negative, both
it
on us
has remained. at this
earth covered with moss,
circular temples to nature.
inspired partly by a giardino
segreto
time.
we had
We one
They were
seen outside Verona: a
garden that had grown up around ruined circular walls. Trees
secret
surrounding the walls
hole focused like the lens of a camera
left a
dome overhead. It was an old illusion, proved by the Pantheon in Rome and repeated by earth artists such as Michael Heizer and James Turrell. So we decided to make another on the
sky, creating a virtual
version, exactly surprise. After
supposed to work, they became known
Upside-down
moss
as the Circular Brain.
trees are distvu-bing, contorted in death, but the
tangle of thousands of roots
is
an arresting sight and an interesting
where moss had always grown. But then came the
we
cleared the
in the bowl,
it
nature refusing lo do what
what
which willows might grow
grew
in
rebirth.
our mind
Maggie and
I
for this area
it
by several names: Paradise/Hell, the
top:
Devil's
stumps.
Teeth
When
—
trees
cylinders to transport
River
Styx
(because
come back
it
lo the
(see following pages).
These will return
of the garden
primeval wilderness, the place of death and
called
I
left
the themes have clarified. Decay, Death,
Brooms: the idea
as a
I
—meant we
have called a Wilk:)wtwist, a structure up
and an extraordinary second growth of moss and mushrooms has
Devil's Teeth. Witches'
had always done
it
alone ior several years, and only recently have idea and created
And
of undergrowth and replanted
refused to take root. The perversity of this
transformation has occurred. Today most of the roots have withered
replaced the "neurons."
site
of the
burn flowing through
it),
the
Underground, the Unconscious (because of the murky current),
self-similar
age and
can be turned to other uses
them
into horizontal
(inset),
far left
By the
Nith.
A stone marks the
place where John Keswick died; drawing by Maggie, September left:
imdergroimd and shrouded
distance, the waterfall
As places of primitive
the farmers cut
and burn them. When cleaned up and preserved they
and Destruction. In some cosmologies Heaven and Hell are both in mist or water.
forms of nature transformed from tree
finally fall
a Wedge Bridge— the
Easy
Way
5,
to get across the burn and,
and stepping stones
1988. in
the
—the Hard Way. 55
.-#
-•*
.:
-^\.-.r-^v
•*'*..'*
;\
\
i«^'
,''
,
-
1
#.
•'•-..
^:>'".- >^-
^% r-
>4. >-
.^
>'
>-
:-*~;v
'^M.*
"
^^^*
"'
19
.^ V
..M.^^^^ .^imm
i
n i
r
.
:^
\ ^ff
THE WILLOWTWIST The Willowtwist is a structure made from one single, long sheet of aluminum, cut and split twice so that one arm leans forward, another back and the middle twists to form a central loop. The simplicity of the solution was worked out on a cardboard model that was deflected to give a dramatic rise
also
12^
^-
and
fall.
One enters
at the
low end and walks along a circular path that
goes up and down, while views through the curves frame the pines and
sky.
—
the area to a
more
and dampness. Perhaps the
sheltered darkness,
most recent return of the moss wih be permanent, but certain.
As Ahstair points out, moss often grows where
it
should
and then dies where
it
should
on rocks exposed
not,
nature bends
Snail
to the sun,
damp, sheltered
flourish, in
The
own
its
With
places.
a subtle shift in context,
rules.
and the Poetics of Going Slow
By November 1990, Hugh Hastings and had widened the stream and dug out
his bulldozers
pond, twelve
a
deep enough for swimming. Here,
parts,
from the hole
over the
nutrients, but let
if
there
Hastings'
plasticine
model
tries to
field,
one shapes the earth
"More
in bulldozers,
like a traffic cop,
of earth,
it.
mud
and
produced one
I
it is
hard to shape sand
response
in
site
what has
to
reshape blobs into desirable figures. Using
drawings, models, and, in the
men
Because
day.
one redesigns
precisely,
happened and
string,
a free pile
another and walked out to the building
after
it
from the
benefit
To keep up,
fast.
with an updated drawing every
and gravel
leftover soil,
earth-movers got to work digging out
sculpting the land extremely
and
going to be
is
be a sculptural object, experiment with
it
in
ground? Maggie thought of spreading
in the
thought
I
down
discarded stumps,
like the
where cows and sheep might
fields,
and diggers
feet
was another opportunity. What should we do with the a gift
not
is
it
"Over
sawdust and stakes with
like
an action painter, yelling
to the left," directing there."
flags
dumpers with
at
soil
They may understand the grand
design but they are often too close to the action to see the pattern
emerge.
I
have often found design and
its
realization to
way: you have to continuously remodel an idea, in
and then make adjustments
as
you go
along.
happen
this
many media,
The rewards
are great:
back of my mind was the
which
Because the digging of the
common name Hastings'
I
swimming
hole was moving so
designed the Snail Mound.
in order to
men, and
fast
would soon be working. The a double-curved ascent, lie at
had
to give
it
this
it
from other shapes on which
"Snail" drawings and
two paths
to
that only
meet
at
I
my mind
were
of DNA.This has two
I
when
the
spirals
those
starts,
as
two
Chambord
that if
service
it
used
he saw
down
the beauty of this uiuil nuicli
in a
way
I
the
later,
had not foreseen: during
up with flowers from
separated those going
Another precedent was the oldest pyramidal form
And
Renaissance mound.
whole
a final
in history, the
laUT incarnation, the
its
motive was the function of
which one could move, an
thing, a focus toward
ideas behind the design?
Not
or function in mind, never It
at all:
—
that
tiie
axis for the
various views and a place to survey the I'nure garden. Too
it
life,
that
dialectic;
steps forward
one
had is it
a
the
the double helix
diminishing
way
it
I
me
in turn
many
never design with one reference
would be
a
would destroy the mystery and
would make consumption too quick and
spiral: Tatlin's
illustrates the
dance
often proceeds in a counter
step back, a progress in
an ascent that has descent built into
it.
fits
Another idea
and
in the
Fiesole,
money and
waste of
somewhere
"Go slow" hidden in
is
a
else,
a
place through
surprise of the garden;
easy.
Renaissance garden
that
which one
races
warning sign with multiple meanings:
signs, discover
oxymoron it
at
I
was
mean "Make
on
the
way
but railu-r a place of imaginative exploration.
new
the Renaissance garden
Does
a
noted the importance of slow perception. A landscape
garden should not be to
a
coming down empty handed.
the top and that
of ascent and they reminded
wonderful quality of this
of history's surprising
rhythm,
mound was
memorial
one-liner
several different ideas (see following pages).
of a Utopian design of 1919
A
had designed so
I,
at
designers, following ideas developed in the seminal Villa Medici
thought of the most important shape behind
tower.
would not understand
other.
models showed
an angle.
In
58
I
communicate an unambiguous shape
to distinguish
the French king, Francois
stepped ziggurat of the Egyptians and
and changes would be expensive, Maggie concentrated on shaping the water while
6th-century spiral stairway
an unwelcome guest coming up one way, he could escape
something new may emerge, something better than you could have imagined or designed on paper.
1
later to
ones. "Festina lente"
"Make use in
a
tease out the
was even advised
haste slowly"
—
a
wonderful
garden design (see page 234).
haste in order to prepare so thai
you can
later
lit
triini 11
pmul, U) he surnniiulnl
llu'
annus
\
watrr
b)
anj^lcs. In tau, oiu' ol ihr
ami sha|)es
tliainati/rs discover): une.vpeeled \isias
Anoiher unsuspected bonus
uiio \ie\\.
luound
iriiirs dl a spiral
\
that
is
mound
a
The
il
can
another
"Let's excavate
saiii,
From her
causeway."
a lake is
one
me
of it).
One
Hugh, more
right,
it
obscure a
its
hurry up and cahn down"? A goal
in the garden," or "Just
of s>Tnbolic design
is
provoke viewers into discovering
to
and
latent
even unintended meanings, a provocation that will only work they assume there In this
something there
is
if
way design and discovery amplify each
thinking about the spiral Snail, for instance,
I
other.
As
was
I
happened
be
to
reading about the pavement
maze
captivating idea behind
of presenting the pilgrimage route to
it
at
Chartres Cathedral. This has the
Jerusalem as a type of counter-intuitive play: in order to get to the
Holy City
from
it.
center of the labyrinth the pilgrim has to face away
Once
his goal.
toward to
at the
down
have to go
into
it
you
—not
surprise,
When
in
are forced to
go
up.
easy and counter to expectation.
perplex,
relate the
in the shape
entice,
moimd
confound,
its
shape.
The
tail
slow. The idea as
built is
to
you
make
the ponds,
a
men
few
(though apparenti)
we
designed the
lined with
it
wood
tail
of the
snail
over the deep part of the
edging so that
it
would
allows one to descend almost into the middle
curves extend from the snail-hook
center, then into the
snake mound,
(left).
(right)
to the causeway,
found Maggie atop the
I
digging
a trench:
"More
snail
to the
was pushing the
out of sight, behind
feet
some people thought
that, in
order
actually diverted the River Nith
to say legal impossibility. Bui Maggie's
introducing a hidden source was absolutely right.
It
ponds and landforms an enigmatic atmosphere
—an
concern for
has given the that
is
quite
uncanny, hard to figure out. reflection,
iud
when
I
went on
lo
build other landforms in Edinburgh and elsewhere. The exact shape
of the curves and their fine-tuning
mounds
these
shadows.
It
alive
lights bright carpets
volumes.
One
largely
to
—
is
the
key for creating what gives
edges and defined
sharp
morning or evening
the
is
strength
their
makes them come
sun, a raking light, that
with subtle differences in tone. In certain
of green seem to hover above dark looming
has to sculpt continuous, gentle undulations
—not wobbly
the
skill
profiles.
— "sweet
Such refinements are
of landforms, and their realization was due
of the gardeners working
Brown, Doug McCormick, and
Alistair
Porirack.
at
created
Neil
sharp
these
continuous curves by constantly surveying their work on the turf
from
different
positions.
bad from another and
this Alistair
Since
large
curves
—one
has
ic;
positions, near and
working on
skills
and eye
far,
above
large-scale earth
to constantly revised designs, the next stage
and shaping needed
After
strange
review progress as one goes along,
would do from many
moving according
create
— and can look good from one position and
and below. While Hugh Hastings did the rough,
turfing Self-similar
we had
perspectival distortions
life.
to the water
it
Go
madden, amuse,
of a French curve and brought
pond; then Maggie had keep
The ascent of life has descent
by
a
gives
essential for the success
when going down,
make
did
Not seeing where the burn comes from
climbing the DNA/Snail/Ziggurat you
order to go up; and
slu'
a line
trees,
curves" as the Scots say
I
covered with
some
decided
discover these contradictions of
To
he has to face back
How suitably perverse for the pilgrimage of life.
remint the idea.
contrast,
there, in order to leave,
as
lliis
and
Another truth emerged on
to find.
most dramatic elements
mystery and leads the eye and imagination further back. The
economic not go slow
thai a ihin
day, struggling as usual to get the earth
source was so mysterious that lo
knew
to the right." In effect, she
source.
Maggie
ihal
had
to the
emergence of the water to
she
liasi
of the
water into a satisfactory relationship,
waving and shouting
shapes are
Alisiair
had not occurred to
also thought
looks very
its
salisl)iiiy;
something we never carried through, hut
that
come
e\[)and the poiul and (.reale a
.\\)i\
Chinese garden. She imagined
in a
of trees,
move
hit
and
k
researches in the
causeway cutting across found
was so (|uk
iiiouiul IniiUlinj:^
thai
polished c)liiuler.
like a
,^li'\\
is
siicklenl)
ditlerent in ehan^yiin^ seasons: in the snow, for instance, siniplitieit aiul
shapes
.\nd lo '^CH diffrri'iil
six
just as
much
continuous modification.
landforms, Alistair has sharpened his
for the well-turned
of
own
shadow. 59
'mmtm
^:
y^
^&L-
THE SNAIL Two paths
—a double
helix
—
rise
up the
this:
DNA, the double
Mound on one
side and
fall
goes up and down. Various ideas were
gently on the other so the ascent
behind
Snail
staircase at
Chambord
that allows
two
people to pass without meeting, a ziggurat, the contrary movement of the giant floor-paving International
maze
leftover pile of earth.
and we could see that
were
like
you want
equipment
and material
inevitable: it
We moved the
that this
of connected, curving ponds,
pile
and have
it
it
is
with diggers and bulldozers
naturally
the shape-grammar of rooms
scale, equipment,
approach
to the Third
—multiple meanings that have to be decoded, slowly. Maggie
had dug out an old marsh, creating a series
and a
Monument
Chartres, Tatlin's
at
I
generated blob-curves
had been designing. The
—sand and gravel —make a broad-brush
hard to get earth to within five feet of the place
stay there and accept grass.
western Scotland smear out
all
but the largest
The constant rains of gesture, making design
extremely primitive. Nevertheless, the basic ideas of twists, folds, and
waves
of energy are
in
the mounds.
FOLLOWING page: The Snail or a spacecraft.
60
Mound
in
snow: a polished
cylinder,
:f
-:fi^-
.x3t,
,^"3^
•*-/.-
,*
Waveforms, Twists, and Catastrophes At this point in the garden's creation
was involved
I
another
in
pursuit altogether, an investigation into post-modern theories that
were changing our world-view, some coming from science. Since
was
these explain the direction the landscape the house
where
first
I
necessary as well as a look
is
to take, a detour into
room
at a
house
in the
turned theory into form. As usual with her mother's
house, Maggie initiated the process of change and identified the necessities. In this case
was the need
it
and breakfast room where big table and, Scottish reels.
could
the Christmas
at It
we
was
to
be
a
a
New
room
family
new
the
that a
new grammar
at a
Year holidays, dance
centered on work.
my mind
Functional problems had to be solved, but uppermost in
was the thought
kitchen
meet informally, work
all
and
room,
for a big
of form might emerge from
sciences of complexity. Developed in the
1960s, these
included the study of systems with feedback, such things as
embryonic growth and the change the
geometry of nature
fractal
cosmology and
came
in the weather.
126-7),
pages
(see
Chaos Theory,
of what are also called "nonlinear sciences"
a host
to the fore.
The
first
designs superimposed shallow, curved lines on the pre-
existing square geometry,
and these echoed the
rolling hills of the
landscape outside. The Borders area of southern Scotland
undulating rather than rugged and precipitous, as
The landscape resembles
north.
opposite walls
—
that generated a
jump
accentuate the I
flat,
designed
The problem was
and
to get
a
all
layered
room
—on
organic shape. In order to
and using an underlying structural
learn to fly" "Aye, Mr. Jencks"
warped curve
will
in axis,
a twist
new
further
on the new furniture
There were also conflicting axes of the
fabric.
mesh,
tried out
gently
is
is
it
and
folds in a curtain,
metaphors to be
pleats, inevitable
and
new
the
the curves
on
to
hang off the
ceiling.
the floor and ceiling in
synch with each other, to have the undulations of the
ponder
design into After
seats
for several days
— he never
and think
we had worked
out
were maybe
Maggie wanted another mouiul
daunting
task.
much work
hundred undulations
at
had
that
asked Bobby Dixon, the carpenter
I
responded, "Aye,
something hard
us.
as
Mr
was
a
these curves
when
I
gave
we
unfamihar to
a
improvisation.
model and then he would comment on
method of solving
I
it
the problem. The undulating ceiling it
was conceived
first
in stucco,
but then built in hardboard that was bent over a frame.
He
or
I
constantly take chances and court failure. "If you're going to
innovate Bobby, you have to 64
him
could approximately
method of working, through
a case of such improvisation:
would
he
him, was one of a number of bonds between
united by a different language
would draw and build
a
has done so
resist a challenge,
Jencks," as he always did
to
understand, and our
and invent
all
to do: "I kanna." His Scots accent, as
my American
We were
who
Portrack, if he could pull together
while working on his back. Never one to
me
be resolved,
to
jump
off a
cliff
and, as you're falling,
the
most
felt
confident about trying
satisfying of
our
grammar
twist
liie
scales,
a
ways he can transform
it
oui on
liir
at
many
joint endeavors, for the turves
result
Snail.
water and then, the curve, certain
it
It
We
called
responded to each otIuT,
oihcr,
snakes
the Snake
it
some
3
SO
toward
compressed energy
tiie
Mound,
and twists
feet
in a series of terraces that
twists
warp
something art
looming I
to distinguish first
almost
never suspected. Only
that
later
it
toward the
like a racetrack into is
a
and the self-similar shapes
in these lines
feeling,
rallicr
pasture and the sheep. There
of the ponds. As one moves around them peaceful,
was
of the lake
without being the same. Again, the idea was self-similarity than self-samene.ss.
small
landscape where
70-71). The
(see pages
and the landform echoed rath
from the
a
reality.
correspond with those that bounce light above the columns. There
I
of
refuses a challenge, but
of
did
I
at
a
dusk ihey give
a
slumbering body.
realize that
much
land
and, for instance, prehistoric landforms such as Silhury Hill near
Avebury, and Stonehenge. evoke a bodily presence that must have
been perceived and perhaps even intended.
ABOVE, LEFT Twists
room's axis
is
and
gravity
waves warp spacetime. The main
underscored by the s-twist on the
the furniture set
them. Of course,
up
lines of energy, virtual gravity
real gravity
waves
shift in
ceiling while the
the
warps
in
waves, that radiate from
at this scale are
too small to measure.
but one feels the
way
objects impress their presence on a space as
sending out rays of energy, top left The s-twist in axis,
wood
top right Bobby Dixon, below left
are given
one
twist,
in
if
the ceiling marks the shifts
In light
sculpture,
two sheets
then warped and splayed to create slices of
of
light.
65
WAVEFORMS AND TWISTS The standing image
light,
below,
morphed
is
Symmetry Break
of the
room are shown, near
to the undulations
Twists and
in
in
a
in this
I
the seating and ceiling
warped curves on the
will relate
case
mapping prison
These and the
it
of
riot,
was
how
real
lighting units
then lend
—a landscape of waves.
ceiling underline the shifts in axes.
of the complexity sciences
—show that a sudden change
twist.
body
axes that became an ordering principle
right.
These forms, inspired by one Theory
a female body holding the
Terrace, a connexion of architecture,
and landscape. The two shifts of the
fronn
in
—Catastrophe
a system can be represented by
catastrophes
later
impinged on our
lives,
but
make possible the a wave on still water, a
the theory that fascinated me. Twists
sudden changes
or the point
rage. Twists also occur
within a
system
—
where a stretched sthng snaps, or anger turns in
other natural systems
I
was
to investigate
into
such
as the Mobius strip and the soliton wave: the twisted energy packets that
can
travel
waves I
through each other and keep a
dissipate; solitons
used
this
memory
remember
multipurpose room to work out a
and waves, and applied
of their past. Other
it
new grammar
to the ceiling, walls, floor
elements are pulled together
in
self-similar but not exactly the
and
off-white folds, fractals
of twists
details. All the
whose waves
are
same. Modernists, such as Mies van der
Rohe, had been obsessed by repeating identical forms nature, which, using fractals, varies the form slightly
in
each time
contrast to it
reiterates
the program. Post-modernists were beginning to follow nature into the
realm of
self-similarity.
WAVES
THE GARDEN
IN
waves
Self-similar
twist almost to
a point on the back
before they unfold the other way. The twisting
wave
of the landform
recurs at
all
scales
in
the garden.
mounds
Since constructed
form
shaped by machines they
are
naturally
viscous shapes which resemble what are known as "strange
linear,
Two
attractors" or "chaotic attractors."
of the
Lorenz Attractor, "The Butterfly Effect," with wings, and the
Ueda
Attractor
(right,
its
most
interesting are the
fortuitous butterfly-shaped
above), both of which have inspired
the designs.
Curved and counter-curved shapes are nature, for instance,
many
incessant
by
in
natural activities:
the
meander
sea waves,
structural
of a
river.
of course,
waves on the ocean beach
(see
and often found
Waveforms
underlie so
and sand forms
page
in
left
21); the vortices
by the
caused
pulling a solid object through stationary liquid; the swirls of air currents
where warm and cold result of I
air
meet; and the rock curls evident
a long, slow, geological process
wanted
to create a
new form
of
of
in
mountains, a
movement.
landscape design, one based on the
waves
waveforms
that unite the
atom
ammonites
to sunflowers
—the pattern that connects, a new poetics.
to the galaxy, radio
to brain
waves,
69
>
'^>
THIS PAGE
of
AND FOLLOWING PAGE: Landform
Modern
Art,
for the Gallery
Edinburgh, proposal 2000, completed
August 2002. This design, connnnissioned flat
to enliven a
lawn and shield noise from the side road, faces two
ways: to the Gallery and across the road to
The Dean Centre.
Its
its sister.
connecting "S" form also derives
from the Henan Attractor
(right),
and
its
self-similar
curves that fold inwards. Earth, water, and airflows generate waveforms that self-organize around certain attractor basins this
so there are natural
shape and the way the earth
walk.
between
moved and people
The landform can be used as an open-air
(With Terry Farrell
72
is
affinities
& Partners and
Ian
gallery.
White Associates.)
73
^^^^^^^
ilMliHliil&iiiti*
'^
^
The wave and been
twist
extended
underway
in
at Portello
2002 and 2003.
grammar has further work Park
in
Milan,
Landforms and
separate gardens appeal to different
ages and uses, notably a nursery, of
hypermarket,
residences.
hospital,
and a set
Further changes
design (with Andreas Kipar) are
76
in
likely.
Soliton Waves
Hd\mg been
overtook
trained in
of the Gropius
According to
and
still
I
era,
I
Modern
architecture
imbibed
a kind
follow this priority
—
am
I
we completed
.\fter
tor
to rethink several necessities.
the beginning ot the kitchen oarden and ihe
These
and the occasional
realities led to
another application of the
a series of gates
and running
in Britain today
is
Where once
kept.
there
fields,
fences.
A
there
i\\ isi
bulls.
and \\a\etorm:
sad truth ot tarming counti)
become ugly and
that these necessities have
now
is
by deer, sheep, cows ami
assault
mixture of wooden posts and barbed
asked
.Alistair
rabbits out
waveform
me
to design four or five
of the kitchen garden.
I
some time and had
for
cook and runs Portrack, suggested
gates,
years.
I
Mobius
curves.
template, and
We
— experiment —
it
placed
soliton
could tind
I
could use
I
it
wave
soliton
blown-up drawing, and
a
until the twists gave just the
Sohton waves are particularly interesting because,
as
mentioned,
they can travel through each other and keep their identity, that
dissipates and,
out.
past.
when
By it
contrast, the t)'pical
wave seen on
is
a sohton, a laser
beam
is
and
constant speed for five hundred miles. Solitons were
a
a rare
.\t
a
thasc
soinr
oiiyjiiial lij^iiii'
U
or nine mili-s an
KtI
iliiru
lost
1
i-i^lil
y^iailiiall\
lis lu-iy^ht
one or two miles
t)t
of sonic
in the
K hiv; aiul a tool
clinunisluHl.
ami
wuuiiiigs o|
tlic
Iiannel.
\\a\e. or solilon.
solitar)
Riissrll's
smaller waxes that
and
shape
oM'iall
turbulence.
is
It
it
feedback
betweiMi
canal
were varied
ur.
presented
fences, and, particularly, in a
tlu'
in a layout
of
ten gates.
groii[") ot
terraces, in
Here waves
of energy are shown traveling through the metal elements of
twists.
When
viewed
straight
paradoxically, as an absence of metal
hump
as a traveling
of
reverse
the
is
the
reiiilorie
tlu' ck'lieale eilv^t'
the width or depth ot
resonance would not occ
hrcause the
i(k'nlit)
its
houiKe hack and
treqtiency. This
In the garden, solitons are
wave
it
olnionsl) balanced on
order and chaos: yivail), the
eoiistitiile
kee[is
—
a
on these void
as a
twists are seen,
— and, from
the side,
rather like the curl in a whiplash. Alternating
bands of solid and void, black and white, green and gravel are repeated
throughout
the
garden. The
illusions
provoke
leads the eye
one way
visual
different readings.
Functionally, however, the void or to the hinges, or the other
Modernist commitment
way
to
hump
to the latch
—
hangover from
a
showing how things work. These key
points are ofteri picked out with fossils and a surrounding strip,
my
Mobius
another twist that has very interesting, paradoxical properties
(combining two surfaces into one continuous
surface).
Both
a
pond
theorized by the Scottish engineer John Scott Russell in
had an unusual experience while riding
1
On
one hand,
the
fossil,
and
strips
vibrations, and,
keep out baby
I
was looking
of metal
far
for formal affinities to the spiral
enough
on the other hand,
apart
strips close
to
create
optical
enough together
to
rabbits.
a soliton, as
are the tidal bores that can reach twenty-five feet in height at
a
is,
encounters another, either adds up or cancels
The Red Spot of Jupiter
on
content and function were considerations informing the design.
right expression of an energy wave.
memor)- of the
1.
John
the twists and
to follow
strips
moved them around
in
metal sculpting that was to
c^n
them on
a
a first class
is
showed John my drawings of the
and he bent some metal
keep the
a craftsman in the vicinity:
Gibson. Thus started a collaboration
many
to
had been studying the
McCormick, who
the design of these gates. Hattie
last for
swing gates
the idea that
blacksmith accomplished enough to
alUT
series
or electric fences sagging dolefully.
\N'ire,
ilhiiv^
lo a tool aiul a hall in luij;lil,
had!)
were grand walls of stones cleared trom the
a tatty
i,
tonnal
landforms, there were two big problems: the mass unasion of rabbits,
snll
prfscix mv; Us
lunii'.
always lookuio tor
functional excuses and problems to solve, as alibis
me
end
expression si\oiul,
first,
or rather,
invention. In the garden this led
the
at
of Puritan functionalism.
conies
this doctrine, utihiy
Harvard,
at
it
travel first
834, after he
his horse along the Unicjn
Canal near Edinburgh:
I
was observing the motion of
a boat
which was
along a narrow channel by a pair of horses stopp)ed in
—not
motion;
of violent
it
suddenly leaving
its
it
it
had put
in a state
behind, rolled forward
assuming the form of a large
rounded, smooth and well defined
continued
which
accumulated round the prow of the vessel
agitation, then
drawn
the boat suddenly
so the mass of water in the channel
vNith great velocity, a
when
rapidly
solitary elevation,
heap of water, which
course along the channel apparently without change
of form or diminution of speed.
I
followed
it
on horseback, and
A
soliton
wave
traveling througti
a gate as a twist
in
metal.
77
SOLITON WAVES Soliton sketches from science
show trapped
solitons, and energy waves going through
each
other
— keeping
memory,
a
not
Given the coherence of such
dissipating.
waves, they can do unusual things, such as through each other. Or a high,
pass
intact
thin,
humpbacked
short,
fat
can overtake a
soliton
one, combine for a while as a
and then remerge, as
single wave,
remembered
their
separate
Solitons have been found
in
if
the two
identities.
such diverse
systems as planetary atmospheres,
crystals,
and have been used to create such systems as superconductors and optical fibers. In general they can be considered as focused energy waves or coherent patterns. They can be represented in two basic ways: plasmas,
and
nerve
either as the traveling
as the twist belt.
The
in
a
fibers,
hump
flat strip,
in
a whiplash, or
used
latter is "topologically
"twists" are
—especially
in
through the universe. The twist also appears in
other parts of the garden:
sculpture as the hydrogen
bond (page
as the Sense of Touch (page
Symbiosis
for
(page
(page
Willowtwist
the
in
1
55),
213)
57).
)
/
7
1
'
DNA 1
49),
as support
and
the
in
recurrence
Its
underscores the overall metaphor of the
garden as a landscape of waves. ^/?.
and dark bands throughout the garden set up vibrating patterns and visual Light
/
/
7tr.,.t
^)
Waveforms of energy, alternating waves, waves of light photons that interfere with each other creating overlapping waves. Thus light waves are turned into electrical waves and then brain waves. The waveform and the twist connect us to the atom and to the galaxy to the illusions.
—
—
—which
language of the universe are used everywhere
in
—
is
why
they
the garden.
such as a leather trapped" and
can be eliminated only by an
"Humps" and
/
anti-twist.
two signs
I
have
a series of metal gates
to represent the traveling of
focused energy
BELOW, center:
each
(below) the
Two
not
other,
hump
solitons going through
interacting
(above),
and
that dissipates versus the
trapped twist that can only be eliminated by
an
anti-twist.
.X
V( ->.
'^J
%
.-i.
1^^- ,i
.m*
-Xi"
ytrf^.
v*.*-^
••f^^h
^^^«a
fT^'
'•''*
I
'^
'^:r7'.
/f
.-^k. ->''.%
I
f f •
-'
.-
.••
79
^
The
Gates contain waves of energy
Soliton
moving from
points of focus or structure
tine
here the latch or hinges. They travel across the
gate diagonally, giving a kind of visual energy that is
accentuated by the alternation of
and
black
void,
background. The twists are almost
seems
the gate to the points that hold
open
it.
Mdbius
The
latch
which
fossil,
is
strip, itself
further
takes
4:>-
Sometimes the
least visually, into the
focused by a twisted
up the
wall.
spiral
curvilinear
ammonites and even
soliton
stone
so
and where you
it,
geometry. The fossils are local trilobites.
invisible,
to pass through
an endless form, and a
also
and
and
foreground
white,
the represented soliton
solid
Thus
travels, at
natural
and
designed waveforms are merged.
'-X-.
^"nSI
'fM
iv,1
^^*^^-
./:^-.
Jl
^v?:" ^^v,.
->«-
/ /
\/.
f//
-ff^%i
/ ^>. >r
s
MM
?-
9
?
.5^
< s
'^C
s ^
XCro
J
-r=MiHi
'^
•''
ma.
'4^
y^V, vo't^ Wvv^^
-^
C^^^. /Gthi.
y
-
ii— l(^'''^'--
'UIl
-^
c
i
m.^
^^^»»»n> TH
m
/
!
I
Imm
^ 4
'^t
^
"^^
T
^%
"JjS
es«
'—^_
M? IV'
^Vrv=J
z
k ^
1Ovv J^ i ^^
1
1
s ^
J~ "
1
*«^ I-
-•
:-s
'
R^"""'
^tiA;
.'
.
immnBBM """""'' ""itiiiiiw
iiiiiiii
i
i i ii
iw iii iiHi
i
ii
M ii Mi w iiiiMiiiiiiii i
m ii M
i
l^ikk^M
i, •,.>^.:i.\y:~
>«r«.
82
I
I
^
A LANDSCAPE OF WAVES The metaphor
of a
landscape of waves was carried out
with different densities of light
waves
that
add up
mesh
in
other media, here
layered to create moire interference patterns;
or cancel
each other
out.
83
A
RELATIVISTIC
QUANTUM PARTICLE
PLANCK'S ROI'ATIO
PART THREE: WHERE
God and
the Equations
Necessity is
is
ctcrnii),
not always the mother of invention, but in
a
garden
ii
the spur to build. At Portrack the old, ofT-the-shelf
usually
greenhouse had become too small for the plants growing, so Maggie and he designed size.
THE UNIVERSE GOING?
IS
Involved in work on a book,
for suggesting that
it
I
be placed on
more presence and headroom sheds and Siamese Twins
twice the
concrete block base to give
a
within.
it
also designed the potting
I
two oven-shaped volumes
to
a globe,
round
from the center itself ot all
to the extremes, the
all
forms
to
reflect
We
more
then designed six
from the kitchen garden
to the
pillars to
make
a transition
mounds, and she asked me
most
perfected,
this
in
the
it.
form
of
perfect
and most
like
globes or
at
underlying
pattern.
Seventeenth-century views ot the universe, such as those of the
German astronomer Johannes
based on Kepler's and the
work of
artists
Kepler,
showed
a series
of perfect
one inside the next, whose harmonies
explained the planetary orbits.
by an aunt.
world
Renaissance architects tried their hand
entrances to the kitchen garden, Maggie had previously built several to her
tlir
world bchuul
every direction equally distant
a lathe, in
Platonic figures, nested
on which she placed stone globes given
iiiTnal
the figures."
Virtuall)
circular
from
as
hold the sand and peat needed for bedding plants. To mark
robust square pillars
ilu'
"Therefore [the father and creator] niadf
stayed out of this design except
the back,
at
new one about
a
was
Alistair
our changuig world and
made
My
Platonic imiverse
visible the
from Phidias
to
metaphysics
was loosely
that lay belli iid
Cezanne, architects from Ictinus
to put
something on them.
—what
This was a challenge pedestal?
Since
the
worthy today of being put on
is
three
first
"Renaissance" part of the kitchen garden, subjects
would be
the Platonic
model (Ptolemy's), and
were
pylons
model of the
I
near
a
old
the
thought that suitable
universe, a Renaissance
would be
a constellation sphere. These
in
bronze, and the other three, next to the new, "present" part of the kitchen garden,
would hold
the present view of the universe, and
be in aliuniniun. The Bronze Age versus the Aluminum, or
is it
the
Age of Plastic? beheved
Plato
that
metaphor pleasing created
the
God was
to Christians
universe
the architect of the universe, a
and
architects alike,
left:
he
The equations
that
He
from the imperfect material of the four
elements, but in the image of perfected eternity, that In the Timaeus
and
spells out
that might
this relationship
be on God's mind.
is,
the globe.
betw^een time and
RiGi-m "All is
spheres and
cylinders."
Le Corbusier quotes Cezanne's dictum, and then draws "the
lesson of
Rome" showing
elements.
Platonic
Classicists
and Modernists, with the idea
that the city
is
metaphysics furnished
built
exclusively from these
artists
and
symmetries underlay the universe, and an
art
might be
thereby constituting the most perfect culture. However, nature
is
also fractal
both
and perfect
built
on them,
we now know
and based on symmetry breaking (see page 179)
discoveries that are recent for
architects,
that regular solids
and fundamental. This understanding
is
crucial
a new architecture and landscape design. 85
to Le Corbusier. This
the idea that nature
is
is,
in Cezanne's words,
based on "the sphere, cone, cube, cyhnder," the primary forms, and therefore art and architecture, imitating nature, should be
that
Modern
crystaUized in these forms. Classical and
and Hindu, often followed
to say Chinese
architecture, not
this precept.
was followed
questionable, such venerable metaphysics
Although
at this,
the
them Portrack Seminars, them took religion,
literature,
between science and drawn-out Cold War, pursuing.
Many
whether
particularly
religion, lasting
debate about the relationship
three
hundred
years,
their long,
is
skeptical scientists, such as Stephen
Leon Lederman, have written books invoking God
still
worth
I
and
had
all
a
Ray
up
the field.
Pope, enlist Darwin in support of the Deity's work, obscuring the fact that natural selection is cruel
of nine out of ten species.
and proceeds by the decimation
Some God! The Cold War continues
Griffin,
Richard Falk, and
post-modern settlement, however, the new physics not only
the
appears weirder than biblical miracles,
This truth has been the testimony of nuclear physicists since Niels
Bohr
set
out his famous shock
microworld
in the
1
920s: "Anyone
Theory has not understood
through two different
waves to being
particles
depending on parts of this
as
quantum
how
weird
they are observed: these reality,
Indeed, what
what has become
Scientists use
when
all
the evidence
particles
tunneling through walls
Some
we now know about to
I
the creation of the universe as
I
how much
they could illuminate
as
may
truths of the universe, but they often
have uncovered
fashion appropriate metaphors from them. at teasing
—
By
these
do they always
contrast, theologians
out relevant metaphors and attitudes
to nature, but these representations are
plague on both their houses
some deep
do not know what
discoveries imply in terms of human experience, nor
adept
was
no longer
apt to be true.
A
or a chance to think between them?
Spretnak, David
Portrack
at
(and
still,
Steven
against
the
evolutionary
meeting were collected
in a
book
most of our endeavors
that
would become
Seminars
Portrack
a
clearinghouse for formulating opinion, collectively. Tiie participants already had other outlets and
went
to seminars
contrast,
where publication
we wanted
a place to air
ideas freely without a sense of embarrassment or ownership, a
where they could be debated and modified. A hills
meals might encourage
drink.
and
new
new
be stimulated by
rivers
combined with nnhurried
ideas to emerge:
new brain
alternative to Deconstruction to the garden.
As put
Postmodern" held
cells
would
thoughts plus the liberating potential of
The agenda of Restructive Post-Modernisni and among
goals
its
is
lo [irovide
two
,\n
are relevant
1996 meeting, "Reconsidering the
in the
London's ICA: "[Restructive Post-ModernismJ
at
understands that our view of nature, which had been disenchanted
by the mechanistic paradigm, can now be seen
dynamic and, Griffin put
it,
in
some
sense, re-enchanted.
experience,' each of relations
which
to
all
ilic
wa)
of
feels
and some degree of
According
." .
.
as self-organi/ing.
And, as David Ray
following the process philosophy of Alfred North
pervade the world interested in the battle
each other. Scientists
may be more
is
was not so much
between religion and science
last
Whitehead: "The ultimate uinis
mirror in several works.
At this time, however,
criticize
like
Standard!
according to some interpretations, virtually miraculous,
soon attempted
86
such a phrase
one reading, vibrating the imiverse into
existence out of a vacuum.
and
jumping from
The Standard Model includes even more exotic
ghosts, and, according to
also,
electrons
they cannot quite prove an idea, but
such
My hope
structuralist thinkers
under individual publication.
if at all,
backdrop of Scottish
not shocked by
same time, or changing from being
Model" of the microworld.
points a certain way. things,
the
reached print,
Quantum
is
meeting
a
Darwin edited by the Roses. But
convivial atmosphere
Quantum
it."
slits at
well-known
the "Standard
when
who
Alas, Poor
of that
fruits
understanding the atomic
without going through the space between, or traveling
orbit to orbit
are just the
test for
friends
Maggie's invention,
Ihab Hassan. Later
later
and publicity were paramount. By
weirder.
it is
called, after
of genetic determinism
fashion
psychology). The
and
with increasing frequency. In
abates; old antagonists switch sides
we
and
some were on
A group of
focus.
Our group included Charlene
reigning
Bishop of Oxford and the
background. Some
this
spirituality,
post-modern
marketing since any mention of the Prime Mover moves clerics, for instance, the
and
others ecology
order,
and Hilary Rose organized
many
of science,
to the subject
should explain
conversion of the atheists explained by pragmatists as intelligent
Conversely,
called
house and garden where most of
from the other kinds of deconstructive and
in the
sales.
We
"Restructive Post-Modernism," a phrase meant to distinguish us
cutting
a
reality,
constituted the core of what
Hawking and title,
helped organize
of the Portrack Seminars concerned the global econoni)
geometry was put high on
much
after the
and before returning
place,
and deep
political
Recently there has been
I
meetings on contemporary subjects of debate.
several
Renaissance place in the garden, and the image of God's perfect a pillar.
such questions, Maggie and
Partly to address
the world are 'occasions of
prior occasions.
.
.
.
Internal
intrinsic value are thereby said to
down
|io iln-
inu roworld]."
snch formulations, experience, value, and
self-
organization do not appear solely with the emergence of luinian
beings
—
—
the anthropocentric view of Christianity and
but are found throughout nature, right
atomic events. This view
animism,
because
it
is
down
experience
to
an
elements: for instance, rocks do not think, or
show
to the level of
not to be confused with a
denies
beautiful patterns of self-organization.
absurd to trace sentience below the
level
pre-modern
aggregation
feel,
And
Modernism
it
even is
if
of
they
obviously
of living matter;
bm
ilu-
—
was behind
the atom, and what
using ni)
needetl
that
1')')^
had the idea of
1
oi Paul's last
are
hook,
and contrast
(.iilnunalion
a
Traditional finials weri' out ol
What
By
research to finish off the grt'enlioust' roof, a
i-\[ianse
tille
all.
it
asked him, "Well, what
1
basic laws that rini ilie universe?"
ilir
eantluiales that
1
had
dull
(he
sky.
to
remembering
So,
tlu' (|ut'siion.
llat,
the
on God's mind?
is
There were obvious
equation combining
[iiLked, sucii as Einstein's
energ) and matter, E=MC', but over the course of several months Davies supplied a
more cogent
greeniiouse roof had
may
a thing of the ecjualions?
afford a partial balance,
manner with which
the off-hand
critique
In the event, the
for only twelve.
religious sensibility
a
of about twenty
why make such
obvious question:
.\n
Here
room
list
scientists
may
it
their
treat
discoveries, calling the origin of the universe, for example, the "big
quantum paradigm have the
shown
many
the
way up from
and sciences of complexit)
ot metaphysics
parallel continuities
throughout nature,
atom whose
the self-organizing
all
electrons, in a
metaphorical sense, are always making choices. Freedom and value, as
may
will discuss shortly,
I
one goes up the
increase as
spectrum of complexity, but they are already present reality,
and
this insight leads to a
Obviously not
all
position, because
the base of
at
re-enchanted view of nature.
of those attending the conferences held
we were determined
this
to have an enjoyable debate
and engage outsiders.
We met
engaged them
I
a friend and,
in
a
dialogue about ideas
from time
to time,
we would meet and
correspond. Paul had written three important overviews of the basic
workings of the universe. The
mind not
as
work and
God and
the Nevv Physics,
The
latter
was
to m)-
and
Blueprint
two became fundamental sources
for
my
1
988 and
basic laws
1
992,
was working hard
1
to try to figure out
behind the universe were, and
expression in the garden. Inevitably
I
to bring
them
to
asked Paul Davies several
questions about the origin and shape of the cosmos, the nature of
Portrack
Senninars
1990s. This one. on 1994,
Falk. Sally
Sara
Religion Political
Mr and
Griffin,
post-modernism
The Economic
Allen,
place
Foundations of World Order,"
Griffin,
left to right, FROf^ row:
[unidentified],
\he
in in
June
Mr and
Ann Jacqua, Richard
Anthony Sampson, Peter
Charlene Spretnak,
Par1
•tnCmi^x.
•
methods
pericxdically tried several
from undermining the
ot extermination to
through the garden ten or so times by biblical
command,
them
iluu
sju-d
trains
a day. But in the end, lahhiis, as
always multiplied and went forth.
One
^•—-v
/Jli.
it"
sliould
Waveform
inevitable, so a Rabbit Cabinet for the
memorialize the
Room was
and the
tracks
railroad
ki.i'|->
put together by Bobby Dixon to hold dishes and
skillfully
other necessities and to illustrate a matliematical dieory.
As every gardener knows, rabbits are
some of
a script, cutting out
like ver)- arbitrary editors of
the high points and strangel) leaving
the low. But are they themselves subject to natural editing?
myxomatosis, has been dehberately spread amon^^ iheni
and elsewhere and
It
way
now the>'
ni
periodically limits their numbers. But
it
and decline with
rise
A
a will
of their
own
—
or so
disease,
Scotland still
they
seems.
it
turns out there are rules and patterns that describe the
grow
in
number and
crash.
These reveal the way order can
grow out of chaos spontaneously, something
can be mimicked
that
by computer simulation. The emergent forms are explained by
a
process of population growth called "period doubling." Period
In
the
last
new
twenty years a
kind of equation has
back information
nonlinear variety, which relays
come
to the fore: the
itself.
These second-
into
compete
order equations characteristically have terms which
doubling refers to the doubling of the population cycle, and these
such as those
other,
cycles reveal
some
strange oscillating patterns that are as deep and
beautiful as any Platonic form. Whereas Western art
have been based on the five pure solids, the reveals another kind
of visual grammar, one more fluid and supple,
an order of curves within curves, of densities
and
understanding
self-similarities.
A
of varying
statistical patterns,
mathematical formula shows, for
Here the two competing terms are
how
growth
follow exotic patterns of
as they are pulled to several strange attractors.
generated by the formula Xn+i
sweeping curves
in
may
rabbit populations
property
—
that
=
BXn(l-Xn) and formally
own
have their
beauty and
These are this results a
way
Rabbit Cabinet, which holds dishes not rabbits, makes a feature of
populations
equation and
its
self-similar forms.
imagine
which
is
so prevalent in nature.
up
elsewhere in the room, but always transformed. Why highlight such
growth, period doubling and nonlinearity? Because most of nature nonlinear,
most of the universe shows the supple and subtle
Snake
known
as strange attractors (used in the
Mound). The beating of
the
formations of hurricanes and galaxies,
all
heart,
formation of the
brain
waves,
the
show such order growing
out of chaos, a richer mixture of organization and disorder than that codified in traditional aesthetics. Until the
computers revealed these strange
how
attractors.
such hidden organizational
life
mid-1970s,
until
could not fathom
could arise amid the buzz of
turned into a cabinet here, the equations strangely
resemble birds of prey and the Concorde intention but a
—
and
neither image part of
welcome byproduct of the mathematics.
into
This
order.
One can
counter-intuitive.
numbers might
the total
multiplying,
go
ferrets get to work).
But why should the numbers suddenly return to a
self-similar order with
(or until
similar patterns?
because
is
It
many
rabbits
in
of the math.
It
sounds
implausible, especially
if
you have too
the garden. Nevertheless, the math entails this fascinating
order amid chaos.
If
population,
one wants
to figure the equation out,
B represents
the
the
of
birthrate
X.^
represents
the results with the rabbit cabinet left,
one can see the
four
and
its
and
rabbits,
last Xn+i
last year.
Rather than going through the actual numbers and graphs,
I
illustrate
swirling curves. Starting
from the
basic strange attractors
pulling
the total
population size to one of four places. Then as one reads to the right and
as the female rabbits have more offspring, these attactors bifurcate to eight attractors, then sixteen, this point
and so
forth until the
is
mother has about 3.6 on
the total population could be anywhere within the
parabolic swirls: the system has
chaos determined by
rules).
And
gone
into deterministic
chaos
(that
is,
a
yet this leads to a certain veiled order. This
indicated by the depth of the parabolic swirls, their continuation across
the whole surface and, most surprisingly, the
way
that, at three points, the
three vertical lines, the system returns suddenly to
Then the previous simple order re-emerges before
chaos. As
my
we
upward
quite predictive of the
of their cycles until they
fantastic
is
keep
is
one
first
owls and
average. At
patterns
rabbits
if
because as the
-X-,
represents the prediction tor this year's population based on
Similar parabolic themes of growth and sudden change are taken
is
that,
fluctuate as they climb
Parabolas and their bifurcations swirl across the surface, so the pattern has that "unity in variety"
1
shows some emergent
a chaos that
combination of order and chaos
year's
this recursive
double the length
will
deterministic chaos,
strange
every so often they return to self-similar shapes. The
and
X.i
grows the second one diminishes. The equation
well
instance,
= BXn(1-Xn), which
Xn.i
describes population dynamics.
and architecture
new
the Verhulst equation:
in
each
with
it
bursts into
deeper chaos. But even
—
could be nearly anywhere
some
predictability,
others.
These
some
likelihood that
will
original bifurcations!
a very short period,
for
there,
illustrated far right of
probabilities are, again,
its
when
the cabinet
favor certain
shown by
just
the populations
—there
is still
numbers over
the parabolas, their depth
or thickness.
97
Lockerbie
—Chaos and Catastrophe Never Far Away
Peace and quiet are the two qualities most valued in a garden, a retreat for contemplation.
One of the
things that Virgil did not have
up with when he escaped from Rome
to put
to the countryside
the
are
pleasant
sounds of nature, and agriculture, the
telephone the complaints,
sometimes they go
One evening with
as
was getting
it
and red
explosion was the way
come
to like,
and the screech of low-flying
I
have
jets that practise for
mountain warfare. Portrack
is
in the hilly corridor that
bodies concerned
when
young
complain
the
jets fly
pilots use to train for
to the police
below the
and the
tree lines but,
after a ritual
exchange of animosities and promises, nothing
done. The
regularly take point blank
good
jets
target,
to speak
imploded
many seconds
More extraordinary
fire.
reached
it
sucked into
as if
of
silence
of
ball
llian
tliis
peak and then suddenly
a
vacuum
a
in a
cleaner and then the eerie
—Lockerbie
twelve
is
away
miles
followed by the roar of the earth. Maggie hurried to the Octagon,
a landscape like Bosnia. Locals official
Maggie went out
dark,
garden Maggie saw the sky light up behind Frances' head,
shriek of competing male pheasants. These sounds are punctuated
once every three hours, which
it
As they were walking in the kitchen
Alistair's wife, Frances.
great yellow
train,
and so
apologize,
wrong.
terribly
noisy chatter of swallows, the bleating of sheep, the occasional
by the rumble of the
they
continues. Machines are always audible in the garden today and
was
the constant drone of airplanes, buzz saws, and cars. At Portrack there
We
one.
aim
and the red-spotted Nonsense
at
is
our white house, a
in the
woods,
where up!"
was working, and
I
We
power
Chapelcross has blown
said: "I think
then ran to telephone the police to see
station had, indeed,
been
They answered: "We cannot
say,
hit
if
the local nuclear
by one of those low-flying
we
but
will
you
tell
jets.
was not the
it
nuclear station. Listen to the news."
They knew, but could not
a subtler
tell us.
Curious, the
official
response
to disaster. Efficient, concerned, oblique, opaque.
Lockerbie
turned
that has
has not got over the tragedy of that evening, one
still
name
into a global
it
sudden, arbitrary
for the
nature of catastrophe. Although the wreckage has been expunged
and the visual by
scars healed, the citizens
subsequent actions and media coverage like a
still
—
it
— and
back of their mind
in the
constant bad dream.
In the past, especially in the Judeo-Christian era,
some
read
marked
are
Everyone carries the memories of
fateful event.
this
of the town
meaning
greater
we might
into the catastrophe, perhaps a
have
warning
we
sign for the future or a punishment for misbehavior, but today interpret
it
Chaos plays an
differently.
essential role in punctuating
evolution, for better and worse. Since the to
understand
One
radically
mechanisms
several
theory, supported by
earl)'
980s we have come
changed
ha\e
that
much
1
evidence,
chaotic target practice, comets shooting randomly
at
history,
that nature's
is
planets,
wiped
out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Aiioilur iheor), also wiili
many supporting volcanic action
may have been are
now
signs,
in ilie
is
that
mass extinction was caused by
Deccan Traps area
combination
a
liiis
of India. Either way.
of tiic two, sikIi inipredictable events
more Darwinian
credence to luck
— bad
now we know,
as
if
age,
we
did not give so
luck for the dinosaurs, for
the
first
time,
good kick
jetliner
not predict playcfl out
from time The equation, etched on the the sweeping curves.
98
cabinet, generates the order out of
chaos and
"Fortuna
"
it
on
may
as they
The crash
a street in Lockerbie.
kind of stage: one
to time,
for us. But
can
of the
have been caused by terrorists, but they could
would wipe out tiiis
much
catastrophes
that
restructure history, in positive and negative ways.
Am
it
accepted as playing important roles in evolution. Twenty
years ago, in a
Pan
and
we
— one
construct, and
blown away by outside events
were
Our Hves
called in the Renaissance.
I
was
that
"Virtii"
to
are is.
and
ponder the
balance between these two forces later (see Part Eight, page 234).
—
Gaia and Limited Purpose
Most
ov
what we kuow about the
ot
cosmic history has been learned in the
knowledge
thirteen billion years of
last
hundred
last
years,
amiDsphnii
mass
is
extinctions in the 19th centur),
ilie
last
the universe in the
systems of
radical
VVe
recent.
ver\'
is
we had uuimations ot the origin ot 1960s (when accidentally we discovered the
background microwave radiation), but only since the 1980s did the of evolutionary phase transitions become understood.
ideas
cosmic and natural evolution are seen jumps, something
in
times
in the
garden
In addition
is
called "punctuated equilibrium" by Stephen
punctuated by dramatic
Darwinian model explains
when we
many
see
different ways.
relative
kingdoms.
cosmic and chemical evolution proceeds
these,
to
shifts in the living
according to other self-organizing systems. In spite of
we
all,
it
some
claims
have entered an era
overlapping systems of evolution working in
The most
evolution of planetary
crucial as a
life
new
insight for us concerns the
whole, or what James Lovelock and system
L)Tin Margulis have christened "Gaia." This self-organizing
something of a miracle because,
of
in spite
five
mass extinctions,
despite being hit by asteroids and burnt by super volcanoes, the
always returned
has
propitious for
wounds
(but
The idea of
its
life.
how
could
it
is
is
common
personification a
the
to
itself
The miracle
that the earth
own
"Gaia,"
is it
seems
possibly
know
and
alive
to
many
is
a
know how
threw out
—
and feelings on to nature
as
—
it
to heal
superorganism with
its
a will
ancient cultures. Giving this Earth,
the pre-Greek
f)r
—
that
ensouled. Inevitably
this "pathetic fallacy"
most
anything?).
makes exphcit the animistic metaphor is
of health
state
to
woman's name. Mother
including nature as a whole,
as a projection
all
of nature,
modern
science
of our intentions
reduced the living world to the
mechanistic interaction of particles and dead matter. It
to
was not
imtil
1972
that the situation
moderate
ot
levels
an atmospheric chemist and inventor, pondered views of the earth
how
seen from space and saw just
Compared
unusual the blue planet was.
to the other nine planets in
twenty or so
we had
our solar system, and the
discovered by the year 2000, earth really
is
ni
salt
she
has
needs to be for complex
to
it
oxygen declines
5
1
all,
of gases be
ratio
By the mid-1970s
his
unlikely
its
qualities appeared.
concept of Gaia matured. Along with the
microbiologist Lynn Marguhs, he formulated what
"Robust Gaia Theory," phrased
it
in his
book
as ciistinct
from
its
I
would
more modest
call
the
cousin. As he
Gaia:The Practical Science of Planetary Medicine: "Life,
2
I
percent of
it
goes up
happy accident? Or, has some Designer created
a
earth and set the levels of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen, and
oxygen
in just the right proportions? If so,
by and correct them every time
wiping out 75 percent of and
if not,
what
explained and,
The
is?
if
facts
Either
patiently stand
struck earth with an asteroid,
He
is
in charge, or
He
is
not;
of the finely tuned earth ask to be
not a God-given miracle, what kind
is
it
life?
He
He
did
is
Whatever one thinks of the Gaia hypothesis, some version of
must be
it? it
true.
more
Lovelock's
recent formulation,
made
"Modest Gaia Theory" He explains
called the
1991, could be
in
this in Gaia; The Practical
"The modern expression of James Hutton's
Scienceof Planetary Medicine:
superorganism, Gaia,
is
the Earth seen as a single physiological
system, an entity that
is
alive at least to the extent that, like other
living organisms, at a state
chemistry and temperature are self-regulated
its
favorable for
and Modest versions "alive"
— being to
qualifier
conditions for in their attacks
down
the
life itself
on
from asserting the bio.sphere
to
be
of "systems," and the addition of the
set
to
The main difference between the Robust
the shift
is
a
"alive
life."
extent"
Modern
of favorably regulating earth's
scientists
have been so unremitting
him
to
grows back,
as
Lovelock's teleology that they have forced
the stronger version several times. Yet
it
hardy as Gaia herself Trees
make
the ocean to
rain, especially in the rainforest;
clouds form over
through the right amount of sunlight; and
let
a
thousand other living and non-living systems experience positive
and negative feedback to keep gases
at
the correct proportion: just
almost perfect balance of these and other gases
more
oxygen
25 percent, they spontaneously combust. Could the finely tuned
more Lovelock compared
neighbors, Venus and Mars, the
relative
tlu'
percent, animals suffocate; if
a cosmic freak. The
similar-sized
regulated
kipt the
—around
explosive
its
iiuerlocking
of years.
ot million
to
life
ot
white clouds, the evidence of life, make the earth
with
or
oceans, maintaintd
tlu-
bizarre. Blue water,
it
itself?
tonipelling. For
is
cyberni'tically
constancy of climate and, most impressive
tone
changed. James Lovelock,
an opiiimim tor
ai
su[K'rorgaiusm
tlie
hypothesis,
this
If
Gould and Niles Eldredge explains the usual eons of
earth
.According
Darwinian natural selection makes some sense of gradual
ot
ilimaic
itself."
has kept a host ot inic)oriani d) namies just right lor her prosperity.
—over hundreds
regimes
different
ilir
the
aiul
conditions, and chemical composition
|-)li)sical
lite,
gases
stasis that are
is
)cars
ImIIioii
evolution. For
history in discontinuous stages.
its
models explain
change, while what
that the
as
3.S
where
Different
Jay
many
an optiiiuini for
ai
luaiiitams
level
"the jumping universe,"
instance.
proceeding smoothl) iud
as
have presented
I
Now
(.oiiiposiiion
climate
the
nearl) a trlrologual \n\\, )rt i1h> evidrnn'
This
most
or maiutains
regulates
The hiosphirr
ami ihr
glimpsed
hiosphciv,
the
enough
tcj
make Gaia metabolize
taken for granted
—an
many
is
gifts,
it
that
is
almost invariably
absurdity, a stupidity. As the chief of earth's
worth hc;noring, celebrating, venerating
especially in a garden.
model of Gaia
but not burn up. The
With
a
team of
shows some of these
artists,
I
have constructed a
interactions over the earth's
4. 5 billion years.
99
GAIA These three models Atom. Gala, the
depict, from
billion
is
It
how
this
aluminum model
mesocosm
is
shows order
a self-organizing system where the order of
James Lovelock
happens and, because
is
plinth
so important,
atom and
we
erected an
universe.
Thus the
between the microcosm and macrocosm. is
a supplementary metaphor to "the
Gene," and a more positive one showing that some natural
processes of self-organization favor the planet as a whole.
It
earth had a purpose: to control the proportions of gases
in
balance that of years, for global
is
best for
life.
In
is
as
if
the
the exact
the drawings one can see how, over billions
carbon dioxide and methane
(the
greenhouse gases responsible
warming) have been pumped down, while oxygen
and nitrogen
is
pumped up
stabilized.
The drawings show several in
life,
invented the Gaia hypothesis to
it
of Gaia next to those of the
placed on a
Gaia, Greek for "Mother Earth," Selfish
and the
years ago, grew out of the chaotic gases, dust, and
volcanoes. The scientist explain
to right, the Universe, Gala,
earth, like the fluctuating rabbit populations,
growing out of chaos. almost four
left
the most dramatic way;
first
globe with surrounding gases, spiral of history held
different
attempts to present these truths
as an evolutionary vase form, then as a
pumped up and down, and
up by the sun's energy,
basic giveaway for us:
we
live off
a
its
billionth of
rays of
light.
the energy
it
finally
This
as a is
the
throws out
every day.
^^
firr^iU
65
million years ago, asteroid strike.
Mass TIME LINE
extinction of dinosaurs etc.
years Present
300
3.5 billion
4.6 billion
million
65
Runaway Greenhouse
million
Effect
Tight Coupling
of:
• Life
• •
Chemical elements Physical elements
|E7^'.'
Reading down from the top of the
we can see
(opposite),
of
origin
life
3.8
final
installation
the early, dead planet, then the
billion
years ago, then the very
important "tight coupling" between the three main players:
chemical compositions, and physical
life,
conditions
(represented
metals). The structural members on the four show how Gaia pumped down carbon dioxide roughly,
sides from,
a deadly 20 percent of atmosphere to
present low of 0.03 percent. (Today, unfortunately,
its it
Methane
is
shown
up to
risipio
falling
crucial
its
r'alanced as the
and 21
he
.-
_;.
:are
earth, over
4
Oxygen Methane Carbon dioxide
major gas. Two more important
unciuation: at the bottom of the model .
years the sun becomes 25 percent hotter
and nitrogen
own, one of them a continuous process,
-
billion
oxygen
leveling out,
percent,
Over 4.5
is
again and creating the "Greenhouse Effect.")
rising
Increase or decrease
by the three undulating
out and increase the temperature of
billion years,
by 25 percent.
Nitrogen
of:
m
Miracle
upon
miracle, although the sun has
the earth's surface has not
hotter,
— because
become 25 percent
years of the British Empire, and recorded a few conversations with
the temperature
the family, and John
is
regulated by the planetary system as a whole. Although five mass
model
extinctions have occurred (depicted in the
each were
as if
vacation
Each time, aided by the physical and chemical conditions,
back again. As
bounced back.
have pointed out. Even
mass extinction,
if
does not
it
their equivalent in
in
knowing
that if
go on, and
Last
the
a
new
gases.
There
is
level
it
was
—
I
some mordant
movement, almost impossible. Some
solace
could be done was through such things
of self-organization,
that at least life
show
Because of our sins
start.
we
Atoms
had been trapped and "photographed" but paradoxical
elusive,
aspects
new
was easy
species
love,
takes
and
independently of
these
These,
is
is
aesthetics.
entirely
to
pre-date
they
and
us
the propositions
at least, are
of
levels
I
exist
attempt
Garden of Cosmic Speculation. The biggest
clear in the
speculation of ah
qualities
expression, us.
and
beauty,
that there
work
a teleological activity at
is
though, as Paul Davies' arguments have shown us in the previous it
should be considered
evolve in certain ways. that set
is
It
is
a predisposition
of the universe to
not a single, predetermined outcome
the goal, as the old idea of teleology supposed, but rather a
and
their
all
exact shape
I
more. These
the
all
termed "quantum weirdness."
qualities,
to
some of which
become
tried various
While involved
a misogynist
and
to
fall
in love
my
showing her photos of the aluminum model
how
to the globes
it
—
found
I
it
with them.
passion to Clare.
that
had
would be put down
of Gaia and the universe
are
atoms are
shortly,
in the research,
ways of communicating
constructed and explaining
aspects
because of their
Partly
summarize
will
I
only revealed their
this
been
just
the
hill
next
from the house and well
far
away from the paradise garden she had
created. Tact
demanded
keeping a certain distance and not compromising one garden with another.
I
we had
gave her photographs of the models and
the
following exchange,
of tendencies and limitations that guide evolution along certain
broad avenues. Teleonomy not teleology. Ecosystems and Gaia are evolving toward greater complexity, ever higher and
of organization, like the
levels
purpose, or
telos, in
Gaia as
it
"life
more
stable
of the universe. There
rest
is
a
CJ: Clare,
I
wanted
the greenhouse, the
CK: (looking
at
force" or "vital fluid" in the sense argued by the Vitalists, but
explained U)
me
emergent property of
Trying to Fathom the
all
Atom and
In 1994, because Clare
Explain
for
medium.
it
the
the filmmaker Julie
life
in the Far East
to create
but since a close
Corman, she decided a
on next
to
whole, and
model of
— what's
India,
the atom)
writit'ii
through equations, because
all
Wh)
the
I
way
like
them
lo be
aroiuid the edge?
I
are there these equations?
way you can in reality
it
is
wind showing how
these parts turn in the
would
represent the
never
still.
lively the
atom
is
You can see
atom
always buzzing and jumping around faster than you can see
is;
it's
it.
to
more immediate and
and
the
CJ: Physicists say the only
children. Traditionally
Julie filmed Clare recounting several
incidents of her exotic
of Gaia, the luiiverse as a
don't understand matheinaiics.
to Clare
a portrait,
record Clare's hfe and personahty in palpable
is
properties.
Maggie might have commissioned
was
to their hmit. This
life
was eighty-nine, Maggie wanted
some permanent record of her friend of hers
models
these designs going
the atom,
not a
rather the
show you
to
pushes the interacting variables of
chemistry, physical conditions, and
104
one place or
whose
various subatomic particles are slippery things
obsessively interesting.
—
it
1
ethics built into the
believe,
way
and position escape our instruments. By the mid- 980s, one or two
synergy, cooperation, symbiosis
I
fast
equations that might
as
are probability things. Indeed, atcMiis
Although the
section,
a
that
small size and
its
the probability of an electron cloud being in
another.
known
well
physicists said the only
snuffed out by
weird
qualities
h was
speed, jiggling units of the universe,
true for other
make
ccMiie
and, with several scientists, had constructed drawings of these high-
judgment, customs, or laws. The same,
to
might
it
had finished two years of research on the atom
representing an atom visually was, because of
dinosaurs, an echo of biblical morality and a
harmony
At this point
collectively
complexity
this filming,
memorial and testimony, the filming thus had
a
were working before we transformed them into systems of
human
knew
in remission, she
hydrogen bombs, or
ways we find morality and
universe. Ecological
is
one caused by Gaia not by God.
albeit
In such indirect
affective
was another motive behind
is
robust history will
way of the
Judgment,
a million
too pollutant and
sapiens is
new
Gaia as she jumps to a
beginning of the sixth
end of Gaia. The earth system
by
us,
greenhouse
Homo
are at the
spell the
—by
by
we
today
too robust to be killed off
would go
on
to be at Portrack
possible double role.
There are some ironic lessons here that Lovelock and the Gaians
will
who happened
never mentioned as such. Maggie had had a recurrence of cancer in
1993 and, though
has
Lily,
time. There
at that
the result of an asteroid hitting the earth) the system reasserts itself life
and
CK:
it's
lujt a
thing,
it's
a process.
important
during the
last
CJ: Yes, exactly, you got
it
in one, that's
what
I
am
trying to
show
cosmic processes and how we are connected
in the garden, the
the universe
and
natur^^
— what
are
>our view
s
on
wo
hat
\\
arc
lo
di^inj^.'
me. Charles,
lo
is
book,
a closed
which was more musical and
education,
way. Your designs are fascinating
any views on
because
it.
—
it
mathematical
iu)t
new
it's all
me
to
so
s(.
mo(lrl that
|oliii
hard
core
ol
was
tlirorus ol
tlu'
I'taltoii
ol
atom
a
I
isi
(la)
Irom
(lr\i'lo|H'(l
loree
what
Is
does
doing
Portrack alien lo what )ou lia\c lionc, or
at
atom
trom
w
as a sausage
is
CK:
think
I
alien to
it is
flowers, plants, shrubs,
what Portrack has been
and
perfecdy prepared to try to understand
alive,
while
dead.
It's
I
still
my
it.
And,
it
as
I
hut
known
ever
I'ln
am
I
don't wait until
I've
ith
you tour or
told
—
from what
is
mother-in-law Clare was determined
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