David H. Haney
University of Kent, CREAte
Author of When Modern Was Green
Tuesday, April 19, 6.00 p.m.
Gallery 400, UIC
(400 S. Peoria St. Chicago)
Organized by the Lectures and Events Committee (Art History Department, UIC)

"Leberecht Migge and the Problem of Modern versus Conservative in Early Twentieth-Century German Landscape Architecture."

Leberecht Migge was arguably the most important landscape architect for German modernism of the Weimar era. The fact that he is relatively unknown outside of German landscape architecture history is not the focus of this paper, but rather, the problem of placing both Migge, and the field itself, within the context of the alleged historiographic divide between modern and conservative. Here we will consider the problem of style and formalistic categories in landscape architecture in relation to architecture, and the difficulties in distinguishing between interwoven intellectual and cultural movements in Germany at the time. The efficacy of placing German design during this period in opposing categories will also be questioned, again, particularly through the work of Migge, as well as those who have interpreted him.