Architects have a problematic relationship with the landscape. In urban areas architects justify a building with the requisite programme and relate it to the developed context. Building in the landscape frequently raises the question of why a programme should be added at all: competing with a splendid or robust landscape is generally already a lost cause for the building. Three films show what it is about: romance.

Architects Gunnar Daan and Cor Kalfsbeek have made a prominent contribution to the architecture in the empty landscape of the northern Netherlands. In the documentary In Context they comment on each other’s work. The projects they review are meticulously embedded in the landscape. Daan, however, vividly explains what the relationships are: “if a new house has the semblance of enjoying the landscape, then the landscape will also enjoy the house”.

In the short film Sizígia the architect, Álvaro Siza, does not actually speak. This is not a shortcoming. Fortunately, the Leça da Palmeira swimming pool complex on the Portuguese coast requires no explanation. Siza tamed the seawater, transforming it into a calm, inviting expanse of water in an irresistible combination of an artificial concrete construction and a capital landscape. In anticipation of swimmers and, presumably, one or two architecture tourists, we follow the not-very communicative caretaker as he prepares the complex for the new season.

Andrea Palladio (1508-1580) was possibly the first architect who intentionally positioned his villas in the landscape. In the film version of Mozart’s Don Gioavanni, we are treated to three hours of Palladio’s work. Villa Rotonda in Vicenza forms one of the decors in this splendid production by Joseph Losey. The problematic relationship between the architect and the landscape also originates, strangely enough, from Palladio himself. His four books on architecture mainly explore the relationships and structure of a building, but he pays little attention to positioning the building in a landscape, whereas studies have revealed that he was extremely exacting in this respect. His preferred site for a building was on top of a hill or a spot by a river.

Without the rationality of the programme and without a developed context, architecture in the landscape can be judged by its relationship to the landscape and its affinity with the user. Listening to architects talking about this romantic concept is somewhat discomforting. Looking at architecture in the landscape, on the contrary, is very comforting.

Article published in the magazine AFFR 2013 and on the website of the AFFR .

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