OASE93

Presentations of landscape architecture in the twentieth century – garden show, demonstration landscape and museum exhibition – informed, persuaded and at times even delighted their public. In 1937 the San Francisco Museum of Art presented the first international survey of modern landscape architecture with exhibits intended to proselytise for a vision of modern Californian living. Two years later, in Stuttgart, the Reichsgartenschau served as a vital part of the National Socialist political agenda. In the late twentieth century, major undertakings like the 1989 Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord transformed sites from wasteland to parks and cultural facilities. As ecology and landscape design acquired greater social presence, landscape exhibitions became more frequent; for example, the Museum of Modern Art’s 2004 ‘Groundswell’ and the Deutsches Architektur Museum’s 2010 ‘Stadtgrün, Urban Green’, which focused on urban design, site remediation and historical preservation. Only rarely have exhibitions focused on aesthetic investigations of space and form, however. The tropical and exotic work of Brazilian landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx is the principal exception with several exhibitions internationally.