Adriaan Geuze, the co-founder of major Dutch landscape architecture firm West 8 Urban Design & Landscape Architecture, spoke to an enthusiastic crowd Wednesday night about how city design can mirror nature.

He was the keynote speaker for ‘Formerly Urban: Projecting Rust Belt Futures.’ The Oct. 13 to Oct. 14 conference hosted by Syracuse University’s School of Architecture focuses on the future of shrinking cities in America’s Rust Belt.

Geuze said city design should be ‘second nature,’ in the most literal interpretation of the expression. The abilities of landscape and architectural design can have profound effects on everyone’s lives, he said.

‘It should make people rethink reality, in a way,’ he said. ‘Who they are, where they are, how they are.’

He spoke of his endeavors in several European cities, such as Amsterdam and Madrid, where he built in poorer areas. In Amsterdam, Geuze built a tree-lined plaza in the city’s Red Light District.

In Madrid, he connected the sides of a river that had divided Madrid literally and culturally with a large Y-shaped bridge. He talked about his and the Madrid mayor’s dream of having a meeting place in the middle of the ‘Y,’ where people from both sides would be able to share common ground.

He has made use of trees and other plants in his efforts to brighten up communities. Nature is also a place of inspiration for Geuze. He said bringing in the softness of nature in the city would help the eye to not be overwhelmed by the starkness of the buildings.

He joked with the crowd how greenery could add to a space.

‘If things don’t look pretty, buy some cheap planting material and bombard it with greens,’ he said.

Geuze has found inspiration in nature and other architecture projects inspired by nature. He told the story of a Spanish monastery that built a courtyard filled with pinecones.

‘Strange natural phenomena — after you see it, you’re a different person,’ he said.

Nature is very powerful, he said, which is why he includes so much of it in his projects. He said he wants his projects to have deep impacts on people’s lives.

Geuze’s ideas of nature rang true to many in the audience.

‘The way he conceived design aims more at the spiritual level,’ said Andres Jaime, an architecture graduate student. ‘In Syracuse, a lot of the places between the buildings could have been thought of better.’

Jaime said adding trees could improve those areas.

He was not the only one who had an idea of how Geuze’s ideas could have applications in Syracuse.

‘There’s a duality between the environment of downtown and the economy picking up,’ said Lindsay Farrell, a third-year architecture student. ‘People need a visual incentive to go downtown.’

At the end of his speech, Geuze had time for a few questions. One student asked Geuze about how projects like these would be possible in poorer areas and with the current economy.

‘Maybe landscape artists should be more like music makers,’ he said. ‘If we were having a conference like this about music, we would be talking about the enjoyment of the music. Life is hard. Why think only about the hard parts?’

spcotter@syr.edu

Published on October 13, 2010 at 12:00 pm